Category: 2014 – December

Image: Cover design for The Legacy: Fate by Yanik Dallaire. Source

Author: Sandrine Spycher

Indie Author G. G. Atcheson

G. Atcheson, born in Montreal, Canada, is an independent author whose science-fiction books are already high-rated by online reviewers. And although she hated writing at school, Mrs Atcheson has always been a self-proclaimed dreamer. Words didn’t find their way to the paper, but many stories still lived in her mind. “Whether it was to put me to sleep at night or on the long commutes to work,” she says, “I’d close my eyes and imagine.” That imagination only needed a little impulse to turn into The Legacy series. That impulse happened one night as Mrs Atcheson was discussing TV shows, movies, and books with her husband; they found out that the two things they liked most (aliens and vampires) never appeared together. Soon after, she sat down at her computer to write her sci-fi novels.

G. Atcheson chose to self publish her novels because of the freedom it allowed her. And above all, she “wanted [her] characters to stay how [she] imagined them and not how the publisher would want them.” She writes her books in the point of view of an alien as a kind of linguistic strategy. Indeed, born in Montreal from French speaking parents, Mrs Atcheson does not write in her mother tongue but in English, especially after moving to the United States in 2000. She chose to write from that particular point of view so that her mistakes wouldn’t show. However, she needn’t worry about this issue because, like a reviewer told her, her French origin doesn’t show in her writing. And this shows just how meticulous she is in her work.

G. Atcheson’s science-fiction novel The Legacy: Fate is the story of LX (or Alex for Earthlings) who crashes on Earth, light-years away from his destination, while on an exploration mission. Alex knows he must not fraternize with the natives, and he does his best to keep away from them. That is, until he meets Mellie, an attractive young woman with speed and strength which, though unknown to Earthlings, are oddly similar to Alex’s own special abilities. He will thus start going out with her, first out of scientific interest but soon also because of tender feelings. For her, Alex will break his own people’s rules up to the point of no return. He will face betrayal at the hands of his new friends, and torture at those of his new enemies. And while Alex might be the only chance to save Earth from doom, he may have to break his primary Oath: the vow never to take a life.

The Legacy: Fate is a very well constructed novel with lots going on: unexpected plot twists, sub-plots combining into incredible climax, complex characters evolving on different levels, etc. The book starts with a short prologue which immediately throws the reader in the action, promising a thrilling and entertaining story. The language is fluid and makes for a quick read. Moreover, the pronoun you is used to address an implied reader in a quite light and witty dialog-like style. The novel is written through the eyes of an alien, with an internal focalization. This allows several powerful things. First, a lot of suspense is created as the reader discovers what happens at the same time as the protagonist. Then, a funny level is added to the story with the alien’s misunderstanding of Earthlings’ manners and jokes. More importantly, this particular narrator is cleverly used by Mrs Atcheson to criticize some human practices (such as hunting, for instance). The alien’s viewpoint is also an interesting device to defamiliarize certain common things. Money, for example, is referred to as “thin paper used in trades.” Earth’s description through alien eyes at the beginning of the novel is very striking as well. One more strength of this brilliant novel is the great intertextuality. One cannot read Alex’s exploits without thinking of Superman. A lot of historical events are also quickly mentioned to give some background to the novel and to enrich the character of Alex. There are, however, little reproaches that could be addressed to Mrs Atcheson about Fate. The most important one would be the projection of Earth traditions on her alien protagonist (he prays God, wears a wedding ring, etc.). Another negative point is that of the missing parental advisory. Indeed, the novel contains some swearing and sex scenes, but the reader has no way to know it before actually reading those scenes. Besides, these sexual encounters are almost the only descriptions of the protagonists’ relationship. The final combat scene is also slightly disappointing as its main focus is somewhat displaced from the main narrative (but I won’t say more, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you). The Legacy: Fate could also have done with a little more editing, but it is nevertheless a very clever novel which surprises by how well very different things—ravaging weather, aliens, vampires, and crime—are brought together. And what is most astounding is that it actually works; everything incredibly fits together despite the different genres.

