From From the Back of the Book
Explorations of Fantasy An entertaining, eclectic chronicle o modern antastical ction, Monstrous Creatures delivers Creatures delivers incisive commentary, reviews, and essays pertaining to permutations permutati ons o the monstrous, whether whethe r it’s it’s other people’s people’s monsters, personal person al monsters, or monstrous thoughts. A two-time winner o the World Fantasy Award, Je VanderMeer is one o speculative ction’s oremost voices. For the past 20 years, he has not only written weird literary ction translated into 20 languages, but written about it extensively, infuencing the way people think about antasy through reviews in major papers like The Washington Post and Post and The New York Times , as well as through interviews, thoughtul essays, blog posts, teaching, and guest-speaking. Monstrous Creatures , a C ut Your Your Throat? Thro at? , ollow-up to his 2004 nonction collection Why Should I Cut collects all o his major nonction rom the past ve years, including such controversial pieces as “The Romantic Underground,” “The Triumph o the Good,” and “The Language o Deeat”. Interviews with writers like Margo Lanagan and China Miéville are an added bonus, creating a dialogue with VanderMeer’s own interpretations o the monstrous in the antastical. Praise or Jef VanderMeer’s VanderMeer’s Fiction
“Somewhere at the intersection o pulp and Surrealism, drawing on the very best o both traditions, is Je VanderMeer’s Ambergris.”—China Miéville, award-winning author o Perdido Street Station “In the hands o a brilliant writer like Je VanderMeer, writing antasy can be a means o serious artistic expression.…it is also playul, poignant, and utterly, wildly, imaginative.” —Peter Straub, author o Ghost Story “VanderMeer is a novelist to be reckoned with.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Beautiully written, virtually hallucinatory hallucinatory work…connoisseurs o the fnest in postmodern antasy will fnd it enormously rewarding.” — Publishers Weekly
Literary Criticism www.rawdogscreaming.com
Monstrous Creatures Copyright © 2011 by Je VanderMeer VanderMeer Published by Guide Dog Books Bowie, MD First Edition
Cover image: Eric Orchard Book design: Jennier Barnes
Printed in the United States o America ISBN: 978-1-935738-02-2 (hc) / 978-1-935738-03-9 (pbk) Library o Congress Control Number: 2010933090 www.GuideD www.GuideDogBooks.com ogBooks.com
Monstrous Creatures Explorations Explorations o Fantasy through Essays, Articles and Reviews
Jef VanderMeer
Acknowledgments
Tanks to everyone at Guide Dog or believing in this book and putting up with my schedule. Tanks to the editors at all o the publications and review websites who published many o these the se pieces originally. Tanks to my wie, Ann VanderMeer, anderMeer, or being a rst reader or many o these pieces, and the last reader or the collection as a whole. Tanks to my ellow writers or being inspirational.
Table of Contents .................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ....................... ..................... ......... 9 Monstrous? Creatures? ........................ .................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ....................... ....................... ........... 11 Monstrous Thoughts ........................ The Third Bear.................. .............................. ........................ ........................ ........................ ....................... ....................... ........................ .............. 12 The Language Language of Defeat Defeat ................................. ............................................. ........................ ....................... ....................... ..................... ......... 24 An Anvil Is Not an Artichoke ....................... ........... ........................ ........................ ......................... ......................... ...................... .......... 28 The Romantic Romantic Underground Underground ........................ .................................... ........................ ....................... ....................... ....................... ........... 31 Politics in Fantasy Fantasy.......................... ...................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ....................... ........................ .............. 37 The Triumph of the Good ....................... ........... ........................ ........................ ......................... ......................... ........................ ................ 43 The New New Weird Weird – “It’s “It’s Alive?” ....................... ........... ........................ ........................ ......................... ......................... .................... ........ 46 .................................. ................... ....... 55 Conversation #1: China Miéville and the Monsters...................... .................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... .............. ... 65 Appreciations of the Monstrous Monstrous ........................ Prague: Prague: City of Fantasy Fantasy ............. ......................... ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ....................... .................. ....... 66 Catherynne M. Valente’s The Labyrinth ....................... ................................... ........................ ....................... .................. ....... 69 Two Members of the Shadow Cabinet: Batchelor and McNaughton ........................ ........... ............. 71 Making Her Own Light: Caitlin R. Kiernan .............................................................75 Unsung Heroes of Science Fiction and Fantasy ......................................................79 My Additional Misadventures with Engelbrecht ......................................................83 .......................... ........................ ....................... ....................... ........................ ........................ ............87 87 Alasdair Gray and Lanark ..............
My Love-Hate Relationship with Clark Ashton-Smith ..............................................91 Lovecraft Art: The Link Between Tentacles and Cosmic SF .....................................99 Alfred Kubin and the Tortured Triumph Triumph of The Other Side ..................................103 The “Black Books” of Derek Raymond ....................... ........... ......................... ......................... ........................ ............... ... 107 A Giant of Literature, J.G. Ballard ...................... .......... ........................ ........................ ......................... ......................... .............. 122 The Cosmology Cosmology of Jeffrey Ford........................ .................................... ........................ ........................ ....................... ................. ...... 126 Five Years Years of Sfar and Trondheim’ Trondheim’ss Dungeon Series........................ Series............ ........................ ..................... ......... 129 How to Raise and Keep an Imagination: Joseph Nigg and the Power of Fantasy .... 132 Authors in Praise of Beer ........................ ............ ........................ ........................ ........................ ......................... ........................ ........... 140
Conversation #2: Eaten by Bears—Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels .....148
................................... ........................ ....................... ............. 153 Interrogating Other People’s People’s Monsters ....................... Prague Reimagined: Michal Ajvaz’s The Other City ....................... ................................... ...................... .......... 154 The Perils and Triumphs of Transformation: China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun ..........156 Two New Anthology Series, Two Two Views of Comics ........................ ............ ........................ ......................... ............. 161 Tove Jansson’s Moomin Comics ...........................................................................166 Bittersweet Fantasy: Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper ..........168 Dream Worlds: David B’s B’s Nocturnal Conspiracies ....................... ................................... ...................... .......... 170 Silence and Aversion: J. Robert Lennon’s Castle ........................ .................................... ....................... .............. ... 173 Stairs to Nowhere: House o Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski Danielewski ........................ .................................. .......... 176 Future Past: Brian Francis Slattery’s Liberation....................... ................................... ....................... ................ ..... 179 Not Good at Dying: The Many Deaths o the Firefy Brothers by Thomas Thomas Mullen....... .... ... 181 Re-envisioning the West: Emma Bull’s Territory........................ .................................... ....................... .............. ... 184 Hollywood Punk: Steve Erickson’s Zeroville ........................ .................................... ....................... .................... ......... 187 Exchange Students Plot to Take Over America: Chuck Palahniuk’s Pygmy ...........189 Looking for Love: Alexander Theroux’s Laur Lauraa Warho arholi lic, c, or The The Sexu Sexual al Inte Intellllec ectu tual al ......191 The Lost Girls of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie Gebbie ........................ ............ ........................ ....................... ........... 193 London’s London’s Last Stand: Jonathan Barnes’ The Domino Men ....................... .................................. ............. 197 The Newt Speaks Volumes: Jack O’Connell’s The Resurrectionist ...................... ........................ 200 Not Enough Bite: Victor Pelevin’ Pelevi n’ss The Sacred Book o the Werewol ................... ................... 202 Hot Ice: Marcel Theroux’s Theroux’s Far North....................... ................................... ........................ ........................ .................... ........ 205 Philosophy in Fiction’ Fict ion’ss Clothing: Neal Stephenson’s Stephenson’s Anathem ...................... ............................. ....... 207 The Books of the Decade Decade ...................... .................................. ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................ 212 ...................... 219 Conversation #3: The Monstrous Capybara of Austin, Texas Texas ...................... .................................. ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ................ 225 Personal Monsters ...................... The Hannukah Hannukah Bear ...................... .................................. ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ...................... .......... 226 Fantasy Fantasy and the Imagination Imagination .............. .......................... ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ .................. ...... 229 My Father’ Father’ss Pipe................................ ............................................ ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ .................. ...... 232 The Novella: Novella: A Personal Personal Exploration Exploration........................ .................................... ........................ ........................ .................... ........ 235 Two Essays on Hiking ..........................................................................................242
For Ann & For Caplin Rous, RIP
Monstrous? Creatures?
