Copperfox
Well-known member
Well, nobody else is bringing fresh material to Writing Club, so I'll do it!
Somewhere in the late 1990's, while my first wife Mary Scudellari Ravitts was alive in this world, I decided that I would like to write a fantasy novel in her honor. I would base it (very loosely!) on Mary's descriptions of her childhood on Long Island, in the Cold Spring Harbor area, as the fourth child and only daughter of Erman Scudellari and Gladys Havens Scudellari. (And yes, that IS where I was later to borrow the surname for Alipang Havens.) Having four brothers, with only one of them younger than she, Mary lived something of a tomboy existence -- enough so, certainly, to become avid for basketball, swimming and camping. And, for a charming detail, she had a favorite stuffed toy, in the form of a black-furred dog; she called it Mister Bodeen.
Incidentally, Erman Scudellari, the father-in law I never met (in fact, as life has worked out, I never got to meet any of my three fathers-in-law) was an architect. He actually was the contractor who laid the foundation of the Empire State Building. His wife Gladys was what used to be called "lace-curtain Irish": that is, someone of Irish ancestry but NOT impoverished or crude of conduct.
I designed Mary's fictional alter-ego to be something of a Lucy Pevensie type, only a bit earthier. As is the case with much of my fiction, I surrounded her with a society in woeful need of the knowledge of God. In fact -- unlike the actual Long Island in 1950 -- I depicted my heroine's world as having utterly forgotten God, in favor of self-centered occultism and shallow pantheism. So there would be lots of empty "circle of life" talk dripping from the mouths of ignorant characters, which I could gleefully demolish as characters learned that God meant for human life to ARRIVE SOMEPLACE, not just spin its wheels.
As Mary was facing her death from cancer, I promised her that one day I would complete "her" story. Detours, like my two subsequent marriages, postponed that promise; but now that it's been ten years since Mary's homegoing (and now that "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens" is finally finished), I am going to do it, God willing.
Being conceived long before Alipang Havens or Grey Eagle, this story is a "stand-alone." But an author's urge to unify his own work is heightened by my dislike for excessively illogical fantasy premises. What I mean is that too many fantasies offer a world which is too different to BE any version of OUR world -- yet which, at the same time, bears too many resemblances to our world for the reader NOT to ask, "Well, what IS the connection?" My story in my Mary's honor has a world with geography utterly unrelated to our Earth, and with SOME animals also unrelated -- yet with OTHER animals identical to Earth animals. Just saying, "It's just a fantasy" isn't good enough for me. And it is NOT an answer to tell me, "But Narnia also was partly like our world and partly different" -- because Mister Lewis makes it cleat that Aslan created Narnia IN FULL AWARENESS of the overlapping characteristics He was giving it. So Lewis was NOT in the end saying, "Just accept it because it's a fantasy."
The particular environment in which Mary's other self lives had to have started SOME way. Until further notice, my preferred explanation is that, more than three hundred years before the story begins, a "hibernation starship" came from Earth to this planet, a one-way trip for the colonists. They brought embryos of some Earthly animal types with them, plus the seed of Earthly plants. An initial population of maybe one thousand people divided up the usable land, forming multiple nations, not necessarily out of hostility, but in order that different ways of life could develop freely. Within three or four generations (as often happens in science-fiction stories; think of Pern), the colonists began to forget that there was any such place as Earth. But since the SPIRITUAL realm is real no matter where you go, spiritual evils were able to influence people even on an alien planet. Consenting to the influence, the people forgot their Creator.
You may ignore the interstellar-travel part if you prefer, and let this tale stand alone -- as it did when I was writing that portion which already exists. Incidentally, I have my mother, Gail Ravitts, to thank for finding the lost manuscript so it COULD be completed. Now, I hope you will enjoy--
Somewhere in the late 1990's, while my first wife Mary Scudellari Ravitts was alive in this world, I decided that I would like to write a fantasy novel in her honor. I would base it (very loosely!) on Mary's descriptions of her childhood on Long Island, in the Cold Spring Harbor area, as the fourth child and only daughter of Erman Scudellari and Gladys Havens Scudellari. (And yes, that IS where I was later to borrow the surname for Alipang Havens.) Having four brothers, with only one of them younger than she, Mary lived something of a tomboy existence -- enough so, certainly, to become avid for basketball, swimming and camping. And, for a charming detail, she had a favorite stuffed toy, in the form of a black-furred dog; she called it Mister Bodeen.
Incidentally, Erman Scudellari, the father-in law I never met (in fact, as life has worked out, I never got to meet any of my three fathers-in-law) was an architect. He actually was the contractor who laid the foundation of the Empire State Building. His wife Gladys was what used to be called "lace-curtain Irish": that is, someone of Irish ancestry but NOT impoverished or crude of conduct.
I designed Mary's fictional alter-ego to be something of a Lucy Pevensie type, only a bit earthier. As is the case with much of my fiction, I surrounded her with a society in woeful need of the knowledge of God. In fact -- unlike the actual Long Island in 1950 -- I depicted my heroine's world as having utterly forgotten God, in favor of self-centered occultism and shallow pantheism. So there would be lots of empty "circle of life" talk dripping from the mouths of ignorant characters, which I could gleefully demolish as characters learned that God meant for human life to ARRIVE SOMEPLACE, not just spin its wheels.
As Mary was facing her death from cancer, I promised her that one day I would complete "her" story. Detours, like my two subsequent marriages, postponed that promise; but now that it's been ten years since Mary's homegoing (and now that "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens" is finally finished), I am going to do it, God willing.
Being conceived long before Alipang Havens or Grey Eagle, this story is a "stand-alone." But an author's urge to unify his own work is heightened by my dislike for excessively illogical fantasy premises. What I mean is that too many fantasies offer a world which is too different to BE any version of OUR world -- yet which, at the same time, bears too many resemblances to our world for the reader NOT to ask, "Well, what IS the connection?" My story in my Mary's honor has a world with geography utterly unrelated to our Earth, and with SOME animals also unrelated -- yet with OTHER animals identical to Earth animals. Just saying, "It's just a fantasy" isn't good enough for me. And it is NOT an answer to tell me, "But Narnia also was partly like our world and partly different" -- because Mister Lewis makes it cleat that Aslan created Narnia IN FULL AWARENESS of the overlapping characteristics He was giving it. So Lewis was NOT in the end saying, "Just accept it because it's a fantasy."
The particular environment in which Mary's other self lives had to have started SOME way. Until further notice, my preferred explanation is that, more than three hundred years before the story begins, a "hibernation starship" came from Earth to this planet, a one-way trip for the colonists. They brought embryos of some Earthly animal types with them, plus the seed of Earthly plants. An initial population of maybe one thousand people divided up the usable land, forming multiple nations, not necessarily out of hostility, but in order that different ways of life could develop freely. Within three or four generations (as often happens in science-fiction stories; think of Pern), the colonists began to forget that there was any such place as Earth. But since the SPIRITUAL realm is real no matter where you go, spiritual evils were able to influence people even on an alien planet. Consenting to the influence, the people forgot their Creator.
You may ignore the interstellar-travel part if you prefer, and let this tale stand alone -- as it did when I was writing that portion which already exists. Incidentally, I have my mother, Gail Ravitts, to thank for finding the lost manuscript so it COULD be completed. Now, I hope you will enjoy--
Mistress Telltrue
by Joseph Richard Ravitts
by Joseph Richard Ravitts
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