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MelindaKitty
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Re: Overture (short story)
*appears after inexcusably long disappearance*
*does not read other commentary to give completely impartial opinion*
I’m not sure where to begin, so when one isn’t sure where to begin, let’s begin at the beginning.
You have a gift for character, Leda m’love. Unlike many authors, you inhabit your characters completely, encompassing all their doubts, fears, habits, sensations, and emotions. This makes your chapters engrossing and delightful.
quote:
Pursuit
Labyrinth
Resolutions
Epilogue
Again, I love the titles. Neat. Short. To the point. Also, as good titles should, each gives a clue and a theme for the chapter. Way far nifty keen. 
quote:
Someone had killed six people with insolent ease, pitting knives and bare hands against men so inured to violence that they probably even went to bed armed. Someone had snapped Patricia Garnet’s neck with one hand, and Finch was painfully aware that breaking necks was nowhere near as simple as the movies held it to be. Someone had had both the brute strength and the medical precision to render three railway staff unconscious with a single pinpoint blow.
Stuff like this is so thoroughly in the mind of the POV character that it defies critique. Moreover, you are also firmly entrenched in the real world, despite the surreality of V. That superimposition of unreal with real is one of my favorite elements of V4V. The world is a little TOO real for comfort, despite the presence of a masked vigilante with superhuman strength and reflexes. You have that here.
quote:
The conclusion that his fear-plated mind was trying desperately to avoid was that whoever he was going out to hunt was much stronger and much faster than he was. Glancing back down at the weapon in his hand, he’d felt the last of his confidence in it dissolve and put it back, reaching instead for the box at the back of the shelf.
Internalization can be a dangerous distraction to a story. That said, what makes yours work so well is that the action is never stopped for a huge infodump. Instead, the thoughts and feelings and internal warrings of the characters only serve to make the audience sit up in their seats, leaning forward in apprehensive expectation. AND the characters never ruminate for long – the ruminations are a prelude to action, which keeps things humming along nicely.
quote:
It was a trophy, he’d decided later, although without much conviction. The big game hunter’s entitlement. It had spent the next few years resting very securely inside a locked steel box at the back of his wardrobe, waiting for...waiting for this moment, said Finch in the confines of his head, although he blanched at the melodramatic cast of the phrase and shoved it aside as soon as he’d conceived it.
And here you give us the terrible expectation: there WILL be a showdown. Shots WILL be fired. Someone may very well sustain a serious or mortal injury. This is an excellent use of character. In essence, you’ve used Finch to load Czechov’s gun.
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As it was, he stepped back and slipped a hand into his pocket, extracting a small, clear plastic bag.
*is endlessly curious as to what kind of drug V might slip Finch*
See? I can’t even concentrate long enough to critique. Dammit. 
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Gordon was now slumped on the sofa as if someone had opened his valve and deflated him.
*laughs* I love this image. With a few well-chosen words, you have the whole scene and the character’s state of mind.
Love the Magritte, BTW. And the conversation between father and son.
quote:
“Loose cannons cannot be predicted, Edward. They smash everything in their path. It is probable that the only thing that Mr. Finch will damage upon this errand is his own career and standing, but I cannot tolerate the extant risk that he will also harm us.”
I still stick to my own guns; no one writes V better ‘n you, Leda. I know he’s your fiancé, but still…
quote:
“Let them be hunted soundly,” he said, his voice vibrant with what sounded like rare pleasure. “At this hour lies at my mercy all mine enemies.”
kihihi!!! GO GET ‘EM, V!!!
*channels Inigo Montoya* THERE WILL BE BLOOD TONIGHT!!!
The end of Chapter 12 left me a little confused. I had the sense that there was something going on, but needed just a shade more of a hint about what it was. Why does V need Gordon so badly? And to what end?
On to Chapter 13!
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He struggled up out of the car seat, coming to several important revelations in the process. One was that his awkward position had put a difficult knot in his spine as he’d dozed, and he twisted his neck in an attempt to unscrew the concentrated point of pain.
See? Characters fully inhabited. We ARE Finch.
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Finch’s gaze at last came to rest upon what little he could see of the mask between the obstruction of both the fog and the clean crescent shadow of the hat brim, which amounted to a lascivious Cheshire cat smile and a glistening, sallow cheek. As he watched, the mask tilted, and one deep-set eye flashed for a split second, a facsimile of a conspiratorial wink. Then, turning on his heel, the figure paced out the remaining distance and drifted around the corner.
