Synthetic Violet Lent 2024

Synthetic

The Perse Literary & Cultural Magazine

Editor’s Notes

Verba volant, (sed) scripta manent

One of the greatest wonders of literature is perhaps its claim on immortality. Indeed, I have often been astounded at the simple fact of literary survival, relevance, and vitality. How can it be that the preservation and transmission of writing over many languages, cultures, and time periods have withstood the tribulations of mortality, the forces of nature, and time? How can it be that words written hundreds, a thousand years ago still resonate with readers, in present and living emotions, thoughts, and voice? Why, finally, do we write, create, these forms of expression, which too often are perishable and run the risk of being forgotten? What overwhelming force, beyond individual will, can possibly propel people to artistic pursuit?

As an aspiring classicist, I am often preoccupied by such questions, which are nevertheless, not exclusive to ancient literature, and often not even answerable by a question to oneself. What indeed is the purpose of a literary magazine such as Synthetic Violet, and why does it matter? The answer lies perhaps in the dual and overlapping definition of humanity and literature, which either life (survival) or death (ignominy). As thus there is an overarching prevalence of the exploration of human life - and thus deathwithin literature. This is however not simply borne from the fact that literature deals with mortal subjects and human themes. Instead, there is the additional complexity of the author’s mortality and ultimately that of literature itself. Or rather their immortality…

These opening notes, therefore, shall aim to shed some light on this theme. First considering the mortality of literature against the challenges of its survival, its awareness of its transient nature as reflecting human impermanence in the face of the greater forces of nature or the divine. Then however, the ensuing paradox, that through such reflections of mortality, immortality is achieved. Initially, this illuminates the eternity of their subjects ultimately literature and art immortalise themselves, and their authors. By extension the conclusion expresses the necessity of literature and artistic expression as a weapon against time, a remedy for mortality, and the symbiosis of inspiration and eternity among men, just as nature and perhaps the divine.

The most pragmatic and initial consideration in such an immense subject is its actual tangibility - or for that matter - intangibility. Indeed, what has survived of earlier literature is but a fraction of what is conceivable – the lyric fragments of ancient Greece alone serve to prove this. Whilst much of Pindar has remained, the extant texts of others such as Alcman or Alceus are far fewer and more fragmented. Even longer and better-preserved texts such as the Homeric epics and tragedies, contain examples of omissions and corruptions in the original text. Much of this is incidentally due to the way in which the texts were passed down either through manuscript transmission, or archaeological discoveries of papyri. The latter is naturally subject to exposure to the elements, with parts of the text missing or damaged. Corruptions arising from the first however, are mostly due to mistakes in transcription – or attempts to fix these mistakes -, which causes variants of the text. Often this means that several different manuscripts must be compared to try and recover the original form. Whilst this is relatively a minor problem compared to the complete loss of the original texts, the challenges to the survival of a story are many and varied, especially when recognising that many texts have been left out of literary historiography, abandoned at the judgement of various transcribers, or struck out by the vagrancies of history. Some of these we know once existed, others are unknown lost to the great flood of time.

Literature itself is exceedingly conscious of its own mortality, and by extension that of its principal subject – humanity. This preoccupation with death as the tragic fate of mortals and the futility of their attempts at prolonging life or memory is illustrated for instance in Shelley’s Ozymandias, a powerful juxtaposition of the previous power of an ancient king and the ruins of his attempt to immortalise his name in sculpture. Not only is this a reflection of the hubris of powerful ruler but also their nemesis the tragic fate of mortals, who are ever doomed to die and insignificant compared to the magnitude of the divine.

This theme alone emerges as a central trope in the ancient world, a reflection of the fragility of human life seen for instance in Herodotean history but also in archaic Greek epic poetry especially Hesiod and Homer. Here the power of the gods is associated with the all the forces of nature; Zeus delights in the thunder bolt (τερπικέραυνος), Poseidon is the earthshaker (Εννοσιγαιος). In Iliad 21 there is a striking description of Achilles, who fighting the river Xanthus is swept by the water’s flow until Hephaestion is sent by Zeus and forces the river to retreat by setting the plain on fire and boiling its water. This intense description of natural elements manipulated by the gods against each other, leaves mortals completely at their mercy. On a less epic and fantastic scale, mortals’ preoccupation with the infinitesimal place they hold in the natural world is expressed poignantly in Iliad 6.146-149 where humans are described as but a generation of leaves:

οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν.

φύλλα τὰ µέν τ’ ἄνεµος χαµάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ’ ὕλη

τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ’ ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη·

ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἡ µὲν φύει ἡ δ’ ἀπολήγει.

Like a generation of leaves, just so is a generation of men.

The wind scatters some leaves on the ground, but the flourishing forest Grows others, and the season of spring comes; Just so one generation of men grows and another ceases.

Such themes of the negligibility of humanity when compared to the greater –immortal forces of divinity or nature, is echoed in Wordsworth and Romanticism more generally. In ‘The Prelude’ nature itself that is the mightier force of power, as in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Water which (unlike the Xanthus in the Iliad) presents the almighty force of natural elements devoid of divinity. This is interesting because it suggests that the divine itself – as perceived by mortals – is borne through this eternal connection with nature, and its constant cycle of resurrection and revival.

By contrast, mortality also tends to be represented in a very grim light, and especially in moments of deep despair characters in literature seem to equate living mortals as nothing better than shadows:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing

- Macbeth Shakespeare (Act V Scene V)

Life is completely reduced to meaninglessness, the shadow of the most insignificant player upon the stage of life, and time alone has the power to annihilate its light. The added metatheatre-like reflection of the role of the actor, his perishable nature, and the glimpse of the voice of playwright, the real person overlapping the tragic fictional character, renders this an exceedingly powerful presentation of mortality. Similarly, many centuries earlier Odysseus in a most poignant revelation, equates mortals to the shades of those who have already died:

ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡµᾶς

εἴδωλʼ ὅσοιπερ ζῶµεν ἢ κούφην σκιάν. 125

For I see that all of us who live are nothing more than phantoms or fleeting shadows

- Ajax, Sophocles, (Prologue, 124-125)

In the ancient world such a comparison is extremely striking since those in the underworld who have died are ones traditionally described as shades mere mirages of their past selves. For instance, in Iliad.23.99-104 Achilles tries to embrace the ghost of Patroclus of whom nothing is left except his soul and phantom image (ψυχὴ καὶ εἴδωλον).

This bleak reflection of the fragility and meaninglessness of human life however is far from being conclusive. Instead, it could be argued that literature and art equally symbolise the very opposite, embodying a striving for life and its conquest of death. Indeed, the immortality of nature is not always associated with immortal divinity alone but also with assimilating with humanity. The idea of humanity’s ability to revive as nature’s rising and setting of the sun, is comforting. Its symbolism represents a cycle of resurrection and the changing balance of human fortune. Fate itself, a central theme in epic, is often represented by the imagery and judgement of a scale which, though associated with the gods controlling humanity, represents a balancing source of hope and despair.

In Sophocles’ Ajax, the one-day action of the play permits this reversal of fortune through a diptych structure which draws the paradoxical contrast of Ajax’s metaphorical death - through the loss of his honour and destructionand his figurative resurrection after his suicide - through the remembrance of his glory and burial-. In light of Ajax’s status as a cult hero in the ancient world (where the mythical place of a hero’s tomb – in this case at Salamis was held as a worship) not only the content of the tragedy but the play itself represents the immortalisation of Ajax. This memorial-like reverence of a cult hero at the time of the tragedy’s production following the victory at Salamis in the Persian wars also echoes the wider remembrance of those fallen in war in a contemporary context. Certainly, the poetry of the first and second world wars, powerfully represent the immortalisation of mortals through literature.

As thus literature, though often reflecting on the mortality of mankind, simultaneously makes it live. After all, when Shelley writes about Ozymandias, in a challenge for competing sonnets, Ramesses II is ironically re-immortalised in a poem about his mortality. Thus renown, glory, and fame after one’s death, and that of one’s descendants – though in part dependent on history and achievement – can live through art and literature.

Indeed humans, unlike the rest of the natural world, extend the necessity of creation to artistic expression. This concretisation of life through various creative forms is an exceedingly unique and powerful drive – perhaps its most important motivation. And it is not just individuals and their deeds such as the Homeric and mythical hero’s eternal search for κλέος, which are immortalised. Emotions, moments, life as a force itself is emulated. This idea of literature embodying the immortality of more than just a fixed symbol or person emerges in the literary theory of Schiller, in Briefe über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen 15. Here Schiller defines Gestalt ‘form’ a need for permanence, and Leben ‘life’ or a need for change as inherent psychological impulses in humans. These, in reality, cannot be assimilated by the human soul due to their polarity; the former leading to conservatism and a struggle to deny the march of time, the latter promoting novelty and acceptance of time and change. Instead, only art can reconcile them by providing a physical or ordered representation of the movement of life. This lebende Gestalt or living form means that artistic and literary expression captures the movement of life and simultaneously rejects the inevitability of the flow of time towards death. This is an active effort on the part of humanity to not only recognise its mortality but resist its finality.

Literature on one hand frequently evokes this living theme in the portrayal of life, love and beauty, as immortalised not only by love itself (Unable are the loved to die/for love is immortality, Emily Dickinson) but also by literature. This ideal is echoed frequently in Shakespearian sonnets such as 16, 65, and 60 (to name but a few). However, one example of poetry which seems to fully embody the idea of immortalisation with the whole living form, is Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn. First the poem evokes art as immortalising life, and emotion:

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above,

Then, Keats concludes that the beauty represented through the artistic depiction of beauty on the urn, a foster-child of silence and slow time, is the only constant and poignantly will continue to outlive mortal life: When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Whilst this could be interpreted as again symbolising the defeat of mortality represented only in Gestalt the poem as a form of expression itself evokes Leben. Indeed, the literary enlivening of the fixed images on the Urn – beyond their life in the imaginative perception of the viewer - suggest a stronger immortality. Literature therefore possesses an additional strength to art in that it goes beyond a representation or imitation of life, an inanimate reminder of what has once been, rather it is a living force, a propulsive power of culture, one which lives if only through the fact it is performed or experienced by those living in the present.

