Cloud of knowing

As I write this note I’m not sure whether I’ll print a bound edition of Cloud of knowing, or simply offer it electronically to readers, some of whom may download it and produce it as a book. This is partly a matter of costs, and partly something else. Let’s talk about costs first.

As I write, in early 2006, with the process of setting up the TrojanPress website starting in a few days time, I’m thinking that I may discontinue the print publication of my books, and put the money into issuing more stories as mini-mags, because they are my way of making the public aware of the TrojanPress site. They’re the only publicity I’ve got, apart from word of mouth, and there is a cost: the bill is bigger for printing and cicrculating 10,000 copies of a mini-mag (even though they’re fiendishly cheap for me, and free for you!) than it is for doing a couple of hundred books, printed and bound. So I’m inclined to put the dollars into distributing the mini-mags, my publicity, and getting any new books to the world via the website.

These are only my thoughts of the moment. Things, including my mind, may change!

And now the something else. It’s probably best to start with the Author’s Note at the start of this book (and given elsewhere on this web page under the heading Author\’s note). Here it is:

Some years ago I saw the photo of a girl above the fireplace in a house I visited frequently. There were numerous family photos on the walls, but this one was new to me, and it captured my interest. I was told that the young woman, in the uniform of her school, had been an earlier owner of the house I stood in. I returned to the picture, attracted by the beauty and unconscious vulnerability of those who, having reached their first maturity, have an awareness of life lying before them. What will the future bring? I also sensed that a book could be based on the feeling the picture gave me. A few weeks later, I saw the photo a second time, and a decision made itself. Two days later I began to write the book.

The book’s other theme, the rising of cloud from a valley, was something I had heard about years before, when I lived in eastern Victoria, but had never seen; nor have I seen it now. I have taken the liberty of giving the cloud a purpose, that of clarifying the central character’s mind. In some way the cloud accompanies my girl in a photo, whom I call Claire, from childhood to old age; Claire dies, but the cloud will surely form again, the implication being that it is always available for those ready to listen.

The book is, then, an improvisation on a photo and a cloud. The Claire of my book leads one of the many lives the girl in the photo might have had. No effort was made to research the life actually led by the person in the photo.

‘An improvisation on a photo and a cloud’: that sounds inoffensive enough, but events turned out unexpectedly. A descendant of the young woman in the photo which stirred me to write was given a copy of the manuscript, liked it initially, she said, then objected strongly. An offence had been done to the ancestors whose spirits lingered in what had been their house. I replied, calling for a dialogue over the differences in the way we saw the book which had divided us so suddenly and so sharply. No dialogue ever ensued, so I withdrew from the house, where I had been a regular visitor, and the friendship, which had been important to both of us over many years. This is a matter of deep sadness and regret. I put the book aside for a number of years, but then, on returning to it, I felt that it embodied a great deal of the qualities of the mountain people it portrayed, and decided that it should be given to the world, as it is, now, via this website.