domingo, 18 de julio de 2021

why after lützen (efter lützen) is a promising ficseries

 You already know from El semen de los ahorcados that Courfeyrac had an ancestor who fought in the Thirty Years' War (and whom he dressed up as for a masquerade). Well, his story is about to be expanded upon, as a StrixAlluka 30YW AU with the Amis as Swedish Army deserters turned guerrilla soldiers of fortune is underway. It will be in Swedish and called "Efter Lützen". Enj is Prussian landed gentry and R a Moor by way of Marseille (Schönherr Engelhart and Razi/Remi)... most of the cast will remain French though with a few more exceptions (Musichetta, Leslie - Lesgle, Joellll - Jolllly)... Furthermore, Gustavus Adolphus will play the role Napoleon played in canon Les Mis!

The idea or bunny came partly from that reference to the musketeer Baron de Courfeyrac in El semen, partly from a mention of Lützen in Les Misérables canon, Colonel Pontmercy having fought in the Napoleonic battle. But I could not shake the idea of the 30YW battle off my head and wondered what if Les Mis had been set in that period and all the Amis sans Marius had been killed in that seventeenth-century war. And of course Colonel Pontmercy would have fought in a Swedish-French alliance and been killed at Lützen...

Schönherr Engelhart and Jules Combeferre + Hercule de Courfeyrac. There you have the rittmeister and his two lieutenants respectively, who keep the ranks they held in the Swedish military. The young Prussian of the landed gentry and his French teacher's son, who has a plan to sort out all flora and fauna a century before Linnaeus, both joined the Swedish military in their late adolescence in order to fight for freedom of worship. The young Gascon baron and lieutenant of musketeers came to the heart of Europe as an envoy to the Swedish camp, representing the Cardinal (Richelieu), with a certain Moor by way of Marseille (R, aka Razi, aka Remi) for a valet (and cupbearer, and squire...).

Razi (Remi), the Moor who never has laid eyes on his parents' birthplace of Castellón, started out with his widowed mother Miriam (Marie) on the docks of Marseille; her husband having been killed in a street fight on those same docks. He became a petty servant in Courfeyrac's entourage thanks to circumstances beyond his control

The Álvarez (actually Thénardier) family - camp followers, confidence tricksters, and corpse plunderers, whose wagon home can always be found when an engagement has just taken place. Cosette's former guardians, who pretend to be Spanish nobles (according to the Thénardiers themselves, he's from Barcelona ---Fawlty Towers reference!--- and she's from Santiago de Compostela). Éponine alone, their firstborn, is not supporting this elaborate confidence trick; unlike her younger siblings Azelma and Gavroche - although the latter joins Engelhart's company alongside his eldest sister, as per canon

Cosette, Marius, and Valjean "the snowy owl..." Innocent orphan adolescent Fantine was, in this era, ravaged by a thirtyish officer when her home village was raided; she entrusted her daughter to the Thénardiers just like in canon for the same reasons and became a worker in a uniform cloth factory in Wallenstein's province of Friedland, with Valjean for an overseer - his backstory is also just like in canon (older sister and fatherless nephews, bread theft, prisoner camp... lock stock and barrel - only sans kindly bishop and with Wallenstein instead).

Musichetta - here she is a North Italian (Ferrarese) opera singer who was soubrette until a while ago to fairytale collector and primadonna her southern friend Adriana Basile (who compiled the Pentamerone alongside her brother Giambattista!). Not long ago they parted ways when she decided to move up north into the war torn heart of Europe with the half of the company that preferred opera buffa to opera seria - in order to bring smiles to the regions with commedia-dell'arte style plots and gags.

miércoles, 7 de julio de 2021

TSQ-IV: BENEATH THE MOON, YOSHI YOSHITANI

 First things first, greetings from Gothenburg, which was founded by Gustavus Adolphus 400 years ago!!! I'll be staying up north until mid-August and then return to "sunny" Spain (actually, I loathe the hot sun because it causes chafing and triggers cold sores!)...

So I went to this bookshop here in Gothenburg and picked up the lavishly illustrated storybook Beneath the Moon, by Yoshi Yoshitani. Looked up The Snow Queen then scrolled down to what would be the Fourth Story or Part the Fourth. It was only one sentence or clause long, but remarkably well abridged!!! Mind that each story in this book only takes up one page, opposite its illustration, and therefore the longest of these tales are abridged to fit into the one-page format. Hence why the Fourth Story in this Snow Queen is only one sentence/clause long.

Before we move into the long story cut remarkably short, I would like to quote the introduction by Yoshitani-sensei. I have underlined some passages which are true for my experience of the prince and princess in the Andersenian subplot that I adore:

"This collection of stories is meant to serve as a short window into many different cultures. The average reader will recognise a few but many more will be unfamiliar. Some readers will see two or more pieces of themselves never seen before. As much as possible I've tried to indicate each story's point of origin, [...]

Like the tarot cards, each of these stories is equally relevant, and each offers valuable insights to the human experience.

I hope you enjoy this collection and leave wanting to learn even more about each other, all of us living beneath the same moon.

Yoshi Yoshitani."

And of course in Part the Fourth, AKA the Fourth Story, no matter if the telling is the usual five-page length or a single clause like here, I see two pieces of myself, or actually one piece broken into two and brought back together. This subplot also offers a valuable insight into the human experience or two: kindred spirits and altruism (the latter when the subplot crosses with the main plot of The Snow Queen), both of which I hold very dear..

And thus, without further ado...

The Snow Queen

DENMARK, DANISH FAIRY TALE

[...] 

[...] it was only a clever prince who had married a very wise princess.

[...] 

That's all, folks. No mention of the coach/carriage or the massacre of the redshirt servants in the dark forest (in Part/Story 5), neither of the young royal pair's honeymoon in foreign lands (in Part/Story 7). It's just this clause. Talk about "long story short!" A lengthy subplot condensed into just this single clause or sentence. The two secondary yet favourite characters described with matching, near synonymous adjectives, and her intelligence being heightened by a "very" that may not have its match in his descriptions, yet puts her on a pedestal compared to other fairytale princesses (and again, no other fairytale princess is so well-read, and to quote Maria Tatar "no other fairytale princess seeks such qualities in a man") and allows for more intellectual equality on a more equal footing given traditional gender roles.

I hope you have enjoyed this one-clause retelling and that you feel curious to click on my "the snow queen fourth story" tag in this post to get to know more about this pair of favourite characters of mine.