I have been caught up in writing a novel for the past, oo, several months now.
I went through a stage of trying out different fonts for the different voices telling/re-telling the story of the novel. It got too messy as the novel has grown and grown.
Here it is: it became unworkable due to scale. this is a taster:
GIL
FOREWORD
1
Now, I want you to remember this: I am Sin-li-unni, and currently, though I expect not for much longer, Under-Under-Secretary for the Minister for Home Affairs. I am great-great-great grandson of Lugal, recorder of these events. Lugal was, family tradition records, an inner member of the ruling party in the city at that time. He was not, I repeat, not, a member of the ordinary city people. This is a gross distortion and slander. And I want to quash it once and for all. Those reports are Wrong. They are part of the great injustice and distortion done to our noble nation’s illustrious history and culture.
The following report is the True report, passed down in my family for generations. The Minister himself was very impressed when I could present him with my own chronicle. He had demanded a new publication of the heroic deeds and acts of our great ancestor Gil Games, to create a sense of pride and manly honour, in this time of troubled affairs in this Great Nation.
I could provide him with the true version. I expect to be elevated to a higher position in the Ministry any time now.
Here then, is the True account of the illustrious life of our great ancestor, Gil Games.
2
Let it be said, dear reader, that the fraudulent, biased and recessive account here presented to you as truth, is a gross distortion of the facts of the case.
We can never know, now, the thinking processes, bases for decision making, and judgements, of the period in question. We can be certain that the account, presented by Sin-li-unni as authentic, is anything but that. It is a version, no more.
The account we present here we do under great duress. Should any of the contributors be unmasked…. Let it be known that we risk out lives to give the fullest version that we can.
Indeed, we would have preferred the story remain untold, than told in Sin-li-unni’s gross distortion. The real tale is a tale of the people’s lives, not of overbearing, cruel and preening overlords.
3
I came across this strange document late one evening in the library at Alexandria.
As you can see there appear to be two different hands at work here. Whether they muddy the waters further, or, as the second suggests, clarify the story to any extent we maybe now can never know.
Both writers seem unaware of what to us are now basic facts about the story and time. One of these concerns the claims of their leaders’ ancestry to Games. It is well-attested, and backed up by records from the time and proceeding times, that he never married nor sired any children. Indeed, his inclinations were elsewhere.
Our best researchers can now perhaps fill in some of the gaps in the story, and new tablets and documents by other hands that have come to light in recent years can also give a fuller picture.
I have taken the liberty in presenting the documents as a fictionalised story. This is to demonstrate that the early account is wholly unhistoric. It had been revered and re-published over time as factually correct, and as an authentic record.
To preserve something of the narrative structure of the story I have interleaved the earlier version with other versions of the tale, and filled in gaps in the narratives in line with our enlightened attitudes to diversity and equality. I think you will agree this version is far superior and acceptable for our enlightened times.
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michael9murray 