Saturday, April 14

PAPERBACK TIGER

 
It is not for us to say whether it is a coincidence, but the announced release on paperback of all-time New-Venice  “litertainment” bestseller “Aurorarama” in these hours of poletical tension, seems to be rather well-timed.
It would be not be the first time that the powers that be would use works of art to trigger, steer, or distract from the public debate, the Council of Seven’s past patronage the Cliquot’s Cub Clubbers or last year’s Elphinstone Exhibition being famous cases in point.
Accordingly, some voices are quick to denounce the fact that the novel (notoriously suspected to have been written by one of our citizens under a barely credible french-souding pen name) originates from the very close circles around the Regent-Doge, who is the transparent hero of this heady saga.  An epic of the city’s refoundation, it is, to its critics, nothing less than a work of vile propaganda for the current regime.

 
 In a brave effort to remain anonymous, “Jean-Christophe Valtat”,
and his bottle of compressed English.

Or so says, Pr Corkring, a Full-Fledged fellow at Doges College in an interview for the Arctic Illustrated News  : “ This rather bloated penny dreadful has no other purpose than to blacken the memory of the Council of Seven and of its loyal servants and to extoll the dubious merits of the Orsini clique.”
The Doges’ entourage has been quick to refute this allegation, through Gabriel d’Allier, the current Prime-Preceptor for the Dauphin-Doges, who answered our queries through pneumatic post. “ I seem to remember than Pr. Corkring is a literature teacher. His first degree reading is a sad indictment of the current trend in Higher Education. It is well known books worthy of that name has four levels of meaning, and he did himself justice by picking the most blatantly vulgar one.”
As to the recurring rumours according to which he would  himself be the author of “Aurorarama”, Mr d’Allier dismissed them unambiguously  as “fiction.” 
However, as a gesture to appease these “futile debates”, the Cultural Council of the Commonwealth has announced that “Aurorarama” will be only available from May one – two weeks after the results of the poll.

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