From an early age, I think I had ha d an appreciation or a denition o “monstrous” that did not mean “hideous,” “horrible,” or “ghastly.” Growing up in the Fiji Islands, i I came upon a lugubrious slug, it was cause or triumph and awe, not recoil. Similarly the deantly ugly toads that would hop lethargic through the grass—I loved them and their jaded watchul but calm eyes. ough old lobsters while snorkeling and snarling moray eels were better than bejeweled sh any day. No surprise, then, that when I grew up, I pursued the monstrous with gusto. Te insane micro-sinister o ungi attracted me, and I still nd nothing more sublime than encountering a particularly monstrous mushroom, gnarled and gilled and enigmatic, shoving its way into our world rom the trunk o a tree. A ascination with the sea ollowed me as well, so that giant squid and other cephalopods made a meal o me in hundreds o hours spent researching them and discovering their most monstrous secrets. Mega-auna, breadruit, wolverines, sea cucumbers, sloths, rhinoceros beetles—the list o those things thing s that I nd amazing trends toward the monstrous. In this sense: to me, the monstrous is the intersection o the beautiul with the strange, the dangerous with the sublime. Tings that seem to be continuously unknowable no matter how much you discover about them. Tat surround themselves with darkness. Sometimes, too, they are utterly terriying, no matter how you try to keep that thought out o your head. Books can be like that, too. Te best ctions always have h ave those qualities. Tey reveal dark marvels but they withhold some o their secrets as well. Monstrously ambitious. Monstrously odd. Monstrously wide and deep. d eep. Or even monstrously about monsters. You You could say that I’ve been seeking out the monstrous my entire e ntire lie—and
not just seeking it out, but running runn ing toward it. Wanting Wanting to explore it. i t. Obsessively. Obsessively. Sometimes I might be running not toward a bear but toward the Tird Bear, but that’s that’s okay too. Wonder Wonder and beauty need their opposites and sometimes are their own opposites. Tis book collects some o the monstrous creatures I’ve encountered over the past ew years. I hope you enjoy it. —Je VanderMeer, allahassee, November 2010
MONSTROUS THOUGHTS
The Third Bear From Brothers & Beasts: An Anthology o Men on Fairy ales (2007) I. “Masha and the Bear”
Te rst bear may be uncouth, but not unkind, despite appearances. a ppearances. His English isn’t good and he lives alone in a cottage in the orest, but no one can say he doesn’ doesn’t try. I he didn’t didn’t try, i the idea o trying, tryi ng, and thus o restraint, restra int, were alien ali en to him, the rst bear wouldn’t wouldn’t live in a cottage at all. He’d He’d live in the deep orest and all anyone would see o him, beore the end, would be hard eyes and the dark barrel o his muzzle. Te third bear would be so much in him that no rst bear would be let. Te rst bear is a man’s man, or, rather, a bear’s bear: “golden brown, with enormous claws on his padded eet and sharp, pure-white angs bigger than a person’s hands, and eyes a startling blue.” Tis bear smells like mint and blueberries, and his name is Bear. One day, day, a girl named Masha gets ge ts lost in the woods. Bear Bea r nds her and takes tak es her back to his cottage. cotta ge. He reuses to show her the way home, or or his cottage is a mess and, as I may have mentioned, so is his English. Masha can help him with both disasters, although she isn’t happy about the situation. She thinks Bear is the creature her parents warned her about when they told her not to go into the orest. But Bear is i s the rst bear, not the third bear. In an odd way, way, Bear has saved her rom the third bear. O course, Masha doesn’t see it that way—and why should she? It’s largely a matter o degree, and not just because she can’t imagine what worse might happen to her. Bear is gru with Masha, makes her he r work long hours, and ignores
Jeff VanderMeer
13
her pleas to be shown the way back to her village. As ar as Masha’s concerned, this is as bad as it gets. Tis dynamic continues or awhile, with Masha araid to run o blindly while Bear’s not looking. But then an odd thing begins to happen to Bear: the longer he talks to Masha and grows ond o her company, company, his English improving every week, he begins to eel bad or her. He begins to understand how lost, alone, and cut o she eels—in part because he eels the same way. Still, Bear enjoys the captive audience so much he does not allow his concern or her wellbeing to override his need or companionship. He cannot bring himsel to show Masha the way home, or surely that means he will lose her orever? One day, Masha nds a huge bear-sized basket under a pile o Bear’s dirty clothes and she has an idea. She bakes some pies and tells Bear, “You need to let me go back to my village. I want to take my parents some pies to eat. e at. I promise I’ll come back. Just show me the way.” Bear just laughs and says, “Naw. Tat not happening. Who would clean all day? Tis place is mess.” Masha begins to cry and this is more than the Bear can, well, bear. Tere’s no real reason or him to do as Masha requests except that he cares or her. She’ She’ss given him a way to help her without having to take the initiative, init iative, to be seen, somehow, somehow, as weak or vulnerable. Sometimes, Sometim es, that’s that’s all any a ny o us need. n eed. “Okay, “Okay,” Bear says. “I take pies to parents. But you stay here. he re.”” Masha smiles through her tears and says, “I will, Bear. I will! But I’m going to climb that tall tree outside o your cottage to keep an eye on you. I don’t don’t want you eating any o those pies along the way!” Fine, says Bear, Bear, and when he lurches o or a ew e w minutes to scratch his back ba ck against a pine tree, Masha hides hersel in the th e picnic basket. Bear picks it up and o he goes, in his plodding, head-swaying bear way. Every so oten, Bear stops and, tempted, begins to open the picnic basket. Each time, Masha, supposedly seeing him rom the top o a pine tree, shouts, “Remember, bear—those pies are or my parents! Don’t eat them!” Each time, Bear, caught, sighs and continues on without opening the basket.
MONSTROUS CREATURES
14
Or, rather, that’s the traditional version. In the original version, too, Bear’s English is ne rom the beginning o the story. And not much o anything is revealed about Bear’s Bear’s internal reaction to Masha’ Masha’s pie delivery request. But I didn’t like the traditional version very much when I read it. I mean, I loved the description o Bear and the dynamic between Bear and Masha, but the picnic basket bask et didn’t didn’t make any sense. se nse. How dumb does Bear have to t o be to not know that Masha is in the basket? No, Bear had to be in the know or any o that to work. In real lie, in my version, Bear knows very well that Masha is in the basket. He’s still a real bear, even i he’s been anthropomorphized a bit. He can smell that Masha’s in the basket. As or a bear’s bear’s hearing and an d Masha’ Masha’s pathetic attempts a ttempts to throw her voice, the less said the better—except that her attempts probably endear her to him all the more. So:
“I see you!” Masha says. “I see you rom my tree! Don’ Don’t eat any o those pies!” Bear grins a toothy grin. “Uh oh,” oh,” he says loudly. loudly. “Masha must see me rom the tall tree. I guess not eat pie.” In the original version, when Bear gets to the village, Masha’ Masha’s parents mistake mistak e Bear or the third bear they’re always warning their daughter about and chase him away with a shotgun. Bear drops the basket and out jumps Masha, sae and ound. Although the olktale doesn’t tell us any more about what happens to Bear, Bear, I guess he must go back to his messy cottage, sad and lonely and a nd embittered. Maybe one day, lacklorn, he wanders into the deep orest, encounters the third bear, and that’s that. I like Masha better than Bear in this olktale, olkt ale, even though I eel aection or the Bear because I recognize in him attributes o mysel and my ellow males. Ater all, olktales have an odd way o stylizing violence and horrible actions by stripping them o their three-dimensional detail. In a sense, they sometimes unction like those cartoons where the mouse hits the cat with a hammer. I it happened in real-lie you’ you’d recoil in horror. Bear is perectly cute in his role as shambling, inconsiderate ursine. Despite this, at base, Bear is a kidnapper kid napper who makes Masha into his work slave, no matter
Jeff VanderMeer
15
what his motivations. It is very nearly the stereotype o the unequal marriage or the unequal relationship in our culture. Most men have played the role o that bear at some time or another—the guy who doesn’t want to appear weak, who needs a civilizing inuence, who, at heart, is actually somewhat vulnerable and just needs someone to care about or that to come to t o the ore. Because, let’s let’s ace it, Masha isn’t Bear’s daughter in this olktale. She’s not quite his wie, either, thank god, but close enough. Now, do you want to know what really happens to Bear? And what really happened at the end o the olktale? In the true version that no one wants to talk about, Bear reaches the village at dusk, when he’s he’s able to t o walk down the streets without ear ea r o discovery. discovery. Soon, he came to Masha’ Masha’s parents’ house. He set the basket down and knocked on the t he door. Slowly, Masha’s ather opened the door and stared up at the great bear. “Who are a re you?” Masha’s Masha’s ather asked. He didn’ didn’t sound rightened, probably because Masha’ Masha’s mother was hidden hi dden behind the door holding a loaded shotgun. “I’m Bear,” said Bear. “And I bring your daughter home, and pies. She’s in basket right there. All in return is you help me more with English.” Te parents accept Bear’ Bea r’ss proposal, once they see their th eir daughter is unharmed. unha rmed. Bear becomes civilized and never returns to the orest. He even runs or mayor. Masha, meanwhile, grows up to become a smart, talented woman who orgives Bear and even becomes his riend—and denitely never gets lost in the orest again. Bear never gets lost in the woods again, either. Tat third bear rightens him so much that sometimes his nightmares make it hard or him to breathe.
16
MONSTROUS CREATURES
II. “Te Farmer’s Cat” Te second bear isn’t any tidier than the rst. It’s not that he’s messy—it’s that he carries his mess in his context. For many years, the second bear, whose name is Bear, doesn’t realize he’s a bear. He doesn’t even think he’s a cat. He thinks he’s a human being. So there’s the mess in his context, peeking out. What am I talking about? he second bear—Bear—inhabits a trickster tale involving a armer and trolls. Every winter, the trolls smash down the door to the armer’s house and make themselves at home or a month. hey eat all o his ood, drink all o the water rom his well, guzzle down all o his milk, break his urniture, and art whenever they eel like it. heir leader, Mobhead, is a monstrous troll with an enormous head. It is so large that it has to be propped up with a head crutch. Te armer has no choice but to let them trash his arm every year. Until one autumn, a traveling merchant comes by selling sel ling orphaned bear cubs. An idea orms in the t he armer’s armer’s head. Te next year, when the trolls come barreling through, they nd the new cat. One o the other trolls—a deormed troll, with wit h a third eye protruding like a tube rom its orehead—prodded the ball o ur with one o its big clawed toes. “It’s “It’s a cat, I think. think . Just like the last one. Another juicy, lovely lovely cat.” A third troll said, “Save it or later. later. We’ We’ve ve got plenty o time.” Te armer, who had been watching all o this, said sai d to the trolls, “Yes, “Yes, this is our new cat. But I’d ask that you not eat him. I need him around to catch mice in the summer summe r or when you come back next time, time , I won’ won’t have any grain, gr ain, and no grain means no beer.” Te misshapen missha pen troll sneered. “A “A pretty speech, armer arme r. But don’t don’t worry about the mice. We’ll eat them all beore we leave.”
Jeff VanderMeer
17
But the armer gets Mobhead to swear to leave the cat alone. And Mobhead agrees, smug and secure in the omniscience o his enormous skull. Now, in the original version o this tale the leader o the trolls doesn’t have an enormous head—this is pure extrapolation on my part because I like the idea o head crutches—but the trolls are all such knuckleheads that the idea o them mistaking a bear cub or a kitten isn’t that outlandish. Te idea o their leader acquiescing to t o the armer’s armer’s request seemed slightly slightl y more outlandish. In my version o the tale, Mobhead grants the request, but says: Hmmm. I must admit I’ve grown ond o you, armer, in the way a wol is ond o a lamb. And I do want our winter resort to be in good order next time we come charging down out o the rozen north. Tereore, although I have this nagging eeling I might regret this, I will let you keep the cat. But everything else we’re we’re going to eat, drink, drink , ruin, or art on. I just want to make that clear. Some characters in olktales just have ha ve a set role to play, play, regardless o logic or giant heads. A ew o these characters, over time, develop a sel-awareness about that role. However, However, that doesn’ doesn’t mean they can ever escape it. At this point in the olktale, I stopped reading or awhile and I started thinking about that ball o ur curled up in the basket, the second bear, known as Bear. Here Here is an orphan orph an that has never ne ver known its mother. Here is a bear sold to be a cat. Does the armer raise Bear as a cat? Does the armer raise Bear as a bear and just present him to the trolls as a cat? Exactly what sense o identity does the Bear have at this point? Te armer’s armer’s a sly character in the original olktale. olktale . Te trolls are colorul and proane. But Bear is the interesting one because Bear has to perorm multiple roles. Te second bear is a kind o consummate actor—consummate in that he doesn’t even know he’s an actor. Because it’s pretty clear to me that, even i it’s never stated in the olktale, the armer raises Bear as i he were a human being with a bit o the third bear in him. So, what happens next?
