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The literary work 'A Shadow over Evening' is the property of Mr E. Garak, lately of Cardassia Prime, to which he possesses exclusive rights. The wittier reviews come from Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde.

Nom de Plume

ìA remarkable work...The romance portrayed so delicately between the protagonist and the object of his unrequited attentions is heartbreaking in its candour and in the ultimate sense of loss. This reviewer was deeply moved.î
Exodus, New City Lights Press, San Francisco.

If Bashir knew, he'd probably wish that he'd never raised the subject in the first place. One could blame Jake Sisko, but that doesn't seem entirely fair: we were the ones who started the conversation, after all. The challenge in question took place during lunch. Young Sisko was with us; as a writer in embryo he had started to take an interest in our literary discussions, and Bashir encouraged him in this. Perhaps, too, the doctor felt in need of moral support. I certainly didn't mean to keep undermining him. I genuinely tried to take an interest in human literature. I approached each new work in the hope that I'd appreciate it, but on almost every occasion, the doctor and I were both disappointed. This time, it was James Joyce's *Ulysses*. I said it showed promise, but it was insufficiently opaque. Bashir was sure that I'd read it, hadn't understood it, and now was adopting this insufferable pose purely to annoy him.
'You asked me to say what I thought, and that's my honest opinion,' I protested.
'Honest! Ha!'
'Cardassians exist in a hinterland of subtextual reference; I've explained this to you before.' I said. 'Why do you think the highest form of Cardassian literature is the
enigma tale? Because it's oblique, dense, and requires careful analysis. In the novels you've given me, everything takes place on the surface.'
'Haven't you liked anything I've given you over the last six months?' he asked me in exasperation.
'Well, let me see. Remind me what we've gone through. There must have been something.'
'All right, then. I lent you Crime and Punishment.'
'Oh, that. Unconvincing.'
'The Alexandria Quartet.'
'Too parochial.'
'Portrait of a Lady.'
'Now, I liked the woman in that.'

'Isabel?' he asked, hopefully.
'No, the other one.'
'Well, what about Remembrance of Things Past?'
'It picked up in the last thirty pages, but I kept wanting to tell the narrator to pull himself together.'
'So you haven't liked anything, basically. None of the books I consider masterpieces of human literature.'
'I liked parts of them, just not all of them.' I bit my lip. 'I'm sorry, doctor. I wanted to like them.'
'You always seem to approve of the villains.'
'But I never see them as the villains, you see.'
Jake had been following this discussion with close attention. Now, he said, a little diffidently
'Mr Garak, if you think so little of the novel as an art form, why don't you see if you could do better? Why don't you try writing one yourself?'
'Me? Write a novel?'
'Yes, why not?' Bashir said. 'After all, with all the experience you've had, you must have the material for a dozen novels, at least.'
'I might manage a short vignette,' I said, dryly.
'I think it's an excellent idea,' the doctor continued. 'You're always telling me that you haven't got enough to do.'
'Oh, I don't know,' I demurred. 'I'm coming to the opinion that there's just too great a gap between our two cultures for there to be any substantial literary overlap.'
'Now's your chance to bridge that gap,' Bashir told me, slapping his hand on the table for emphasis. Several diners looked round. 'Think of the challenge. And you mustn't write anything that's political.'
'You've just been telling me to write what I know about,' I protested.
'No, Doctor Bashir's right,' Jake said. 'The principal challenge that faces the novelist is in getting into someone else's skin, seeing through their eyes. I should think you'd find that, well...'
'Familiar?'
Jake faltered a little before my gaze.
'After all, it was your former profession,' he said, bravely.
'Yes, I'm sure you're right,' I sighed, sitting back in my chair. 'Gardening's like that.'

2.

ìThis turgid display of an old man's sentimental and unconvincing
crush on an insensitive youth bears all the hallmarks of a cynical
appeal to the reader's sympathy. This reviewer could not have cared
less.î
J. Otani, Osaka Telegraph.