By far the most visible way in which literature attempts to achieve this is by manipulating the construct of time. Evidently, the greatest enemy of mortality is the slow yet fatal advance of time which consumes life. Yet literature constantly defies it. This is because writing gives past stories a continuous present purpose and significance. Such manipulation of the construct of time which defies its usual inexorable flow can be seen most vividly in the writing of Dostoevsky. His novels at times stretch over hundreds of pages yet covering only a few days, detailing subplots and thoughts and debates among characters, seen especially in the complex structure of the Brothers Karamazov which at some eight-hundred pages describes the action of some four days and the trial two months later. Time is especially constructed to this effect The Idiot whose first part takes place across eighteen hours, whilst the second occurs after a gap of several months which creates a sense of disorientation and mysticality, a theme central to the novel. The construct of time is overcome and challenged especially in the timeless reveries of Myshkin who recalls past events in vivid and living visual reconstructions yet remains fixed within himself. Similarly, the relativity of time is embodied in Myshkin’s fascination with the fate of the man condemned to death whose time extends into an immeasurable length. An interesting consideration which is also explored by Camus through Meursault’s reflections and expansion of time and memory in L’Etranger,: Ainsi, plus je réfléchissais et plus de choses méconnues et oubliées je sortais de ma mémoire. J'ai compris alors qu'un homme qui n'aurait vécu qu'un seul jour pourrait sans peine vivre cent ans dans une prison. Il aurait assez de souvenirs pour ne pas s'ennuyer.

This heightening and established permanence of chronology within writing creates a unique, memorable, and thoroughly living literary form in which time is drawn out or compressed at the command of the author, to originate a present relevance which defies the ‘real’ conceptualisation of time, and its mortal present, eternally suspended on the thin and liminal line between the past and the future. Through this controlled composition of fictional chronology literature redefines the relativity of time and creates a continual and present relevance and thus the immortality of its subject, eternally living and giving life as it is read:

On ne songe à rien, … les heures passent. On se promène immobile dans des pays que l’on croit voir, et votre pensée, s’enlaçant à la fiction, se joue dans les détails ou poursuit le contour des aventures. Elle se mêle aux personnages; il semble que c’est vous qui palpitez sous leurs costumes.

One thinks of nothing. The hours slip by. One travels motionless through countries one seems to see, your thoughts intertwine with the fiction, dallying with the details or pursuing the course of the plot, it enters among the characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes.

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, II.2

Additionally, as a side product, the best literature immortalises both its author and itself. This explains why literature and artistic expression are central to the human yearning for immortality. Indeed, Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita, (which at times draws on some philosophical themes developed in Dostoevsky notably the parable of The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov) in a somewhat satirical and comedic sequence asserts the immortality of Dostoevsky:

(Koroviev)”…But look here if you wanted to make sure that Dostoyevsky was a writer, would you really ask him for his membership card? Why, you only have to take any five pages of one of his novels and you won't need a membership card to convince you that the man's a writer. I don't suppose he ever had a membership card...”

“You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev. “Well, who knows, who knows” he replied.

“Dostoevsky's dead” said the citizeness, though not very confidently. “I protest!” Behemoth exclaimed hotly. “Dostoevsky is immortal!”

In the ancient world, where the proximity to a time where a consistent written record was absent, the importance and value of writing, as a way of immortalising one’s name, was especially heightened. A changing method of survival in light of many earlier texts being rooted within oral literary tradition. Indeed, this belief, of the potential eternity of the writer, can be seen in one of a collection of Ramesside manuscripts dating from around 1200 BC from Deir el-Medina an archaeological site in Egypt. The text presents writing and literary fame as the most secure source of immortality far greater than tombstones, monuments, or even descendents.

But why, in the name of eternity have I gone into such great detail about this, or provoked a pale, somewhat Proustian, attempt to go down the rabbit-hole of literary immortality and the complexities of artistic time?

The point, I think, is that there are two concerns in the overlap between life and literature. The first is mortality, the second is its cause: time. Both are evidenced as central themes in and of literature. If one considers time as a constant reminder of our mortality, the ever-fleeting - if not completely inexistant - present eternally displays the tragic condition of humanity. This explains the overwhelming and intrinsic compulsion of mankind to counteract death with the only force that is stronger than it – life. And humanity has not solely limited itself to the nature’s cycle of creation but is eternally drawn to create art.

The reasons for this? Intellectual pursuit, competition, gain, etc. mostly fail to effectively explain the literary phenomenon, so much so that the ancient world considered poets as divinely inspired, and their skill as a gift of the gods. Baudelaire too links the source of all creative inspiration within the divine, to a broader yearning for immortality – in this case rooted in beauty –a theory which is rather evocative of Plato’s account of souls glimpsing perfect form in their passage between the realms of life and death in Phaedrus –

C’est cet admirable, cet immortel instinct du beau qui nous fait considérer la terre et ses spectacles comme un aperçu, comme une correspondance du Ciel. La soif insatiable de tout ce qui est au delà, et que révèle la vie, est la preuve la plus vivante de notre immortalité. C’est à la fois par la poésie et à travers la poésie, par et à travers la musique, que l’âme entrevoit les splendeurs situées derrière le tombeau ;

It is this admirable, this immortal instinct for beauty which makes us consider the earth and its spectacles as a hint, a sign from Heaven. The insatiable thirst of everything which is beyond, and that reveals life, is the most living proof of our immortality. It is at once with poetry and through poetry, with and through music that the soul glimpses the splendours situated beyond the tomb.

Charles Baudelaire,

Notes Nouvelles sur Edgar

Poe

Thus, we are left with the consideration of literature paradoxically representing immortality as a means to immortality, and even perhaps originating from immortality itself. Does literature inspire immortality or does immortality inspire literature? Utrum in alterum abiturum erat (which of the two will have departed into the other) is perhaps unresolvable. After all, through nature – the only immediate external glimpse at wider meaning - mankind has always been subject to the eternal recognition at once of its transience and yet its potential for immortality in survival as a society, or collective expression of memory.

But then if mortality is fated and time is limited, if immortality is secured anyway by the cycle of human life and constant development of society, if technology, invention, science defy nature, provide more continuity, a stronger pledge of immortalising whatever themes are important for mankind – why, with the little time we have, should we concern ourselves with immortality of or in literature? This challenge, though admittedly valid, is nevertheless equally mortal.

In fact, statistics show that that literature remains indispensable, with increasing literacy and writers the positive trend of literary expression and consumption throughout history remains – even despite the changing force of modernity. Literary and artistic expression are thus truly uncontrollable and necessary human impulse. This is because the written word does have immortal and immeasurable power. Sharing stories, imitating life, these things are inherently built into the anthropological essence of being everywhere and since the start of time After all, christianity equates God to λόγος, not just the word, but the reason, the story. Since the divine naturally embodies immortality, and the very form of religious teachings or prophecies are predominantly writing, there is a clear recognition of the immeasurable power of the spoken and written word. Through Literature the creative spirit and names of thousands can and have survived disasters, dictatorships, and even transcended death.

Yet, only the greatest works have survived, have truly achieved this immortality, many have been obliterated. It could even be said that nothing lasts for ever, that what we remember today might be forgotten tomorrow, or in a thousand years or in eternal time. Things are continually lost and what survives is infinitesimally small in proportion. So, yes, one could dismiss literary immortality as the dream of fools, eternity as unreachable, incomprehensible in its greatness, beyond the grasp of human reach, beyond the power of ink and stone, beyond the energy of light, beyond the creativity of the soul – and yet not that.

For those who have trodden the path of literary eternity do not initially write only for posterity but due to an incomprehensible instinct; on a minute, personal, contemporary level; for the concretisation of what is really important in a moment, what immortality can project into an eternal present.

And while it would be presumptuous to equate all our mortal attempts to success at immortality, there is no better use for present time than to mark the past and influence the future, to encourage, foster any innate desire for literary expression which ought in no way to be hindered. Within its modest sphere, even if it be lost in the literary blizzards of time, any attempt - even just at memorialising the previous achievements of creativity through awed emulation – is more than enough reverence for the sublime immortality of literature.

Ancient authors have this faith in their writing, and if they, whose sole assurance of their literary fortunes, a thousand years ago, was hope and immortal inspiration, then who are we judge? Because in the end Ovid’s prophecy was right. In his present he dared to bet against the past and cast his literary spirit into the future for eternal immortality… and he is yet to lose.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV.871-879 – Envoi:

Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas. cum volet, illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis huius ius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi: parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis 875 astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum, quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama, siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam.

And now the work is done, that Jupiter’s anger, fire or sword cannot erase, nor the gnawing tooth of time. Let that day, that only has power over my body, end when it will, my uncertain span of years: yet the best part of me will be borne, immortal, beyond the distant stars. Wherever Rome’s influence extends, over the lands it has civilized, I will be spoken, on people’s lips: and, famous through all the ages, if there is truth in poets’ prophecies, – vivam – I shall live.

- Carole Tucker, ed.

- Eugénie Tucker

Poetry Theme of the Issue : Refuge

Following the House & Library Poetry Competition and the theme for National Poetry Day 2023 ‘Refuge’, here is a selection of the most successful entries

Refuge

Cold, dark raindrops began to fall

Trampling the panes with increasingly malevolent gashes

The windows deftly caught the gusts and groans of the swirling air

And pushed them out to sea.

Seizures of grey sky tacitly ripped into the heavenly clouds

Lightning growled and scorched the pale bare tiles

That cracked like porcelain mugs in a clumsy fight

My limbs vigorously shook as if to reinforce the room

Eyes dripping with hot sweat that was gulped down into the folds of my linen shirt

No distractions.

Buildings crumble incompletely, unenthusiastically, but hold. They hold fast and now.

They seem to toughen around my sobbing body.

I am incarcerated freely

Mine holds me as it holds the vehement gloom

But contrastingly

I am within, and it is around and away

But kept back.

- Maya Mahadeva Griffins US & Overall Winner

Refuge

On a winter’s feral morning, With wild winds whipping up blizzards of snow, Infenitesimal robin rests, ensconced in willow’s warm arms, With chest of carnelian carmine, Eyes, inquisitive yet wistful pools of poignant black, Sings against the brusque bludgeon wind, Mellifluous melody of unfathomable beauty, Though robin pinioned by stinging wind and robust cold, Song reaches, resonant, throughout garden, And soon, as wind dissipates, Winsome robin peeps pied head from hideout, And on tiny feathered wings, Wreathed in mantle of snow, Drifts into free air.

