some notes on вавилонский голландец / Babylon Dutch

[wytchcroft]

Some notes on Babylon Dutch:

aka Why – Where –Who – How – What the hell was that?

This story was written to a very simple prompt; a ship, library, a reference to the Flying Dutchman.

Ok then. Well, uh, the prompt was simple… what I found myself trying to write was not. 

Or not exactly anyway.
A little while ago I wrote another story called Memory Lane. Babylon Dutch is a sequel - of sorts, which means I'm hoping I can get away with a sequel to a story that nobody's actually had the oportunity to read.

The main character in BD might be the main character Suri Vexlor, from ML, or possibly Suri’s sister Lorna… or possibly neither. 

So, yes, not so simple. Memory Lane is a fantasy set in a future where the characters are unable to access or store memories in any concrete personalised sense. This is because at some point the Internet became the substitute collective memory for humankind. Unfortunately the Net gave way.
Most people became lost, vague, shuffling around with an often unidentifiable hunger, creatures in limbo, their memory, there sense of self and the world purged, creatures in Limbo, in Purgatory. So Purgs they are. Not everyone is a purg – a few manage to use other, temporary aids of one form or another and scrape by as best they can. Some few of these ‘survivors’ have developed an ability to consume the memories of others, to absorb them like nutrition. They are spurned for it – hated and reviled and driven into the shadows and hidden enclaves. And their stock is low – few remaining humans have the necessary memories to provide these shadowlings with food, only the elderly, those who were not completely wiped by the fall of the net.
And there are precious few of these. 
But there are a few.
One of these is an elderly and reclusive actor. He forms part of the story too. As first Lorna and then Suri attempt to access the man’s memories and bring them back to their own.
That’s the set up. What’s the point? Well, I wanted to explore memory – are we just the sum of our memories, do we lose our essential selves if those memories go? I wanted to write about Identity and I wanted to write a horror story, of sorts.

Babylon Dutch is different; I wanted to write a faery tale, that means magic and happenstance and (hopefully) mystery. I wanted the upside to Memory Lane – I wanted to write about self invention, re-invention, and about books, books are good things, very good things. But does the same thing apply – are we simply the sum of our language, the power of the word?

The central character in Babylon Dutch has no memory, may even be dreaming, or dead – but gradually something happens – education provides an outlet, fuel for a fire that feeds a phoenix, not a vampire. I wanted to have this character wake up, discover and explore a new world. And I wanted time to be cheerfully wayward.

So, five chapters – I thought – each one dealing with a different angle, a different perspective on what goes on. From 'She' to 'I' (as the character progresses), from third to second to first-person narrative as that self solidifies. I wanted the final chapter to review this – so there’s a little of each form in that chapter. Five chapters, five senses, I wanted to do that too – but that didn’t quite come off, I cut a very large number of words and most of the exploratory, sense filled, stuff got left on the cutting room floor.

But there’s a beginning and middle and an end. A happy end even.
And it’s some sort of faery tale. And there even some ghosts and/or spectres thrown in.

I hope it was worth a read. I’m tempted to redraft the whole thing and expand it – but, maybe that’s too pretentious, it would certainly take time… and honestly, I can't tell if the effort would be worth it.
I think that with my ‘writing’ a little probably goes a long way – and if you’re reading this, then you’ve most likely read Babylon Dutch in which case, friendly reader, you probably feel that you've had more than enough by now, and I thank you sincerely for making the effort.