Listen here to my sonic montage of the shop as it comes to life, only to become overgrown in conversation and time, plucking an emphatic note, before dropping into chill on a splendid late summer Saturday afternoon:

I enjoy the MRL for its decent value, good international selection, and unusual and sometimes, still-sealed discs. In fact, I’ve found some of my favorite music of the year here, and there’s a relaxed vibe, less hectic than some of the more cramped and busier shops. It has the feel of something not exactly meant to be where it is, and is all the better for that placement.

I first found the shop on an accidental winter foray. A random stranger’s tip on the T (Boston’s metro), propelled me back out and into the snow and ice, 20 seconds later, at Park Street. Overground, it was all protests and winter sun and treacherous ice on the hilly side streets beyond; old Boston, where the sidewalks buckle in the best of seasons and a buzz of local and tourist life congregates around the Common and its prestigious ancillary addresses.

Some time later, a little shop materialized on a corner. There were a handful of people peering at LPs in the window. The speakers played an understated mix of funk and international electronica. My interesting finds that day went for only two or three dollars each. I returned for more later.

One item I did not get, but which indicates the range here, was a sealed four-CD Philip Glass collection for, I think, 10 or 12 dollars. I did get a Jobim CD (always good to have), and some others I have yet to enjoy as I am keeping them sealed. Other finds deserve a full review in future, like Arabian Travels, an ethno-electronic downtempo compilation that merges traditional and contemporary flavors. Another exemplary MRL June find was a CD by the reggae pioneer and melodica master, Augustus Pablo. This instrumental reggae collection is now one of my faves.

I visited the Music Research Library once again on Saturday for this article. It was a warm day that started out quiet and got steadily busier with afternoon drop-ins. Zach had just received a couple boxes of CDs and kindly dug through them for anything I might like. This allowed a great opportunity not just to get some new music, but to hear Zach’s colorful descriptions of obscure (to me) artists, and what music means to him and his colleagues.

“We’re always doing research,” he said, in reference to the constant inflow and outflow of sound from the shop; further, he made the wonderful approximation between flipping over a record and “diving into a whole nother world of someone’s life.” Listen to our whole conversation, which ranges from CD dig descriptions to grander reflections, here:

I certainly felt a little wiser for Zach’s sagacious comments, even if I didn’t end up getting everything we dug through. Still, the wonderfully relaxing feeling of listening to music while learning about it and talking with other music lovers made the MRL experience a wonderful choice on a lazy late summer afternoon in Boston.

My Saturday at the MRL concluded, after all the initial digs and listens, with a few acquisitions sure to expand my musical horizons in the way the shop is renowned for doing. Listen below as Zach rings me up, and reads off the titles:

And that was my end-of-summer visit to the MRL. Find need-to-know info below the next photo.

If you go: the nearest T stop is Park St., a 10-15 minute walk. The shop itself is on a corner at Joy St. and Myrtle St., and if you are looking for something specific, calling in advance is a good idea. If you want something to eat and drink in the area, Cambridge St. down the hill has good options, like the Tip Tap Room (a right-hand turn, two blocks to the right at no. 138, a place famously visited by Scottish World Cup fans in 2026).

Music Research Library details:

Address: 24 Joy St, Boston, MA 02114; Opening Hours: Tuesday–Sunday: 11:00 AM—f7:00 PM (Closed Monday); Phone: (617) 390-0575; DISCOGS page.

Note: more Boston-area record store reviews are in production from the TLS in the coming months. If you love music and travel tips, make sure to sign up for this newsletter for more unique, in-person interviews with photo and creative audio. It is a pleasure to bring you these stories.

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It was a warm summer’s day and the sprawling ICC campus was filled with spectators and teams from across North America—not to mention plenty of visiting and local folks from the Emerald Isle.

Among them, in front of the Centre’s main building, I was introduced to ICC President Martina Curtin, who kindly provided some comments on the USGAA, the development of Gaelic sports across North America and indeed the world, and the role of American players for the league’s future. The interview follows:

Having myself enjoyed watching the intense and dramatic sports of hurling and Gaelic football in the last century in Ireland, I desired to bring back a sound artifact or two from my more recent adventure. I have kept these recordings raw, with minimal editing.

Enjoy this 1:24-long clip of hurling. One of the world’s fastest and most exhilarating field sports, the Irish GAA memorably dubbed it ‘a blitz to the senses.’ The cowbells, cheers, whistles and cries of the players give some feel for the extraordinary atmosphere surrounding the game. The audio follows:

In the milling crowd, around the drinks and live music tent, I encountered a player from the Cayman Islands representation, Neil. An Irish-born expat, Neil spoke with me about the Caymans’ three Gaelic football squads, and the summer vibe in the Boston USGAA Finals:

I also spoke with some American players, including one from Texas (his football club was, of course, the Cowboys). A terrific spirit of competition and commerce was evident from the swagged-out players and fans in replica jerseys. But why not? After all, the finals only returns to Boston every five years, being held in other North American cities in the others.

A longer interview came from Brendan, the goalkeeper of the Pittsburgh squad, whose team had just progressed to Sunday’s finals. The affable goalie talked about his family roots and Gaelic football, the experience of having played in development teams in Ireland and under Irish instruction, and why he considers the growth of the USGAA in recent years ‘a joy to watch.’ The interview follows:

This unforgettable experience put me in mind of a many other great stories, but that can wait for a follow-up. For now, I will just thank the USGAA and ICC for their kind hospitality on Saturday. All of the staff and volunteers were excellent, good-natured and kept the event moving smoothly.

For more information about Gaelic sports in North America, or the cultural activities of the ICC, see the related links above.

If you enjoyed this article, and like Irish history and literature, you’ll like my article on Pádraic Ó Conaire over on Consequence Forum (with an outstanding narration by Simon Barber).

My commitment to readers continues with a new series of discounted rates unrolled in July 2026, which represent a good discount on previous rates. Of course, I am glad for all subscribers—whether free or paid—but if you want to really invest in my future writing, a paid membership of any kind really helps, as I reinvest every dollar earned into future production.

THE NEW RATES

The monthly membership decreased from $8 to $5 (a 37.5% reduction), annual membership decreased from $80 to $59 (a 26.25% reduction), and Founding Membership decreased from $150 to $137 (an 8.7% reduction).

Paid members receive full access to the complete article and photo archive, the ability to comment on most posts and join the TLS community, get advance news and releases from my literary projects, insider travel insights, and future subscriber benefits as books and other special publications develop.

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Cheap Thrills Music (10 Riverside Dr, Dedham, MA 02026; Phone: (781) 864-9213, Open Tues-Sat, 2-7PM) is a one-man operation, run by a friendly and knowledgeable guy whose career had been in the music business.

I extricated myself sideways (and slowly) through the dark, following the owner to the side-left wall, where some CDs might be found. He had an actual storage unit, where additional CDs were kept; and he apologized that a problem with the lock that morning had prevented him from reinforcing the CD stock, I was lucky; he had almost not come in for the afternoon.

As always when hunting for music, I was determined to feel lucky. I asked what the owner recommended for my tastes, and he suggested jazz, So now you have an article, friends.

Coltrane and Tyner: My First Introduction

Among the CDs I purchased that day in the siren-strung dischordia of concrete Dedham were two by John Coltrane (Giant Steps and A Love Supreme), and one by McCoy Tyner (Afro Blue). While I had owned the two former albums long ago, the last I did not know.

Way back in the 1980s in the same state, I had first listened to these giants. But my chance purchase at Cheap Thrills Music showed that I had missed a fun disc (reviewed below). First, a bit on my favorite jazz pianist.

McCoy Tyner (1938-2020) was most famous for working with the John Coltrane Quartet in the 1960s, playing on historic albums like Africa/Brass (1961) and A Love Supreme (1965). Two years after leaving the Quartet, Tyner (in his debut on the renowned Blue Note label) released The Real McCoy (1967), which featured the great rhythm section of Elvin Jones on drums and Ron Carter on bass, plus saxophonist Joe Henderson.

Tyner had a long and varied career. He is renowned as an innovative stylist whose percussive and textured chords are instantly recognizable. As I would eventually find out, those chords had the power to fill a distant concert hall, leaving everyone spellbound.

As we will see, this story combines musical experience past and present with great events yet to come; musical and structural resurrections, in the key of cultural perpetuation and international developments simultaneously far away and so close.

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Translated by Euan Cameron from the French, Marcel Proust: Biographie (Éditions Gallimard, 1996).

Having run out of superlatives before even beginning, I will linger a while in this placid state of appreciation for an achievement that will neither be surpassed nor again so elegantly rendered. The evocative and almost complete biography of a literary giant whose entire mission was informed by concepts of time and memory remains as vital—and as timeless—as it did upon first release, in the French of thirty years ago.

A Timeless Appeal

The authoritative biography of an earlier fin-de-siècle writer, Proust, the book was published as the following century came to a commemorative close, among other biographies and translations. I missed it back then but as a fin-de-siècle person myself who tends to evaluate everything in historiographical comparisons, this symmetry becomes all the more fascinating

The biography is enormous, but very refreshingly written. The great difference between this and competing English-language biographies is not only the expertise of a scholar who began publishing on Proust in 1959. It is that the language and ambience cultivated by Jean-Yves Tadié is almost as timeless as Proust’s own prose, but without being imitative. By contrast, other books on Proust I have read in recent months reflect more on the cultural and academic norms of their own period of production than inform about the world of Proust and those who influenced him. To some extent the disparity is cultural and indeed, any Anglo-Saxon scholar can only be envious of what the French intellectual space will allow.

The Author and His Project

• A leading Proust researcher and editor, Jean-Yves Tadié (born 1936) is an emeritus professor of the Sorbonne, and editor of the 1987–1989 Pléiade edition of À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, Proust’s masterpiece). Among his academic positions were previous positions as a guest professor in Cairo and at Oxford, the latter around the time that the definitive edition of Proust was being executed

While Proust’s complex syntax, labyrinthine sentences and conceptual sophistication continue to bedevil critics and book clubs the world over, the biographer proceeds carefully. It is true that he is writing firstly for a French audience, and so much of the peripheral sources, personality and context will be obscure to a generalist foreign audience; but he rewards not only specialist audiences with his humorous anecdotes and dazzling descriptions. I came away from the experience much more informed about the France and Europe of the time than I had expected.

Above all, Tadié remains true throughout the book to Proust as a human and as a writer, and he imparts significant new light on his subject in the process. He dispels myths about his character inherited from gossip and poor scholarship just as much as he adds new insights of text revision and construction gleaned from his prior editorial work and newly released documents.

