The Old Palazzo

The Old Palazzo

 A ghost story

Buying a palazzo in Valletta had been her husband’s idea.  Susan had never fully fathomed why a Yorkshireman born and bred should want to spend his retirement years and their hard-earned pension on a tiny Mediterranean island.  Perhaps Jim yearned for a whiff of the exotic after a generally dull and uneventful life.  Perhaps he wanted to recapture the magic of those months he had spent in Malta during his brief, youthful stint in the navy...or the memory of a first love, she thought, not without a dull throb of jealousy.

Call her old-fashioned, but Susan had never been one to contradict her husband, even when, as in this case, she had her own misgivings. She convinced herself that, as long as he took care of all the practicalities, his choice would be fine by her. Anyway, she knew only too well that, if she voiced any doubts, Jim’s reaction would be a curt “Don’t worry yourself silly, Sue!” underlined with a chiding, conclusive grin, as if he were addressing a wayward child. Better let him be. She was happy enough seeing him browse real estate websites, comparing the merits of this and that building with a new-found enthusiasm which took her somewhat by surprise. And when Jim bought their flight tickets to “embark on a property expedition”, as he put it, Susan did not disappoint him, feigning a keenness which, frankly, she did not share.

The palazzo they had travelled so far to view teetered over a cobbled alley in a quiet part of the city.  A young and pimply estate agent led them into the roofless central courtyard and enthusiastically pointed out the building’s traditional features – the winding stairs with poky rooms sprouting off unexpected landings (“plenty of character, eh!”), the high ceilings of the second floor (“how spacious! how imposing!”), the underground cellar with its well hewn by hand centuries before (“back-breaking job, wouldn’t volunteer for it myself!”).  In the few years he had spent living there, the previous occupier had spent a small fortune renovating the place, with mixed results.    In the lower levels the plaster was flaking off in patches, fighting a losing battle against the rising damp.  In the cellar, the walls were covered with unwanted junk accumulated over the decades.   But the rooms at the top floor were comfortable enough and tastefully decked out with some judiciously chosen antique furniture.  It was quickly decided. This would be their retirement nest and Sue should not “worry herself silly”.

Well, she consoled herself, it was not as if they would be leaving any close relatives behind them. In the early years of their marriage, her husband had been adamant that they should not have any children as “they were enough company for each other”. That was exactly how it had been so far, and that was how it would be in this final chapter of their life.

Tragedy struck just a few months after they moved to Malta.   One dark winter morning, Jim got out of bed uncharacteristically early. It was Susan who found him a couple of hours later, sprawled lifeless in the courtyard. “Massive heart attack,” the doctor decreed. 

Massive heart attack – a death sentence in which Susan stood as co-accused, condemned to become the lonely mistress of her husband’s final folly.  

Truth be told, there were times when she believed she would be able to adapt to the life thrust upon her. In summer, for instance, she spent whole days in the upper balconies, from where she could get a glimpse of white sails lazily crossing the harbour, whilst a salty breeze caressed her face.   Summer brought with it the festa season, when the streets of Valletta would be thronged with revellers and marching bands celebrating the feast of the city’s patron saints, and even this sleepy side of town erupted into hundreds of coloured fairy lights. 

***

Tonight, summer seems so distant. It is a dark and wintry evening, and Susan longs to be back in England.  She listens to the gusts of wind, whining as they wind their way around the jagged rooftops, the rain pattering dully against her bedroom window.  No doubt about it.  Better the harsh yet familiar winters of home than this clammy sort of cold which seeps through the thick walls and seems to drain your soul.  Rest does not come easy to her lately and Susan feels that this evening will be no exception.  She tosses and turns in a four-poster bed which has become too big for her until, finally, her body succumbs to yet another fitful night. 

A cry nudges her out of her sleep. 

At first, drifting in the no-man’s land between dreams and wakefulness, Susan isn’t even sure she has heard anything at all.  But here it is again, that plaintive sound, somewhere between a wail and a whimper.  She shudders and buries her head under the blankets.  Funny how a couple of layers of bedding manage to instil in her a childish sense of security. 

That cry again. 

