The Lucifer Chord
The best short story I've ever read is Ernest Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River. It perfectly demonstrates his Iceberg Theory, which is that if the author knows their characters' history, he/she can leave seven-eighths of it under the surface and the reader will still get what's going on.
In the story, first published in 1925, protagonist Nick Adams goes on a camping and fishing trip, in the wilderness, alone. Reading it, you come quickly to realise that he is profoundly traumatised. The Great War is the trauma, though it's never mentioned at all in the story, which I've always regarded as an immensely subtle, understated masterpiece.
I've always been intrigued by Iceberg Theory and to some extent, inspired by it too. I employed it in The House of Lost Souls. I've done it again in The Lucifer Chord. The novel re-unites Ruthie Gillespie with Michael Aldridge, almost three years after they first met in my novella The Going and the Rise. And the novel is set a few weeks after the conclusion of my Colony trilogy closer Harvest of Scorn, in which Ruthie featured heavily, and which left her at the very least, emotionally bruised.
The Lucifer Chord is a stand-alone. No reader needs to be aware of the specifics of anyone's back-story to get what's going on. It's obvious Ruthie and Michael have a history that's left them unfinished business - at least in the mind and heart of one of them. And it's obvious Ruthie is emotionally wounded.
But if I can be an Iceberg Theory heretic for a moment, I honestly think you'd enjoy this novel more if you'd previously read The Going and the Rise. That's 25, 000 words, set on Wight, narrated in the first-person by Michael Aldridge and is Ruthie's fictive debut. And it can still be downloaded digitally entirely free from fgcottam.com or bought as an audiobook for under £2, which read by the matchless David Rintoul, isn't an outrageous price for almost three hours of scary escapism.
There. That's me having it both ways. Enjoy. Which let's be honest, is the whole point. Or at least seven-eighths of it.
In the story, first published in 1925, protagonist Nick Adams goes on a camping and fishing trip, in the wilderness, alone. Reading it, you come quickly to realise that he is profoundly traumatised. The Great War is the trauma, though it's never mentioned at all in the story, which I've always regarded as an immensely subtle, understated masterpiece.
I've always been intrigued by Iceberg Theory and to some extent, inspired by it too. I employed it in The House of Lost Souls. I've done it again in The Lucifer Chord. The novel re-unites Ruthie Gillespie with Michael Aldridge, almost three years after they first met in my novella The Going and the Rise. And the novel is set a few weeks after the conclusion of my Colony trilogy closer Harvest of Scorn, in which Ruthie featured heavily, and which left her at the very least, emotionally bruised.
The Lucifer Chord is a stand-alone. No reader needs to be aware of the specifics of anyone's back-story to get what's going on. It's obvious Ruthie and Michael have a history that's left them unfinished business - at least in the mind and heart of one of them. And it's obvious Ruthie is emotionally wounded.
But if I can be an Iceberg Theory heretic for a moment, I honestly think you'd enjoy this novel more if you'd previously read The Going and the Rise. That's 25, 000 words, set on Wight, narrated in the first-person by Michael Aldridge and is Ruthie's fictive debut. And it can still be downloaded digitally entirely free from fgcottam.com or bought as an audiobook for under £2, which read by the matchless David Rintoul, isn't an outrageous price for almost three hours of scary escapism.
There. That's me having it both ways. Enjoy. Which let's be honest, is the whole point. Or at least seven-eighths of it.
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Bill
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May 13, 2018 02:39AM
As a schoolboy I recall gradually being aware he’s suffering from what we later learned to call PTSD.
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Probably why Colonel Cantwell in Across the River and into the Trees defecates on the battlefield in Italy where Hemingway suffered his WW1 wound. Also explains the symbolism of Jake Barnes' wounded disfigurement.
Ginger's remark about deodorants brought back memories. I recall adverts in the Underground in the 1960s, probably as early as 1962. Doubt they were commonly used by dockers, tho'.
My brother plays the pipes in the London Scottish pipe band and overheard two veterans discussing the past at a regimental dinner. One of them said that, 'the good old days', right up to the start of the 70s in London, smelled overwhelmingly of tobacco smoke and body odour. The remark just rang true.