What stood out was the precision of detail. For example, we learn the specific names, publications and teaching methods of Proust’s early teachers of philosophy and rhetoric, and how they would influence his writing. We learn about Proust’s ancestors and their importance in his writing, and of his own love of certain locations and of art history, French cathedrals and various Classical music.

This level of detail is such that the biography will remain a vital entry point for scholars of Proust and the Modernist period generally, and especially for those seeking to tap into both the very famous and very obscure of historical, literary and artistic personalities of the early 20^th century.

How I Read Marcel Proust: A Life

I am not a Proust expert in any way, and indeed have scarcely read him despite the occasional attempt. The most recent try left me so discouraged that I thought it wiser to first try to understand something of the writer and his times, and so I proceeded to the biographies. This was a process of several months, and since much of the reading—rather, listening—was in peripatetic form, I can say it also had a salutary effect.

I finished this biography thanks to the invaluable app, BARD Mobile, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. This has become my standard way of accessing audiobooks and some audio-magazines. It has a good and increasing selection from the original Talking Books that have been recorded for decades as part of the NLS program. This service makes it possible for me and many others with visual impairment to continue to read.

For this particular book, I enjoyed the wonderful April 2002 Library of Congress narration by Annie Wauters, an experienced reader for Potomac Talking Books Inc. I appreciated her lucid tone and impeccable pronunciation of the frequent French words and phrases adding an extra dimension to an experience that was often punctuated by songbirds, drizzle and passing planes as I logged many a country mile while enjoying the book.

Original Reception

The French approach to the biography was noted at the time of the translation’s millennium release by a contemporaneous expert. Reviewing for The Guardian on 9 July 2000, Edmund White called the work “the best biography I’ve ever read. Its closest recent rivals in my mind are Hermione Lee’s life of Virginia Woolf and Judith Thurman’s Colette. In all three instances, the biographer is in close sympathy with his or her quirky subject, has mastered the extremely complex social and literary surround and takes an intuitive, writerly interest in the subject’s fiction. These are biographers who are imposingly erudite but never pedantic. They plunge us into the richly detailed world of their subjects.”

White also noted that iTadé “corrects misleading impressions about Proust that have accumulated over the years and achieves an extraordinarily balanced account of his elusive genius.”

Noting the author’s editorial work on In Search of Lost Time, correspondence collections and scholarly journals devoted to Proust, White contends that “this knowledge allows him to trace the development of Proustian themes and reconstruct how Proust wrote his book, step by step. Never was a life and its literary expression so interwoven as in Proust’s case, and Tadié has had the patience and scholarship necessary for teasing out all the connections…”

Much more reflection will be given to this topic in coming months and years—so much so that I have created the new Resonant Peripateies section; my way of toasting alike Aristotle and the mod Greek vernacular.

The story is too long to begin now, and anyway it’s late. When I start to reflect on the collective experience, however, I can see what great luck I have experienced along the way; from the original group of friends who came together to visit local record shops, to the very kindly and good-hearted people I found working at such spots, to the sudden flashes of inspiration and yes, even some magnificently fantastic (and very inexpensive) obscure and melodious acquisitions.

I have limited my collecting to the humble compact disc, lacking a record player. And anyways this suits me better, as CDs are small and easy to keep a hold of. And as with record albums, they can be catalogued on the wonderful DISCOGS website/app, which introduces a whole new community aspect.

Long-time readers should note that I am not changing the focus of this stack, but simply utilizing its existing literary, travel and historic themes toward what promises to be a fun and inspiring new trajectory of publication.

I will be back soon with more in both this and the established areas of coverage, with author news as well.

The first British showing of an artistic journey the Greek painter began in 2018 and exhibited successfully last year in Athens, the thought-provoking showing brings an experienced artist’s consideration of text, topos and travel, all balanced in a very unique way by historic scholarship. In a summer when the only new Odyssey most can see is on the big screen, the London showing is a particular luxury for those lucky enough to be there.

Christopher Deliso: The leaflet describes the showing as ‘a visual journey through the Odyssey’ and as ‘a contemporary re-imagining of the ancient Greek epic.’ To what extent do you consider these descriptors accurate to your concept, inspiration and process from the outset to completion of the works exhibited?

Markos Kampanis: I believe they are mostly accurate in the sense that I did not attempt to produce an illustration of the Odyssey events, but treat the text as an inspiration for new events taking place now on the painting surface itself. The final artworks are very much abstract in style and are the results of treating the wanderings of Odysseus as painterly wanderings, not necessarily as realistic interpretations of the places in which the story takes place.

CD: The union of travel through imaginary cartographies and visual art as a medium was what I found most interesting about this concept. What exactly inspired your idea of ‘imaginary cartographies’ in the conceptual context of the Odyssey, and how have your own travels in recent years along the path of Odysseus been brought to manifest in your art here?

MK: Imaginary cartographies is a title I used for the works, since the starting point was maps, either real or imaginary of the presumed itinerary of the hero.

No one knows where exactly some of the places are in reality, or if they are even real. Many interpretations have been proposed by scholars, some of them completely symbolical or referring to places even outside the Mediterranean area. On the one hand I am painting the Odyssey on the other I am inspired by these different and sometimes contradicting proposals.

My own travels have certainly played an important part as I frequently imagined Odysseus wandering in places that I was visiting. For example, I am now working on a series of works that all treat the story as taking place entirely within the island of Kythera.

CD: What surprised you most about the Homeric cartographies, as described in the Odyssey, or perhaps as experienced in the modern travel environment? Were there any unexpected encounters with people, or perhaps events of nature, that coincided with or complemented the original text in new ways?

MK: The Odyssey, although dealing with travel is not a geographical treatise. I follow the opinion of many scholars reading Homer as a poet, not a geographer. As an ancient source commented, if we want to locate precisely the palace of Aeolus, God of the winds, then we must also find the “tailor” who crafted the infamous bag of winds!

CD: How do you think your work will be received in London by the academic community, not only in painting but in literature? Do you expect any possibilities for multi-media and cross-genre teaching of Homer and ancient Greek works generally as a result?

MK: I have to wait and see! I believe the academic community is very open to interpretations and I hope I will get a positive response by dealing with the epic as an inspiration for new works, regardless if they are close or far from the actual text.

CD: Finally, how does this achievement in painting feel to you as a Greek artist? Did you find any new and different appreciation for Homer than you had previously, and where do you think this exhibition will be placed within your wider oeuvre in future?

MK: Homer and the Odyssey are of universal significance, not merely Greek. My Greek origins matter only insofar as I carry with me the rich legacy of Greek painting—ancient, Byzantine, and contemporary art. Each of these traditions has undoubtedly shaped the way I think and see as a visual artist. At the same time, my artistic training took place in London, and modern European art has been an equally important source of inspiration.

As for the future, I cannot predict it in advance. Chance will undoubtedly play a major role, and remaining open to unforeseen events and unexpected encounters is essential to my practice—much as Odysseus himself had to navigate sudden and unplanned situations throughout his journey.

I feel, however, that the inspiration offered by the Odyssey is so vast and profound that it may well provide me with enough painterly nourishment for the rest of my life.

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More than a simple music review section or catalog of collecting, Resonant Peripeteia gets to the heart of what it means to explore an ever-shifting landscape that one can never experience the same way twice, in search of a soundtrack that likewise always eludes because of the exigencies of time and experience.

Of course, along the way I will indulge heavily in the requisite description of albums and shops I really enjoy, and the unique back stories that go along with my introduction to them. This allows me to write of music in a way that has defined my entire life, across disparate timelines and geographies; and I even describe in these texts how music has affected my literary process, for example in my ongoing Detective Grigoris stories and novels.

The Resonant Peripeteia section was one of my first goals for this Substack, and I hope very much that readers will find it to have been worth the wait.

Review by Christopher Deliso

This is a beautiful little book. A collection of essays by the late father of ‘Mediterranean Noir,’ it is a fusion of travelogue, political ideals, sociological observations, history, culture and cooking. There is even a bit of literary insight, too.

There is also to the work a great spirit of humanism on display, and the author’s clear passion for the simplest of daily pleasures, whether gazing at the sea or shopping in a market, shines through. So, while Izzo himself admits he is an idealist (but inclined to pessimism about the future), the book is very life-affirming.

The book also provides an excellent overview of the mystery writer’s influences, inspirations and motivations. Thus it should appeal not only to genre lovers seeking to explore Izzo’s work further, but also satiate both seasoned travelers of the Mediterranean and those wishing to explore it.

The Author and His Larger Project

While he had a varied writing career, Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000) is best known for his ‘Marseilles Trilogy’ of novels (Total Chaos, Chourmno and Solea). It has now been thirty years since the first of these was published (as Total Khéops, in French), and twenty since its English translation by Howard Curtis. The well-received noir novel sees the idealistic but disenchanted policeman, Fabio Montale, tackle the Marseilles underworld over the murky deaths of two childhood friends—like him, products of the city’s mixed community.

The Essence of the Book

In a soaring essay on the Mediterranean, Izzo discusses what makes the disparate points of the sea’s ports both unique and connected. He evokes a certain concept for travelers, promising that: “…here, in the Mediterranean, everything will always be given to you. Provided you want it, provided you open your eyes and your hands to it.”

Commenting on his own binational birth in a following essay, Izzo writes that “nobody is ever born in Marseilles by chance. Marseilles is, and has always been, a port of exiles. Of Mediterranean exiles; of exiles rom our former colonial routes, too. Here, whoever disembarks in the port is inevitably at home. Wherever you are from, you feel at home in Marseilles.”

The city too Izzo “is beautiful because of its humanity,” which he contrasts with the simple beauty of many other world cities, for which a comparative ‘chauvinism’ is at the background of judgment. “Paris is an attraction,” he sniffs, whereas “Marseilles is a passport.”

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Endless such quotable passages fill Garlic, Mint, and Sweet Basil. The common elements uniting the various essays are Izzo’s love of life, compassion and consideration for its contradictions and difficulties, and his political values and culinary preferences. He distances Marseilles from Provence as much as he does the Mediterranean itself from Northern Europe—that alleged bringer of standardization, dry business lunches and social exclusion.

The writer thus stakes a claim for an inclusive and multi-cultural society reflecting all of the sea’s historic shores. Three decades later, that vision remains both prescient and unfulfilled. It is at least remarkably fitting that the novelist’s central ideas still captivate world discourse, twenty-five years after his death.

