| Toyin writes: Stephen Lawhead : From Authuriana to Knowledge Quests Across Time and Space
I eagerly anticipate seeing what Lawhead is doing with the "quest for secret knowledge" theme made famous by Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame and other novelists and developed in terms of traveling in various time zones by Michael Scott in his Alchemist series.
I find Lawhead most fascinating for the wonderful adaptation of Arthurian narrative in his Pendragon Cycle, where history, myth, spirituality and even mysticism converge, a climax perhaps of a similar integration of motifs in his other novelistic sequences.
Lawhead's Skin Map: Visualizing a Quest Across Space and time in Images and Words
The cover of this novel is most intriguing, made even more so in its resonance with the summary of the book. A figure is racing towards a background where can be seen monuments from various eras in time and various civilizations-on the right, the pyramids of Egypt, to the left the English Houses of Parliament-what kind of journey could take one to these two disparate places in one itinerary?
Clearly a journey involving a quest for enigmatic ancient knowledge-the pyramids-and centres of contemporary global power-the Houses of Parliament.
Magnifying the sense of drama and mystery evoked by the dynamic image of the running figure framed by the two monuments is the blood red light that bathes the tableau, intensified by a core of gold and white, in which an assortment of radiant inscriptions suggesting symbols glowing brilliant white are suspended in space as an eye gazes at the reader from the top of the page.
Evocations of gnosis-the eye suggesting an unusually penetrating form of insight beyond physical vision but symbolized by it, reinforced by the abstract symbols and the enigmatic hulk of the pyramids?
The book's summary describes the story as a journey traversing time and space in search of a map traced on someone's skin, a quest that is a "unique blend of epic treasure hunt, ancient history, alternate realities, cutting-edge physics, philosophy, and mystery", which reveals "the Skin Map itself is not the ultimate goal [but] is merely the beginning of a vast and marvelous quest for a prize beyond imagining."
That thrilling summation suggests this is certainly going to be a great read.
Map on Skin, Self and Knowing
The motif of map inscription on skin opens up enormous possibilities in terms of identification of self with the cognitive positioning represented by a map as it unifies the physical configuration represented by space, the cognitive configuration represented by the understanding and structural depiction of space and the reverberations of this understanding in terms of an expanding scope of possibilities increasingly distant from their evocative roots in the significatory powers of the map.
The Knowledge Quest Motif in Contemporary Western Fiction and the Epic Examples of Dante Aligheri and Ibn Arabi
Susanna Clarke in the novel Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell and the Islamic mystic, poet and theologian and Ibn Arabi have used the skin inscription motif so powerfully in a way that oils my anticipation to what Lawhead does with it.
Andy McDermott's series of ancient civilization adventure novels, from The Hunt for Atlantis to Empire of Gold to A J Marshall, who takes the ancient civilizations and ancient knowledge motif into the future and outer space in his Kalahari series, Michael Scott whose Alchemist sequence scours various civilizations through roots in Western esotericism and myth, all these may be seen as variations of the sublime achievement of Dante's epic poem, the Divine Comedy, and possibly also of Ibn Arabi, in which knowledge of ultimate being is pursued through a journey through the totality of human possibility.
Related to these terrestrial and outer space spanning works are others that explore the possibilities of contemporary technology as an interface to vast and complex knowledge, such as Natasha Mostert's novel Season of the Witch, which unifies the pre-modern Western knowledge system of the art of memory and Dan Brown's Digital Fortress, centred in computer coding.
At the heart of all these works is the quest for knowledge as a key to vast power, both benign and deadly.
These modern works are not among those described as the most accomplished examples of literature. I enjoy them hugely and want to know what makes the more intellectually prestigious works different from them.
Creating the Resonance Inspired by Dante and the Potency of a Modern Thriller
Can one create a modern Dante inspired vision using these modern forms? One Dante translator presents Dante that way.
Image and Text in Relation to Visual Art as a Template for Exploring and Telling Stories
I hope to do something related, but original, perhaps telling my own story using a compilation of text in relation to various works of art.
The cosmic and contemplative evocations of visual artists Brother Owosu-Ankomah, Victor Ekpuk, Amoako Peter, Sean Woodward, Roy Lawaetz, Victor Eze, Osi Audu, Uche Edochie, Belkis Ayón and possibly other discoveries made as the journey goes on, calls to me with promises of creating a journey to ultimacy, encompassing the totality of being in its particulars, culminating in its integration.
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