The Books: “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” – ‘Dragons’ Breath’ (A.S. Byatt)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Still excerpting the short story fairy-tale collection by AS Byatt (my favorite – obviously!) – called The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye – This excerpt is from “Dragons’ Breath”. I love a story that starts with “Once upon a time …” And, for me, this eerie story – about a village that is, over time, slowly threatened by a herd (a herd?) of dragons – who descend upon them inevitably from the mountains – is most wonderful in its ending. Which I won’t reveal here. There’s not a plot twist or a revelation – but it’s where Byatt chooses to take the story, in terms of tone – she chooses to make the whole story a contemplation on stories, and why we tell each other stories, and why human beings need stories. It’s so beautiful – it has a sweep of time in it … like – how did people talk in the aftermath of Vesuvius blowing up? What stories did they pass on? And more than just the details of the story: what did they make it mean? We all make things MEAN something – and there is no one correct interpretation. It also becomes about – how a catastrophe can make life, in the aftermath, even the drudgery, seem beautiful and precious. So once upon a time … some dragons came down from the mountains …

Here’s an excerpt.

Excerpt from The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye – “Dragons’ Breath”.

The first sign may have been the hunters’ reports of unusual snow-slides in the high mountains. Or maybe it was, as some of them later claimed, dawns that were hectically rosy, sunsets that flared too crimson. They began to hear strange rumblings and crackings up there, above the snow-line, which they discussed, as they discussed every strange and every accustomed sound, with their repetitious measuring commentary that made Jack and Harry grind their teeth with rage at the sameness of it all. After a time it became quite clear that the rim of the mountains directly above the village, both by day and by night, was flickering and dancing with a kind of fiery haze, a smoky salmon-pink, a burst here and there of crimson and gold. The colours were rather beautiful, they agreed as they watched from their doorsteps, the bright ribbons of colour flashing through the grey-blue smokiness of the air, and then subsiding. Below this flaming rim the white of the snow was giving way to the gaunt grey of wet rock, and the shimmer – and yes, steam – of new water.

They must have been afraid from the beginning: they could see well enough that large changes were taking place, that everything was on the move, earth and air, fire and water. But the fear was mixed great deal of excited interest, and with even a certain pleasure in novelty, and with aesthetic pleasure, of which many of them were later ashamed. Hunting-parties went out in the direction of the phenomenon and came back to report that the hillside seemed to be on the move, and was boiling and burning, so that it was hard to see through the very thick clouds of ash and smoke and steam that hung over the movement. The mountains were not, as far as anyone knew, volcanic, but the lives of men are short beside the history of rocks and stones, so they wondered and debated.

After some time they saw on the skyline lumps like the knuckles of a giant fist, six lumps, where nothing had been, lumps that might represent objects the size of large sheds or small houses, at that distance. And over the next few weeks the lumps advanced, in smoke and spitting sparks, regularly and slowly, side by side, without hesitation or deviation, down the mountainside. Behind each tump trailed a long, unbending tube, as it were, or furrow-ridge, or earth-work, coming over the crest of the mountain, over the rim of their world, pouring slowly on and down.

Some brave men went out to prospect but were forced back by clouds of scalding steam and showers of burning grit. Two friends, bold hunters both, went out and never returned.

One day a woman in her garden said: — “It is almost as though it was not landslides but creatures, great worms with fat heads creeping down on us. Great fat, nodding bald heads, with knobs and spouts and whelks and whorls on them, and nasty hot wet eyes in great caverns in their muddy flesh, that glint blood-red, twelve eyes, can you see them, and twelve hairy nostrils on blunt snouts made of grey mud.” And after conversations and comparisons and pointings and descriptions they could all see them, and they were just as she said, six fat, lolling, loathsome heads, trailing heavy bodies as long as the road from their village to the next, trailing them with difficulty, even with pain, it seemed, but unrelenting and deadly slow.