Todd H. C. Fischer, wordslinger

Creative Writing Workshop

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:19:40 GMT

This class is being taught by a friend of mine.

Beyond the blank Page
Does one of your New Year's resolutions involve dusting off a manuscript you put away months or years ago? Do you have a novel, memoir, play or film script, short story or poetry collection in the works? Could you use some positive, practical feedback? If so, you may want to sign up for "Beyond the Blank Page: A creative writing course to help you revise and revitalise your work-in-progress."

This six-week course will introduce you to a community of writers who, like you, have a work in progress. Come and share your writing, give and receive valuable commentary, and sharpen your self-editing skills.

I'll be teaching the course at Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre (28 Fairlawn Ave. at Yonge St.) on the following Wednesday evenings from 7:30 till 9 pm: February 20, 27, March 5, 19, 26, April 2, 2008. Cost is $150.00 per person. To register, phone the Centre at 416 - 488 - 3446 and ask about Course AE14

NOTE: Each participant is asked to submit to Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre between 5 and 20 typed, double-spaced pages of their work-in-progress prior to the start of the course.

Please share this message with anyone else you think might be interested. I've attached a course flyer, and also pasted in, below my signature, the answers to some frequently asked questions.

Hope to see you there,

K. D. Miller
(416) 487-0966
kdmiller@sympatico.ca
Enjoy my books.

BEYOND THE BLANK PAGE – Frequently Asked Questions

Q – I wasn’t able to take the first Blank Page course. Can I still take this one?

A – Yes. The only prerequisite for Beyond the Blank Page is to submit between 5 and 20 manuscript pages of your original, unpublished writing to Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre prior to the first class, which will take place February 20, 2008. Your submission should be identified with your name, phone number and the words “Beyond the Blank Page.”

Q – What is meant by “manuscript page”?

A – 8 ½’ X 11”, typed, double-spaced, one side. The type should be clean, clear and legible, to allow for photocopying. Poets should allow one poem per page (length permitting.) Novelists or writers of other longer projects may submit a brief synopsis with their excerpt.

Q – What will a typical class involve?

A – A brief talk by the instructor on a topic related to revising and self-editing - characterization, structure, dialogue, etc. - followed by discussions of the writing of two of the participants. At the end of the class, copies of two more manuscripts will be handed out, for the next week’s discussion.

Q – Will people criticize my writing?

A – The class will have had a week to read and think about your submission. They will evaluate the strengths of your work, and offer constructive suggestions for making it stronger. You will have a chance to respond and ask for more specific feedback. At all times, the atmosphere will be courteous, supportive and professional. And remember – you will also be evaluating the work of your colleagues.

Q – What if I have more questions before the course starts?

A – You are welcome to contact the instructor, K.D. Miller, by e-mail: kdmiller@sympatico.ca or by phone: (416) 487-0966.

Nothing Burns Like Pine, Boy

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:48:43 GMT

An Irreverent Look at ‘Christmas’ Customs from approx. 600 – 1600 CE

Todd Fischer, written for an SCA journal in 2002.

It Begins

So. It’s freezing. There’s snow on the ground. You’re about to face the shortest day of the year, and the longest night. It’s a time of darkness and cold. What are you going to do?

Set things on fire of course.

Yes, ‘tis true. The roots of Christmas stretch all the way back to Roman, pagan and Celtic traditions that involved a lot of burning. The Norse had a celebration they called jul (or Yule) which lasted thirteen days. They would take a jul log and set the thing aflame for twelve days (remember that number, its important). A piece of the log would be kept for a year, and used to set the next log on fire. Another fun pastime for the Norse was to take a wooden wheel—the jul wheel, that symbolized the year—and, you guessed it, put it to the torch.

The Romans had their own week long winter festival called Saturnalia and the 25^th of December was the birth date of the Roman wonder-child Mithras. (There are in fact many similarities between the story of the birth of Mithras and the birth of Christ.)

When the Christians came to Europe they found a number of indigenous peoples rather unwilling to give up their holidays for a new belief system. (Burning things is fun.) Now, them Christians was crafty. They said, “You can keep your customs. It just so happens we have a holiday that takes place on the very same day as yours, and the customs you have, why, we have them too!”

Decking the Hall

Now the Christians looked around and saw that the Norse and Romans and pagans had done some decorating in and out of their halls. Most noticeable was the veneration and decoration of pine trees. The Romans thought that evergreens represented the return on spring, and the Norse hung fir boughs for luck. “Ah ha!” said the Christians. “Those trees never die, just like we will never die but go to Heaven.” So they kept the tree around and over time began to decorate it with apples. In the sixteenth century the Germans would put paper flowers in their tree, walk it through town and then they burned it. Everyone kept their trees outside until the Victorians, perhaps irritated at having to go outside in the soot and snow to see the dang things, just had them brought inside.

Holly and ivy were also hanging everywhere. The holly was kept, as the red berries were thought to represent Christ’s blood upon putting on the crown of thorns, but the ivy was pitched. It was too strongly associated with the Roman god Bacchus for the Christians liking, at least until the later middle ages when people thought it could protect them from the plague and witches.

Food

The celebrations that were the roots of Christmas spanned a great period of time, over which different foods were customarily eaten. Below is a sampling of some of the foodstuffs devoured during the solstice season.

Boar’s Head. For the Norse and other Scandinavian peoples the winter solstice was the midpoint of their winter. To celebrate the fact that they had survived thus far they held a feast in honour of Baldur, their sun god. One of the animals sacred to Baldur was the boar, so of course the Norse killed them and ate them. This custom would carry over into the Christian era (and will be talked about when I finally get to that twelve days of Christmas stuff).

Peacock. The more wealthy members of society would not just dine on goose, but peacock as well. The bird would be plucked, cooked and then have all its feathers put back on (it was ‘redressed’).

Principal pudding. A dish afflicted upon poor monks, this pudding was made from 6 pounds of currants, 270 to 300 eggs, a large amount of breadcrumbs and 18 pounds of suet. No wonder they liked to fast.

Mince pies. These pies, made of minced or shredded meat were baked in oblong shapes to represent Christ’s manger. Three spices were always used as seasoning to represent the gifts of Magi—cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. It was thought lucky to eat one on each of the twelve days of Christmas (its that number again, we’ll get into that later).

Goose and turkey. The main course of a medieval Christmas feast was often goose, though around 1520 turkeys are brought to Europe from the Americas and supplant their cousin as the fare of choice.

Humble pie. This tasty sounding dish was a favourite of the servants and lower classes of Medieval Europe. While the rich ate all the tasty bits of a deer, they tossed the brain, heart, liver and other ‘humbles’ to the poor who did what seemed only natural—they baked it in a pie.

Frumenty. A spicy wheat based dessert that was the ancestor of our modern pudding.

Mead and beer. The Norse drank it, and so did the Medieval monks when they invited locals to the monastery for a meal of bread, broth and meat.