Further Value for Writers and Readers

If you are simply interested in visiting Marseilles or sampling its cooking, there is certainly enough detail in this book to give good preparation. And, if you are interested in accessing the literary world of Jean-Claude Izzo to read his books and understand his influences and process, the work is very useful too. In addition to the author’s own detailed descriptions, an added bit of Fabio Montale fiction, and a list of the musical tracks that provide Izzo’s preferred soundtrack to the Marseilles Trilogy.

Of further aid for literary study is the excellent introduction by Italian author Massimo Carlotto. He describes meeting Izzo at a publishing conference in 1995, when Total Chaos was released and its author already quite ill. His remarks on Izzo’s specific vision for the sub-genre, and his place in it alongside other regional authors is also very enlightening.

Carlotto contrasts Izzo with another Marseilles writer, Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995), “…who does not believe in direct political action, inasmuch as he believes it is ineffective and doomed to failure, and who limits himself to using noir as an image with which to read reality.” By contrast, the Italian writer states, “...Izzo goes further: his use of the noir genre is not limited simply to description, but penetrates deep into the heart of the incongruities, leaving room for sociological reflection and, for a return to his generation’s collective memory—and above all, gives sense to the present day.”

The rest of Carlotto’s introduction is also very useful for readers, authors and scholars of Izzo and the Mediterranean Noir sub-genre in general. It not only gives context for Izzo’s characters and related phenomena in the books (such as their musical interests), but discusses the central concepts of organized crime and geographical setting that are so important to such works: “another of Izzo’s institutions was his having individuated the Mediterranean as the geographical center of the universal criminal revolution.” The eternal tension for Izzo is to acknowledge this presence while proposing “the culture of solidarity as an alternative.”

*The reviewer wishes to think the NLS/Perkins Library for making this book available in audio format. Any quotation or punctuation errors as compared to the print text are his own.

PS: Some of My Recent-enough Off-stack Publications

-My literary essay on Irish-language author Pádraic Ó Conaire, published first on the Consequence Forum’s Substack, got a permanent page on the Consequence Forum website in June 2025.

-My 2020 book, The History of Croatia and Slovenia, was republished in paperback format by Bloomsbury in May 2025.

-My intelligence-noir story, “The Mexico Job,” was published by King’s River Life in May 2025.

-My short essay, “Cultivating that Old Sense of Place,” on travel writing and th

e mystery genre was published in the Mystery Fanfare blog in May 2025.

Consequence

Pádraic Ó Conaire’s Enduring Art of Conflict Narration

Audio: The essay as rea…

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a year ago · Consequence, Chris Deliso, and Simon Barber

Long-time subscribers of the TLS will recall that Pádraic Ó Conaire was one of the first authors I covered, during the February 2023 coverage of Irish literature. He has remained a fascinating writer to me, one who though very famous in his own time in his native Ireland was not translated into English until the 1980s.

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The current essay was the result of over two years’ research and benefited tremendously from the insight of Ó Conaire expert Brendan McGowan of the Galway City Museum. I also thank Professor Joseph LaBine in Canada, who like me sees the influence of this early Irish modernist on Flann O’Brien. I would also like to thank Consequence Forum’s non-fiction editor, Chris Gorrie, for his patience in shepherding the text through the editorial process over the last nine months.

If you enjoy this article, and want to read others about conflict and its relationship with writing, subscribe to Consequence Forum on the above-given link.

If you would like to see other articles like this from me, on the TLS or elsewhere, consider becoming a paid subscriber to the TLS. In 2025 and beyond, I have a great number of exciting projects, including not only my Detective Grigoris series but also an expanded series of book reviews and historical studies. Researching and writing all of this takes time and attention, of course, so reader contributions are most welcome. I should have more news about the year-ahead plans in the coming weeks.

Happy reading and enjoy your weekends,

-Chris

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“The Mystery of the Scavenging Crabs,” as my story is called, is a somewhat comic tale involving off-roading in the wilds of northeastern Greece, an enigmatic luxury-car theft, action, adventure and plenty of interaction with the colorful characters, foods and landscapes that the detective meets while sussing out another unexpected case.

Although it’s set in 2023—a good 24 years after the protagonist, Grigoris Kardamylios began his career as ‘Greece’s most famously obscure private detective’—the story is the first to be published. It was written in the summer of 2023, a prolific time of writing for me, and contains references to other as-yet-unpublished stories and series elements that I’ve been developing since launching this project in late 2021.

Anthology length (paperback): 308pp.

Anthology contributors: Anthony Kane Evans, Carlos Ramet, Tristan J. Deehan, Christopher Deliso, Tucker Struyk, Ed Teja, Gene Kendall, Hal Dygert, Ian Blackwell, L.C. Adams, Patrick Ambrose, Kamal Mouhoune, Rand Gaynor, Rob Loughran, and Edward St. Boniface

Buy Hey! Don’t Read That, Read This! via the following Amazon websites:

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

Amazon AU

Amazon CA

Amazon DE
Amazon FR

Amazon NL

Amazon IT

Amazon PL

Amazon SE
Amazon JP

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One more Literary Note…

Earlier in January, I reviewed a brand-new novel by British travel writer and novelist Andrew Sanger, on my website.

Entitled On Romford Road, the four-part book tells the tale of intertwined love, struggle and revenge in London’s rough-and-tumble East End. Narrating from the lead perspectives of four women in one family, Sanger retraces a century of known (and less known) events in British history and society. Aside from functioning as a straightforward prose novel, On Romford Road thus inhabits that kaleidoscopic space between a social history and travelogue.

For more details, you can read my review here, or buy On Romford Road on Amazon here.

I would like to offer a wholehearted thanks to all of my readers for your continued support, and wish you all the best for the new year that has so quickly begun. I very much hope and expect to have many more interesting publications to share with you in the months ahead.

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A few of the songs receive direct mentions in the novel, while others co-exist with the text on a subliminal level. The featured songs were carefully selected for historical, character-related and plot reasons, and did not even constitute the music I listened to while writing. The latter is interesting but would require a separate article.

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While most songs encountered in Detective Grigoris will be known to ‘Western’ readers, a few won’t. So, in today’s continuation of the series on the novel, I’ll cover one example: a Greek folk song of perhaps Byzantine origins, that plays a comically surreal role in the novel’s third chapter.

The song both comments on local culture and national history, and adapts a realistic, if amusing, counterpoint to the larger narrative, both for the setting and the characters. Philosophically, this song-choice in plot-context inclines to the same principle of life’s constant ups-and-downs encountered in Voltaire’s Zadig (last month’s article). However, my familiarity with the song and inclination to use it predated by many years my 2022 discovery of Voltaire’s novella.

To aid your future reading experience, and provide some Greek ethnomusicological notes, today’s article will cover the song’s history, most famous performer, and its lyrics, before closing with a YouTube recording. This will be the only time I provide such insight into musical allusions in the novel, so if this subject interests you, please enjoy it. If you’re not Greek, the below will help you to better enjoy the relevant part of the Detective Grigoris novel.

The Song and Its History: Popular Revolt (perhaps of Byzantine Origin)

Detective Grigoris (Chapter 3) is set in Crete: here, a classic local song is spontaneously sung by one character at an unexpected place and point in the plot. This episode enhances the tragicomic absurdity of the situation, and won’t be lost on Greek readers. But it may be lost on everyone else, even though the novel cites the relevant lyrics in English translation. So here’s some context.

The actual song comes from the Cretan rizitika (Ριζίτικα) tradition, from the Greek word rizes, meaning ‘roots.’ Such anonymous and often, centuries-old Cretan songs are both ‘roots’ songs in the figurative sense, and in the literal sense mostly deriving from the historically independence-minded villagers of the mountains that crisscross the island’s central spine. Rizitika songs are generally in major scales and, being old and sometimes rewritten, tend to be named or remembered for their opening lyric.

Such is so with our song, ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria’ (Πότε Θα Κάνει Ξαστεριά), ‘When Will the Skies Be Clear and Starlit,’ in the longer translation. While scholars yet debate whether it derives from Ottoman, Venetian or even Byzantine times, ‘Xasteria’ (for short) is both very old and very fluid, having been reused with different lyrics, depending on the context, up until the present.

Its simple melody, driven by the Cretan lyra (folk violin) somehow conveys both a mournful and beautiful ethos, whereas the lyrics are all about righting perceived collective injustices and getting revenge on powerful oppressors.

Its lyrics, in the most commonly-encountered form of its 25 known versions, are a sort of lament and battle-cry. The singer, first alone and later joined by a chorus (as is common in this genre) asks when will the skies clear and the season of February arrive (that is, the time when the Cretan mountain snows melt), to allow the war-party to freely go down to the Omalos Plateau and do battle with the Mousouros clan.

The Mousouroi were indeed among the most ancient aristocratic families of Crete, is attested in Byzantine documents, and was involved in the usual inter-familial sheep-stealing feuds of rural Cretan life, events over which vendettas could arise.

‘Xasteria’ would be interesting enough as a cultural relic even if that was all, but there’s much more to its story. The song would actually be projected deeply into the Greek national consciousness in the following centuries. If you read Greek, check out the scholarly book by Georgios Andreiomenos devoted to the song, and published by Sideris Editions in Athens (Γιώργος Ανδρειωμένος, Πότε θα κάνει Ξαστεριά»: Από τις ρίζες των Λευκών Ορέων στην πανελλήνια χρήση, Εκδόσεις Ι. Σιδέρης, Αθήνα 2017).

That book explores the song’s history in great detail. Not having it available, I’ve done the next-best-thing, consulting a book review of it by Greek philologist Efgenia Perysinaki.  This review notes that ‘Xasteria’ was also adapted for Cretan revolts against the Ottomans in the later 18^th century, and after revolutionary events and tragedies on Crete in the 19^th century. Most interestingly is how it was reused when Athens took Crete back from the Ottomans.

Perysinaki describes the author’s research question concerning ‘Xasteria’ as:

“…how a song of a purely local character could become a pan-Hellenic song, while simultaneously changing its meaning, depending on the occasion…”

This is a fascinating case study, as the review reveals. The song’s lyrics would, in the 20^th century, be adapted for new enemies in the Balkan Wars (against the Bulgarians), and in the Second World War (against both the Nazi German occupiers and Greek ‘traitors’ who collaborated with them).