Of course I had no initial intention of emulating a redundant alien art form, but circumstances changed my mind for me. Firstly, there was that unfortunate incident with Odo, and then the little matter of attempted genocide on my part. What with one thing and another, I had rather more time on my hands over the next six months than I'd anticipated. I don't enjoy being under observation all the time - to a spy it produced a most distressing degree of paranoia - and I don't like enclosed spaces. The doctor and Ziyal were faithful visitors, and I had some instructive conversations with the newly solidified Odo, but I was still at something of a loose end for much of the long day and young Sisko's words returned to haunt me. Why not write a novel? After all, I had a lifetime's worth of material to draw upon.

ìExcessively emotional. Apart from this manifest defect, it is not
entirely without merit.î
T'ting, writing in the Vulcan Literary Quarterly.

I'll say this for writing as an occupation; it certainly passes the time. By the time I was released from durance vile, I had already completed a first draft and was halfway through its revision. I'd like to say that I embraced my new found freedom with
unconfined joy, but since it was merely the exchange of one small cell for a station sized one, I can't say I was overjoyed. I suppose it's all relative. Life soon returned to normal. Bashir and I resumed our lunchtime sojourns; Ziyal came by for dinner and her lessons (I seem to have assumed the role of her unofficial tutor). I reopened the shop, to the usual clamouring hordes of customers. In my spare moments, I continued to work on the novel. I hadn't realised how absorbing the creation of a world can be,
nor how characters whom one creates and theoretically controls can assume such a bewildering life of their own. I also hadn't realised how difficult it was: the constant revising and polishing and changing. I hated the process of cutting passages that I had spent hours working on, and manipulating words so that they said what I wanted them to say. The tension between the concepts in my mind and the words on the paper was sometimes almost unbearable. I resisted the temptation to talk about my novel, partly because it would be too embarrassing if I failed to finish the thing, and partly because old habits die hard and I'm secretive by nature. By the time I'd finished the third draft, our original conversation lay a year in the past. One day, I read my story through, and thought: *it's finished*. I felt a curious sense of mingled satisfaction and loss.

4.

ìDecadent.î
Romulus Fiction monthly.

There now remained the question of what to do with the thing. I'd begun the novel rather cynically, as an exercise in filling time, but after I'd left it alone for a couple of weeks, and then read it again, I realised just how much of my soul I'd put into it. It made me a little unsettled - I'm not one for public confessions, as you know. Having revealed so much, I found that I couldn't leave it mouldering in a drawer. I was wary of trying to get it published, feeling that it would draw too much attention to myself. I sat and stared at the little screen on which a year's passion now reposed, and the obvious solution presented itself to me.

ìI would sooner imbibe a quart of my own urine than devote another moment
to this literary excrescence.î
P.P. Kovacs, Times New Literary Supplement.

Over dinner, some time later, the Captain said
'It's good to catch up like this, Jadzia. I've seen so little of you over the past few days. A new holo program, perhaps?'
Dax leaned forward, her eyes glittering with excitement.
'Benjamin, I meant to tell you. I've just read the most wonderful book - I couldn't put it down. I've been closeting myself in my quarters, trying to finish the thing. You've got to read it. It's up for this year's Marechal Award.'
'Jake's told me about that. Isn't that the one presented by the Academie Francais?'
'That's it. It's a huge award - an author's made once he or she wins the Marechal.'

'And what's this amazing novel called? Who's the author?'
'Well, the book's called 'A Shadow over Evening,' it's an old fashioned hard bound edition, and someone on this station got sent a complimentary copy. Now, the author - that's the interesting part. I don't know whether there's any connection, but...'

ìOne would have to possess a heart of stone to read of the death of little innocent Palia (chapter 40) without laughing.î
A Writer Speaks, pub. Sarani University Press.

'I loved it,' Kira said. 'It was *so sad*. I just howled - and you know me, Jadzia, I don't usually like this sort of thing. The bit where Palia dies! And the bit where he renounces Khalifa forever and can't even tell him -'
'Wasn't that heartbreaking? Oh, I just wanted to give the boy a good shake!' Dax agreed.
'The author...do you think he's any relation of -?'
'I don't know. I keep meaning to ask him. I haven't seen him for the last couple of days.'

ìThis is not the sort of romantic novel to be tossed aside lightly. On the contrary, it should be thrown with great force.î
Zamia's Annual Book Guide.