18
MONSTROUS CREATURES
wo years later, the trolls come by and the armer’s “cat” is all grown up: “Tere rose a huge shadow with large yellow eyes and rippling muscles under a thick brown pelt. Te claws on the shadow were big as carving knives, and the angs almost as large.” Bear savages the trolls, just like a bear. Suddenly they heard a growl that turned their blood to ice and set them to gibbering, and at their rear there came the sound o bones being crunched, and as they turned to look and see what was happening, they were met by the sight o some o their riends being hurled at them with great orce. Mobhead is urious with the armer, but Bear is too much or the trolls. Tey won’t be coming back. In the traditional version rom Norway, Norway, that’s that’s the end o the story: story : the armer triumphant, the trolls vanquished. All is right in the world again. It is the classic trickster tale—one which oten presupposes the stupidity o the opposition, unortunately: a kind o brain-versus-brawn equation that allows or none o the clever complexity o, say, say, Roadrunner versus Coyote or Holmes versus Moriarty. Moriarty. And, again, we don’t don’t nd out what happens to Bear aterwards. ate rwards. Tese bears are always alling o the map. But when I nished reading, I was still thinking thinki ng about Bear and his role in the story. I you look at it rom Bear’ Bea r’ss perspective, what a screwed up childhood! chil dhood! He’s orphaned. He’s sold into the armer’s amily under alse pretenses. Te armer makes him part o the busy yet stable arm lie—“Te armer and his cat would take long walks through the elds, the armer teaching the cat as much about the arm as possible. And he believed that the cat even appreciated some o it.”—but he also has to be a cold-blooded troll-killer when it comes right down to it. Te untold story within this olktale is about our place in the world. Where do we t in? How much are we shaped by our environment, how much by our heritage? Te armer knows who he is, as do the trolls. Tey’re more boring or it, but I’m sure Bear would preer to be boring than unsettled and conused, the reader’s boredom level rarely a concern o ctional characters. Bear is, in a
Jeff VanderMeer
19
sense, the classic teenager—neither sh nor owl; capable o restraint and unbridled passion in almost the same instant. So how does this olktale really end? How can it end, except with uncertainty? Once inside, the armer and the bear laughed. “Tanks, Mob-Eater,” Mob-Eater,” the armer said. “Y “ You looked really erce.” Te bear hued a deep bear belly bell y laugh, sitting back on its haunches in a huge comy chair the armer had made or him. “I am really erce, ather,” ather,” the bear said. “But you should have let me chase them. I don’t like the taste o troll all that much, but, oh, I do love to chase them.” “Maybe next year,” the armer said. “Maybe next year. But or now, we have chores to do. I need to teach you to milk the cows, or one thing. t hing.”” “But I hate to milk the cows,” cows,” the bear b ear said. “Y “ You know that.” “Yes, “Yes, but you still s till need to know how to do it, son.” “Very well. I you say so.” Tey waited or a ew e w minutes until the trolls were out o sight, and then they went outside and started doing the arm chores or the day. Soon, the armer thought, his wie and children would come home, and everything would be as it was beore. Except that now they had a huge talking bear living in their house. Sometimes olktales didn’t end quite the way you thought they would. But they did end. At least, this is the way I think the olktale should end. With Bear blithely unaware o the contradiction between third-bear bloodthirsty-ness and human boy rustration with chores. With the armer realizing that the solution to one problem may have created another, altogether more deadly and personal problem. Because, ultimately, ultimately, the second bear is still a wil wildd animal, not a human being at all.
20
MONSTROUS CREATURES
III. “Te Tird Bear”
Te third bear is problematic. It doesn’t think o itsel as a bear. It doesn’t want to be in this essay. Te third bear is always waiting to be written so he can leap out and devour. devour. He lives in the deepest d eepest o deep orest. orest. He has no patience with human olktales. He lives rough and is all animal. No taint o human in this bear. He has no name, not even “Bear.” He does sometimes exist at the edges o other olktales that are not about him at all—spore-dropping in the dark part o the woods; the sense o menace that orms the backdrop to some more brightly lit tale. You can just see him in the dark recesses o the oliage in the paintings o Rousseau. Rousseau. Tis is the bear Masha’s parents warned her about. Tis is the bear that existed in the crunch o bone and spurt o blood when the second bear was slaughtering trolls. But this is an essay about olktales, so let me put the third bear in that context. Once upon a time… One terrible stormy night… Tere once was a… Tree bears once…
Once, there lived a creature that might mi ght have been a bear bea r. Tis “bear” came to the orest near the village and a nd soon anyone who used the orest trail, day or night, nig ht, disappeared, carried carrie d o to the creature’s creature’s lair. By the time even large convoys went through the orest, they would discover two or three o their number missing. A straggling horseman, his mount cantering along, along , just bloodstains and bits o skin sticking to the saddle. A cobbler gone but or a blood-soaked hat. Te villagers were distraught. Without using the trail through the orest, they couldn’t couldn’t bring in ood rom the armers ar mers on the other ot her side. Without that trail, they couldn’t bring their goods to market. Tey were stuck in a nightmare.
Jeff VanderMeer
21
Slowly, they realized that they couldn’t wait or the third bear to devour them all. Tey had to strike back. Te village’s village’s strongest man, Clem, a blacksmith, b lacksmith, volunteered to ght the beast. He had arms like most people’s thighs. His skin was tough rom years o being exposed to ame. With his ull black beard he almost looked like a bear himsel. “I’ll go, and I’ll go willingly,” he told the village elders. “I’ve not met the beast I couldn’ couldn’t best. I’ll squeeze the ‘a’ ‘a’ out o him.” him.” And he laughed, or he had a passable sense o humor, although the village elders chose to ignore it. Fitted in chain mail and leather armor, carrying an old sword some knight had once let by mistake in the village, Clem set orth in search o the third bear. He let the path almost immediately, wandered through the underbrush to the heart o the orest, where the trees grew so black and thick that the only glimmer o light came reected rom water glistening on leaves. Te smell in that place carried a hint o oal, so he gured he was close. Clem had spent so much time beating things into shape that he had not developed a sense o ear, or he had never been beaten. But the smell in his nostrils did make him uneasy. Clutching his sword, he came upon a hill hi ll and a cave inside. From within the cave, a green ame beckoned. A lesser man might have turned back, but not Clem. He didn’ didn’t have the sense God gave a donkey. Into the cave he went. Inside, he ound the third thi rd bear. bear. And behind the third bear, arranged around the walls o the cave, the heads hea ds o the third bear’s bear’s victims. Te heads had been painstakingly painted and mounted on stands. Tey were all in various states o decay d ecay.. Many bodies lay stacked neatly in the back o the cave. Some o them had been mutilated. All o them had been deled in some way. Te wavery green light came rom a candle the third bear had placed in the back o the cave, to display his handiwork. Te smell was so horrible, Clem had to put a hand over his mouth. And as he took it all in, the methodical nature o it, the act that the third bear had, in act, not eaten hardly any o his victims, he ound something inside o him tearing and then breaking. “I…,” “I…,” he said, said , and looked into the eyes e yes o the third bear. “I….” “I….”
22
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Clem stood there, rozen, as the third bear disemboweled him and tore his head rom his shoulders. Te third bear had no use or heroes. Except, possibly, as part o a pattern o heads. A month later. Clem’ Clem’s head was ound on the trail in the orest. Apparently, Apparently, it hadn’t t the pattern. By then, our or ve more people had been killed, one on the outskirts o the village. Te situation had become desperate. Several villagers had risked leaving, and some o them had even made it through. But ear kept most o them in the village, locked into a kind o desperate atalism that made their eyes hollow as they stared into some unknowable distance. Over time, the village sent our or ve o its strongest and most clever men and women to ght the third bear. One, beore the end, said sai d to the third bear, “I think you were misunderstood as a child.” Another said, beore ear clotted her windpipe, windp ipe, “You “You just need love.” love.” A third, even as he watched his intestines slide out o his body, body, said, “Surely there is something we can do to appease you?” Te third bear said nothing. He had no snappy comebacks. No pithy sayings. No wisdom. His conversation was through his work, and he said what he wanted to say very eloquently in that regard. Te villagers became ritualistic and primitive and listless. Tey eared the orest so much that they ate berries and branches at the outskirts o their homes and never hunted wild game. Teir skin became ever more pale and they stopped washing themselves. Tey believed the words o madmen and adopted strange customs. Tey stopped wearing clothes. Tey would deecate in the street. At some point, they lost sight o reason entirely and sacriced virgins to the third bear. Tey took to mutilating their bodies, thinking that this is what the third bear wanted them to do. Some ew in whom reason persisted had to be held down and mutilated by others. A ew, during the winter, cannibalized those who roze to death, and others who had not died almost wished they had.
Jeff VanderMeer
23
By the time the third bear nished his pattern and moved on, the remaining villagers had all become no dierent than him. And they all lived lived happily ever ater. ater.
*** Tere are always carious eyes peering out rom the orest in a certain kind o olktale. Something hidden in the middle distance. Readers oten think they are wol eyes. But they are not the eyes o wolves. Tey are the eyes o the third bear. Peering rom darkness into darkness. Te original olktales oten served as literal warnings against wolves, bears, and other threats prevalent in a pre-industrial world. When the olktales became civilized, they developed more rened subtexts about human predators or dangerous situations. Tey began to impart advice, in a sense, that had to be extracted rom that subtext. We’ve become quite adroit at inusing and extracting this subtext as writers and readers. We add postmodern twists to our olktales—updating them or what we eel the modern world needs rom them. In the process, we ironically enough sometimes make them the m more distant and less visceral than they need to be to work or us in the modern world. But the smell o the third bear bea r gives him away a way.. It’s It’s the smell o piss and blood and shit and bubbles o saliva and o hal-eaten ood. It’s It’s what we orget is always with us no matter now big our cities get, how advanced our civilization. o say the third bear is all bear is to miss the point. o say that the third bear needs no symbolism but is simply himsel is also to miss the point. Sometimes I think modern airy tales should be horror tales, that to encompass all o the erocity and animal an imal intensity at the core o the past century’ cen tury’ss excesses, we need a little bit o the third bear in everything we write. But, at the very least, when we re-invent our olktales, olktale s, we need to acknowledge the third bear, even i only by his absence. Sometimes the author has no recourse. Sometimes, there is nothing I can do.
