The stories are a thematic exploration of the nature of creativity and inspiration. Great composers of the past (and four philosophers) are captured with the precision of a photograph at critical moments in their creative existence. In best surrealist style, they appear in modern times, or in their own times but with modern artefacts, or in some strange no-place in between. The device works brilliantly. It is natural to deify genius and to forget that these people were quite ordinary in every respect apart from their mighty talents. Butlin demonstrates this aspect of their lives by making their context recognisable to us, thereby illuminating the bizarre nature of creativity and its relationship to the society in which it functions, as well as its impact on the host genius. He achieves all this with considerable humour, intelligence and empathy, and is by turns chucklesome, wry, satirical and deeply moving.

Vivaldi’s trials and tribulations are described in three separate vignettes. He has difficulty sleeping and since he has never seen a sheep, he counts cardinals instead, cardinals leaping off balconies, lined up ‘like ‘so many charter flights’. He is a priest in Venice because it is better than working in MacDonald’s: priests don’t have to smile and say ‘have a nice day’ as they dish out the host and wine. He isn’t a very successful priest, being lazy, asthmatic, and bored. MacDonald’s beckons until he is given the number 3 by God in a vision at Mass. He sees third progressions in the harmony of stone arches in church, he feels God’s tenderness and strength, his inspiration begins as a rhythm and ends as a Divine Affirmation and the birth of the three movement concerto.

The artist’s eccentricities are explored through Vivaldi’s attempts to take a holiday after writing 200 concertos. He trundles his pull-along suitcase behind him, dumbfounded to find that the world is at war and that he’s in a battle zone. Somehow, that image of the asthmatic bewildered tourist, confused by delay and insisting on his holiday, becomes a moving metaphor for the human experience, as well as the bizarre ignorance of the genius absorbed in his work to the exclusion of all else. It is comic in its reality (Brits will go anywhere on holiday no matter what the risk), but also full of pathos. Vivaldi the genius, accompanied by a pretty and practical ticket clerk, whom he is too shy to chat up, dodge bombs and encounters with drunken militia, until they finish by sitting in the dark, side by side, Vivaldi worrying about his plane tickets, as one by one the stars are shot out of the sky. The couple touch hands briefly and wait for the end. The final image in the story is of a man and woman, together but apart, waiting for the end. It is difficult to convey the wry humour of this piece and the absolute terror and pity of the ending – but both are there. It is a short story masterpiece.

Butlin’s command of striking imagery is remarkable. Alma Mahler, forbidden to compose by her famous husband because there is room for only one composer in the family, rises by night to creep downstairs to write her music. Images of suffocating silence abound in this piece : the carpet absorbs her footfall; the world is overlaid with the silence of falling snow; her husband stifles her musical voice. By candlelight she writes her music, but the notes on the paper disappear and leave her looking at blank manuscript. Only her dreams are full of music.

Alma is not the only musician to suffer from writer’s block. Johannes Brahms’s inspiration has been so intimidated by the perfection of the magnificent Beethoven, that for 20 years he has been unable to complete his first symphony, and instead has produced only ‘string serenades and clottedly scored chamber music’. ‘The weight of his symphonic inertia’ has the disastrous effect of stopping all clocks, the changing of the seasons, and brings his entire city to a halt, much to the annoyance of his fellow citizens who are forced to live in perpetual winter. Finally, in best metaphorical style, a storm rips the roof off his house and reveals the skies above and the celestial crossword puzzle above, and his inspiration is restored.

Brahms turns out to be a good deal luckier than mighty Beethoven, who has to deal with an Edinburgh cabbie called Maxi-the-Taxi. Beethoven, living in the Dante’s Inferno of modern Edinburgh’s fast food shops and slot machines, feels the need to reconnect with Nature in order to be symphonic and hires Maxi to take him to meadows and trees outside the city. Unfortunately, he neglects to bring enough to pay his fare. Maxi, soured by Scottish education and convinced of the deserved damnation of all who err, has him jailed. Genius doesn’t get you much in Edinburgh, apparently.

In fact, for Butlin, Edinburgh appears to be a Philistine place. Seneca the Stoic philosopher also has an unfortunate experience there. He comes to the South Side of the city to test the limits of his stoicism since survival there will prove that stoicism is the world’s No. 1 philosophy. It is soon clear he has come to the right place, what with tenements that have no lifts, the permanent threat of hypothermia, and the persistent attentions of a kitchen salesman who fails to appreciate Seneca’s true importance in the world. Socrates also has to contend with modern consumerism when the world’s first supermarket is opened in Ancient Greece. ‘Have a nice day’ proves to be too much for him and death not such a terrible thing after all.

The originality and varying moods of this collection are enchanting. The death of Sibelius turns out to be not so heart rending as his lost inspiration. Mozart’s soaring inspiration while performing aeronautical cycling across the night sky is heart stoppingly beautiful, while Vivaldi water skiing around Venice is as hilarious and touching as Tchaikovsky’s suicide is strange and chilling.

To end on a high note, David Hulme in Edinburgh, unemployed and unappreciated, combines the best of Butlin’s many talents. Hulme is unemployed and undervalued and living on the Giro. He haunts the Happy Hour at ‘The Stappit Haggis’ (and if ever there was a hilarious contradiction in terms it is Happy Hour and Happit Stag – and this pub is real – I’ve been in one just like it with a décor nearly as appalling) where he passes the time making logical inferences about drink. This is a place where only gratification matters. Then Ellen, a homeless person who nearly froze to death one time, appears and changes everything (as women often do in this book). She is dressed in winter – ‘her cloak-like garment is of slate-grey to darkness’, her scarf is ‘winter-dusk shot through with sleet’. She freezes the surface of the drinks and cannot speak except to silence Hulme’s casual cleverness with the single word ‘Please.’ She arouses in Hulme a radiant compassion and awareness of human need and when she disappears in a beam of sunset, Hulme is left to contemplate the awfulness of human longing and need in a consumerist society. Like all the stories in the book, this one is rich and multi layered with meaning. How does Butlin convey so much in such short pieces? Well, that is the short story teller’s art and this man is a master.

Marion Arnott lives in Paisley, Scotland. She was winner of the Phillip Good Memorial Prize For Women's Fiction 1998, CWA Short Dagger 2001 and shortlisted for CWA Short Dagger 2002. Work has appeared in Scottish Child, West Coast, Solander Magazine, Peninsula , QWF, Hayakawa Mystery Magazine (Japan), Books Ireland, Northwords, Chapman, Crimewave, and Datlow and Winding's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volume 15. Her short story collection 'Sleepwalkers,' was published in August, 2003 by Elastic Press. To visit Marion's Showcase on this website, click here

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.