Marten Hoyle: The Spectral Marionette
Dear Marionette, pull the strings of your memory! Tell us about yourself and how many Tomes your quill has masterfully inked.
"I am a multi-media artist. At least, that is what “they” (whoever “they” are) have been saying to me.
I am not quite sure precisely how many books I have written. There are four Traditional publications though, one of which is a novel titled Voces Animarum. The book is the first in a series of seven novels…three others of which have already been composed. So, I suppose I have at least written seven—that I am able to count with any sort of certainty.."
Pluck your strings like a harpist in trance and reveal unto us the title of your latest opus—the very quill-scribed creation that skirts the precipice of imagination and madness! And whence came the electrician that wired your literary bulb? What whispers of chaos birthed such prose?
"Well, like I said: the first novel is titled Voces Animarum and is the first of a series titled Filii der Bedlam (The Children of Bedlam or The Children of Bethlehem—depending on how you wish to look at it). The series is meant to be presented as a multi-media artistic endeavor complete with visual media (including cinematography) and musical accompaniment (soundtracks, in other words). The idea is to present works that detail journeys through mental illness, with a particular emphasis on schizophrenia—which I have. I do not want to say that I suffer from schizophrenia, though. The word “suffering” implies that I possess some semblance of a memory of a more peaceful time, which I do not. So, through years of suffering, I cannot say that I have suffered—because the suffering is all I know. "
Do your wooden sinews harbor peculiar rituals, as your quill--inked in inspiration--dances upon the parchment of your future masterpiece?
“Not really, no. Then again—I don’t really see anything odd about much of anything that I am doing. Which perhaps is why I could be considered insane by some people. ”
String freshly snipped, hinges screeching and wood creaking I ponder: What ink-stained tales' puppeteer the strings of your imagination? Whose words influence your quill? Speak, fellow marionette of mind-molding tales--what authors inspire you?
“My influences include Anna-Varney Cantodea of the musical project, Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and H.P. Lovecraft. Other quite illustrious names come to mind, but those are the Big Four, I believe whose bodies of work have had the greatest impact on me. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Shakespeare—those are all authors I have been compared to, and they do have a tremendously significant place in my arsenal of influences, but without Cantodea and Poe, there would be no Hoyle..”
What are you currently spinning with your golden thread?
"Nothing really. Just working on poetry."
Do you have any advice for future Marionette's wishing to put quill to parchment?
“No. And I do apologize that I do not. But anyone looking for advice will understand in the future why I am not giving any.”
Embrace your tangled threads and spill the milk on the best advice you have ever heard.
“Art is a survival strategy.”
Now, dear masterless marionette, what does the future hold for your quill?
“The completion of the Filii der Bedlam series.”