The Passing Place

A couple of weeks ago I decided on little more than a whim to take a dip into the well of nostalgia and reread an old favourite ‘Pawn of Prophecy’. It a book I first read when I was a teenager in the middle of my epic fantasy stage. As I am in my fifth decade, that was along time ago, but in fairness that was not the last time I read it, its a book and a series I have fallen back into about once a decade. Every time I do I half expect it to disappoint me, yet it never does. There is however a few problems with ‘Pawn of Prophecy’….

Plot wise the five book The Belgariad and its five book sequel The Malloreon could be described as a little trite. Hidden Heir stories always are. But what keeps me coming back in the characters and the interactions between them. Quite frankly I love the characters, even though each individual main character is a caricature of fantasy land characters, the sarcastic thief, the hulking berserker, the wise old wizard, etc. The characters still feel well rounded and interesting. There are a host of other things that seem predictable and a tad hackneyed even, yet even knowing the story, knowing the characters , and knowing everything that happens in these books I still find myself picking up the books every decade or so and reading them again. And every time I do I have to read all 12 books (there are two others after the two series) because I genuinely love these books and love getting lost in David & Lynn Eddings world and characters.

This is a problem…

The problem being that unlike going back an rereading a Terry Pratchett novel, or one of my David Gemmell’s, or picking up a classic like Fahrenheit 451, a big fantasy series, and this is a particularly big one, becomes a reading time sink. As such, while I indulge in nostalgia, with the occasional scribbled note about character interaction (as its the interactions between characters that make this series) as its hard as a writer to switch off that part of my brain when reading, my reading pile of new books has started to stack up.

Now that’s not a bad thing, I always have a stack of books to read, but it still gets a little bigger every few days. It is also a matter of balance, one of the most important skills a writer needs is reading. A writer does not just read for pleasure, which is not to say that reading is not a pleasure, but to expand there toolkit (hence the comment about making notes on character interactions). The greater the breathed and depth of your reading the more tools you find yourself able to play with. Rereading old books can be as useful as reading new ones, more in some ways as I tend to be more analytical when I reread old books these days, but reading something entirely has the capacity to send you off on entirely new tangents of thought and imagination.

The problem is however, on top of all the other books in my reading pile I have two new books from a couple of my favourite people as well as authors, because as part of a growing community of indie authors that is slowly spanning the globe I am exposed (for want of a better word) to the novels and worlds of some fabulous authors outside the mainstream of supermarket paperbacks. I always look forward to these books from any of my fellow indie writers. Yet they are sitting in the fallow pile waiting for me to finish the series I am reading, which has left me feeling a tad guilty (which is clearly ridiculous, but I’m a ridiculous kind of person.) I feel all the more guilty as it is #IndieOctober a made up festival of indie writers, made up by me of all people, which I use to try and help indie writers find an audience, and grow a readership by letting them post guest blogs and doing lost of reviews and other things indie writer relates through out the month of October (I did this last year and it was quite successful) So I feel I should be reading these indie books I have on my reading pile…

This is all a tad ridiculous, the obligation to read these two books is entirely self-imposed, and its not as if I don’t want to read them… I just want to finish the last four and a half books of the Belgariad/Malloreon first… But that may take a while, the last two are particularly long novels… I am also entirely sure neither Craig or Nils will be offended that I want to finish other things before reading their books, yet I still feel guilty…

Self-imposed obligations are the worst…

I’ll just need to find more reading time. damn you sleep, why are you required?

As a side note, as well as loving indie writers, I have a soft spot for indie publishers, so as it is #indieOctober a little mention of them too. I often mention 6E publishing, as they are personal friends, produce the Harvey Duckman anthologies and importantly are are just fabulous people. Sloth Comics are also seem to be particularly good people, but that maybe because I love Hopeless Maine… But the special mention today is for Inspired Quill, as I decided to buy Craig Hallam’s latest novel direct from the publisher, mainly on a whim and because Amazon make enough money out of me. Supporting small press publishers is important to me because they support indie writers, and care more about the books than the money. But its also such a nice experience when they send you a free bookmark along with the book , and a hand written note… Bless there cotton socks… It brought a extra little smile to my face.

