S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 52

MS 408

Books with mysterious reps, bizarre origins or that contain puzzles of any kind fascinate me. What's not to like about the world's longest secret novel, created by the incredible self-taught writer/illustrator Henry Darger, or curses like the one that supposedly haunts Sangorski's bejewelled edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, or exactly what sort of secrets Ripley really put in his alchemist's scroll? Yet no book quite matches the alluring (and enduring) mystery of The Voynich manuscript.

We've known about the Voynich manuscript since 1639, and thanks to carbon dating we are reasonably sure it was written around 600 years ago. That's all anyone can say for sure about the book because it has never been read. We don't know who wrote it, or why. The book is also handwritten in an unknown language that has never been translated, and illustrated with drawings of things that have yet to be identified or fathomed -- and there are a small number pages missing from it.

Many people believe the Voynich manuscript is an ancient hoax filled with gibberish. Others think it might have been written in a deliberately complicated code to hide important secrets from that era. It is beautiful to look at, and when you do inspect the lovely writing and interesting illustrations they do seem like something we should recognize, as if the book might be copied from a more sophisticated work by someone who didn't understand the language in which the original was written. There's a lovely feeling of naivete about it, too, and it's not a stretch for me to imagine a self-taught but otherwise illiterate artist creating this book.

The Voynich manuscript likely predates the Gutenberg printing press, and I agree with experts who don't believe it is a hoax or gibberish because back then it was very time-consuming and expensive to create books. All the work had to be done by hand, often by monks in monasteries. This book doesn't have that Eau de Scriptorium about it, however. It's no Da Vinci notebook, either, but it reminds me of him.

Here's my admittedly unscientific theory about what this book really is: a practice workbook. At this particular time in history most books were created by copying other books, and if you wanted to do that for a living, you obviously had to practice. If you look at Arabic botanical journals written in the same time period, like this one, you see a startling resemblance between them and the Voynich manuscript.

Now imagine an amateur or apprentice scribe (possibly a young one), who didn't speak or understand Arabic, copying Islamic calligraphy from a botanic journal. The words weren't important because he couldn't understand them, so his writing might be an archaic form of lorem ipsum text. If this budding book maker was practicing his drawing by copying the plants, charts and other contents from the original work he probably didn't understand them and/or had never seen them. Since it was just practice he might have even embellished them.

Since I'm not a scholar of ancient manuscripts I can't prove my theory, and I'll be the first to admit it's probably wrong. The thing is, it's fun to guess. So what do you think the Voynich manuscript is? Let us know in comments.

Steady

This short film demonstrates the lost art of painting a miniature portrait:

Painting a Portrait Miniature from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: More on Ghost Writer (click on the title to go to the .pdf), with new material beginning on page 87.

For more details on Just Write Thursdays, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: windujedi

PBW's Book(s) of the Month

Due to the holiday and the computer crash I didn't have a chance to post my pick as book of the month for June. I also spent a couple days dithering before I decided my pick would have to be a tie between two titles I read last month, and they are:

   

Pick#1 is Derelict by LJ Cohen, my latest revisited read, which I thought was spectacular the first time I read it last year.

Since Derelict wasn't a new read for me I thought I should also choose something from the new books I read last month, which is why pick#2 for June is In a French Kitchen ~ Tales and Traditions of Everyday Home Cooking in France by Susan Herrmann Loomis, which I received as an ARC and reviewed as part of LT's Early Reviewers program.

So what have you all been reading? Any recommendations you want to make? Let us know in comments.

Up & Running

I've finally got the new computer up and running, and the usable parts of the old one here will be donated to our pubic high school. I'm also checking with a local group that recycles old/scrap computer stuff to see if they can do something with the old tower.

It's always a bit of a wrench for me to say good-bye to a computer, especially one that worked so well for so many years. Any computer I've had has served as my work partner, secretary, creative collaborator, idea safe and window to the world outside my little corner of the country, so I usually get pretty attached. On this one I wrote a lot of stories that made me happy; probably more so than any other computer I've ever had. I was pretty hard on it, too; I moved it all over the house, and the dogs even knocked it over once. Add to that all the power failures, virus attacks and software glitches it survived, and still it never gave me a bit of grief.

Time to move on and figure out all the stuff that came with the new one. Farewell, old pal. You will be missed.

Rebuild

An update on the technical difficulties: after five years of faithful service my old computer is not fixable, so that's the bad news. The good news is I managed to find a new tower -- on sale, no less -- and swapped it out last night. Today I'm transferring files and software to the new system.

A couple of early observations:

Overall I think Windows 8 is beyond stupid. I already hate the jumpy picture thing that replaced the start and program main menu. It took me like an hour to get rid of all the vendor crap that came factory-installed, including the idiot XBox games. Don't even get me started on how much fun it is to try to get out of a window you don't want to be in, or the fact that every living thing I close still saves itself as a miniature window on my task bar, so I have to close it twice.

I have nine zillion apps. I don't want any of them. Why are there apps on my damn computer anyway?

I'm now having to jump from using Word 2007 right into using Word 2013. Prayers requested.

I love Adobe Acrobat. I pop in the disc, install, done. No problems. No having to go online and register my life away. Adobe should be designing Windows.

My ancient photoshop program installed and is operating with no problems, which was kind of a miracle when you consider it's almost ten years old. I expect this will be the last computer I'll be able to install it on, so I'm going to have to make an effort to learn the Adobe photoshop program now.

I'm on a connected cloud thing now -- I don't know how, why, or even what that is -- but they connected me. To something cloudish. Look, don't tell me what it is, okay? I'll probably freak out.

Semi-Scorched

I hope you're all having a good weekend. I am except for one problem -- last night my main computer crashed repeatedly, and while I've mostly gotten it back it's definitely getting ready to take a more permanent dive. Luckily I keep everything backed up, and I should be able to keep limping along until I get a new tower. That will hopefully be today, but just in case I'm putting PBW on technical hiatus for now.

Let me use this opportunity to nag you all about backing up your files. If you haven't in a while, stop reading this post and go do it, please, and try to make it a regular part of your weekly routine.

See you once I get this sorted out.

Wishing You

Green Dreams

This short film shows you the very precise, painstaking process involved in transforming emeralds from big clunky rocks to sparkling gemstones (with background music, for those of you at work):

THE LANGUAGE OF EMERALDS from maya stark on Vimeo.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: More on Ghost Writer (click on the title to go to the .pdf), with new material beginning on page 82.

For more details on Just Write Thursdays, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: windujedi