Wowee! A long ship! That’s mine!

Many people think that the giving of gifts at Christmas is in honour of the gifts the Magi gave to Christ. Partially true, but not completely true. You see, once again the Christians adopted an existing winter custom. For the Norse gave gifts at Yule. Generally, a great lord would open his hall and everyone nearby would come to enjoy his hospitality. Each guest would give the host a gift, and he would often give a small one to each guest as they left. The host would also give gifts to the winners of any games or contests that took place.

This practice carried over into the later medieval period with guests bringing gifts for their hosts. Presents were often also given to churches and monasteries.

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping…well, with one eye anyway

Santa Claus, that jolly old elf, is in actuality another remnant of the Norse tradition. For the old man dressed in furs with his sled pulled by reindeer bears a remarkable resemblance to Odin. Odin had a long white beard. Odin wore furs. Odin had a sled pulled by fire-breathing goats. Okay, that’s a bit different but really, how commercially appealing is a fire breathing goat?

Enter the Turkish Knight

So what did folks actually do when celebrating Christmas? Visiting was popular. Households would open their doors tot heir neighbours and friends. Some people would put on masks and costumes and go from door to door performing short plays. (The Turkish Knight is a traditional mummer character.) The holiday season was a time of role reversal and men would dress like women and a Lord of Misrule would be appointed. Young boys were made bishops for the duration and lords gave their servants gifts (usually new clothes).

People would also carol dance, where a song leader would sing a verse of a song and the dancers around him would sing back the chorus. People put on plays, played instruments, enjoyed games such as chess, merrills and cards and generally carried on. The Norse would go skiing or skating. And fight. Them Norse liked to fight, though during jul all fights were to the first blood only (upon pain of banishment).

Those twelve days I keep referring to

Christmas celebrations were a weeklong affair that began on December 26 and ended on February 6.

Boxing Day. This day took its name from the habit of masters giving their servants their gift in a box (though I have also heard that it was from the poor boxes in churches being emptied and its contents handed out). It is also known as St. Stephen’s Day, who was a rather unlucky saint. When captured by soldiers in Scandinavia, and about to escape, a wren gave him away. In Sweden he was killed by brigands and had his body tied to his horse, which galloped home. This is also the day when most mummer’s plays are performed.

Mother Night. This day is in honour of Mother Holle, also called Mother Christmas and Frau Gode. Mother Holle was a kindly woman who would ride in a sleigh pulled by dogs delivering gifts. The Christians tried to demonize her and said she stole the souls of unbaptized children. Her reputation was too strong and she lives still in some Christmas celebrations today. The Saxons called this night Modranicht.

Holy Innocent’s Day. A day in memoriam of the children killed by Herod in his attempts to slay Christ. It was thought to be an unlucky day, and that any task begun on it was doomed to remain incomplete. It was on this day that the boy-bishops were appointed. An interesting aspect of this day was the beatings. Yes, parents beat their children, husband and wife beat each other and servants beat their masters. However, these beatings were often only symbolic and done using an evergreen branch.

The Feast of Fools. A day of mad revelry, led by the Lord of Misrule. It was a time of dancing, more role reversal, bawdy humour and nighttime runs through the streets.

Bringing in the Boar. Though boars became almost extinct in England by 1185, the tradition of parading with a boar or boar’s head continued in ritual fashion at many universities. This harkens back to the Norse (remember them?) and their killing of Baldur’s favourite animal. The god Frey was a fan of boars too, and even rode one named Gulli-burstin through the sky.

New Year’s Eve. It is thought that this is the day that Druids would cut their mistletoe, and that practice may have given the day its Scottish name Hogmanay. Mummers were active on this day, and it was a time of cleaning, of finishing unfinished work and of preparing to face the new year (at least it was for those in the later medieval period).

New Year’s Day. A day to say, “Hey, we made it through another year!” The Saxons would go wassailing trees to drive away evil spirits. To do this they would make a brew of cider or fruit with beer or ale as its base. They would sprinkle this at the base of the trees (and likely imbibe a lot of it at the same time). Not content with trees, the wassailers would travel from abode to abode and wish folks good heath (which is what wassail means) and be given alms for their troubles. (Getting tipsy and being given money for it. Good deal.) Many peoples also tried their hand at divination on this day, to see what the coming year held for them.

Snow Day. My source has not much to say about this day other than that it is a time to reflect on snow. Probably while drinking, playing dice and singing bawdy songs.

Evergreen Day. A day to contemplate evergreens? Pass the wassail pot, will ya.

St. Distaff’s Day. Not much a holiday for the women of the middle ages, it was on this day that they had to go back to work. The men folk didn’t have to for another four days and they thought it fun to try and burn the flax and hemp their ladies were trying to spin. (Burning again.) The women thanked the men for their fine jape by throwing buckets of water on them.

Eve of Epiphany. This day is for the contemplation of the Magi and their gifts. There’s a lot of contemplation, isn’t there?

Twelfth Night. The last day of Christmas, by its end all of the decorations should be taken down and—as you can likely guess—burned. This day was a grand day of feasting and partying. (Though if the women went back to work two days earlier, I wonder what they thought about this. I hope they got to take part in the festivities because I bet they had to clean up afterward.)

Medieval Celebrations in the Current Middle Ages

In the SCA you have likely been to a 12^th Night which is presided over by a King and a Queen of Fools, and you’re local chapter has likely held a wassail (or Christmas party). This year why not try to incorporate more medieval practices into your SCA, and even your mundane, Christmas celebrations. Make some wassail brew, maybe some frumenty (but give the principal pudding a wide berth) or some small gifts you can hand out to your friend as twelfth night gifts. You could put on a mummer’s play, sing some period carols or decorate your tree with more traditional items (like apples). Just be careful with the matches, ok?

Sources

Bring A Torch - Christmas Traditions Of The Middle Ages, Sir Guillaume de la Belgique

http://www.rencentral.com/dec_jan_vol1/yulefool.shtml

Christmas in the Middle Ages, Catherine Salton

http://www.nobletask.com/article.htm

Julfest, Garfield Matson

http://www.vikingage.com/vac/julfest.html

Medieval Christmas Traditions

http://historymedren.about.com/library/blxmas.htm

On Christmas in the Middle Ages, Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester

http://www.byu.edu/ipt/projects/middleages/LifeTimes/Christmas.html

The Winter Solstice, John Matthews (Quest Books: Wheaton, IL, 1998)

On the Saying of Merry Christmas

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:22:18 GMT

Todd H. C. Fischer, December 2007

Every year around this time we now hear the familiar refrain of “Happy Holidays!” This is usually followed by some people shouting about how it’s “Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays!” This phenomena gave me pause for thought.

