The dusty draft of Shadows and Pagodas was quite different to its published incarnation many moons
later. The narrative was penned
in a descriptive, florid nineteenth-century style before being thoroughly modernised. Its alternate
history broadly filled out at the beginning but now gradually introduced.
The characters have changed, too. For example, the Baron was a conventionally constructed human who went by the name of Schalken. This was in reference to one of my favourite ghost stories, penned by Sheridan Le Fanu in 1839, Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter. But, after a great deal of soul-searching, I morphed Schalken into Baron H. (Hieronymus) Parzifal.
The surname a deliberate play on Parsifal the Knight and his legendary quest for the Grail. So in Shadows we have the outrageous Baron Parzifal undertaking his very own quest in a weirdly-skewed world. Lovable rogue. An aristocratic and laconic creature, for sure. Vampiric in nature, possessed of unsavoury proclivities and prone to composing rather bad poetry.
The characters have changed, too. For example, the Baron was a conventionally constructed human who went by the name of Schalken. This was in reference to one of my favourite ghost stories, penned by Sheridan Le Fanu in 1839, Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter. But, after a great deal of soul-searching, I morphed Schalken into Baron H. (Hieronymus) Parzifal.
The surname a deliberate play on Parsifal the Knight and his legendary quest for the Grail. So in Shadows we have the outrageous Baron Parzifal undertaking his very own quest in a weirdly-skewed world. Lovable rogue. An aristocratic and laconic creature, for sure. Vampiric in nature, possessed of unsavoury proclivities and prone to composing rather bad poetry.
Altogether more darkly comic.