The Language of Defeat Clarkesworld Magazine, 2008
I have heard, more times than I care to admit, what I call ca ll the language o deeat. dee at. I’ve I’ve heard it on panels and on blogs, at genre gen re conventions, at books estivals, and at academic conerences over the past decade. Tis language o deeat has to do with accepting a paradigm o the ction world as “us” versus “them,” o “mainstream” versus “genre.” I use quote marks around “genre” and “mainstream” because I do not believe these terms are as monolithic or as meaningul in practice as we think o them in theory. Te “mainstream” and “genre,” i we must subdivide in this way, are both various, rich, and ecund traditions, with many strands and diverse lineages. (In many cases, the two intertwine in such an incestuous way that separating them rom each other is a job or a trained genealogist.) In most cases using this kind o language leads to a bemoaning bemoa ning o the lack o acceptance by the “literary mainstream.” It also leads to a certain resentment on the part o “genre” “genre” writers, especially especiall y centered on the idea that some “mainstream” mainstream” writers get away with writing “genre” books. We’ve seen this attitude a lot lately—ocused on writers like Margaret Atwood or her Onyx & Crake , Jeanette Winterson or Te Stone Gods , Cormac McCarthy to a lesser extent or Te Road , and even the work o Jonathan Lethem in a general way, once accused o abandoning his “genre” roots. Te negative attitudes toward these books and authors have three layers or premises: (1) that it is somehow inherently wrong and rude or these writers to write in what is so clearly a “genre” milieu (without asking rst?), (2) that these authors’ cliché comments disavowing their books as “Science Fiction” or “Fantasy” somehow reect negatively on the quality o the actual texts, and (3) that these orays into orbidden territory are written with no regard or or knowledge o “genre” predecessors.
Jeff VanderMeer
25
All o these assumptions tie into the language o deeat because they constitute a kind o wall or barrier in people’s minds to acceptance o the work as it exists on the page . And what I mean by this being the language o deeat is that it pre-loads any discussion to appear sel-pitying and shrill, weighted down with envy. envy. It also severs the link l ink o responsibility responsibili ty,, in that we are no longer talking about individuals or individual institutions, individual gatekeepers, but instead a shadowy them—an enemy without a ace, as amorphous as mist. Te language o deeat also requires participants to wade through decades o grudges, jealousies, and insecurities insecurit ies passed down through the generations in the orm o received ideas, anecdotes, and assumptions that constitute genre’s least useul heirloom. In ction, received ideas (which maniest as cliché) are death, but we seem unable to think except in terms o generalizations when it comes to the rustrations and concerns o the writing lie. It is much easier to take on the language and ideas o the supposed oppressor and exist in a world where our ailures are someone else’ e lse’ss ault, and where i i only the roadblocks roadblock s were removed, the ivory towers razed, the truculent, generic, nameless gatekeepers executed, and their heads put on spikes, everyone would get their proper due. Tis then is the language o deeat, the acceptance o one’s status as victim whilst mouthing the words o dead people rom panels past—even being willing to channel the syntax o our deeat, as i we were all pessimistic travelers rom the past. I would like to see a ew things change in the uture. I would like to see less hyperbole and angst about so-called “mainstream” orays into the “ghetto” o genre. I would like to see all writers make a better eort to see the work o their ellows with eyes unettered by received ideas as conveyed through whatever label has been slapped on a particular book or author. I we wrote ction the way we talk about genre and mainstream most o the time, we would all be hacks , our prose ull o the most crass and belabored clichés. Yet we persist in outdated, dangerous generalizations, generali zations, and allow them to color our perceptions o reality. reality. We We reuse to engage with the individual in ront o us, to communicate, and instead create badly-made ctions about them.
26
MONSTROUS CREATURES
I remember clearly one panel at a Slipstream conerence in Georgia that included the iconic SF gure o Bruce Sterling and rst novelist Mary Doria Russell, who had written Te Sparrow , a SF book marketed to the mainstream. Sterling dismissed Russell’s legitimacy throughout the panel, mostly because o a sense o proound insecurity. Tis work was not rom genre, thereore it was not genre. Later, Russell revealed that her chie mentor and rst reader had been the amous Analog Anal og magazine editor Stanley Schmidt, who had commented on several drats. On another panel, I remember genre writers bemoaning their inability to sell ction to the prestigious literary magazines—the literary world was ignoring them. Someone asked them how oten they submitted to literary magazines. Ater some hemming and hawing, they all admitted that they rarely submitted to such publications. Later Lat er on, one even admitted adm itted that he wouldn’ wouldn’t submit to most literary magazines because genre magazines paid better. So, in short, the literary world was thwarting them rom achieving wider success by not sneaking into their homes, home s, guring out their computer passwords, and checking out the drats on their hard drives. Tere are similar stupidities perpetrated on the mainstream side o things. For example, when a reviewer pitched a review o my novel Shriek: An Aterword to a prestigious literary literar y journal, the answer was “why would we want to promote some genre novel?” Te review was published, but only ater the reviewer was orced to add language amounting to “even though this is genre, it’s worth your time.” But, again, this was one publication, one editor, and to extrapolate rom that single point o anecdotal contact some larger commandment applying to some mythical “literary mainstream” constitutes a orm o madness. As or equivalen equivalentt jealou jealousie siess on the “mains “mainstr tream eam”” side, side, your your averag averagee “liter “literary ary”” writer, even some Pulitzer Prize winners, might sell, at best, three or our thousand copies and look across the aisle enviously at a mid-list SF writer selling sel ling teen thousand copies, with a correspondingly higher advance. Tey—and already you can see how I enter into the dangerous dange rous territory o generalities just by using a pronoun—can also be envious o the ease with which much genre material makes the transition into i nto pop culture, and into media such as movies, comics, and television.
Jeff VanderMeer
27
Te act is, we all have our wounds, our deeats, our Waterloos. Waterloos. We We all look up ahead at some person pe rson or group that seems to be b e doing better than us in some way. way. Te trouble occurs when we perpetuate cliché and stereotype and a nd received ideas as i they were immutable truth, or commonsense, or even, god orbid, wisdom. Do you know why? Because when enough people keep saying something, the weight o those words becomes a kind o perceptional perceptional or operational reality , and not only do we lose opportunities to build something unique and resh, but we also make the world a duller, less interesting place. We deny the true complexity o the world, and our place in it. But perhaps just as importantly importantl y, the continual perpetual motion mot ion machine o this kind o approach wastes our time and saps sa ps our energy. energy. It is a quintessentially negative message that moves the average reader, not versed in the stylized symbolism o the ghetto, to two main reactions: reacti ons: pity or the downtrodden and a desire to help the poor victim do better, usually with lots o helpul suggestions that have been trotted out and tried a thousand times beore. (Besides, the panelists tackling such questions at conventions oten don’t really want answers—they just want to wallow in the lovely misery o being victims.) When that happens, happens, the messenger and the receiver receiver o the message become trapped in the old paradigm. Instead o a genuine and articulate discussion that is, as much as possible, about the books or authors being examined, we enter into an argument that is mostly about deenses, battlements, territorialism, and pettiness. It is easy to all into cynicism and become atalistic. Sometimes, there are perectly honest catalysts that create an outlook o this kind. But that doesn’t mean we have to live in that place, or make other people live there.