'So what did you think of the ending, Chief?'
'What did I think? I don't know, do I? I didn't make it beyond chapter one. God Almighty. Of all the whinging, complaining - I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I wouldn't use that book to wipe my -'
'Oh, Chief! You have no soul!' Jadzia wailed. 'You're as bad as Worf! I had to wrench it from his hands at the entrance to the airlock...'
'Well, I like a good story, you know? I can't understand this kind of thing...'

ìNot the work of a gentleman.î
Cambridge Free Press.

'Are you telling me I'm obsessed with sex?'
'No, of course not, Major! And I do understand this constant preoccupation you solids have with the reproductive processes a little better now. But do people need to be so graphic? I found the narrator's fantasies really quite excessive. I don't want to know what he thinks about in bed.'
'But you can always skip that bit, and anyway, it's important for the context. He thinks he's burnt out, and he's thrown away his one chance of a reasonable life, and then he walks into Mallory's bar and sees this beautiful young man and it gives him something to live for again...And then he thinks he's dying and Khalifa puts his hand on the narrator's brow and that's the only time they ever touch outside of his imagination...' Kira groped for the tissues and blew her nose. 'The sex scenes give the story depth, and darkness, and at the end you want so much for them to get together and end all that unnecessary pain.' She added
'You know what, Odo? I wish I could write, because then I'd give it a happy ending, just for my own satisfaction.'
'Why don't you?'
'Well, maybe I will...'

ìAnd not the work of a warrior, either. A vulgar and perverted display. Were he a Klingon, he would soon learn the error of his ways.î
Klingon Akar'nath Rega, speaking on ìA Universe of Books.î

'So what did you think, dad?'
Sisko considered his reply for a moment before saying
'I thought it was a very good exploration of a society that pretends to espouse freedom and yet refuses to acknowledge certain forms of expression, either by marginalising them and pretending they're not important, or by criminalising them. I thought it was an intense, powerful, tragic work, and I'm not sure that I'm entirely happy about you reading it.'
'Oh, c'mon, dad! What, you mean because of the sex scenes? It's nowhere near as bad as Tropic of Cancer, or Delta of Venus, or...I mean, even the bit with the rubber bodice...'
'You've read as far as that? I've only just given it to you!'
'Well, that was where it fell open...Anyway,' Jake added, with a look at his father's face 'That's what everyone said. I mean, I don't know. I haven't read any of that stuff, of course.'
'Of course not.'

10.

ìA searing indictment of a society that, even now, will not permit a kind of love to speak its name...Comparable to Mann's Death in Venice, this devastatingly powerful work reminds us yet again how valuable it is to allow expression - and passion itself - in all its forms.î
The Berlin Voice.

'What did you think, Julian? What about the bit in chapter 33 when -'
'Jadzia! Don't you dare. I haven't got that far yet. I've only just got a copy, remember.'
'So you don't think the author's any relation?' Dax asked.
'I don't think so, no. Apparently it's quite a common name...'

11.

'Vile.'
Cardassian book review Section, 'The Truth.'

'Right,' the doctor said, with the light of battle in his eye. ìHere's a book for you that I'm *sure* you'll enjoy.î
'What's it about?' the tailor asked, curiously.
'Garak, it's heartrending. It's about a middle aged, washed up political journalist, a Romulan, who's committed some awful action in the past which he can't talk about. Well, he falls hopelessly in love with a young human poet, and they see each other almost every week for years but the narrator - the Romulan - can't ever tell the poet, Khalifa, how he feels, because he's afraid of losing his friendship. And so Khalifa never finds out that he's inspired this great passion that's the other man's only reason for living. And the journalist watches Khalifa fall in love with a series of girls who work at the poker tables in the local bar....so all the time the journalist is desparately tormented, and eventually he leaves the city without even saying good-bye.'
'Who wrote it?'
'The funny thing is, it's by someone with my name - an E. G. Bashir. No relation, though. Anyway, here it is. I'll be interested to hear your opinion.î

12.

ìAn immortal work.î
Pravda, Narodny Kiev.

'So what did you think of it?' the doctor asked eagerly, a few days later. The Cardassian's blue eyes met his for a moment, and Garak smiled, perhaps a little sadly.
'It wasn't bad. Hopelessly unrealistic, of course. I'll be interested to see if there's a sequel...'

END