Category: Dr Huxley’s Bequest

In Which I Take More Photographs

Yesterday, I posted some photographs of a Lion and a Unicorn. Here’s where they live:

Southern entrance to Main Quad

They’re over the southern entrance to the Main Quadrangle of the University of Sydney, which is Australia’s oldest university. On the left side of the photo you can see part of MacLaurin Hall, the original university library. Here’s another view of MacLaurin Hall:

MacLaurin Hall

I sat for exams in that building a couple of decades ago. (I blame the extremely distracting neo-Gothic architectural details for my poor results.)

If you walk through the Lion and the Unicorn entrance, you’ll find yourself in the Main Quadrangle, which features a beautiful jacaranda tree:

Jacaranda tree, Main Quadrangle

The tree is covered in vivid purple flowers in late spring. It’s said that if you haven’t started studying by the time the jacaranda flowers, you’ll fail all your exams. Here’s another view of the Main Quad, showing the Clock Tower and Carillon:

Clock Tower, Main Quadrangle

According to Tess van Sommers, who wrote the text of University of Sydney Sketchbook, “If architect Edmund Blacket had had his way, this tower would have had even more ornate turrets than it has now; some almost deliriously convoluted pinnacles were among his rejected designs.”

At the left side of the photo, you can see a bit of the Great Hall, a “scaled-down version of Westminster Hall in London”. At the moment, most of it is covered in scaffolding, so I didn’t take a photo from the front, but it’s a fairly spectacular edifice. Apparently, its construction in the 1850s and 1860s did not go smoothly, with workmen often abandoning the site to join the latest gold rush, while politicians kept raising doubts about “the need for such frivolities as gargoyles”. Also, “for some years, the frontal majesty of the block was marred by an approach through cow pastures” and what is now Victoria Park featured a dam in which horses bathed and occasionally died.

But what, you may ask, does all this have to do with my current writing project? Good question. I don’t have a very detailed answer yet, but wait and see. It’s possible that something interesting and historical and book-shaped will (eventually) appear.

In Which I Take Some Photographs

Last month I bought my very first camera, so that I could take some photos of the setting of my next novel. This work-in-progress doesn’t even have a title yet. All I’ve done so far is read a lot of books about the subject, fill a folder with research notes and think up some fairly silly jokes and snippets of dialogue. The next step – organising all of this into some sort of coherent plot – seems so overwhelming that I’ve been avoiding it. However, today I decided to go for a long walk around the place in which the novel is set, in the hope that this would inspire me to do some work. I took my camera along and here are some of the results.

First, the Lion:

The Lion

His ferocity is slightly diminished by the fact that a few of his front teeth have fallen out. Actually, I’m not sure if the Lion is going to make it into my book, but the cute little gargoyle in the top left corner of the picture definitely is.

And then, the Unicorn:

The Unicorn

I’m assuming it is a Unicorn (and not just a horse with a weird lump on its forehead), because it’s helping the Lion hold up a coat of arms. Poor Unicorn has lost most of its horn, but hey, if you were a hundred and fifty years old, bits of you would probably be falling off, too.

Next is Mephistopheles, spitting into a fountain:

Mephistopheles

Unfortunately, he’s missing most of his nose, but he still looks quite evil. He was (supposedly) designed by Australian architect Leslie Wilkinson in 1925, and possibly inspired by Australian artist Norman Lindsay. (I accidentally typed ‘Normal Lindsay’ just then, which I’m sure he would have found highly insulting.)

And then there’s Gilgamesh, who is either hugging or strangling a lion:

Gilgamesh

I have to admit that I don’t yet know much about Gilgamesh, except that he was the king of Uruk (now Iraq and Kuwait) in about 2500 BC and was regarded as a demigod in Mesopotamian mythology. He also went on a ‘quest to seek immortality’, which is very useful for my purposes. I’m choosing to believe he is embracing the lion, even though the lion doesn’t look very happy, because Gilgamesh also found ‘compassion, friendship, courage, love and peace’ on his quest. That’s nice, isn’t it?

Tomorrow: More photographs from my expedition, and I’ll explain where you can find Gilgamesh and his friends. (Shh, Sydneysiders, I know you’ve already worked out where the photographs were taken! But I’m trying to create some suspense here!)