*claps hands with veekish glee* YAY!!!!! This is beautifully done. Not only do you have V’s verbal communications, but you also have his movements and subtleties down pat. This is a marvelous visual.
quote:
Eric...
It’s the phan in me, but I am endlessly amused at the thought of a PTO-esque character like V calling someone else “Eric”.
quote:
Yesterday upon the stair...I met a man who wasn’t there...
***
He wasn’t there again today...
***
I wish that man would go away...
And this is the moment at which the audience takes a collective gulp, reminding themselves firmly that V can’t actually kill Finch without screwing up the timeline. And Leda wouldn’t screw up the timeline…
Would she?
I love the description of V’s laugh. Again, you have him perfectly. Also love the near miss as V glides past.
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The stranger’s halo was dead. Not black, like his clothing, but dead nonetheless. In sickening contrast to the sparkle and shine of everything around, this aura was a turbulent pyroclastic curtain of smoke shot with veins of sullen crimson light, though which he was reaching out one shining glove which crawled with skeins of the same frightening dark ectoplasm. With eyes that now felt as though they were about to burn out of his skull, Finch saw that the limb left a delicate procession of after-images in the fractured air behind it.
THIS is my favorite moment. Just love this.
quote:
“Welcome, my friends all,” whispered the mask.
*shivers deliciously* That’s not fair, you know. You have endings so well.
quote:
Time now slowed to a sticky, languorous crawl, and Gordon experienced a flicker of a moment in which, sagging against the rail, paralysed with exhaustion and fear, he wondered if his death might just be kind enough to arrive instantaneously as he was dashed onto the front of the train.
*audience leans so far forward in anticipation so tense that they are about to fall off the edges of their seats*
Though the device of “Forget; it was just a dream.” “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” has been used, it has seldom been done so well or with such freshness. Love the whole showdown, though I need to know WHY V is doing this to Gordon. No need to tip the whole hat, just a little peek so it doesn’t read as thought you know a joke that you’re not telling the rest of us.
--- 
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
Robert Frost |
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11/6/2006, 11:47 am
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MelindaKitty
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Re: Overture (short story)
On to chapter 14!
quote:
“Art thou afear’d?”
*laughs again in gleeful anticipation*
And I completely dig the TEMPEST references. They work perfectly here.
And the PTO/Red Death references are ideal too.
quote:
“I am Setekh, Baal, Cthulhu and Samael. I am entropy. I am chaos...”
You forgot my personal god: Hades. Reaper of souls. God of hidden wisdom and repose. Master of the realm where spirits are not exiled out of spite, but where they dwell for a time to consider their living time and perhaps, rise again.
Love the whole V/Finch exchange. I was a bit worried you’d painted yourself into a corner, but no worries.
quote:
The diamond glinted just once as it reached the zenith of its arc, and Finch watched, quite without passion, as it plunged into the embrace of the lake.
Stories work best if the characters have to make conscious choices. Love this one.
And love the Puck reference.
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“Had it occurred to you, Gordon,” he said, “that there are two Jokers in every deck?”
And innumerable wild cards.
Okay, I admit it, I’m too into the story to do much coherent critique. Please take that as the compliment it is.
And this:
quote:
“Are things really so bad?”
“Not yet,” was the grave response.
Puts us firmly back into the movieverse. Timeline intact. Everyone is in place.
On to chapter 15!
*is on the edge of seat again as the Poor Unfortunate Soul comes home*
quote:
The rose was now so close to his face that he couldn’t help but draw its scent into his nostrils. It was both sweet and vibrant at once, with a gentle undercurrent of musk, but there was...something else. He sniffed again, and there it was. Beneath all the beauty of the bloom, there was a faint but unmistakeable aroma of ichor, dust and decadence, as if the rose had sprung into being in a sepulchre.
LOVE THIS!!!
Also love the interrupted phone call.
*finishes the story*
Okay, I think I get it, but make sure I haven’t missed anything: V leaves the vial so there WILL be a cure for the plague and thus humanity will be saved. If he’d taken the vial, St. Mary’s would’ve been the worst pandemic since the Black Death?
Any way you slice it, it’s well done. AND we got the first death.
*crosses one off V’s list* GO, GET ‘EM, V!
All in all, I think the journey you’ve taken in writing this has been a proving ground for you, Leda. You’ve come a **** of a long way, and you already had talent to begin with. Your senses of pacing, character, conflict, tension, detail, and unresolved resolution have been honed to razor-sharpness.
Now that you’ve played around in a universe based on another person’s characters, I’ll be very interested to see what you yourself will create when unleashed within your own universe. I have every faith that it will be populated by intriguing people.
*hugs Leda* Congratulations on this novella, love. It’s quite an impressive piece of work, and more so for being finished.
YAY, YOU!!!
 
 
 
 
---
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
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11/6/2006, 11:50 am
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Leda74
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Re: Overture (short story)
Thank you, my sweet one    You know how much I appreciate your insight and honesty, and your input throughout this process has been beyond value.
I'll attend to a few questions.
First of all, the big one. Why? Why all of this? Why did a story that I'd intended to run for no more than five chapters turn into a novella? Well...at some point in the middle of Chapter Three, I realised that I had much more to say about the relationship between Gordon and V than simple happenstance had allowed for up to that point.
I sat and thought about what Gordon did at the end, about his lampoon of the Chancellor. It occurred to me that there was no way he could have believed that he'd escape with his life - he wasn't a stupid man by any means. It seemed to me that he'd known this and done it anyway. My query was: what was his motivation?
Consider a man who, in spite of a profoundly revelatory period early in his life, had managed to lose sight of it and what it meant to him. Consider Gordon, believing that V had disappeared, for all intents and purposes for the rest of his life. What must he have felt when V, through Evey's intermediary, was dragged back into his life?
If I were Gordon, I'd have done some serious thinking at that point. He'd see the revolution gathering pace around him, but he'd also understand that there might be something he could do to provide the final catalyst.
What Gordon did, in sending up Sutler, wasn't pointless. Prior to that point, it would have been possible for the populace to believe that anyone who "disappeared" must have been a terrorist; and this - worryingly - has some justification now, in our world, in our time. However, when the people had to face the fact that Gordon was spirited away for doing nothing more than poking fun at the leadership, it may well have made all the difference between submission and resistance. There's no way to be sure of this, of course - but I like to consider it this way.
Work calls  but before I go, I want to pay homage to someone. With regards to this paragraph from the final chapter:
quote:
There was a long, shining steel blade resting on the cut-off button, as naturally and serenely as if it had every right to be there. It was at this point that Sweetman became divorced from reality and started to drift with the rip-tide of sweet, comforting insanity. He didn’t even react when a river of pale condensation came pouring over his shoulder, marking out the exhalation of the man standing behind him.
I'm a Borrower, can't deny it. I filched this little piece of description from a scene in "Dog Soldiers", when one of the squad hears a werewolf breathing behind him, and comes to the conclusion that he's a goner...
--- "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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11/7/2006, 12:41 am
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Venturous
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Re: Overture (short story)
quote:
What Gordon did, in sending up Sutler, wasn't pointless. Prior to that point, it would have been possible for the populace to believe that anyone who "disappeared" must have been a terrorist; and this - worryingly - has some justification now, in our world, in our time. However, when the people had to face the fact that Gordon was spirited away for doing nothing more than poking fun at the leadership, it may well have made all the difference between submission and resistance.
I love you for this, Leda. In the innumerable times I have seen the film, I have come to love Gordon and see him differently - in an early viewing I thought he failed, but came to realize what you have so beautifully foretold: that he used his gift of communication, he wielded his sword, and terrible cost, but with great effect.
I only have one little wish for something that might have happened, that I wish would have happened in the final encounter between V and Gordon... a kiss, or a near-miss-kiss, an acknowledgement of the erotic energy between them.
So, having confessed my wish, I will slink off where naughty old bi fag hags hide away from decent society!   
---  "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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11/7/2006, 6:37 pm
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Leda74
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Re: Overture (short story)
A few thoughts on the Magritte painting. I'd hoped I wasn't being too obscure (although I did seize the chance to pay tribute to Magritte, as I adore his work), but let me elaborate on that one painting and why I felt it fitted so well.
Homesickness is one of the very few of Magritte's works that comes anywhere near approaching a connection with the real world. In truth, there isn't much about it that could be defined as "surreal"...that is, until you know a little about the mind of the man who created it.
As mentioned, almost all of the human figures in Magritte's works have their faces either partly or totally obscured in some way, although this is done very carefully...in each and every painting, there is some other, bizarre detail to draw the attention away from the fact of the anonymous figure(s) present. It's probable that this harks back to Magritte's mother's suicide, when he was thirteen. He saw her body dragged from the river, her skirts covering her face, and was to repeat the trauma of that image for the rest of his life.