Susan switches on the lamp and the shadows leap back to the farthest corners of the room.  The sight of familiar objects comforts her: the hands of the clock pointing to just after two, the solid bulk of the wardrobe, a glass of water standing on the bedside table beside a half-unread novel.  She crawls out of bed, pulls a dressing gown around her shoulders and goes to the window.  The storm has abated.  The alley is deserted.

There is no mistaking it this time.  Susan can distinctly hear a moan, and much as she hates to admit it, whoever … whatever… is making this anguished sound is inside the house.  She shudders, a sense of unease creeping upon her.  She considers calling for help, phoning the police. But what will she say?  That she is spooked by odd noises in an old house?  No.  She has to brave the night alone.   Despite her mounting fear, she also knows that she has to face this intruder.  That cry, terrible as it was, feels like a siren song, taking hold of her will, drawing her towards its source. 

Slowly she makes her way out of the bedroom and stumbles down the stairs, steeling her body at every turn, scarcely able to breathe.  The beckoning voice iss growing louder, seemingly more desperate.  With each step, her feelings of dread grow, as does her conviction that what is calling her is no living thing.   She hears confused whispers tumbling around her, their meaning ungraspable.   She closes her eyes and steadies herself against the wall.  Come on Sue, what on earth is happening to you? Scaring yourself silly, aren’t you?

When she reaches the internal courtyard, a rush of cold air brings her to her senses. Shivering in her nightgown, she struggles to make sense of what has come over her.  She is still in time to leave the building, to run out and bang on a neighbour’s door and ask for help. In the light of day, they will probably have a good laugh together over her nocturnal escapade. 

But then another sound catches her ears.   In the cellar, a child is sobbing.  Her head spins.  How can a child have ended up in her house? Some inquisitive boy perhaps? Or a prank in bad taste?  She leans against the massive cellar door, putting all her weight behind her.  If this is a sick joke, well, she’ll show them.  Oh, yes she will... A dank, musty smell overpowers Susan as she sets foot inside the entrance.  She gropes around for the light switch, only to realise that the basement is already bathed in a bluish light, as if a full moon has made its way into the bowels of the building.  Falteringly, she descends the uneven steps. 

An unearthly sight stops her in her tracks.  Before her, as on a badly-lit stage, a scene is being played out.  A figure in a long black dress is hitting a toddler cowered beneath it.  The boy, not more than a couple of years old, is hunched on the ground, uselessly covering his face with his arms, unable to ward off the violent beating.  

Anger and pity well up inside her.   The boy looks like the son she never had.  She longs to reach for him, hold him in her arms, nurse him to health.  Her body has grown leaden and, in her heart, she feels… she knows… that tragedy is inevitable.  Saving him is beyond her, or any mortal’s, powers.  The blows persist mercilessly until the boy falls, immobile and lifeless, on the cold flagstones. 

Only then does she regain her strength and rush towards the murderer.  The figure turns. What horror is this?  The apparition standing before her has no human countenance.  Facing her is an eyeless skull, clad in pale skin drawn like taut parchment, from which dangle a few locks of straggling, sooty hair.  Dried, black lips pull back to reveal yellowish teeth, locked in an eternal evil grin. In a flash she realises that what she had mistaken for a dress is a coarse, earth-stained shroud, rotting with age, hanging from skeletal shoulders.

The cry echoes around the house.  It is a scream at once of terror, of guilt, of utter despair.  And, this time, the cry is hers.

***

Susan’s body was found a few days later, after an inquisitive neighbour noticed her absence and reported the matter to the Police.  Mrs Benson, miskina, had suffered a heart attack, just like her poor husband.    Who said one couldn’t die of a broken heart?

At least, that is the official version doing the rounds of the city.  The locals, however, know a couple of tales which they dare not repeat.  They have all heard the half-forgotten tale of the tragedy which had cursed the old building.  A young woman had been seduced by a respectable and well-connected family man. When she gave birth to his child, the mother, barely grown up herself, had killed her son in a fit of insanity and had then taken her own life by hanging herself in that very cellar.   Her lover, in a late show of contrition, or more likely, to protect his reputation, had contrived to hush the scandal. 

