Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Karl Henning]

Here! Bring it!

[Cato]

Cato,

Thanks for emailing the first chapters! I have had trouble opening the second one (different format, I think, won't open on my laptop), so have only read up to the end of number one, which I did over my lunchtime today. Do you want my thoughts (all extremely positive)? Here or via email? Let me know!

Sure!  Let me know what you think!   Many thanks for spending time to read through it!  I have re-sent Chapter II, so I hope it is not unformatted by the e-mail process.


Best Wishes!

[Luke]

OK, great! Will read it absolutely a.s.a.p!

The following are my thoughts on your first chapter, unedited and exactly as I wrote them down whilst devouring it, nearly three weeks ago:




OK - these are first thoughts whilst reading your opening chapter, based especially on the opening pages, in which your tone is laid out most clearly, as in an exposition, before development makes things more complex:

I really loved it, Cato:

I love the delicate way it hangs poised between darkly serious and wryly spryly dry - which has lots to do with your lovely, effortlessly compact turn of phrase which makes me very jealous;

I love the way that, despite hardly describing the initial setting at all, it is all there by insinuation, in the name Knutsen, in the 'dark B flat minor' and so on - it is very real and present in the reader's mind long before you mention the 'green-gray forest' - I hope I am right in assuming this to be a northern, Nordic land at some point early last century or earlier, because that is the assumption on which some of the following is based.

I love how the two main characters fall straight into philosophical and moral speculation in a way which is both unrealistic and true at a deeper level - how life should be, as it were - in the way you would find in a stylised Norwegian novel where dialogue, setting, plot, character all settle into a simple and profound unity (Hamsun, perhaps, but then maybe I am only thinking that because you have placed my mind in a old world Nordic twilight with a character whose name includes the syllable Knut - but then, that is part of your craft, the writer exercising the power of suggestion over the helpless reader!)

I love the clarity of the dialogue. It is not wordy, it is concise, it walks the tightrope between believable speech and finely-honed prose expertly: sometimes there is a slightly stylised, formal air about it which I found gave just the right tone, partly setting us back in a more formal, deferential time, but also imparting a certain lightly-worn tautness, a tension which played its part in setting the atmosphere so adroitly.

I loved, above all, the accomplished, virtuosic stylistic control and subtletly in the writing, though! For instance, at first read, 'contemporary' words like 'protoplasm,' phrases such as 'like I said' (instead of 'as I said'), the non-traditional use of multiple !!! and mixed !? and CAPS and BOLDED CAPS all jarred slightly, because they didn't (for me) seem to fit with the diction of the time period the piece seems to inhabit. But they kept coming, scattered through the text every now and then, and by force of a very subtle attrition they gradually seemed actually to enrich that unusual and very characteristic slightly distanced tone which made the chapter such an intriguing pleasure to read: as if twenty-first century emotions were fighting their way through nineteenth century minds....And then, when the woman suddenly jumps through the window on page 20 - such a bizarre, utterly unexpected action, so very 'modern' - those emotions are suddenly unleashed, all springs into place, all becomes a cohesive whole: those very small stylistic disjunctions are now really revealed to be stylistic contributors to the slightly surreal, off-kilter parallel world the text is leading us into.

That world is somewhat Kafaesque. That's a word I hate, as it is so often mis-used, but I mean it stylistically, not as a quick-fix adjective to stand for terms such as labyrinthine, angsty, hellish, expresisonist, or whatever it usually means. I mean quite precisely - the simple way in which The Woman jumps out of the window, and the captain's reaction, is precisely detailed in a calm, neutral series of nouns and verbs...

...with preternatural swiftness The Woman snatched her case, opened the window, and jumped outside!  So stupefied by her speed and so overwhelmed by the entire action itself, the old man felt his head tremble, as his eyes and mind tried to focus on The Woman and on any possible reason why she would have wanted to jump outside through the window!  After standing up and leaning on the sill, Captain Knutsen quizzically, and then with great trepidation, began to gaze into the black field next to the little hotel. Barely visible from the glow of his lamps was The Woman, several steps away, and crouched with her left ear tilted upward and apparently perceiving a distant emanation...