Homesickness was painted at the height of Magritte's career, and there is the ever-present melancholy within it, particularly in the winged figure. It was whilst studying this particular work that I came to my conclusion about distractions; the wings, the sombre black garb, the half-turned stance...all of these are there to form a barrier between us and the figure on the bridge, and to disguise whatever it is he may be thinking about as he stares downriver.
Is he happy? Tired? Pensive? Furious? The painting dares us to consider this, when set against the far more attractive question of why he has wings and what they are there for. And this is where I saw V in the painting.
*sits back, hoping her metaphor hasn't become tangled*
Last edited by Leda74, 11/15/2006, 2:17 pm
--- "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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11/14/2006, 12:26 am
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Venturous
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Re: Overture (short story)
About Homesickness -- Wow, I have never ever seen this painting before, and neglected to look it up while in the first read of Overture.
I see V right away! ("It's him! it's him!")
Leda, thank you for your background on Magritte's early losses and his imagery. All helpful and facinating. I had always lumped him with the surrealists as creating cold dreamlike mystery images, not particularly about earthly emotion. This is certainly not that! "Homesickness" is a particularly rich deep panging feeling, especially when you consider it is really permanant: you cant go home again. Ad the story about his mother's death, and its heart wrenching. 
--- "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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11/15/2006, 1:33 pm
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Leda74
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Re: Overture (short story)
quote:
Venturous wrote:
Leda, thank you for your background on Magritte's early losses and his imagery. All helpful and facinating. I had always lumped him with the surrealists as creating cold dreamlike mystery images, not particularly about earthly emotion.
If I am to be honest, that is the way I feel about most other Surrealist artists, too, particularly Dali. I don't deny that Dali was an almost supernaturally gifted painter, but his work doesn't enthral me very much.
Magritte, though...the man managed, through what I understand was a very troubled life, to communicate not just warmth, but even - at times - good humour. For a prime example, take Les Valeurs Personelles:
This painting is drenched in wry amusement. Here, Magritte is not a surrealist, he is more an absurdist. Here, he speaks more about the essential silliness of the world in which we live than an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
*wanders back to "Overture" for a bit*
I wonder, did anyone do any digging and, like Gordon, complete the quote that V employed before setting out to accost Finch?  That quote was the height of manipulation on V's part, it was quite deliberately chosen, and it explains why Gordon decided to act as he did.
In full, it reads:
Prospero: "Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour lie at my mercy all mine enemies: Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou shalt have the air at freedom: for a little, follow, and do me service."
It's probably just a coincidence that this quote is the last line before the fifth and final act of "The Tempest" begins.
...and then again, maybe it isn't 
--- "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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11/15/2006, 2:38 pm
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MelindaKitty
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Re: Overture (short story)
*is utterly fascinated by the conversation*
Magritte's work both fascinates and disturbs me, in a very large part because his imagery is like a sanitized and safe version of my own nightmares, in which the most horrific images are those in which very ordinary things are just slightly... wrong.
This is my fav painting:
Like M.C. Escher, I love the way Magritte plays with perspective. At cursory glance, it's a woman on a horse, nothing more. Look closer, and the surreality of the piece comes through. Not terrifying, just... odd.
As such, I think the artwork of Magritte is a perfect metaphor for V himself: disturbing yet warm, sorrowful yet full of light, sympathetic yet not entirely human.
I, like Ven, wouldn't have minded a little more sexual tension between the new and surreal Gordon and V, but I also wonder if it would've fit within the confines of these last chapters. I hesitate to recommend a rewrite when the tension is already at its peak.
I say this especially with an eye to the fact that the story had become as much Finch's as Gordon's. Gordon will very much settle into the past until Evey rousts him out again. It is FINCH who moves forward, his ambition balanced by his sound judgment and hangdog curiosity.
So while I appreciate the thoughts behind the motivations, which did in some ways answer my question of WHY?, I also still pose the question, for if I had to ask it here, it means that somewhere along the way, it got lost in the story. Your answer is so intriguing that I mourn the missed opportunity to have it better integrated into the story.
Sometimes, it is possible to hold one's hand a little TOO close to the vest.
Still, do not let this minor quibble overshadow what you've done or what you will do.
I will continue to expect great things from you, my love and my wife.
Somehow, I don't think I'll be disappointed.
---
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
Robert Frost |
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11/15/2006, 5:15 pm
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You know, as much as I have and do enjoy writing for my own kicks (it simply wouldn't work, otherwise) to hear that I've enthralled and riveted other people too is the whipped cream, chocolate flakes and big glossy cherry on the top of the process 