WeWriWa—The main course is served

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

I’m now sharing from a brand-new project, an alternative history with the working title A Dream of Peacocks. It starts on May Day 1274, when Dante met his great love and muse Beatrice Portinari at a party held by her parents. They’re now walking in the garden.

This comes right after last week’s excerpt, when the partygoers were summoned to dinner (the Medieval name for lunch, the biggest meal of the day). Per that era’s scientific views, a meal had to begin with apéritifs to open the stomach, followed by light foods which were easy to digest, and then somewhat heartier foods. Only after all these preliminary foods had been eaten did the main course come out.

Our next course consisted of cabbage, more fruit, broth, duck meat, lettuce, and herbs. Finally, the servants brought the towels and water basins around again so we could wash our hands in preparation for the main course which sat temptingly in the middle of every table. And what a marvellous meal it was.

Though everything I ever could’ve dreamt of at a dinner was on offer, I regardless waited to see what Beatrice and Ricovero would put on their plates first. This wasn’t my home, and I was a first-time guest. If they thought I were a glutton or more interested in the food than their company, my chances of being invited back would diminish.

“You must eat your fill,” Ricovero said. “Don’t wait for us to start eating. This isn’t Great Lent.”

“Yes, please serve yourself whatever you’d like,” Beatrice said.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to complete the scene.

“All this food is here for us to enjoy in abundance. Calendimaggio only comes once a year.”

I smiled at her and began filling my silver plate with an abundance of hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese, sausages, beef, olives, roasted vegetables, and porpoise meat. Then I requested a servant fill my tankard with mulberry juice. If my stomach still permitted the intake of food afterwards, I planned to eat a slice of vegetable and eel pie, ravioli, and mussels. It was imperative to preserve enough space in one’s stomach for the dragées which closed every meal, but I wasn’t sure when I’d again get the chance to eat so much decadent, delicious food in one sitting. At least I wasn’t tempted by everything on the table. To this day, I’ve never had the desire to eat swan, lark and other songbirds, porcupine, whale, or hedgehog, despite their popularity among the wealthy. People often develop many strange habits when they acquire or are born into too much money.

IWSG—Writing mojo slowly returning

It’s time for another meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The first Wednesday of each month, we share struggles, triumphs, quandaries, and fears.

I set a lowball goal of 15K for July Camp NaNo, and overachieved (as it were). This is far from what I was capable of pre-lockdown, but after failing JuNoWriMo with only 18K, this has restored my self-confidence somewhat. Most of my wordcount came from creative nonfiction in the form of blog posts instead of my actual WIP, but since most of them were Dante-themed, they’re related to my WIP.

If you’re interested, I now have all my Dantean posts linked in one page. You can find it on my pinned page “Index of posts by topic” above my header.

Somewhat over 5,000 words also came from the two essays I wrote as part of my aliyah (moving to Israel) application, about my journey to Judaism and my involvement in the community since becoming a member of the tribe. The process of writing and editing those documents made me revisit feelings and experiences I’d not had reason to think of in many years. These weren’t just brief letters, but mini-memoirs with a great deal of raw emotion, honesty, and self-reflection.

This wasn’t the strongest finish possible, and not the relatively straight line I used to have, but I did lose a lot of writing time watching the Olympics. I also spent some time doing my penultimate proof check of the book formerly known as The Very Next. Hopefully, I won’t find even tiny errors in the about to begin final check.

In addition to slowly starting to regain my writing mojo, I’m also getting back into my art. That was on complete hiatus during lockdown. So many people are unwilling or unable to understand how this hurt mental and emotional health. I’ll always have cyclical depression, and it’s functional even at its worst, but it only lasted so long and was triggered this latest time because of lockdown.

When my mental and emotional states are askew, my writing suffers. It took a really long time, but finally I’ve been given a hand out of the latest dark forest I found myself in, with the right path lost. “I cannot remember well in my mind/How I came thither, so was I immersed/In sleep, when the true way I left behind.”

To mark my return to art, I ordered a bunch of new pencils—a dozen Faber–Castell Polychromos, two Caran d’Ache Luminance (widely said to be the Rolls-Royce of colored pencils), six Coloursoft, and three Inktense. I ought to do an updated post showcasing my art supply collection.

