"The Big Frog Theory" - an excerpt
A new edition of my Magic Realism novel, "The Big Frog Theory", is out on the 19th April.
In this excerpt the main character, Neville, is visiting a Fauve Exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. (Pierre is a small porcelain lapel badge in the form of a Pierrot.)
Turning left at the top of the escalator, he found himself confronted by more of the posters he had seen at the entrance, then, turning right into the exhibition area, came face-to-face with the pictures themselves. There was a display on the wall offering a general introduction to the exhibition and the artists whose works were on show. Despite the paucity of Neville's knowledge about Art, he recognised a couple of the names.
As he wandered slowly to the first wall, his eye was caught by a number of paintings by Andre Derain. They were landscapes; bright, attractive pieces that Neville found instantly appealing. Here was the quality missing from the Place du Tertre! One piece in particular drew him. It depicted a number of trees in the foreground of a brightly coloured landscape. According to the display, it was painted in 1906 and called — appropriately enough — "Les Arbres".
He walked up to it and stopped three feet from the canvas. The trees were bright, wiry things in mauve and bold reds, and the landscape danced before his eyes with its bold brush strokes.
'Enticing, isn't it?’ Pierre had emerged somehow from the folds of Neville's jacket and appeared to be admiring the work too. 'Derain has a certain vitality,' he continued, 'a certain rawness, perhaps. As if he is in touch with — something.'
Not bothering to reply, Neville leaned a little forwards and took one single step closer.
His foot came to rest on a surface that felt entirely different from the hardness of the museum's polished tiles. He looked down and found it softly embedded between great tufts of grass. But the grass was not green; it was amber and ochre. And looking up, he saw four trees immediately in front of him. The one nearest, to his left, was light purple deepening to a dark blue base; the others, various rusts and reds. He pushed out his hand and felt the firmness of the trunk.
About his body, he sensed the heat of a summer's day; the sun shone brightly in the pale blue and yellow sky, and there was a breeze which carried with it the hint of water. In the distance rose mountains of blue and indigo.
He took a another step and moved further into the field. Just beyond the clump of trees — in whose midst he now stood — the land slipped away slightly, down to a yellow field. Beyond this field and some more trees — was that the green of figs or dates? — the river.
Lured on by the shape of the land, its invitation to explore, Neville continued walking, down through the yellow field and across the pale blue shadows cast by the dark trees with their solid fruits, pink in the sun.
The river flowed in blocks of solid colour, purple, blue. Away in the distance, riding on a mass of red, the ferry — little more than a splash of brown — plied its trade to the far bank. Neville looked down. His shoes had become misshapen rectangles of blue, and his crimson legs were apparently suffering from years of exaggerated rickets. He felt fine.
Over his shoulder, the four trees he had first encountered were now away across the field and up the hill. Ahead, beyond the river, the mountains; and to either side, stretching away, the strange mosaic of the landscape.
As he reached the river, the ferry was making preparations to leave. The ferryman — a misshapen man of black and blue — beckoned him facelessly, and with confident steps Neville climbed on board the strange vessel. It seemed to have no definite sides or edges to it, just layer upon layer of reds and fleshy pinks. He could make out no definite hull or waist, but managed to find a seat (a spotted white oblong) on which to sit. Silently the ferryman pulled on his oars, and with the wind pushing at the magenta and cobalt sail, they moved out onto the river.
The journey to the far bank was over in moments. Neville had hardly time to take in the sensation of travelling across a rippling surface of blue — the boat trailing a wake of green and yellow — when they arrived. Immediately in front of him, the mountains rose ever higher, their mass darker and more solid now. A road — strangely white — beckoned him towards the mountain pass, and effortlessly he carried on.
As he moved further into the hillside, he noticed that the colours had become more solid; they had begun to be defined by black lines around their perimeter, as if to hold the colours in. Gone was the freedom and the flowing beauty from the other side of the river; now things seemed a little darker. The yellow had gone from the sky which was a deeper blue; the lightness of the fields had moved towards orange; and Neville noticed that in one or two places, deeper shadows had begun to appear. Where there had been nothing but colour before — the blue shadows of the green fruit trees — now came true shade.
The road began to sweep downhill, and Neville was carried onwards by it. He tried to look behind, to check his progress, but to no avail. His legs were no longer irregularly shaped, but solid and more exact things; and on the white road, he had begun to cast a shadow.
The road swept down through the mountain pass, and as he travelled onwards he moved further into a darker landscape. He had begun to feel a little cold, and donned and buttoned his jacket against a chill breeze which had sprung up. The sky menaced before him; now ebony, it bore nothing but the promise of storm.
He turned a corner and was suddenly out of the landscape and into a bleak monotone flatness. The earth was a dull grey now, and large rectangular shapes of buildings loomed on either side. Black windows offered him nothing, and their long shadows cast a deep cloth in front of him. On the wall of one building, a plain clock began to dissolve under his gaze, its numbers melting down the brown brickwork. Ahead on the horizon — and how far was that? — strange creatures appeared to be moving in his direction.
The empty space became swallowed up the shadows of the building, and he found himself in an ever darker alleyway. Ahead was a single door through which he seemed compelled to go.
From one place of desolation, he entered another. Now there was no sky, and no walls. All seemed to blend together. Even the definitions between things had begun to blur in a monotony of tones. He suddenly longed for a splash of yellow; for a hint of green. He looked to his lapel, but Pierre was invisible in this light.
Ahead, from what appeared to be some kind of kitchen, came the throbbing sounds of a boiler as it beat against an invisible wall. Neville tried to stop, to turn back, but his progress was remorseless. Suddenly the boiler wrenched itself from the wall, spewing black water in his path. Steam poured from its pipes as it lowered itself to the ground, then, uncertainly at first, began to walk towards him.
Neville could see the flames within it burning ferociously; but even these possessed little colour. The boiler began to make better progress, growing larger before his eyes. The noise it was generating had become almost deafening, and Neville began to wince at the intrusion. He looked for help, for an exit, stairway, anything; but there was nothing he could distinguish, nothing remained.
The boiler stretched out its pipe-like hands, spraying water and steam towards him. It roared monstrously, and all Neville could do was to find his voice and scream.
Captivating :)