Look what I found!

Some time ago, I posted every page of the Image Notebook I created to help me imagine the world and people of Industrialized Faerie for The Iron Dragon's Mother. What I didn't mention was that it was actually the second such notebook I'd made. The first notebook I lost--forever, I thought. But as it turned out, it had been misfiled in my office.

This is why you should clean your workspace at least once a decade.

The Zero Notebook, as I think of it, was begun all the way back in 2009. I pasted images from magazines and newspapers into it, created collages, some of which I altered, sought inspiration from the uncanny but visualizable. The end result is something very close to (but not identical with) outsider art.

I'll spare you the bulk of the images. But starting today I'll be posting ten images from the notebook. One on each weekday when I don't have any other news to pass along. This is the first one: the notebook's cover.


And what, you ask, does it mean . . . ?

The eye, of course, represents the eye of a dragon. It's slashed across the oval to create a zero.  The dot to the lower right is meant to suggest that the glyph represents the letter Q.,  though, of course, not exactly. That's because I wasn't looking for Answers. Just Questions.

There are a few (not many) words in the notebook. Here's an entry I ran across that begins with (almost) the cover glyph:

Q. What does the Goddess want?
A. Wrong question.

All of the above carried through into the novel and became a major, if close to undetectable, theme. The Iron Dragon's Mother would have been a very different book if I had started it with a different image.

The crinkly stuff is wide transparent tape, used to seal the image onto the cover. If this notebook ever winds up in somebody's collection, that's going to be a major conservation issue. Not my problem.


Above: First image. Nine to go.

Here on the inside cover of the Zero Notebook is a first glimpse of Caitlin. It's a photograph of a young Russian doctor and, although it misrepresents Caitlin's ethnicity entirely, it does capture her innate seriousness. Added to which are birds in flight, because flight is in her nature, and a miniature of a painting by Lucian Freud. This last was included for its lack of glossy magazine glamor but also, with a touch of irony, because I knew that the novel would be going deep into Carl Jung territory.


And what, you ask, does it mean . . .?

It doesn't. The page is a first, fumbling-in-the-darkness attempt to find the heart and soul of the novel.


Above: Second image. Eight to go.

Excerpt 3 from the Zero Notebook for The Iron Dragon's Mother.  Jinx is a pretty neat character. I'm sorry I couldn't find a place for her in the novel. She looks like trouble, doesn't she?


And I have to apologize . . .

I promised to post these on every day I didn't have news and then got so caught up on writing chores I lost track of the blog entirely. My bad. I'll do better, I promise.

For a while, anyway. 


Above: Third image. Seven to go.

Another character that didn't make it into The Iron Dragon's Mother. Industrialized Faerie is a rich world. The three novels I've set in it can only only hint at how rich and strange it is.

This image, for a rarity, was hardly altered at all.


And where, you ask, did I find this. . . ?

The image came from the Body Works show that toured the world some years ago. A large number of corpses were flayed and then carefully preserved, in order to display the wonders of anatomy. The show was controversial at the time because the corpses came from China and there were those who claimed the bodies hadn't been voluntarily donated but those of criminals who had died in prison. The truth of the matter was impossible to ascertain.

The show, however, was extremely popular. My son, Sean Swanwick, worked for a summer as a guide when it was displayed at the Franklin Institute and he told me that they had to watch the people touring it like hawks... Every now and then, someone would try to snap off a finger or other appendage to take home as a souvenir.


Above: Image five. Five more to go.

She never appears in person in The Iron Dragon's Mother, but Mother Eve is central to the entire enterprise. Unsettling, isn't she?

Judith Berman once told me that most of the First People have Trickster tales. But of the hundreds of tribes in North America, only two--and they small tribes--have a female trickster. The female trickster is, apparently, difficult for people to imagine.

So you can imagine my delight when I found one right inside my own culture.


But what, you ask, does it mean . . .?

Trickster is a strange and difficult character, neither a good guy nor an evil one. She exists somewhere in between, a creator of chaos and a provider of a special Something that it seems human beings require. It might be corn and it might be fire. Trickster gets blamed for a lot of the woes of existence, but it seems that without him/her, we're skunked.

I wonder if Pandora was originally a Trickster,  before they allegorized her to hell and back? It bears thinking on.


Above: Image Six. Four to go.

Introducing Helen. There's more to her than meets the eye.

Written upside-down--so they won't necessarily be taken as gospel by any readers are three quick notes scrawled to myself:

Mother as Mind Spider

Storyteller as Spider & Weaver

Chrone as Spider

I apologize for the misspelling of "crone." But I was writing (and thinking) too fast to care much for accuracy.


But what, you ask, does it mean . . . ?

The influence of Louise Bourgeois is pretty obvious here. Late in life, she created those wonderful, terrifyingly realistic giant spiders with long steel needles at the end of their legs and said that they were all about her mother. Who made a living repairing tapestries, using long steel needles. So it's not the slap in her face it might seem.

I liked the spider representing the archetypal woman-as-maker, which fit Helen right down to the ground. I was also fighting a fight all the way through with received archetypal images of women were were almost all pretty or dainty or passive. I wanted to get at that primal fierceness that lurks inside us all.

And, ounce for ounce, you don't get much fiercer than a spider.


And tomorrow and Friday . . .

There will be news.


Above: Seventh image. Three to go.

Originally, this was going to be a character named Frog--one who never materialized in The Iron Dragon's Mother. A wood-fey, obviously, and possibly a marsh-weller.

But look at that wistful, lost expression. I think this guy eventually became Fingolfinrhod. I really do.


Above: Image Eight. Two more to go.

Dragons are, as everybody knows, half fighter jet and half fire spirit.

Here's the skull of one.


Above: Image Nine. One more to go.

Our revels now are ended. These our images, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air...

But before we go, one more page, the back inside cover to be specific. It contains two more images of Helen. One is a publicity shot from a period she was going to leave out of the autobiography she never wrote, when she made a brief, ill-fated stab at acting. The other is from a dark period in her middle age.

She was far better-looking than she'd ever admit to being.


And what, you ask, does it mean . . . ?

To find that out, you're just going to have to read The Iron Dragon's Mother, now aren't you?


Above: Tenth image. Tout finis!

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Notebook
U/A: Romance
Dir: Nitin Kakkar
Cast: Zaheer Iqbal, Pranutan Bahl
Ratings: 

I, for one, am not of the belief that remakes are a bad thing. If made well, they can stand their ground and even shine, in some cases, better than the original. Given that Notebook is directed by Nitin Kakkar (the man behind the luminous gem Filmistaan), I had a fair share of expectations, despite the underwhelming trailer. Kakkar's powerful storytelling in the unassuming Filmistaan played in my mind as I walked in to watch Notebook, an adaptation of the Thai film, The Teacher's Diary that released in 2014.

It's not a good sign when, in a love story, children steal your heart over the lead pair. Individually, both debutants Zaheer Iqbal and Pranutan Bahl sparkle, but they meet only at the fag end of the film. Kakkar draws out adequate performances from both, playing to their strengths, using the naivety of the novices to build on some screen charm. But with so much solo heavy lifting and a wobbly screenplay in tow, Kakkar delivers far short of what he is capable of.

Watch the trailer here:

As a plus, the film uses the picturesque settings of Kashmir, blending it with good music. The story, much like the original, traces the unlikely love life of Firdaus (Bahl) and Kabir (Iqbal). She leaves behind a notebook full of sketches and doodles; he is her replacement in a school where they teach. The notebook becomes a source of hope for Kabir, who connects deeply with her over the pages. She is an unusual teacher in an abusive relationship. As Kabir struggles to bond with the children, the notebook comes handy. The rest of the film paves the way to their final interaction.

Kakkar remains faithful to the original design, transporting his viewers into a world of innocence. It is concerning that the director never delves deep into the problems of the state, bringing forth its elements for a pure cosmetic use. A child with a fundamentalist father is a needless addition to the plot. Kabir's former job as a soldier, and his Kashmiri pandit background, also do little to add to the larger plot. It's a balanced view, but not a bold one; too simplistically handled, which is unlike Kakkar's risque style.

Watch it for the adorable kids, and if you are excited about star children in general, Pranutan is a good deal as a first timer.

Also Read: Notebook celeb review: Bollywood unanimously touts the film as a sweet and genuine

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