Taliesin beginning

[wraith]

In the beginning of Taliesin, when Charis is writing on the very first page, she says she is "made captive in this house". what does she mean by that?

[Tegid]

She is referring to the time she was carrying her child. More details about this as the time she wrote her memories can be found in chapter 16 of Book Three: The Merlin in Taliesin

[dgan]

You know, I haven't read Taliesin in a while but that brings up a good question. How does she write about events that she doesn't learn about until after her pregnancy? For example, Taliesin's origin is thoroughly explained in the early chapters even though Charis did not learn of this until his funeral, well after her pregnancy when she said she wrote the story. Did she amend her writing later on, or is this an inconsistancy? Or am I simply forgetting something?

[Child of Immanuel]

I wondered about that too, but it seems that she wrote it later and integrated the chapters before the chapters that he actually narrated.

[Gwalchmai]

No, thats brought up with Charis making many inqusative questions into Talisein's background. I dont no the chapter or the page but I know thats stated within the transcript.

[Child of Immanuel]

But she didn't know the first two chapters of him being found in the weir until after he died.

[frankwanderer]

I suspect we're seeing a little of every opinion so far expressed. It's not implausible that the story was amended later on; whether by someone else or, somewhat more likely, Charis herself. She may have done the predominant amount of writing while she was incapacitated, as was mentioned. However, it would not be the first time that an author went back and "touched up" the story, particularly if one looks at the entire book of Taliesin as something only formally published after the "end" of the story (Taliesin's death).

Frank the Wanderer

[dgan]

I agree. However, I think this is the question - is that just an excuse or did SRL do that on purpose? Certainly, its plausible that Charis went back and added things afterward, but is that what SRL actually intended?

I am interested in what Gwal said - because I remember at the end the narrative tells about her at the funeral, which obviously wasn't during her pregnancy. So that part she must have added. But adding to the end is different than adding things into the middle - especially when you consider she was writing it by hand. It's not like she just pushed the >insert< button on her keyboard.

I guess what I'm saying is that if SRL meant to suggest that Charis did not write it in its entirety while 'being a captive in her own house', wouldn't he have made it a point to mention somewhere that she was revising or editing her book after the fact?

I don't know...maybe we actually found a Lawhead break in continuity!! Would that be a first? Probably not, but it sure doesn't happen often...

[frankwanderer]

Not necessarily.

The idea of clearly-designated "revision editions" and such is a rather modern one. In older times, additions and revisions of text by both the author and others were normal practices, and were frequently not either documented or even regarded as separate from the original. One has to keep in mind that authors rarely wrote just one version of a given text, even in the “first” draft (largely because, in the spirit of your observation, there is no easy way to "backspace" in a handwritten document either). Since the practice of writing books was measured in months, rather then weeks or days, even during a “first drafting” authors reportedly went back and added annotations and even rewrote whole pages of text based on additional thoughts, ideas, and memories that only came out later. The end result is that “first draftings” prior to (and even during) the 20th century resembled more a disorganized stack of notes, edits, and even doodles rather then anything like a finished document or book. In order to become a book, those notes (the author's draft, if you will) would then be subsequently re-scribed (and not always, or even often, by the original author) at least once or twice before it was ever “published”. Since a book the size of Taliesin likely didn't go through this entire process in the time that Charis was pregnant (let alone the more limited time that she was incapacitated), I think we can accept the assumption that it didn't reach a final form before Merlin was born and Taliesin subsequently was killed.

Further, it was typical of many historical authors to “play” with their own works, even to the point of reissuing a new version of the work every year for a few years. Pages could be recopied (often with smaller writing) to account for changes (that smaller writing compared to previous and subsequent pages is often the only evidence to a historian that a change was made in the document). Significantly, not all changes were made by the author. Scribes were known for “editing” works to their own tastes, without noting the changes or the original text. Those authors that sold their work to a patron occasionally saw that patron subsequently release new versions of the original work with changes made by the patron (technically the owner of the work, though generally uncreditted for making any changes at all). Finally, if the work was ever translated from one language to another, all bets were off. Even if the translation was relatively faithful (and that was rare), there are shades of meaning that are always lost moving from one language to another.

These are all important reasons for why historical research is very difficult (particularly when it comes to dating documents by their content). Very few historical documents can be easily said to carry to the modern ear the “original intent of the author”. Mr. Lawhead may or may not have explicitly offered those themes. However, as a historian, he is undoubtedly familiar with these challenges and I could certainly see him writing with that point of view in mind (whether consciously or unconsciously). In any case, since the account is allegedly written by Charis, and there isn’t a modern voice accompanying the story (like there is in other works), it makes sense that there wouldn’t be any mention of the factors I’ve noted previously. To Charis, this would have been quite normal (and therefore not noteworthy); and further, it is entirely realistic that the actual book was not compiled (and translated, I might add) into the “form” we know today until long after any initial writing (possibly not until long after Charis’ disappearance).

Ironically, it was more modern inventions (as well as the evolution of the modern publishing company and author rights to their works and such) that encouraged our modern-day practice of documenting "editions". In fact, a lot of historical documents have only recently been identified as “editions”; they weren’t acknowledged as such much before the last 20 to 30 years. Some of the most active, and acrimonious, debates currently circulating in historical scholarship surround the designations of “editions”.

Frank the Wanderer

[dgan]

OK, I see what you're getting at. She's in bed, and she writes the first page saying she is 'a captive in her own house.' Yet, the book itself is written and revised by her for years after - she just never mentions when and where she's writing it. I get it, but I still wonder why SRL wouldn't have maybe put a blurb in Merlin or something mentioning how she was still working on the book...

I mean, it is one thing for the 'character author' to understand something, but the actual author - Lawhead - would normally explain that something to his readers. Next time he's on here, I'm going to ask him..

[frankwanderer]

It is true that there is little mention in Merlin of Charis writing a book. But then, there are also whole swaths (in terms of time "in setting" passing) of both Merlin and Arthur where we don't see Charis at all. So I'm not certain how much we can really conclude from the apparent omission of information in that context.

Frank the Wanderer

[Gwalchmai]

As far as I understand it, each of these sections that come down to us are transcripts written by the various individuals with the exception of Merlin himself. Now, there are several holes spread throughout all the works, and then we see Merlin come forward to fill in some of the blanks like we see in "Pendragon." Therefore I would think its fair to assume that Merlin holds in his possessions all of these people's accounts and has editted them in such a fashion that they create a strong coherrant story. So any breaks in the story, were most likly filled in by Merlin during a quick revision. And if you want to include Avalon within the series, Embries states "... it wasn't your name the first time around." or something to that affect. So that right there shows that not everything was revealed or that some of the things were altered.

[gracebridges]

All of these are possible solutions. I think however that SRL probably didn't do this intentionally - seems like one of those things that "happens" as you go along, and as such, it's very natural, and also leaves plenty of room for other books to fill gaps, as we've seen. Very organic, nicely done, even though the timeline gets rather muddled later on. Taliesin is still my number one book