Maybe the story is true.  And then again, maybe not.  But if you look carefully among the cast-off junk in the cellar of the old palazzo, you might well find an old, decaying cot and, behind it, a coiled length of rope.

Yorkshire Tales : "Elmet" by Fiona Mozley

Yorkshire Tales

A Review of Elmet by Fiona Mozley

I Love Chopin

“La signora in rosso” Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931)

"I love Chopin,” she says.

Like a stolen kiss,

her fingertips caress

the string of pearl-white keys,

drawing forth a stream of honeyed melody.

“This is no mortal work of art,”

she murmurs, eyes half-closed,

“this is a piece a demigod composed,

as though

its notes were

dancing specks of light

in song-bejewelled air,

summoned down from heaven by his quill.”

“Oh, how I love Chopin,” she sighs.

And suddenly I hate this man

who walked a different land so long ago

yet whispers in her ear still,

quickening her heart.

***

I’m posting this on the anniversary of Chopin’s death on October 17, 1849.  And how best to mark this, if not with some of his music.  Here’s a young Martha Argerich, setting fire to the score.

And now Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, elegant even in the mopping of his brow.

Finally, Alice Sara Ott and Olafur Arnalds give the old master and contemporary electronic twist.

Feat Gothique : a review of "the first Gothic novel", The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

The First Gothic Novel 

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

As Halloween draws nigh, my ghoulish posts continue with a review of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, widely considered as the “first Gothic novel”.  But in the matter-of-fact 21st century, should we read it for scares or for laughs?

***

Considered in isolation, this slight novel is, frankly, underwhelming, especially to modern readers. A faux-medieval tale of chivalric derring-do and supernatural goings-on in a dark Italian castle, its convoluted plot is at best unconvincing and at worst bordering on the unintelligible. The characters are disappointingly two-dimensional, the dialogue overly melodramatic. The otherworldly elements are so unsubtle as to come across as grotesque (the novel starts with Conrad, the heir of a noble family, crushed under a giant plumed helmet which has appeared out of thin air) and the novel’s intentionally humorous streak dashes any chance of us feeling any spine-tingling fear just as surely as the “fearful casque” mangles Conrad’s body.

Yet, this 1764 novel deserves respect as (probably) the first Gothic novel, the unlikely instigator of a genre which would give rise to such undoubted masterpieces as, amongst countless others, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Gothic is a genre that still lives on modern horror and weird fiction and its influences spread well beyond the confines of literature.

Seen in this light, The Castle of Otranto starts to reveal merits which might not be immediately obvious. The obsession with the supernatural, the OTT dramatic language, the neo-medievalisms were striking and innovative at the time when the novel was written. What might now seem “facile cliches” (crumbling castles, subterranean passages, chivalric ideals) would only become “Gothic tropes” after other authors jumped on the Walpole bandwagon. The uncomfortable mix of horror and humour was a peculiarly English trait with roots in Chaucer and Shakespeare. And, underneath the novel’s self-indulgent trappings, there was also an element of radical social critique – the heads of the family come across as abusive, scheming and manipulative; the female characters are not as submissive as (18th century) society might have wanted them to be (Isabella is promised in marriage to the weak Conrad but openly admires other more beautiful knights; Princess Matilda, also pressed into marriage, resists these suggestions and first entertains thoughts of taking the veil then falls in love with a travelling peasant). 

Walpole's novel might, in our day and age, be entertaining for all the wrong reasons, but one cannot deny its incredibly far-reaching cultural impact.

***

For further reading, I suggest this review by writer and critic Ted Gioa.  This was originally posted as part of his Year of Horrible Reading, which saw Gioa reading through an impressive list of Gothic and horror titles.  I also refer to The Castle of Otranto in a blog post of my own about the Gothic in classical music.   I had built a playlist of classical music to accompany the article.  I wish you hours of (un)easy listening.

