Commentary: I Lay Awake in Morentoff

Commentary for I Lay Awake in Morentoff

Not to brag, but I love this poem. There’s so much ambiguity.

“I was still
in the dark”

This could mean “still in the dark” as in “I had been in the dark previously and I remained in the dark.” Or it could mean “I was still“, i.e. staying still and not moving. Both are true.

Throughout, we will see literal darkness vs. metaphorical darkness (i.e. despair etc.). So that makes for four possible interpretations of the opening two lines.

Returning to the poem:

“I was still
in the dark
perhaps in the night
there was no way to know”

On the literal side, Eudo is in darkness, but he’s deep underground so he doesn’t know if it’s daytime outside. If we take “dark” more metaphorically, “night” may represent a great, w0rld-encompassing darkness (a particularly negative interpretation) or it may indicate a temporary darkness (as nighttime is followed by day, a more positive interpretation), but then again we should note that the darkness of nighttime is not only temporary, but recurring, which makes the previous idea less positive.

But even the previous literal idea holds deeper meanings. If Eudo can be in darkness even when it’s daytime, that demonstrates the complete control his masters hold over him. Day, and night, and the other basic facts of the natural world can be taken to represent foundational truths, hopes or freedoms, which are thought to be unassailable and inalienable, but which the masters have nonetheless destroyed.

But on the other hand, we should note that such foundations as daytime-nighttime are only destroyed for Eudo personally. The states still exist, somewhere in the world, and that should tell us that the masters are not, in fact, all-powerful, regardless of how they may seem at the present moment. We may speculate that Eudo will someday escape to the world above, and in fact that is exactly what he does, eventually, though he finds the literal, physical escape much easier that the metaphorical, emotional escape (which takes many more years of effort).

“My heart beat too fast
discerning its own presence
Be still, I begged
begone”

“My heart”, of course, has both literal and metaphorical meanings. Literally, Eudo is suffering from an over-rapid heartrate, and resulting palpitations (“discerning its own presence”, basically). This is drawn from personal experience; I long suffered from (and to some extent, still suffer from) a stress disorder that would give me palpitations (among many other symptoms, such as dizziness). So there we have another literal interpretation with deeper meaning: a physical heart beating too fast indicates emotional strain, fear, etc., in particular because Eudo isn’t exercising, but merely lying down. In any case, “Be still” would count as Eudo silently trying to lower his heart rate, and probably trying to lessen the associated despair etc.

On the metaphorical side, “heart” may here mean one’s passions, dreams and true desires. If so, then Eudo’s heart beats too fast in the sense that he has a great desire to be free, however the present situation (both in the literal moment and the more general sense) does not allow him any freedom, and this creates a conflict. “Be still” would count as Eudo trying to ignore the incredible gap between what he dreams for and what he has.

“begone” may be interpreted as a simple extension of “Be still“, but it may also refer to suicide. On the literal side, if his heart completely stops, Eudo dies. On the metaphorical side, if he silences his own inner passions he will become an mindless drone, a slave of the Federation.

“my heart refused
me”

There’s a reason “me” is on a separate line. It’s for emphasis. One’s heart, literal or (especially) metaphorical, is at one’s core. It’s one thing if your heart refuses some external influence, but if you heart refuses you, that’s a sign of tremendous inner conflict, which is what Eudo is experiencing. There’s also guilt in there, because he realizes he has internalized the (metaphorical) poison of his masters; he is ordering himself around just as they would order him around.

“I could not sleep
and so I stared
into an endless waking
chasm”

The area around him is utterly dark, and so it seems like a “chasm”. “waking” then simply refers to the fact that Eudo is awake; he’s having trouble falling asleep.

Alternatively, and playing with the metaphorical darkness we mentioned earlier, “chasm” may refer to despair etc.. In that case, the “endless waking” is not the here-and-now of Eudo’s insomnia, but rather it refers to Eudo’s life. Every day, when he is awake and walking around and whatever, all of that is like a chasm, because it is empty of meaning of joy.

“In dreams, at least, something is
I dearly wished for dreaming”

Literal: He can’t see anything right now; everything is blank and boring. He wants to fall asleep so he can dream.

Metaphorical: In the better life that he desires, there is meaning and happiness and freedom. He dearly wishes for this better life, and/or (if we use the metaphorical interpretation of “heart” earlier) he regrets his previous “be still” comment and dearly wishes to continue to dream, to hold on to his passions.

“but as before
would be again
the chasm was my only ken”

See the previous chasm bit for interpretations.

“My only sky
was made of stone”

Literal: The ceiling is made of stone.

Expanded Literal: Every day, wherever he goes, the ceiling is made of stone

Metaphorical: He has no freedom. When there are no limits, people like to say “the sky’s the limit”. Except a sky made of stone is quite limiting indeed, isn’t it?

“the stars themselves
were dim or bright
according to
the Masters’ whim”

Literal: The stone walls have “lights” in them, which glow by magic, and gain or lose luminosity according to the magic of the masters.