First I thought about how pompous and self-centered that statement is. People who insist that this time of year should be called Christmas are saying that Christmas is the only name for this season, the only holiday currently being celebrated. However, there are several winter holidays and festivals that occur at this time of year, including Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Yule (which pre-dates them all). To insist that saying “Merry Christmas” is THE winter greeting is non-inclusive and very non-Canadian. Saying “Happy Holidays” allows someone to extend a fellow citizen wishes of good cheer without having to hazard a guess as to their holiday of choice.

However, at the opposite end of the spectrum are those who are ‘offended’ by hearing someone say “Merry Christmas.” Why should this offend anyone? When someone at a store wishes us a good night, or says they hope we have a good weekend, we do not take offence. Why then do some people get angry at being wished a Merry Christmas? The usual reason appears to be a feeling that “Merry Christmas” is an attempt by Christians to push their religion on others. With a few exceptions though, this is not the case. Christmas is celebrated by many, and though it does have strong Christian connections it is practiced by agnostics, atheists and people of other faiths, not just Christians. (Besides which, most of Christmas is actually based on ‘pagan’ practice anyway.)

If someone says “Merry Christmas” to you it should be accepted for what it is: a wish for peace and good will. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, then answer back with an appropriate greeting from your holiday. Wish us Christmas-folk a Happy Chanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Yule. Remember, just because we are not all of the same faith or race, it does not mean we cannot enjoy each others’ holidays (thank you for that lesson, Adam Sandler*). Though “Happy Holidays” is a good catch all, I would rather hear ALL the season’s greetings instead of one generic one.

So, Merry Christmas to all of you.

*Watch the film 8 Crazy Nights. Though it does contain crude humour, the message at its core is a good one.

Article #1 on the Small Press

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:30:24 GMT

Appeared in Toronto Computes, July 2002.

Todd H. C. Fischer

In the first installment of this column we introduced you to the world of zines, those self-published magazines that cover just about every topic available. Hopefully that got you muttering, “Gee, it doesn’t sound too hard. I’d like to make a [insert topic] zine myself.” You’re right, it’s not hard, and we’ll go through a step-by-step process that will leave you with a professional looking publication that you’ll be proud to show off.

Let’s pick a topic. Make it anything you want. For sake of argument, let’s say a Gillian Anderson fanzine.

The very first thing you have to decide next is layout, even before you think about what program to use. (The pro’s and con’s of various publishing programs will be covered in the next column.) Look at some existing magazines or papers, but don’t get any grandiose ideas. It’s better to start simple. Besides, simple is easier to read. Magazines like Maxim are so busy that it can cross your eyes just to look at them.

The number one thing to consider with your layout is your headers and page numbers. Will the header (your title bars) be on the side of the page? The top? Will the header be the title of the zine or of the current article? Will the page numbers be on the header, the bottom of the page, or will you use them at all? (Generally, you should.)

Next you have to decide on how to present your content. Will you use columns or simple blocks of text? This may depend on what size your publication will be. Will it be a full sized 8.5 x 11”, or will it be the half-sized 5.5 x 8.5”? Generally, columns are easier to read, especially if you are using the full-sized format. (Also keep in mind that your newsletter should be in increments of four. That is 4 pages, or 8 pages, or 12 pages, and so on. The first time I took a zine to be printed it was 18 pages long, so I had to either remove two pages or have two blank pages inserted.)

The font you use should be easy to read. Your title can be as funky as you want, but if it’s hard to read the main text your reader may not bother. I’d recommend Times New Roman or Arial. For size, 12-point is all right, but a bit big. 10-point is generally the way to go.

(Now, to backtrack a bit. Many desktop publishing programs come complete with templates ready made for you. All you have to do is select the style you like and then plug your content into the provided spaces. If this quick creation appeals to you, go for it. However, keep in mind that other people are probably using these templates as well. Your publication could end up looking a lot like some other people’s publications. Remember, originality is good. Also, templates generally have text like “Place Your Text Here” in the text boxes. Make sure you replace or delete all these space holders or someone is going to have a good laugh at your expense. I have a co-worker who used a template to print her wedding photo and written across their torsos in 20-point print is the ever-present “Place Your Text Here.” I personally suggest starting from scratch for each publication. Use the templates for ideas, but leave it at that.)

Now, plunk in your content. (I’m going to assume you’ve either written all your content yourself or have permission from the respective authors. Never steal content. You can get into serious trouble, up to and including being sued.)

I bet your newsletter looks pretty good now, but a bit bland. You need some graphics. Even clip art can liven up an otherwise boring looking publication. (Royalty free graphics collections were covered in a previous column). Photographs also work extremely well (though if you plan to photocopy your publication, photographs don’t reproduce as well as you might like). Either stick a picture at the end of your articles to take up any white space on your page, or put the picture in the center of your text and arrange the text around it. (Good graphic manipulation programs will be covered in a future column.)

Now you’re pretty much done. Add a table of contents if you so desire (generally a good idea), publication/copyright information, a cover and whatever other miscellaneous details you desire (such as author bios).

You are now done and ready to print.

(c) Todd H. C. Fischer, 1999. If interested in publishing this work, please contact the author.

Hogg Not Hollow

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:28:08 GMT

An interview with Barry Callaghan by Todd H. C. Fischer, 1999

Very few Canadian poets receive the recognition they deserve. This is a sad and sorry trend which may, hopefully, be coming to an end. Big chain bookstores are beginning to include large sections devoted to poetry, and older books by Canadian poets are being reissued. One poet who is seeing such a resurrection is Barry Callaghan, author of [insert bibliography]. Callaghan is perhaps best known for his series of Hogg poems and paintings, which McArthur and Company have reissued as Hogg: The Poems and Drawings. Recently, I had the pleasure to talk to Barry Callaghan at York University—where he teaches English—to discuss Hogg.

After scouring the campus for a half hour, looking for a quiet corner to conduct the interview, we finally settled in a small supply room on the third storey of the Ross building. Callaghan, with his near-mane of steely grey hair marked with one white streak, waited patiently as I set up my recording equipment and gathered my notes. At first I was intimidated by him, from his reputation as a canonized Canadian poet, and secondly by his physical presence. Callaghan seems larger than life, a looming presence with piercing eyes and a deep voice that almost seems to rumble forth from below ground. When I finally had everything ready, I decided to start at the beginning, asking him why he chose to make the main character of his long series of poems a historical one.

“Originally,” he said in his bass rumble, “they were all written in the personal pronoun. There are certain strengths to writing in that voice. It is the great strength of the great lyric poetry and prose, like Huckleberry Finn. The strength of the personal pronoun is that nothing stands between the narrator’s eye and the reader’s eye. However, there are also weaknesses. You cannot have Huckleberry Finn speculate on the nature of the Civil War, for example, because he is an illiterate kid, he wouldn’t do that; it would be false. Also, when the sequence began to grow, I had the feeling that what was really needed was that space for the speaker to have a large dimension. There are advantages to distance. And so, when I fell upon the idea of naming him Hogg, it gave me a kind of freedom to cast my own lyric voice, and begin to create what had been my lyric voice as a character.”