Later and most importantly, during the 1967-1974 military junta, some of the lyrics were changed again to target the junta and ‘Greek fascists’ following the Polytechnio uprising of 14-17 November, 1973, and Turkey’s July 1974 invasion of Cyprus. (Yes, there’s also a version of ‘Xasteria’ adopted by Greek Cypriots for that struggle, with the Turks as the oppressors). And there are much more recent iterations of the song, used by various sides, though without the same level of national impact, considering the overall stabilization of Greece since 1974.

So, the song is specifically a piece of Cretan cultural heritage, and over time has been generally (though not only) associated with the left in national causes, influencing the national discourse on collective justice.  The terrific amount of implied contextual information makes the song’s placement in my novel both fun and meaningful for plot, character development and irony; plus, where it occurs is vital, considering too last month’s discussion of Zadig. But this essay is not to explain, merely to provide illuminating context.

Now, before exploring the lyrics and taking a listen, let’s consider the legendary Cretan singer who brought ‘Xasteria’ back into the national consciousness at precisely the right moment, in a rendition still widely beloved.

The Singer: Nikos Xylouris

So: I forgot to mention that our detective, the young Athenian Grigoris, is a great fan of Greek traditional music, and especially of the late Nikos Xylouris (Νίκος Ξυλούρης, July 7 1936—February 8 1980). Way back in the 1960s, when the young Xylouris was seeking to start his own career, record companies were lukewarm over Cretan folk music’s capacity to sell or be taken seriously, as it is now.

A native of Anogeia, an insular village in the foothills of Mt. Psiloritis near Rethymno, Xylouris came from a musical family. (His two younger brothers are also great musicians). His life was marked by tragic events, from the German destruction of his village during the war to his untimely death from cancer at age 43. For the purity of his voice, his musical skill, gracious nature and his musical prominence during times of socio-political upheaval, Nikos Xylouris is still considered ‘the ‘archangel of Cretan music’ in Greece, as a 2023 article from Folkradio.gr noted.

In describing the charismatic young singer’s rise from rural Crete, the article notes his 1966 first-place lyra performance in San Remo, initial recording successes, and important interactions in Athens. There, Xylouris “…met the poet and director Errikos Thalassinos who decided to introduce him to Giannis Markopoulos and this is how a brilliant collaboration began with the records ‘Chroniko’ and ‘Rizitika.’ In 1971 he started to appear together with Giannis Markopoulos at the music hall ‘Ledra’ and his voice became the symbol of resistance.”

‘Rizitika’ was the album for which Nikos Xylouris recorded the famous version of ‘Xasteria’ below. Dr. Nick Poulakis, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Athens’ Department of Music, described the facts of that album to me.

“Released by Columbia on July 20, 1971,” Dr. Poulakis notes, “it features nine traditional folk songs from Crete (Rizitika) and two traditional dances from the same region. The melodies were arranged and orchestrated by composer Yiannis Markopoulos, and the songs are performed by Nikos Xylouris, with some tracks also featuring a choir. The recording took place at Columbia's studio with sound engineer Giorgos Konstantopoulos.”

While there is an older and (possibly) Byzantine-origin version of ‘Xasteria’ with some different lyrics (see the song’s above-cited Wikipedia reference), none of several experts I surveyed knew of any audio version with the older lyrics online. (Those lyrics speak of swords and spears, which certainly helps the argument for Byzantine origins).

In any case, despite the variety of lyrics noted in the 2017 study, the Xylouris standard version remains the most popular and timeless, retaining the original Cretan references that preserve its spirit of revolution with a more archaic sense of the bygone culture of rural Crete in vaguely pre-modern times. By contrast, the modified versions that have been adapted to specific modern contexts lose their universal appeal and poetic adaptability by identifying with specific events.

Philological Notes: The Lyrics

Here are the lyrics to ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria,’ first in English and then in the original Greek. As said, this is the standard Xylouris arrangement, which is the most enduring version—several hundred years old, if not a thousand. Again, appreciating the song’s lyrical content together with its contrasting musical mood will enhance both your musical experience, and also your contextual appreciation of the novel, when it finally appears.

Note: in both the English and Greek written versions here, the lyrics are presented just once, not in the ‘as-sung’ repeating format, a discrepancy which you might note from the final recording. In the novel, I present the words ‘as-sung,’ in a slightly longer and more accurate format.

‘When will the skies be clear, when will it be February

To take my rifle, and my beautiful bullet-pouch

To go down to Omalos, to the road of the Mousouroi,

To make mothers without sons, women without husbands

And babies, to cry without mothers,

To cry in the night for water and in the morning for milk.’

The Greek lyrics to ‘Xasteria’ are as follows:

Πότε θά κάμει ξαστεριά, πότε θά φλεβαρίσει

νά πάρω τό τουφέκι μου τήν ὄμορφη πατρώνα

νά κατεβῶ στόν Ὁμαλό, στή στράτα τῶν Μουσούρω,

νά κάμω μάνες, δίχως γιους, γυναῖκες δίχως ἄντρες

νά κάμω καί μωρά παιδιά νά κλαῖν δίχως μανᾶδες,

νά κλαῖν' τή νύχτα γιά νερό καί τό πρωί γιά γάλα.

Subtleties to be noted here (and especially considering the lyrics ‘as-sung’) include the dialectic form of the Greek verb kanei (he/she/it does) as kamei (κάμει), This is natural usage but also allows the singer to ‘grip’ the verb with a slightly stronger consonant, so that the repetition of the first line extracts an extra sung syllable, before the listener even hears the descriptor that tells, all at once, the meaning.

For this particular verb takes on copula functions when used with weather conditions, i.e., ‘kanei zesti’ means ‘it is hot.’ This usage of the ‘doing’ verb in place of the actual copula (einai, it is) also somehow lends a sense of becoming the specified weather condition; there is thus a certain unspoken timelessness articulated in the verbal construct.

Further, the word ‘xasteria’ itself means several things simultaneously. As Dr. Poulakis notes, “in Greek, ‘xasteria’ (ξαστεριά) or ‘xesteria’ (ξεστεριά) refers to a clear night sky where you can see the stars.” This implies nighttime, visual perception, a certain mood and natural environment, and imaginations of it becoming a new season: the change from winter to early spring in a Cretan mountain village, with all the emotions bottled up in such a place.

This flood of meanings in one word, at the specific place it is presented in the ‘as-sung’ lyrics, heightens the power of meaning and call-to-arms that follow a repeated rhetorical statement/question musing on ‘when’ a certain season will begin. One characteristic of songs that are cherished for hundreds of years, I think, is the perfection of their lyrical phrasing. ‘Xasteria’ is an excellent example of this.

The sense of becoming-seasons through verbal constructs is repeated in the second line, with my absolutely favorite construct: the verbal form, tha flevarisei (θά φλεβαρίσει), or, ‘to be February.’ While Greek has a few other examples of such verbal constructs from seasons used in everyday life, some more rare ones are found in poetic language, notes Dr. Poulakis.

As a writer, I find the concept of making a verb out of a month irresistible. It’s another wonderful gem in this song to appreciate.

Song Themes and Heritage Meanings

The image of villagers descending from the mountains to a plain controlled by an oppressive aristocracy, and perhaps to revenge a vendetta, has both simple and direct social meaning in rural Cretan folklore, but also invites a broader national participation on the symbolic level for any perceived state of oppression and collective injustice, whether it be the German 1940s occupation or the rule of the Colonels in the early 1970s.

Further, as the reviewer of the 2017 Greek book notes, “…the researcher connects the final verses (to make mothers without sons, women without men, etc.) with the songs of the Underworld and Charon, popular in Crete and the rest of Greece.”

I believe this reference might be particularly valid for the Venetian Renaissance period (1204-1669), when curiosity with ancient Greek literature and mythology was re-emerging on the island. And, a third contextual meaning, perhaps, simply anticipates the imagined return from the metaphorical season of winter, or a ‘long night of the soul,’ to a reckoning-moment, period of action or challenge when the conditions become more promising.

And Finally… The Audio of ‘Xasteria’

Thanks for reading, and I hope it’s been interesting and, even educational.

As promised, here’s the actual well-known 1971 audio version of ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria,’ as sung by the immortal Nikos Xylouris.

One good example, in my case, cane with Voltaire (whose birthday falls today), In this article, we’ll celebrate a great work by the man born François-Marie Arouet on 21 November 1694 in Paris.

Voltaire (his pen name) was among the most influential French Enlightenment writers, satirists and political philosophers. However, today’s article is not about Voltaire’s political philosophy, or his famous Candide; rather, it’s on his contribution to detective fiction, in a riotously comic philosophical novella of 1747, Zadig—itself, based partly on an Italian adaptation of older Persian narratives.

This odd coincidence was actually among the most important moments in my novel research, as it suffused the whole Detective Grigoris book with a certain spirit of C’est la vie that reflects the quick changes of fortune for my detective and his fellow characters during the novel.

Edgar Allan Poe and My Original Discovery of Zadig

As you may recall from last month’s article on Poe, from late 2021, I studied the origins of detective fiction. I aspired in the (probably fatal) hopes of creating something new in the then-vestigial Detective Grigoris project.

The Wikipedia page on Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (Graham’s Magazine, 1841) was among my first stops, as this ‘tale of ratiocination’ (as Poe called his method of logic) is among the first detective stories, introducing the world to his ingenious and eccentric French reasoner, C. Auguste Dupin. Wikipedia notes that Voltaire’s main character “performs similar feats of analysis, themselves borrowed from The Three Princes of Serendip, an Italian rendition of Amir Khusro's "Hasht-Bihisht.”’

The Missing Camel, Voltaire’s Dog-and-Pony Show, and Poe’s Methodical Usage

That quote’s from Robert K. Merton’s 2006 book, The travels and adventures of serendipity: a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science (Princeton, p. 16). Merton discusses how the aristocratic and diplomatic classes of 16^th-century Venice were curious about the languages, tales and cultures of the exotic East. The personal contacts and travels of the maritime trade-focused Republic also meant that cultural connections could flourish, introducing writing and translation to Italy. We’ve already seen this trend with the bibliographical case of the Byzantine émigré, Cardinal Bessarion.

In 1557, Venetian publisher Michele Tramezzino released the tale (now known in English as The Three Princes of Serendip) as Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo.

This derived from the Persian translation of a certain Cristoforo Armeno, an Armenian émigré from Tabriz. A friend of the Italian publisher’s nephew, Armeno worked for the Venetians as a translator of Oriental languages.

