I think I called part one 'brutal and tender' or words to that effect and here you continue the theme, brilliantly, again!
I could pull many quotes, "We had learnt that expectation was an overture to defeat, so our hopes were as slender as our chances." - Resonant of my own youth in the eighties, perhaps of your own too - I wonder how much?
And your dialogue, "“It’s a Foxglove, beautiful but deadly, remember?”
“Even bees, the little almsmen of spring bowers,” she said.
“know there is richest juice in poison-flowers,” I said, “you remembered.” - outstanding, poignant, beautiful...
Next chapter please, the characters are forming, strong and compulsive reading - I can't wait! ✨
Thank you Susie! I'm so grateful for your kind word and reading and you know, everything!
Well, yep, the 80's for me and my family was...let's say challenging. The social aggression, the ideology of the Neoliberals, the media attacks on the "likes of us", the poverty, the cruelty of the Tories with their focus on the privileged and the ignoring of everybody else. So many challenging aspects that are directly responsible for the social tragedy that we see around us today were firmly started in those days.
So, it's quite a fun thing to write in many ways, humanising the dehumanised in a way. BTW, the narrator character is a lover of words and poetry so those lines you quoted were actually from a Keats poem which the characters have memorised. Wish they were mine :)
From Isabella who buried her murdered lovers head in a pot of basil; an epic poem of love and pining for the loss I, I remember well with equal amounts of love and loathing... A recital, aged 15 (?) if only I could have remembered the lines then, as well as I recall them now... your borrowing of those lines is perfect...
I've just had to look that up! Nice, simple and resonant fro me after recent days...
I am not certain which poem was a turning point but Yeats 'The Stolen Child' which I had to recite the following year has to be close... and Robert Service, The Men that don't fit in, later in my late teens - you could have guessed, both, I'm sure! 🙃
I love both of those! It's hard to read "The Stolen Child" without hearing the voice of Tomás Mac Eoin - the guy who so beautifully read it on The Waterboy's song - oh man that's a favourite alright.
A lot of memorable lines, like "expectation was an overture to defeat." You manage the most important detail of all and that is to make us like the protagonists. Good stuff.
I hoping to get readers to walk in the shoes of characters they have little in common with, so your comment is a little nugget of gold Wes, thank you 🙏🏽
Sublime telling Jonathan. I recall this relationship from an earlier Schrödinger and I’m so happy it’s returned. There’s something terrible and wonderful about the understanding of the world these two youths carry, and how they navigate it with each other with great tenderness. I could see this unfolding into an entire novel, their lives branching, then returning.
That feeling of "terrible and wonderful" wonderful bangin against a small hideaway of tenderness is just what I'm trying to conjour up! Thanks Kimberly, Thanks!
"I could see this unfolding into an entire novel, their lives branching, then returning" - I'm leaning toward that thought myself :)
Ah, the 1980s, the decade that trashed the commons and set in motion the trajectory of immiseration of the people. Two world wars suddenly counted for nothing. And the fall-out in your story ... so well captured. Look forward to whatever comes next.
I couldn't have said it better myself! The way the ideology of the Austrian School (morons) trashed the social contract and ignored that inequality and the anti-democratic forces that were a main driver of both those wars, only to re-enliven the structural requirements needed to restart the ball rolling on massive inequality and condensing of power once again. Unbelievable idiocy - so that "Eventually only the most callous would triumph and the world would become a place where the passing mood of a single “winner” would decide the fate of entire nations." - Well, well, well, look where we are now.
Thanks so much Joshua for your comments and kind encouragement. I really appreciate it pal :)
Yep, the social contract between the governed and those-who-govern has been well and truly shredded. Because I was brought up expecting a different post-war world of "we all rise together after the shit that has happened", it has been quite painful and distressing at times to live through it all and watch it being callously dismantled.
I feel exactly the same. Watching the power narrative over the last 50 years has been like watching a relative suffer from increasing mental illness, lose all sense of reality and start screaming at the moon. Sad and depressing. It feels like at every opportunity the powered classes make the wrong choice and fuck up things further and further. I’m convinced inequality and power is the most dangerous arrangement for humans. I can’t think of a single example where power, wealth and a detached micro culture of self-aggrandising has ever improved anything. And yet that’s the only thing on today’s political menu.
And love...I'm trying to make it a white knuckle ride for the characters and the reader, and give them the depth we recognise because life throws everything at us all the time.
I’m always fascinated by how quickly we can fall in with characters when they are written this well, and then want so deeply to know how their stories turn out. Beautiful, evocative writing, Jonathan.
Jonathan, there is a treasure chest of incredible quotes here. I am reaching in with one hand, sifting through all the shiny baubles, gorgeous strands of words, and will randomly select one, because there are far too many favorites .
“I had long since been boxed and labelled and left to rot in his mind.”
I already feel the warmth of embers, the blinding sparks and snaps of great characters developing. There is no doubt you can go along way with this, maybe all the way. Cover to cover. I’m putting on my hiking boots, saddling my horse? Or maybe just choosing the best comfrey chair in the house, for the next trip.
Horse, boots or chair? I’d hope for the horse, put on the boots and end up sitting in the chair anyway 🤣
Thanks so much Lor, they do have potential these characters in this setting. I wanted to get the sister into a “posh” school to open up a path to true class conflicts…fun, fun, fun on the horizon :)
(Hope all’s well with you. Took a photo of a seagull carcass the other day. The body was totally devoured but the wings in perfect condition, put me in mind of the “snow angel” competition m. But it was a bit macabre so I didn’t send it 😂)
“…put on the boots and end up sitting in the chair anyway”. Sounds about right, have you been peeking in my living room window? Boots on, Vibram soles wiped clean. Sitting in my favorite chair. No horse, unless you count the big hairy dog at my feet. Sea gull angel wings? I guess we never ‘sealed the deal’ with specifics. I’ve got what looks to be an owl print on my somewhat dirty window. Two long outlined wings and a smudge of a face. Could be considered angelic looking, and it happened in the winter. My buddy the Barred Owl is still a regular, so I can safely say, ‘no birds were injured for this scene’. I’m leaving the print there for now, one, I hate cleaning windows, and two, it looks pretty cool. I think I’ve already mentioned that Ranger has already handed me a full house ,or is it a royal flush? I don’t play poker, but which ever is the better hand, that’s what we have. I’ll give you to a bit more time before I claim the trophy. 🏆
I’m going to hang mouse carcasses inside my windows in order to get my own Owl Print!! Damn! Ha ha. I’d ask Benny to run out and start Angelling but he’s busy with his quantum equations right now, don’t like to disturb his studies.
Personally, I pictured Benny with scholarly glasses on, sitting at your desk , character defining for your next chapter. Yeah, take a photo of those mouse carcasses and one of Benny sitting at your desk with glasses, and I’ll forfeit my ( our) inevitable win.
Superb - it just gets better and better.
Thanks pal :) It's so enjoyable to write this one too.
“when misery is the colour of your sky anything else feels like an approaching storm.” Just wow. Soooo much in this little line alone.
Wow. I’m so delighted you’ve brought these characters, this series, back.
Can’t wait for more.
Thanks Holly, I'm working on part 3 right now so not long to wait now ;)
Yesss!!
I think I called part one 'brutal and tender' or words to that effect and here you continue the theme, brilliantly, again!
I could pull many quotes, "We had learnt that expectation was an overture to defeat, so our hopes were as slender as our chances." - Resonant of my own youth in the eighties, perhaps of your own too - I wonder how much?
And your dialogue, "“It’s a Foxglove, beautiful but deadly, remember?”
“Even bees, the little almsmen of spring bowers,” she said.
“know there is richest juice in poison-flowers,” I said, “you remembered.” - outstanding, poignant, beautiful...
Next chapter please, the characters are forming, strong and compulsive reading - I can't wait! ✨
Thank you Susie! I'm so grateful for your kind word and reading and you know, everything!
Well, yep, the 80's for me and my family was...let's say challenging. The social aggression, the ideology of the Neoliberals, the media attacks on the "likes of us", the poverty, the cruelty of the Tories with their focus on the privileged and the ignoring of everybody else. So many challenging aspects that are directly responsible for the social tragedy that we see around us today were firmly started in those days.
So, it's quite a fun thing to write in many ways, humanising the dehumanised in a way. BTW, the narrator character is a lover of words and poetry so those lines you quoted were actually from a Keats poem which the characters have memorised. Wish they were mine :)
From Isabella who buried her murdered lovers head in a pot of basil; an epic poem of love and pining for the loss I, I remember well with equal amounts of love and loathing... A recital, aged 15 (?) if only I could have remembered the lines then, as well as I recall them now... your borrowing of those lines is perfect...
Ha ha, recitals as a kid that you never forget. I've got these words branded into my soul:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?-
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows
Which, I kinda like actually, maybe that was the turning point ;)
I've just had to look that up! Nice, simple and resonant fro me after recent days...
I am not certain which poem was a turning point but Yeats 'The Stolen Child' which I had to recite the following year has to be close... and Robert Service, The Men that don't fit in, later in my late teens - you could have guessed, both, I'm sure! 🙃
I love both of those! It's hard to read "The Stolen Child" without hearing the voice of Tomás Mac Eoin - the guy who so beautifully read it on The Waterboy's song - oh man that's a favourite alright.
Might go and listen to it now :)
I love your dialogue Jonathan.
'The lellow liver, sir'
..
The panicked rippling of laughter
As my classmates decide which side of the bullying they sat today.
Ah the authoritarian education system in the 80s. Great character writing, witty and arresting as always.
Thanks, Síodhna! I'm feeling these characters have plenty to say :)
A lot of memorable lines, like "expectation was an overture to defeat." You manage the most important detail of all and that is to make us like the protagonists. Good stuff.
I hoping to get readers to walk in the shoes of characters they have little in common with, so your comment is a little nugget of gold Wes, thank you 🙏🏽
Well, I’m pulling for them both and expect big things from that little girl.
I wasn't ready for that to end. Encore! 👏
Then don't worry my friend, the encore is coming :)
Sublime telling Jonathan. I recall this relationship from an earlier Schrödinger and I’m so happy it’s returned. There’s something terrible and wonderful about the understanding of the world these two youths carry, and how they navigate it with each other with great tenderness. I could see this unfolding into an entire novel, their lives branching, then returning.
That feeling of "terrible and wonderful" wonderful bangin against a small hideaway of tenderness is just what I'm trying to conjour up! Thanks Kimberly, Thanks!
"I could see this unfolding into an entire novel, their lives branching, then returning" - I'm leaning toward that thought myself :)
Ah, the 1980s, the decade that trashed the commons and set in motion the trajectory of immiseration of the people. Two world wars suddenly counted for nothing. And the fall-out in your story ... so well captured. Look forward to whatever comes next.
I couldn't have said it better myself! The way the ideology of the Austrian School (morons) trashed the social contract and ignored that inequality and the anti-democratic forces that were a main driver of both those wars, only to re-enliven the structural requirements needed to restart the ball rolling on massive inequality and condensing of power once again. Unbelievable idiocy - so that "Eventually only the most callous would triumph and the world would become a place where the passing mood of a single “winner” would decide the fate of entire nations." - Well, well, well, look where we are now.
Thanks so much Joshua for your comments and kind encouragement. I really appreciate it pal :)
Yep, the social contract between the governed and those-who-govern has been well and truly shredded. Because I was brought up expecting a different post-war world of "we all rise together after the shit that has happened", it has been quite painful and distressing at times to live through it all and watch it being callously dismantled.
I feel exactly the same. Watching the power narrative over the last 50 years has been like watching a relative suffer from increasing mental illness, lose all sense of reality and start screaming at the moon. Sad and depressing. It feels like at every opportunity the powered classes make the wrong choice and fuck up things further and further. I’m convinced inequality and power is the most dangerous arrangement for humans. I can’t think of a single example where power, wealth and a detached micro culture of self-aggrandising has ever improved anything. And yet that’s the only thing on today’s political menu.
From despair to anger and then to levity, if only for a while.
I look forward to the next parts, Jonathan. Beautiful writing!
And love...I'm trying to make it a white knuckle ride for the characters and the reader, and give them the depth we recognise because life throws everything at us all the time.
Thanks Fotini :)
I didn’t mention love, cause it is always present in your writing, Jonathan! The last part especially buzzes with love :)
❤️
I’m always fascinated by how quickly we can fall in with characters when they are written this well, and then want so deeply to know how their stories turn out. Beautiful, evocative writing, Jonathan.
Thanks pal. I'm kinda falling them for myself. I want them to be more complex than expected, deep and complex like humans.
Jonathan, there is a treasure chest of incredible quotes here. I am reaching in with one hand, sifting through all the shiny baubles, gorgeous strands of words, and will randomly select one, because there are far too many favorites .
“I had long since been boxed and labelled and left to rot in his mind.”
I already feel the warmth of embers, the blinding sparks and snaps of great characters developing. There is no doubt you can go along way with this, maybe all the way. Cover to cover. I’m putting on my hiking boots, saddling my horse? Or maybe just choosing the best comfrey chair in the house, for the next trip.
Horse, boots or chair? I’d hope for the horse, put on the boots and end up sitting in the chair anyway 🤣
Thanks so much Lor, they do have potential these characters in this setting. I wanted to get the sister into a “posh” school to open up a path to true class conflicts…fun, fun, fun on the horizon :)
(Hope all’s well with you. Took a photo of a seagull carcass the other day. The body was totally devoured but the wings in perfect condition, put me in mind of the “snow angel” competition m. But it was a bit macabre so I didn’t send it 😂)
“…put on the boots and end up sitting in the chair anyway”. Sounds about right, have you been peeking in my living room window? Boots on, Vibram soles wiped clean. Sitting in my favorite chair. No horse, unless you count the big hairy dog at my feet. Sea gull angel wings? I guess we never ‘sealed the deal’ with specifics. I’ve got what looks to be an owl print on my somewhat dirty window. Two long outlined wings and a smudge of a face. Could be considered angelic looking, and it happened in the winter. My buddy the Barred Owl is still a regular, so I can safely say, ‘no birds were injured for this scene’. I’m leaving the print there for now, one, I hate cleaning windows, and two, it looks pretty cool. I think I’ve already mentioned that Ranger has already handed me a full house ,or is it a royal flush? I don’t play poker, but which ever is the better hand, that’s what we have. I’ll give you to a bit more time before I claim the trophy. 🏆
I’m going to hang mouse carcasses inside my windows in order to get my own Owl Print!! Damn! Ha ha. I’d ask Benny to run out and start Angelling but he’s busy with his quantum equations right now, don’t like to disturb his studies.
Personally, I pictured Benny with scholarly glasses on, sitting at your desk , character defining for your next chapter. Yeah, take a photo of those mouse carcasses and one of Benny sitting at your desk with glasses, and I’ll forfeit my ( our) inevitable win.