He went on to explain how, upon doing some research on the Toronto area, an area he feels is too little mythologized, he stumbled across James Hogg, who lived in a section of the city called Hogg’s Hollow.

“A great deal has been made of that by critics and writers who like to sometimes make more of things than are there,” he added with a smile.

The poems in Hogg have a great deal to do with Jerusalem, and Callaghan felt that James Hogg would be a good comparison. He had, as historian Henry Scadding noted, built a shell of a place of worship in a hollow. Those words—‘worship’ and ‘hollow’—resonated for Callaghan. Also, since so much of the poetry is a study of betrayal, he felt that Hogg was a logical choice. During MacKenzie’s Revolution, Hogg had turned in a party of rebels to the local authorities. His betrayal would be a good comparison with Biblical betrayal, particularly that of Judas.

“It’s as profound as that, and as simple as that,” said Callaghan, leaning forward in his chair. “Other than that I had no interest in pursuing who James Hogg was. I don’t care who James Hogg was, although long and serious essays have been written on the subject. It was the resonance. If there is one thing that interests me in language, it is resonance. It’s very hard to explain that to academics, that what I care about is the resonance, not whether James Hogg had a pimple on his head or not. He served my purposes to my imagination.”

After a moment of thought Callaghan went on. “I liked the idea that the guy was called Hogg, because a hog is a pig, and there are aspects of Hogg’s character in which he is piggish. In fact he’s often swinish. He’s many things—which allows him as a character, now freed from my lyric voice, to be a lover, a betrayer, a pig, even a bit of a swine, to hang around with swinish people, to pass through the world of Doctor Ded in the subway and react as if he’d met Ezekiel the prophet.

“So Hogg became who he is that way, and he became a useful device to me because I could refer to myself as Hogg and be ironic and sardonic about it and joke about it and, at the same time, be deadly serious about it. Because I had distance, whereas if I had written the whole thing like [Layton] Irving in the personal voice, it would have been all ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’ all the time. This would have made it very difficult to persuasively step into the voices of all the characters or prophets that Hogg meets. I wanted to write inside the voice of John the Conqueroo. I wanted to write inside the voice of prophets in Jerusalem.”

From there, Callaghan began a comparison of prophets in Jerusalem and crazy folk in the subway. They are, he felt, one and the same. They were both prophets and wackos. “To me, Jerusalem is the wackiest place on the face of the earth. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the centre of all the wackiness. Christian, Moslem, Jew—you should visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to see how insane religion makes people. Then take a waltz up to the Wailing Wall. People walk around that city and say, ‘Here’s Adam’s foot print’. You know they’re lunatics.”

After laughing for a moment, with his right eyebrow dancing with mirth, Callaghan went on. “Now, ‘The Emperor’s Imperial Beak,’ that’s a very cruel poem. It’s a poem about the Jews obviously. Face to the wall. That’s stone. I’ve spent a lot of time around that wall—rocking bodies, in black coats, like men trying to hold their balance on a ship, face to the wall. The only other position for them, in my language, is to stand back to the wall. Nobody wants to stand with their back to the wall, but why would anyone want to turn their back to the world and face the wall? That’s a kind of despairing poem about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jew’s plight at the hands of the Romans. The prophets aren’t working, so the old woman turns to the wall and enters colloquy with God. But it’s face to the wall, and to me that’s a despairing position. I would argue that the real problem in Jerusalem is that they have two philosophies of despair. Zionism is a form of despair, in that its basic principle is that a Jew is unsafe among non-Jews. This gives me the willies. The Palestinians don’t trust anybody. They have reason not to trust anybody, because they’ve been abandoned by everybody.

The astonishing thing to come out of that is you’ll find, among the Jews of Israel, a kind of sweet and sometimes heartbreaking melancholy about what they think they have become as a people. When you are dominating a people, and worrying about what you’ve become, that’s a form of generosity. The Palestinians, you’ll find, are among the most forgiving people you can talk to. If you don’t believe me go and hang out with the Irish. Try the Irish Protestants and Catholics in Belfast. The magic, for me, in Jerusalem, is that you have these two despairing positions. The Jews and Palestinians have this melancholy hope in the midst of despair, and to me that image is the face to wall. My position would be to go up on the top of the wall and dance on it.”

At this point conversation turned to the second book of Hogg, the section of paintings. To begin, Callaghan read one of the epigraphs from that book, by Jerzy Kosinski: “There is a place beyond all words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return.” After setting his copy of Hogg back on the table, Callaghan leapt into a lengthy explanation for the paintings.

“The simple structure of the first book is about a guy who is paranoid—Hogg, who seems justifiably paranoid. And if some scholar in the future were to go and read my memoir [Barrelhouse Kings] and try and read it into Hogg, they’d see that there was good reason at that time for Hogg to be paranoid. That’s why he comes up for air, why he goes to the one place on earth where he thinks the last word could be holy [Jerusalem]. While there he engages in a love affair and runs into the failure of passion that comes to passion, the craziness of Jerusalem and the insularity of tribalism. What can such a man do? He’s played his own role in it—he’s part betrayer, part pig, part swine, part lover, part saint—and it comes to what? The Lazarus Stone—nothing. He must come home. When you come home from a situation like that, you come home in pain. You come home in the silence that accompanies pain deep in the body, which is why I included the second epigraph. That’s a long statement that means simply that Hogg watched his hand move, describing the pain that he felt. The pain was at the end of his fingers. Is this a real pain that the author of Hogg went through at the period?”

After a moment’s pause, he answered, “Yes. I’ve been in a lot of pain in my life. I’ve had very sever arthritis all my life and to live with the pain I actually pretended it was not there. At some points I’ve been quite stupid. I’ve pretended so well that I’ve ended up in a state of shock. While I was writing these poems, this happened to me. I went into the hospital in a state of shock and I watched the way I communicated with myself, which was drawing. I believed, and still do believe, that pain is speaking when my fingers move. I watched those drawings emerge and I kept at it after my three week jaunt in the hospital. I understood this to be my body articulating all it had accumulated. My body had accumulated an awareness, and the images are there in one’s self. Some people can’t let them come out; they’re very self conscious, they hold them back and they press them down.

“I remember the day I drew one of my favourites, which is some weird man with wings and a penis for a nose. I remember drawing that penis on his face. It was not done lasciviously, or for comic effect, it just seemed at the moment organically right to me. Organic in the sense that Coleridge and Keats spoke of the organic—everything as a whole. And it was a way of reordering the parts of the body, fragmented by pain, into a wholeness. It was a re-gathering of the silence that is the music inside one’s self. It came out, I suppose, in some weird images.