Cristoforo Armeno translated a part of Khusro’s 1302 poem, "Hasht-Bihisht” (“The Eight Paradises”), which has a The Thousand-and-One Nights sensibility. One of several in the epic tradition based on folk tales about 5th-century Sassanian Persian King Bahram V, Khusro’s work seems the first to include the ‘three princes of Serendip’ and the missing camel story for which they are famous in detective fiction. As English translations are few, the Italian work descended through the French tradition, and most famously, Voltaire’s partial adaptation in Zadig.

The word ‘serendip’ in classical Persian refers to Sri Lanka/Ceylon. The story unfolds in an ancient land, where the king hires tutors for his three princely sons. When none of the princes accept his offer to replace him, each protesting his superior sagacity, the wise king decides to send the princes abroad to test their book-learning with experience.

Here the story devolves into comic disrepair before reassembling for a happy ending. The brothers discover clues that allow them to claim to identify a missing camel—one that they’ve never actually seen. These clues are so precise and bizarre that the princes are soon arrested on suspicion of having stolen the absent camel. They answer for their unbelievable knowledge to their captors with this logic:

“Grass had been eaten from the side of the road where it was less green, so the princes had inferred that the camel was blind on the other side. Because there were lumps of chewed grass on the road that were the size of a camel's tooth, they inferred they had fallen through the gap left by a missing tooth. The tracks showed the prints of only three feet, the fourth being dragged, indicating that the animal was lame. That butter was carried on one side of the camel and honey on the other was evident because ants had been attracted to melted butter on one side of the road and flies to spilled honey on the other.”

In his 1747 work (published in French as Zadig, ou La Destinée), Voltaire tells numerous intertwined tales about the fortunes and misfortunes of his eponymous protagonist, a Zoroastrian philosopher of Babylonia, as he travels far and wide, enjoying both honors and absurd misfortunes. But in the relevant chapter 3, Voltaire disguises his own textual thievery; he replaces the lost camel with a missing horse and dog that his comic hero, Zadig has never seen, in a sort of circular economy of live-and-let-live Enlightenment wit. Voltaire’s adventurer defends himself at court by saying:

 “…I perceiv’d upon the Sand the Footsteps of an Animal, and I [27]easily inferr’d that it must be a little one. The several small, tho’ long Ridges of Land between the Footsteps of the Creature, gave me just Grounds to imagine it was a Bitch whose Teats hung down; and for that Reason, I concluded she had but lately pupp’d. As I observ’d likewise some other Traces, in some Degree different, which seem’d to have graz’d all the Way upon the Surface of the Sand, on the Side of the fore-Feet, I knew well enough she must have had long Ears. And forasmuch as I discern’d; with some Degree of Curiosity, that the Sand was every where less hollow’d by one Foot in particular, than by the other three, I conceiv’d that the Bitch of our most august Queen was somewhat lamish, if I may presume to say so.”

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The historic influence-association between Voltaire’s reframing of the Italian narration of the Persian tale has in turn been deemed influential for Poe. Indeed, Dupin’s application of method becomes more refined in his story. As Poe defines it: “the extent of information obtained lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation." The introduction of observation as a key principle would of course be used by most subsequent genre authors.

Beyond Deduction: Zadig and Life’s Comic Vicissitudes as a Philosophical Lesson

Departing for now from the general genealogy of detective fiction, there were even more remarkable aspects of this literary discovery awaiting me. The fact that not only Western detective-fiction has ancient Persian DNA was not only fascinating in itself; further, the timing of my discovery was, well, serendipitous.

Indeed, I discovered this fact exactly at the moment I was trying to work out how my own, preconceived Persian element of the Detective Grigoris third chapter would play out. The fact that I read this from Zadig, which is subtitled, or, a Book of Fate still seems magically sound.

While I would not get the full answer to my plot question until late in the editing process, in the early summer of 2024, the initial stimulus I needed was provided in the hours of listening and laughing to recitations of Zadig while researching and simultaneously writing.

This is worth a comment, as Voltaire’s wonderful wit and juxtapositions of unbelievable fortune and calamity in quick succession, often with great allegorical and rhetorical cleverness, deserve to be read and celebrated. However, I don’t speak French, and the limited space of Substack is not ideal even for quotations from Zadig. The book’s tales are all entangled, the available translation (like the bit quoted above) is archaic, and the audio-recitations too fail to do Voltaire justice. Still, if you’d like to read Zadig, the full text exists here on Project Gutenberg. (There are more recent translations on for sale on Amazon, but I can’t judge their quality as I haven’t bought them).

Final Comments on Chesterton, Missing Elements, French Fashion and the Recycling of Culture

Beyond the element of inference-from-observation for which Poe is associated with Voltaire (and the Italian retelling of the Persian tale before them) is the similar ingenious pattern of G.K. Chesterton’s “The Blue Cross” (1910), which I covered here in late April 2023.

What I realized, though I didn’t write it then, was that Chesterton had inverted the concept of the Persian fairy tale; instead of seekers of knowledge describing objects they had not seen, and one that others brought to their attention first, Chesterton went and hid the story’s fundamental relationship of knowledge, from most of the characters and all of the readers.

It is from the convergence of these twin realizations that my cogitating began. I shall avoid spoilers, but I simply mention these things since, as time passes and people grow forgetful or facts are lost, it is handy to have a record of the creation of the work, the order of things. Even if this explanation is admittedly gnomic, it will stand my readers well in future.

The last amusing coincidence of my research misadventure with Zadig was another simultaneous discovery—that, yes, an overpriced French fashion brand named Zadig & Voltaire has existed since 1997. I know not if the late Jean Baudrillard ever had a definite opinion about the company and its naming strategy, but I doubt he’d be very impressed by what seems a rather terme simulation of a simulation of what 21^st-century French fashion might be considered. But then again, I’m neither French nor fashion-conscious.

Actually, even as I write this thought out, chumming the recherché waters for detective-fiction bites, I’ve just found an appropriate marker of our dawning age. I repeat, in another and less elliptical manner: it is not important when something is written, but when it is rediscovered and repurposed.

That’s the spirit of the time of Voltaire’s readers, and true today also. My present discovery derives from Gerry Coulter’s 2013 essay about the French postmodernist philosopher’s views on fashion.

“In his earlier writings,” the scholar writes. Baudrillard “said that fashion is very important to the system in that it continually ‘announces the myth of change’ in a manner essential to our contemporary circumstance: ‘Modernity is not the transmutation of all values but the commutation of all values, their combination and the ambiguity. Modernity is a code, and fashion is its emblem.’”

Fashion as the emblem of Modernity’s code? I can already see my detective-character’s mind gearing up for a comedic protest. But there is more to say: for, the same 1976 article adds that “Baudrillard found fashion to be an important place for the recycling of the desire for death: ‘…emptying it of every subversive phantasm and involving it, along with everything else, in fashion’s innocuous revolutions.’”

I will keep such essays as notes-to-self, along with all those accumulated Zadig & Voltaire marketing newsletters since 2022. For even (especially?) in the most banal of marketing copy, one can find traces of the axiomatic, by which Chesterton so astutely marked out his Parisian detective Valentin’s specific mental approach to his task. And if this British author’s jocund generalization does not at its core owe to Voltaire, I cannot imagine from where it could have come. It seems to have a universal application, at least as concerns French thought.

As nothing that is experienced is wasted, expect my Detective Grigoris to have critiqued both fashion and philosophy (and even, philosophies of fashion) in a future story—one that has nothing to do with either. It exists, and will be set to take place in Detective Grigoris novel 2.

And so, thanks to Voltaire and my fortune partaking in research—research that is ceaselessly present—I can now say the this future story’s entire scenario was envisioned even before I’d heard of Zadig or the French fashion company anmed after it.

If we cannot control time, or go back in it, this sort of course-correction of things in time brings a certain substitute for joy: we delight in observation, of that which the collective has already seen in other forms, even if they cannot recall ever having seen it, much less describe it.

Endless they are indeed, the grains of sand concealing that long-lost camel.

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It sounds like fiction—but it actually happened, as Turkey’s Sabah reported in 2021, referring to the Kandilli Mansion incident. Built in the 1890s by prominent banker David Glavany, this house in Istanbul’s Üsküdar neighborhood (also called the Glavany Mansion) is one of the city’s few surviving structures associated with this historic family of traders, bankers, diplomats and managers. Along with other ethnically-mixed Levantine families, the Glavany dynasty had a major, if now largely forgotten, role in Ottoman trade and statecraft over five centuries.

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Incidents like the treasure-hunt caper make great plot-points for historical fiction premises (perhaps I should add it to my Detective Grigoris series, coverage of which resumes next month). Yet the current post concerns history: that is, exciting new research on the Glavanys who, despite having roots back to the 12^th century and attested gravestones and baptismal records in Ottoman lands, have been largely forgotten by both modern Turkey and general history.

Yesterday, I listened in to another focused talk organized by the UK-based Levantine Heritage Foundation, given by Turkish and Greek scholars who will publish their findings on the Glavany family’s historical role and architectural contributions, as in a 2026 academic book.

In examining the Levantine Glavany family and some of its famous members and famous buildings in a historic context, an argument was made that social mobility and negotiation of sophisticated international tastes and realities (from in-demand skills to architectural stylings) made such people indispensable to both the Ottoman state, and the European powers seeking to make advantageous trade and diplomacy with it. More than the record of a single bygone family, therefore, the presentation reconfirmed the singular importance of an entire class of Ottoman subjects (of many families and mixed European nationalities) who became increasingly vital to the empire’s smooth operations from the 16^th century to the early 20^th century.

The Speakers

The talk was given by Turkish historian Dr. Efe Erünal and Greek architect Dr. Alexandra Koumpouli. Focusing on Ottoman and post-Ottoman economic, demographic, and social history, Dr. Erünal received his PhD from Koç University (2023), and presently teaches at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. For her part, Dr. Koumpouli, is a practicing architect (Diploma/ M.Sc. NTU Athens), with a Ph.D. in Archaeology and Art History from Koç University (2024). Late Ottoman urbanism in house architecture and Eastern Mediterranean multi-ethnic settlements (for example, the Ottoman monuments of Greece) have featured in her research work.

The Glavany Family in Ottoman History

Dr. Erünal discussed the documented origins and some prominent members of the Glavany family, starting in 1600, and their ties with the island of Chios, the Genoese nobility, Dutch dragoman service and most importantly, work with Britain and France. (Today’s Glavany descendants are mostly French, and include a famous WWII pilot and a modern politician). Like other Levantine families, their multi-lingual and multi-sectoral skills won them influential spots in trade, banking, diplomacy, and infrastructure projects. The point of contact was inevitability the Ottoman state’s increased contact with Europe, European funds, and modernization attempts.

