What is a rusalka?

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Cherryh, Dvorak, Kievan Rus, rusalka, Russian empire, Slavic Folklore

This week, I had the exciting news that the fantastic Lorinda Taylor, author of The Termite Queen, wrote a really great piece about the rusalka, a creature from Slavic folklore, featuring Konstantin’s Gifts as part of the analysis! Read it here.

In Konstantin’s Gifts, I took the idea of the rusalka, which in folklore is primarily an aquatic entity (rather like a cross between Peg Powler, Jenny Greenteeth or grindylows of English folklore, and a siren), and extrapolated the idea of rusalki that could be connected to other elements. In my case, one of my characters becomes part fire rusalka. I had such fun, creating a new mythology and folkloric setting of stories and rumours relating to the nature of the fire rusalka.

Other semi-recent works featuring the rusalka include C.J. Cherryh’s Rusalka, which was set far earlier in Russian history, during the period of the Kievan Rus (and which I’ll confess I haven’t read…. yet!) and Dvorak’s opera. Here’s the justly celebrated aria, “Song to the Moon” from Mr. D’s work–a lovely, lyrical, wistfully yearning piece. This version features Lucia Popp (the chorus comes at about 1:24, and I suggest you wait for it… it gets me every time):

A Pox on All Line-Jumpers

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line-jumpers, entitlement, peeves

There should be a special circle of Hell reserved for line-jumpers. One in which they are perpetually and endlessly driven to cut the line, and they are forever thwarted and condemned for it.

Hyperbole aside, I realised today, as we encountered a spot of roadwork on the highway and were forced to trickle down to a single lane, that the aggravation of waiting was actually quite mild (so long as I’m not in a rush), relative to the anger I feel at the sight of someone trying to jump the line. And though I am usually a fairly calm person, it is something akin to rage that I experience at the sight of such behaviour.

When I react so strongly to something, I often like to step back and ask myself “why”? What button is this particular behaviour pushing in my psyche?

On Legacy, Infertility, Avoidance and Camp Nanowrimo

My Great Grandfather

So I have this book in my mind that I want to write. Magical Realism. A family saga. It’s a piece that is deeply important to me because of legacy.

What do I mean by legacy?

I have always valued ancestral narrative, family stories–all the myths and lore that grow up around the things our parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and other family members did during their time in the dash between birth and death years listed on their headstones (my heirloom stories idea is also a reflection of this, in shorter form). I had always dreamed of passing those stories down to further generations to come.

When I found out I was infertile, it was difficult. But, as those whose lives have been touched by it know, it’s not a closed door. Though in the wider parlance, “infertility” sounds stark and difficult and definitive, in modern medical speak it actually just means that a certain amount of time has passed during which a couple has been trying to conceive, and nothing has come of the attempts. So it’s more the naming of a question mark than of a final outcome. There are things you can do. Fertility drugs. IVF. Etc.

And I did them.

The Rusalka’s Song: an excerpt from Konstantin’s Gifts

In celebration of the release of the print edition of Konstantin’s Gifts, on Amazon.com, I thought I’d post a brief excerpt.

Vasya, my main character, is a serf who has been abused and imprisoned by her sadistic owner. In captivity, but faced with the first real prospect of escape, she falls into a restless sleep:

She dreamed of her childhood. Her grandmother’s face, peering down at the cluster of cowering children–Vasya and her cousins–hollow cheeks and knobby features deeply shadowed in the winter lamplight.

“Be good, little children,” the old woman hissed. “Don’t make a peep, or Baba Yaga will hear and she’ll take you away with her forever.”

Vasya and her cousins nodded solemnly, suitably cowed by the threat of Baba Yaga, the evil witch, who travelled on a flying mortar. She lived in a house with tall chicken legs that walked about the countryside, collecting up children, who were never heard from again. Baba Yaga would eat the children for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then, for dessert, she’d save the sweetest, tiniest, most succulent little babies–or at least, that’s what Vasya’s cousin claimed.

If you like Downton Abbey…

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Brideshead Revisited, Downton Abbey, Forster, Gosford Park, Maurice, Room with a View

Gosford Park. Yeah, baby!

I’ve continued watching Downton, as time permits. It has moved a little out of the rut that it had fallen into when I did my last post. But I have to admit, the main frustrations I have with it (and with the villains in particular) remain.

Still, it’s set in a period and against a backdrop I particularly enjoy. If you’re a fan, something like Upstairs Downstairs is one of the more obvious comparators. I remember watching some of that, and being initially engaged, before losing interest for some reason, many years ago. Here are some other films and shows that evoke elements of Downton–and which sustained my interest throughout.

Thoughts on Downton Abbey

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Brideshead Revisited, Downton Abbey, Evelyn Waugh

 

I know. This isn’t Downton. It’s Brideshead, 1981 edition. More on that below.

