#he would LOVE the locked tomb books. such an outrage that I can't reach through the screen to give them to him

[vaguely-concerned]

from the vibes you get from him in the short stories I don't think emmrich would ever do this (he seems very sweet and personable, honestly), BUT it would be extremely funny if over the course of the game he met dorian and made subtle fun of him for being a mooaboo (mortalitasi weeaboo, to be clear).

dorian really went to nevarra on holiday with his family once as a teenager, saw the goths there doing their locked tomb flavoured fuckery with all the bells whistles and bones, and then made that his entire personality and professional expertise for years even after he returned to tevinter. he's a nerd. he's a second hand goth. he's gay. he broke the fabric of space and time as a side project in university. he has alcoholic tendencies apparently inherited from his mother and immaculate fashion game. he cheats at chess. he loves fereldan beer but would rather die than admit to it publicly. he's a magister now. he's allergic to stripweed. I'm in tears I just love him so much

[ilikereadingactually]

This Way to the Tomb

This Way to the Tomb: A Masque and Anti-Masque by Ronald Duncan

i took a break from reading e-galleys and ebooks from the library to sit in my cozy reading nook and meander through (and sneeze through, i am sadly allergic to that old book smell) this play from 1946. not out of any great interest in or understanding of plays, in a historical sense, so apologies to any deep theater nerds out there. no, amid the miscellany of my day job at an academic library, i came across this article about a book that had been returned to a library 76 years overdue, and the title caught my eye because i'm obsessed with The Locked Tomb series (which i have not reviewed here yet, but i will after the fourth book comes out). i googled it, could not find enough information about it to satisfy my curiosity as to whether it would dovetail with my Locked Tomb obsession, saw that my library system had a copy, and decided to just read it and find out.

so, not the weirdest way i have ended up reading a book, but not straightforward either. i am a firm believer in curiosity, and have accumulated a lot of esoteric knowledge in unrelated areas over a lifetime of pursuing fannish interests as far as i could stretch them.

though this book was not particularly useful in analyzing my blorbos, i had a good time! i learned, first of all, that a masque "is a form of courtly entertainment containing music, dancing, singing and acting out a story." (thanks No Sweat Shakespeare) which clarifies the fun structure of this play for me. side note, apparently the music was composed by Benjamin Britten, who i had vaguely heard of.

we start out with the masque portion, in which an imagined St. Antony (not based on any historical St. Anthony as far as i can tell, so not the guy who finds the things i misplace) is living a hermity life up on a mountain with three disciples, fasting and generally abstaining from temptation, until a Voice tells him that he can finally die once he's stopped feeling so proud of himself for fasting and has eaten a bit of the food his worried disciples have brought him. i love this, tbh. get off your high horse and have a meal, Antony. the three disciples are also maybe representing Antony's sins? i would not describe them as sins really, but one of them is always trying to get him to eat, and one of them sings him songs, and one of them somehow represents his pride and intellect. my favorite was Marcus, who just wanted Antony to eat and kept making him food and worrying over it, very relatable. there is a lot of singing and poetry overall in this section, which i presume is why it's a masque.

then we reach the anti-masque! which i think is still meant to be sung, and has a chorus, but has some fun metatextual elements to it. this section is i think set at the time the play was written (1946), and is a television broadcast about a group of people going around the world looking for religion and religious miracles and generally making light of everything they've looked into so far, who have arrived at the cave tomb where St. Antony is buried. there's a postcard seller, who they turn away because they have their own cameras and equipment. then several of the outrageous characters in this bunch (such as Girl of Leisure and Man of Culture) confess their sins in front of the tomb, see someone looking back at them, and then when they can't verify what they saw with their cameras they chalk it up to a reflection in the stone. they pop open the tomb even, and find it empty, and their equipment doesn't pick up anything! it has a kinship with an episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved for me.