There’s no question these precious objects will be divided among my checked and carryon luggage when I make aliyah. If I can’t find an approved suitcase big enough for my beautiful oil pastels, I’ll take them out of their big wooden case and put them in smaller travel cases. Their list price is $510, and I got them for around $200 in a huge end-of-year sale. No way I’d leave them behind!

Geometric and abstract art are my callings in drawing and painting, just as historical fiction and soft sci-fi are my callings in writing. It can be fun to dabble and try something new, but there will always be that one thing, or those two or three things, which you feel the most natural passion and draw towards. I doubt any writer could be successful in and feel a genuine connection to 10+ genres.

Another huge boost to my shattered self-confidence in July was finishing my memorization of Canto I of Inferno in the original Medieval Florentine Tuscan (136 lines). I’m going to make a video of myself reciting it on Dante’s 700th Jahrzeit (death anniversary) on 13 September. While I’ve begun working my way through Canto II, there’s no way I can have all 142 lines ready in such short time!

I’ve always had an elephantine memory and been good with languages, but I still am in awe I really managed to not only memorize such a long piece, but in another language.

How has your writing been going? Did you do Camp NaNo? Have you ever lost your writing mojo and struggled to regain it?

Caught between loves new and old

I really, really enjoyed this book! Of the eleven Maud Hart Lovelace books I’ve read to date, this was my absolute favourite. I read it in one day, and was left wishing for more books about Carney. Frankly, I like her more than Betsy after reading this! This book also fills in some of the gaps between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World (much better than the infodumpy backstory in Chapter Two of the latter).

I suppose I loved this book so much because the characters are now 19 and 20 years old, at university, stepping into a more mature stage of life. While there are plenty of picnics, dances, daytrips, and such with “The Crowd” in this book, they don’t feel as shallow as they did in the high school books, since that’s not all they do anymore.

Carney’s relationships with Larry and Sam also feel more realistic and mature than Betsy’s relationship with Joe. There’s just more depth and emotional development.

It’s June 1911, and Caroline Sibley (Carney) is concluding her sophomore year at Vassar. Though there are a lot of strict controls on the students, to keep their minds on academia and prevent too much contact with men, Carney and her friends still manage to have a whole lot of fun. Unlike Betsy, Carney also really likes college.

But there is one dilemma weighing upon Carney’s mind as the spring semester draws to a close—whether or not to invite her roommate Isobel Porteous to visit her house back in Deep Valley, Minnesota. As much as she genuinely likes Isobel, Carney fears her small Midwestern town won’t make a great impression upon a sophisticated Long Islander steeped in Eastern culture, customs, and refinement. How could Deep Valley ever possibly hope to compare to New York City and the Hamptons?

Carney hopes to throw a house party over summer vacation, since her old friend Bonnie is back from Paris. In a letter, Mrs. Sibley cheerfully suggests Isobel can stay there too. But while the Sibleys clearly seem to be upper-middle-class, they still don’t have oodles of servants, a pool, a tennis court, a mansion, nothing Isobel is used to.

A big brouhaha erupts when Isobel has a male visitor. Not only does she entertain him in a parlour in the dorm, she also brings him to dinner and the mandatory daily chapel service. All her friends are mad with curiosity to know just who he is and how serious they are. This storyline is handled very well through the book, keeping the reader wondering until near the end just what the truth between Isobel and Howard really is.

Carney is very glad to be home with her parents and three little brothers. I loved the depictions of their warm family life, and the character development of each Sibley. One of the things I’ve struggled with in the Betsy–Tacy series is lack of deep character development. Some secondary characters do emerge as more than just names on a page, but because of the cast bloat, it can be hard to discern any real difference between, e.g., Cab and Dennie or Alice and Irma. No wonder Mrs. Lovelace’s editors advised her to make Winona a composite character instead of adding yet another new person!

Anyway, Isobel arrives after July Fourth, and she and Carney take a daytrip to Murmuring Lake. While there, they meet Sam Harris, whose rich family just moved to the area. Carney isn’t impressed with his extra pounds, unkempt hair, unshaved face, and horrible habit of charging everything, but Isobel seems quite taken.

