Taking liberties with Baron P

 

Peter put down his glass of claret. “Sir, I’m sorry to tell you this but I hear that awful namesake of mine has been at it again.” 

     “Really?” Baron Parzifal sat up in his chair. “You mean spreading terrible stories about me?”
     “Yes, I’m afraid so. In Shadows and Pagodas he perniciously described our first adventure together when we travelled all the way from Paris to darkest Siam in search of that mysterious treasure of yours. And now he’s re-telling the story in fragments.”
     The Baron frowned. “Fragments?”
     Peter leant across the table and whispered, ““Yes, sir. Fielding has started posting succulent morsels of his novel to tempt readers as yet unfamiliar with our adventures. And he has even included what they call photographic images. In order – as he rather colourfully claims – to spice these fragments up and prick the readers’ interest yet further!”
    “Merde!”
    “But it gets worse, sir. I hear he’s now given away the actual location in modern north-east Thailand where we found your treasure!”
     The Baron began to slowly drum his fingers on the table edge. “First there’s this scurrilous novel,” he said. “In which I’m portrayed as some sort of demented scoundrel, cheating all and sundry then dragging them across the known world in search of a fabulous treasure and hidden knowledge. That literary piece of assassination has caused me no end of embarrassment, I can tell you. The police, the Australians and the Inquisition all asking damned awkward questions – poking around, prying from the backstreets of Toledo to the public conveniences of Timbuktu. Even the Emperor disowned me. And now Fielding’s raking up the whole damned business again. Next thing you know, he'll be telling God knows who about that unfortunate misunderstanding with Queen Cleopatra. This is all hugely annoying, Peter!”
     “Yes, indeed, sir.”
     “Honestly, I mean do I look like the sort of person who goes around the globe lying, cheating and stealing things that don’t belong to him?”
     Peter ran a finger around the rim of his glass. “Er, well, no.”
     “Quite.”     
     The two men lapsed into silence. The sound of a billiard ball being struck.
     Then the Baron suddenly stood up, downed his claret, donned his hat and drew his rapier.
     “Where on earth are you going, sir?”
     “I’m going to find that damned Fielding fellow and when I do I’m going to run him through!” 
     With that the Baron strode out of the cafe.
     "But wait, sir!" called out Peter. "I don't think I've got enough money to pay our bill!"
     

"Darkened relations..."

The Baron's final stand featured in Shadows and Pagodas is back in the news. In the novel it's called the Pagoda of Earthly Delights (thank you, Hieronymous B) but in real life is actually Khao Phra Vihear, the Khmer temple complex nestling above a precipice on the Thai-Cambodian border. Hotly disputed between the two countries, wonderful views and Peter's ghostly whispers amongst the colonnades have been replaced by the thud-thud of mortar shells and exchanges of semi-automatic fire. Strictly off limits.

http://tharum.com/blog/2006/06/06/photo-prasat-preah-vihear.html

But it seems the UN has finally ruled on who owns the disputed temple and the land around it - Cambodia. 

"Darkened relations"  have been threatened.

So are the knives of fervent nationalist being sharpened or will convoys of air-conditioned tourist buses now drown out the whispers...?

http://www.thephuketnews.com/updated-both-sides-claim-win-in-khao-phra-viharn-border-dispute-42793.php   

A picture in fragments

After re-reading Shadows and Pagodas I thought I’d start sharing some of my favourite scenes and dialogue from the novel. Roughly in chronological order – always better to start at the beginning as Abbot Od says – these brief extracts will include the comic, the dark and the dramatic. The idea is to paint a tantalising ‘picture in fragments’ of the Baron and Peter’s first adventure together. I hope you enjoy them as much as me.

My very first extract is taken from the beginning of Chapter 1, Disturbing Encounters:

“You idiot, Fielding!” Something odd back there and he’d nearly overlooked it! Peter trotted back to Myrmidon and there it was, sitting on the bank, unattended: an enormous and very peculiar sedan chair. It was made of a wood that seemed to suck in the moonlight and decorated with a Fantastical Creature that reared up from the roof.

     But most remarkable of all was the apparent lack of any windows or doors. 
     Peter bit his lip, moved closer but was careful not to touch. He tried to find some way of getting in and then, on the far side, discovered the outline of a door or panel and then a small grille, oblong in shape, and a row of thin bars.
     “Good grief...”

Death in Tehran

You know, Shadows and Pagodas is like an attic stuffed full of dusty secrets. And one of my favourites is this sandalwood casket I bought in Portobello market. See that fabulous city gate carved on the lid? Now turn the key, open the casket and inside you’ll find a vellum scroll containing the English translation of a famous and very remarkable Persian tale. It’s written in what appears to be a dark red, almost brownish, ink. This is the tale that inspired John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra as well as the Baron Parzifal’s adventures in Shadows. There are all sorts of variations, including Isfahan replacing Tehran (or Samarra), and Death addressing the reader directly. Here’s a rather nice version I found recently, which I hope you enjoy:  
 

http://www.iranianhotline.com/OldTehran/Old-Tehran.htm

A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death.

In the early drafts of Shadows I reworked the story into a surreal frame narrative for the novel but later decided to take it out – now I’m wondering whether I should have kept it in after all! Mind you, there’s no reason why I couldn’t use it in the Baron and Peter’s next adventure…

"I've seen things..."

What has Shadows and Pagodas got in common with Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece?   

Well, as Shadows reaches its dramatic and bloody conclusion at the Pagoda of Earthly Delights, the Baron makes a final, heartfelt speech to Peter. This was inspired by – and very much my tribute – to the ‘I’ve seen things’ scene in Blade Runner. It’s a wonderfully poetic moment in cinema when Batty the replicant played by Rutger Hauer dies in the rain. According to Hauer, he improvised much of the replicant's speech – making it even more impressive.

 

The ‘I’ve seen things’ scene continues to haunt me to this day. Not only because of the sheer poetic beauty of it but also because it touches something very close to me – the Japanese concept of ‘mono no aware’ (roughly, a sense of sadness at the passing of things). So I simply had to find a way of making a creative connection. The answer was the Baron’s speech.

Of course, we are talking about the Baron here so I’m afraid his take on Hauer’s speech is dripping with bathos rather pathos.

But I think it works, I hope my readers do too.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzA_xesrL8   

A Most Unsettling Encounter - Otranto 1816

The Baron put his hands on his hips.         “Blast it, what does he want?” he muttered.

     Colonel Lime of the Black Tigers was riding towards him. How the Baron loathed the colonel! He’d plagued him from France to Russia and back again, always asking awkward questions and spreading foul rumours. Why was the world eternally choked with such oafs? Lime was physically intrusive, too, and loud and impossibly fat with huge whiskers - made him look like a walrus stuffed into a doll’s uniform. Worst of all, the Baron knew that Lime suffered from the very worst of afflictions: a chronic sense of honesty  
     “The Austrian attack will soon be getting underway, sir!” shouted the Colonel. “What are you going to do about it?”
     “Haste and rudeness are unseemly companions, sir – especially in the gout-ridden.”  
     “Parzifal, General of our army,” sneered Lime. “You who were supposed to be so big at the Imperial Court in France.”
     “I still am – it’s the Court that’s smaller.”

(The Baron's verbal retort is a play on Gloria Swanson's memorable line in the 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard)