The Translation of Father Torturo: Preamble

I have decided to put my novel The Translation of Father Torturo on line. I will post once chapter at a time, about once a week. Here is the first part:

 

To Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe, Baron Corvo, for the design which I so meanly twisted.

 

Religion is a savage thing, like the universe it illuminates;

savage, cold and bare, but infinitely strong.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

—The Ebb-Tide

 

 

Preamble

 

     “Hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-u-jah-jah!”

     Clouds of yellow smoke curled upward, like slowly revolving apparitions in the light of the immense and stately candles which were placed, dozen upon dozen, throughout the interior of the cathedral; – the ceiling, the cupola, seemingly as high over head as the night sky – thoroughly Romanesque, Byzantine, ornate décor protruding from all sides, dripping from above like stalactites, surging from the walls in carven stone and  bronze panels, rising in grand pillars, winking in frescoed patches and chapels: the depiction of men at arms and others martyred; a few modern contrivances, the worst of contemporary art, dropped in, for juxtaposition, ugly slashes to enhance the already turbulent presence of the bizarre.

     “Hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-u-u-jah-ah!”

     The small figure stood before the seated gathering. She sang into the microphone in an untrained, slightly cacophonic voice that was yet buttered with faith. Sheathed in the coarse, clean costume of her calling, vestal white; eyes like raisins behind simple spectacles; her voice uttered that modulated praise to Him, Master of all human affairs, Creator and Ruler of the universe.

     The smoke plumed upward: aromatic, reminiscent of decomposed saints, hypnotic as it joined to the rhythmical chanting.

     A beggar woman, a mad woman, obese and malformed (the majority of the weight being confined between her lower torso and hams), struggled along one darkened side of the cathedral, the struggle all the more grim for the radical difference in length between her left leg and right. The disparity was made up by a proportionate wooden heel, which shuffled and clapped along the floor. Others, healthy in leg if not feeble in mind, lay their hands on the sarcophagus of Saint Anthony.

     But the vast majority of the visitors, pilgrims, rushed with remarkable haste onward, towards the brain of the cathedral. There a queue had formed and people pushed forward impatiently, rising on tip-toes and craning their necks. A child, a veritable cherub, innocent of social manners, wound its way ahead of the rest, its grandmother following in its wake, apologising as she went. It mounted the low steps on hands and knees and then, before the glass case, rose and stretched its arms out, the people parting on either side.

     “Excuse me! Excuse me!” the grandmother said, hastening forward. And, with the words, “Oh, bambino,” on her smiling lips, she hoisted the child up, so it could view what it had so impetuously sought after: A tongue mounted on a pin, like a dried cactus; a jaw, gums intact, teeth the colour of gorgonzola.

Buy Here

Rise of the Footsoldier

Director: Julian Gilby

Year: 2007

Well, if violence doesn’t put you off and you like films like Goodfellas, this one might be for you. Extremely gritty, without a single BBC accent, this English gangster film is really pretty powerful stuff. True, it has its slow moments, and there isn’t really a whole hell of a lot of plot, but all the same it has some great acting, striking dialogue (I challenge anyone to find a film where the word cunt is used more often) and overall pretty decent cinematography.

But like I said, there is blood. Lots of it. Baseball bats. Teeth smashed in. Hatchet to the head. Pizza cutter to the face. So, this kind of thing might put some people off. But if you’re up for it, check it out.

Mysteries of the Court of London

A few months back I bought a book called Mysteries of the Court of London, by George M. Reynolds. Well, it is actually a book in ten volumes, each volume being about 500 pages. So, it is a 5,000 page novel essentially-which is about three times as long as War and Peace. Now, when I bought the set, I was perfectly aware that Reynolds had written a book titled Mysteries of London, but somehow imagined that it was part of Mysteries of the Court of London. Now, after seeing some of the text of the previously mentioned work, I have discovered that it is completely different, though equally as long! Apparently, the two works together are made up of 4.5 million words. As they were written over a twelve year period however, this averages about 1,100 words a day, or about four pages, which is quite a lot, but not phenomenal. What is phenomenal however, is that in this same period he completed another 11 series, including Mysteries of the Court of Naples and Mysteries of Old London. As these titles are very difficult to come  by however, I am uncertain about the lengths.

Here is a little taste from Mysteries of London:

Women press their little ones to their dried-up breasts in the agonies of despair; young delicate creatures waste their energies in toil from the dawn of day till long past the hour of midnight, perpetuating their unavailing labour from the hour of the brilliant sun to that when the dim candle sheds its light around the attic’s naked walls; and even the very pavement groans beneath the weight of grief which the poor are doomed to drag over the rough places of this city of sad contrasts.
    For in this city the daughter of the peer is nursed in enjoyments, and passes through an uninterrupted avenue of felicity from the cradle to the tomb; while the daughter of poverty opens her eyes at her birth upon destitution in all its most appalling shapes, and at length sells her virtue for a loaf of bread.
    There are but two words known in the moral alphabet of this great city; for all virtues are summed up in the one, and all vices in the other: and those words are
    WEALTH.    |    POVERTY.  

