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“El castillo de las estrellas” [Googled translation of the review here] by Enrique Joven is a science-y thriller, with the Voynich Manuscript placed right at the heart of the story. Once again, my heart sinks yet further towards my toes as I read that the plot revolves around a Jesuit scientist (*sigh*), as well as an astronomer (the same profession as the author’s) and an English teacher working in Mexico, all three protagonists caught up in a action-packed fugue danced beneath the gaze of ancient spirits (or something along those lines).

However, the good thing about the book is that it apparently puts the VMs within the context of early modern astronomy, which – given the whole of the astro section and the sun/moon symmetries, which are especially apparent once you’ve fixed up the page order in Quire 9 – has to be a real possibility. Also, there seems to be a lot going on, which is normally a good thing in novels. 🙂

Here‘s the publisher’s (Flash-heavy) page on the book: there’s a nice little quiz to do there, if your Spanish and knowledge of astrophysics are up for some fun (I kid you not). Here’s a YouTube interview with the author; his UK literary agent’s pitch for the book; and a 5-page Spanish PDF from the original publisher’s site (though it only recites late-16th century astronomical history, don’t struggle through it looking for any insight on the VMs on my account).

I don’t know: it all sounds a lot like Enrique Jovan has had to labour long and hard to bring the reader up to scratch on the VMs (which probably accounts for the high page count) within its presumed historical context (I’m guessing the author has plumped for 16th century, but I could be wrong). Perhaps that prolix mix – of journalism and plot – is the novelistic curse of the Voynich from which novelists have to engineer an escape, lest the reader gets trapped with them? 😮

Literature and the Voynich Manuscript remain uneasy bedfellows: whereas things like the Knights Templar or even (spare me, oh Lord!) medieval precursors of speculative masonry have a body of archives and associated respectable academics, the Voynich Manuscript has Rene Zandbergen and not much else. It’s all a bit empty in Voynichland, credential-wise. 🙁

Yet Voynichologists rarely have much of an interest in novels: and anyway, they don’t (as a group) exactly amount to anything that might sensibly be called “influential”. So: novels making use of the Voynich Manuscript would have to be aimed at the mainstream, while simultaneously providing a mini-introduction to the (real) VMs to bring readers up to speed. I have to say that this seems a fairly awkward mix, which would only work under certain conditions.

By way of comparison, the joy of “The Rule of Four” to me was that its two authors were trying to bring art history to life – but really, they were non-typical novelists, weaving a very particular kind of novel around the fascinating Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. If their next novel turns out to be based on the Voynich Manuscript, I think they would probably be able to carry it off: but I have to sound the warning that most other novelists would probably fail.

(Another danger is that a tiny piece of evidence emerges about the VMs before your novel finally goes to press [there’s usually a horribly long lead time in publishing] which causes one or more of the art historical assumptions you’ve used throughout the book to collapse abruptly. )

Anyway… “The Voynich Covenant” by “ex-special agent” Richard D. Weber is currently up for grabs for publishers: some foreign language rights have already been sold (good news for Bulgarian Voynich-novel-o-philes). There’s more on the author’s “dark protocols” website (if you can stand the visual clutter). Going through his book pitch, my heart inevitably sank just a little when an enigmatic stranger called “R. C. Christian” and a Jesuit priest (a hearty staple of Victorian penny dreadfuls: at least Dan Brown had the sense to upset Opus Dei instead) each pop up, but what can you do? To me, part of the thrill of the novel is seeing how its author takes a set of cliches and sets them on fire: but put too many of them in a row (like “beautiful forensic profiler Madison Chase”) and will it ever catch ablaze?

What should we call all these novels? ‘Voy-niche’ publishing? As a publisher myself (albeit on a small scale), I find the whole idea quite awful: the Voynich Manuscript still falls short of being a cliche well-known enough for a novelist to be able to turn on its head with any dramatic effect. It’s too marginal: the last big mainstream VMs view (Gordon Rugg’s Cardan Grille fakery) punted out there was unhelpful at best, nonsensical at worst, and fell far short of setting the world alight – basically, Rugg’s ‘no-message message’ is not really a great premise for a novel. Wired (bless them and their ex-NASA cotton socks) should do a piece on my book instead: Averlino’s story is more amazing than fiction. But that’s the beauty of the truth, isn’t it? ;-p

Much as I predicted, the Voynich Manuscript didn’t quite make it into the final list of Seven Fortean Wonders of the World, which ended up being (in no particular order):
Bigfoot / Yeti, Turin Shroud, Piri Reis Map, UFOs, Oak Island, Crop Circles, Nazca.

But just because I happen to think that neither the Piri Reis Map nor Crop Circles are actually Fortean doesn’t mean I think the Voynich Manuscript was somehow swindled (or Florida’ed, as I believe the modern technical term is). The underlying truth may well be that the cloud of ideas around the Voynich Manuscript is becoming (or is about to become) too mainstream for most connoisseurs of Forteana, making it just too sensible an object to be voted to the top.

And that’s probably a good thing, wouldn’t you say? [*]

[*] depending on your VQ score, in all probability. 🙂

Here’s a thing you might enjoy: a VQ rating page I put together yesterday as a Christmas present for you all. This assesses in a rigorous scientific way whether or not you are cut out for being a Voynich Manuscript researcher. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! 🙂

The final round of voting has just opened: and (thankfully) the Voynich Manuscript has made it to the last 16. Register with the Charles Fort Institute to vote now! (whyever would you not vote?)

