The Albatross
- THE ALBATROSS - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears in the book, "OUT OF THE STORM," by William Hope Hodgson, published by Grant in 1975.
Although my dictionary refers to, "Albatross" as a water-bird, it also gives the word another meaning, "something causing deep concern that greatly hinders accomplishment". Which brings me back to Donald Grant's Hodgson book commission, "Cargunka," that I turned down years ago.
From time to time my mind goes back to that "unreadable" manuscript that was one incredibly long, unbroken string of words in which several stories were supposed to exist within 127 pages. The only period in the manuscript was located after the last word on the last page! No sentences, no paragraphs, no sort of punctuation or space to separate the stories!
But recently, I found some of the stories from that "book" reviewed on a website, But again, there was no hint of them having a "strange format". Apparently they were first published independently in magazines in a normal format. After reading those reviews I began to think about my decision to turn the project down those many years ago. I'm beginning to regret it, I think I made a wrong decision. Though neither the publisher or the editor had any ideas on how I might go about illustrating this odd book, I should have given it a bit more thought. For one thing, I could have used designs and illustrations to separate the stories!
When I worked in the electronics industry I did not have the freedom to refuse a task given me by my boss, whatever the challenge, I had to deal with it. But the freedom of choice that I had as a self-employed illustrator also confronted me with the risk of making wrong decisions. And now when I think about it, my decision not to illustrate, "Cargunka," is like an "Albatross" that prevented me from accomplishing something I might have been proud of.
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