London Incognita : The Eden Book Society presents D.A. Northwood's "Judderman"

D.A Northwood's Judderman

The Eden Book Society lives again

Judderman is the second book in the "Eden Book Society" series published by Dead Ink Press.   I was toying with the idea of playing along with the meta-fictional premise of the series and providing a biography of its author D.A Northwood, the obscure writer who “disappeared from his Tottenham flat in 1981, at the age of 38”. Frankly, however, I think it does greater justice to the project to actually explain the 'conceit' which underpins it. Here it is, in brief.

 
The (fictional) "Eden Book Society" was set up in 1919, publishing horror novellas for a private list of subscribers. Eden books were elusive things - written under a pseudonym, available only to a select few, occasionally turning up in jumble sales or unexpected locations. Dead Ink Press, the publishing house behind this literary experiment, purportedly acquired the back catalogue of the Society, and will reprint the novellas sequentially, starting from 1972. In actual fact, the books are penned by a group of specially commissioned writers. The list sounds like a roll-call of leading contemporary British horror writers: Andrew Michael Hurley, Alison Moore, Aliya Whiteley, Jenn Ashworth and Richard V Hirst, Sam Mills, Gary Budden. 

The brilliance of this project lies in the fact that the very concept behind it creates an aura of mystery and suspense. And then there's that meta-literary playfulness which is typical of classic Gothic. With the novels purportedly originally issued in 1972, the authors have to succeed in an ambitious double-act :  evoking the style of 70s horror whilst taking us back to the atmosphere of that decade. It's a sort of historical scary fiction. 

Where Holt House, the first instalment in the series, combined folk and existential horror,  Judderman falls squarely within the "urban weird" genre and, more specifically, the sub-category of London Gothic. The story revolves around brothers Gary and Daniel Eider, who are trying to catalogue a 'peripheral' city, one rich in urban myth and esoterism, a shadowy place they refer to as "London Incognita".  Amongst the dying embers of a decadent society, a new ghoul-like figure is sighted. It's the Judderman, a malevolent figure which seems to be made out of the evil which is gripping the city. Daniel follows this monster into oblivion. He goes missing, leaving Gary to roam in London’s occult underworld in a bid to solve the mystery of his brother's disappearance.

 
My first impression upon reading the novella (most appropriately, on a flight to London), was that this could have been a joint effort of Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair, after a night smoking marijuana and listening to early Pink Floyd. "Judderman" is, like the work of these authors, strongly rooted in 'psychogeography', the quasi-mystical idea that urban spaces hold and summon a collective historical memory. Indeed, Daniel and Gary's feverish visions often involve images of old, ancient and even prehistoric London. Interestingly, the novella manages to combine the very real horrors which gripped the 70s (unemployment, drugs, racial and sectarian violence, IRA bombings) with imagined ones stemming from urban myth (such as monsters living in unused Underground stations) - a hellish marriage of London Cognita and Incognita. And to add more flavour to the meta-mix, there are extracts from lost diaries, stories within stories, quotes from fictional authors.

Who's behind this unsettling literary concoction? Perhaps the choice of Gary as one of the protagonist's names is a clue. But one can never be too sure. This is the Eden Book Society after all...

***

If I had to choose an album to accompany the novella, it would be Portishead’s self-titled album.  Yes, yes, I know that the band’s brand of trip-hop is primarily associated with Bristol, not London.  Yet, there’s so much about Portishead which reminds me of this novel.  When issued in 1997, critics noted its “Gothic” and “deadly” atmosphere and the very clear influence of 60s and 70s soundtracks.   And then there are the meta-fictional games : the album’s liner notes refer to samples taken from songs by other bands – in actual fact, most of the samples on the album were created by Portishead and credited to imaginary/invented artists.  For a feel of this “urban Gothic” sound, check out the video of “Only You” with the dark visuals of Chris Cunningham. 

Haunted by Old Forms : Contemporary ghost story anthologies by "The Fiction Desk" and "Shadows at the Door"

 Haunted by Old Forms  

two ghost story anthologies

As October starts, many of my more Goth-minded friends start a countdown to Halloween. Or so it seems from my twitter feed, which right now is rich in suggestions for horror novels, ghostly tales and scary movies.  Here’s my own small contribution to this ghoulfest – reviews of two collections of contemporary ghost stories which reveal that the form is alive and kicking.  Or should I say, undead? 

