Deconstructing the Novel, Part 1 – The Shattered Visage Lies

BRIAN SAYS:

 

Okay, after an intermission, we’re back. Let’s just blame the small hiatus on vacations, shall we? Anyway, if you can’t tell by this installment’s title, we’re going to start going behind the scenes of our first published novel, The Shattered Visage Lies, including answering the most asked question we’ve been receiving about the book – what does the title mean? Don’t worry, we’ll tell you what it means. Well, what we think it means, anyway. In case you haven’t read it yet, feel free to take a moment to grab yourself a copy, or an eVersion to peruse. It’s okay. We’ll wait. Have it? Read it? Good. Let’s move on.

 

When it comes to the great debate of Marvel vs. DC, I find myself on the Marvel side. I won’t bore you with ALL of the details as to why, just one: how the denizens of their respective universes react to super-heroes. Up until recently, the citizens of DC’s United States love their super heroes. The general populace of Marvel’s United States does not. How do you think we, as a nation, would really react to those with super powers? How would you react to a real life Super Man?

 

One of the ideas we wanted to explore was the classic, “What would you do if you had super powers?” Don’t forget – you can’t choose which one(s) you get. You get them, now deal with it! You might even be a half-animal / half-human mutation. Would you tell anyone that you have them? Heck no! Would you put on a mask and fight crime? Doubtful. I think most people would be afraid of them at first, then try to figure out how to use them to their advantage.

 

I’d like to think of myself as a good person. (Okay, I’ll give you a moment to laugh.) I certainly don’t think I’d become villainous or create an evil lair or have henchmen if I had some kind of super power. But I do know I would try to find ways to make money from it! Telekinesis? Vegas, baby! I’d get that roulette ball to make me a millionaire! Telepathy? Still Vegas, just at the poker tables. Mind Control? Yep, same place – the Vegas poker tables. Super speed? Lucrative sports contract! Super strength? Same lucrative sports contract, just different sport. But, that’s just me.

 

I’ve always found origin stories fascinating, because it’s usually an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance. And it would always make me mad when, in the comic books, a character’s origin story is told within a few pages. Inevitably, they would always jump into a set of tights and don a coordinated mask and either fight crime or cause it. But why? The motivation behind their actions was what I was more interested in. That was one of the themes we wanted to explore in this book. We didn’t limit the demographic of power receivers to pretty faced teenagers, either. We gave them to the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the religious, the apathetic. Of course, it wouldn’t be a super-powers book without bringing these characters together!

 

Okay, we decided to write the book to see what happens to a person’s id, ego and super-ego when given super abilities. So, where did we get the title, The Shattered Visage Lies? Well, I’ll let Chris explain that one….

 

CHRIS SAYS:

 

Hello! So Brian covered the topic of super powers and in so doing put his on display: an unconscionable belief in Freud. Sad. But that’s not why you’re here, is it? Of course not. Where did we come up with the title of the book? What was the underlying theme that we hoped readers would pick up on? Well, I’m glad I asked….

 

In the case of The Shattered Visage Lies, many of you are likely familiar with Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet, “Ozymandias” and have correctly guessed that this is the origin of our novel’s title. It’s a favorite of both Brian and I and we wanted to pay a little bit of a tribute to some historical literature, but that’s the boring part of the story. “Ozymandias” has a sister poem. Shelley and his friend, Horace Smith, wrote dueling sonnets with the same title, both incorporating similar base themes. Smith’s poem is a bit more circular, suggesting that the future and the past are related and never as far from each other’s view as we might hope. A horribly understudied poem, Smith later renamed it and, alas, many have forgotten the poem’s origin.

 

In the case of Shelley’s sonnet, however, not much need be said about the poem’s power of longevity. Whimsically enough, this is the poem’s central point – that the endurance of art outshines the works of leaders and empires. It is here that we find the true reason for the name of our book. It is a message Brian and I agree is crucial to our continuance as a functional society…a message we would be wise to share with politicians and kings alike for it is the nature of rulers to be granted power, which causes them to seek more. According to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Hubris is the stepping stone to inhumanity and we all benefit from its departure.

 

Now that we’ve discussed the title, let’s move on to the major theme of the book and how that relates to the title. In essence, it’s about deconstructing personality. Science can map every person’s physical being, breaking a body up into its most basic components. But what about personality? Is there a way to unravel a person’s personality and examine it in a fractured state to understand our thoughts and emotions or are we simply too filled with interwoven pieces to allow for our personality to be untangled and examined? “The mirror never lies” unless it’s broken, so if you’re looking at a shattered visage in a mirror, are you really looking at yourself? If we add this component or remove that one, do we stay the “same person” or is a new persona created? It’s intriguing…intriguing enough that it inspired us to write a book about it.

 

Until next time!