Faith Can Move Mountains... But Dynamite Works Better

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, and I shall repay.
Revenge is sweet and not fattening. -Alfred Hitchcock

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death to know how good it is to live. -Alexandre Dumas

Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt. -Thomas Moore

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged. -Samuel Johnson

Live well. It is the greatest revenge. -The Talmud 

Rather heavy quotes. Well, maybe not the Hitchcock. Tolstoy uses the first bit of scripture as his epigraph in Anna Karenina (minus the Sayeth The Lord bit), and revenge is a theme that's certainly dominating my work on Heaven And Hell. In fact, that very Scripture appears in the first chapter. Down the line, revenge is going to come about again as the series progresses, both on the part of the antagonists, and for my main characters. In fact, I've got an idea for the fifth book with my main characters being put through hell, and so they...

Ah ah! As usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's been years since I read The Count of Monte Cristo. Sometimes classic literature requires a full dedication to get into, and that's one such case. Not too long ago I saw the 2002 version again, which I've always liked, and it's been lurking around in my subconcious as I've been writing. Book or movie, it's a great tale of revenge, and its influence has been felt as of late.

I can't really go into detail, and that's the irony. I've been writing, and the process goes well at this point. So why can't I go into detail? Because I'm trying to keep elements of the plot close to the vest, such as it were. If I say too much, I give away too much.

So I'll skirt around it. Let it just be said that my antagonists choose the path of revenge. They've been wronged. They've felt that proverbial ultimate despair. And so that path does not take them to justice. It's a path to destruction.

I'm thinking of epigraphs for the book. Either the Johnson or the Moore quote would work. Or both. I'm also fond of a bit of scripture from Revelations 6, which isn't about revenge, but about the end of all things....

And I looked, and behold a pale horse. And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Nice and light subject matter, hmmm?

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