- Poem and Photograph by Alexander Walker Bulls, LS Winner & 3rd place overall

The syrens are sounding

We are one,

Pressed together shoulder to shoulder, Hands clasped in one another’s, Shuddering in unison.

Ears ringing,

The ceaseless wailing pounding at our ears, Splitting our heads open like bullets

As we hold our breath in silence.

Overhead, the zeppelins sob uncontrollably, Huge tears ripping apart the blood-red sky,

Mourning the desolation and destruction they have caused, The absolute hell they have created.

I look around at the despairing faces,

Old and young, male and female, All packed into this tiny space,

Shivering from cold and terror.

The walls are slick with grime, Pipes dripping vehemently, Dampness seeping through to our bones.

Yet this is our refuge:

This cramped, musty cellar, So humble yet so vast, Welcoming with open arms.

Please, make it stop.

Please, make it stop.

Please, make it stop.

Please, make it stop.

- Lili Angus Bulls, MS Winner & Overall Runner-Up

Refuge

The weather begins to darken, Emotions tend to follow suit.

Your smile tips a with the slightness of a hair. Count on me to notice it.

When it’s too loud

And you’re drowning, When it’s too quiet

And you’re suffocating, Count on me to notice it.

It’s a place not too warm

So, you don’t burn, It’s a place not too cold

So, you don’t freeze.

Who said lukewarm was boring?

It’s a place that’s not smooth, I won’t let you slip.

It's a place that’s not rough, I won’t let you bleed.

Do you also seek refuge, at times? Let’s count on each other.

Don’t want to burn you, Don’t want to freeze you, Don’t want to bruise or beat or bleed you.

I haven’t come with sticks and stones to break your bones, Nor sharpened words and ballistae and tomes. When the world is a blizzard I have you,

And You have me!

Do you recall, What you said to me on that hot summer’s day?

“No one needs to care about us, except you and I and I and you!”

When this world finally burns,

Or when the world’s sound ceases, I will move to fill that absence-

The cool sensation when the heat arrives, Or to frame that silence

Or to leave it silent.

Your blood roars

And your eyes illuminate,

Your lungs spark ignition like firecrackers, And your lovely hands

Capable of doing so many lovely things,

As I have let my heart mould to the grip

Of those slender fingers.

To attain an ultimate sanctuary, We must lay ourselves bare

And naked,

We are disrobed of our faulty lies

And loosely fitted guardsOf rushed words

And attempts to cover ourselves.

No longer are we

The child who wets the bed

And hides the sheets.

To prostrate yourself, Vulnerable and unclad

To each other's hands.

I only tremble and pray I will not be demolished.

I feel my impurities melting away already.

Do you seek refuge?

I protect, therefore I am.

My mind used to be

A small, confined space,

Confined to my thoughts.

The miasma of that room

Would suffocate me

And there is no space, Only to sit in the dark,

Barred by my own conceptions. Nothing was stopping me from leaving

Except from myself.

But now the mailman

Comes every day, The pastures are green And the brief synergies between my Neighbour and I

Is a fleeting

But regular little pleasure. My lawn is manicured, And my car is luxurious, And best of all- the streets are safe to walk at night!

You built your home in the safest part of my mind.

When the days are strenuous,

When the blizzard is unrelenting, When the bustle is a roar

Rivalling the sound of my blood, I retire

To that little sanctuary, Deep in the back of my head.

It’s a perfect vacation home, Accessible from anyplace, anytime, anywhere... And it’s mine.

So let me return the favour-

As you have been my rock in this storm, My shelter from this rain, I will be in turn, Yours, And yours alone.

- Kherlen Ho Lions MS Runner up

(No title)

Shiver.

Quiver.

Frigid winds. Biting cold. Discarded leaves

Scattered across the ground. Tree-skeletons hang, Drooping and listless.

Frail, battered wings huddled in a dishevelled heap Battling, against the sharp winter chill.

Diminutive claws

Scrape, tentative, across

The unyielding pebbles, frozen stiff. Frost cakes the soil beneath, smothers its warmth replaced with unfeeling apathy.

Eyelids flicker. Dying lights.

The once-fierce light dims to a cloudy, troubled mask

Of unending pain

Of perpetual agony

Of stifled freedom.

Suffocated

Muffled

Choked

In the possessive hold of unceasing torture

Drowned in a detached state of mind

Foggy thoughts and wasted body

As the cold seeps in And hunger seizes its sickly frame.

Senses drift away to an unknown world.

It all departs -

And a welcoming warmth arrives

With it comes the gentle hands of Death

Tenderly he strokes the chick

Lifeless and limp under his caressing touch.

Then he too walks off into the distance

Still holding it in a tranquil embrace

Off, to travel the world with infinite delight, With food, drink, warmth, And love

- Lei Xue Eagles LS Runner-Up

Refuge

Two treading water

In the grating wilds of mourning

Found sanctuary in another,

They shared in Remembrance

And from their solitude

Sprung a sheltered embrace.

They whittled away the hours

Of recollection and regret,

Their want for relief satiated

Under each other’s arm and Connection found once more

In the comfort of a face.

The pale and distant memory

Fell completely from mind

Until all seemed just and upright

And all ends temporary,

Under a twinned understanding,

Once more intertwined.

And in the comforting warmth of embrace

They illude an understanding,

Allude to their senses,

Never alter their posture

And slump under the pressure

Of the refuge they once held.

In the grating wilds of mourning

Sanctuary once found

Now slips away from their Sheltered embrace.

A refuge, temporary

Always and forever, Their solaced place.

- James Roskilly Lions US Runner-up

The Wanderer

Alone and afraid,

With nowhere to go, The wanderer roams, Without a place to call home.

Through valleys and hills, He travels far, He longs for a shelter, A wish upon a star

His perilous journey, One which seems to have no end, Seems impossible at first, But it's one on which he depends.

Walking in solitude, He travels day and night, Until he sees a flicker, A first sign of light

Hope comes flooding in, His heart full of joy, He's found it at last, A home to enjoy

Nowhere to hide, nowhere to roam, In refuge's embrace, he's found a home, A testament to strength, a journey to share, The wanderer found refuge, a love so rare

- Elizabeth Aboy

Art

- Lekhana Katuri

Poetry

Ripples

The external forces crush the rock, pressurising it

Until all that’s left is its pure and innocent centre, It flows and rises like a wave searching for a pocket

Of safety where no-one else will venture,

The core exposes a shaft, a way out from the depth

Of the crust roving restlessly to the surface

Before it thrusts itself forward up to get a breath

In the fresh air, gasping through the furnace

Of an eruption of terrifying proportions.

The blast initiates tremors that echo across the planet, Vibrating, pulsing, beating, a rhythm through

The bones of everybody to whom they can transmit

They reach the ocean and plough through the blue

Upturning and twisting the strings of waves, Experimenting to see what a little pull could do

A wave is triggered and rises then it betrays its creator

Its lofty body is raised many metres above the ocean floor,

The wave tumbles head over heels to the harbour

Its blood-curdling spirit eclipses the shore.

The bustling metropolis, overwhelmed by the wave

Has no time for safety, no area is safe.

When the obliteration is over, when all is done

Out come a few humans, one by one

To inspect the damage, report the massacre

And to remember it forever, to prevent another disaster.

- Hebe Darwin

This poem was highly commended as Runner-up of the Solstice Prize in 15-17 years category and had thus been published in the 2023 Solstice Anthology.

Local Controversy

Century old orchard, veteran soldier, sanctuary surrounded, Haven, harbour, holding out, somewhere to hide.

In spring, century old orchard’s bright with blossom flecked, Chiffchaff flickers its song’s breeze-blown wind chimes, Mumbling bees drowse sweet scent, thick perfumed.

In summer, silhouetted bat skitters, darts and flitters, Ethereal silver Y moth’s diaphanous wings flick, flash and shimmer, Swallow’s metallic feathers glint sky graffiti.

In autumn, pheasant stumbles and frets, Ink-blot eye fossilised in amber, red as raw flesh, Metallic blue resin, Elizabethan white ruff Body, rich burnished copper, mottled radiant, honey glazed caramel, Woodcock shuffles, stepping among windfall, Lance-like beak, gleaming eyes.

In winter, pondwater crizzles brittlely, ice glinting like glass-shards, Fidgets of fieldfares filigree protective branches jewelled with liquorice-sheen of blackbird’s chit-chatter, flick-flutter, Liquid fluidity of tinkling song warms the air. Somewhere to hide.

Bulldozers move in on century old orchard, Public transport expansion so soulless buildings congeal, clotted. Nature torn out, blotted.

Why? Why build it here?

Five hundred trees felled. Bird refugees displaced.

Foxes and badgers cast out. Tarmacked into extinction. Songless. Concreted.

Nowhere to hide

- William T. Walker

Requiem to the gallery

The painting looked exactly how the funeral party had looked that day, Jet black in polonaises, focused, shining brightly -lux aeterna luceat eis, domine- and screaming

I’M GRIEVING GET OVER IT

(except for the old man in the corner, drunken and puking - but we can ignore him)

The background of impressionist balloons wasn’t as striking as it should've been, But then maybe that’s the fault of teary eyes, blurry and unsure.

The bunting hanging from the ceiling rustled, -cum sanctis tuis in aeternum-

People with their cameras pushing here, pushing there.

Unlike the gallery, outside was rumbling with cars vans buses, Life still in the painting (except for the old man in the corner, drunken and puking - but we can ignore him)quia pius es-

Everywhere else?

It rolls on

somewhere in this traffic

A carriage with a resting soul -requiem aeternam dona eis, domine-

The brushstrokes so clean,

The little child’s bright green jacket so vulnerable against the cold fear of the coffin, -et lux perpetua luceat eis-

And in the picture, Embarrassment of

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO US? WHY NOW? WHY ME?

