Adventures in Unhistory
I think it was about a year ago I was reading Neil Gaiman’s website and he mentioned he’d purchased a book titled Adventures in Unhistory. I ordered a copy because I liked the title and the premise (though I think most names beginning with the prefix un- are kinda lame) and as a result have had the book sitting on a shelf between, now, three different apartments and one house.
Well, several weeks ago I picked up my copy, placed, gently, the dust jacket on a shelf, and started to read it. I have, at the same time, found it interesting and not a page-turner by any stretch of the imagination; though the book is interesting enough in the information it attempts to impart that it does draw me back again and again and again. I can’t say this about a lot of books I read.
Not like I don’t have stacks of books to read. Every once in a while I think, “I should add some kind of applet to the sidebar to show people which books (non-school) I am carrying around and working my way through,” and then I realize that is one more thing to try and update; and, for the most part, it’s a list that is actually very boring. Most of those books are on writing. Fiction, mostly. Picked up one last night on writing magazine articles. I am thinking that I’ve had some ideas for articles and, as a result, want to get out there and see what kinds of markets exist for that aspect of freelancing. Specifically, there is an article about Maine for a Maine publication I want to write. As I looked at the publications information, the other day, their guidelines indicate that I not talk about it in advance of my attempting to get them to take me seriously.
Anyway, most of what I am working through are non-fiction works specifically on writing and, unless you are really in to the whole writing thing (like me) they are boring books. Though, with that said, I plan to talk about them more on inordertowrite.com (.net, .org) – which, also, incidentally got a facelift as I realized that for CMS I prefer blogs and of the blogging software I am currently running, wordpress seems to be the most user friendly for the things (and changes) I want to be doing. Plus, it took little/no effort to uninstall the CMS I was using (mambo) and install Wordpress on the website(s).
And yet, that doesn’t talk about what I want to be talking about, now does it?
Specifically, Adventures in Unhistory is a book that takes some popular mythologies, fantasies, and then dissects the etymology of the myth in to aspects that make it possible for the story, creature, or character to have existed in some form or another. Take, for example, my current favorite item in the book, the phoenix.
Basically, the author (Avram Davidson) takes apart the pieces of the phoenix and tries to explain them. For example, the color of the phoenix is red and a brilliant blue. There are only a handful of birds, and none native to the middle east, that are this color. He posits that for a bird to be this color it would have to come from a remote location, and, one of those locations would be China where a specifically red hued and were also protected by the government… it would make sense that if this bird were to escape or be smuggled out rarely, it would also make sense the idea that the phoenix dies in fire and is reborn every 500 or 1000 years.
Anyway, there is a lot more like anting. I did not know that birds, especially large wild ones, anted. Or that anting even existed. This is, for those that don’t know (I am assuming this is everyone) where a bird takes an object, ants in ancient times, and rubs them all over their bodies and especially under the wings. It causes the bird to go into an almost orgasmic state after which the bird frequently falls over. That’s interesting, but what is more interesting is that a lot of large birds actually like to do this in and around fire all without burning themselves or singeing their feathers. And then the bird falls over.
For hundreds, nay THOUSANDS, of years no one has actually witnessed this happening, or no one of enough authority with some kind of video or photographic evidence. And then someone with evidence did see it happening and suddenly, it is possible for a bird to dance in flames and fall over to be a part of the origin of the phoenix myth.
Davidson begins his book with Sinbad the Sailor and I am currently reading about the origin of dragon mythologies and how most peoples (ancient) had a dragon guarding something (gold) in different directions (e.g. north, south, east, and west) with the Chinese actually having a dragon for each of these (Green dragon was for south, kind of baffles me as south, in my mind, is more indicative of a different color, like blue or yellow; but then, that is me).
Anyway, the book is very interesting. I like it.
Thought I’d take the time and share that with y’all.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond