There Ain't No Way To Get What I Want

Still hammering at the Chess and Oona sequence. The good part is that it's an essential backbone component of the book, and it does look marginally better every time I pop out the file and fiddle with sentence structure. The bad part...well, we all know: Late, tired, effed up, uninspired. I have to keep slogging through. Was it Jay Lake who recently said something to the effect that no one owes you a first draft you actually like? You just have to bull your way past your own distaste, because a half-written book can be finished and a badly-written book can be fixed, while an unwritten book is no Goddamn good to anybody.

Last night was my hit-and-run visit to Guelph, where I read and answered questions at the Bookshelf Resto-Bar, along with fine local author JM Prescott (editor of The Glass Coin eZine) and fellow Toronto horror wolfpacker Sephera Giron. We drove up through what was then a tornado watch and later turned into a tornado warning, complete with lightning striking the Gardiner Expressway, sideways rain and Skydome closure, then waited it out until things went back down to normal "thunderstorm, just be careful" level. Fun times. I probably should've been taking notes, but I think I'll probably be able to remember what some of it looked like--the sun as a bright, flat, colourless coin submerged in a darkening knot of clouds, at least, or that later moment when sheet lightning deformed the sky even as a genuine bolt ripped horizontally, thrashing uncoiled and light-bloody, like a severed dragon's tail caught in mid-fall.

Also, I've been thinking about the Borgias again, mainly because of watching Steve catch up with the miniseries; I can almost see him telling himself it's okay to like it because there's always Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (Colm Feore) to root for, and he'll eventually "triumph", turning into Pope Julius II. Of course, since Julius eventually came to be known as the Warrior or "Terrible" Pope--we see him gearing up for his Pope-in-armour days by bringing the king of France in to cut a bloody swathe across Italy in pursuit of the kingdom of Naples, gambling that it'll take him right through Rome, where he'll be able to use their strength to depose Pope Alexander/Rodrigo Borgia--I'm not sure how uncomplicated the comparison between he and Alexander really is; in a lot of ways, both of them behaved like they took the idea of being "Prince" of the Church waaay too seriously. (And I see he actually had an illegitimate daughter as well, after all that shit-talking about Alexander's nepotistic obsession with his own family. Then again, I don't think he ever tried to get her married off to Naples' heir, any more than he would've made one of his sons a cardinal and the other commander of the Papal armies.)

I think a good deal of my obsession with the Borgias comes from the fact that I'm an only child, which makes sibling relationships look simultaneously attractive and alien--I get them, I guess, but only on a metaphorical level. And yes, there's the whole incest kink thing, but (believe it or not) the series really hasn't gone there thus far; yes, Caesare is very emotionally involved with his little "sis" Lucrezia, not to mention creepily handsy, but because both of them are well aware that their primary worth comes from being pieces in their father's constant gamesmanship, it rings a bit more like battlefield cameraderie than inappropriate flirtation--the joking between people who know their purpose is to take any given bullet Alexander points their way. This is the part that Juan, their idiot brother, just doesn't get, which leaves him excluded from their magic circle: He's been raised to always behave as though the ultimate privilege being a cardinal-turned-Pope's son brings is his by right of birth, but he doesn't really believe it. On some level, he's always looking for the insult under the surface, thus creating it even when it's not there (instead of simple defusing it outright by ignoring it, as Caesare and Lucrezia--and Alexander's smart, haughty mistress, la Bella Giulia Farnese--do).

Meanwhile, Neil Jordan has managed to get through the entire first season without Caesare managing to escape the trap he chafes in...so long as Juan stays alive, he's worth more to Alexander inside the church than out of it, even though he doesn't really bother to play the game anymore. What distinguishes these two equally Machiavellian men is that while Alexander has a genuine (if slippery) relationship with faith, truly believing on some level that if God didn't want him as Pope then He wouldn't have let Alexander lie, cheat and bribe his way into the position, Caesare doesn't seem to have any faith at all, except in the loyalty of his family--both by blood and by extension, with people like Giulia and lovesick condottiere-turned-assassin Micheletto holding equal pride of place with Lucrezia, his father and his mother. And when Juan gets himself killed, inevitably, Caesare is just going to explode out of that red robe, becoming the Prince the real Machiavelli already knows he will.

My only question is whether or not Jordan will trace Juan's death back to Caesare, the way most historians seem to. Since he seems to be going for a "more sinned against" version, maybe not--though then again, it's not like he's making Caesare exactly sinless, either. Still, if the rest is any indication, it'll at least be interesting.

All right: 500 words done, plus this entry, and I need to go pick up my anti-imflammatories, then go get Cal. Mom's in Nova Scotia for six days, which means it's autistic boy fun fun fun, with no real respite. Oh well.