***

New Ghost Stories III : A Fiction Desk Anthology

The heyday of the "classic English ghost story" was in the 19th and early 20th Century, when a host of authors - some brilliant, others clearly less so - shaped the genre as we know it. The ghost story is, of course, a much wider cultural phenomenon, with its roots in the folklore and traditions of different societies. Even within the supposedly limited confines of the literary genre, the sheer variety of supernatural manifestations portrayed is surprising. There are the "proper" ghosts, souls returning from the dead to communicate with the living, complete unfinished business, wreak vengeance or, on occasion, for purposes as elusive as their diaphanous shapes. In the folk-horrorish works of Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, the otherworldly beings have pagan overtones or are closely related to the faerie folk. Some apparitions are "demonic" and monster-like in nature - in M.R. James, the horrors are often unexpectedly physical - whilst, at the other end of the spectrum, the reader is occasionally left wondering whether the supposed hauntings are "all in the mind".

New Ghost Stories III is the eleventh Fiction Desk anthology and the third one to be exclusively dedicated to this genre. It features seven tales - six of which are the winners of the latest two ghost story competitions organised by the publication. Editor Rob Redman provides an introduction to the collection, as well as a brief preface to each story.

Refreshingly, the featured pieces are authentic supernatural tales, rather than exercises in “magical realism” or metaphorical interpretations of the “ghost” figure. They also owe much to the literary canon. Look closer, however, and you will realise that the same horror tropes which make them familiar to the reader are subtly being undermined. A case in point is The Crypt Beneath the Library by Barney Walsh. The setting is one which M.R. James would have recognised – a crypt housing a collection of medieval illuminated manuscripts possibly haunted by a spectral monk and/or a demonic figure. The protagonist, however, couldn’t be more different than James’s male professorial types. Bethany, in fact, is a young undergraduate “atheist medievalist” and the story itself can be read as a protest against the patriarchal university and college hierarchies implied in James’s stories. Similarly, Jerry Ibbotson’s The Intruder and Richard Agemo’s The House Friends both explore the “haunted house” genre and take it into new and intriguing directions. The Archivist, by Philippa East, evokes a different tradition – that of American scary movies. It is set in the sanatorium of an abandoned boarding school which will soon be pulled down. An archivist sent to catalogue the old school files comes across past horrors in the old documents, but also faces other terrors in the shape of an uncanny doll and strange nocturnal noises. It’s all very unsettling, but can we rely on the narrator?

Two of the tales struck me for their originality. Des Nuits Blanches by Will Dunn starts off as a sports story, a tale about an ambitious French cyclist and his strict regime of night-time training. When the supernatural element does kick in, it evokes ancient Alpine lore and its tales of evil spirits lurking in the mountains. Reads like Machen on a skiing holiday. Seth Marlin’s "The Dead Lie Dreaming", on the contrary, ventures into science fiction and presents us with a society in the near future where memories of dead persons are kept electronically alive. Like one of the oldest (Biblical) ghost stories – Saul’s meeting with the Witch of Endor – it is a cautionary tale which suggests we should keep away from the spirits of the dead, even when summoned by science.

This anthology shows that the ghost story is still very much alive, even if haunted by old forms. It is indeed telling that the collection ends with the most primeval fear of all. When the lights go out and the candles splutter – in other words, “When the Dark Comes Down”, as in Amanda Mason’s concluding piece of the same name – our oldest terrors are rekindled. And we get an idea of how the 'ghost story' might have begun.

Published September 2017 by The Fiction Desk

***

The website Shadows at the Door is a digital platform where horror writers are given the opportunity to publish their supernatural tales. Curator Mark Nixon himself a writer of ghost stories, took this concept to another level with the publication of an anthology featuring authors associated with the website. Launched  following Kickstarter crowd-funding, the book is a joy to hold and behold – a high-quality hardback printed on glossy paper, with beautifully atmospheric black and white illustrations by Barney Bodoano.