An Anvil Is Not an Artichoke Bookslut, 2006
For the past ew months, I’ve I’ve been absorbing the t he comics and graphic novel scene in a much more systematic way than ever beore, and it’s gotten me to thinking about quite a ew issues. One o the main questions I keep going back to is: Why do many reviewers and people associated with comics eel the need to equate graph graphic ic nove novels ls and novels when they’re dierent creatures? Tis phenomenon is not necessarily ound only in the comics subculture. For an example close to home, note the Bookslut guest blogger who called Te Wire HBO series her avorite novel o the year. No, Te Wire is her avorite television program o the year, although I understand at least one o the points she’s trying to make. In her lexicon, a novel is automatically a superior art orm. o love something as much as she loves Te Wire is to wish or it the legitimacy that the novel orm automatically possesses. Te implication is that television usually is a debased orm and that the complexity o Te Wire must, thereore, be something else . And I think this is one o the reasons some people in the comics eld want, sometimes with seeming desperation, to have their works or the work they love compared to “literature.” “literature.” A sense o wanting to be taken seriously pervades comics as pungently as it pervades the eld I come rom, antasy and horror ction. However, in equating novels and graphic novels, an essential point about taxonomy is being missed. As soon as a proactive graphic element exists as part o the overall experience o reading and viewing—a graphic element that isn’t purely illustrative in purpose, i.e., not merely a reaction to a text that does not need art or the integrity o its orm—the experience experie nce becomes dierent rom that o reading a novel. It’s almost like calling the sky blue to point this out, but the dierence is that when reading a novel, the images, that most central anchor o the reader’s experience—be they characters, objects, settings, or whatever—are
Jeff VanderMeer
29
not immutable. Te reader creates those images in his or her mind. Tat is the essential interconnectivity o the novel—that the reader must do much more o a particular kind o work, generally, than when viewing a sculpture or a painting or comic. Description in a novel is not a closed system. You You can never describe something thoroughly enough or two dierent readers to create the exact same set o images in their heads. Tis is a very important distinction—it speaks to the heart o why we read novels even though we have plenty o visual media to choose rom. Sculptures, paintings, and comics have their own reading or viewing protocols that are just as complex but in their thei r essential nature dierent . For example, although a novel can play with time and space, it cannot do it in quite the lithe way as a graphic novel or comic. (I can’t, or example, see any way to graceully replicate Rebecca Dart’s Dart’s multi-thread panel approach in RabbitHead in novel orm.) Graphic novels allow or juxtapositions that would be cumbersome in novel orm. Tey allow or that wonderul conuence o image and word (i words are involved) in which each carries its own very particular weight, with image playing o o word, word playing o o image. Te dierence between the two orms may not interest the general reader who picks up a graphic novel or novel and just wants to read an entertaining story, story, and yet that dierence still exists, regardless. Neither orm is superior to the other, but they are undeniably undeniab ly not the same thing . Which brings me to one o the bigger news stories in the comics eld last year: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (First Second) was a National Book Award nalist in the th e Young Young People’s People’s Literature Lit erature category categor y. Dynamic, direct, and complex, American Born Chinese is a great graphic novel. Tat kind o quality denitely should be recognized, and many people in the comics eld seemed to eel vindicated by its inclusion. But let’s look at what actually happened in terms o process. A couple o judges, judges, or maybe even three, three, loved loved this particular particular graphic graphic novel. novel. Maybe those judges looked at one one or two or even even three dozen other graphic novels, novels, but at at best best I can’ can’t imagine they perormed anything other than a random, ad hoc analysis o the best work coming out o the graphic novel eld in reaching their assessment. Worse, Worse, the judges didn di dn’’t nominate any graphic novels in the adult category. category. Does this mean that there wasn’t a single adult graphic novel the equal o the
30
MONSTROUS CREATURES
best adult novels published in 2006? Absolutely not. What it means is that no systematic review occurred because such a review was outside o the judges’ brie with regard to the categories. Te National Book Award Award is set up to reward ction, ction , nonction, poetry, etc. Tat a judge or two or even three managed to shoehorn American Born Chinese into a nalist slot in one category means only that, in 2006, American Born Bor n Chinese was shoehorned into a nalist slot in the young adult category. Which is to say, the phenomenon is like snow in allahassee, Florida, where I live: it occurs about every ever y decade or a ew e w minutes, and then it’ i t’ss gone again until the next random occurrence. Tat’s not a milestone. Tat’s not a sign o graphic novels being taken seriously. Tat’s Tat’s the subjective interpretation o a category that was not meant to contain graphic novels. I the National Book Award wants to be inclusive o graphic novels, it should create a separate category and acknowledge the art orm as a vibrant and unique creative endeavor. Ten, too, you would see systematic discussion and consideration o all graphic novels in the context o the award, not just one or two bright baubles alighted upon by some magpie o a judge. I’m not one o those cultural elitists outraged that a graphic novel was named a nalist in a novel category. As should be clear, I love graphic novels and I love novels. But every art orm must reach its maturity and nd its respect by understanding and celebrating that which makes it unique, not by stressing similarities by association a ssociation or by touting ad hoc exceptions. e xceptions. (For this reason, I love love the act that a large publishing company thinks comics are important enough to do a Best American Comics series, or that Yale University Press would want to do editor Ivan Brunetti’s Brunetti’s survey o comics in a handsome hardcover.) hardcover.) Put another way, can you imagine a novel being a nalist or the Eisner Award? Award? Absurd, right? And why? Because a novel is a not a comic, is not a graphic novel, in the same way that an artichoke is not a pear, and a pear is not an ostrich, and an ostrich is not an anvil. Nor would most people want their pear to be an ostrich. Nor think less o either or being pear not ostrich, ostrich not pear.
The Romantic Underground (An Exploration o a Non-Existent and Sel-Denying Non-Movement) Nebula Awards Showcase 2005
Although the phrase “the romantic underground” is oten attributed to Shelley and his minor poem “Te Assign Assignation ation o Lapels” (1819), the Romantic Underground actually began as an oshoot o the Decadent Movement in France. 1 Te rst text identied with the Romantic Underground was Gustave Flaubert’s Te emptation o St. Anthony (1874), since claimed by the Symbolists. Flaubert vehemently denied that his book was a Romantic Underground text; in act, he denied the existence o the movement altogether. Tis has been a recurring rerain in the development o the Romantic Underground: every author identied as an adherent o the movement has denied this act. No text has long remained part o the Romantic Underground because no living author has allowed it to or very long. (In some cases, another movement has made a better case in claiming a particular text, as well.) Some o the authors “outed” as “Romantic Underground-nistas” Underground-nistas” in those early years included Remy de Gourmont, Oscar Wilde, August Strindberg, Strindberg, Emile Zola, Alred Alred Kubin, Andre Breton, Breton, and Ronald Ronald Firbank. Firbank. Some have even claimed that Breton himsel ormed the surrealists as an oshoot o the Romantic Underground, not as a reaction to Dada, Futurism, and the proto-magic realists. Regardless, the enduring properties o the Romantic Underground remain a lack o membership by those authors cited and a general lack o identiying characteristics. At rst, reading between the lines o critical texts rom the period—some rom the inamous Yellow Book —the —the Romantic Underground apparently ormed a “loose umbrella” around certain authors, attempting to provide a critical and imaginative landscape in which creativity could have ree, 1 Te author is unable to conrm or deny whether any actual “RU” research has been done or this essay.
32
MONSTROUS CREATURES
albeit vague, reign. Authors, being skittish at best, most apparently saw the umbrella as more o a gaping maw and escaped without their names ever being connected to rumors o a vast but secret literary organization dedicated to the antithesis o anything popular, tidy, tidy, or, indeed, logical. Chroniclers o the Romantic Underground lost track o it during the 1920s and most o the 1930s, when the group may have decided to orm “literary guerilla cells o single individuals, with no communication between any two cells.” It is supposed that Jorge Luis Borges joined the movement in the 1940s, but only a reerence to “the underground romantic with his hopeless beret” in his short story “Te Immortal” (1962) suggests any active participation. Fellow South Americans Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Garcia Marquez may have joined the movement in the 1960s and 1970s, but, again, both deny the existence existe nce o the movement and any participation in it—thus seeming to substantiate the rumors, since this behavior is all too indicative o Romantic Underground members. During the science ction New Wave Wave movement o the 1960s, 1 960s, the Romantic Underground again came to the ore, with many literary critics, including Brian Stableord and Colin Wilson, claiming that the New Wave was nothing more or less than an especially visible cell o the Romantic Underground. New World Worlds s contributor Rachel Pollack, however, however, called this “bullshit” at the time, while NW editor Michael Moorcock later wrote in his book Wizardry and Wild Romance (1986) that “there was nothing romantic or underground about the New Wave. Wave. We We had ha d no n o time tim e or or sentimental sen timental tripe nor did we want wan t to remain part o some invisible subculture. We were very much in the public eye. e ye.””2 In the 1980s, writers such as Rikki Ducornet, Angela Carter, Edward Whittemore, and Alasdair Gray all denied being part o the Romantic Underground movement. At this point, noted critic John Clute, in a ootnote to a review o Iain M. Banks’ Culture novel Consider Phlebas (Interzone , 1987), wrote “Te sole criteria o the so-called Romantic Underground movement? 2 However, Moorcock added almost a decade later, “I reer you to Capek’s subtle RUR (Romantic Underground Revival) in which he introduced the word ‘robot’ ‘robot’ to the world. Also the ‘Apocalypse’ Apocalypse’ movement o the 30s and 40s. Te Welsh Welsh ‘Coven o 12’ which included Henry reece, reece, Ruthven odd, odd, Dylan Tomas, and was connected to the so-called Wenlock Coven o which Alan Garner was probably the most prominent member. All have equally denied the existence o the RU while exhibiting many amiliar characteristics o membership. ‘RU RU i so Y ?’ as the amiliar text message reads.”
Jeff VanderMeer
33
Te conscription o idiosyncratic writers dragged without their consent to the renunciation block, where they proceed to deny entrapment in anything as clandestine and ormless.” In this respect, the Romantic Underground seems to mirror the Slipstream list put orth by exas technophile Bruce Sterling.3 Sterling published his list in a magazine called SF Eye (July 1989). For several years, publishers, some writers, and ewer readers mouthed the word “slipstream” whenever conronted by any text that did not t a tidy denition o “genre ction.” It seems clear today that Sterling, depending on his mood, meant his term “slipstream” “slipstream” more as a joke or the approximation o a joke, given the Catholic qualities o the list. In many respects, Sterling may thus be considered an agent o chaos—or, perhaps, a Romantic Underground mole ordered by the RU elites to create misdirection and mischie, all with the purpose o directing attention away rom the RU. Sterling’s repeated denial o this accusation only makes his actions all the more suspicious. Still, the ultimate eect o Sterling’s coined term—competition rom a movement just as ill-dened, composed o writers who reused to call their work “Slipstream” in the same way earlier generations reuted “Romantic Underground”—appears to have irritated the invisible invisi ble elites o the RU’s RU’s command and control. For many years, throughout the 1990s, 1990 s, in act, no urther urthe r word was heard rom the Romantic Underground. For example, the Splatterpunk movement raised not a single hackle in the orm o an implied reerence to the Romantic Underground or even a nonconsecutive ootnote number in a New York York Review Revi ew o SF article (which might have suggested the suppression o a reerence to the Romantic Underground). It is possible, o course, that the blood-and-alcohol-soaked Splatterpunks—with a “no limits” slogan that apparently meant “no limits to the badly-written material we’ll champion”—were not seen as a threat by the “shadow cabinet” (as I have come to think thin k o the Romantic Movement’s Movement’s hidden elites). However, However, in this new century centur y, hints o the Romantic Movement have again come into the light—a glimmer o an old coin at the bottom o a ountain 3 Sterling was also part o a cheerully dysunctional literary movement called “cyberpunk” that alls outside o the scope o this essay. All that survives o this movement today is the pairing o advanced technology and dark sunglasses with badly woven sweaters, as exemplied by the Matrix movies.
