I don't write many older characters. I suppose age - as with most things - is relative in fiction. When I began writing The Watcher's Heir (my will-be-finished-one-day high fantasy epic), I was still at school and my hero began the story aged 25, an age I could not imagine ever reaching but an age I thought would still be considered young by many. If I ever manage to finish and edit that story, I'll be extending his - and a few others' - age! Having grown older, I've realised the advantages and the benefits of age. Of course, it's a bit of a disappointment that I'm never asked for ID in the shop anymore, or that people assume I'm my younger sisters' mother(!). But, on the whole, the pros have far outweighed the cons. The biggest con in terms of writing, is that it's difficult not to put an old head on young shoulders. Looking through books - both my own and those written by other people - it is clear just how easy it is to slip into the "ol...
Today for #HistFicThursdays, I am delighted to once again be teaming up with The Coffee Pot Book Club, this time to share an excerpt from SP Somtow's fantastic new book Nero and Sporus!
First of all, let's meet the book...
Finally available in one volume! The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow's Literary Titan Award-winning novel about one of ancient history's wildest characters.
The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena.
And here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:
I suppose we were anxious to see who the surprise competitor would be, but no one was as surprised as Himself. For the man who walked over to the center of the scenic was no less a figure than Lucius Domitius Paris himself. And Paris, too, was Niobe. Another Niobe. This Niobe was wearing a simple cloak, as though awakened from sleep to the horror that had been wreaked on her children.
The Emperor sputtered, “How could he, how dare he!”
There was no chorus. There was no ensemble of kitharas and flutes. Only a single four-stringed lyre. Paris waved for the music to begin. We were all waiting for the sound of his voice, celebrated by critics and music lovers throughout the empire. But he did not sing. The lyre sounded … just one note, again and again.
Nero whispered, “I brought him here to help train me, not to undermine me!”
Then Paris spoke. Again, he did not sing. After a brief introductory strophe and antistrophe, Paris stopped his recitation, and allowed the lyre-players to play, just a repetitive sequence of notes, a slow ostinato that seemed meaningless enough but grew in force and obsessive power until the sound produced was overwhelming.
And Paris mimed the tale of Niobe’s grief. This was his surprise! He had not entered the singing competition at all — he was not going to sing a note. This was his revenge against the poetaster Emperor’s mediocrity.
Paris was alone on stage but as he played all the roles — the gods, the tormented princess, the innocent boys and girls — you could see all fourteen children riddled with arrows as the twin gods, sun and moon, hunted them down and shot them. You could hear their screams, the shock of the palace servants, the swoosh of celestial darts as they found their marks, the rending of flesh, the spurt of blood and the gush of tears. All without Paris making a single sound.
I looked around. People were in tears.
Nero muttered, “I begged him to teach me mime. Begged him! He refused. He refused me! And I now I know — he always intended to make a fool of me!”
Nero rose from his seat and began to storm away. I got up to follow, but he sternly waved at me to sit back down. “You must represent Rome,” he said. He left, and a dozen Praetorians went with him.
Paris had still not sung. What I witnessed next was extraordinary. I saw the spirit of Niobe slowly dissolve, like wine poured into sand, and the actor emerge. It happened slowly. It was as if Niobe had possessed his body and soul, and now was gradually dissociating herself from him. And what remained was an actor, an empty vessel.
There was a stunned silence.
The applause came like a storm at sea.
Lucius Domitius Paris, I thought, is a dead man.
Now, let's meet the author:
Once referred to by the International Herald Tribune as 'the most well-known expatriate Thai in the world,' Somtow Sucharitkul is no longer an expatriate, since he has returned to Thailand after five decades of wandering the world. He is best known as an award-winning novelist and a composer of operas.
Born in Bangkok, Somtow grew up in Europe and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. His first career was in music and in the 1970s, his first return to Asia, he acquired a reputation as a revolutionary composer, the first to combine Thai and Western instruments in radical new sonorities. Conditions in the arts in the region at the time proved so traumatic for the young composer that he suffered a major burnout, emigrated to the United States, and reinvented himself as a novelist.
His earliest novels were in the science fiction field and he soon won the John W. Campbell for Best New Writer as well as being nominated for and winning numerous other awards in the field. But science fiction was not able to contain him and he began to cross into other genres. In his 1984 novel Vampire Junction, he injected a new literary inventiveness into the horror genre, in the words of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, 'skillfully combining the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John.' Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty all-time greatest horror books by the Horror Writers' Association, joining established classics like Frankenstein and Dracula. He has also published children's books, a historical novel, and about a hundred works of short fiction.
In the 1990s Somtow became increasingly identified as a uniquely Asian writer with novels such as the semi-autobiographical Jasmine Nights and a series of stories noted for a peculiarly Asian brand of magic realism, such as Dragon's Fin Soup, which is currently being made into a film directed by Takashi Miike. He recently won the World Fantasy Award, the highest accolade given in the world of fantastic literature, for his novella The Bird Catcher. His seventy-plus books have sold about two million copies world-wide. He has been nominated for or won over forty awards in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
After becoming a Buddhist monk for a period in 2001, Somtow decided to refocus his attention on the country of his birth, founding Bangkok's first international opera company and returning to music, where he again reinvented himself, this time as a neo-Asian neo-Romantic composer. The Norwegian government commissioned his song cycle Songs Before Dawn for the 100th Anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize, and he composed at the request of the government of Thailand his Requiem: In Memoriam 9/11 which was dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 tragedy.
According to London's Opera magazine, 'in just five years, Somtow has made Bangkok into the operatic hub of Southeast Asia.' His operas on Thai themes, Madana and Mae Naak, have been well received by international critics.
Somtow has recently been awarded the 2017 Europa Cultural Achievement Award for his work in bridging eastern and western cultures. In 2020 he returned to science fiction after a twenty-year absence with "Homeworld of the Heart", a fifth novel in the Inquestor series.
Currently he has just finished Nero and Sporus, a massive historical novel set in Imperial Rome.
Thank you so much for hosting S.P. Somtow today, with his intriguing tale of Nero and Sporus.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club