A few days ago I went on a walk with my part­ner through the water mead­ows not far from our home. It was a beau­ti­ful day, one of the few in recent months when it did­n’t rain. We let the course of the riv­er guide our feet. The water beside us was as clear as crys­tal. Fish flick­ered among the green weeds.

Niet­zsche once said that “only thoughts that come by walk­ing have any val­ue.” I think he was right, about this at least. Things have a habit of falling into place while you walk.

Now that my book Dooms­day Men has gone out into the world, I’m in writer’s lim­bo. For the first time in four years I’m not writ­ing a book. It’s a bit unset­tling. Although some say writ­ing is a flight from real­i­ty, I don’t feel I’m quite alive unless I’m writ­ing some­thing.

But although I’m not actu­al­ly writ­ing a book, I am dream­ing books: I have sev­er­al ideas in my mind for poten­tial ones. One of these embry­on­ic books has even got as far as a lengthy pro­pos­al. But even that is just a ten­ta­tive begin­ning. I need to con­vince oth­ers — and per­haps even myself — that it is viable and can fend for itself in the real world. It can be mean out there, you know…

The pro­pos­al I have writ­ten is for a cul­tur­al his­to­ry. Like much of my writ­ing, it explores the way sci­ence and lit­er­a­ture work togeth­er to inform our under­stand­ing of the world. I think the links between these two dif­fer­ent fields are fas­ci­nat­ing and impor­tant. (If you’re inter­est­ed, I wrote an arti­cle on this a while back and have just post­ed it here.)

But since leav­ing Lon­don I’ve also begun research­ing a his­tor­i­cal nov­el. It’s a new direc­tion for me, but the more I find out about the late six­teenth cen­tu­ry, the more this peri­od intrigues me. The ideas, lan­guage and peo­ple are draw­ing me back through time into their world. It’s cer­tain­ly dif­fer­ent from what I’ve been work­ing on for the last few years. And per­haps that’s part of the attrac­tion. New faces, unfa­mil­iar land­scapes…

I’ve just been review­ing Peter Mar­shal­l’s The Mer­cu­r­ial Emper­or, a won­der­ful­ly rich biog­ra­phy of the Holy Roman Emper­or Rudolf II (1552–1612). If you want to dip into the cul­ture of this time, then Mar­shal­l’s book is a great place to start. The char­ac­ters that inhab­it this world are extra­or­di­nary. Dr John Dee, for instance — the most cel­e­brat­ed magus of his era, an alchemist who con­versed with angels and who spied for Queen Eliz­a­beth I.

In 1584, Dee left his home by the banks of the Riv­er Thames for Rudolf’s court in Prague. He shared his visions and unique wis­dom with the Hab­s­burg emper­or for two years before rumours of necro­man­cy forced Rudolf to ban­ish him. Dee returned to Eng­land to find his home and the library he had spent forty years col­lect­ing had been destroyed by a mob that believed him to be a black magi­cian. Undaunt­ed, he con­tin­ued his fruit­less quest for the Philoso­pher’s Stone and died with­out a pen­ny to his name. Dee’s real wealth lay in his thoughts and words.

Peter Ack­roy­d’s superb nov­el about this mag­i­cal char­ac­ter, The House of Doc­tor Dee (1993), sets an almost impos­si­bly high stan­dard for any­one tempt­ed to explore this peri­od in fic­tion. There’s a won­der­ful pas­sage in it about researchers who spend their lives among old books and in dusty archives: “we under­stand that we are at odds with the rest of the world: we are trav­el­ling back­wards, while all those around us are still mov­ing for­ward.”

When I read writ­ing as good as Ack­roy­d’s, I ask myself why I even both­er pick­ing up a pen. How can I hope to equal such elo­quence… Do oth­er writ­ers feel that too?

But per­haps writ­ers are like alchemists. They are dri­ven to dis­cov­er some elu­sive, hid­den knowl­edge, either about the world or about them­selves. Pen and paper are their cru­cibles. Just add fire.

Whether they dis­cov­er fool’s gold or the real McCoy, only time will tell.

[also post­ed on TNB]