In terms of Lovecraft stories The Dreams of the Witch House is a little odd due to its mixing the cosmic horror that is Lovecraft’s staple with hints of Judo-Christian concept of the devil. It stands out as the only real example of Lovecraft doing this in any of his cosmic horror tales. Rooting aspects of this story in pseudo Judo-Christianity should work well, there is a logic to it, after all explaining things in terms of religion is what humanity has been doing for thousands of years, so seeing the devil in a manifestation of cosmic horror, or the roots of judo-christian myth laying in aspects of Lovecraft’s myths is not only logical but enticing as a concept. Doing so in a story that involves witch craft and witches, those traditional worshipers of the devil, is also logical. After all, who is to say if a witch is praying to the devil or some cosmic horror that takes on that aspect. there si so much that could be done with this idea… Unfortunately given the way it was done, there are also troubling questions raised by his doing so, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The story itself centers are William Gilman a student of mathematics and, of all things, folklore at dear old Miskatonic University. Probably the only University in the world where such a odd pairing for a joint degree could be studied… As such Gilman takes an attic room in The Mason House in Arkham, a house that bears the local nickname, ‘The Witch House’ as one of its former residents was Kexith Mason, who was to be tried for witchcraft in 1692 when he mysteriously disappeared from a jail cell in Salem. His former residence developed a reputation as being haunted that persists to the present day in the way such rumors do. Rumors linked to the premature deaths of several residents over the last couple of centuries. Residents who all occupied the same attic room Gilman find himself living in. A room that he soon realizes is distinctly odd, with strange almost unearthly geometry.

It is then Gilman starts to dream, and such odd dreams they are…

In his dreams Gilman is witness to cities of elder things, strange impossible geometric shapes that communicate with him, and other oddities. He also encounters a witch called Keziah and her strange rat like familiar Brown Jenkins which while having a rodent body has a human face. But this is only the start, the dreams escalate as does the effect these dreams are having upon Gilman in the physical world. Among other things he goes deaf due to the inhuman sounds he hears in his dreams. Eventually Keziah takes him to meet ‘The Black Man’ a who makes him sign ‘The book of Azathoth’ whence he is taken to the throne of Asathoth and forced to kidnap a child for sacrifice in the dream…

And here is where the issues starts …

‘The Black Man’ is the allegory for the devil. The epitome of evil. He is also Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos, the harbinger of Asathoth who will usher in the age of chaos and destroy human civilization. Now, in aspect, that is all well and good, but specifically throughout this story the coven hoofed devil is called ‘The Black Man’ and ‘The Black Man’ is therefore the harbinger of chaos and destruction in the form of Azathoth. Remember this was written by H P Lovecraft in 1932, the era of Jim Crow laws, Nazism coming to power in Europe, and Lovecraft’s racist views, opinions and rhetoric are well documented. The subtext whether intentionally or otherwise is obvious.

…a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features: wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric.

In fairness, Lovecraft’s description of ‘The Black Man’ states he does not have negroid features. It could be argued that this distances the character from any obvious allegory of Lovecraft’s views on what he calls elsewhere in his letters and writings ‘The negro Problem’. But that’s a thin defense when Lovecraft’s views are well established and the portrayal of ‘The Black Man’ as the Judo-Christian Satan was problematic at best even in 1932. Its difficult to read the story and put that on one side. It is in fact possibly the most obnoxious bit of racism in all of Lovecraft’s writing. In previous stories the case, no matter how loosely, could be made that racist opinions and views expressed were the views of the narrators of those stories. Here however it is clearly a view expressed by the writer himself, as here it is the subtext which is expressing the abhorrent views. Perhaps all the worse for the literary slight of hand in that description above.

The ‘Black man’ controversy and the desire of those who have drawn upon this story to distance that controversy from the story as a whole is mostly the reason why the picture above shows a devil figure bedecked with horns. It’s also why when the Lovecraft historical Society commissioned a Rock opera of the dreams of the witch house ‘The Black Man’ was somewhat overtly replaced with Satan in the story.

That album is rather good all considered, if you like operatic rock music with a entwined story. Its not up there with Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, or likely to inspire me, in part at least, to write a novel as Jeff’s album did, but what is? If you like the genre there are worse ways to enjoy the story… Such as reading Lovecraft’s original.

Putting the controversy of ‘the Black man’ to one side, (and frankly everything about this story could have been better, or at least less horrifying for the wrong reasons, if he was described and refereed to differently throughout,) the story is a reasonable read. There is a certain obviousness about the ending, and some of the imagery early on in the dreamscape sequences is tedious, but that may be just me, I have never fully got along with Lovecraft dreamland’s fiction. Certainly there are aspects of horror that are visceral images that are horrifying in the sense you want. Brown Jenkins the man faced rat eating his way out of Gilman, for example, is particularly nasty bit of imagery in the good way. But the final ending has a predictability about it, there were other ways he could have gone with it which would have been far more interesting. But that last is perhaps a niggle of my own . Its a solid enough ending but its a solid ending to a fairly weak story.

Of all Lovecraft’s later works this is one of, if not the, weakest. Perhaps it better than I give it credit for, but I find it hard to get past the whole ‘The Black Man’ problem, particularity in light of the world as it is today and all that is going on. But even in better times I doubt I would find it easy to stomach the racist subtext. Because of that but mostly because its just not the best of stories it gets a lowly two tentacles. Read it if you feel you must, but if you want my advice, stick on the rock opera, crank the speakers up to eleven and enjoy the story in a much better way…

Further Lovecraftian witterings as ever can be found here