"MAGIC REALISM IS JUST SO COMMONPLACE ON THESE ISLANDS"

THE CATALYST TO THIS STORY, FRAME 39, IS A FICTIONAL DECISION BY THE CHURCHES OF MALTA AND SWEDEN TO JOINTLY CREATE A CENTRE FOR WORLD ECUMENISM IN MALTA.

A Swedish architect, John Parvis, is selected. John travels down to Malta to begin his preliminary studies. Whilst the story is centered in Malta, it is soon agreed upon that John will make a series of trips to places of significance of some of the major religions of the world: a western loop of the Mediterranean to Chartres, Cordoba, and Morocco; an eastern loop to Delphi, Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Cairo; and finally a journey to Mumbai, through India to Bodhgaya, and eastwards as far as Kyoto. During these trips, John sketches, he meets people, and he occasionally takes photographs with a camera containing a roll of black and white film.

The novel begins with Jennifer Killian, a documentary filmmaker looking to change direction and write a screenplay, hoping that fiction will bring her nearer to a ‘truth’ than documentaries. On a retreat in Paradise, Newfoundland, she finds a canister of film floating in a tidal pool. She has it developed, and is fascinated by what she sees. She spontaneously decides to literally search out and find the places in these photos, and that perhaps they will become her new storyboard. She has, in short, discovered the 39 photos John had taken some years before.

The novel follows John and Jennifer in alternating chapters – Day 1, Day 2, etc. for John, and Frame 1 Frame 2, etc. for Jennifer. In this way, the reader follows along what John is doing, what he sees and his interactions along the way, at the same time as seeing Jennifer in her own quest, and the people she meets. Both based in Malta –John in Valletta and Jennifer at Paradise Bay – the richness of Malta is thoroughly explored.

Both John and Jennifer meet a person who becomes significant in their individual journeys. John rather quickly meets Joanna, a

Maltese opera singer preparing to perform the lead role in Madama Butterfly (something that is a significant sub-story). Jennifer meets Bartolomeo in Cordoba who becomes a companion and guide. Most of their journeys, however, are travelled solo.

John’s own journey is complicated by his circumstances. His twin sister, with whom he has had his architecture practice with, has died not long before the start of the story. John is grappling with his identity, having viewed his sister as the creative one his whole life. In meeting Joanna, he senses a, perhaps, muse; someone with whom he can develop what he has lost. But this is complicated by Joanna being a twin as well to an identical sister.

The epigraph to the novel is a statement of John’s disposition. It is taken from an Ingmar Bergman film ‘The Seventh Seal’: “I want knowledge, not faith, not supposition, but knowledge.” This struggle between fact and belief, between knowledge and faith, permeates throughout the novel. As does the recurring motif of twins, both in religions as well as in John’s and Jennifer’s reality.

The ecumenism aspired to by the planned centre is not in and of itself central to the novel. It is the people that John and Jennifer meet - the myriad of voices: ideas, beliefs, opinionsthat become in effect a conversation across cultures that the reader is invited to join. John and Jennifer represent two different approaches to the questions raised.

The conclusion of the story – Day 39 and its other representation, Frame 39 – is a jolt to the reader, and whilst a concluding chapter is offered – ‘And Then’ – this chapter further confounds the reader’s understanding of what has transpired.

WORDS ROBERT GHIRLANDO