But what about the collection itself? Shadows at the Door prefers its horrors subtle and favours stories with an old-fashioned touch. The thirteen tales in this anthology are mostly in the tradition of M.R. James and other purveyors of the “classic ghost story” – K.B. Goddard in particular (represented by A Macabre Melody) even manages to evoke the language beloved of late-Victorian authors. This is not to say that there are no grisly moments or sudden eruptions of violence (for instance in Mark Nixon’s own contributionQuem Infra Nos or in J.C. Michael’s Gytrash), but the emphasis is on atmospheric storytelling, where the horrors are implied rather than crudely spelt out. The types of haunting portrayed are varied – whilst some of the tales are clearly ghost stories (including one of my favourites – Caitlin Marceau’s moving Run) others touch upon dark fantasy (Christopher Long’s The Gallow Glass), fairytale (Deep by M. Regan) or folk horror (Pete Alex Harris’s Under Shiel Croft). Most of the stories have a strong sense of place. Indeed, the various settings range from English towns to the Scottish Highlands, New York and Melbourne and provide not just the backdrop to the action but, in some cases, a folk legend or tradition which serves as a germ of inspiration.

Published December 14, 2016 by Shadows at the Door Publishing

***

I'll leave you with a track by composer Stephen Montague:  A crippled ghost at Halloween.  Sweet dreams. 

The long, hard road to vengeance... The Sheriff's Catch by James Vella-Bardon

The Sheriff's Catch by James Vella-Bardon

Of thrillers and historical fiction

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Maltese book launch (and book-signing session) of James Vella-Bardon’s The Sheriff’s Catch, the first volume of a projected “historical thriller” pentalogy.  The author himself spoke about the inspiration for his novel and this led me to consider it from a new perspective.  Here is a revisited and revised version of my review, originally posted on Goodreads

***

Historical fiction has seen such a rise in popularity over the past decades, that it's easy to forget that it is, in fact, a long-established and venerable genre. One could say that some of the earliest literature (including, say, the Iliad) is "historical", being based on actual facts which had happened in the past. The genre as we know it became particularly popular in Europe in the 19th Century, through the works of such authors as Scott, Balzac and Hugo. The historical novel was often the vehicle for Romantic ideals, and sometimes helped forge national identities in young newly-formed states (one thinks of Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi).

What contemporary writers have at their disposal, in contrast to their predecessors, is a freedom to mould the genre to their own ends. Thus, I recently enjoyed Amy Sackville's Painter to the King, a re- imagining of the life of Velazquez rendered in modernist, stream-of-consciousness narration. On the other hand, "neo-Victorian" novels by the likes of Sarah Waters and Alison Littlewood are not only set in the 19th century, but also borrow tropes from genres of the time (including the Gothic and the sensation novel).

With The Sheriff's Catch, Maltese-born and Australia-based James Vella-Bardon, adds his name to historical novelists to look out for. His novel introduces us to our 16th century protagonist, sharpshooter Abel de Santiago who, after an orphan's upbringing in Malta, ends up joining the Spanish army and campaigning in the Netherlands. When his supposed friends kill his young, pregnant wife, ‘Santi’ deserts the army and embarks on a mission of revenge which leads him through several ordeals, not least a stint as a galley slave with the Spanish Armada. It is no spoiler to reveal (since it is stated on the back-cover blurb) that by the conclusion of the book, Santi will arrive in Ireland, at a time when the country is being terrorised by the marauding English troops - or "Sassenachs", as the natives refer to them.

Author James Vella-Bardon

Vella-Bardon's book takes us back more than four hundred years, but like the historical novels of Arturo Perez-Reverte, its models are the epic, swashbuckling 19th Century classics by authors such as Dumas. As was often the case with its literary forebears, The Sheriff's Catch was adapted for serialization prior to being published in book-form, and one can feel it in the thrust of the plot. There are continuous twists and end-of-chapter cliffhangers, which ensure that the reader is hooked from one passage of the novel to the next. Indeed, the constant sense of danger and Santi's reckless, death-wish attitude tend to make the narrative rather breathless, although there are passages when the reader is allowed to take a step back and delve deeper into the protagonist's character. This could be felt particularly in the final chapters, where the introduction of a female figure (possibly/hopefully an important character in forthcoming volumes?!) seems to give a different, yet no less enjoyable perspective to the book.

