My own imaginary book, sort of
Mar. 9th, 2011 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellKes: I was thinking of submitting this to the
Lost Pages Imaginary Book contest
http://chizine.com/chizinepub/contests/lost-pages/index.php
but it's supposed to be 150 words, and I'm way over that.
The Book House by Hurst Hathorne Montague and Richard Clipson Sturges
Built in 1899, The Book House is located in Boston’s Bak Bay and exists as an eerie synthesis of poetry and architecture. It was designed by the decadent poet Hurst Hathorne Montague and the architect Richard Clison Sturges. Montague called the house Mnemosyne, and it's numerous doors, windows, fireplaces, and staircases act as a record of the words and images from what Montague referred to as his master work.
Each individual door, window, etc.--all outstanding examples of the art nouveau style--is said to reflect a notable incident in Montague's (frequently scandalous) life. The most infamous example is the door to the master bedroom which has carved upon it two images of Montague's mistress (whom Montague also referred to as “Mnemosyne” in his poetry), the image on the outside of the door showing her reimagined as a scantily-clad Daphne in flight, while the door as seen from inside the bedroom shows her kneeling and entirely unclad with her unbound hair transforming into leaves. Montague's mistress was later to hang herself from a tree in the garden soon after Montague's disappearance.
Harvard art professor Elizabeth Blackwood states in her book _Memory and Death in The Book House_ that the doors, windows, and stairways, represent Montague's own psychic tarot of twenty-two arcana. When art critic Henry Rose dismissed this theory by claiming that there are only twenty-one of these "tarot cards," Blackwood countered that the twenty-second is the door through which Montague passed during the night he disappeared. Despite the fact that Book House was filled with approximately a hundred of Montague’s bohemian friends and acquaintances, and that at least a dozen people were in the library when Montague exited through the fateful door through which he was never to return, the uncanny door has never been discovered. Descriptions of it’s style and dimensions vary wildly, but all the witnesses agree that It had carved upon it the tarot image of the Hanged Man, but with Montague’s own laughing saturnine features.
Lost Pages Imaginary Book contest
http://chizine.com/chizinepub/contests/lost-pages/index.php
but it's supposed to be 150 words, and I'm way over that.
The Book House by Hurst Hathorne Montague and Richard Clipson Sturges
Built in 1899, The Book House is located in Boston’s Bak Bay and exists as an eerie synthesis of poetry and architecture. It was designed by the decadent poet Hurst Hathorne Montague and the architect Richard Clison Sturges. Montague called the house Mnemosyne, and it's numerous doors, windows, fireplaces, and staircases act as a record of the words and images from what Montague referred to as his master work.
Each individual door, window, etc.--all outstanding examples of the art nouveau style--is said to reflect a notable incident in Montague's (frequently scandalous) life. The most infamous example is the door to the master bedroom which has carved upon it two images of Montague's mistress (whom Montague also referred to as “Mnemosyne” in his poetry), the image on the outside of the door showing her reimagined as a scantily-clad Daphne in flight, while the door as seen from inside the bedroom shows her kneeling and entirely unclad with her unbound hair transforming into leaves. Montague's mistress was later to hang herself from a tree in the garden soon after Montague's disappearance.
Harvard art professor Elizabeth Blackwood states in her book _Memory and Death in The Book House_ that the doors, windows, and stairways, represent Montague's own psychic tarot of twenty-two arcana. When art critic Henry Rose dismissed this theory by claiming that there are only twenty-one of these "tarot cards," Blackwood countered that the twenty-second is the door through which Montague passed during the night he disappeared. Despite the fact that Book House was filled with approximately a hundred of Montague’s bohemian friends and acquaintances, and that at least a dozen people were in the library when Montague exited through the fateful door through which he was never to return, the uncanny door has never been discovered. Descriptions of it’s style and dimensions vary wildly, but all the witnesses agree that It had carved upon it the tarot image of the Hanged Man, but with Montague’s own laughing saturnine features.
