Crumbling Walls

Ruined with a subtle touch

Hey! What is the oldest remnant of human civilization you’ve ever seen?

A question with answers as varied as the world itself. The way some places are mixed with ancient echoes in every stone and others are newly built with structures disappearing before any of us die.

There’s something to be said for the awe in every step when the ground beneath your feet has proof of lives once lived.

I was reminded of those emotions while visiting Le Mans. More famous today for Formula 1 than anything else, but there is a long and deep history built into its foundation.

Indeed, the massive Cathédrale Saint-Julien du Mans at the center of old town receives its fair share of glory.

However, what really stole the show was the quieter wall below.

One of the oldest and seemingly best preserved structures built by the Romans in the 3rd century.

And I enjoyed a beer at a bar filled with F1 paraphernalia carved into those very bones.

Inspirational Tales

That layered feeling of how ancient roots are more than able to support modern life is at the core of what I want to build with Dorus. It’s also why I’ve been reading Chaucer and looking to reinforce my understanding of the medieval world.

To be clear, a central idea that I hope to fully capture is the paradox of how different life may have been superficially while our human emotions remained the same.

Outside of any castle walls, I’ve also been reading Chaucer because I really enjoy his charm and wit. I find a certain joy when I realize how similar people can be even when separated by space and time.

A well educated scholar and all-around very successful person, Geoffrey Chaucer made his mark in history by daring to write in English.

At the time, the Anglo-Saxon tongue was about as far from prestigious as a language can be.

While never fully going extinct, the written word was relegated to, at best, folktales and legends that were better spent with breath than ink.

It’s in this context that Chaucer lived and worked and eventually completed his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales.

And to give you a better idea of how well he threads the needle between lyric poetry and scything critique, here’s an excerpt, slightly edited in this version for more modern legibility:

That if gold rustë, what should iron do?
For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a lewëd man to rust:
And shame it is, if that a priest take keep,
To see a shitten shepherd and clean sheep:
Well ought a priest ensample for to give,
By his own cleanness, how his sheep should live.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (c. 1400)

NB The only faux ami to really look out for is lewd. Here it takes on the more archaic meaning of unlearned rather than the one we know it as today.

Reading his work now, I regret not taking the time to appreciate it properly in the past. I may have been vaguely aware of the importance of his work, but I had never really read it.

The closest I came was while researching for Maneus.

The last chapter of Book II (Lithan’s story) begins with a preface featuring Chaucer’s BIRD STORY. A fun tale about a scholar who falls asleep while poring over his books and finds his studies coming to life in his dreams.

It seemed rather appropriate for Lithan.

There mighte men the royal egle finde,
That with his sharpe look perceth the sonne;
And other egles of a lower kinde,
Of which that clerkes wel devysen conne.
Ther was the tyraunt with his fethres done
And greye, I mene the goshauk, that doth pyne
To briddes for his outrageous ravyne.

There might men the royal eagle find,
That with his sharp look pierces the sun;
And other eagles of lower kind,
Of which clerics can well devise.
There was the tyrant with his feathers dark
And grey, I mean the goshawk, that does cause pain
To birds with its outrageous ravening.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls (c. 1380)

More meant to provide a foreboding atmosphere as his story moves to its dramatic climax, I still find it provides that special connection through the past and into the present.

And if there were ever a more appropriate time, Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls is also the first known reference to Valentine’s Day.

The fact that it’s an off-hand reference also makes it clear that the holiday existed long before he wrote about it.

And here we have the old question of trees and their forest and the sounds therein.

Are we forever damned to define emotional wealth via material memory?

Free Books

In that spirit of Chaucer’s writing to be read, or perhaps as an attempt to make sure my fell wood erupts into a maddening roar, all my books are free on Kindle this week!

🗡️ Rhean - Philosophical fantasy reforging ancient traditions with an apathetic immortal

☕ Maneus - Coffee, conversations, chaos, and other caffeinated questions

❄️ Besnowed - The warmth of winter and the holidays that define us

🧣 Significatorius - Finding yourself between performance and perfection

☄️ Revification - Surviving trauma and piecing together fragmented memories

💡 Lux Aeterna - Sloppy office short stories in a dark world guided by artificial light

I wanted to do a little promotion in the run-up to the release of Nightly Noise Vol. 1 and so I’ve made all my books available for free on Amazon for a week, starting today.

Be sure to grab a copy if you’re so inclined.

And if the paralysis of choice is eating away at your arm, with my next book being Dorus, I would suggest checking out Rhean to see where the character comes from.

Sand Castles

Limited-time promotions and holidays that drift in and out of our calendars come and go with ease. I suppose at the end of the day any question around memory and history is one that is defined by how we determine the scale.

The whole of human history being but a momentary glimpse when compared to the scale of the planet.

The continuity of ancient civilizations being difficult to appreciate and almost impossible to comprehend when looking at China or Iran.

The limits of a human life are tied to how we manage our memories.

I’ve said within a family how that’s often limited to five generations.

On the scale of a culture though, we move so much farther. Lineage and lines relying on the scraps of whatever is left behind.

Scripture, chronicles, ancient references, at the end of any given day, how much of that matters?

We’re still the same people wondering how to celebrate another Valentine’s.

Until next time,

—JMB