...reminds me precisely of Kafka, from whom the most obvious example is:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes

.

And this in turn gives the surrealism of the writing a somewhat fabulistic/metaphorical feeling, which in fact is there from the start, not just from this point, although this is where I began to recognise where I had felt it before. And it is from after this point that The Woman's language, already bizarre, extreme and mystifying, becomes truly outrageous...

'...mere words cannot contain the complexity of my thoughts!  I would need infinity itself to hold my ideas, and to describe them, spectra visible only in another universe, and sounds audible only to the dead...'

...and the blackly comic tone of the book becomes more overt and extreme...

....he also had to decide whether to head toward the door or the window.  Since buildings are usually entered by means of doors, he chose that method of entrance, and hoped that their guest would imitate such normalcy.

It is this sort of very clever verbal and stylistic pacing which makes this work as brilliantly as it does, taking one from a dock on some Northern island, unspecified decades ago, to a kind of philosophical and metaphysical parallel world seamlessly. I am seriously in awe!

As I said, I LOVED it!!! <-  

[Cato]

Many thanks again, Luke, for taking the time to share your enthusiasm and for the comparisons with novelists of the caliber of Hamsun and Kafka!

After my previous two novels used broadly ironic - and sometimes vaudevillian - humor in episodes of "microdrama" both epic in effect and childlike, I wanted to try a story with "disquieting humor" and which would be more of a contemplation on the idea of mystery than a mystery.  In a similar fashion, Beowulf for example is more of a meditation on the nature of a hero's life than a story of all the deeds, or even of the greatest deeds, of a hero.

Have I revealed that this novel - now approaching 100,000 words - began life c. 20 years ago as a short story of 14 pages?  0:)

It has plagued me for two decades: "You should really turn that into a novel!"   

And so the wheel has turned: I hope that the succeeding chapters do not disappoint you!  My other readers (e.g. the excellent Karl Henning who has spent a good chunk of his life reading my words      ) agree that - so far - the story increases their curiosity from chapter to chapter, and has made them wonder about ideas temporal and eternal.

[Karl Henning]

How nest the tuplets, lad? 

[Karl Henning]

[...] Have I revealed that this novel - now approaching 100,000 words - began life c. 20 years ago as a short story of 14 pages?  0:)

It has plagued me for two decades: "You should really turn that into a novel!"   

And so the wheel has turned: I hope that the succeeding chapters do not disappoint you!  My other readers (e.g. the excellent Karl Henning who has spent a good chunk of his life reading my words      ) agree that - so far - the story increases their curiosity from chapter to chapter, and has made them wonder about ideas temporal and eternal.

And the latest chapter is dynamite!

[Cato]

How nest the tuplets, lad? 

A very good question! "Tip-toe, Through The Tuplets, La de da-da..."

And the latest chapter is dynamite!

Not responsible for accidents! 

[Luke]

How nest the tuplets, lad? 

Still feeling a bit like this....

[Cato]

Luke!  It is high time to feel like this bird: 

[Cato]

"Use The Force,LUKE!"

[Cato]

Luke!  We would  like to hear from you and your music paper!

Or just you would be fine also!   

[Karl Henning]

I had a nice (albeit necessarily brief) chat with Luke yesterday!  Life has taken a busy turn, so he's unable even to look in much, nor does he see just when that will change.  But his novel-in-progress has an ancillary function as memoranda for various pieces he's fixin' to write at that future time when he has time for writing &c.  Keep those votives lit!

[Karl Henning]

Had a quick word with Luke this afternoon.  Busy, Easter holiday week.

[Sean]

Good man, Luke.

[Karl Henning]

A nice chat with Luke today;  he has a concert he is preparing for, and assisting with a school production of Back to the Woods.  So, his hands are full!  But he will be back.

[Cato]

A nice chat with Luke today;  he has a concert he is preparing for, and assisting with a school production of Back to the Woods.  So, his hands are full!  But he will be back.

Is that a school concert or a concert for his own works?  Glad to hear he intends to return!

[Luke]

And here I am! 

