The Ways of the Calawo

The Ways of the Calawo is a novel published in Deysachin in 54 PC by Nyhttôn a'Ryukurds Letauk. It is considered to be one of the most important pieces of modern deysachni literature, and one of the greatest novels of all time. The novel follows an unconventional style, featuring layers of stories within stories, blending of fiction, nonfiction, and metafiction, and various elements of nonchronological and nonlinear storytelling.

Development

Letauk began work on what he refered to as his "Great Big Pompous Novel" some time around 43 PC, while he was still a college freshman. He continued working on the book for over a decade, alongside several smaller novels which he wrote and published, to little success. In the winter of 47 PC, fresh out of college, he moved to Aomt, to join the burgeoning Gyelsy Street scene. There he met Thyn'l Pongwuaif, another up and coming author, with whom he developed a friendship. Pongwuaif claims to have provided Letauk with some inspiration for Calawo, and also claims Letauk wrote a portion of Pongwuaif's Rain On My Wedding, but asked to not be creditted.

Style

Besides the story-within-story framing, The Ways of The Calawo stands out in other ways of structure. The differing sections are written in different voices; The unnamed narrator speaks in the first person, and the sections of Haes's story which are told within the outer frame are as well, but the sections which take place within the story are in the third person, but Djeizal's story is the inverse, being read in the third person by Haes and in the first person in their own section. The narrator's story is however in the present tense, whilst Djeizal's is in the past tense, and inverse for Hae's story and Djeizal's story as read by haes, providing each of the four with a unique combination of tense and voice. The Calawotan myths are told in such a way as to be unclear, and the conversations between Myeraidt and Gostuom are in the second person, largely in future tense.

Formatting shifts around often. In contrast to usual deysachni litarure, which flows about the page, Calawo is written such that sections of the text form distinct blocks, visually resembling nondeysachni literary stylings. This often takes the shape of a nest, wherein inner layers of story are surrounded by footnotes, implied to have been written by outer frames. In one particular example, page 837, seven different layers are nested within eachother: The narrator records Haes's recount of Djeizal's dictation of Myeraldt's stating of Gostuom's reciting of a Calawotan myth, itself continaining the retelling of a story, all of which is appended with a footnote, presumed to be written by the unnamed narrator at a point in the future from the outermost frame.

Several fonts are used within the novel, though this was not an intentional choice, as it was simply that Letauk wrote the novel on a series of proto-printers, which at the time were a new technology, with the only ones he could afford being prone to breaking down often. Despite this however, the font changes occur with such regularity as to neatly break the novel into 15 or 16 sections.

Parallels to Real Life

The titular Calawo are based on the Carawo People, who can also be transcribed as the Calawo due to not distinguishing between rhotics and laminals. Letauk is himself half Carawo, as his paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother both were Carawo. Much of the material contained within which describes the Calawo is accurate to the real life customs, traditions, and history of the real Carawo, and a little over half of the sources mentioned in the footnotes are real documents. Sko'end F. Djeizal is based loosely upon Kreylsakt T. M. Ujomr, an early anthorpologist who documented much about the Carawo, as well as numerous other less known peoples, but who is seen in the modern day as largely an unhelpful and unreliable source.