My husband and I have been watching Downton Abbey these past weeks and we’re now partway through the second season (so, you know, here there be spoilers, at least up to part way through the second season–be ye duly warned). We both really liked the first season, and I found the first few episodes of the second season engaging.

There’s a lot to love–the beautiful setting, the beautiful characters; the fact that the good characters, aside from minor flaws (a temper, an impulsiveness, a peculiar blindness in the context of one’s lady’s maid), are very good; and the bad characters, aside from occasionally redemptive acts, are reliably awful. This means that as viewers, we can feel a kind of safety in watching. Bates will always be quiet, courtly and honourable, even to his own detriment; Lady Sybil will be reliably activist and progressive; and so on.

This reliability is something appealing about the show. Except when it stops being appealing, and starts to feel static.

Five Things I Love About BBC’s Luther

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BBC, crime drama, Idris Elba, Luther, Netflix, Ruth Wilson, television

I admit I was skeptical. The description… something about an urban detective using psychological factors to solve crimes while dealing with personal challenges sounds like a dozen other crime show out there right now. I figured it would be the usual “Mentalist” meets “Lie to Me” meets… you get the idea. Don’t get me wrong–I like these shows, but with each new one that gets added to the television offerings (that one where Tony Shaloub has OCD; that reboot of Kojak with Ving Rhames that I just didn’t get into), the enactment of the premise seems to become a little more trite, a little more cliche, a little less engaging.

Not so with Luther. This show surprised me, and by the end of the first episode, I was hooked and wanting more. My list of five:

Images of a Lost Empire

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early photography, Prokudin-Gorskii, rusalka, Russian empire, time travel, Tsar Nicholas II, vampire, werewolf

Peasant Girls, 1909

A number of years ago, my husband brought this website to my attention. These are the photographs of a man named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, a photographer who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and whose photographic method allowed him to win the funding of Tsar Nicholas II. He travelled the Russian Empire, documenting in full, vibrant and gorgeous colour, a sampling of the vast and diverse scope of the Russian Tsarist regime short years before war and revolution caused it to disappear forever.

I was absolutely fascinated. Here were villages that had, in many cases, been untouched by electricity and the modernity of industrialization, but were documented in photographs so vivid and intense that they might have been taken yesterday. I kept coming back to them again and again. I couldn’t get over the colours–I always assume that somehow life was duller and less colourful in those old black and white photos (I know otherwise intellectually, but with no information to interpolate colour, my mind tends to infer drab shades). Not so.

Francis Underwood: Psychopath

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Francis Underwood, House of Cards, Iago, Kevin Spacey, Macbeth, Netflix, psychopath, television

My husband and I have been spending the past several evenings watching the new, American edition of House of Cards. It’s a sinister but engaging series about the machinations of power at the highest levels, featuring an anti-hero protagonist. Francis (Frank) Underwood is a character of Shakepearean dimensions—a latter day version of what you might get if you were to cross Iago with Macbeth (indeed, some of the episodes are decidedly elegant and clever riffs on these).

He’s also a psychopath. The recent definitions of psychopathy do not require violent behaviours or any other such displays. Instead, the current construal of the condition has more to do with a lack of compassion or empathy, combined with a superficial charm or charisma. This juxtaposition means that the psychopathic individual is observant enough to be able to enact appealing behaviours that persuade others to do things for them—but in cases where the charm doesn’t work, such individuals are not burdened by conscience, guilt or regret.

This doesn’t automatically translate to violence, as most psychopaths are smart enough to know that violence isn’t always the easiest path to obtaining the outcome they seek.

In the case of Frank, he is possessed of an overweening ambition, combined with a keen intelligence and a complete lack of compassion—one gets the sense that he sees people with no more or less empathy than he has for the pieces in the chess game that he is occasionally seen playing.

I find him repugnant,* even as I am fascinated by his combination of cold brilliance, a willingness to cross line after line in pursuit of his ends, and an ability to strategize and manipulate as necessary, with what seems like an almost preternatural effectiveness.

Negative Reviews: Three Questions to Ask Yourself

When I was about eleven or twelve, I gave my mother one of my early efforts to read. When I asked her what she thought, she began telling me all the problems with it. I had expected lavish praise, and so I responded by growing sullen—and after a few moments she said, “Look I can tell you it’s fantastic and wonderful if you want. But if you actually want to become a better writer, then that’s not going to do you any good.”

I went away and thought about it and decided she was right. Newly humbled, I went back and asked her to tell me what was wrong with the chapter—and she did.

Thus began my long history with negative feedback. I’ve certainly gotten a lot of it over the years, and it is key to growth and development—but only if it’s in line with the direction in which you want to grow and develop.

These days, I deal with negative feedback rather differently, whether it’s a scathing critique or a negative review on my Amazon listing.