It was a piano recital at lunchtime today, and, yes, it included a little something I wrote especially for it. I used the deadline of the performance as an incentive to actually write something for the first time in months/years. Even so it was quite an agonising process, and I got really down about it over the course of the last few days as I tried unsuccessfully to compose. As has been the case for a very, very long time, everything I wrote just seemed to be so awful. I cringed at it, and got very angry with myself, very despondent. It has seemed for all this time that maybe I will never write anything again, and that has been something very hard to contemplate, because it would mean reassessing who I am - I've always thought of myself as a composer, or at least someone who composes, in however minor a degree, and if I'm not that, who am I? This week that feeling has been worse than ever.

But then finally, at almost the last minute, on Thursday, something seemed to go right. I quite liked it a couple of bars I'd written. I wrote a few more. Then I looked back at what I'd written and, lo and behold if, completely unplanned, it wasn't identical in style to pieces I had been writing back in c.2010. The same use of modes, the same use of mostly four-part heterophonic textures, the same initial flourishes opening up the harmonic space, the same slow tempo and predominant 3/8 metre. That was a style I had originally arrived at through a lot of soul-searching (all documented on this thread) as representing 'me' most accurately in musical terms, but nevertheless I suppose I've been trying to broaden it in all my abortive attempts at composing in the last few years. So what happened on Thursday taught me a simple lesson - that the style I had arrived at might be very narrow and limited, but I had been right in the first place: it is the one for me. I simply stayed up for a couple of hours that night and finished the piece in the early hours of Friday morning, and gave its world premiere ( ) today. Simple as that. It feels good to have written something again, something simple and something not-at-all different to what I was doing before, but something I am pleased with nevertheless. The score is attached.

The concert itself was quite successful, and people were very nice about it, and particularly about the way I constructed the program, which was as follows:

-Debussy – La fille aux cheveux de lin
-Brahms – Ballades op 10
-Eric Chisholm – Craobh nam Teud (Lament for the Harp Tree , from Piobaireachd)
-Debussy - Bruyères
-Schubert arr. Heller – Der Leiermann
-Gluck arr. Sgambati – Mélodie de Gluck (from Orphée et Eurydice)
-Luke Ottevanger – Padma
-John Foulds – 'Exotic' - Essays in the Modes op 78 no 1
-Fauré – Romance sans paroles op 17 no 3

and it was all built around the things which have been concerning me recently, namely the places and concepts and connections which have been running around in my brain through the writing of my nearly-finished 200000+ word novel, the project which has taken the place of composing for the last couple of years. I'm writing the book for fun, nothing more, but it has been the most wonderful experience writing it. My program note for today's concert explains a little of why I chose the pieces I did, but it also illustrates some of the things my book is concerned with, so I'll copy it here to give an idea of the sort of things I've been thinking about....

A few words about the pieces I'm going to play today, and also a little bit about why I chose them, because they're an odd little selection! For the last year and a half I've been amusing myself by writing a novel, set on the Isle of Skye and also, in part, in Kashmir. Writing and researching has left all sorts of ideas and connections buzzing round in my head, and the pieces I'm going to play today are a result of that.

The first few pieces, then, have Scottish connections, starting with  Debussy's famous Girl with the Flaxen Hair,  which is a short, simple and sweet depiction of a Scottish girl sitting out on the moors inspired by a poem by de Lisle.

In contrast Brahms's Four Ballades are the longest and maybe the heaviest work on this programme. Brahms wrote them when he was young, and they were composed under the influence of what you could call the 'bardic' style, which was inspired by ancient Scottish stories and songs. The first one, in particular, is based upon the dark and disturbing old Scottish song 'Edward' - in fact in the first notes you can hear that name calling through the music: 'Edward, Edward.' This piece is part of the reason I called the main protagonist of my book  Edward..

As a palate cleanser after the Brahms comes a short, fresh piece by a little known composer called Eric Chisholm. Chisholm actually wrote some compositions under the influence of Indian music but he is probably best understood as being something like the Scottish version of his friend Bartok. That impenetrable word beginning with 'P' at the front of this programme is actually simply pronounced 'pibroch,' which is the most high-minded, refined and private form of bagpipe music. On the front of this programme you can see part of a transcription of the original pibroch on which Chisholm based this particular piece. It is clear how complex and involved it is!

