novel bitching

[rivendellrose]

Dear Whoever Wrote Le Chanson de Roland:

Do you think you could be a bit more confusing on the subject of time-frame and details of shit? No, I don't think you could. It's really making my novel-writing even more 'interesting' than it ought to be, just so you know. Not like you care, since you've been dead for, what, 700 years? At least? But just so you know. Why the hell would Merlin's tomb be in France? Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, but that doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind.


Sooooooooo far behind on NaNo....

Comments

[scearley.livejournal.com]

The song of Roland?

I can break it down for you.

He was a Norwegian, but hired in Denmark and sent to Africa and fought for two years shoulder-to shoulder with Van Owen. But Roland was a little too good with his gun so the CIA paid Van Owen under the table to kill Roland, blowing off his head.

His ghost wandered the entirety of Africa until he finally found Van Owen in Mombassa. Raising his ghostly gun he shot Van Owen so soundly his body was scattered all the way to South Africa.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

And Patty Hearst bought his gun on Ebay.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

just the shell casings.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

And weren't those casings recycled in the shot that killed Kennedy?

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

I'd suppose that it was because during the time of writing great chunks of France belonged to the English crown? I think. And he may've just projected that into the past.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Um, not this one...it was written in the 11th century, or over two hundred years before the Hundred Years War. Aquitaine and England were still separate entities, albeit controlled by the same family.

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

I don't know how clear the distinction would have been to people. I mean, weren't the Plantagenets and Angevins first titled kings of England, and then the rest of the litany?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I honestly get so confused between all that lot that I can't keep track of a darned thing. Bad medieval-studies student that I am, every time someone explains the whole political situation in that area to me, it seems as though I can't keep track of it for more than a couple minutes.

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

Yeah, political history confuses me too. So I'd imagine farmer-jacques of times before news casting and when there weren't a lot of books around would have been extremely so.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Makes perfect sense - it's not like the town crier was running around announcing every little thing, like the news does today. And even today most people seem pretty clueless on a lot of stuff, so just imagine before mass media...

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. William the Conqueror divided his realm between his sons, with William Rufus getting England and Robert Curthose getting Normandy. Later Henry I wanted to give England to his son Henry, Normandy to another son, and Aquitaine (via his wife Eleanor) to Richard. The possessions weren't formally consolidated until all the sons died except for John, who inherited everything.

[lovelies.livejournal.com]

I guess it would beg the exact time of writing and the impression the narrator(s)/writer(s)/redactor(s) had. Although a shared strain of mythology would probably make more sense. The French waxed poetic about Arthurian times a lot, didn't they?

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Heavens, yes - many of the stories contained in the Matter of Britain were first written down in France.

[ursula]

Because it's in Brocéliande in Brittany, and lots of the Arthurian legends take place in Brittany.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Brittany. Okay, finally, that makes sense - I kept getting this funny feeling that there was a reason that would make sense, but I couldn't remember what the heck it was! Thank you!

[ursula]

I cheated: I read a bad fantasy novel involving Roland recently.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

*Snickers* Hey, it's all good by me. Getting information out of fiction never hurt anybody, so long as it's the accurate stuff. ;)

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, I remember having to read that. ... I nearly sporked my eyes out. It would have been less painful. XD;;;

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Now try to picture converting it into something coherent... and trying to pull plot out of one part of it without having to explain the whole damned fecking thing in exposition.

It's a damned good thing I love this story, or it wouldn't be worth the trouble. I'm already having problems with how to explain various characters and what they're doing, how they fit into the world... the version I'm working from is so anachronistic in the original that it's nearly impossible to avoid it in rewriting.

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

... And I just felt my brain explode and trickle out my ears.

Dude, you're crazy, but I admire that. XD

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's just such a good story. Aside from the fact that I'm having to squish characaters together just to come up with a reasonable cast, and still trying to determine whether poor Rogero's name is just too damned ridiculous to be kept. The only 'canonical' alternative, Ruggiero, isn't a hell of a lot better.....

Honestly, though, I couldn't turn away a medieval story that had, right there in the original, a female knight and her future-husband who's... well, honestly, a total dork.

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

a female knight and her future-husband who's... well, honestly, a total dork.

*points to icon*

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

>.< The similarity had honestly not occurred to me... So much love for them.

Ruggiero's a... different kind of dork. The kind whose ass I keep having to kick just to get him to do anything other than sit in a window and stare at things, sighing about "it'd be so nice if I could get out and have some adventures!" In fact, so far, that's all he's done. Which is why he's not the viewpoint character except for the prologue. :D

He'll grow up, though. Silly boy.

...And that reminds me, I can't find that screencap! I was trying to find it for something a bit ago, and had no luck whatsoever. Isn't it from Shindig?

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Personally, I prefer Ruggiero to Rogero. Just me.
Sounds like you've got quite a few intelligent people willing to help out with your research right here!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to think that's the better name, as well.

Yup! *G*

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Female knight? Hm. Orlando Furioso, I presume?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That'd be the one. I'm working out of Bullfinch's, I admit, since I'm too darned busy to read the whole thing for just Bradamante's and Ruggiero's parts, but I've been fascinated by them for quite a while. Finally trying my hand at tweaking the story into a novel.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Check out Amadis de Gaula as well if you can find a good translation. And if you haven't read L. Sprague DeCamp's take on it (The Incompleat Enchanter), do so. It's charming.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'll have to do that after I finish my draft, or it'll panic me into not doing anything at all on the subject, but I'll definitely take a look at those when I'm finished, before I start editing!