But in this studio,

With the wood panels and bustling critics, The world stands still, so still

And even when day becomes night, this is a hiding place, -cum sanctis tuis in aeternumThis is the childhood den of dreams, (except for the old man in the corner, drunken and puking - but we can ignore him)

This is the last place on the planet that-quia pius es-

- Alice Shaw

pillow talk

Olives in a dish on the table, wine lapping circles in a glass1

Thick knit jumper, dinner by candlelight2

Faint rays of sunset from the window, cool breeze as curtains shift3

[background: drip drip of dripping tap]4

Silent darkness, like penguins under the duvet5

Affectionate whispers in both ears6

Kiss on the cheek [scene fades to white]7

in the emptiness: love, i’ll always be here, love, i care

1 There were faint cries, laughter boat / heading out to sea and people waiting for me to stumble / fall over a light rock and tear my christmas hat into shreds

2 Huddling away with my new nylon tights / neon bulbs and hot cocoa / ignoring tragedy because- what else?

3 Biding time / ‘till the door unlocks / ‘till the aroma of hot soup clears my sinuses ‘till / home is a sanctuary once more

4 Under an umbrella in the hail / strange figure that spins me while i fly / hugs me tight

5 Bus ride in the pitch black, only this red, that orange, faint green to / a bright front door / perfume scents from the window / canapes along the fortress hall

6 5, 4, 3… 2… 1! New year’s like we’re holding on for dear life / warm embrace / silk satin curtains / glow from my smile that’s somehow / emerged now happier, calmer, quieter, braver / stronger if not

7 full of love

- Alice Shaw

A passing plume

A passing plume above the clouds white dove towards the lake flowing limpid pond weeds trembling in the winding breeze below the scarlet poppy cedes to the ferny brake

Flying great crane it’s silver grey plumage flint to the sun light to the rain now a single moment and thus a soft refrain

Synchrony; the tulip rose and in the shadow grows upon a heath a purple mist behind the honey suckle twists the sky and softly goes

the cow slips down the muddy grove half-carpeted the mossy grass lands that breathe the golden chords paints the weather vain and tears the tears of time

- Carole Tucker

Art

- Kherlen Ho

Prose

A Moment of Discovery

In the perspective of Laika, the first dog sent into space. 2570 orbits. She discovers that the mission was her suicide, not a good service to mankind.

Tonight, I'm going to the stars.

My head swims in this fishbowl, but through the glass I can see the vast ocean of sky. Clusters of twinkling orbs are scattered throughout the waves of darkness like bioluminescence. It reminds me of when Papa used to gently paint; he would take his thumb, wrinkled with a million stories and adventures, and flick the soft bristles onto his canvas. As my voyager draws me near their surface, I can feel the warmth of a fiery dancer's fingers plucking at my head strings. They are strangely comforting. My throat is tightening. It must be from the nerves. Papa said I would be bound for greatness. If only he could see me now, he'd be so proud.

The stars look very different today. The steady soft hum of static television awakened my drooping ears, for they draped over my head like the clean blankets I had become accustomed to. A bead of moisture fell gently through my eyelashes, one like the rain that would decorate the strict streets from where I was born – my city was cold and bipolar. It would swallow you in huge, engulfing arms and then spit you out the next moment. However, these beads were warm. Like fresh kibble. The thought sent flowers blooming to my belly, and my jaw opened to imagine the vivid colours speaking freshness and bold flavours and-

It didn't come. My open, awaiting tongue met an uncomfortable, itching temperature and an arid taste. There was an empty refreshment, in which fresh cool air would usually fulfil. I began to feel the velcro of my collar scratch against my neck; the way one of my back legs lay bent, so that the last sense of steady consistency of blood flow around my body was halted. My drying tongue was helpless against the depleting supply of life.

I could feel the hard, restless beats of the hammer which nailed me inside this fishbowl, now inside my chest. Thumping and throwing more than I thought was possible. I stare out into the stars, and what I called home: wild with colour, a bleeding mess, so obscure it's beautiful.

Two thousand, five hundred and seventy orbits. I look on at myself from outside of the fishbowl, and the burnished surface shows wear of the three billion eyes that watched my ultimate. For in this moment, the sickening realisation seemed to flush over my fur, rinsing it of any ignorance and naivete.

Every biscuit, every treat, every pet, was simply a lie, building a brain of deception and barring me from the full ability to love and trust. Papa and his open and loving eyes; his gentle hands that made me anew, not as clay, but as if my body was reborn to his best friend. Was I simply an unholy tooth?

Something black and dangerous, a final abscess to be lanced away?

And I'll never know if any of it was real, and I don't want to. Because I don’t know if being used or fleeting sincerity is worse.

- Martha Price

Edward Small Breaks A Leg

A prequel to ‘Let Down Your Hair A Little, Edward Small’ (published in the Michaelmas 2023 Issue of Synthetic Violet)

It was really far too early that morning to be going to work, I thought to myself, as I took my favourite mug off the shelf to finally make a cup of tea. It was plain white with blue spots and it was my preferred mug because the majority of the others were either unicorn covered, consultancy company branded or plain white.

I plucked five PG tips tea bags from the massive box on the shelf, and before trying to put four back, noticed that there was another person in the room, so I stuffed them in my rain jacket pocket for later. I hadn’t realised there would be no more cups of tea that day.

By the time I had figured out that there was no milk, I had already committed to pouring the water into the mug, so I chose to try putting three sweeteners in my tea instead, which was certainly a mistake. Somebody obviously hadn’t bothered looking at the milk rota sitting right next to the kettle. After my first disaster of the day, I retired to my place at the front desk with my sad black tea. Five minutes later, however, I remembered that I had left my jacket in the other room. As I picked it up, I checked who the milk offender was.

Wednesday: Edward Small.

People were flooding through, since we had a new exhibition of artefacts from the Mary Rose (one inhabitant of the abbey had been on the Mary Rose when it sank), but today was also Hallowe’en, and we were hosting a reading of The Judge’s House in the old barn. The tickets were sold out; we had been advertising it for weeks. I’d also (with quite a lot of help from my friends, not being the best user of my half-dead laptop, and a few speakers we’d found in a plethora of locations) done up a sound system for it too. I had put out the seats in the barn when my watch beeped at four o’ clock.

‘That’s when the actor who’s performing is meant to arrive.’ I said to my friend, Alice, who was helping me.

‘I’m sure he’s just running late, there’s lots of traffic, and he was coming all the way from London.’, she said.

We began decorating the walls with some fake cobwebs (straight from the Hallowe’en section at Sainsbury’s Local) and put some posters up too. We were just finishing when I noticed that the time was already five. ‘Alice, aren’t you getting worried now? He’s an hour late.’

We returned to the front desk. The abbey now was closed, and only a few of us were still there. I logged onto the ancient spare computer (the normal one was occupied in an attempt to print 300 posters for the exhibition) and tried to find his phone number deep in my emails. It was quarter to six when I finally did. I dialled his number onto our landline phone, and it rang ominously for about a minute. No answer.

Three more times, and he still hadn’t picked up. Alice and I sat nervously at the desk for thirty more minutes, literally twiddling our thumbs.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and we tried again. Still no reply.

At 7:03, finally, when the phone rang, it was not good news.

With 27 minutes to go, we found that the actor’s car had broken down, and as he explained the fact that the AA were unable to come within the next two and a half hours, we began to hear the low noises of people outside, heading into the old barn.

After he had finished telling us the situation (including all the gory details of how there were three flat tires and that something had likely exploded), we asked him what he wanted to do: perhaps delay the performance until tomorrow? ‘No’, he said; he would record it, and we would project his voice through my sound system. I was sceptical. People had paid good money to see a live reading of Judge’s House, and I, as manager of the event (and this being the first that I’d organised), was not going to let Buckland Abbey down with bad reviews. After all, I was, and still am positive that the scones at the abbey are the National Trust’s best.

While Alice and the actor (whose name was David King) made plans for the sound system, I thought about another solution to the problem. I had a nine in GCSE drama; I had played Algy Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest (hence Alice’s idea for the naming of my dog); and I knew The Judge’s House like the back of my hand.

I coughed (perhaps a little too loudly) to get some attention, and Alice and David paused. I explained my idea, and though hesitant at first, they agreed. We would pay David for the inconvenience caused, and I would step in to read The Judge’s House.

I hoped it would be like the last time I went on stage at school, when I had finally got the part, I wanted in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ instead of the many times before in which I had been given the smallest possible roles. It was only after I won a poetry reading competition that I seemed to do better.

Thirty minutes later, as I prepared to make the announcement of the changes to the performance, I began to worry. Suppose there should be bad reviews and our exhibition did dreadfully too. Suppose that I had to leave my job. I loved Buckland Abbey, and despite the consultancy mugs and milk-related disasters (that were not always of my making), I would not swap jobs for the world.

Instead of procrastinating more, I nodded to Alice, who plugged in the microphone.

‘Hello everyone. Welcome to our reading of The Judge’s House, by Bram Stoker, here at Buckland Abbey. I’m afraid that our brilliant reader, David, had his car break down on the motorway. Instead of rescheduling, as a massive fan of Judge’s House myself, I am going to replace David in this reading.’

Thankfully, there was a round of applause. As I began to survey the audience, Alice turned the lights down.

And I began to speak.

‘When the time for his examination drew near, Malcolm Malcolmson made up his mind to go somewhere to read by himself…’

I thought that the reading had gone well, and I enjoyed the story all the more. Finally, more confidently than I had begun, I relished in the closing words, but I will not spoil them for you, reader!

There were cheers after I finished, and many more claps than when I had closed my announcement at the start. I took a bow and left the stage. It was all done in a flash. Many of my colleagues were surprised; they seemed to have always thought of me as a much quieter person. I said I supposed that you didn’t have to be loud to be a good actor, or reader.

I walked Alice to her car, said goodbye and thanked her for helping with the lights and the sound. I then walked back to the front desk to check the CCTV one last time (I had never seen anything on it, as yet) and to lock the doors and finally go home to Algy. I gave Janet a quick call too, while I was at it.

Sleepily I checked each little box on the screen, and when I finally got to the Mary Rose gallery box, I scanned it over. All fine. Humming Scarborough fair to myself, which I always did when I was pleased, I put away the keys and put my hardly used spotted mug into the kitchen. I looked over at the CCTV again for one last check; I wouldn't be the one to be careless over those things that mattered.

All the rooms were fine, until I checked the Mary Rose box once more. A beer tankard and a cannonball were missing from the largest case.

I ran out of the building to check whether the little video was right. Surely there could have been some mistake in the picture, from the CCTV to the computer to my eyes. I ran to the exhibition. The picture was correct. Somebody had stolen part of the exhibition under my very nose.

If I was lucky, the thief might still be somewhere on the estate. I ran down the path in front of the abbey, and thought I saw movement in the trees to my right. Without a torch, or even my phone on, I followed my ears for what seemed like miles. It was forty metres. Now I could see the movement better and I was nearly certain it was a person.

