To celebrate PS Publications’ publication of The White Library, a century ago today, during lockdown and in a time of increasing a-literacy, I’ve jotted a little monologue in that universe, also set in a library. This will be puzzling, probs, if you haven’t read TWL, but if you’re never likely to purchase and download for your favourite reader from PS, here is a spoilerish blurb. The White Library features Angela Donohoe, who may or may not be the sister of Nigel Donohoe, hero of my earlier novel The Weird Colonial Boy. In fact, this book started as The World Colonial Boy and follows The Post-Colonial Boy. It’s not a sequel, however, since Nigel and Angela inhabit different universes. It does add to the pleasure of the text (aka referential froth) however. Little easter eggs. Angela’s world is dominated by Mendania, a Spanish-invaded Great Southern Land, which has its own empire across the planet, a colony on Mars, and a magnificient “National Library of Victoria, NLV, Biblioteca Nacional a la Comarca Mendana, the Big Tit: the Library.” With alternate universes, critics speak of a “Jonbar” point, a moment where timelines split. I’m not sure I believe this even if the physics of multiple universes is a good explanaiton for how things work. However, I do have at least one, below. From the opening pages: In Fifteen Hundred and Ninety-sixIn four old sailboats made of sticksÁlvaro and Pedro brought their picksOn GeronimoAnd YsabelCatalinaAnd FelipeThey ran out of grub and fell in a heapBought a whole country very cheapOne, two, three escudosFour, five, six escudosHigh low, high lowHow low can you GO? Skipping rhyme (poss. orig. Queensland British Territory) from Gold Rush in the School Yard: a short history of Mendana in the peoples’ lingo Manning Clark (ed). World building, eh? This story takes place some years after The White Library, possibly the 90s, and doesn’t concern the same characters, and is set in a different library. So nobody can accuse me of cashing in on a successful formula. Ha. Avert your eyes if you want to read The White Library, or go no further and buy a copy. (Go on. It’s a fiver.) Angela Donohoe has a mind like few others. One might say she’s autistic but I don’t. She is definitely compulsive, loving primes, collecting things, getting by by imitation of people whose personalities “work” in the real world. Unemployed and arguably disgraced, she arrives at the NLV, which is like Melbourne’s State Library had Gaudi designed it and Australia had been sold to the English by the Spanish and then had a revolution, and Melbourne called Cavendish. There Angela joins a book search service, which uses their version of the internet to catalogue estates, a process she reckons she can improve. In doing so, she invents a form of faster-than-light drive. I’m one of those who believe that an “expository lump,” where the scientist splains imaginary physics or biology to the innorant hero, is actually an attraction of science fiction—especially—instead of a drawback. I believe Samuel Delany first opened my eyes to this and as an alumni of a Clarion far-west workshop I leapt on the idea in rebellion of conventional wisdom. Also, George Turner was one of my teachers, who loved a good lump. It’s protein. Protean. Pro-teen. Anyway, it’s good stuff. The faster-than-light works by human effort, supplied by Angela at first using a bicycle. Later she harnesses humans who walk in to space. They pull up a chunk of where they’re coming from to where they’re going. In this case, the library. The only trouble is, the process turns people into animals. Probably by cycling them through all possible worlds. So here we are. “Get Out and Push.” A monologue, father to son, during an emergency, with turning into an animal at stake. Hardly “My Last Duchess,” but a little tidbit read my old friend Karl Presser, who has played everything on stage from Mousey in Of Mice and Men at the Boort Fiesta, to Sebastian in a puppet version of Twelfth Night (in which I worked an alien Duke Orsino with glowing eyes) in a career at least as speckled as mine own. Here’s a line I would like to have fitted in but never did: “The library was depressurising.” Enjoy the free downloads. The story, music and effects by Karl Presser and Oscar Voermans, read by Karl Presser, words and design by Paul Voermans. Feel free to distribute but not to take credit. As if. epub here ~~) bonus music by Oscar Voermans here ~~) Get full access to Dunning-Kruger Morris Dance Mirror at dunningkrugerdancemirror.substack.com/subscribe