things go a little wild after that; some women show up vagueing, who i take to be Mary and Mary Magdalene, then St. Antony himself shows up, and none of the characters in this group searching for religion catch on to the miraculous visitation they're getting. then the postcard seller, who left the last of his bread at the opened tomb, turns out to be Marcus, the disciple who kept trying to get Antony to eat; and the chorus turns out to be Julian, the disciple who sang; and Father Opine, the leader of the atheist religious weirdos group, turns out to be Bernard, the disciple who somehow represented Antony's pride. they all have a last bit of philosophy together about the circular nature of time and death and renewal, and ta da, that's the end! even in the cynical "modern age" of television, says Ronald Duncan, there are people who are too proud to see miracles, and people who give up their last morsel in worship, and people who sing beautiful songs.

this is a lot more plot summary than i would usually give, and perfectly lazy analysis because i am not a scholar in any area that might help me interpret this very intelligently, but i had a good time and there was a little more subtlety here than my hamfisted explanation! and since there are no plot summaries on the first page of google results about this play, maybe i am helping some other curious person out there decide whether or not to seek this one out.

the deets

how i read it: a physical book!! from the library!! i had to take an allergy pill and wash my hands and face after, but i do love paging through an old ass book.

try this if you: dig plays that get meta, have a fondness for weird christian things (with Catholic flavor imo), like a satire, or are just as obsessed with The Locked Tomb as i am and so will pick up any old thing that could be in vague conversation with it by virtue of also being about religion and death and the passage of time.

some lines i really liked: including some things that stood out to me only for the Locked Tomb of it all. also there are so many bits i thought were neat that i'm putting them under a cut.

ANTONY: It is winter. Again, winter. The blind mouth of the earth sucks a dry udder. Only leaves, falling over and over, disturb the year's slumber. And my mind clings to the past, Like a velvet train dragged on wet grass.

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SOPRANO SOLO (sings off stage): Oh proud heart take pity on that part of me Which lies in you as your own lost heart.

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How I fear Time: which is all change. Oh, where is there a fair face found to challenge Advancing age, with his full equipage and cortege, and not surrender? I have pressed my lips upon Helen's mouth and kissed a skeleton.

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ANTHONY: What's wrong with you? LECHERY: I have a wound that burns with pain. A pain only you can cure. ANTONY: I'll see what I can do. Where is the wound? LECHERY: On my leg here. Higher. Higher. ANTONY: Oh! Away with you.

---

Enter a RADIO ANNOUNCER. ANNOUNCER: Do you refer to me? PROLOGUE: I do. ANNOUNCER: I'd have you know, Sir, that this is Clarence de la Dell speaking. I am the premiere anouncer for the Oracle, and this is an actuality relay from the sanctified studio reserved for televising spiritual services and religious experiences. And who are you? And how did you crawl in? PROLOGUE: I am the Prologue. ANNOUNCER: The what? PROLOGUE: I am the Prologue. ANNOUNCER: Poor chap. But never mind, just run along with you. PROLOGUE: To hell with you! This was my play.

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CRITIC (in audience): And there I, for one, disagree with you. The Saint has not appeared for dramatic reasons. Not because this age lacks faith. One of the fundamental weaknesses of this play is, to my mind, the author's shallow conception of the people's fears. The novitiates we have seen are mere clay pigeons for the point of cheap satire, quite unrepresentative of the public's inarticulate spiritual dilemma.

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CHORUS: We are where our thoughts are Time was invented by clocks and Place was discovered by Maps.

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1ST WOMAN: They stoned him in Rome They lynched him in Moscow They bled him in Troy They broke him at Toledo. Have you seen my son? FATHER OPINE: No, Madam. How would I know him? 2ND WOMAN: By his eyes which are wet with your tears By his blood which bleeds from your wounds And by his scars. FATHER OPINE: Dear lady, what scars? 2ND WOMAN: In Babylon they whipped his back And in Boston they kicked him He has a scar on his head Where they clubbed him at Buchenwald But it is by the scar in his side that you will know him. 1ST WOMAN: Have you seen him? FATHER OPINE: No, Madam.

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ANTONY: Everything must renew, nothing living is immutable. The fairest flower falls in the hour and becomes dust As the proudest Emperor must and leave the purple canopies of Rome For the sepulchre's strict curfew. Nor are the dead unchangeable; Death's solid splendours life devours through the soil's lust The seed takes, and the thirsty roots thrust, --and as a cabbage, Kings re-enter Rome.