Going into detail on several specific events and key family figures, Dr. Erünal discussed various high positions held by Glavany descendants, as well as pivotal roles in everything from banking decisions and industrial development projects to military acquisitions and diplomatic adventures for the Sultan, as different alliance systems came and went with different wars, economic pressures and geopolitical competitions between and within states. The hands-on role that these Levantines played was underscored by the historian, who made a convincing case for their central role—often, behind the scenes—in many important events and negotiations of later Ottoman history.

The Glavany Family’s Contributions to Ottoman Architecture

The talk was also accompanied by a display of historic paintings and photos, which is important as they attest to buildings and architectural stylings that have not survived into today’s Istanbul. Here, Dr. Koumpouli noted that the joint research relied on records from the Ottoman archive, the Ottoman Bank archive, genealogical data and fieldwork. This has allowed the researchers to detect buildings related directly or indirectly with Glavany family members in Istanbul.

Dr. Koumpouli’s insights regarding the Glavany architectural footprint in Istanbul included specifying neighborhoods where the family and its networks settled and built, and some specific projects. This allowed a detailed discussion that was both conceptual (ideas of eclecticism in architectural preferences, mixed-styles in single properties, and so on) and historical (the contemporaneous 19^th-century creation of an architectural academy in Istanbul, and participation of European architects in urban development).

The architect’s examination of buildings, both surviving and non-extant, thus revealed much about late-Ottoman Istanbul. Both the architectural and demographic records indicate it was a much different city than many might at first think—a place filled with a large population of mixed Western-European origin, their summer palaces indicating northern stylings, and a place that lived up to its fabled name as a city with summer mansions filled with sumptuous decorations and gardens, a timeless capital fit for both ambition and entertainment.

The Future Publication, and Four Points of Value

Like every good talk, this one left the listener hungry to know more about the topic. And, though the speakers emphasized the existence of extensive archives mentioning important Glavany-family members, it became more remarkable to note that the Glavanys’ memory is so forgotten in today’s Turkey. Indeed, Dr. Erünal noted that there was public confusion in modern times, when 12 aspiring Glavany descendants from France came to Istanbul, seeking the ruined mansion’s return. Apparently, the municipality has since restored it as a public-access cultural house, for now, which I’d guess is probably for the best. Since municipal renovation, it opened in 2023 under the name Nevmekan Kandilli—one of several other similarly-named repurposed old structures around town.

The current research is ongoing, and will be published in the forthcoming volume, Ottoman Cultural Mobilities: Travel, Imperial Exchange, and Collecting in the Nineteenth Century, (edited by Sibel Zandi-Sayek and Belgin Turan Özkaya, under contract with De Gruyter). The book should be published in 2026.

Generally, I can see at least four points of value for such research. First, it is useful for big-picture history (studies of economic trends, genealogies, etc.); second, for granular historic exploration (the undiscovered history informing  specific diplomatic negotiations, etc.); third, architectural history in all its forms; and fourth, as an inspirational and educational basis for historical fiction plots, using some of the lesser-cited, but historically significant, personalities of yesteryear.

About the Levantine Heritage Foundation

An excellent and informed group that specializes in the socio-economic and familial history of the Levantines, from the 16^th-20^th centuries, the LHF is useful for students and scholars alike. Its website contains much rare data, and its members include academic experts and familial descendants of the Levantines.

The LHF also holds extensive genealogical records of once-illustrious Levantine families in the former Ottoman Empire, Venetian lands, Greece and across the Mediterranean. They have relevant historic works too, and arrange scholarly events such as last evening’s talk. I have enjoyed LHF events for their originality and contributions to both history, and inspiring ideas for historical fiction, which some of my fellow authors might find intriguing as well.

Postscript-How To Watch the Event

The LHF has now made the whole event available on its YouTube channel—check it out here and learn more about this fascinating topic, and future areas to be covered.

Today’s special tribute, therefore, both discusses a specific case of Poe’s influence on my own writing (thus continuing the announced series), and also examines a 2019 scholarly essay on Poe. The latter will help both Poe enthusiasts and you fiction writers inspired by him, revealing new artistic overlap that sets an example for anyone’s writings. As it turned out, my research exploration open up new questions of historic import on Poe’s specific writing process in two 1842 stories. Edgar may be gone, but his ghost still has plenty of riddles for us now.

A Question: What’s Needed to Make a Great Story an Enduring Great Story?

I’d guess they’d have to be revolutionary in some way. Such stories contain within them something essential that reverberates down the ages, while not actually repeating, since world conditions change. They can thus be perceived as equally intolerable, for different reasons, to readers of different times and contexts.

And so with that famed Gothic tale, “The Masque of the Red Death,” first published in May 1842 in Graham’s Magazine. Today’s exploration of this story both illuminates the influence of this piece (and Poe generally) on my Detective Grigoris novel’s origins, and also delves into some fascinating published scholarship by an academic expert on Poe. Specifically, this concerns a new study on Poe’s use of the visual arts in crafting his apocalyptic tale. For those of you who are authors of Gothic Horror, this research may be useful in your own works.

There’s also a historical aspect. This literary journey back through time, we shall find, opens up a still largely-undiscovered world of pre-Civil War America, its vibrant arts scene, and how a trans-Atlantic art culture influenced authors such as Poe, whose work was affected by a lifelong affinity for beauty and the visual arts—but always recast in writing that was surprising, new and innovative.

Context: The 2020 Pandemic, the ‘Red Death,’ the Origins of my Detective Novel and my Poe Research

In summer 2021, while laid low during the pandemic and envisioning how to write a detective novel (the now-realized first Detective Grigoris manuscript), I began extensive readings (and listenings) of relevant works, inevitably leading to Poe. Aside from enjoying his early contributions to the detective-fiction genre, I was amused by that tale most appropriate tale for that time, “The Masque of the Red Death.” Aside from its topicality of plague and privilege, something about the shrill and sustained rhetorical tone of narrative, plus the use of colors and scenery, and its fundamental finality seemed very well done.

As you may know, in this allegory of human hubris, the aristocratic Prince Prospero and his large party of fellow nobles have taken refuge in a castellated abbey, to ride out the latest plague in style. After some time, they indulge in higher-than-thou masqued merriment, feeling safe from the ever-external ‘Red Death’ decimating the countryside.

Poe’s retelling features color-coded rooms, clocks, lavish tapestries and other elements of interior decoration that sent my travel-writer’s imagination into a fevered delight. Indeed, both Poe’s description and the plot were instantly seized by my memory for use in a future work; but we will have to wait, as the proper place will be the fifth installment of the Detective Grigoris series, to keep up with the times (as you recall, novel one begins in 1999).

In Poe’s tale, an unknown masqued stranger finally wanders through all the halls, angering the guests and Prince Prospero, whose own authority and weaponry are useless against this silent mystery guest; for he embodies the Red Death itself, and by the horrifying end, the party-goers fall, one by one. I’ve put below Christopher Lee’s inspired retelling from YouTube for your listening entertainment.

Further, though it wasn’t apparent at the time, my re-appraisal of “The Masque” in 2021 was good luck for the future detective series. For during the pandemic, I was envisioning a different novel, in which a Greek detective was just a minor character. However, reading the Poe tale actually changed my whole concept. It opened up an entire story-scenario  that elevated the Greek detective to the role of protagonist, in a very different book, all because of one future adventure in which he’d star, in a nwe adaptation of he Poe story (as said, in the fifth nvoel).

So… without the pandemic and Edgar Allan Poe arriving at the same time, there would likely have never been a Detective Grigoris novel.

The Power of Painting: Poe, the Vanitas Style, and the Dutch Masters

Just as he engaged with other art forms and social trends in his general work, Poe also transferred the visual and moral elements of a certain kind of painting to his prose. I understood this more concretely after a Poe scholar in late 2021 suggested I read an article by Brett Zimmerman, Emeritus Professor of Literature at York University, Canada. (The following sections quote from his 2019 article, the full citation of which is below).

 Zimmerman’s article argues that in writing “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe took inspiration from paintings of the ‘vanitas’ style. Often associated with the 17^th-century Dutch Golden Age, the ‘vanitas’ style had a moralistic grounding, using symbolic imagery to illustrate the inescapable nature of death and thus counseled pious wisdom in human action instead of vain, opulent or indulgent behavior.

Poe lived from 1809-1849, making the Dutch Golden Age sufficiently archaic to appeal to his Gothic imagination. As Zimmerman notes, Poe was a “prose-painter” intrigued by the symbolic element of these paintings, a writer whose critical mindset meant he “despised the blatantly moralistic in art.” The more subtle style of Dutch vanitas paintings, the scholar argues, is clearly reflected in “The Masque” and at least two other Poe stories he analyzes. At the end, I will argue that the influence is clear in a third, contemporaneous Poe tale as well.

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Skulls and Skeletons in Medieval and later European Art

Zimmerman notes the artistic use of memento mori (Latin for ‘remember that you must die’) in such works. The Tate Gallery website recalls that typical paintings in this genre might depict skulls, clocks, hourglasses and so on. Skeleton as memento mori had existed since medieval times, as had the danse macabre, or ‘dance of death.’ This imagery is reused ironically by Poe, with his masque revelers despairing against their inevitable demise near story’s end. Zimmerman adds that in 16^th-century art the skeleton was emphasized, and, in 17^th century, the skull. In some cases, “a portrait of the deceased was actually replaced by a skull as a new kind of painting emerged: vanitas still life paintings.”

In later vanitas painting, the scholar adds, “entire scenes became allegories on the transitoriness of human existence.” Ultimately, this moralistic form of still-life artwork “developed into a fully-fledged genre in the 17^th century.”

Biblical Dimensions, Poe’s 1844 Letter on Vanity, and a Famous Allusion

Another beloved standby of authors of Gothic Horror (and many other genres) is the odd Biblical allusion or reference. Poe draws on this source too, textually reinforcing the impact of narrated imagery that has, fundamentally, a common home in religiously-inspired European art.

Zimmerman quotes classicist Patrick de Rynck in explaining two Biblical passages related to the still-life vanitas genre’s development in the 17^th century. Both are relevant to the vanitas theological concept of medieval European art—and in Poe’s story. The first is from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity” (12:8). The second is from the Gospel of Matthew: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (6:19–20).

Poe was also thinking of such passages, at least concerning “the impermanence of the temporal,” Zimmerman argues, noting that this is suggested in Poe’s letter (July 2, 1844) to James R. Lowell, in which the author wrote, “I really perceive the vanity about which most men merely prate—the vanity of the human o temporal life.”

