William Golding, known to many of students simply as 'Scruff' due to the scraggly, white beard that threatened to dominate his aged face, spent a great deal of his adult life working as a school teacher. He was not a particularly good teacher, though it must also be said that neither were his students particularly good students. Professor Golding was an English teacher, a position paralleled in its ability to strike horror into the hearts of young schoolchildren only by mathematics. The schoolboys under his tutelage were prone to the unique viciousness accessible to children who do not wish to learn, and Golding, ever the observer, provoked them. In reflecting upon his life, he described his work in scientific terms: he, the researcher, and his students, the subject — Homo sapien grammar-schoolboyus, of the European subtype. To Golding, his classes were a microcosm of his society. Somehow, the whole of England could be shrunken down to the ages of 11-18, and then reduced in population to a dozen or so boys, and the general theme of things would still stand true. Golding was not singularly artistically minded in his notions of ex ungue leonem, which is how one says in Latin, "we may judge the lion from its claw".
Others had written of schoolchild-societies long before Golding came to his own fascination with the concept. Literature asked: Britons of gentle birth, what is the quality of the cloth from which you are cut? The landed gentry chorused: better than the rest!
L'enfant terrible of the irksome union between Social Darwinism and genre fiction, stories in which cherubic, well-behaved youngsters extolled the virtues of The British Isles were abound. However, this literary trend was not, as many are, a mere flashing fancy of the summer market. A mythos is not built in a day, after all. The existence of these books spanned nearly a century into the past before Golding had ever stepped onto his hallowed pulpit to lecture about the proper structure of a sentence.
As both a writer and teacher, Golding was an avid reader. He had long been troubled by these written exercises in flowery-yet-didactic navel-gazing. If he'd liked his students, he might have been offended on their behalf — for the primeval, borderline bloodthirsty delights of youth to be reduced to prelapsarian flouncing about on desert islands was an insult indeed. Determined to rectify these literary misrepresentations, Golding set out to write his own treatise on the nature of man-turned-schoolboy. It was an odd little book, and to Golding's annoyance, it was rejected for publication 21 times. In the end, Golding prevailed; the book was published, thus allowing Golding to haunt grammar school children via his appearance on syllabi long after he'd retired from his teaching post.
The book in question was Lord of the Flies. Whether it represents the inherently base, sadistic nature of the common man is dubious. Whether it represents the nature of the moneyed private school boy, however, is less so.
As they are sadly wont to do, summer holidays must come to end in County Wicklow. Private schools provide many luxuries to their students in an attempt to entice both child and parent alike to continue to spend exorbitant sums there each year, but like all schools, they must, ultimately, teach their students. This sounds obvious; the purpose of a school is to educate, regardless of whether said school is public or private. Private schools, particularly boarding schools, have a unique relationship to this purpose, however. Once tuition fees reach a certain crescendo, a specificity in the student body emerges. Like many of its ilk, Saint Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen boasts a highly selective admission process. Though, rather than admission being predicted by one's results on the entrance exam, entrée to the institution correlates much more closely to the historic trends in one's family's tax statements. Put bluntly, it is a school by and for the hereditary patriciate of international high society.
Saint Bartleby's resides in one of the valleys situated in the Wicklow Mountains. The school exists in the rare intersection between accessible and secluded, much to the delight of parents and the chagrin of pupils. The site of the school existed long before its founder had the idea to establish an elite boarding school in the Garden of Ireland— the buildings and facilities are in what used to be a monastery. In the 6th century, an ecclesial community had retreated into the mountains of Wicklow in order to devote themselves to the study of the theological and philosophical. The valley in which they'd settled seemed isolated from the touch of humanity; even under the gloom of overcast skies, there was something Edenic, something beautiful about it: the clusters of trees that grew around small boulders, their roots jutting from the soil like the living art of a woodcarver; the small bushes of berries that speckled the landscape, the pretty hues of reds, blues, and purples peeking between the leaves; the high walls created by surrounding mountains, creating a quietness in the valley that made the area feel suffused with an otherworldly quality. Surrounded by what manicured lawns could be cultivated on craggy, rocky grounds, the proud towers and halls of grey stones stretched high into the sky. Here, the reflections of the monks would be untainted by the ever-changing nature of society. Likewise, the study of Latin and mathematics of Saint Bartleby's student body was to be undisturbed by the excitement of access to the outside world.
There is a world of difference between the disposition of a monk and the disposition of a teenager, however. All the pent up energy that would normally be released via mischief made possible by the modern world had nowhere to go. For Saint Bartleby's students, there was to be no sneaking out to smoke in car parks at night; no loitering in shops; no being allowed to sneak a can of beer with one's older brother's friends. Though renovations had been commissioned to ensure only the finest of boarding experiences for the students, the spirit of the cloister remained. As such, all that restless energy was turned inwards. In the absence of the delights of common society, the students learned to sustain themselves via the microcosm of society formed by the school; the politics of the different years, the sundry blackmail, and the related gossip became as profound to the boys as real politics.
Of course, this meant that mini-celebrity figures would emerge. For example, there was Sebastian de Chastellier, whose father owned a hotel chain of decent cachet in Gstaad. Charismatic and intelligent enough to be genuinely interesting, he was well-liked enough that his name was familiar to those outside of his year. This was, of course, helped by the fact many of the boys desired an invitation to winter with his family at one of their hotels.
Sebastian was sociable, though not flighty, as he regularly could be found spending time with a small group of his close friends. His professors found him to be a respectable young man, and thus spoke highly of him, though Sebastian managed this without bordering on unctuous. Upon graduating, it was expected that he would have no dearth of opportunities from which he could choose. Sebastian de Chastellier, in other words, was one of Saint Bartleby's success stories.
Just as Saint Bartleby's boasted its host of celebrities, so too did it curiously have figures who might best be described as anti-celebrities: the students who eschewed the company of their peers, yet garnered the same fascination with their lives as their counterparts of higher esteem. Among these notorious few was Artemis Fowl II. His family name alone was enough to spark the interest of staff and students alike. Yet unlike many of the boys from similar family backgrounds, Artemis was not an empty vessel for a proud family line; the title of 'Fowl' was enhanced by the fact it was he who bore it. Intelligent as a label did not suffice to describe Artemis — he was disquieting in his abilities of deduction and in the scope of his knowledge. So larger than life did he loom in the minds of all who encountered him that gossip and fact blended together, inextricable from each other, when one was asked to describe him. For someone like Artemis, it was perfectly believable that his father would one day be assassinated at sea, and the next, appear safe and healthier than ever in Helsinki. Reality seemed secondary to neatness of aesthetics and themes when taking account of his life. It didn't help his case, either, that he seemed insulted by the suggestion that his time at Saint Bartleby's might involve socializing with others his age.
Though the lives of the two boys aforementioned may seem irreconcilably different, their paths were destined to collide the year before Artemis' mysterious disappearance following a trip to France with his bodyguard.
AN:
I finally sat down and wrote the "left-foot fowl" fic! Hopefully this came out alright - this fic is finished, and I thiiiink I might have a release schedule of a chapter every other day or so? Ultimately, it'll have to depend on this piece's reception.
"Preludio", the title of this chapter means "Prelude" in Italian. A prelude is defined as, "The prelude may be thought of as a preface. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The prelude also may refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio".
Though I won't reveal any of the content, I will reveal the names of the coming chapters: "Chapter 2: Zögling", "Chapter 3: Bakkheia", and "Chapter 4: Pas de deux".
As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! Hope everyone is well, and I'll see you next chapter.