University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2013 Toward The Red Shore Gary Bomhoff University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Bomhoff, Gary, "Toward The Red Shore" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 2995. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/2995 TOWARD THE RED SHORE by GARY CHRISTOPHER BOMHOFF B.A. University of Central Florida, 2006 A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the department of English in the college of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2013 ABSTRACT A fictional novel utilizing third person limited narration from the perspective of the primary character, Ilya Kollide, who narrates the story as though it were happening in his head as it occurred, with frequent embellishments. He has come to live near an old mansion on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, named Neimasaurus, to find an antiquated, dusty world of faded aristocracy. Temporarily orphaned at the age sixteen by the recent death of his parents, he has traveled four thousand miles to live with his last living relative, an uncle named Demetri, whom he has never met. The year is 1990, only this is not a world where the rule of the Tsar was supplanted by the Soviet Union. Instead, it is a logical exploration of what Russia might resemble, had communism never taken root. While the fantastical may or may not occur, depending upon how the reader chooses to interpret the point of view of the narrator, the setting in and of itself is not meant to be fantastical. Ilya discovers that all the servants who work there are deaf, as is his uncle and his own now deceased parents, whom he carries around in an urn after mixing their ashes together. While working at the great estate of the Neimasaurus family, Ilya discovers a surprising numbers of stories and people who both parallel his own experiences and serve as allegorical warnings toward his future mistakes in life. He becomes obsessed with the idea that he is to blame for his parents’ death and sets out on a quest to bring redemption to the wounded inhabitants of the estate, only to discover that not everyone wants to be helped. In fact, they want him dead. They see him as an allegory, just as he sees them. To the young man Shoji Yamano, ii Ilya represents everything he was, and can no longer be. As such a reflection, he resolves to shatter Ilya like a mirror. The novel charts Ilya’s personal growth from a neurotic wreck, incapable of normal interaction with people, to a young man capable of not just self-sacrifice, but an understanding of what it actually means to literally sacrifice himself for the well-being of someone he barely knows. He learns to value time spent with others rather than dwelling within a narcissistic and lonely fantasy world. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS FINDING MEANING WITHIN TOWARD THE RED SHORE ...................................... 1 THE BOOK OF JUDGES; 21-22: .................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 1: THREADS OF THE SPIDER’S WEB ...................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: AMARANTH’S DESCENT INTO STILLNESS ..................................... 50 CHAPTER 3: THE BLEEDING SWAMP ....................................................................... 75 CHAPTER 4: THE THING IN THE WALL ................................................................. 107 CHAPTER 5: TALON, FANG, AND FLAME.............................................................. 120 CHAPTER 6: THROUGH SECRET CORRIDORS ...................................................... 147 CHAPTER 7: A LITTLE PIECE OF HELL .................................................................. 171 CHAPTER 8: OUT OF THE FIRE AND BACK INTO THE FRYING PAN .............. 187 CHAPTER 9: THE SAGA OF CAT AND HUNTER ................................................... 203 CHAPTER 10: PLIGHT OF THE SIBERIAN SNOW LEOPARD .............................. 219 CHAPTER 11: THE ECHO OF A GECKO ................................................................... 241 CHAPTER 12: THE MASQUERADE OF VICIOUS ANIMALS ................................ 259 CHAPTER 13: THE MANY CHOICES OF ONE WITH NO OPTIONS ..................... 282 iv CHAPTER 14: THE TAIL END OF THE GAME ........................................................ 310 CHAPTER 15: THROUGH MOONLIGHT CORRIDORS .......................................... 337 CHAPTER 16: THE LIVING, THE DEAD, AND EVERYTHING ELSE ................... 368 CHAPTER 17: AN EVEN LOWER CIRCLE OF HELL .............................................. 391 CHAPTER 18: NEMESIS .............................................................................................. 415 CHAPTER 19: SWIMMING WITH SNAKES .............................................................. 432 CHAPTER 20: AN EXPECTED BRUSH WITH DEATH ............................................ 451 CHAPTER 21: THE GRIM REALITY OF ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK ..................... 473 CHAPTER 22: THREADS OF THE PAST ................................................................... 494 CHAPTER 23: WAR BEGINS ...................................................................................... 517 CHAPTER 24: A MAUSOLEUM AT NIGHT .............................................................. 533 CHAPTER 25: THE PHOENIX UNCHAINED ............................................................ 560 CHAPTER 26: INFERNO .............................................................................................. 577 CHAPTER 27: AT THE SOUND OF SCREAMS......................................................... 597 CHAPTER 28: THE DEAD LADY OF NEIMASAURUS ........................................... 619 CHAPTER 29: HELL TO PAY ...................................................................................... 632 CHAPTER 30: THE WEEPING CHURCH ................................................................... 647 v CHAPTER 31: GREEN FIRE AND BROKEN GLASS ............................................... 673 CHAPTER 32: THE END OF SUMMER ...................................................................... 685 APPENDIX: READING LIST ....................................................................................... 706 vi FINDING MEANING WITHIN TOWARD THE RED SHORE Begun in 2007, the novel “Toward the Red Shore,” had a genesis longer than most theses, but this time wasn’t spent in constant writing. If there’s one thing I’m an expert in, it is wasting vast quantities of time, much as an alcoholic consumes their favorite beverage. After the first chapter was written in February of 2007, a second and third chapter would be written in the first half of 2011, utilizing large sections of text from short stories submitted in workshops that could be adapted to the narrative of the story and ended up serving as springboards for plenty of ideas within the finished novel. The remaining twenty eight chapters were then written between October 2012 and February of 2013. Why the long gaps you might ask? Writer’s block. I had always scoffed at people who mentioned this, and treated it as just a figment of people’s imagination, a sort of excuse to avoid work. I had no time for them, because I was too busy wasting my own supply of it. Then I had a four year case of writer’s block. It’s impossible to point to any specific cause, but a general sense of writing fatigue from moving directly from the bachelor’s degree into the master’s program. It destroyed my ability to see reading or writing as something fun, interesting, or creative. As you can see from the length of this manuscript, I was apparently saving up my words. Nor was this my first thesis either; originally I had an entirely different director and project. That thesis had nothing to do with what you’re about to read. That one was a wonderfully complicated, hard-hitting, witty, funny, original, psycho-sexual, deeply philosophical examination of the human condition. In case you can’t tell from my subtle description, it wasn’t just a literary novel, it was a painfully literary 1 novel. I really had no interest in writing at all, but since writing wasn’t interesting or fun anymore, I didn’t see the problem, other than the fact that after fifty pages in, I couldn’t write another word. I was quickly dumped by that first director, after a semester of dithering. In my quest for a new director, it came down to Pat Rushin, a man who I’d had so many classes with that I lost count. He would direct my thesis, but not the garbage I was trying to foist off on him. No, he remembered “Dragonwing,” the original, rather stupider name of “Toward the Red Shore.” He said that was the strongest piece of writing he’d seen from me and asked if I could turn that little story into a nice little novella. The hidden meaning being that this other project I thought I had to write but couldn’t, because it was an awful piece of shit, wasn’t good enough in very polite terms. “Of course!” I said, barely remembering what I had written all those years ago. I neglected to mention that I was currently incapable of writing anything more than my name,