This development makes Carney very happy, since if Isobel and Sam become an item, it’ll assure Isobel’s visit is a smashing success.

Presently, there’s a masquerade party, and who should arrive but Betsy, whom everyone assumed was still in California with her grandma! She becomes the fourth girl on the sleeping porch during Carney’s long house party. With another guest added, there’s even more fun to be had.

And then another guest announces his impending arrival—Carney’s long-distance beau Larry Humphreys, who moved to California after their sophomore year of high school. They’ve written weekly letters ever since and assumed they’d eventually reunite and live happily ever after.

But though Carney still has great affection for Larry, that old romantic spark just doesn’t seem to be there anymore, and she’s not making any effort to go off with him alone. He seems more like a buddy than a boyfriend. In comparison, Carney loves spending time with Sam, and talking with him comes so naturally, even about personal feelings.

Will she choose the old love with her high school sweetheart or the new love with a man who seems perfectly matched in so many ways? And just what is going on with Isobel’s love life?

WeWriWa—Called to dinner

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

I’m now sharing from a brand-new project, an alternative history with the working title A Dream of Peacocks. It starts on May Day 1274, when Dante met his great love and muse Beatrice Portinari at a party held by her parents. They’re now walking in the garden.

This comes a few pages after last week’s excerpt. Before being called to dinner (the Medieval name for lunch, the biggest meal of the day), Beatrice suggested Dante might become friends with her brother Ricovero. If he’s friends with both of them, her parents will be more inclined to approve future visits.

The next-best-friend Dante mentions in La Vita Nuova is believed to be one of Beatrice’s brothers, and we know from Folco Portinari’s will (which names all his children) that his oldest sons were Manetto and Ricovero. His other three sons were under eighteen as of 1288, which would’ve made them too young to be friends from childhood.

Just then a maidservant came into the garden and announced it was time for dinner. Without having to be asked twice, I went towards the door and followed the other guests towards the great hall, where an immense feast awaited.

Beatrice led me to a long walnut table where all the other children were taking seats. The scents of the food laid out before us were so tempting, nothing like the meals I usually ate at home. Babbo and I didn’t eat like peasants, but we were nowhere close to the level of a wealthy family like the Portinaris, who regarded things like wheat and beef as everyday staples instead of luxuries to be indulged in when finances could justify it.

“Ricovero, this is my new friend Dante,” she told a boy dressed in a burgundy tunic and cornflower blue hose. “Mamma and Babbo will be more likely to invite him to visit again if he’s friends with you too. He’s serious and thoughtful like you, so I think you’ll like him.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ricovero said.

The nine lines end here. A few more follow to complete the scene.

“If Bice likes you and thinks you’re a good person, I must too. She’s a better discerner of worth than many adults.”

We chose chairs near the back left-hand side of the table after almost everyone else had claimed a seat. Presently, maidservants and manservants came around with linen hand towels and shallow silver basins for washing our hands before eating. After that, we said Grace in one voice, and then finally we were at liberty to partake of the apéritifs eaten at the start of every meal to open the stomach.

There were so many to choose from, but I didn’t want to reverse the positive impression I’d made so far, and so settled for just a few pieces of sugar-coated ginger and honey-covered anise. For an apéritif beverage, I directed a manservant to pour me a tankard of sweetened milk. I could drink wine any time I wanted, but milk was a special treat I didn’t often have the opportunity to enjoy.

Illustrations to The Divine Comedy

The Giant Antaeus Carries Virgil and Dante to the Ninth Circle of Hell, Bartolomeo Pinelli

Since the Commedia is such a visual book, it’s only natural many artists over the centuries have taken up the task of illustrating it. This post is about artists who illustrated the entire book (or an entire canticle), not artists who merely did one piece or a few pieces based on it.

1. Gustave Doré (né Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré) is probably the first artist most people think of, since his 136 woodcuts from the 1860s are so internationally famous. For this reason, the visuals in the 1911 Italian feature L’Inferno were based on Doré’s work. He also illustrated many other books and plays, as well as the Bible. My edition of Don Quixote has his 377 woodcuts.