“At the same time, it seemed to me to be perfectly in tune with Hogg’s sensibility, in that there is no difference to Hogg, in a moral or self-conscious way, between a big toe and a cock, or a breast and a knee, or a cunt and a mouth. Those are all just parts of the body. Hogg does not have the Judeo-Christian hang-up about sexuality and sensuality. To him, the body is the body. So to me, the drawings are a pause in the clock, important because they sit there as the expression of that period of pause, as Hogg re-gathers himself and explores a kind of primal silence that speaks to him, and speaks through his fingers. And he learns about himself through what emerges and what he does.”

Since we were already coming towards the subject anyway, we turned the conversation to the issues of sensuality and sexuality in Hogg.

“You have no idea how uptight this culture is when it comes to sexuality,” Callaghan stated emphatically. “There’s a poem in [Hogg] called “The Gift of Tongue” in which I have tried to describe in a sensual, but, I think, in a discreet way, oral sex given on the side of the hill of Mt. Olives. Not just as a carnal gesture, but as a gift of tongue. This is how words resonate—you can’t hear that phrase without thinking of the Holy Ghost, of Pentecost and the gift of languages that gave promise to the Word abroad, unfettered by the narrowness of tribalism. And in the midst of this resonance is of course the woman, the muse who also releases the Word. I take it even further than that. I take it into the image of the muezzin, and the cry that the muezzin utters and the cry that the lover utters, as the minaret, a stone shaft, enters the mouth of God. I think, and many people around the world think, that this is a beautiful poem. However, one of the reviewers here in Toronto [Fraser Sutherland] was so incensed by the imagery of that poem that, insanely enough, he publicly said that Moslems should be offended and I should suffer a fatwa. He said this in the Globe and Mail. Can you imagine? I was stunned the Globe and Mail would actually print such a thing.”

Those easily offended, he went on, could not cope with the open embrace of sexuality in some of the poems. He asserted that little has changed since the 1950s, when Irving Layton had a rough time of it for saying, in his poetry, that all of the women he loved, he loved sensually. Callaghan, like Irving, loves sensually, and is not afraid of women or the female form.

“In my fiction I’ve written a novelette and several short stories in the voice of a woman. I don’t feel alien from women. I feel at home with women, and if you feel at home with women, at ease with their sensuality and sexuality, they bring out your own sensuality and femininity. Then, you’re really in touch with the Dionysian forces, and there’s no problem in writing and approaching the body and women in the way I do. The problem is that we live in a patriarchal society that almost by definition is afraid of women. The Catholic Church won’t let them be priests; the Jews put them at the back of the Synagogue and if they’re really orthodox, make them wear wigs. They do all kinds of weird things to women. I like to do friendly things to women, and not in a prurient way, just in a condition of ease. I’ve never understood all of that stuff, the things the priests said as I went through the Catholic high-schools. It always seemed strange. Maybe because I felt so close to my mother. My mother was a remarkable woman. She grew up in an Irish Catholic family, so how did she end up being a woman of such gaiety?”

Here Callaghan shrugged and looked out the window for a moment. When he turned back we changed the course of our discussion, and I asked him what was so powerful about the image of the stone, that it ended up in seventeen of the poems, was the title of the second book of Hogg, and was displayed prominently on the front cover.

“That’s either the moon or the Eucharist,” he said pointing at the white disk on the cover of Hogg. “You’ll note that its held in a hand. If it’s the moon, it’s the holding of the woman in a courtly way; if it’s the holy wafer, it’s the holding of God in a courtly way. If it’s a stone, it’s what sits at the centre of life, the mystery of stone, the rock. ‘Upon this rock I shall build my church.’ And if you’re going to build a church it has to be human, and so right beside [the disk on the cover] is an erect penis. You don’t build churches if you don’t have a big cock. I’m not just being facetious. Go to Rome, and wherever you see a dome, there’s an obelisk. It’s worth thinking about. The dome is the womb, and the obelisk—big cock. I shouldn’t interpret [the cover] too much, but stone suggests everything to me: the mystery of what is in stone, the origins of life in stone, the voice that is locked in stone, the water that is locked in stone, God who builds his church on stone. Stone is everything, all possibilities and all origins. That’s what it means to me, it sits at the centre, the whole of nature is alive and resonates.”

At this point I mentally slapped myself in the head and said, “So that’s why section two is called stone—because its at the centre of the book. And his redemption at the end comes out of his painting, his stone.”

Nodding, Callaghan said, “Inside the stone are all those images. Inside the silence that is stone—all those images. I remember years ago, I wrote ‘And Moses broke the rock and sucked the water free.’ You have to open stone to get the water. You have to go through stone. There’s a poem of Margaret Atwood’s [in Progressive Insanity of a Pioneer] where a farmer makes it clear to himself and the landscape that he is there by stamping his foot on a stone. And he watches as his foot sinks up to his knee.” Laughing, he added, “Margaret understands. There’s stone, and then there’s stone. You better be careful when you stamp your foot or you may sink all the way down, and discover the whale who is down there—the big Leviathan.”
As stated earlier, Hogg is a collection of poems about betrayal, stemming from Callaghan himself being betrayed during the early seventies, when he lost his job at CBC and was threatened with the loss of his job at York University for acknowledging the Palestinian argument, as well as the Jewish, in the “swamp of the middle east”—that is, “I said simply, straightforwardly, ‘Look, they are there…see them, they are there.’” He had been totally silenced, “In my terms,” by 1971.

“Hogg is fascinated by betrayal, that’s true. He’s really interested in betrayal as its portrayed in the ‘Judas Priest’ poem. It is a profound moral question as revealed through the story of Jesus, and I emphasize ‘story’, as it is one. One that has seized the imaginations of people. Each generation, each century, seems to have its fascination with a Jesus. I was fascinated, roughly around the time I got interested in writing this book. I was fascinated with the idea that at one point in the Egyptian Church, around one or two hundred AD, Judas was a saint. This led me to actually go back and read the story. I read it and I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute.’ Judas plays the most astounding role in this story; he plays the absolute key role in this story. And so does Peter. And what they both share with Jesus is that they both betray him. As Judas Priest in the book says, when it came time to build his church, to build his rock, Jesus didn’t hand it over to those namby-pambies Luke and John. He gave it to Peter, who had stood outside the gates saying, ‘I don’t know anything about that guy. Leave me alone.’”

Going on, Callaghan related how Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him, but let him do so. He also remarked on the kiss that Judas gave Jesus to show the Roman soldiers who he was. But everyone in the city knew who Jesus was, he had arrived two weeks earlier to fanfare (people laying palm leaves before him as he rode into town upon a donkey). The kiss, felt Callaghan, was ritual, part of the story-telling process, and necessary for the story. The kiss was for our benefit, to mark Judas—who was prepared to accept the marking—as a betrayer. “And then Judas, in perfect imitation of Jesus, hung himself dead, bearing in mind that in the early Church there were theological thinkers who argued that the all-knowing God Jesus—in knowing his ‘story’ before he lived it—had committed a suicide. What a story, eh? What resonances. Don’t tell your parish priest that story today—he’ll box you about the ears.”

As our time began to wind down, Callaghan spoke of his own story, the basis for Hogg’s love affair in Jerusalem. “I’ve actually told in my memoir how that affair came to an end,” he said, “and it’s terrible.” He revealed that the woman involved, a Jew, felt that to leave Jerusalem, let alone with a non-Jew, would be a betrayal of her father. After breaking off the affair, she suffered a breakdown. When her father came to visit her, and she told him what she had done, he shook his head sadly. “If you think,” he whispered, “that I survived a death camp, so you could turn away real love, then you’ve misunderstood everything.”

This story succinctly draws together all the threads that Callaghan has woven into Hogg: the matter of betrayal, of religious tribalism, of “prophets” who utter truths, of despair and of love.

“These things must come to an end,” said Callaghan as we wrapped up our session, “because there are forces, and the forces always involve the word, and the word is supposed to be Holy.”

‘Supposed to be’ being the opportune words.

(c) Todd H. C. Fischer, 1999. If interested in publishing this work, please contact the author.

Samhain, Feast of the Dead

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:03:47 GMT

Being a Brief History of Hallowe’en
Todd H. C. Fischer
Appeared in The TankArd #35 (October 2001)

The holiday we now celebrate as Hallowe’en has a long history, stretching back to the time of the Ancient Celts. For them, the evening of October 31, and morning of November 1, was the beginning of their new year. They called it Samhain (or Samhuinn, pronounced sow-en) and it was (primarily) a celebration of the dead. (In Ireland, it was Oiche Shamhna.) As the new year began with winter, a season of death, it was only natural that the Celts would honour (and ward off) those that had already passed on.

It was after Samhain that the faerie folk would depart the land, not to return until Beltane. Before leaving, the little people would cause no end of trouble, and it was considered unwise to walk alone at night, lest they take you away. Folks who had to travel would carry iron or steel to ward them off, and treats were left out for the faeries to eat.

It was also a time of divination, when futures would be forecast. Lovers would place two nuts in a fire to see if their relationship would last. If the nuts burned, it showed that they had a strong relationship; if they popped, trouble may lay ahead.

As the end of the year, many took the opportunity to take care of more earthly needs, such as hiring servants, closing accounts, paying debts and making new contracts. Many stock animals would be slaughtered, as it was difficult to keep many of them during the lean winters, and this act eventually took on ritualistic meaning. In fact, in Germany and Gaul, men would put on the slain animals’ skins as they thought this would gain them contact with the animal spirits and their deities. The animals that were kept were run through samhnagan (bonfires) as a means of purification (the smoke and heat did actually kill many parasites living in the cattle’s fur). Many people would run through the flames as well.

Originally, some people didn’t just run through the fire, they were consumed by it. Blood sacrifice was considered a fitting payment to the earth that had sustained them during the previous year. It was a contract between them and the earth. The sacrificial victims were chosen in different ways. In some places, it was the person who cut the last stalk during the harvest. In others, lots were drawn. In Wales, everyone would race down a hill yelling, “The black sow take the hindermost!” The person who lost the race was then ritually sacrificed to the Black Sow, a spirit of death, evil and cold.

Unknown to many is that Samhain was also a time of peace, when no fighting or divorce was allowed. In fact, many people got married at this time. Also, many tricks were played as it was thought that nature’s natural order was reversed. People would lead away other’s cattle, block up chimneys and through things at notable figures. (Of course, this was all likely blamed on faeries and ghosts.)

Apples and nuts played an important part in the festival. Apples were the Celtic Silver Bough, and represented the underworld, love, fertility, wisdom, and divination. It was the fruit of heaven and wise men. Hazel nuts grew from the sacred tree of the Celtic grove, and symbolized life and (like all nuts) wisdom, lovers and peace.

(A side note: many people think that the celebration of Samhain was named after Samhain, the Celtic god of the dead. This is not true. There was/is no such god.)

When the Romans invaded Celtic territories they adopted many of these practices, though they stopped the human sacrifice and replaced it with the burning of effigies. Samhain would have been celebrated right after the Roman holiday October Horse (October 15). On this day, weapons and produce were put into storage, and a two-man chariot race was held in the Campus Martinus. The near horse of the winning chariot was sacrificed to Mars, killed with a spear, and had its head and tail decorated with cakes and prominently displayed. The horse to many was a harvest/corn spirit, and this horse worship lead to the inclusion of the hobbyhorse and wicker horse in autumn celebrations.

Christianity likewise adopted Samhain, changing its name to All Saints and All Souls (November 1 and 2). October 31 was All Hallows Eve, which was eventually shortened to Hallowe’en or just Halloween. To them, the samhnagan were called pile fires, which were lit to guide the dead to heaven. Children, called soulers, would travel from house to house, singing songs and being given soul cakes. Later, parshell crosses began appearing on the doors of byres, houses and stables instead of kern babies. (A kern baby was a doll made of a sheaf from the last stalk of the harvest, which warded off evil powers.) Soulers later became guisers, who wore costumes (perhaps a throw-back to the men in animal skins) who were given nuts, apples and money. Many guisers carried a hobbyhorse.

Over time the holiday became more secular, and guisers were given any type of sweets. Apples though still play an important part of Hallowe’en, in the form of apple bobbing and cider. Many people still decorate their homes with stalks of corn and the pranks of the Celts have returned (often in the form of a threat, “Trick or treat!”).

This holiday has survived periodic attempts to stamp it out, under claims that it is ‘pagan’ and ‘satanic’. People who make such claims fail to realize that ‘pagan’ does not necessarily equal evil, nor that ‘Satanists’ have nothing to do with Halloween. Hallowe’en is a harmless holiday with only as much ‘evil’ portent as that which you give it. Hallowe’en has survived for thousands of years, and will likely be with us for thousands more.

Sources
Wilson, Jerry. The History and Customs of Halloween, 2000.

Cooper, J. C. The Dictionary of Festivals, Thorsons, San Francisco, 1995. 4-5, 44, 108-109, 160, 189-191.

(c) Todd H. C. Fischer, 2001. If interested in publishing this work, please contact the author

He Screamed, She Screamed

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:56:04 GMT

Todd H. C. Fischer and Melanie E. Fischer

Appeared in Writers’ Journal Vol. 20 # 3.

The Fischers (authors, artists and editors/publishers of imelod, the litzine of horror and the bizarre) offer their views on the art of horror writing.

He Screamed

The rules for writing a good horror story are generally the same as for any other genre.

Firstly, you must have interesting characters that develop and change over the course of the story. These characters should be realistic and believable, even your supernatural ones. A vampire mindlessly sucking blood is boring; give him/her a personality, dreams, hopes, hatreds, what have you. If you fail to flesh out your characters, your readers will be bored by them. (A good example of this is in Brian Lumley’s Necroscope/Vampire World novels. His vampire characters are in-depth and extremely interesting. My personal favourite from these books is the fox-Lord, Canker Canison.)

Next is plot. Try and come up with something new, an angle that nobody has used before. If you like the X-Files and want to write about government agencies investigating the paranormal, great. But put your own spin on it. Make it your own. Pale imitations may get published, but they’ll bring you the wrong type of attention.

Tied in with the plot is the supernatural element. This is the keystone to your story, and should thus be the one you spend the most energy on. Remember, people have been writing and telling ghost stories for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. If you are going to use a supernatural beastie that is part of the common consciousness (like a werewolf) you need to try and come up with your own special kind of werewolf. Numerous werewolf stories and movies come out every year, yet how many have made an impression on the public mind? Change the werewolf (or whatever monster you are using) and make it unique. One story I read (the name of which, and the author, escapes me at the moment) tied the theme of lychanthropy in with the female menstrual cycle. This is an excellent case in point of making your story unique.

Even better than changing a well known myth pattern, is to create your own. This is much harder to do, but much more rewarding. If you do it well, you may end up creating a whole new myth pattern. In the 1930’s a pulp writer named H. P. Lovecraft did just such a thing. Tired of ghosts and phantoms he created a pantheon of extraterrestrial beings that came to earth eons ago and slumber beneath our feet, influencing us through dreams. While unappreciated at the time, Lovecraft has since been crowned as the father of modern horror. People such as Stephen King, Clive Barker, J. Michael Straczynski and John Carpenter name him as a primary influence. His creations and themes still pop up in movies, television, comics, music and computer games. It may seem a lot of work, but think of the possible pay-off.

Research is also important. If you’re going to use an existing monster, use one people don’t remember anymore. Part of the appeal say, of the X-Files, is that they tend to use uncommon creatures or monsters from ancient lore. A recent episode concerned a demon from the old Czechoslovakia that stole children. Dig around. Use creatures that most people have forgotten about. Books such as the dictionaries published by Aquarian are good sources, as are faerie tales (by Anderson, Grimm and Pushkin), Faeries (by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, published by Peacock/Bantam), and many others. Scour the occult section at your local bookstores.

Lastly I’ll say a word or two about dialogue. This is the area where most writers lose their story’s credibility. Dialogue, in any genre, should sound realistic and unforced, even when talking about something outré like zombies or hell hounds. A good exercise to see if your dialogue works well, is to read it aloud with a partner. Skip the narration, just read the dialogue. If it doesn’t flow, or seems too jumpy or unrealistic, it’s time to do some editing.

I think perhaps the most important thing you can do if you want to write horror, is to read it. By reading you will unconsciously pick up on some of the tricks of the trade and see how these guys (and gals) constructed their tales. If you’re writing short stories try checking out Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural (edited by Marvin Kaye, published by Doubleday) and Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown (edited by Marvin Kaye, published by Guild America), the Year’s Best Horror series edited by Karl Edward Wagner, the Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy series edited by Ellen Datlow, or anything edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Charles L. Grant or Douglas E. Winter. If it’s a novel you’re working on, try Stephen King, Clive Barker, John Saul, Peter Straub, Dean Koontz or Robert R. McCammon.

By keeping these few points in mind, you’ll insure that your final product will be a much more enjoyable read, and a better prospect for potential publication.

She Screamed

I am always surprised by the attitude towards horror stories and horror writers in general by most literary critics. It seems that the popular opinion is that horror is schlock and no better than a romance novel! (No offence to romance novelists!) Granted, there is some bad horror out there (and I mean bad) but can’t that be said of any genre? Are there not bad drama writers? Bad suspense writers? Bad mystery, sci-fi, fiction and non-fiction writers? Of course there are. And just as many of these genres have great writers, just as horror has its great writers. Consider that the horror writer has to not only write the horror elements of a story, but all the rest that every other writer has to write. All the drama, mystery, suspense, romance or even comedy with horror mixed in for good measure.

This, as far as I’m concerned, is the first key to writing horror successfully. The author must first have a good story to start with. The actual story is the most important element of good horror, including of course, believable characters and a well thought out plot.

Second, the elements of horror must be woven into the story in a coherent and naturally horrific manner. So the second most important component is how you tell the tale. This is where good description comes in. A slasher running around killing everyone for no reason is not very good as a story, but the story of a slasher who has a motive that is described, and into whose mind we are shown, has the potential to be intriguing. Some of the strongest emotions in people are evoked by smell - use elements like the senses to make the suspense more real. Describe what a character is experiencing, not just what they are doing. One of the things that I believe makes Stephen King’s novels so successful is his description of what is going on inside his characters heads, what they are thinking/feeling in relation to what is happening. Try to put yourself in the place of the character and feel as they would. Try to really know your characters, it helps when you sit down to write for them. Treat them real and they’ll come across as real to the reader.

Good dialogue is another key element to any story. Try taking a notebook with you on the bus or to school/work and write down conversations you hear. This can help you get a feel for natural dialogue. Think about what you have your characters saying, try reading it aloud to friend or taping it to hear it yourself. Dialogue must sound natural, and that’s sometimes the hardest thing to do for writers. The best thing to do is just listen to how people talk, and that’s real people, not people from Melrose Place or Dawson’s Creek - somebody else has already written what they say. You want to write what your characters will say, realistically.

More is less - lots of gore does not a horror story make. Gore, blood and guts etc. like hardcore language or sex has its place, but try to be sure you are using it in its proper place. A story that is full of sex or blood flying everywhere that doesn’t advance the plot is gratuitous. Use it sparingly, but effectively with great description and character reactions to heighten the horror.

Lastly, try to have an original monster/threat/supernatural element in your story. The most important thing to being original is to avoid cliches. May sound obvious, but there are so many cliched horror writers out there, we really don’t need any more! If an idea feels too familiar, it probably is and you’ve picked it up unconsciously. Of course, its incredibly hard to be completely original, so putting your own twist on something familiar is a good start.

Overall, just concentrate on being a good writer and you’ll be on your way to becoming a good horror writer. Schlock has its place, but a good story is so much better.

Why can’t anyone make scary films anymore?

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:28:18 GMT

Quickie Reviews: Blood and Chocolate, The Breed, Hoboken Hollow.

Todd H. C. Fischer, October 2007

This past weekend my brother and his girlfriend dropped by my house for a horror movie marathon. Armed with pop and chips we settled back with the lights off, preparing to experience some frights. Unfortunately the only horror we endured was the actual excruciating task of getting through the movies.