Finally in this Scottish section of the programme, there's another Debussy piece to round things off. The title Bruyères means 'heather,' and I think what Debussy might have been doing here in this piece from his second set of Preludes in 1913, was trying to recapture the Scottish flavour of the very popular Girl with the Flaxen Hair from the first set in 1910! I've played this piece for years and years, but only recently have I noticed all the hidden allusions to bagpipe music in it – the little skirls of notes filling in the gaps between the main melody notes, and at the end the deep rumbling bass drone.

Now the music leaves Skye and it begins its journey to Kashmir. First of all, though, we stop off in Germany with Stephen Heller's transciption of the  iconic, bleak last song of Schubert's song cycle Winterreise, which also plays an important role in my book. What you hear first in this piece might sound like the bagpipes which ended the Debussy but it's actually Schubert's depiction of a hurdy-gurdy, being played by an old blind man in a desolate, snow-bound village.

The old hurdy-gurdy player is a symbol of death, and in the next piece we journey down into the underworld itself. Gluck's opera Orpheus and Euridice tells the famous story of Orpheus rescuing his dead wife Euridice from the clutches of Hades, only to lose her at the last moment. All that is important in my book, too, but what I really loved was learning that Gluck wrote this opera on a piano which had been carried out into he fields, with a bottle of champagne at each side. The coincidence that there is an open-air piano in my book just makes that fact more appealing to me!

We emerge from the underworld somewhere very far away, and the next piece is one of my own. In fact I wrote it this week, specifically for today. Padma is the Tibetan word for the sacred lotus, but it is also the name of a Kashmiri character in my book. The piece depicts both. The lotus is a hallowed image in various eastern cultures because its flower represents a divine purity whose roots are nevertheless in the mud. If you listen carefully you might hear the mud in the low notes which run quietly all the way through my piece, a bit like a bagpipe drone or even a hurdy-gurdy, or in fact an Indian tanpura I only play these notes once, the rest is done by a bit of trickery with three pencils!

My piece is followed by a piece by a fascinating and eccentric composer called John Foulds who, like Eric Chisholm, was deeply influenced by both Scottish music and Indian music. In his Essays in the Modes he uses only a fixed group of notes for each piece, which is coincidentally something I do in my music too. This one, called 'Exotic', is certainly full of the mystery of the East!

Finally we step out of these mysterious regions for a short, simple piece by Fauré. I'm playing this simply because I love it, and it doesn't have much connection to my book, except, I suppose, if I'm really forcing the issue, that the mystery at the centre of my book is also concerned with a romance which is conducted without words.

Good to be here! I miss you guys all a lot. It is lovely to have Karl call me up every so often, makes me feel in touch with you all. I check the board pretty often, and as time and life and music allows I will return as much as I can.




[EDIT - score removed because of a misprint, and reattached to a post on the next page]

[Sean]

Hey Luke

...and if I'm not that, who am I? Have faith! Same situation for all...

Padma of course is a name for the lotus in Hindu gods' iconography...

[Karl Henning]

Sibelius q. viz. Padma . . . how did you do that with the third staff? 

[Luke]

Hey Luke

...and if I'm not that, who am I? Have faith! Same situation for all...

Padma of course is a name for the lotus in Hindu gods' iconography...

Hi Sean - nice to see you here 

Yes, and, actually, that's a little slip which got through my notes, because the Tibetan for lotus is generally transliterated as pema, though obviously it is the same root, more a difference of pronunciation. But in my book the character, who is Ladahki, not Tibetan, but they are of course closely related, is nevertheless called Padma.

Of course, lotus is one one meaning of the word generally transliterated as 'padme' in 'Om mani padme hum...'


@ Karl - yes, it is a bit easier to do in e.g. Sib 3 or 4, where you just click 'staff type change > hidden.' But it is easy in Sib 7 too, once you know how - just select the bars to be hidden and then perform an instrument change on them (by clicking the 'change' icon which is next to 'add or remove' on the Home bar). Select the 'no instrument (hidden)' option.