FAQ

 Why is it called "Fragments of Berossus"?

Berossus was an Akkadian writer of the Hellenistic era, born before or during Alexander the Great's rule over Babylon in Mesopotamia. He was a historian and astronomer/astrologer (there was little, if any distinction, between the two at the time) and is best known for his Babyloniaca (also known as History of Babylonia) — but his original writings are lost to us, all we have are "fragments" quoted by other, later authors.

Since the book is in some respects a historical novel (in the sense that it relates a history), interwoven with astronomical mythology and allusions to the influence of the stars, and since for a very long time the book only existed in disconnected fragments, it seemed like a nice idea and much better than the rather dull title it had had up to that point.

Why doesn't your name appear on the book?

Because it's not important. It's not a secret, but what is said is more important than who said it.

Why did you write it?

I didn't mean to — at least, not initially.

The origins of the book are now somewhat murky to me: the oldest version I seem to have dates to July 1993. What would eventually become "the book" then began with — consisted entirely of — a thousand-word lament, a statement of my own dissatisfaction with my understanding of life — or rather the lack thereof. Had I not already had either a bout of delayed teenage angst or precocious "mid-life crisis" while still at university, the beginnings might have seemed merely a pubertal or menopausal outpouring, but being then in my early thirties, the problem I perceived seemed rather more fundamental. I decided to approach the question seriously and to put aside the fear that I would be defeated by the foothills before I even neared the summit.

I had been somewhat taken as a teenager with the writings of the early 20th century Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran, yet although I admired his style I had no desire to attempt to ape it — I did however aspire to his brevity, simplicity and poeticism: the density and intensity of meaning that poetical expression can achieve seemed to offer the best prospect of encapsulating  the as yet ill-defined qualms of existence that I was then experiencing.

So I wrote a little — and then the thousand words of orphan text mouldered on my hard-drive for quite some time. But the question posed, How should we live? increasingly preoccupied me. Being unable to unask it, I then asked myself how one might address such a prodigious question — to which subsidiary enquiry the answer which eventually occurred to me was: find somewhere else to begin. So I asked myself whether I could think of any principle I might use as a point of departure.

After some considerable pondering I conceived a principle — Do not carelessly destroy — and so began the process of unfolding, a process that was to take a further sixteen years.

The brevity and simplicity I had aspired to never materialised. Khalil Gibran was more aphoristic and impressionistic than systematic; I, on the other hand, wanted to subsume as much as possible under as few headings as possible, and to demonstrate the cohesiveness of the philosophies using the context of the narrative as a vehicle for illustrative instances.

Who did you write it for?

Initially I wrote for myself: I wanted to know how I should live my life. I wanted an answer to my question, and whilst I thought I could feel the presence of an answer, the principle I espoused was, I feared, only one part of the elephant. I needed to explore further; I needed words — more words than I could comfortably hold in my mind at any one time. So I looked to the text in which I had first posed the question and began to extend it, hoping that as I followed the form the nature of the beast would become apparent.

And then... circa 1999 I decided that whatever I was writing it wouldn't be written well enough unless I wrote it for someone else. So in 2000 I began to research astronomical mythology, seeking stories and ideas both to illuminate what was already written — however sketchily — and to catalyse the development of the narrative. After that, I would work for a year or two, save what I could, and then — as long as funds permitted — research and write; and then, when funds ran out I went back to work.

Why did it take so long?

I was actually somewhat surprised that I reached the end at all: for a long time the book was merely a collection of disconnected fragments, whose proper arrangement  utterly escaped me. From time to time fragments merged or re-arranged themselves, but new pieces begging incorporation also frequently appeared in the gaps.

I had themes and ideas and episodes that worked well in isolation but it was rather like planning a round-the-world trip saying that I wanted to visit here and there and there without having the faintest idea how to get in and out of (and sometimes around) each territory. In the end, the writing became properly a journey of exploration. After six years of alternating writing and working (during which time writing was impossible for me) I decided it was time to finish it.

I said it would probably take a further nine months, but although the fifty thousand words I had in 2006 seemed considerable, it slowly became apparent that I had a long way to go. It took a further three years to finish the narrative and then another six months of re-reading, correction and proofing before it was ready.

Why is it an epic novel rather than a purely philosophical work?

Because at some point I read what I had written and realised just how dull it was: at that time there were no substantive characters, no drama, nothing to engage with. The book was then as flat and uninteresting as a mill-pond when I felt it should have been changeable as the sea. It needed to exhilarate and to awe — and to provide respite between the storms.

Epic?

I use my words carefully. To quote the OED:

Epic —
A. adj.
1. Pertaining to that species of poetical composition (see epos), represented typically by the Iliad and Odyssey, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic personages of history or tradition.

B. n.
2. a. An epic poem.
b. transf. A composition comparable to an epic poem.
The typical epics, the Homeric poems, the Nibelungenlied, etc., have often been regarded as embodying a nation's conception of its own past history, or of the events in that history which it finds most worthy of remembrance. Hence by some writers the phrase national epic has been applied to any imaginative work (whatever its form) which is considered to fulfil this function.

3. fig. A story, or series of events, worthy to form the subject of an epic.