To be honest, I’m perfectly content that the VMs has made it this far: and it would be nice if it did get voted into the top 7… but the other 15 are all weird and wonderful (even if you think, as I do, that crop circles are probably a beautiful deception), and nobody can say what any Internet vote result will be. Perhaps the Martians will hijack the poll… *sigh*

I’ve booked myself onto what promises to be a fascinating three-day workshop run between University of Warwick (in Coventry) and the Warburg Institute (in London), on “Resources and Techniques for the Study of Renaissance and Early Modern Culture“. It aims to give post-grads the kind of in-depth specialist research training they need to look at Renaissance / early modern artefacts in a very cross-disciplinary way, by grasping many of the different ways and methodologies available for researching them.

It is almost a top-end DIY course for Voynichologists, as it seems to cover every one of the areas of Voynichological interest (apart from herbal mss, which basically forms a medieval genre)… which is of course why I’ve signed up for it. Oh, and the lecturers are fantastic too (don’t get me started on yet another Charles Burnett panegyric).

But the match between the two is perhaps not as coincidental as you might at first think. What is not widely known is that the Warburg has a deep affinity with all things Voynichian, thanks to its long association with hidden/occult histories and medieval astrology. Its library has a number of books on the VMs (all on the same open shelf, so much friendlier than the British Library), and so it would be highly unsurprising if breakthroughs in our understanding of the VMs came from someone schooled in this Saxl / Panofsky / Yates / Burnett tradition.

Still, the Voynich’s academic “kiss-of-death” reputation lingers: and perhaps rightly so, for it is painfully easy to misread its layers and signs, and glimpse in them a story written only on the not-so-blank slate of your own overfertile psyche. All the same, we are now in an era which tolerates multiple academic [hi]stories, even things like Liane Lefaivre’s re-reading (of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili as having been written by Leon Battista Alberti), which seems at odds with the (basically Venetian) object itself (it’s signed, for goodness’ sake!): so perhaps the penalty for daring to try is not as high as it formerly was?

A “life coach, motivational speaker and writer” called Andrea Peters is trying to sell the rights to her book “I’m Sorry… Love Anne” (AKA “Don’t Worry… Love Anne” AKA “The Voynich Solution“). The first twelve chapters (all fairly short) are here, which should give you an idea of the kind of brisk, international, Dan Brown-esque caper she’s aiming towards.

She’s done some crypto research, which is good (Gabriele de Lavinde is there, as is Leon Battista Alberti), though her rendering of early Renaissance history is rather stiff, and my heart did sink a little when Christian Rosenkreutz walked in… *sigh*

And her idea of the earth-shattering secret hidden in the VMs? Well… people keep getting killed with some kind of sound weapon that is millennia old, and there’s stuff about the natural frequency each natural thing has: so it’s probably going to turn out to be something along the lines of Keely‘s harmonics stuff.

From a Voynichological perspective, I really hope the key page she’s talking about is f56r: according to Stan Tenen, this seems to depict the inverse or hyperbolic (“1/r”) spiral, that could well be based on Egyptian mathematics: there’s an old post from me (in 2001) on this subject here. As I recall, the Ancient Egyptians constructed their maths around whole number fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc but with the addition of 3/4), and this spiral seems oddly reminiscent of that. Just so you know! 😮

Confusingly, there’s another novel out there looking for a publisher called “The Voynich Solution” (2005) by William Michael Campbell (which may possibly explain why Andrea Peters is stumbling around looking for an alternative title). There’s a PDF online with the first eight pages, but it’s immediately clear that, as part of his research, the author has been reading my posts. 🙂 He locks in to 1450 as a probable date of origin (pretty close!), and mentions that much of the painting was done later (my goodness, he’s attentive!) Perhaps Compelling Press (my tiny publishing company) should consider publishing this… something to think about!

The Charles Fort Institute has set Round Two of its vote to find the 7 Fortean Wonders of the World (though you need to register to take part). Naturally, the Voynich Manuscript is in there (unsurprisingly, it gets my vote): but it would be nice to be able to vote for Giza and the Antikythera Mechanism too. Sadly, the Phaistos Disk didn’t make it past Round One: but what can you do?

Round Two closes on 21st December 2007, whereupon the top 20 go on to the third and final round. Not really hugely important, but a bit of fun nonetheless. Enjoy! 🙂

Lynn Thorndike’s vast, multi-volume “History of Magic and Experimental Science” stands as a gigantic monument to the huge amount of, well, stuff that is in the archives but which mainstream historians circa 1920 thought to be unworthy of discussion. Thankfully, things have now changed somewhat!

Kessinger Publishing has reprinted much of Thorndike’s work: but (unless I’ve misinterpreted things) their modern print-on-demand reprints seem to be about £25 for 200-ish page segments, whereas copies of the original eight volumes (published in pairs in 1923, 1934, 1941, and 1958, and each volume of which is 600-700 pages) go second hand for £30 or so.

Even something like Thorndike’s “History of Medieval Europe” can be picked up for £5 or less, while the Kessinger POD reprint is more than £20. Bizarre economics!

As with David Kahn, everyone namechecks Thorndike: but few have read all 6,000-odd pages of the HoMaES series. I’ll admit it: though to date I’ve only ever read sections as required, one day I’ll read the whole lot… I hope!

All in all, there really doesn’t (unless you know better?) seem to be a Thorndike 2.0, a decent modern alternative to HoMaES in (say) only 1,500 pages or less. So even 50 years on from Vols VII and VIII, the new Thorndike is still Thorndike!