Zimmerman thus describes the story as Poe’s “…literary version of the vanitas theme illustrating the Latin idea nascendo morimur (we are born to die).” Later in his article, he cites the direct Biblical allusion that Poe uses near the story’s epic denouement, with the sweeping presence of the masked intruder. Poe writes: “And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night.”

The famous last phrase alludes to Thessalonians 5:2-4, where it states: “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.”

The Vanitas Style in Dutch Paintings and in Literature

The scholar then considers several vanitas-genre Dutch paintings as case studies, and three in particular: these are David Bailly’s Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols; Maria van Oosterwijck’s Vanitas—Still Life, and Antonio de Pereda y Salgado’s Allegory of Vanity. The scholar traces ‘symbolically meaningful’ elements that recur in these paintings and in Poe’s work.

The symbolic elements chosen by creators of vanitas paintings included objects alluding to hedonism, including dancing, music and alcohol or drinking vessels, including spilt ones. Combs and mirrors (sometimes cracked) are also common symbols, Zimmerman adds. And an overindulgence in the arts was even considered fair game for artists: “…appropriately, therefore, Bailly shows a palette hanging from a nail on the wall behind him,” the scholar notes.

Other common vanitas symbols are tobacco, pipes, jewelry, dice and playing cards. Silver, perfumes, expensive décor and silk, etc., are others. Interestingly, musical instruments appear in ‘more than half’ of the 15 overall vanitas paintings Zimmerman studied, noting the ‘fleeting’ aspect of music as a likely reason for its addition here, as well as the unstated and not very Christian aspect of carousing and carrying on that accompanies parties such as the one Poe describes in “The Masque.”

Drinking Cups, Books, and Moral Emptiness

In the paintings, when drinking cups are depicted as overturned, they convey the “literal meaning of vanity: emptiness.” Zimmerman goes through several more groupings of symbols, including bubbles, butterflies, smoke and candles, giving everything in a painting some subtle allegorical role. From this, it is simple enough to apply these images to the imaginations of the ‘prose-painter’ Poe, who (as he notes) was an avid lover of art.

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Interestingly, books too are found in all three of the sample paintings, Zimmerman notes; they symbolize “not only the delights of reading but also knowledge, itself considered one of life’s guilty pleasures in this visual arts genre.” He adds, for the vanitas works, books “also represent the futility of human strivings and achievement and the impermanence of worldly knowledge and culture.” Here Zimmerman adds:

“Once again, Poe struck a vanitas note in the aforementioned letter to Lowell: ‘I have been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things, to give any continuous effort to anything—to be consistent in anything’ (CL 450).”

The Illusory Nature of Power in Vanitas Paintings and the Prince in his Abbey as Genre-Creator

Zimmerman then recalls several other Dutch paintings which portray how the great and powerful, like Poe’s Prince Prospero, are no match for ‘the great leveler.’ Dutch paintings feature the decapitated Charles I, for example, or include weapons just to highlight their uselessness against death. The latter is anticipatory of the action in “The Masque of the Red Death,” where the prince vainly tries to stab at the masked phantom who has arrived in the abbey, bringing with him the Red Death.

Poe knew what he was doing as a ‘prose-painter,’ and he even builds it into the story and its characters. Thus, along with having an architect and interior decorator for his castellated abbey, Prince Prospero has himself arranged all the conditions for his own genre still-life. Zimmerman adds:

“It is as if Prince Prospero and the ‘thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court’ (M 670) are living within a vanitas painting: ‘The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.’”

This, to me, replicates the ironic self-awareness of the aforementioned Dutch painter who refused to exclude the wasteful indulgence of art from his still-life painting. As the author, Poe affirms that he has complete control over the story, its setting and its outcome—and that that very outcome equally affirms the rule of his own eventual self-undoing as a mortal man.

In short, writing a story illustrative of vanitas painting invokes the same futility of vanity. It is an ironic and inescapable loop, which brings unstated self-awareness to the story; after all, Poe hated the obvious, and the direct didacticism of other writers of his time. But the imagery is captivating and fantastic, while it lasts; in the end, a reader of a popular magazine (which Graham’s was) could simply be entertained, and miss the deeper message. Such applications still apply to this story today, even in a much different era.

Lavish Tapestries and Time Symbols

The lavish décor of Prince Prospero’s abbey also includes its hung tapestries and carpets. Zimmerman notes that “Within the context of the vanitas tradition of the Dutch Golden Age, Poe probably knew that, in the seventeenth century, decorative fabrics such as draperies were brought into the Dutch Republic through trade and commerce; they were therefore expensive signs of wealth, pride, and status.”

Another major symbol of vanitas painting—time and clocks—is pointed out by Zimmerman in Poe’s description of what stands at the end of the abbey’s final, black-colored apartment. Poe writes: “there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang” (M 672).”

And, as depicted in Dutch paintings, the narrated passing of time (the chime of the clock) has a dramatic function. It makes the party-goers pensive and disturbed, though they know not why. This sets up the tension for the increasingly dramatic mood before  the ebony clock chimes midnight at story’s end and the Red Death has run rampant over all.

Here Zimmerman reminds of Jean-Paul Weber’s classic description of Poe as the ‘maniac of time,’ and underscores how crucial time and its workings are to his rhetoric and structure.

Did Poe Actually See Vanitas Artworks? A New Line of Inquiry

After reading Professor Zimmerman’s article, I became fascinated with the following question: what are the realistic chances that Edgar Allan Poe actually saw a classic Dutch vanitas painting, or even some sort of copy, in early 19^th-century America?

The short answer: we don’t know—though several scenarios are possible. And this makes for good future research.

In his article, Zimmerman mentions Barbara Cantalupo’s Poe and the Visual Arts (2014), the first book to examine in detail the author’s relation with the visual arts. While clarifying that Cantalupo does not specify the vanitas genre, Zimmerman writes that she “demonstrates that he was exposed to and knowledgeable about a wide gallery of artists and paintings while living in Philadelphia and New York between 1838 and 1849.” More specifically, Zimmerman notes that:

“The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts exhibited European as well as American art—and even if Poe had never viewed an actual painting by one of the classic masters, it is hard to believe that a writer so well acquainted with the visual arts, as Cantalupo proves him to have been, would not at least have been acquainted with the genre: ‘In Philadelphia the prominence of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts provided a rich resource, as did Poe’s friendships with artists Felix O. C. Darley, John Sartain, John Gadsby Chapman, Thomas Sully, and the latter’s nephew Robert Sully’.”

Continuing on from this, I reached out to several more individual experts and research institutions. While there is still much work to be done, I have learned much and will offer here some possible areas of promising future research. Of course, the scholarship on Poe is so vast that it’s eminently possible my ‘discoveries’ are well-known to specialists, but anyhow, this is what I will say.

In the America of Poe’s writing life (1820s-1840s), both art galleries and private collections existed in important cities and even large towns. Aside from places like Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, these included Richmond, where scholars have informed me that contemporaneous newspaper archives attest to both private galleries and announcements for art auctions. Due to the close connections with Europe, and frequent trips by painters on commission (including those Poe knew), both the transmission of art and news about art to the New World was a fluid and ongoing process.

Poe was well connected with Richmond during parts of his life, and with the Sully family of painters; in fact, in the April 1842 issue of Graham’s Magazine, he cites the art of Sully (probably, the more famous uncle) in the two-page story “Life in Death” (better known as “The Oval Portrait,” the name it was republished under in 1845 and ever since).

This story is literally about art, and in a different way is more a meditation on the vanity of the arts than “The Masque of the Red Death.” However, it has additional narrative omission techniques that would require a separate study just to explain Poe’s singular genius on that little work. I’d prefer to study further the writing historiography process of both stories before making a conclusions.

Still, the fact that two art-focused stories with strong (if oblique) moral aspects were published by Poe within a month of one another indicates a strong likelihood that he had either recently read about art, seen art, or talked about it with an artist friend. Although his love of art was life-long, I would guess that something specific occurred in 1841 through early 1842 that turned Poe’s attention to narrative statements about the visual arts, as a “prose-painter,” in an indirect and non-didactic way that bequeathed both his and future generations with two remarkably vital stories.

Above Citations from:

Brett Zimmerman, ‘Such as I Have Painted:’ Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death,” and the Vanitas Genre,’ The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 46-63 (2019), Pennsylvania State University.

Audio Narration: Listen Here to “The Masque of the Red Death”

There are numerous narrations of today’s story. One particularly famous oration of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” is that of Christopher Lee here:

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So, if you’re a lover of detective fiction/international-intrigue thrillers, you’ll enjoy my upcoming series of behind-the-scenes essays on the influences and ideas behind Detective Grigoris. And if you have friends and colleagues interested in such works, send ‘em over. My novel also makes full use of my background in travel, history, philosophy and current-events analysis of the first quarter of this century, in telling the origin story of a Greek detective between 1999-2002.

What’s To Come

My goal is to maintain existing TLS quality coverage, and continue our journey of learning more about the places, histories, literary and other sources that influenced the writing process.

I want you to feel, in some way, the joy that I have felt in discovering or repurposing events, places and texts for a book project about which I knew little at the outset. Writing is solitary, so finding ways to share this experience require new approaches.

Despite the challenges, this three-year exploration has ended successfully, with a very solid foundation for the final five novels in the series. (They will be shorter than the first, which weighs in at 259,000 words, if future editors allow it to stand).

Some Actual Future Topics

In the months ahead, look out under this Section for special essays on the real literary and historic influences behind the Detective Grigoris project, my attempt to create something completely new in the genre of mystery/international intrigue.

Some article topics will include:

-Greek café culture, and how a former favorite café gets a literary ‘second life’ in the Detective Grigoris novel;

-The surprising influence of Voltaire’s literature and life-philosophy on the novel;

-Aspects of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the pioneers of detective fiction, as seen through analysis of scholarship on art history;

-Peripheral writing in storytelling and character-development: the epistolary form and newspaper columns, as I’ve re-imagined them;

-Orthodox Christian monasticism, settings, and the question of Hagiography as a primary form of detective-literature;

-The importance of music and musical allusions in Detective Grigoris, as explored through traditional Greek song;

…and more.

A Bit about Detective Grigoris Novel 1

In case you’re new here or have forgotten, here’s a bit about the novel to come, without spoilers, of course.

Detective Grigoris (novel 1 (of an expected 6) is the ‘origin story’ of a young Athenian, Grigoris, who chooses to become a detective after a number of wild experiences give him a taste for the world of mystery and action.

