I was watching TV, possibly Saturday morning cartoons, and saw, stuck between cereal commercials, a silly commercial for a little kid's doll. There was something to do with the rainbow, some sugary sweet jingle, and the doll was so cutesy that she annoyed me immediately.
And in a weird moment it occurred to me -- what if someone took the phenomenon of the rainbow and treated it not in this treacle-sweet, cutesy, little-kid manner but with deadly seriousness? With high tragedy, even? What if I made the rainbow sad, beautiful, ideal, and what if I took it so far that there was even a philosophy based on it?
And the book was born.
LORDS OF RAINBOW is subtitled the Book of Fulfillment. I admit there were residual influences of all the epic fantasy that has gone before -- but primarily Tolkien and Brooks -- in my kid imagination. I remember reading and liking and yet being dissatisfied on some level, and wanting to write an epic where women and love and emotional relationships were just as important as the world-scope element of wonder (in this case the colorless world). I also wanted to portray a warrior woman whose main personal strength was not brashness or pride or military prowess or even nobility of character -- but humility and simple quiet loyalty.
The book became very complex. In addition to all the character layers there was also the mechanism of Rainbow, what it stood for, what it meant. The colorless world itself became a character with personal traits -- the impotent gray sun, the surfaces that were distinguished only by textures such as matte or metallic, the fall of night like an instant blackout upon a gray environment. And superimposed upon this monochrome fabric was color -- an alien, pasted-on thing that could never blend.
In this world, the avatars that were the ancient demigods of each major color also represented human qualities, almost like a bizarre Tarot system of personality. I've even come up with a personality test to determine which of the Tilirr, or Lords of Rainbow each one of us "serves."
(Take the Tilirr Quiz here: http://www.veranazarian.com/lorquiz.htm )
I have been accused by some of mixing fantasy and allegory, of making
Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