34
MONSTROUS CREATURES
pool, the suggestion o a shadow watching rom a vine-entangled orest. More specically, the Interstitial Movement, which has taken up the task o dening the indenable, appears to have some o the characteristics o the Romantic Underground movement. Could the Interstitial Movement be a new and subversive way o leveraging the Romantic Underground into the public eye while leaving its shadow cabinet once again unknown? At rst glance, it would appear that this could be the case. Certainly the Interstitial Movement, much like the Romantic Underground movement in the 1890s, believes in orming ormin g an “umbrella “umbrella”” or a motley assortment o idiosyncratic writers, most o whom have nothing in common, some o whom are not in act interstitial at all, and many o whom do not identiy themselves as interstitial, even though “pegged” as such by the Interstitial Arts Foundation.4 Tis would be a typical Romantic Underground tactic. Similarly, the Interstitial strategy o continuing to insist that “we are not a movement” would appear to mirror the Romantic Underground’s Underground’s propensity or general denial. denia l. However, a closer examination o the Interstitial reveals too many clashes with the presumed agenda o the Romantic Underground. First o all, no Romantic Underground writer—or Surrealist writer, or that matter—would tolerate or one moment the presence o so many writers o an easily-denable nature; writers whose work is identiable as belonging to one genre and, while oten excellent, does not in act “cross boundaries” (the clarion call o the Interstitial). Nor do the Interstitial writers graze ar rom the pastures o genre itsel, whereas the Romantic Underground has always included members o the literary mainstream mainst ream who could smugly and steadastly deny their involvement in the movement. Finally, it would take any Romantic Underground writer every bit o selcontrol he or she possessed to say, denitively, “I am an Interstitial writer,” since the very essence/core o a Romantic Underground writer cries out or disassociation with any ormal group o any kind. And yet, most “Interstitial” writers blithely bleat out their allegiance at the slightest provocation, or wear 4 Certainly, the IAF’s inclusion o a contingent o mythopoetic writers raises questions. Can a group with its own National Public Radio outlet, pop culture guru (Joseph Campbell), and a convention sponsored by Krispy Kreme Donuts really be considered to “cross borders” in an edgy way?
Jeff VanderMeer
35
bright buttons proclaiming this act. (Most damning, however, may be a certain lack o cohesion within the Interstitial Arts Foundation, completely at odds with the almost sinister, yet beautiul, organization and knack or secrecy the Romantic Underground movement has demonstrated or over one hundred years.) Another Another movement movement put orward in recent recent years comes rom the United United Kingdom—the New Weird, espoused by China Miéville and, to some extent, M. John John Harrison. Harrison. An oddity oddity in the brave brave new world world o computers computers and the Internet, Internet, the New Weird is unaected by modern communication and modern “online communities,” or, as has been repeatedly stated, this movement is a uniquely British phenomenon.5 It cannot be ound elsewhere; el sewhere; it’s it’s something in i n the soil, akin to the inability in Florida to grow anything but grapes or the sweetest o wines. Te New Weird Weird also preaches a return to the pre-postmodern world. Tis is an earnest world in which irony does not exist, a world in which John Barth and his ilk took up carpentry rather than writing—building houses with three roos and twelve balconies—Barth’ balconies—Barth’s hugely idiosyncratic i diosyncratic novels consigned to the trashcan o might have been . In this world, ironically enough, the Argentin Argentine e writer Jorge Luis Borges has oten been heralded as the godather, godather, since his work predates the ormal orma l postmodern experimentation that was based in part on his stories. Although Although the irony inherent inherent in a movement movement that abhors irony indicates indicates the presence o individual RU cells, the New Weird does not represent the new clandestine rise o the Romantic Underground. For one thing, the Romantic Underground would never insist on its members hailing rom one particular country or group o countries. Tis would be too limiting to an international organization that relies on literally thousands o writer-members rom over one hundred nations to maintain the strict secrecy that allows it to continue to deny that it has ever existed. Further, no Romantic Underground writer would ever deny him or hersel the right to employ postmodern postmode rn technique where appropriate. Would Would an artist be taken seriously i he or she said that a particular type o brush, a particular color o paint, a particular thickness o canvas would never again be used in the service o art? As a very secret sel-denying organization, the Romantic Underground does not have the luxury o denying itsel every tool at its disposal. 5 Except when it’s not.
36
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Tereore, I reluctantly tip my hat to the cleverness o the Romantic Underground movement. It It appears once again aga in to have relegated itsel it sel to singleauthor cells, none o which are in communication with any other, similar cells. Although writers such as Angela Carter, Edward Whittemore, and Vladimir Nabokov, as well as such contemporary authors as Edward Carey, Peter Carey, A.S. Byatt, Tomas Pynchon, Martin Amis, Ursula K. LeGuin, Jack Dann, M. John Harrison (a double-agent), Kelly Link (another double-agent, double -agent, working or both the Interstitial and RU), Paul Di Filippo, Zoran Zivkovic, Gene Wole, Jerey Ford, Ford, K.J. Bishop, Liz Williams, Nalo Hopkinson, Michael Michael Cisco, Stepan Stepan Chapman, Rhys Hughes, Ian R. MacLeod, and mysel have at one time or another been associated with the Romantic Underground movement—depending on the tone or theme or style o a particular book—none o us has ever admitted belonging to such a movement (either while living or ater death). Te Romantic Underground, it would appear, retains its craty sel-denying ability even one hundred years ater its non-ormation and the non-creation o its non-rules. In short, dear reader reade r, the Romantic Underground, like many so-called movements, does not exist .6
6 Tat said, it is worth noting the recent discovery o a new journal entry en try by Angela Carter. Tis entry may nally cut through the og o denials deni als to the core o the Romantic Underground movement. In the text, Carter scrawled a list o points that seem uncannily like the recipe or the perect literary movement. Could this be the maniesto o the Romantic Underground-nistas? It reads as ollows: 12345678910 11 12 13 -
It should ocus ocus on individual works. It should include no works that do not t its maniesto or mission statement. It should appeal to both the the heart and the head, head, inciting passion and thought thought in equal measure. measure. It should be blind to, but inclusive inclusive o, gender, gender, race, and nationality. nationality. It should separate commerce rom art and only operate at the level o art. It should encourage creativity and experimentation. It should should partake equally o high and low culture. It should partake equally o high and low literature. It should should do no harm to any writer. writer. It should be both humble and arrogant, as appropriate. appropriate. It should should deny its own existence at all times. It should exist in the soul and spirit, heart and brain, o one individual writer at a time. It should express the bittersweet conuence conuence o seriousness and humor, humor, honesty and deception, that we all experience in lie.
Politics in Fantasy Emerald City Ci ty,, 2006 Politics is as personal as religion. Current events should have an impact on writers and resonate in their ction. Activism has a place in the writing o antasy ction. Characters, plots, story structures all benet rom a careul consideration o, and dialogue with, the political world.
wo decades ago, I would have been horried by statements like these— statements I now believe in deeply. In my teens and early twenties, I very much saw ction as Art with a capital “A,” and Art was above the ray o the everyday, and, thereore, politics. I didn’t yet see that the Surrealists’ statement o “convulsive beauty in the service o liberty” was a political call-to-arms. At the same time, however however,, my ction ction conicted with my conscious thoughts about writing. On a subconscious level, on the level o inspiration, politics and the consequences o political decisions entered my ction on a regular basis. I wrote about Latin American dictatorships and the legacy o the Conquistadors. I wrote about the erosion o personal liberties. I wrote about the impact o war on individuals and groups. I wrote about the eects o colonialism. My short ction was awash in politics and political positions. Sometimes it was so embedded that to cut it out o a story would have required killing the story. Sometimes it was supercial. Sometimes it was probably too didactic. I think this last possibility—that the ction could become too preachy— made me believe that writing as Art should somehow be separate rom the current world, and thereore the messiness o politics. Fiction should come out o character and situation. Anything rom the ordinary day-to-day should be included solely in the orm o specic detail. Te way light struck a window rame. Te particular lilt to a woman’s speech. Te smell o coee curling out rom a sidewalk caé.
38
MONSTROUS CREATURES
I believe this position on ction explains why many o my stories had a stylized quality. I almost thought o them as paintings: beautiul but static, emblematic and symbolic, solemn and visionary, the passion grounded in the so-called “universal,” which had no place or the temporal. Writing Writing about my imaginary city o Ambergris changed all o that. As a place, it had to encompass nitty-gritty detail at street level. It orced me to think about politics on all sorts o levels. A city can’t can’t remain stylized and be real—that would be like denying oxygen to someone, or depicting everyone in mid-step, orever rozen. A city also a lso can’ can’t be above politics because politics orms its beating beat ing heart—its institutions, its government, and the personal politics o its individual citizens, their personal interactions. I remember that Brian Stableord once said o Angela Carter that her work had risked sliding into mere rote symbolism beore its exploration o gender politics became wedded to a antasy setting. She risked not allowing enough air into her work or readers to breathe. For me, the secondary world antasy o Ambergris let more o the real, unstylized world into my writing—and that meant those echoes o the real world that concerned politics as well. I ound mysel thinking about how conict arises on a micro and macro level. How do ruling elites come into being? How do they stay in power? What are the consequences o colonialism and pogrom on both the oppressor and the oppressed? Who lls a power vacuum when it occurs, and why? In Ambergris, merchant clans serve as stand-ins or the corporations o our world. A merchant oligarchy more or less rules Ambergris, aided by a hodge podge o revered artists and other creative people. Tese are the people who lend legitimacy to or withhold it rom the rulers. O course, there is also a strong vein o anarchy running through Ambergris, a sense that the city could descend into chaos at a moment’s notice, even i the annual estival serves as a release o violence that helps stave o every-day anarchy. Is this much dierent than the world I live in as an American? I don’ don’t think so. We have our own aggression-relie estivals in the orm o sports events, or example. And, when an event like Hurricane Katrina occurs, or election irregularities, or, as happened in Florida recently, rival state agencies have an
Jeff VanderMeer
39
armed stand-o over the ate o a person in i n a vegetative state, we begin to realize reali ze that we are much closer to the edge than we would like to think, anesthetized anes thetized as we are by our technophiliac gadgets and our selsh pursuit o creature comorts. Not only are we closer to the total or partial breakdown o civilization than we think we are, we do not n ot understand how close we exist e xist to potential atrocity a trocity.. In Ambergris, pogrom and counter-pogrom occur occur as the result o greed, ignorance, and ear. Te gray caps, a native people driven underground by the ounders o the city, exist in that dynamic shared by every group o oppressors and the oppressed. (Te plot o such events varies in its details—whether in Rwanda or the Balkans, Cambodia or Germany—but the results are the same: a mass psychosis and individual indierence to suering that leads to mass bloodshed.) But “politics” “politics” in ction is not just about using usi ng a backdrop o war or atrocity a trocity or city dynamics at the macro level to explore questions that aect us in a longerterm, broad way. It is also about understanding that all people are political in some way, even those who seem apathetic, because politics is about gender, society, and culture. Every aspect o our lives is in some way political. So i we don’t, at some point during our writing, think about this consciously—i we simply trust our instincts as writers—we may unintentionally preserve cliché, stereotype, and prejudice. Carol Bly, Bly, in her amazing writing book Te Passionate, Accurate Story , makes a compelling case or the inclusion o the political—and thus real-world ethical, moral issues—in the creation o character. She gives the example o a character who happens to be an executive or a company that produces a harmul product or whose actories pollute the environment. Te story’s emphasis may have nothing to do with the character’s job, but it is still incumbent on the writer to ask, What is the character’s relationship to his or her job? Does the character think about the ethics o supporting harm to others, even i indirectly? What are the character’s politics, and how do they reect or not reect the character’s actual actions? How does the character justiy both personal and political decisions?