I ran faster, and to begin with, the thief didn’t notice that I was just behind him. When he did, he too began to spring. At some point, we must've gone into the abbey woods, and both of us started to pant. He obviously didn’t know where he was, and in all honesty, neither did I, but I couldn’t care less: I would keep going at all costs. In any case, It was a particularly stupid attempt to steal from our exhibition.

Branches were cracking under our feet, and it occurred to me after it happened a few times that if there was a particularly large one, then the thief might just trip. I was considering the possibility of it when I noticed that he had taken the longer way around a dark spot in the path. I didn’t think twice about it until I tripped and fell forwards onto the wet path. I lay on the ground for a moment or two in excruciating pain. I had been foolish, and my man was getting away.

In the worst case, what could the pain in my leg be? A fracture? A sprain? In any case, a quick little run like this could hardly make it much worse, could it? I found that I was unable to even jog, so I limped forward until I heard a loud crack from not far ahead of me. The thief had fallen over too!

I gained on him, and found him unconscious, and clutching his two precious items. He was, in almost a film scene manner, wearing a black balaclava. So I played my movie part too and pulled it down. I couldn’t see a thing, so I took out my phone and shone its torch on his face. Was that David King, the actor?

My first thought was that he had tricked us all, and I had done the job that he had been paid for. My second thought was that he was actually a relatively famous actor: he had been in Doctor Who once - I’d seen the episode. Oh well, that was the end of his acting days. Maybe I’d get a part in Doctor Who now, since I could play his roles- I was famous at school for my Dalek impression.

While deep in thought about the glory of Doctor Who, I realised the pain in my leg was getting worse, and David was getting up. I was conveniently placed to do so, so I punched him in the back of the head, which seemed to do the trick. He fell down again, and I dialled 999.

I had to explain to the lady on the phone that I needed both the police and an ambulance because I had a thief on my hands, and I was also in the woods and couldn’t get to A&E for my broken leg.

Three hours later, I was having my leg examined when Janet entered. Grinning, she exclaimed, ‘Edward Small, you’ve broken a leg!’

The End

- Sydney

Afqa

This piece was inspired by the ancient archaeological site of Afqa in the Byblos mountains of modern-day Lebanon. Its name and mythical history are intertwined with a fresh water source emerging from the rockface, a waterfall which feeds the Adonis River.

Above, where flew the white-winged swans, the celestial mists began to swell. They rolled and spiralled into woollen wisps descending from the ether while Dawn’s radiant luminescence seethed between the downy dew in its flushed course to earth. As the breezes bore the stolen whispers of the eve below, the stars swayed with their lyric song and dwindled in the penumbra. Then Helios’ gilded aura billowed its clarion entry and Day revealed herself to mortal eyes.

Beneath, the mountainous cliffs jutted upwards from the viridescence and stretched across the land; rock studded drapes of grass that seemed to tumble towards a precipice. Even the trees grew at a slant; the briary junipers holding on to the firm and precarious ground, their sap crystalising in mid-descent. The landscape seemed suspended, etched against the cerulean haze. Torn between lofty peaks and sloping vales, at once the earth rose and fell. And yet a streak of spuming water carved a fissure through the interlocked bronze and pine. Indefatigable, the strong pull of the river’s current anchored their plinths of stone deep under its submerged bed. It ran clear and cool a boundless rushing sound interweaving with the hymns of birdsong. High up engraved in the rockface it erupted from a cavernous chasm its hue ivory pale and flowed in trickles breaking out into torrential swathes.

*

The forests unfurled before him across the specious eternity of the Byblian heights. Looking down, fine Adonis sensed the pulse of the beasts that roamed under the concave cover of spreading branches, furtive and bold. Swift-footed he leapt across the turf, his pounding steps arching to land in cadence with their heartbeats so that they might not be warned of his attack. Behind him, a palely clad shadow emerged from the cave. Her diaphanous form blossomed under the blushing light of dawn, and the Zephyr enveloped her hair around her with his honeyed breath. Carelessly, she swept it aside and rushed to join her lover’s chase.

His hunting pursuits were enflamed with the strength and recklessness of youth and her concerned admonishing, weakened by the blindness of passion, could not have quenched his fiery nature. While the blissful days endured, they strayed into the mountain woods, racing with prey in the reddened dirt.

They lay on beds of white flowers beneath the canopies, in clearings dappled with sunlight or beside the muted shades of the river’s banks bathing their dust-stained limbs in its limpid waters.

One morn, heavenly Aphrodite donned her sacred robes and summoned her feathered flight companions. Looking upon the vigorous features of her beloved, she placed a kiss upon his lips and warned him again of creatures that looked upon him unafraid. As he watched her divine chariot fade into an aureate radiance, the valley called to him and pricked anew his lust for the hunt.

Alas, what such poisoned malevolence had inspired this rash defiance? What cruel contrivance had thus caused fate to seize his mind? For as he bounded over the brush, a monstrous boar burst forth from the thicket. Its eyes gleamed umber with the wild wrath of madness and gazed relentlessly onto his rugged countenance. Raising his quivering spear, Adonis rejoiced at this duel, his flashing stare unwavering. Yet the boorish beast did not shrink from the sharp and grinning blade but charged and propelled its tusks straight towards him.

His harrowing cry transpierced the leafy gorge and broke the web of clouds. Too late it struck Aphrodite’s fractured heart with its bitter blow, too late she plunged through the celestial spheres, too late she collapsed besides his fallen corpse. His blood streamed above the rocky ground and seeped over the banks of the river; its sanguine stain diffused into its blanched aqueous pallor water turning it crimson. With intermingled tears, she breathed a brumal nectar above him, sprinkling sweet vapours on the bloody droplets that clung onto his ashen skin. As they fused, the carmine liquid congealed into rounded petals that interlaced and burgeoned. The fragile flowers materialised and began to sway to the whistling weeping of the wind and Aphrodite, reduced to mortal grief, wailed aloud her mourned lament.

*

Still beneath the midday sun, a woman looks down into the valley. In the distance the river’s turbid coral glimmers as the orange sediment swirls in its turbid flow. Besides her however the source is pure. She kneels gently and bathes her bruised hands in the translucent water. Her gaze falters and falls upon the symmetrical grey stones that crumble down the hillside, the remnants of Venus’ mighty temple. They seem to contend with the jagged rocks of the mountain, the immense majesty of the flaxen cliffs. A wry smile darkens her face at the sight of the sacred ruins.

Astarte had been revered under many guises throughout the centuries. The Hellenes worshiped Aphrodite, whilst the iron hand of Rome first built and then destroyed Venus’ temple with a unique god. Yet the divine personification of a woman’s love endured beyond the inexorable march of time, beyond the metamorphosis of capricious belief.

The inhabitants of Apheca still recount the myth of the tributaries reddening with a lover’s blood and the anemones still surrender their garnet petals to the elements as they lose their fleeting bloom. At times a silvery smoke veils the horizon rising from the soil. It seems the earth is swaying with the gale. The turfed surface rocks from side to side, to the imperceptible rhythm of rustling walnut groves. The trunks and slopes curve into the shapes of Phoenician ships with their hull of captured cedar and quercine joints, resting on the buoyancy of wind and rain. They seem to mourn in harmony.

Yet in spring they rejoice at his return, a resuscitation that echoes the immortality of the spirit that emanates from the rapids, gushing forth from the hallowed rock. All around her, the fragrant scent of flowered fruit vaporises through the musty ground.

She breathes it in raising her gleaming arms to the sky.

- Carole Tucker

Creative Writing Theme of the Issue : MFL Flash Fiction

French Flash Fiction

La Galerie des Peintures

Je suis encore à Londres, depuis si longtemps. Cette salle-ci est longue et propre, avec un plafond très élevé. En face de moi il y a une jeune femme extrêmement belle, qui s’appelle Marguerite Kelsey.

À côté de moi, une autre femme qui porte des vêtements de couleurs vives s’assoit, mais elle pleure. Je pense qu’elle a été peinte par Picasso. En plus de nous, peintures, il y a beaucoup de touristes qui se promènent dans la salle.

J’aimerais pouvoir le faire. Nous ne pouvons bouger ou bavarder. Mais hélas, c’est la vie d’un portrait.

- Jo Zhou (Y9)

Il Fait Beau

Il fait beau. Il ne fait ni trop chaud, ni trop froid, et il y a du soleil. Dans le jardin, il y a un chat. Le chat a très peur. Quelque chose le suivait. Il courait, sous l’arbre, et vers la voiture. Courant rapidement, il ne veut pas être suivi. Il courait dans les fleurs, qui sont très belles. Mais la chose qui le suivait ne s’arrêtait pas ! La chose courait rapidement aussi ! Il ne peux pas courrir tout le temps ! Soudainement, il y a des nuages. Et la chose disparaît ! Parce que c’est son ombre.

- Elliot Atkinson (Y7)

La Fille Disparue

Nous sommes le 17 février, Rosaline aurait eu 9 ans aujourd'hui, elle a disparu depuis des mois. Je sais exactement ce que je dois faire : je dois la retrouver.

Je pars : je la cherche partout. A travers la ville lumineuse de Paris. Je traverse la Seine. J'emprunte route après route. Je passe ville après ville. C'est là que je la trouve. Dans les Alpes.

Je cherche ma sœur, mais je ne trouve qu'une cabane vide. Je ne comprends pas, elle n'est pas là, elle a envoyé cette lettre, elle voulait de l'aide ! Soudain, tout devient sombre, très sombre...

- Anya Barrett

(Y7)

Art

- Kherlen Ho

Essays

A Review of the Politics PolEcon Conference March ‘24

On Monday 11th of March, 35 politics students took the train down to London to attend the annual PolEcon Conference in Westminster. With rail strikes and demands for pay increases by the RMT fresh on everyone's minds, a kindly student chose to incur an £80 fine for an outdated rail card. The aim of the conference was to educate sixth formers on the different parties coming up to the election and expose them to major political figures with a wide range of opinions. Mostly, the politicians spoke about a topic of their choice for five minutes and then answered questions from the audience for fifteen minutes. In assessing the conference, I thought it best to do a Telegraph Rugby style column, rating each speaker on how interesting they were and the quality of their answers and reviewing what they said.

Wes Streeting MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

Wes was fundamentally quite disappointing. The typically youthful, energetic Labour front bencher seemed unprepared as he spoke, attempting to persuade us that Labour was the party we should vote for at the election. He reassured the students asking questions that he represented the LGBT community and would reduce NHS waiting times. There was nothing notable about what he had to say as he peddled the traditional Labour lines, faultlessly obedient to the party.

Rating 4/10

Lord Dubs, Member, House of Lords and tabler of section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, 'The Dubs amendment'

Lords Dubs was in my opinion the most interesting and compelling speaker of all. The 91-year-old peer was uninspiring as he slowly walked to the podium but surprised the audience with his vigour and eloquence. Lord Dubs famously tabled the Dubs amendment, which committed the government to transfer 480 asylum-seeking children from Europe to the UK and was fulfilled in May 2020. His speech was consistent with his passion for helping refugees, denouncing isolationism, and citing how he was welcomed into the country in World War Two, having left from Czechoslovakia on the Kinder Transport as a boy. All things considered, Lord Alfred Dubs was the best speaker of the day, not necessarily commanding the room like Richard Tice or Jacob ReesMogg but speaking passionately with measure about an issue he really seemed to care about.

Rating 9/10

Baroness Chakrabarti, Member, House of Lords, human rights activist, former Director of Liberty

Baroness Chakrabarti was built up to be one of the most promising politicians at the conference. She was the only name I mentioned to my family that provoked a positive reaction. However, she was by far the worst speaker of the day. The Baroness seemed not to be familiar with speaking to teenagers and erred on the side of being condescending. Despite her work as a human rights lawyer which she could have spoken about at length, she chose to read a section of her book which she plugged throughout her twenty minutes. When answering questions, she referred students to chapters in the book.

Rating 3/10

Richard Tice, Party Leader of Reform UK

Tice sauntered onto the stage to the sound of boos competing with cheers. He had just come from a press conference where he had announced Lee Anderson as the first Reform UK MP. Admittedly, the cheering didn't seem to be in support of Tice, more of an expression of how unserious he seemed to be. The Uppingham educated businessman turned politician offered to abolish student loans, to increase the salary required for the basic rate of tax to £20,000 and that he would reduce channel-crossing migrant deaths by plucking refugees from boats and taking them back to France. I got the sense that Tice could say whatever he liked to whoever, pandering to the youth with tuition fee reduction but likely offering to increase them to his elderly core voters. At a surface level he was compelling but with the smallest amount of critical thinking his populist approach to politics was apparent.

Rating 6/10

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP, former Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy

The GB News presenter and milk connoisseur was greeted by a room already riled up by the right wing. Sir Jacob began with a speech about why he was a conservative and why conservatism was superior to other ideologies which admittedly sounded sensible. However, he undermined this reason with further populist solutions to complex problems and antagonistic rhetoric, climaxing when he called sixth formers in the audience 'terrorist sympathisers' for their calls for a ceasefire. At this point the room became quite unpleasant, with Rees-Mogg forcefully advocating for the eradication of Hamas by any means and a considerable number of students calling out 'free Palestine' and booing the antique MP. This back and forth between both of the extremes left no room for nuance and concluded Mogg's time with the room left irate but excited.

Rating 6/10

Lord Ed Vaizey, former Conservative minister and Times Radio presenter

Ed Vaizey had the difficulty of following up Jacob Rees-Mogg's antagonism with an attempt at nuance and reason. It is in this context that what he had to say was somewhat unremarkable and considerably forgettable. However, one has to give him credit for reducing the tension in the hall and offering sensibility.

Rating 7/10

Zack Polanski AM, Deputy Leader of the Green Party

The London Assembly Member provided a contrast to the conservative politicians that preceded him. Polanski proved popular with the crowd, lending his support to the Palestinian people and promising that he would introduce a large wealth tax if in power. Despite the loud applause of the crowd every time he spoke and the left-wing stance he took, Polanski felt very much like Richard Tice. He was offering simple solutions to complex issues, and one got the sense he could say anything he liked because he would never have to act on his promises.

Rating 7/10

Sarah Olney MP, Liberal Democrats Spokesperson (Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)

My friends and I didn't have too much interest in the Lib Dems, so we went to lunch and regrettably missed Olney.

Rating Unknown

Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, hosts of the Rest is Politics

The popular podcast hosts were the most exciting speakers coming into the conference. At the Perse most if not all of our Politics classes listen to the former Tory MP and Labour communications director every day However, rather than responding to spontaneous questions from the audience, students had submitted their questions beforehand and were called on to speak. As such, the conference became more like a podcast episode but with less discussion and topics that had been discussed before.

Rating 5/10

- Harry Purvis

Sing to me Muse... what is it really all about?

War is raging between states for control of Black Sea shipping and grain supplies. Wealth and arrogance are the key characteristics of the patriarchal state-leaders, who claim to represent the needs of their citizens; in reality they are pushing a war agenda for their own interests. Nepotism and familial favours influence the policy of these leaders; the citizen conscripts become pawns in their strategic chess game. Personal grudges and spats between A-list celebrities dominate the lives of those who wield power, while scandal among the rich and famous is the diet of the chattering classes.

It feels so contemporary – and we are talking about the society of 12th century Greece: 12th Century BCE, over 3000 years ago, the world was incredibly familiar in so many ways. Perhaps that is why the Epic Cycle still captivates us today –the Greek tales of a world that was ancient and distant (even to them), have an incredible relevance and an alarmingly contemporary feel.

An example – human psychology through the characters of the Iliad: fundamentally we are faced with a choice; glory or anonymity. As Oscar Wilde put it “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” This same motivation for being remembered for posterity is the very thing that drives Achilles. He seeks kleos, the Greek ideal of a glorious life and death that brings honour upon, you, marks you out as worthy of respect and means you will be remembered. The same drive for kleos drove many a competitor at the Olympic festival and its games. The same drive for kleos has driven millions of humans in the years since. Some succeeded; some failed. Achilles is a spectacular model; immortal except the one area of weakness he has, his ankle. The legend of his being dipped in the Styx has left many questions unanswered: “Why hold him by the foot?... Why not give greater protection to the one part of his body that is mortal?” Such questions will persist and remain unanswered and that in its own way persists his kleos So too, his weak-spot, the eponymous Achilles’ Heel. We hear of many an Achilles injury – a rather different reference in a modern medical context to the countless injuries he inflicts in the Iliad. And brutal those injuries are; make no mistake, the war of The Iliad is not some idealised glorious rendition that would have encouraged young warriors to rush out to fight. It is a warts-and-all account of the harrowing consequences of way; physical deformities inflicted; gruesome accounts of death. Rank and file soldiers left nameless and faceless (metaphorically and literally). What Homer shows us is that the kleos of Achilles is won at great cost – it does not just happen, it comes at great expense; to the enemies of Achilles, to his friends and lovers, to his parents and ultimately to himself.

Achilles certainly achieved his goal – his foot is planted (heel first) in our contemporary culture and he is the model around whom heroism is built. If it was a good enough model for Alexander the Great (who claimed he was a distant relative centuries later), then it can easily be traced through time that Achilles provides the epitome of the heroic, wronged physical brute, blessed with godlike strength and skill, yet underneath it all vulnerable and in touch with emotions in a way many cannot understand.

But not everyone pursues their inner Achilles. The cost of it is too great – the collateral damage that is suffered from having too many Achilles figures in contention is vast. And this fact was not lost on Homer and the earliest Greek bards. For every Achilles there must be a counterbalance – in the case of Troy, a Hector. Hector, prince of Troy, favourite of his father, responsible, honourable, looked up to by his siblings including the unpredictable and impulsive care-free Paris. Hector could strive for kleos but he does not, and Homer shows us masterfully why not everyone can be an Achilles.

Hector has responsibilities, duties and family ties. Surely Achilles does too you might ask? Not in the same way – true, Achilles has a son (Neoptolemus who is a significant player in this war at its very end, delivering the fatal blow to Prima, king of Troy; dismissively Neoptolemus tells Priam that he can basically cut out his whingeing and go complain to the ghost of his own father Achilles in the underworld), Achilles has lovers, Achilles has family, but that family is not a united bond in the same way that Hector’s Trojan royal clan hold their city together. The Trojan Royal Family is an institution in its own right. As is proven subsequently, without them, there is no Troy. Hector feels that he is the one that keeps the family together – his father is too old to fight at the level needed – his brothers muck in but are not at the same level. Paris is quite dreadful as a fighter; he has to be saved by Aphrodite and whisked away by a cloud at one point when Menelaus is clearly superior. Some will argue heroism for Paris as he deals the mortal wound on Achilles. However, there is another way of looking at this. If in fact this were a masterfully aimed precision shot to the ankle, then Paris would overtake Artemis, Apollo and even Cupid as the greatest archer of them all. But in reality, Paris is just a terrible archer. Hitting Achilles at the base of the leg is not the first time Paris misses by a mile – he has already shot another warrior in the foot; no-one aims to shoot their enemy in the foot. Legend is generous to Paris and the traditional stories give Apollo the responsibility of guiding the arrow to Achilles only weak spot; I remain less convinced...

So as you go through life you might have Achilles moments – that opportunity to secure a glorious legacy; you might have to consider the costs though and the collateral impact; you might have Hector moments, standing resolute to preserve your heritage and represent the morality of your people; you might well have a bit of it all and you will almost certainly watch power struggles between others as they play out their roles.

The Iliad is not just a Greek text that belongs in a bygone era – it is as fresh today as it was to its first audiences; ones who were already centuries detached from its legendary protagonists. The Iliad is a masterful study of the human psyche and it will continue to speak to every one of us for as long as we continue to think on our purpose and roles in life. Pick up a copy, (Hammond’s translation is very accessible – but if you need something even more accessible, graphic versions exist and Stephen Fry’s Troy is also a wonderful retelling), lose yourself in a different world, and surprise yourself with the sophistication of thought that underpinned Homer’s epic tale. I promise it will make you understand the character of yourself and others in a better way than you did before you started it!

- Mr. Morgan

Literary Recommendations

Mr. Elliot

Woodston - The Biography of an English Farm

by John Lewis-Stempel (Published by Penguin in 2021)

I have niche, veering on eccentric tastes when it comes to books, especially books about rural Worcestershire. So, imagine my delight one Saturday morning in Heffers when I discovered “Woodston the Biography of an English Farm”, and not just any farm but the exact same Worcestershire farm where I spent the first 30 years of my life. To paraphrase a wellknown movie line “of all the farms, in all the counties, in all the country”, why choose this one? My interests were immediately piqued in the book, but so too were my sensitivities because this was the book that I had always dreamed of writing – a part fact, part imagined fiction, recounting 20,000 years of rural life from the last glaciation to the current day in a beautiful corner of England that I call home.

