Alpennia: Weaving the strands together
Jun. 23rd, 2015 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjHaving finished the draft of chapter 6, I'm feeling a bit as if I have all these tangled threads being dumped on the table and they have yet to be woven (or braided, or knit, or...) into a coherent fabric. That's fairly normal for this stage of a story for me, though the number of continuing characters (each with her own concerns) enhances the problem.
Chapter 6 was Jeanne's first chapter, in terms of point of view, although in some ways it might better be considered Anna's chapter. Anna Monterrez is Antuniet's apprentice in alchemy, but--as Jeanne muses--she's become something of an adopted daughter for both of them. Not in a serious sense. There are barriers of class, of religion, of expected life path. But Anna has no mother in the picture (I've never really touched on that, but we can assume she's dead) and Anna's professional aspirations have stood her apart from her sisters and their world. And so--especially after the experience of all working closely together on Antuniet's Great Work in The Mystic Marriage--it's natural that Anna might look to both Jeanne and Antuniet as more personal mentors.
In this chapter--in a moment of candor--Anna confesses that she envies Jeanne's easy and seemingly effortless social skills: her ability to weave the threads of conversation and interaction together into a pleasant whole. Anna has a fair amount of knowledge, but she is shy and self-conscious, especially around her disfigurement. The nature of her home life doesn't give her much scope to practice social skills. Jeanne reminisces about how she was the protegee of a famous salonniere of a previous generation (which knowledge we've seen her use as a consultant-to-hostesses, although not so much on her own behalf) and she has the idea to pass on some of those skills to Anna by having some small gatherings--"just a few friends"--specifically for that purpose. This will later (as in, several books from now) prove a turning point in Anna's life.
To get some background for this thread, I've been reading Benedetta Craveri's The Age of Conversation, which is a history of the salon movement in France from the 17th century through the eve of the Revolution. Given that scope it provides not so much a parallel for the setting of my story, as a shared historic background. Craveri notes that the salon movement was very much a reaction against the royal court as a social focus, moving interactions into a less formal and more intimate private space. While the impression of the salons that has come down to us often focuses on their literary and philosophical pursuits, Craveri emphasizes that they were much more about "social performance". Literature, philosophy, or politics may have been the medium, but the method was the key. Access came not necessarily through birth (though sometimes through connections), but from the ability to be witty, polite, well-mannered, and entertaining.
This, then, is what Jeanne undertakes to teach Anna: how to weave together intelligent, interesting people into a pleasant social experience in which the artist catalyzes, but does not dominate, the performance. It's going to be quite a challenge and will have some interesting consequences. But that's a story for a different book.
* * *
And because it's Alpennia promotion day, I will encourage readers to share their love of the series by recommending it to friends. (I'm keep track of a secret list of "founding members of the Alpennia Fan Club" on this basis.) Books that fall so wildly between genres and markets, like mine, rely heavily on word of mouth to spread the interest. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen a comment along the lines of, "Gee, the way you've described this book, I absolutely have to read it! I wouldn't have known that from the cover blurb." The thing is: each time, the description was entirely different! So tell people what you love about the Alpennia books, and I'll hope that love is contagious.
Chapter 6 was Jeanne's first chapter, in terms of point of view, although in some ways it might better be considered Anna's chapter. Anna Monterrez is Antuniet's apprentice in alchemy, but--as Jeanne muses--she's become something of an adopted daughter for both of them. Not in a serious sense. There are barriers of class, of religion, of expected life path. But Anna has no mother in the picture (I've never really touched on that, but we can assume she's dead) and Anna's professional aspirations have stood her apart from her sisters and their world. And so--especially after the experience of all working closely together on Antuniet's Great Work in The Mystic Marriage--it's natural that Anna might look to both Jeanne and Antuniet as more personal mentors.
In this chapter--in a moment of candor--Anna confesses that she envies Jeanne's easy and seemingly effortless social skills: her ability to weave the threads of conversation and interaction together into a pleasant whole. Anna has a fair amount of knowledge, but she is shy and self-conscious, especially around her disfigurement. The nature of her home life doesn't give her much scope to practice social skills. Jeanne reminisces about how she was the protegee of a famous salonniere of a previous generation (which knowledge we've seen her use as a consultant-to-hostesses, although not so much on her own behalf) and she has the idea to pass on some of those skills to Anna by having some small gatherings--"just a few friends"--specifically for that purpose. This will later (as in, several books from now) prove a turning point in Anna's life.
To get some background for this thread, I've been reading Benedetta Craveri's The Age of Conversation, which is a history of the salon movement in France from the 17th century through the eve of the Revolution. Given that scope it provides not so much a parallel for the setting of my story, as a shared historic background. Craveri notes that the salon movement was very much a reaction against the royal court as a social focus, moving interactions into a less formal and more intimate private space. While the impression of the salons that has come down to us often focuses on their literary and philosophical pursuits, Craveri emphasizes that they were much more about "social performance". Literature, philosophy, or politics may have been the medium, but the method was the key. Access came not necessarily through birth (though sometimes through connections), but from the ability to be witty, polite, well-mannered, and entertaining.
This, then, is what Jeanne undertakes to teach Anna: how to weave together intelligent, interesting people into a pleasant social experience in which the artist catalyzes, but does not dominate, the performance. It's going to be quite a challenge and will have some interesting consequences. But that's a story for a different book.
* * *
And because it's Alpennia promotion day, I will encourage readers to share their love of the series by recommending it to friends. (I'm keep track of a secret list of "founding members of the Alpennia Fan Club" on this basis.) Books that fall so wildly between genres and markets, like mine, rely heavily on word of mouth to spread the interest. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen a comment along the lines of, "Gee, the way you've described this book, I absolutely have to read it! I wouldn't have known that from the cover blurb." The thing is: each time, the description was entirely different! So tell people what you love about the Alpennia books, and I'll hope that love is contagious.