Asking such questions is part o creating ully rounded characters. A character’s character’s politics—public and a nd private—may be inconsistent or, again, irrelevant to the main story being told, but the writer still needs nee ds to think about such issues.
40
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Te questions still need to be part o the conversation the writer has with him or hersel about the character. When writing about characters characters in Ambergris, Ambergris, I try to position position them in relation relation to events such as the Silence (when 25,000 people disappeared rom the city, possibly because o the gray caps), or a war between rival political groups the Reds and the Greens, or on how they eel about the merchant-ruler Hoegbotton & Sons. Not because all o these thoughts will make it onto the page as part o character, but because somehow even just considering them rounds out the character, inuences other things about the character that do make it onto the page. Just Just as as every every day day we make make poten potentia tially lly doze dozens ns o small small deci decisio sions ns that that ree reect ct our our thought or lack o thought about the world around us, so too does a ctional character o any weight exist in a world o such daily decisions, such thoughts. Otherwise, the character becomes less than real. Even small decisions have consequences in the real world, because we live in a world where politics matter, where politics can get you killed or knighted, oten or the same action in a dierent context. As part o the whole o a character, these types o attributes, internalized, expressed at the most basic level can make the dierence between good ction and great ction, but, also, perhaps as importantly, importantly, the dierence between ction that is relevant and ction that is not. But is it important or ction to be “relevant”? Does it aect what we think o as “classic” ction ty years rom now? Relevance may, in certain types o ction, create a kind o “temporally regional” orm o literature—ction that contains outdated reerences to issues no longer o consequence in the uture, consigning a novel or story to that gray, hal-lit, hal-dark world where ction is primarily read or its historical importance. However, there is at least one area o ction in which the idea o relevance today leading to potential anachronism tomorrow doesn’t have as much truth to it: that loose grouping o types o settings or a way o seeing the world oten labeled “antasy, “antasy,” and, in particular par ticular,, secondary secondar y world antasy. antasy. Seen through the mirror o a antasy setting that allows the real world to be reected in it, a writer can perhaps more easily be relevant—in the short term—without running the risk o becoming dated in the long term.
Jeff VanderMeer
41
In my new novel, Shriek: An Aterword , I wrote several war sequences during the most horriying phases o the Iraq War and the conict in Aghanistan. Are those scenes making a comment on U.S. involvement in the Middle East? No. Any aspects o those events become ctionalized and conated with a number o other wars, until the specic detail I’ve gleaned rom my nonction reading and television viewing is subsumed by the creative process into something somethin g that is both timely in one sense and timeless in another. Tus the current war becomes a catalyst or a relevant mood, or a way in to writing about a ctional war—an indirect inuence. A more pointed example might be a movement in Shriek called Nativism that reects our country’ countr y’ss head-in-the-sand attitude toward Iraq, while still being antastical enough that it can be read any number o other ways as well. In a similar way, the stranglehold corporations have on the politics practiced in Washington, Washington, D.C., becomes, as previously mentioned, mentioned , warring merchant clans’ clan s’ stranglehold on Ambergris. Even climate change is addressed in Shriek , in an o-kilter way. None o these elements o Shriek will be dated in ty years, or one hundred years. All o them can be read on the surace level or on a subtextual level in a way that has nothing to do with “current events”—even though any reader today would easily recognize those events embedded within the novel. (Did I intend all o these points o common reerence originally? No. I wrote most o Shriek or at least planned out most o it well beore 9-11 and all that occurred thereater. But an organic novel, a novel that is alive, has at least one inherent trait during the writing o it: it devours the world. It is wide enough, deep enough, and enough about the entirety o lie that it envelopes the real world and distills it out the other side in ctionalized orm.) Incorporating such issues rom a through-the-looking-glass angle angl e also allows or the possibility o presenting a heated current political situation in a nonconrontational context. Tis doesn’t doesn’t mean that tha t the ideas aren’t still threatening, but that the remove rom reality allows or possible acceptance o those ideas by readers who originally did not share in that same system o belies. In other words, on some level, even i subconsciously, subconsciously, you may begin to change the world, one reader at a time. Even better, at least in Shriek , the politics o the setting do
42
MONSTROUS CREATURES
not overshadow the characters, but instead are expressed through the characters, and the emphasis in the novel is on other matters entirely. (Te deeatist would say that, in act, the opposite is true—or example, exam ple, many right-wingers listen to, say, Te Clash, and enjoy the music while ignoring the lyrics.) However, However, no matter what I intend, the success o that intention depends de pends on reader reaction and interpretation. Sometimes the reader has a responsibility—and in the case o the political, that responsibility includes not screaming “didactic!” any time a writer raises important issues in his or her work. Readers who care about writing need to recognize that sometimes the entertainment value o a piece must be weighed against the depth o what is being said, that sometimes a story may need a certain cer tain slow pace in a section, may need to build, and may even need to, yes, lecture, to achieve its ull eect. Now, ater stating all o this, you may realize I haven’t yet answered the question I posed beore: Is it important or antasy, or ction generally, to be relevant in this way? Te answer is a resounding resoundi ng No, it isn’t isn’t . Te instinctual idea I had as a teen and a nd young adult about Art or Art’s Art’s sake, the idea that character and situation are paramount, that some truths transcend politics—that’s all valid. But, or me, not because o 9-11 but because o everything since then—the hypocrisy, greed, and evil o government leaders, institutions, and private individuals—I cannot not react in a dierent way than beore. be ore. Tese issues permeate our world, and i you do not internalize that, i it doesn’t aect your writing, then it lies like an unhealing wound in your heart, and you go a little bit crazy. I there’s one thing I’ve learned in the post 9-11 world, it is that everything we do matters—every little thing matters— even even i we sometimes eel like we’re drowning, going down or the third time. I’m I’m not a political activist. I’m I’m just a writer. writer. But in doing what you love l ove most— writing—and in observing the state o the world you love so much and have such curiosity about—with its insane assortment assortm ent o sad, beautiul, ugly, ugly, evil, wonderul people—how can you not write these kinds o things into your ction?
The Triumph of the Good Ecstatic Days , October 2007
Tere has been much talk recently about the death o short ction, or the lack o interest in short ction—generally in the context o “genre”—and I’d like to suggest, hypothetically, that perhaps ideas o comort, quirkiness, and politeness come into play. play. I have been reading countle countless ss stories over the past couple o years and, despite nding some excellent material, I have at various times elt as i something was wrong that I couldn’ couldn’t quite articulate, articulate , some elusive sense o being be ing in danger . Not danger in the ction, but a danger to ction. Sometimes when this happens it is entirely personal, related to my own writing: I have repeated mysel or have come close to being rote, in process, in technique, in content. (Tis is an issue separate o the relative success or ailure o the ction in question.) But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I eel that my general apathy when reading a lot o antasy short ction today is a sense o middle class proessionalism that I nd prooundly disturbing. Te magazines and anthologies are dominated by what I’d call centrist ction that simply drowns in competence. It’s good—it’s just not great. It’s clever—it’s just not trying trying to do more, or it i t does reach or more, but in amiliar ways. As I thought about this more, I visualized a story mill, similar to a puppy mill. An endless churning sound as thousands o writers typed and handwrote the rst drats o stories destined rom conception to be good enough. Good enough or publication. Good enough to pass muster. Good enough to earn an appreciative nod. It was a depressing thought. I kept coming back to words like rough and wild and pushing and punk and Words or what I was reading were more like twee, comortable, recycled, visionary . Words reasonable, well-rounded, whimsical, unoriginal, well-behaved, and uzzy . Maybe it’s it’s always been this way. way. Maybe I just haven’ haven’t been looking l ooking in the right places. I was reading through an old batch o Interzones and New World Worlds s while Ann and
44
MONSTROUS CREATURES
I selected stories or the New Weir anthology, and I thought I caught a glimpse gli mpse o Weird d anthology, something dierent. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps it’s a myopic nostalgia or some golden age that never existed, but just bear with me or the sake o argument. What I seemed to nd in those old magazines sometimes overreached, or crashed into and sank on the rocks o evangelical experimentalism...but, at its best, that ction was altogether more adult than much o what I’ve I’ve read recently. recently. It seemed sharper and more balanced between intellect and emotion. Tere was ample intelligence behind it, sometimes a cruel and enervating intelligence. It was oten bracing, unexpected, and jagged. It also seemed to take the sel-determination o its characters more seriously and had things to say about and to observe about adult relationships that I’m just not sure I see in short antasy ction much any more. Hard choices, hard made. Now, Now, I know this comparison compa rison is blatantly blata ntly unair to t o some extent. I’m talking about impressions. I’m not naming names. I may just be expressing my own restlessness. But what I’m getting at is this: it’s just possible that, or whatever reason—perhaps the co-opting o counterculture by all-powerul pop culture, or the rise o delightul but ultimately popcorn inuences on V and the movies, or the prolieration o editors as interested in gathering the same old “names” as publishing excellent anthologies, or perhaps because space aliens have eaten our brains—a lot o today’s ction is sot , too vapid, without the requisite intellect behind it, with too many stories that don’t go ar enough, and too ew stories that come rom the margins, the ringes, the places that lie outside o suburban, middle-class America or England Engla nd or wherever. wherever. (Can you imagine the gaping hole, hole , or example, i no one “retold” another airy tale or the next thirty years?) Perhaps also there is too much comort in our own lives, and too many distractions that contribute to this sotness, making it easy or us to be satised with what we’ve done: content, content, content. Happy with the well-rounded sentences, the ullling character arc, the recursive plot. Patting ourselves on the back or miracles never earned, epiphanies bartered or with trinkets and tries. Trilled just to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I’m I’m sure many would say it’s it’s the same sa me as it ever was, or, more likely, likely, that we live in a golden age o cross pollination, and that we should be happy to have so
Jeff VanderMeer
45
many great writers working today. Most people in the eld have a stake in supporting this idea—that this is the the moment, and this, and this, and the next. Can you imagine i most o the reviews o stories and novels were mixed or indierent or negative? Yet more than ninety-eight percent o all ction published in 2007 will be orgotten within two to ve years. How is this possible when reviewers tell us every year that so much great material has been published every year ? And why is there there never a year year when a year’ year’ss best anthology announces there was only enough good ction to put out a 30,000 or 50,000-word edition? (Te International Horror Guild suggested this with regard to ction anthologies a year ago, by not nominating any, and caused an uproar only slightly less volatile than i they’d advocated shoving babies onto spikes.) So I’m not sure this is a golden age. I’m not sure that the eld isn’t oddly amiliar and similar, that the dierences aren’t more like the acile dierences between Republicans and Democrats, and that, in act, most o us are telling the same story, all the time, everywhere. Maybe it is, in act, just a change in my own tastes, or the rise o the power o the adolescent—who, exactly, are we writing or these days?—or the cop-out that the world is too terrible or complex now or most writers or readers to engage it head-on in short ction. But my gut tells me that, regardless, we need more o a punk aesthetic, and the courage—because it does take courage these days—to continually renew our aith in ction as art and not as product. o know that words matter, and that characters in our stories matter in the sense that i we’re going to commit to writing ction in the rst place, then we need to commit all the way , whether we think we’re writing literature literature or “only” “only” entertainme entertainment. nt. Te problem problem isn’t,t, as some have said, said, that we don’t don’t have enough stories that try to entertain, but that too much o our entertainment isn’t good enough. “Art” and “entertainment” are not at odds, except when put into conict by those with an agenda or a general misunderstanding o ction. Perversely, though, thinking about all o this makes me want to write, even as I know the solution might be ewer stories in the world, not more. It makes me want to write something bold and dierent. It makes me want my reach to always exceed my grasp. Because, or every writer, there is always another story, and it doesn’ doesn’t have to be even close to the one you told beore.