The ‘cases’ that Grigoris attempts to solve run the gamut from adventures on Bosporus isles and in regional war zones to the theft of art and holy relics; at the same time, the detective challenged by hidden and open enemies who do not appreciate his involvement in cases, including the hunt for Greek left-wing terrorists and a businessman’s mysterious death. The ever-unanswered question of why, of causality and relationships, absorbs the detective.

Despite the book’s length, it moves at a quick pace, with comedy, drama an psychological tension interspersed, the drama gradually mounting until a fulfilling ending that I doubt anyone could have seen coming—I certainly didn’t, until it wrote itself in my presence and under my apparent guidance.

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A Final Note: Clues and an Anti-Excerpt

During the next period of seeking out publishing options for the novel, I will also continue with other TLS coverage. While there will be no spoilers or big plot discussions, I may drop the occasional clue in oblique forms. Two such clues lie obliquely in today’s post.

While the novel coverage is free to all subscribers, there won’t be more excerpts, except perhaps to paying subscribers. This is chiefly to protect myself and my own copyright for the longer-term publishing process.

Instead, all will get the next-best thing: anti-excerpts. That is, extracts of texts from the first version, but removed during the spring 2024 rewriting process.

Such sections were either extraneous, or removed because of structural changes (as with today’s anti-excerpt) that required a part of the story to be told in a different manner or context. I don’t think that most authors or their estates provide such behind-the-scenes glimpses. In the end when the Detective Grigoris novel is published, you can go back and compare, if you so desire, with what (and why) was excluded. I believe strongly that ‘all writing is re-writing,’ and such examples will help readers understand why, without requiring me to explain in a pedantic way.

Before starting out in September 2021, I had no idea what I would be getting into. But despite the long hours, I have no regrets, as I have now written one good book.

I’ve learned a lot from this experience. I expect novels 2-6 to be written at a faster clip than the first one was, much of the time spent stumbling in the dark.

If you’d like to see me succeed in this quest, keep reading, sharing these pages, and mentioning ny Detective Grigoris project to people in the literary and related worlds who might be interested, whether readers, reviewers, lit agents or publishers. Thanks, it is appreciated.

FROM THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR: AN ANTI-EXCERPT FROM DETECTIVE GRIGORIS, CHAPTER 4

Here is an omitted excerpt, which would never otherwise be published, as it was deleted before the final version of the novel, when I restructured this specific section of Chapter 4. I realized that it required a different telling, in time, place and context, for maximal effect. So it often goes when writing a book that has a mind of its own.

……….

-ANTI-EXCERPTC4-

Grigoris only relaxed after the waiter had sauntered off, sitting back against the café’s big couch pillows and staring past the idle murmuring drinkers out to sea. It was another sultry June day  in Athens, the clock creeping towards noon, and he was the only one drinking a hot coffee—his usual Elliniko sketo, Greek coffee without sugar. Everyone else had abandoned the old traditions for the newer, clutching a foamy Nescafé Frappé, a slightly more novel solution to summer heat, in a country where even the café-providers thought in terms of centuries.

But the aspiring detective was a purist; and the heat did not affect him. However, just when he started to enjoy the pungent hot drink, in defiance of the rule of the season, he was forced to put it aside by the irritating noise of that new intruder in his life, the flip-phone that sounded above the café’s electrified Bossa Nova beats.

“Yes, of course I’m alright,” he replied, in irritable surprise. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing—I mean—didn’t you see the news this morning?” the correspondent barked, in an almost frightened, breathless tone. “Where are you?”

“No, I didn’t—I’m at the marina, having coffee, writing notes. What happened?”

“Better we talk in person,” she answered mysteriously. “This evening at six. Same place as last”—

“Aha, that place in Kolona”—

“Shush~” she scolded. “Just come. “Hey, did you read my article after the elections?”

Annoyed by her bossiness and strange digression, Grigoris just assented. Still, his mind stubbornly remained reasonable; after all, the election had been two months ago, and nothing of consequence had occurred in Athens since then. What on earth did her article have to do with anything, he asked?

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll explain later. Bye.”

The correspondent hung up, leaving Grigoris mystified. He had left the house at eight that morning, for a nice leisurely swim and walk at the nearby beach before it got too hot, and then found his way to the café at the marina. He remained blissfully unaware of anything that might have disturbed the world which, at that time, was composed of plush couches with chatting locals and the serene, unmoving expanse of the Saronic Gulf.

-END ANTI-EXCERPTC4-

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Below I publish for the first time what’s perhaps my oldest poem, written c. 1999, inspired by those philosophical readings. It was probably written before the Byzantine poems of 2000; these were first published last August here, on Mediterranean Poetry. As youthful enthusiasm should not be mistaken for expertise, please consider the work as more an artistic exploration of ideas than an authoritative stamp of didactic rigor.

God is nature is fate is reason (1999)

By Christopher Deliso

There is no accidental motion;

Causes account for and causes create

Fixed things and moving, attest their cohesion;

And so the staunch Stoic dictum.

A rock does not from gravity fall, but

Plunging fulfills its existence. Nature

Has sewn its own secret cause, and knows

To not weave a cylinder.

Yet there is room in this world for other rocks, aware

Of gravitational force, and they fall, having

Learned to resemble less rocks.

There are innumerable worlds, each distinct

From the rest; we know this from Zeno,

Cleanthes, Chrysippus. They posit the cosmos

Repeats, recurs; that time, the measure of motion is like

The line captivating a fish hook, that

Which can be outspun and inreeled again.

There are worlds that collide, and others that merge

And some that resolve into fire;

There are causes for rocks, and reasons for motion,

And a Chrysippus who refutes this doctrine entire;

And yet another ‘Chrysippus,’ name signifying

Only the blade of a knife.

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Today, I’ll provide the key info on this book and how/where you can get it. After that, I’ll expand on my own anthology contribution, something fairly new for me—that is, from the genre of dream-literature. I consider this ‘travel writing by other means,’ and when the subject matter is somewhat travel-oriented, there is a harmonic symmetry to the whole adventure.

How to Buy the Take Me There Anthology and Author Information

Take Me There: A Speculative Anthology of Travel was published via IngramSpark, and is available physically and digitally. Along with special boxed offers for paid subscribers of Storyletter Xpress, it is available on Ingram Spark directly here, and also on this link tree for Amazon, B&N, etc.

The authors featured are Brian Reindel, Brylle Gaviola, Christopher Deliso, Clarice Sanchez Meneses, C.R. Langille, Daniel W. Davison, Devon Field, Galia Ignatius, H. A. Titus, Iris Shaw, J.M. Elliott, Jack Massa, James Castor, Joe Golden, LB Waltz, M.S. Arthadian, Melissa Rose Rogers, Olivia St. Lewis, Pamela Urfer, Randall Hayes, Shaina Read, Shannon Aaron Stephens, Victor D. Sandiego and Winston Malone. This anthology thus shows the value of Substack as a platform where actual books are being produced and where writers have expanded opportunities to publish what they love.

A good way to get to know the authors, and read some synopses of the stories featured, visit the relevant Storyletter Xpress author interview page. I was happy to be interviewed (along with another contributor, Galia Ignatius) for this series; all of these can be read here.

My Story, and My View of Dream Literature

My anthology contribution, Two Visions of the Mountain of the Saints, is a literal (if slightly stylized) retelling of an actual dream I had in May 2023. The inherent contradiction of the narration is that the envisioned physical terrain, persons and even text in the dream both affirm and negate the most likely ‘real’ earthly destination—the monastic community of Mt. Athos in Greece, a place I’ve visited several times. However, certain impossibilities in the dream infer that the place must be other—has the dreamer/narrator visited Heaven, or is it a mere delusion of the subconscious? Or, one might argue, some social commentary is involved. One never knows, with fiction. The factor of lucidity and conscious control over the dream, affirmed in the narrative, is another aspect that lends subtle sophistication to the retelling.

The Parallel Project: Dream Literature

This literal type of dream-narration is one of two types of dream literature I’ve been collecting since September 2021, when I began the occasional practice of writing down any interesting fragment or occasionally, entire dream, mostly humorous but sometimes sad or confusing. As I see it, if the subconscious is going to provide free material, it would be foolish not to accept it; it saves energy on having to imagine ever-new story ideas. And, such material brings with it a certain satisfaction of originality, even if one can’t completely take the credit for imagining it.

I have collected about 30 stories or fragments thus far, and intend to publish a collection out of them someday. It would be helpful to find a professional illustrator for this pursuit at some point, as I’m no artist. In addition to the literal retellings, there are also fragmentary pieces, or else dreams that are not written simply, but rather get reconfigured and perhaps added on to, creating a hybrid story.

Some Already-Published Examples

If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you may have already read something from my dream-literature compendium, and not even known it. For example, from the more literal retelling (but with some added plot and details) there was “The Captain’s Machine.”

And, back on 11 September 2023, there was “How the Retrograde Curse was reverse-engineered (and rather spectacularly, too”), though this has only partial dream-inspired imagery, with the bulk of it is actually very ‘written’ and full of allusions and plotting.

These are just a few examples of the range of applications I’ve chosen for the raw material of dream-data, as I’ve been able to haphazardly record it in the past three years. While every story (and work-in-progress) is unique, I have been struck with something new—or, if it occurred earlier in life, I’ve forgotten—which is the occasional quick manifestation of either spoken, heard or written text in a lucid dream. Inevitably, such prose is wonderful and far beyond my waking capabilities, which only makes it the more aggravating when I wake and it has all dissipated back into the ether.

Nevertheless, on we must travel, and I am grateful for whatever bits of memory my sleeping mind provides, that I may continue to reuse it to entertain the reader well into the future. I am optimistic that this exploration of a genre for the first time in my writing life, in these early Substack stories and now, the Take Me There anthology, will be just the first of much more to come. I can also say that elements of dream fiction are  used in my recently-revised Detective Grigoris novel, though in a more conventional way fitting the genre.

I consider the new development generally fulfilling considering the value of imagination and observation, expanded beyond the usual waking comprehension to the subconscious mind. It’s like another form of fishing. The general project is about three years old now, and still has a ways to go. I shall now desist from my carrying on, and wish you all a good day. But let me merely point out that for those with interests in the general genre of dream or vision fiction (from ancient to medieval to modern times), Wikipedia has an informative page here. (Not that following these convention is my goal; after all, it’s always best to be oneself). But a little more education is always beneficial.

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