Calumny

 

 The Calumny of Apelles, Sandro Botticelli, 1495, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

I'll talk about my character, and why he hates calumny so much, I promise. But first, I need to talk about this painting and why I love it so much. Unlike many paintings, I saw this one for the first time in person. I was fortunate enough to get myself to Florence about a year or so after I began this novel. I spotted this painting across the gallery and was drawn to it. It struck me as an illustration, a perfect, immaculate pictorial representation of everything I (and my character) had spent a year oh-so-clumsily attempting to articulate in words. 

The painting depicts a praying man being dragged toward some sort of king for judgement. Calumny, attended by Fraud and Perfidy, has him by the hair; she carries a torch that appears to illuminate, but its true purpose, as evidenced by the grip of Rancor/Envy is to blind the king, whose judgement is further clouded by his advisors, Ignorance and Suspicion. Meanwhile on the far right stands Naked Truth, ignored by all, save Punishment, who spares her a bored glance as she impatiently awaits the opportunity to commence her dark task. 

What I love about this painting is how much detail there is. Every little fresco in the background walls is intentional and deliberate. It's complicated, the way reality is, the way the quest for true justice, for true equity, for full truth is. My character, my novel's hero relishes this complexity. He sees the beauty in it. He needs that complexity to be beautiful, to be valued, to be recognized, because he sees it in himself. He is complex on his best days, conflicted on his worse, and contradictory (at least as it appears on the surface) on his worst. Faced with a world, that seems to desire the opposite, that seems to favor the simple and equate that with the divine, that blinded by the torch of calumny and motivated by Rancor would rather allow Fraud and Perfidy to wrap it in righteous indignation and join voices with Suspicion and Ignorance to call out for the punishment than face the truth, my character struggles, he fears. He's been lied to, all his life, by his family in the name of protection, and by his enemies, who attempt to manipulate him. He will ignore much grace if disguised behind a lie, and allow much malice if it is only bold enough to show itself for what it is. 

If you show him you value his complexity and are unashamed enough to show him your truth, you can bend him to your will. You will not need to drag him to Judgement or force him toward Punishment. 

He will walk to him freely, and give himself to her.

By the way, it is quite possible I am in love with Sandro Botticelli. I wrote about him for my term paper in high school and have been enamored ever since. A recent viewing of Sebastien De Souza's portrayal of him in Medici the Magnificent did nothing to temper this passion. You know that 'who from history would you like to have dinner with' question? Botticelli is very high on my list. 

 

Follow the Monster

The rough draft is done.  After three years, even I had begun to believe that I truly had poured my heart and soul into this book.  On the re-read, however, it became apparently obvious that it just wasn't all that good.  How could this be?  I believe in it. Now, more than ever, I know I am meant to be doing this.  This book is my purpose, the reason for my life.  I was born to do this.

So why does it still suck?  Why the casual, but repetitive flirtation with 'Delete All?'

It's not that I can't do it.  No.  The flashes of brilliance are frequent and startling enough to convince even my insecure mind that I can.

The answer is that I didn't pour my whole soul into the book.  I'd only put in the good parts.  I censored out what has been scaring me.  The anger that has been building up inside me, a lifetimes worth, that, that has to go in.  That has to finally rip its way out of the prison of my tortured brain and pour itself out onto the page.  I have to show the world what I spent a lifetime terrified it would find out.  Every dirty little secret, every hidden quirk, every nasty thought, all the filthy little harmless fetishes.  All of it needs to come out, because once I have nothing to hide, only then will I have nothing to fear.

Stories aren't written about heroes.  A hero is nothing without an antagonist.  Without a villain, at best, he's a well developed character who's already living his happily ever after.  No one over the age of four will ever want to read that.  No one reads books to see what happens to the hero.  We read to see what the villain is going to do next.  What new treachery, what new horror, what new pain can he inflict on our long suffering loyal hero to satiate our lust for conflict and feed our quenchless desire for empathetic righteous indignation?

We are not hero worshipers.  We're rubbernecking ambulance chasers.  We are the chronically morbidly curious.

We are human, so we follow the monster.

And we're right.

For without him, there is no story.

On a completely unrelated note, if there is a heaven, I think God looks like Francisco Lachowski and we just get to sit there all day and watch him smile.  (For the record, I've always liked that shirt.  Nordstrom.  Good stuff.)