The Flower of Battle by Fiore dei LiberiР”Р„ deliriously absurd and beautiful treatise on the art of combat, Flower of Battle dates from the early 1400s. In common with many duelling stories, there is an air of comic ineptitude to the proceedings unlike most, nobody dies from a gunshot wound.Р”Р„ feast of riotous detail, the clue to this exceptional piece of writing by the 18th-century libertine lies in the subtitle: РІР‚СљAn episode from the life of GC, a Venetian.РІР‚Сњ Written before History of My Life, the autobiography that created the myth and defined CasanovaРІР‚в„ўs legacy, The Duel features all the tropes: a young adventurer fleeing injustice, romantic misunderstanding, an affronted army officer and a window on to the life of a young man on the make in a European court.Р”Р€. For Chekhov, the duel is a catalyst for change and reconciliation, for his characters to learn something about themselves and the world around them. Chekhov takes his regular ingredients (the bourgeoisie, decay and ennui), places them in the sweltering crucible of a seaside resort in the Caucasus, and throws in a duel. En garde!Р”Р„ story of two lovers who have fallen out of love and two men whose friendship cannot survive their opposing worldviews.

For my novel, the true story of a duel is the catalyst for what TS Eliot termed a РІР‚СљshockerРІР‚Сњ, a slice of contemporary macabre. Add in a dose of authorial practice РІР‚вЂњ Pushkin and Proust both fought in duels РІР‚вЂњ and you have a grand literary tradition. As a catalyst for plot it is hard to think of anything more dynamic or indeed convenient, a device laden with symbolism, a gateway to the big themes of honour, revenge, conflict, death, and a handy way of wrapping things up if they seem to be going on too long. More than a niche of its own, the literary duel is almost its own canon, bewitching writers of a certain romantic, invariably male, predisposition. These are guns with a purpose, for they are duelling pistols, and thereby РІР‚вЂњ with apologies to Shakespeare and Jeffrey Archer РІР‚вЂњ hangs a tale. My novel, A Melancholy Event, features not one but two guns, hanging in a pair. Otherwise donРІР‚в„ўt put it there.РІР‚Сњ It is good advice, serving the demands of brevity and precision, avoiding the deadly burden of inconsequential intrusion into the sparse landscape of narrative.

РІР‚СљIf in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall,РІР‚Сњ Chekhov wrote, РІР‚Сљthen in the following one it should be fired. A mong the hoary lessons a debut writer must learn is that of ChekhovРІР‚в„ўs gun, the notion that anything introduced to a story must be there for a reason.

Alamy stock photo proust