G. Atcheson writes in the hope to give company to lonely people. As she says herself, “more people than we know are alone. Sometimes it’s by choice, other times it’s due to health reasons. They are stuck at home or in the hospital, and I believe books offer a good way to occupy their time. Our characters become their friends. As an author, we owe them good stories with relatable characters, something that will keep their mind off their everyday struggle.” Mrs Atcheson has this very humane mind (just like her character Alex) which also shows in her love for pets. Not only did she want to be a vet when she was a teenager, but she now owns three dachshunds and two cats. And although she admittedly writes for herself first, she also wants to share her fiction with sci-fi fans. “I hope that others who have a special love for [science-fiction] will be happy to discover there is someone out there who is writing about them. I can’t be the only one, can I?” Indeed she isn’t the only one. G. G. Atcheson writes original and unique stories, with great potential for more perfection and which would deserve a place on your shelf.

Image: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Source

Author: Charlotte Coudresse

A Paterian Charol

“I shrink from approaching Pater’s style, which has a peculiarly disagreeable effect upon my nerves – like the presence of a civet cat”.

J.A. Symonds, Victorian poet, literary critic, and feline lover.

This article is a (futile) attempt to do justice to a figure that has progressively waded out from the conventional literary horizon. Walter Pater, as mesmerizing and influencing as he was in the Victorian “naughty nineties”, does not hold sway on the modern mindset. Too much does he typify the stiff and shy scholar with his natural quietude. His over-the-top theorisation of cultural icons, his swelling and stilted analysis grind the gears of modern critics. His purple and highly evocative style raises objections; bulimistic seems his foray into too many literary genres (essay, pseudo-biography, novel). Plus, not one single sane soul could confide in Pater’s objectivity. The impressionistic approach of the Studies in the History of the Renaissance bids adieu to any modern form of criticism. Pater does not vindicate Matthew Arnold’s classicism, which imposes a critical distance from the object of analysis. Contrariwise, he does not intend to escape the emotion engendered by a work of art (and paving the path for the reader-response criticism, by the way): the subjective reaction enacts the deeply elusive significance of the object of art. Therefore, the reader will not find any fact-grounded or historical criticism: only the “impression of pleasure” is the stake of interpretation, the lens that furnishes the key to Mona Lisa’ smile, or Du Bellay’s spleen-inducing exile in Roma. As surprising as it seems to the 20^th century eye, the odds for Pater to shoot to stardom were high in the 19^th, with Wilde crowning himself as his most prominent epigon. The outrageous aesthete (too quickly) drew the conclusion that Pater was the trailblazer of the new Hedonism. As a core figure in Oxford’s literary milieu but arcane author to the mass, Pater naturally felt flattered, notwithstanding an understandable wariness. For in the fray and bustle of decadence, in the collision between aestheticism and Victorian moralism, to purport the doctrine of art for art’s sake was a considerable danger, and Pater was soon deemed as poisonous and condemned to a metaphorical pilorit.

That too could be considered as an adjunct inducement for the modern reader, who will soon be enchanted by the long, winding phraseology and complex synthesis of every artistic manifestation in one single sentence. Take, as a foretaste, the literary portrait of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa:

“The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all “the ends of the world are come,” and the eyelids are a little weary… All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave”.

Outrageously subjective, the all-encompassing association of diverse ideas conjures up an amiable wandering in a dream-like state, as well as it compels the reader to fuel the enthusiasm for old – to the verge of redundancy – topoi. The continuous fascination, from the fledgling allurement of the novice to the “hard, gem-like flame” of the weathered reader, holds sway in the long run, perhaps because of the diverse subjects that Pater embraces. His most praised essay on the Renaissance entails the pictural as well as the literary arts, from Leonardo de Vinci (quoted above) and Botticelli to less known figures, like the German scholar Winckelmann. This subjective line-up is easily explained by the fact that all of them embody a strong individuality that acts as a blazing torch for the centuries to come; an inspiration that would lead to a renewed understanding of life, to briskly sum up Pater’s conclusion.

For the gripped audience, Pater’s novel Marius the Epicurean would fulfil the wish of seeing a human, deep-coloured incarnation of the sometimes abstract philosophy (yes, let us confess that drawback, but we promise it is the only one). Pater wrote it out of fear of being hastily judged on his disreputable aestheticism, but notwithstanding the back-story, the novel, set up in the Roman age, remains compelling and singularly modern. Unless the Greek Studies reveal themselves as a must-read and compulsory input for the curious mind. Fortunately, the Oxford World’s Classics have recently re-edited the Renaissance studies for a modest price; the rest of the works can easily be bought in the Cambridge Library Collection. The Renaissance has not only swept the 14^th,: it has also come for Pater, “dead many times”; nonetheless resurrect as swiftly as his dame Lisa.

PATER, Walter, Studies in the History of the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.