Gravity was a good god, and that was his downfall. He always did his
job, pulling things down or together, and did so with such reliability
that humans could measure him. How Loki laughed at the idea of a god
with such low self-esteem that he let himself be measured. But Gravity
broke none of the rules: humans still couldn’t see him or talk to him
directly, and he never tampered with someone else’s domain. Loki never
had to fear Gravity playing tricks.
The problem came, then, that
humans didn’t fear him like they did Loki or Zeus, and they certainly
didn’t revere him as they had the sun or that Jesus kid. They made
planes, helicopters and went to the moon without so much a prayer –
except the typical calculations for landing and such. Even when he did
something nasty it was always the suicidal prick that jumped off the
bridge that got the credit, not Gravity for providing the very force
that enabled the tragedy.
The rise of scientific thought only
insulted him further as people believed less in his friends, but never
even bothered to question his existence. He wasn’t even part of the
cultural debate. One year Carl Sagan, of whom Gravity had always been
very supportive, actually mocked theology by saying no one prayed to
gravity. Then one morning Gravity picked up Scientific American (well,
not “picked up” – he never picked anything up that he didn’t have to)
and saw some theorist asking why gravity was so weak in this universe.
“So weak.”
Gravity
snapped and finally took old Loki’s advice. They’d regret not
appreciating him. They’d regret it when gravity ignored them, and they
learned the terror of floating.
Pages
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Friday, March 14, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Mum At the Final Act
Apologies for recent and short-term blogging silence, friends and fellow readers. The biggest thing slowing The Bathroom Monologues has been on my novel-in-progress, We Don't Always Drown. I've just finished re-plotting the final act and think it's devious enough to go forward. Right now it weighs 76,000 words and feels ready for a big trick of a conclusion. I'm hoping to finish the rough draft before next weekend, when I hit NYC to see Waiting for Godot with friends.
This composition string has taken its toll on reading time; I'm even days behind on blogs, let alone my NaNoReMo pick.
I'm a third of the way through The Master and Margarita. At this stage in my career, I still feel awkward critically assessing the novels of others. So far the novel is delightfully cheesy in a way that none of the Russian heavy hitters I've ever read has gone for, including the deliberate, knowing setup conversation between those darned secular elites and the man we know will turn out to be Satan, as they deny his existence only to be blown away.
This is a good cheese, and an unusual cheese, especially for the contrast of flashback narratives to Pontius Pilate's encounters with a Yeshua of some renown. This Yeshua behaves skittishly, mortal to a fault, even denying his own teachings to get out of being convicted. Where the Satan-against-Soviets satire seemed gleefully pro-Christian, this depiction reads highly anti-Christian. Am I wrong? I almost hope not, because the collision of those two themes could make an incredible novel, and one third of the way in, The Master and Margarita hasn't uncloaked its true shape yet. It could wind up as a number of kinds of novels.
What this really calls for is research on cultural context, but I'm so deep into writing my own novel that reading time is slim. This has slowed down my consumption of Bulgakov's novel, but I'm no less enthused to read it.
This composition string has taken its toll on reading time; I'm even days behind on blogs, let alone my NaNoReMo pick.
I'm a third of the way through The Master and Margarita. At this stage in my career, I still feel awkward critically assessing the novels of others. So far the novel is delightfully cheesy in a way that none of the Russian heavy hitters I've ever read has gone for, including the deliberate, knowing setup conversation between those darned secular elites and the man we know will turn out to be Satan, as they deny his existence only to be blown away.
This is a good cheese, and an unusual cheese, especially for the contrast of flashback narratives to Pontius Pilate's encounters with a Yeshua of some renown. This Yeshua behaves skittishly, mortal to a fault, even denying his own teachings to get out of being convicted. Where the Satan-against-Soviets satire seemed gleefully pro-Christian, this depiction reads highly anti-Christian. Am I wrong? I almost hope not, because the collision of those two themes could make an incredible novel, and one third of the way in, The Master and Margarita hasn't uncloaked its true shape yet. It could wind up as a number of kinds of novels.
What this really calls for is research on cultural context, but I'm so deep into writing my own novel that reading time is slim. This has slowed down my consumption of Bulgakov's novel, but I'm no less enthused to read it.