In hindsight I had been arrogant to think that none of the farming families that had tended the Worcestershire soil before the Elliotts would have an academic interest in agricultural history and the geography of place. I remember the unfair assumptions that had been made about me in school, and the fact that given my farming background, rural accent, muddy shoes, and baler twine belt, I must have been a peasant with simple tastes and an even simpler brain.

The wise words of my grandmother “never judge a book by its cover” resonated in my mind as I discovered that the farmer, before the farmer, before the Elliotts, was the grandfather of the author of Woodston – John Lewis-Stempel, who is a prolific writer on rural matters with at least 20 publications to his name.

I share a common history with John Lewis-Stempel and his significant places are my significant places. The book begins on the lime tree ridge that gave Lindridge its name, and where both the Stempel and Elliott families have buried their old and their young in what must be one of England’s most beautify graveyards. With a shared farming heritage, I get where Lewis-Stempel is coming from – the countryside isn’t some canvass against which things happen, it is a wonderfully complex landscape produced by the interactions of humans and nature over centuries. Every track and pathway, every tree and wood, every field and hedgerow, every farm and building has a story to tell. And if you are patient,

and you know what to look for, you can see the past in the present; the medieval open field strips, the turning circle of a Tudor plough, the ant hills on the undisturbed pasture, the neat rectangular woods planted by prisoners of war.

Woodston reminds us of the futility of legal ownership. The Elliotts owned the farm and before that the Lewis-Stempels, but when considered as part of Woodston’s longer history we were all just tenants leaving our marks on a bigger picture. And this bigger picture reminds us of the importance and value of perspective. I vividly recall bumper harvests which paid for childhood treats, and droughts that caused crops to fail and purses to empty. These were big things back then, but when viewed from afar, both in time and distance, their significance fades. They become like tree rings, barely noticeable records of good and bad years, that disappear in the enormity of time and space.

Woodston is a magical book about a magical place, but like many books it has its failings. Some of the basic history and geography are wrong (Stourbridge Fair occurred in Cambridge and not Stourbridge, Worcestershire), and because I care about Woodston the place, it irritates me that Lewis-Stempel and his editors have not corrected these basic errors. Accuracy matters, especially when the subject is so close to your heart.

Lewis-Stempel says he has written the story of Woodston to make sure that rural and agricultural voices get a fair hearing in a history that is too often urban and industrial, political and commercial. But even within the rural margins of history there is further marginality. For Lewis-Stempel does not pay sufficient attention to the migrant labour that travelled to Worcestershire every spring and summer to sow, tender and harvest the barley, wheat, fruit, hops and potatoes that fed Britain and sustained the country during two world wars. Much of this migrant labour was provided by traveller families who moved from Wales to Worcestershire and back with the seasons. I grew up playing with the Evans and Jones family children. They taught me how to forage for wild food, how to read the stars, how to tickle trout and the overwhelming importance of family. But by working with traveller families I also saw the discrimination they faced – the people who crossed the street to avoid them, the pub and shop doors closed and locked in their faces, the ditches dug and the barriers placed to keep traveller caravans and their occupants out of rural communities.

Thankfully many histories have been re-written to acknowledge the rightful roles of marginalised and under-represented groups. If I ever write my history of Woodston I will make sure that its travelling communities get the recognition they rightly deserve.

Miss Ruffle

Perseonal recommendations [sic]

I don’t usually go in for weak puns but this one seemed unavoidable. The Perse has a wonderful library and student-led literary journal but in addition to these things is a community where interesting conversations about books are easy to come by. Here are three books I have discovered thanks to people encountered at school.

A few years ago the GCSE Latin verse set text included the passage in Virgil's Aeneid where Achilles's son Pyrrhus brutally kills the Trojan king Priam. As quite often happens, I got the feeling that some of the students in my lovely Year 10 class were more interested in and knowledgeable about the mythological background than I was. However, I was intrigued when some of them said things like 'isn't Pyrrhus, like, twelve or something?'. This didn't seem likely, not to mention the fact that epic poets don't tend to specify their characters' birthdates. Eventually it transpired that several of them had read The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller and I took the advice of one of them to read this over the summer.

I must admit The Song of Achilles was not my cup of tea and I would not normally choose to read fantasy or mythology. However, it was interesting to understand the students' perspectives on Achilles and other figures from the Trojan wars. Madeleine Miller does a very good job of making cha racters such as Peleus and Thetis come alive, and for the first time I found it was easy to remember which of these two was mortal, which divine, and what an unhealthy relationship they had. It turns out that in this book, Pyrrhus is indeed twelve at the end of the Trojan war, and although we get a glimpse of the flaming-red hair - a helpful reminder of the meaning of his name - we do not see the famous scene of Priam's killing.

On Entrance Exam day, during lulls between the arrivals of piles of exam papers, the humanities marking team often chats about books. One colleague recommended the satirical novels of Evelyn Waugh. I was quite surprised to discover these books, which are worlds away from Brideshead Revisited with its serious issues and religious themes. Decline and Fall is a very entertaining read but with a decidedly dark kind of humour. Drawing on Waugh's experiences at Oxford and teaching in a prep school, it explores the cynicism, snobbery, racism (warning: some lines are far too offensive to quote here) and egotism of British society in the twenties. I enjoyed the scenes where the protagonist visits an employment agency ('We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School and School. Frankly..., School is pretty bad.') and is interviewed by a headmaster ('I shall not ask for details. I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good reason which he is anxious to conceal').

Another colleague talked about Hans Fallada's Jeder stirbt für sich allein (variously translated as Alone in Berlin and Every Man Dies Alone). This is a fictionalised account of real events, about a couple who decide to mount a campaign of resistance to the Nazi regime by distributing anonymous anti-war messages in wartime Berlin. The atmosphere of tension, fear and mistrust brought about by the totalitarian state, with neighbours encouraged to inform on each other - something I had associated much more with Stalin’s Russia or East Germany - is very powerfully conveyed by Fallada, writing in Berlin in 1946-7 shortly before his death. He shows us events through the eyes of the two unlikely rebels but also of the Gestapo officer tasked with investigating the anonymous messages. Amazingly he even manages to make the reader understand and sympathise with the Gestapo officer who, at one point in his patient, methodical search, finds the tables turned and the terrifying power of the secret police directed against him. I was strongly reminded of this story when I read about the jailing last year in Russia of a woman for replacing price tags in supermarkets with messages about war crimes committed in Ukraine. It is another very dark novel and not in a humorous way, but fascinating for anyone wanting to know about the lives of ordinary Germans during the war and about the ways in which people respond to the reality of living in a repressive police state.

Miss. Bellamy

Storm in a Teacup – The Physics of Everyday Life

Helen Czerski

I do not have a good relationship with ‘Physics’ or ‘Maths’. Anything beyond what I need to know and apply in daily life tends to go over my head and be consigned to the notional wastepaper basket labelled ‘not necessary’.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in the world around me. I like to think that I have a healthy dose of scientific curiosity and I do enjoy delving into populist scientific publications, of which ‘Storm in a Teacup – The Physics of Everyday Life’ is one of the latest.

Helen Czerski’s exploration of how physics related principles apply to the simplest of processes doesn’t disappoint. From the metaphor in the title to the gloriously quirky, anecdotal approach to introducing the relevant information, Czerski has the knack of conveying hard scientific fact in the simplest terms, but without patronising the reader. For those who want more ‘rigour’, there is plenty of numerical and equation-based data to demonstrate how the concept under discussion might be applied.

At the end of the day, any book which can inveigle me to carry out simple, physics related experiments my kitchen, (conservation of angular momentum, anyone?) must be worth a look.

Maëlyss

Recommandations de Lectures en Français :

Les classiques :

¨ Le Petit Prince – Antoine de Saint Exupéry; a timeless story, very short and accessible to all.

¨ Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur – Maurice Leblanc; had a revival thanks to the Netflix series (that I recommend watching in French – with subtitles, of course!)

Les bandes dessinées :

¨ Everyone has heard of Tintin and Asterix, but I also recommend Boule et Bill, and Lou!, which are more about young people and can be more relatable.

Littérature contemporaine

¨ The big names of contemporary literature in France are probably Guillaume Musso and Marc Levy, they’ve been the number ones for many years. But recently, Joël Dicker and Virginie Grimaldi are stealing the spotlight, and their novels are becoming very famous in France.

¨ The Young Adult genre is also becoming quite popular, with following novels that are, yes, quite fantasy, but accessible to people learning French.

L’Antidote Mortel - Cassandre Lambert La Carte des Confins - Marie Repplin

Absolu - Margot Dessenne…

Mr. Brunskill

Stanley Tucci – Taste, my life through food

The actor Stanley Tucci now seems more passionate about food and the culinary delights that have shaped his life, than the acting career which made his name. This book is another addition to the Tucci gastronomical empire. Here he celebrates all things epicurean, from his childhood food memories to his dubious recollections of on-set catering while filming around the world, and completes his account with some very personal revelations (no spoilers here, but they have been welldocumented across the media).

Through re-imagined childhood conversations with his mother, Tucci evokes his experiences of growing up in Westchester, New York, where his Italian heritage was blended with all that mid-1960s America had to offer on a plate.

My mother and I are sitting on the floor in our small living room. I am around six years old. I am playing with a set of blocks and my mother is ironing. The TV is tuned to a cooking show.

ME: What is she doing?

MY MOTHER: She’s cooking.

ME: What?

MY MOTHER: She’s cooking.

ME: I know. I mean…what is she cooking?

MY MOTHER: Oh, she’s cooking a duck.

ME: A duck?!!

MY MOTHER: Yep.

ME: From a pond?

MY MOTHER: I guess so. I don’t know.

[…]

ME: Why is she cooking a duck?

MY MOTHER: I guess she likes duck. A silence. We watch the TV.

ME: Do you like duck?

MY MOTHER: I’ve never really had it.

ME: Do I like duck?

MY MOTHER: I don’t know. Do you?

ME: Have I had it?

MY MOTHER: No.

ME: Then I probably don’t like it.

MY MOTHER: You can’t know if you don’t like something if you haven’t had it. You have to try everything.

ME: Mmm. Maybe later. Some day, when I’m older, maybe.