Of all the artists who’ve illustrated the Commedia, Doré is one most commonly found in print. If you want illustrations by one of these other artists, you’ll probably have to spend a lot of money, and might not easily find such a volume.

Inferno I

Inferno III

Inferno XXII

Purgatorio XVI

Purgatorio I

Purgatorio V

Purgatorio XXXII

Paradiso III

Paradiso XX

Paradiso XXXI

2. Bartolomeo Pinelli did 145 prints during the first third of the 19th century. Though Doré’s art is more famous and evocative, I really like Pinelli’s illustrations, since they’re so cute and charming. It’s a shame they’re not better-known and more widely available. Sometimes simpler art speaks more powerfully or personally than detailed, sophisticated art.

Inferno III

Inferno XXXIII

Inferno frontispiece

Inferno XVII

Inferno XIII

Inferno I

Inferno III

Inferno XXXIV

Inferno IX

Purgatorio II

3. William Blake received a commission for illustrating the Commedia in 1826, and produced 102 watercolours “during a fortnight’s illness in bed.” They were intended to be turned into engravings, but only seven made it to the proof state, and only a few watercolours were completed before Blake’s August 1827 death. He was said to have spent one of his last shillings on a pencil to continue working on this ambitious project.

I’d venture to say Blake is probably the next-best-known illustrator after Doré.

Inferno XXV

Inferno III

Inferno V

Inferno I

Inferno X

Paradiso XXV

Purgatorio XXXI

Purgatorio IX

Inferno XXXIII

Inferno XXIX

4. Stradanus (also known as Giovanni Stradano, Jan van der Straet, and Johannes Stradanus) created his series of sepia-toned prints between 1587–88, probably inspired by his friendship with exiled Florentine poet and politican Luigi Alamanni (1495–1556). Many members of the Alamanni family are mentioned in commissions for and dedications to prints. Stradanus’s work combines Italian Mannerism with Flemish style.

Unfortunately, Stradanus never completed this project, and only illustrated Inferno.

Inferno I

Inferno II

Inferno III

Inferno VI

Inferno VII

Inferno XIII

Inferno XXVIII

Inferno XXXIII

Inferno XXXIII

Inferno VIII

5. Sandro Botticelli was perhaps one of the earliest artists to do illustrations for a printed edition (as opposed to the illuminated manuscripts produced prior to the invention of the printing press). Goldsmith Baccio Baldini did the engravings of Botticelli’s artwork for a 1481 printing, but the results weren’t successful, as noted by art historian and artist Giorgio Vasari.

Since good artists learn from their mistakes and never let one flop get them down, Botticelli returned to the drawing board and created new illustrations between about 1485 and 1495, possibly until 1505 at the latest estimate. These 92 full-page drawings are considered among his very finest work, though only four are fully-coloured, and most are silverpoint, many worked over in ink.

For many years, this priceless book was lost. It finally resurfaced in the late 19th century, in the Duke of Hamilton’s Library and Vatican Library, thanks to art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen.

Map of Hell

Inferno XVIII

Inferno XV

Inferno X

Inferno XXXI

Paradiso XXX

Inferno XXXIV

Purgatorio X

Purgatorio XXXI

Inferno XXXIV

6. Master of the Pico della Mirandola Pliny, or Master Pico (whose real name I can’t find), illustrated the 1491 Venice edition with 101 woodcuts. While they have an undeniable folksy charm and sweet simplicity, they do appear kind of crude and unrefined next to the other artwork profiled here.

Contrary to every other artist I’ve come across, and historical evidence of Roman grooming habits, Master Pico depicts Virgil with a beard. He also depicts people in Purgatory as naked, something which also contradicts all other artists and what Dante himself writes. And as though readers can’t figure it out by themselves, he puts the first initial of each main character above their heads.

Purgatorio XXX

Purgatorio XI

Purgatorio X

Purgatorio XXI

Inferno XXXIV

Inferno XXV

Inferno II

Paradiso

Paradiso

Inferno IX

7. Giovanni di Paolo created 75 images for an illuminated manuscript of Paradiso, an honour he was chosen for on account of his 1441 appointment as rector of the painter’s guild. Two other artists, who are still unidentified, did the artwork for the other two canticles.

Paradiso VI