Metaphorical: The masters control everything. Even the stars have been conquered.

I like the use of the plural possessive “Masters'”. There are many masters, but they appear to act with a single mind.

“and I lay there, alone”

Literal: No one else is in the room

Metaphorical: No one understands him, or cares about him.

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Commentary: Old Song

Commentary on Old Song

This is actually a song. You can hear me sing it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92upbi8Mo2I

It’s a little hard to record the tune in book format (though I could use musical notation), so I only included the lyrics. I mirrored my feelings about this by having Eudo remark about his inability to record the tune. (Furthermore, since I wasn’t sure what to name the piece, I decided that Eudo had forgotten the title). It’s an interesting thought that, within the fiction, someone might read these words and then encounter the tune somewhere else. Similarly, outside the fiction, the same thing can happen.

The song was intended to ambiguous. The idea is that its original (fictional) authors found it peaceful, but from Eudo’s perspective it is a mixture of peace and horror.

Any references to being “by the sea” or “in the forest” would obviously pose a great contrast to Eudo’s existence during the Second Lichaf. “Calling to thee” may imply finding and meeting someone, or it may imply an endless, repetitive calling that reaches no one, because no one is there. This reflects back on the three “I” lines in the beginning; is it three separate speakers, or is it one person at different times and places, always alone no matter how far he travels?

“I tremble / I wonder” could be trembling in awe at the greatness of nature etc., or it could be simply trembling from cold or fear, or both. “Pathways asunder go I” could be seen in the spirit of freedom and self-determination, or it could imply being lost, and lonely.

“Dreams” could refer to sleeping, or to greater goals. In “though morning be waking / what seems to be their lullaby”, the second line may be the object of the verb “waking”, or it may be a separate question.

“A walker of ages Though sages no more me can tell / farewell” may mean that I am a walker of ages, but sages don’t know anymore about me than that. The next part would thus be the speaker saying “farewell” to cages (literal or metaphorical), declaring his independence. Or the part about sages may be part of the following lines: “fawell / to all of the cages / in which all the others may dwell”, which would imply that the sages cannot say “farewell” to, or depart from, the cages that we all inhabit. In other words, it would mean that even the wisest are trapped by coercion and conformity.

“I breathe in each moment” could mean “during each moment, I breathe”, or it could mean “I breathe in each moment”, taking the moment inside oneself. “for time be eternal / I shall carry on” doesn’t say whether this eternal time is something to be glad about.

The next stanza talks about hope, but the final line of that stanza is a possible subversion: “can be killed by no craft that we know“. What about craft that we don’t know? In particular, things that the original authors of the song had not experienced, such as incarceration in Morentoff.

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Commentary on Silence in the Snow

Commentary on Silence in the Snow

To hear me recite the poem out loud, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Z9E55zr-U

With this poem, I spoke from my own feelings.

I know what it’s like to face emotional emptiness, while still knowing that things will eventually change.

Many tales of Eudo involve a mixture of hope and despair this way.

I wrote the poem to be drifting, sorta-rhyming and then sorta-not-rhyming, to mimic the feeling. In this feeling, you see, there are moments when things make a bit more sense, and then they make less sense. Uncertainty pervades.

WordPress doesn’t like it when you add blank lines. Thus, the spacing was off until I fixed it in Feb 2010

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Commentary on “Foreword”

This is commentary on Foreword

I’ve been kicking around this idea for awhile (as is the case with most of my ideas).

One thing I want to do with this book is present it almost like a historical document.

The main way to do this is to change the physical nature of book, i.e. it should look like this, instead of this or this.

Another thing to do is to address the notion of how the book got here, in your hands.

J.R.R. Tolkien did a bit of this, claiming that Lord of the Rings was based on some ancient history, and that he had translated it all from its original language, etc.. (To be clear, though: He never actually pretended that the book was non-fiction.)

Tolkien said that his fantasy world was really the ancient history of modern-day Earth. That’s not at all the case with Eudo, so the picky reader will wonder how this ‘historical document” found its way into our universe. I dont plan on addressing that question. It’s a work of fiction, get over it. =)

Nevertheless, I’d like to introduce verisimilitude with regards to the origin of the book. So I figured that it was actually compiled by some sort of biographer. My first thought was that Eudo, in his later years, dictated his memoirs to someone else, who wrote them down. But then I decided to move the biographer a few generations into the future. This was so that (A) I’d have  a reasonable excuse for any errors that would crop up, and (B) It’s really odd to associate Eudo with the word “dictate”, because then technically he’d be a “dictator”.

Anyway, the Foreword sets this all up for me. The biographer is named Shelis Falcan. (That’s a girl, by the way.) I don’t think we’ll see much more from her, except maybe at the very end. Or maybe she can make a couple of notes throughout, explaining a few things? Hm…I suppose…

In any case, it’s quite possible that I’ll publish multiple editions of the book, expanding each time, and Shelis will write a new foreword for each of those expansions.