This is a beautifully written book. Dialogue, interspersed with the occasional Tucci family recipe, and lashings of descriptive foodie memories make this an easy read that will no doubt trigger some of our own memories of sharing a meal or tasting something for the first time. My favourite recollection is of Tucci’s encounter with the infamous andouillette. A Proustian account of tasting madeleines for the first time it is not, but many who have tried this delicacy will identify with Tucci’s sentiments! I, on the other hand, rather enjoyed my andouillette adventure in Lyon a couple of years ago.

Books outside the box, if there is a box

When do we turn to a book? For some light leisure, to be comforted, amused, to find solace in someone else’s life, their struggles, their happinesses, to escape? But also, to be surprised, to be intellectually challenged, stimulated, to have what we thought were the boundaries, broken. So here are three books, differing in length, format and structure, each telling very different stories in very different ways…

Mouthpieces - Eimear McBride

“Your voice screaming somewhere, other side of the wall. I listen with care. I separate your words out.”

Forty pages, containing three texts, each depicting a fragment of the female experience. Not an easy read, but definitely an important one: McBride writes with tender originality, presenting feminism, misogyny, patriarchy, perfectly balanced to capture an audience when performed, and cause a reader to think, be challenged, reconsider. I’ve never read a book (and perhaps that’s because these aren’t necessarily meant to be read) that quite does what this does, it took me in, let me imagine, and left me wondering about the world, how to change it, how to be a nicer person inside it.

Content warnings: Cursing; Domestic and Physical abuse

If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino

“But I do not believe totality can be contained in language; my problem is what remains outside, the unwritten, the unwritable”

If there was ever a book perfect for cold evenings, days where suddenly the sun has disappeared and your breath is becoming frost again, this is it. I first read this book hurtling home through a dark night, and was struck by how immersive the reading experience is; Calvino speaks directly to you as the reader, turns the streetlights around you into the flashes of an incoming train, the reflections of an airport floor; walls rise up beside you and suddenly they are broken down again. Calvino experiments with language in a way that is unfamiliar, raising philosophical issues in a self-aware yet satirical manner. Frankly, this book is pretentious, but knows it.

Content warnings: Toxic relationship; Kidnapping; Sexual content, harassment and assault; Incest; Racism; Sexism

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

“I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever?”

While being a shocking, twisting thriller full of morally grey, multifaceted characters, Gone Girl is an exploration of the complexities of human nature, of our morals, how we love, what causes us to hate. I wouldn’t say this is a pleasant read either, Flynn captured me in a chokehold from page one, but I came away having learnt so much; Flynn tells us a story of the things that distinguish good people from bad, of trust, fear, and perspective. It examines the effects of the Great Recession on society, individuals, and the relationships between these people. She asks, quietly, between the lines, whether a spiralling economy leads to a spiralling society too. Most crucially, at the centre is a deep look at commitment, and how marriage can change people, for better and for worse.

Content warnings: Toxic relationship; Murder; Emotional Abuse; Rape; Blood

- Alice Shaw

Two Classic Ghost Stories

(As Reviewed by Edward Small)

I would be the first to say that it is not the time of year for a good ghost story. The right time of the year is late autumn or early winter, when the days are short and getting shorter- but I digress: I am writing these reviews since a few months ago, I performed ‘The Judge’s House’ , by Bram Stoker, at the old barn of Buckland Abbey. I have been invited to publish a review of the story, but I have added a second too! I think that even though we are not in the depths of winter right now, March and April can still bring us a lovely dark stormy night or ten, and those are perfect for a classic ghost story, even if you’ve little time. So, enjoy, dear readers!

The Judge’s House, by Bram Stoker

I first encountered ‘The Judge’s House’ a few years ago, in my Dover Thrift compilation of ‘Great Ghost Stories’. I am a fan of Dracula, so when I noticed that it was by Bram Stoker, I was already excited. It is an engrossing story and does not leave much wanting. Though (as is ‘To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt’ ) was written in the 19th century, it’s quite easy reading. I especially enjoyed that those around the central character (Malcolm Malcolmson) are not particularly bad, nor are they necessarily good. The plot comes complete with a brilliant description of the ghost, who truly is one of the scariest that I have come across, and an increasingly creepy build up towards the end. Personally, I like to have the happenings in my ghost stories explained (or at least to a point, which is why I cannot say I am much of a fan of The Signalman) and so I enjoyed the fact that in Judge’s House, the haunting is not explicitly explained nor left completely ambiguous, but Bram Stoker leaves one to guess the truth a little. I think it’s a brilliant read for anyone really - and it’s even free on Wikipedia if you can’t get hold of a copy!

To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt (The Trial for Murder), by Charles Dickens

One thing that cannot typically be said of Charles Dickens is that he is concise- however, in this instance, he covers this story in no more than nine pages! Not to be critical of Dickens though, because he writes an excellent ghost story over the next eight! While I think it is not quite as blatantly scary as ‘The Judge’s House’ is, one of the best things about the tale is how open to interpretation it is. As I previously said, in my review of ‘The Judge’s House’, I am rather opinionated about the amount of exposition that there should be in a ghost story. The ambiguity of ‘To Be Taken’ certainly plays in Dickens’ favour here though: there is doubt in whether the ‘facts’ given by the narrator are really fact or fiction (hence the title). There is even uncertainty in whether the ghost exists at all; the fact is never explicitly stated by any character but the narrator himself. It must be said, the absolute best part of To Be Taken is the way it ends - but I shan’t spoil it for you, you'll have to read and see!

- Sydney

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

This book was written in 1963 by Sylvia Plath and in my opinion is one of the best books I have read. This book is Plath’s only novel, as she usually writes poetry. This book offers an excellent representation of mental health. In the book the main character Esther is a student in New England before she breaks down and is unfortunately sent to a mental hospital and throughout the book we see her try to recover and find stability in her life.

During the book Sylvia Plath present the readers with many interesting analogies, my favourite of those is the fig tree analogy. In the fig tree Plath describes the different figs on the tree as the choices in your life, you sit on the ground unable to choose a fig because an even bigger, sweeter fig may come along but if you choose none the figs begin to fall on the ground and rot. This analogy really stuck out to me, because it perfectly describes the feeling of being pressured to choose a path but wanting to wait in case a better option is handed to you and not wanting to close any of those paths, but if you wait too long the options you have will start to dwindle and disappear. Something I find particularly interesting about this book is the fact that Sylvia Plath wrote this loosely based on her own experience, and sadly committed suicide a month after the book was published.

I believe “The Bell Jar” to be a perfect title for this book, as the title refers to a metaphor that I find incredibly interesting. It refers to the feeling of feeling trapped and suffocated throughout the book. The glass of the jar also represents Esther’s distorted view of the world and herself, as if she is looking through someone else while trapped on the inside. Sylvia Plath had greatly struggled with her depression and bipolar disorder which makes the book much more heart-breaking. I really adored this book when I read it and I highly recommend to anyone who liked her poetry or are interested in it, but I would not recommend to anyone who is triggered easily, as it does deal with quite challenging and painful topics at times.

- Lalana Bor-Ramarao

Art

- Alice Shaw

Closing Notes

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages …

- Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7

As this issue draws to a close, it would be fitting to reflect on the nature of endings. All things come to an end and as the term travels towards its conclusion so too does my time as editor of Synthetic Violet. Exams everchronophagous and the inevitable cyclical conclusively of year thirteen draw me away, if only temporarily, from the loftier pursuits of literary wandering.

I suppose however that the time has come for a new act, revitalisation and new ideas are an integral part of the development of any literary project to enable its continuity. Looking back, many things have changed since I first began editing Synthetic Violet, both within the microcosm of the Perse community and a broader scale. From the familiar successes of academic scholarship, the development of the school community, to the global achievements and adversities of history, time has flown. I cannot say however, that I have truly noticed it.

Indeed, it seems incredible that I am now handing over the magazine to a new generation of editors, just as the previous editorial team had done, four years, and nine issues of Synthetic Violet ago. In their final issue they suggested that one tended to measure out one’s life with issues of the magazine, I must admit, I had never consciously registered the numericity until now. For me it seemed like an eternally continuous process a sempiternal whirlwind of writing, reading, and compiling the magazine, which fit perfectly into the steady flow of terms and academic years, building drifts of thoughts and paper, an added rhythm to the life of the school. The intellectual curiosity and endeavour evidenced by the literary and artistic works of members of the Perse, has never ceased to surprise me, and has strengthened my conviction of the necessity and value of the responsibilities and dedication that the magazine has required.

Therefore, I shall indeed miss the familiar opening a contribution -filled inbox, being able to share the printed product of literary inspirations, and seeing the appreciation of those for whom the magazine has enabled more profound literary reflection. Yet I shall nevertheless always remember the time with great fondness, and gratitude.

And so, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to and supported the magazine throughout the last four years. As while Synthetic Violet has certainly required personal commitment and industry, so too has it only been able to live through the many contributors who have shared their writing and artistic endeavours for publication. It would be difficult to name all those who have in various ways supported the magazine, but I am particularly grateful to the teachers who have contributed to the magazine, and for the consistent support of Mr. Green and Mr. Buchanan in promoting, publishing, and printing Synthetic Violet. Thank you also to the readers of the magazine and all those who shall continue in the future. I wish the future editing team the best of luck for the task ahead –editing is not always easy, but it is most rewarding.

And now I find myself in the difficult position of actually having to conclude bringing a cycle of Synthetic Violet to its end. However, as I had written in my first ever closing remarks of Synthetic Violet these notes are by no means conclusive, nor final, but rather the mark of a new beginning. Indeed, though change is the inevitable product of time, Synthetic Violet has not faltered in attempting to fulfil its aim: a creative expression and perpetuation of a literary and cultural legacy.

Long may it continue! - Carole Tucker, ed.

Notice

Synthetic Violet the Perse Literary and Cultural magazine will be accepting submissions for the summer term issue throughout the term and Easter holidays.

Here is a reminder about the genres published in the magazine (you may be published under a pen name or your own)

• Verse (poetry of all kinds)

• Fictional Prose (short stories, creative writing etc.)

• Essays/Articles on varied literary, cultural and academic subjects

• Literary & Cultural recommendations/reviews

• Art (both for the covers and within the magazine)

Please email any contributions or queries to syntheticviolet@perse.co.uk

Cover Artwork by Mrs. Suman-Chauhan