Daniel Sell

Strategies in Bibliomancy

I use bibliomancy for most writing projects. I did it before I knew what it was, when I was at school I used to think it was a form of plagiarism. Maybe it would have been, by their standards, who knows, but now I am quite comfortable with the habit. If I ever get stuck I'll reach for a book to break the blockage down. At its simplest it's just thumbing through a book blindly and putting your finger on a passage and trusting that that is the answer to your problem. The unspoken question here is "what do I do now?", but it can be anything, as long as you know what it is. There are nuances and different ways to do different things, but they happen quite naturally after a while.

I'm constantly on the hunt for the "perfect" book for this. Right now I'm in the library digging through books for just that reason. In the past apparently the Bible, the Iliad, and the Aeneid were used for this. There's a scene in Gargantua and Pentagruel where they consult Virgil (probably the Aeneid), which is also a very good book for this purpose. The secret to a good divinatory book seems to be the following:

Obviously the previously mentioned books fit all of these pretty well. The bible suffers, I think, for being too sensible in its translations. The NRSVr is accurate but bloodless, while the KJV is saucy but a bit of a chore. They do come in conveniently small sizes though, maximum possible density. The Greek/Latin lot also has the same problems/benefits. Modern translations are more readable and easily understood and therefore not much good for divination. Lattimore and Fitzgerald are probably the best.

Paradise Lost? I'd really like a book in English to use for this stuff, and many fingers point to this, but it's too one note! Let's try:

Q-What should I put in this room? A-Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge,/Yet not enough had practis'd to deceive (In this case I landed on the second line and went up and down to contextualise it, using the above. If the word or sentence doesn't work, use the full image.)

Bad example. The answer is pretty good: There is something hiding here that the party have interacted with before or otherwise wishes specifically them harm ("revenge"), but it's not done very well ("not enough had practis'd"). So an ambush of some sort, or a trap. Ok, thanks Milton! I'll stick a makeshift punji trap smeared in filth (pretty malicious) behind the door, hastily put up against invading dungeon adventurers. It's not wild, it's not huge, it's just moving you along and derailing predictable behaviour.

The Cantos are pretty decent for this stuff. Q-What does this new spell do? A-"we had good crops for two years or three years/and no war". Pretty on the nose there Mr. Pound but ok. Q-What is the spell called? A-"and for the dissipated brume"(I switched to The Anathemata 'cos Pound kept being rude). In these cases, with the need to be specific, it's most fun to keep as close as possible to the original draw. Maybe we can call this long term fertility spell "For The Dissipation of Brume". Makes it sound like a recipe in an alchemist's book, technical, matter-of-fact. Done.

I don't have a copy here, or right now, but Finnegan's Wake is pretty great, as are The Pickwick Papers. Right now my favourite are two translations of Gargantua and Pentagruel, Urquhart's and Screech's, though there is a good chance that The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman might creep up the rankings. I liked it so much I even bought a copy. I also still use things like The Gnostic Scriptures (fragmentary, mythical), On Beauty/On Ugliness (scrapbook-like) and various books of symbols when I just need the shape of something.

Right now I am testing out The Rattle Bag to see if anthologies might possibly be the way to go in future. It's a hobby really, this search can't end and is only getting more and more in the weeds. There is likely no perfect book for this unless you make it yourself with scissors and glue.