I like the mystery of this. She address a specific someone, a “you”. Who is she talking to? That’s for the reader to guess about. Metafictionally, the “you” is you, the reader, whoever you may be. And notice how I worked the word “fiction” into the end there, thus saying to the reader “Yeah, this book is fictional. But it teaches true ideals.”

I also kept other things vague. I don’t reveal exactly is Eudo is well-known or obscure in this future world. I don’t even reveal what Shelis thinks about Eudo. Sure, she believe his story is important, but does that mean she likes him, or hates him? (Privately, I think of her as a Eudo sympathizer).

I introduce the word “Lichaf” casually. I hope the reader will get the gist of it after he reads a few stories. I like the idea of friends, reading separate copies of the book, discussing with each other what “lichaf” means, along with countless other mysteries.

Shelis mentions that the tales are numbered. Actually, at present, they’re not. But I thought I might do that, like “NameOfTale, The Three-hundreth and Thiry-Forth tale of the Second Lichaf of the Life of Eudo the Wanderer.” These numbers would be in exact chronological order, though the tales would still be printed out-of-order. This would allow people to reconstruct the order if they felt like it, to clarify what happened when. It would lead to speculation, like “woah, this is tale #343, I wonder what happened in all the previous 342 tales…”. I’ll probably use more numbers than I have stories for, leaving gaps so there’s always room for speculation. And I can explain the gaps by saying that those manuscripts were lost with the passage of time.

With regards to numbers, Shelis mentions “my predecessor”. The idea is that, a couple generations ago, some other biographer compiled a zillion tales and numbered them all.

I didn’t write “Foreword” at the top, because I don’t think it should be there. For some reason it seems better that the text should just start. Also, Shelis’s name, at the end, should be an actual cursive signature.

Wow. This commentary is longer than the actual thing.

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Commentary on “The Shemonite Cave”

This is commentary on The Shemonite Cave

I wrote this tale soon after I wrote the Prologue. My thought was, since Prologue is intensely up-close, why don’t we back off? I decided to write a story in which Eudo hardly appears, except at the very end. So now the reader has the memory of Eudo’s pain, and now sees Eudo from a distance. In reconciling these facts, the reader comes to realize how little we really know of Eudo (and futhermore, about each other). We know that this pain is deeply within Eudo, and yet it doesn’t show up in this story. I’m trying to highlight the contrast, see?

Furthermore, I introduce the fact that Eudo survives at least three years after his graying, and that the Federation would surely freak out if they knew. This gives us a nice bit of tension for future stories.

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Commentary on “Prologue”

This is commentary on Prologue

I might retitle it “The Graying”, in part because it seems odd to have both a Prologue and a Foreword

This feels like a good way to start the book (though I still plan to include the Foreword). It starts right in the middle of action, except it’s not action in the normal sense. I mean, the biggest component of this is his emotional state. The first line, “I felt it in my soul”, was chosen with care. The whole book is meant to be an introspective work. It’s all about how tyranny affects not just the body, but also the mind and soul. Every other story seems to focus on the body; i.e. some form of immediate physical danger, which is dealt with in a physical way. And yeah, the characters in those stories still have minds and souls etc., but I still feel that the emphasis is wrong.

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Commentary on “Mischief in the Air”

Hey there. I made some comments on Mischief in the Air.

Then I decided it would be better to make a separate, “commentary” page.

So here’s what I said earlier:

I wasn’t sure what to call this one. I thought of “A Mischievious Wind”, but I figured the word “wind” was kinda overused as it was. I also thought of calling it “Hallis” or “The Hallis Plain” or “Hallis Merande”. What do you think?

One thing I hope is clear: I don’t envision the wind as literally an evil spirit; that’s just an old story. And I don’t think Eudo believes in the spirit, even when he talks to it. He’s really talking to himself, saying symbolically “I refuse to give up”

Here’s the symbolism I was going for:

The wind in this case is like corrupt authority. First it strips away your sense of direction (or self). Then it pushes you in a particular direction, and the easist thing is just to go along with it. You figure that it’ll lead somewhere. But this wind/authority leads nowhere, in fact it specifically keeps you in the same dang place, which is devoid of anything useful. Going with the corrupt authority gets you nowhere. Giving up also gets you nowhere. The big empty surroundings show what it feels like, and of course we demonstrate the apparenty futility of everything when corrupt authority (devil’s wind) is the only thing by which to orient yourself. The only thing to do is to find a landmark (Truth, Justice, or in this case a mountain), and orient yourself according to that.

Also one small other note: the stones that Eudo used for “this is where I was going” are brown, and the mountain he heads for in the end is also brown.

Now, this says nothing at all about what wind may or may not symbolize in other stories. (In fact, the Geo Mandre love wind, as a symbol of freedom.) This is story-specific.

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