There is plenty to admire in this first instalment of the Pentalogy. It is clear that much research has gone into the novel, evident for instance, in the minute descriptions of the weapons and paraphernalia of war. Yet, this knowledge is lightly worn, and Vella-Bardon avoids the common mistake of suspending the flow to provide us with an encyclopaedic entry on the era portrayed.

The first-person narration, together with the graphic, and sometimes garish, evocation of the historical setting (smells and bodily fluids included), help provide a sense of total immersion into the period without making the reader feel spoon-fed. The sense of authenticity can also be felt in the dialogue - just to give an example, the style of the language changes to reflect the characters' switching from one language to another, with the use of a more archaic syntax and vocabulary when the characters are speaking Latin. It is not easy at all to mark a change in code without changing the language of the narration, but Vella-Bardon manages it nicely.

Until we meet again, Santi...

Paperback, 336 pages

Published March 15th 2018 by Unbound

***

In his talk at the book-launch James Vella-Bardon explained that he chose 16th century Europe as the stage for his tale since this was an exciting century, a time of unprecedented upheaval. It also gave him the opportunity to pit against each other three very different cultures. 

The novel's hero Santiago was raised in Malta, which was then ruled as a fiefdom by the Knights Hospitallers, who paid a yearly tribute of a Maltese falcon to the King of Spain.     Most of us Maltese are immersed in Anglo-centric literature, and because of that we sometimes fail to appreciate what a great cultural and military power Spain was.  Vella-Bardon’s novel is a corrective in this regard.  At the time of the events portrayed, Spain was living its Siglo de Oro, a “Golden Century” (actually, longer) which started with the great voyages of exploration and ended with the death of Pedro Calderon de la Barca in 1682.   

One of the greatest Spanish composers of the period was Cristobal de Morales (1550-1553).  Here’s his Parce Mihi Domine, performed by the Consort of Melbourne, with piano improvisations by pianist Gemma Turvey.  This mixture of “old” and “new” fits Vella-Bardon’s novel very well.

De Morales is known for his sacred works.  The wordlier Santi might have been more used to sprightlier instrumental dances.  Here’s a ricercada by Diego Ortiz (1510-1570) a Spanish composer and music theorist in service to the Spanish viceroy of Naples and later to Philip II of Spain. 

And if you want a musical taste of 16th Century battles, here’s Clément Janequin: La bataille.  it precedes the Armada by a few decades, but it is a colourful evocation of war.  This performance by Jordi Savall and his Hesperion XXI is one of my favourites:

 

Elizabeth I not only promoted her kingdom’s military aspirations, but also sought to support artists and musicians, quite ironically relying on various Italian musicians to bring new musical trends to her shores.  It was Golden Age for English music, one which would eventually come to an end with the death of Henry Purcell.   An idea of the wide range of composers working at the time is given by the Triumphs of Oriana a collection of 25 madrigals by different composers published in 1601, most likely in honour of the Virgin Queen:

 

The music of William Byrd, a Catholic tolerated at the Protestant Court in view of his immense talent, sometimes reveals a dark strain, obliquely referring to the religious upheavals going on in Reformation England.  Ne irasciris is a good example. 

 

For some Elizabethan instrumental fare, here’s “Mal Sims” by Giles Farnaby (1563-1640):

In the final chapters of the book, the action moves to Ireland.  As Vella-Bardon explained, the country was then in its “late medieval” period.  This however in no way implies a “regressive” culture.  On the contrary, the Celtic way of life was extremely sophisticated, with its own traditions, art and complex legal system. 

 

Turlough o Carolan, a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer, lived between 1670 and 1738.  However, his music has its roots in ancient Irish traditions. 

 

 

The Irish context is also a good excuse for the author to introduce an element of Tolkien-inspired epic fantasy, here represented musically by Steve Hackett and  Italian pianist-organist Marco Lo Muscio.

 

 

I'll leave you with the novel's tantalising book trailer: