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Over at Tor.com, Randee Dawn has written an article about shopping in Faerie. Well, in fantasy literature, anyway, which is almost the same thing. I mention this because a section of Ms. Dawn's essay deals with the night market in Avernus, which appears in my most recent novel, The Iron Dragon's Mother.
I will not give away any of the article, but I will mention the fact that that section was inspired by the night market of Split, Croatia. Marianne and I were staying in a room just inside the Silver Gate of Diocletian's Palace and the night market was just outside the city walls. And I am here to tell you that it had all the magic of a carnival at night. Wonderful and tacky at one and the same time.
You can find the article here. Or just wander through the Tor.com website, which has many stories and articles of interest including my story, "The Star-Bear," which just went up a week or so ago.
Enjoy!
Above; If you've never read Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market, you really should. She denied the sexual subtext that seems so obvious to us, but just try reading it aloud and make up your own mind. Not in front of children or teenagers, though. They'll start snickering.
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4 comments:
I took your advice and read "Goblin Market" for the first time. I was bemused by the line where she compares one goblin to a wombat and another to a ratel (a.k.a. honey badger).
Imagine my wonderment on looking into the matter a little further and learning that the Rossettis actually owned a couple of wombats (but not, as far as I can tell, a honey badger) and that the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were obsessed with wombats!
I asked ChatGPT about it. ChatGPT, did Dante Gabriel Rossetti own a wombat?
Yes, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the famous artist and poet, did own a wombat. In the mid-1860s, Rossetti was given a young wombat by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and writer Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti named the wombat "Top", and he became a beloved pet and frequent subject of Rossetti's art. Top was known to accompany Rossetti on walks and was even allowed to roam freely around Rossetti's home.
Really! What are some of Rossetti's paintings that include Top?
Some of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings that include his pet wombat, Top, are:
1. "Lady Lilith" (1866-68) - This painting features a portrait of Rossetti's mistress, Fanny Cornforth, with Top sitting at her feet.
2. "The Day Dream" (1880) - This painting depicts a woman reclining on a couch with Top sleeping at her feet.
3. "Monna Vanna" (1866) - This painting features a portrait of Rossetti's friend and muse, Jane Morris, with Top sitting on a cushion beside her.
4. "Pandora" (1869) - This painting depicts the mythological figure Pandora holding a box with Top sitting at her feet.
5. "Proserpine" (1874) - This painting features a portrait of Jane Morris as the goddess Proserpine with Top sitting on a cushion beside her.
These are just a few examples of Rossetti's paintings that include his pet wombat, Top.
Fact check: It appears true that the pet wombat was called Top. Rossetti bought it himself; it was not given to him by Burne-Jones. It is true that he did some drawings of the wombat. The wombat does not appear in any of the paintings listed here (as far as I can see!)—those are all lies.
I knew before that ChatGPT was a liar, but this episode has driven home for me its subhuman mendacity.
Damn ChatGPT! I was ready to google up those pix. The fact that its universe is more interesting in some ways than ours does not forgive it.
I fear the day chatbots become more cunning. And I fear that it will be sometime next month.
But thank you, Richard, for this fascinating exploration of the present.
Thinking about ChatGPT puts me in a bad mood. Best not to dwell on it, but instead to mourn Top in this delightful but sad picture which *does* exist:
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s606.rap.html
Btw - something I meant to mention after reading _The Star Bear_ - and more particularly your piece on writing it - there was a piece in the New Yorker earlier this year on being a lover of Russian literature in a time when it’s hard to feel good about Russia. It has some interesting comments about finding sentiments of manifest destiny and pan-Slavic imperialism in classics we might assume are safely apolitical.
Turns out it’s online too: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/rereading-russian-classics-in-the-shadow-of-the-ukraine-war
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