3:10 to Yuma

I saw this lat night. The 2007 version. What a bad film. Indeed, 2007 has been a pathetic year for films, particularly in Hollywood. The script to this sorry attempt at a western is truly shameful and the only thing more shameful is that is appears to have received good reviews. How depressing.

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere

Director: Sergio Grieco

Year: 1956

A vaguely interesting historical drama starring the great Vittorio Gassman as Giovanni de Medici.

The costumes are quite nice and the war scenes, though they verge on the absurd due to the lack of extras (the French army is represented by about twelve men), are satisfying. There is also a fair bit of rape and pillage, if rape and pillage is your thing.

Probably the highlight of the film is towards the end, when Giovanni is confronted by Gasparo (Gérard Landry) who betrayed him. Giovanni spits out the ultimate insult: “Verme traditore carogna!” (roughly translated as “traitorous worm carrion” and then, after a brief struggle, proceeds to beat Gasparo’s brains out with a pyx.

This might not be for everyone, but I imagine it is a lot more interesting then the latest Die Hard film and is yet another example of something which would be nice to have available to an English speaking audience—though in truth, it is not even commercially available in Italian.

(Below is the German language poster.)

The Man Who Saw Grey

This story was originally published on Eternal Night, in 2003. It’ll be up here for about a week.

The Man Who Saw Grey

 

     “Not now,” she said pushing him away. “I’m cooking.”

     “So am I,” Greg laughed, kissing the back of her neck.

     She twisted. “If you need something to do, why not change the burnt out bulb in the living room. You said you would do it two days ago.”

     “I said I would do it yesterday.”

     “But you didn’t.”

     “I was painting.”

     “Still.”

     He sighed, opened one of the lower kitchen cabinets, took out a small spare bulb and put it in the pocket of his khakis. He watched his wife, Cassie, and noted how sexy she looked, poised in front of the stove, stirring the spaghetti sauce, her blond hair done up in a bun. She often got on his case about not performing chores; but he considered his painting to be far more important, and the little time he had, when not at his job, he tried to dedicate to it.

     “So I’ll go change the bulb.”

     “You do that.”

     Greg Schwegler kissed the back of his wife’s neck, went into the living room and turned on the reading lamp. He glanced at one of his paintings which hung up over the couch. It was an expressionistic work, which made use of slops of yellow and red in a slightly adventurous way. He considered it to be a good painting, and it very nearly was. Though he had a decent job as an administrator at the DMV, downtown, he considered himself to be a painter at heart. He had had his first showing the year before at which three canvases sold.

     “It would be wonderful to be able to make a living off my painting,” he had told Cassie.

     “Sure, but the money from those three paintings wouldn’t keep us going for more than a month.”

     “Still, it is a nice fantasy.”

     In order not to frighten her, he told his wife that it was a fantasy; in reality it was an ambition. Though he was but a mediocre painter, he thought he had talent. It was perfectly possible that, with time and labour, he might have become a true artist, – A thing more rare than a two-headed cow.

Diet Soap Review

The Fix has a review of the new zine Diet Soap up here.

There is a brief mention of my metrophilia story Xi’an. But the mention is only slightly more brief than the story itself, so . . .

I Delfini

Director: Francesco Maselli

Year: 1960

A number of wealthy young people in provincial town in Italy. Dissipation. Drinking. Talking. Leading empty lives. A young woman from a poor background (Claudia Cardinale) wants to become part of their circle. Such is the plot.

The cast is quite interesting, featuring Betsy Blaire of all people as Contessa Rita Cherè. I say of all people, because it seems rather bizarre that the same person who played the homely girlfriend in Marty, here plays an “elegant” contessa, with her voice dubbed in Italian. And we also have Tomas Milian, who, as is the case with just about all the films he is in, steals the show, as the spoiled and perverse Alberto De Matteis.

One scene in particular stands out, where Milian is blazing down a narrow road in his Ferrari, narrowly missing road workers, women on bicycles etc. and finds himself behind an ambulance, honking his horn savagely before passing.

The black and white cinematography is truly excellent and the script, as far as I am concerned, leaves nothing to be desired.

This film would be perfect for a Critereon DVD release, as it is certainly as good as most of what they have put out, and better than many.  

By the way…

This offer is still good.

Pits

My story Pits is up here, at Pequin.org. It was originally published in an anthology called See You Next Tuesday from Better Non Sequitur press and is part of my Metrophilia series. Better Non Sequitur is currently looking for submissions for their second volume in this series—click on my link and go to the bottom to be directed to their homepage.