Up first was ‘Blood and Chocolate’ about werewolves in Romania. Sounds good, but unfortunately all the werewolves were Euro-trash, lounging around in black clothes and moaning about how rough their life was. Their transformation sequences were all in slow motion and angelic, as they leaped through the air and were surrounded by mist and swirls of white light. (Leaping like monkeys for the most part; one wonders if the makers of this movie had actually seen wolves move before beginning filming.) Hopefully some day werewolf and vampire movies will no longer be made by Emos.

Next was ‘The Breed’, where a bunch of idiot young adults have their vacation ruined by smart and angry doggies. Not high art by any stretch of the imagination, though there was fun to be had in seeing horror movie victims actually fight back, knocking dogs out of the air with arrows or a bat. Of course, the characters make very bad life choices (such as leaving the bow and arrows behind when going outside, or leaving the windows rolled down on the car). These people were too dumb to live, so they don’t.

Finally we watched the worst of the bunch, ‘Hoboken Hollow’. This film (complete with a voice over lifted right from ‘The Dukes of Hazard’ TV show) concerns a ranch in Texas where hitch-hikers are forced to labour doing chores, or else get gutted and turned into jerky sold at the local store. Slow and plodding this film tries very hard (too hard) to be menacing and surreal and just comes off as a lazy man’s version of movies we’ve already seen (‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ being the most obvious parallel). Even when the ex-army guy gets loose—and grabs an axe—there is no reprieve from the boredom since all he does is run away. We should have too.

Have none of today’s horror movie filmmakers ever heard of musical cues (used most masterfully in ‘Jaws’)? Do they know nothing of nuance or subtlety (like in ‘Psycho’)? How about blocking, camera angles, shadow and light (see ‘The Ring’)? It is the art of mixing all of these together that create truly frightening moves.

As a postscript, I also have to ask, is racism so unconsciously ingrained in American filmmaking that the black character always has to die first? In both ‘The Breed’ and ‘Hoboken Hollow’ it is the young black man who falls victim first (and the only reason it didn’t happen in ‘Blood and Chocolate’ is because Romania appears to be peopled completely by white folk). What are white filmmakers saying when they do this?

The Redemption of Severus Snape

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:35:56 GMT

Todd H. C. Fischer, July 2007

(Originally posted in my non-writing related journal.)

Was Severus Snape—the much maligned true hero of the Harry Potter series—ever truly evil? I emphatically say “no!”

While Rowling was writing the series fans would often debate Severus’s motives, trying to decide if he was a hero or a villain. These debates fascinated me, for I thought he was quite clearly a hero. How could anyone misunderstand this poor tortured soul?

I can hear people now shouting “But he was a Death Eater!” Yes, Snape did go over to the Dark Lord during Voldemort’s first grasp at power. However, he did so out of loneliness and bitterness, not out of greed, hatred or intolerance. He was a lonely man, made fun of at school, bullied, ostracized and reviled. When Tom Riddle took on the persona of Voldemort he would have promised the lonely and downtrodden around him a new world, where they would have the power (not unlike how cults and terrorists recruit in the real world). Snape will have been drawn to the Death Eaters, made to feel like he belonged, given authority and power.

However, as it soon turned out, this feeling of inclusion was a ruse. When Voldemort reneged on his agreement not to harm Lilly Potter—who, we find out in the new book, has been Snape’s unrequited love for many years—Snape’s world is thrown upside down. He discovers that those who said they accepted him did not care for his feelings anymore than those who had been bullying him all his life.

Severus went to Dumbledore in his grief and the wise, old, flawed wizard was revealed to be a man who accepted all for what they were. He accepted Snape for what he was: a talented and ambitious wizard, with deep emotions and skill in many types of magic (most notably potions and Occlumency).

Snape’s loyalty was forever granted to Dumbledore. He went undercover, back to the Death Eaters, as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He went so far undercover that the Order thought he had truly gone back over to Voldemort. That, of course, was how Snape needed them to feel, so he could truly fool the Dark Lord. However, this ostracized him from those who should have been his friends, those who should have understood what he was going through.

Throughout the series Snape defended Harry, though due to Harry’s quickly formed opinion of the Head of Slytherin, the boy never realized this until it was too late. In ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ Snape thrust Ron and Harry behind him to defend them from danger. In ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ he counteracted Quirrel’s spells during the quidditch match. Again and again Snape saved the life of the boy he both loved and hated. Part of Snape hated Harry for being the son of James Potter, but part of him loved him as well. Harry is all that remained of Lily, was the son that he and Lily never had.

In ‘Half-blood Prince’ Snape killed Dumbledore. This, some argued, was proof that he was evil after all. I argued however, that Snape did what he did to protect Draco Malfoy. Draco had been ordered to kill the Hogwart’s Headmaster by Voldemort, and if he did not, the Dark Lord would surely have killed him for failing. At the beginning of the book, to maintain his cover Snape had made an Unbreakable Oath to protect Draco to Draco’s mother. If Dumbledore had not died, then Draco would have died. The magical compulsion he was under would not have allowed him to walk away and leave Dumbledore alive. What’s more, a close reading of that scene seemed to reveal that Dumbledore knew what was coming and accepted it, even encouraged it. (After the publication of ‘Deathly Hallows’ we now know that this was exactly the case; Dumbledore had already made Snape promise to kill him.)

When fleeing after the act, Snape is confronted by Harry and in an emotional scene Severus completely looses control. He yells at Harry, telling him that no one suffered like he suffered. This was further proof that his act had not been motivated by evil. How could it have been? He had just killed the only person who had ever truly accepted him.

Luckily, when Snape is casually mortally wounded by Voldemort, the Potions teacher is able to pass some of his memories to Harry. When he shares them, Harry is finally able to see the love Snape held for his mother, and how much Snape had helped him and defended him over the years. Snape is finally revealed as the hero he truly is.

Loyal, dedicated, brave and courageous. Words many likely never thought to apply to poor Severus. Truly Snape is one of the most tragic heroes of modern literature.

Reborn, just in time for Hallowe'en!

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:30:33 GMT

Long have I lain dormant, not dead but dreaming, curled up amongst the debris of unfinished stories, unpublished articles and infantile half-formed poems. A scent then assailed me, the smell of corn husks and apples, of pumpkin and all spice, of dead leaves and candy.

I raised my head slowly, blinking away the detritus from my long unused eyes. I looked about me, blinking, wondering why I was now awake.

Then I realized. He had need of me again.

Arising from my nest I looked out the twin windows, saw his face reflected back at me from a glowing screen. A blank white glowing screen. A screen waiting to be filled with words.

Joyously I reached out and gave life to his fingers, drinking in each tap of the keys.

Reborn.

Yup. I am writing again. I haven't been at it for a while now, I've been so busy with other hobbies. However, I feel the time to flush my brain of accumulated ideas is long past, so ti was time to take pen to paper again (figuratively speaking).

This journal will be a record of a journey. My journey as I reccomence my writing, as I step back out onto the unlceared pathways through the thickets of my mind.

I invite you to come along with me.