Writing Update: 15-05-26 (Patreon)

Change: +6,087

Current Story (Lamb): 47,884

Year to date: 53,846

No one lives his life.Disguised since childhood,haphazardly assembledfrom voices and fears and little pleasures,we come of age as masks.Our true face never speaks.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours, Book II, Poem 12

I never studied Rilke, had no knowledge of him as a poet until I met my wife. She studied him as part of her degree in German. For her thirtieth birthday I bought her a book of translated Rilke poems, German on one side, English on the other. I read snippets to her as the clock approached midnight, the final minutes of her twenties slipping away. I think we can all agree that it's a miracle she ever agreed to marry me.

It's very easy to read out of this first stanza themes of identity and (self-) concealment that runs through a lot of what I and others write in this genre. I don't think Rilke was writing on the gender of topic, specifically; I don't think he wasn't writing on the topic of gender, either.

David in Constant, has worn a "disguise" since childhood; so has Daniel in Amber. It remains to be seen whether Blake is a mask, or Alex's "true face," in Lamb. In the "struggle / against the deathly clutch of daily necessity," the poem--and I think, the story--asks, "Who is living" the life being lived?

It's a question I imagine many of us can also ask ourselves.

***

I'd hoped to have the next chapter of Lamb ready to publish by today but didn't quite get there, despite a relatively fruitful week of writing. The chapter's expanded a bit beyond its original scope, but it's very nearly done. I should be ready to post over the weekend or by early next week at the latest.

Here's a little snippet to hopefully whet you appetite:

***

“But look at you," Amber says, "all first-name with our trust-fund princeling.”

                Alex winces. “Please. I already feel ick about it.”

                “Why?” Amber tilts her head to one side, gives her drink a stir. “I mean, it sounds like fun. Like, you’ve got to be careful with those aristo twats, but they can throw a hell of a party.” She leans a little closer, and Alex is mesmerised by the gleam of pub lighting on her lips, the dramatic sweep of eyelashes and wonders, does she see me in the same way, under the same light? “Maybe when you arrive, they get you to dress up in one of those sexy little maid outfits, and the corset so tight, you can’t help but feel breathless as his hands circle your tiny waist and you’re all, ‘ooh la la, monsieur le belle-end, non, s’il vous plait, non!’”—and her French accent is both ridiculous and impeccable—“as he effortlessly bends you over his knee and smacks your little bottom with the ruffled panties and you kick your legs, all helpless, ‘monsieur, oh, monsieur, non, oh, no, oh, oui, oh oui monsieur, encore, plus dure, plus dure, monsieur!”

                “Amber!” he hisses, and she dissolves into giggles, at his flushed face, the burning red cheeks, his scandalised expression. He leans forward: “you don’t really think it’ll be like that? Like, for real?”

                She laughs harder. “See, now you want to go.”