The New Weird—"It's Alive?” Originally published as the introduction to the anthology Te New Weird Weird , 2008
Origins
Te “new weird” existed long beore 2003, when M. John Harrison started a message board thread with the words: “Te New Weird. Who does it? What is it? Is it even anything?” For this reason, and this reason only, it continues to exist now, even ater a number o critics, reviewers, and writers have distanced themselves rom the term. By 2003, readers and writers had become aware o a change in perception and a change in approach within genre. Crystallized by the popularity o China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station , this change had to do with nally acknowledging a shit in Te Weird . Weird Weird ction—typied by magazines like Weird eird al ales es and writers like H. P. Lovecrat or Clark Ashton Smith back in the glory days o the pulps—eventually p ulps—eventually morphed into modern-day traditional Horror. “Weird” reers to the sometimes supernatural or antastical element eleme nt o unease in many o these stories—an element that could take a blunt, literal orm or more subtle and symbolic orm and which was, as in the best o Lovecrat’s work, combined with a visionary sensibility. Tese types o stories also oten rose above their pulp or sel-taught origins through the strength o the writer’s imagination. (Tere are denite parallels to be drawn between certain kinds o pulp ction and so-called “Outsider Art.”) wo impulses or inuences distinguish the New Weird rom the “Old” Weird, Weird, and make the term more concrete than terms like “slipstream” “slipstream” and “interstitial,” which have no distinct lineage. Te New Wave o the 1960s was the rst stimulus leading to the New Weird. Featuring authors such as M. John
Jeff VanderMeer
47
Harrison, Michael Moorcock, and J. G. Ballard, the New Wave Wave deliriously mixed m ixed genres, high and low art, and engaged in ormal experimentation, oten typied by a distinctly political point o view. New Wave writers also oten blurred the line between science ction and antasy, writing a kind o updated “sciantasy,” rst popularized by Jack Vance Vance in his Dying Earth novels. Tis movement (backed by two o its own inuences, Mervyn Peake and the Decadents o the t he late 1800s) provided what might be thought o as the brain o New Weird. Te second stimulus came rom the unsettling grotesquery o such seminal 1980s work as Clive Barker’s Books o Blood . In this kind o ction, body transormations and dislocations create a visceral, contemporary take on the kind o visionary horror best exemplied by the work o Lovecrat—while moving past Lovecrat’ L ovecrat’ss coyness in recounting events in which the monster or horror can never ully be revealed or explained. In many o Barker’s best tales, the starting point is the acceptance o a monster or a transormation and a nd the story stor y is what comes ater. ransgressive horror, then, repurposed to ocus on the monsters and grotesquery but not the “scare, “scare,”” orms the beating beati ng heart o the New Weird. Weird. In a sense, the simultaneous understanding o and rejection o Old Weird, hardwired to to the stimuli stimuli o the New Wave Wave and New Horror, gave many o the writers wr iters identied as New Weird the signs and symbols needed to both orge ahead into the unknown and create their own unique re-combinations o amiliar elements. Te Shit
Nameless or a time, a type o New Weird Weird or proto-New Weird Weird entered the literary world in the gap between the end o the miniature horror renaissance engendered by Barker and his peers and the publication o Perdido Street Station in 2000. In the 1990s, “New Weird” began to maniest itsel in the orm o cult writers like Jerey Tomas and his cross-genre urban Punktown stories. It continued to nd a voice in the work o Tomas Ligotti, who straddled a space between the traditional and the avant garde. It coalesced in the David Lynchean approach o Michael Cisco to Eastern European mysticism in works like Te Divinity Student . It entered real-world settings through unsettling novels by
48
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Kathe Koja, such as Te Cipher and Skin, with their horric interrogations o the body and mind. It entered into disturbing dialogue about sex and gender in Richard Calder’s novels, with their mix o phantasmagoria and pseudocyberpunk. It could also be ound in Jerey Ford’ Ford’ss Well-Built Well-Built City trilogy, trilogy, my own Ambergris stories (Dradin, In Love , etc.), and the early short s hort work o K. J. Bishop and Alastair Reynolds, among others. Magazines like Andy Cox’s Te Tird Alternative , my wie Ann’s Te Silver Web, and, to a lesser extent, David Pringle’s Interzone and Chris Reed/Manda Tomson’s Back Brain Recluse —along —along with anthologies like my Leviathan series—provided support or this kind o work, which generally did not interest commercial publishers. Ironically, despite most New Weird ction o the 1990s being skewed heavily toward the grotesque end o the New Wave/New Horror spectrum, many horror publications and reviewers dismissed the more conrontational or surreal examples o the orm. It represented a denite threat to the Lovecrat clones and wilight Zone döppelgangers that dominated the horror eld by the mid-1990s. Flash Point
Te publication publicat ion o Miéville’s Miéville’s Perdido Street Station in 2000 represented what might be termed the rst commercially acceptable version o the New Weird, one that both coarsened and a nd broadened the New Weird Weird approach through techniques more common to writers like Charles Dickens, while adding a progressive political slant. Miéville also displayed a ascination with permutations o the body, much like Barker, and incorporated, albeit in a more direct way, ideas like odd plagues (M. John John Harrison) Harrison) and something something akin to to a Multiv Multiverse erse (Mich (Michael ael Moorc Moorcock). ock). Miéville’s Miéville’s ction wasn wa sn’’t inherently superior to what wha t had come beore, but it it was epic , and it wedded a “surrender to the weird”—literally, weird”—literally, the writer’ write r’ss surrender to the material, without ironic distance—to rough-hewn but eective plots eaturing earnest, proactive characters. Tis approach made Perdido Street Station much more accessible to readers than such ormative inuences on Miéville as Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels or M. John Harrison’s Viriconium cycle.
Jeff VanderMeer
49
Te truth o this accessibility also resides at the sentence and paragraph level, which in Miéville’s case house brilliant, oten startling images and situations, but do not always display the same control as those past masters (by Miéville’s own admission, and not meant as a pejorative pe jorative here). Yet, Yet, by using broader brushstrokes, b rushstrokes, Miéville created much more space or his readers, a trade-o that helped create his success. Ultimately, Miéville would also serve as an entry point to work that was more ambitious on the paragraph level. In a neat time traveling trick, one o his own touchstones, M. John Harrison, would benet greatly rom that success. Quite simply, simply, Miéville had created just the right balance between pulp writing, visionary, surreal images, and literary inuences to attract a wider audience—and serve as the lightning rod or what would become known as New Weird. Weird. Te Debate
But Miéville wasn’t alone. By the time Harrison posited his question “What is New Weird?” Weird?” it had become clear that t hat a number o other writers had developed at the same time as Miéville, using similar stimuli. My City o Saints & Madmen, K. J. Bishop Bishop’’s Te Etched City , and Paul Di Filippo’s A Year in the Linear Linear City , among others, appeared in the period rom 2001 20 01 to 2003, 2 003, with Steph Swainston’ Swainston’s Te Year o Our War War published in 2004. It seemed that something had Risen Spontaneous— even though in almost every case, the work itsel had been written in the 1990s 199 0s and either needed time to gestate or had been rejected by publishers—and thus there was a need to explain or name the beast. Te resulting conversation on the Tird Alternative Alternative public public message message boards boards consisted consisted o many thousan thousands ds o words, words, used in the struggle to name, dene, analyze, spin, explore, and quantiy the term “New Weird. Weird.”” Te debate involved involved more than ty writers, writers, reviewers, reviewers, and critics, critics, all all with with their own questions, agendas, and concerns. By the end o the discussion it wasn’t clear i New Weird as a term existed or not. However, over the next ew years, with varying levels o enthusiasm, Miéville (and various acolytes and ollowers) promulgated versions o the term, emphasizing the “surrender to the weird,” but also a very specic political component. Miéville thought o New Weird as “post-Seattle” ction, reerring
50
MONSTROUS CREATURES
to the eects o globalization and grassroots eorts to undermine institutions like the World Bank. Tis use o the term “New Weird” was in keeping with Miéville’s idealism and Marxist leanings in the world outside o ction, but, in my opinion, preternaturally narrowed the parameters o the term. Tis brand o New Weird seemed ar too limiting, unlike the type envisioned by Steph Swainston in the original message board discussion; her New Weird seemed almost like a orm o literary Deism, a primal and epiphanal experience. Te passion behind Miéville’s eorts made sure that the term would live on—even ater he began to disown it, claiming it had become a marketing category and was thereore o no urther interest to him. Despite Miéville’s lack o interest, by 2005 the term “New Weird” was being used with some regularity by readers, writers, and critics. Tat the term, as explored primarily by M. John Harrison and Steph Swainston, and then taken up by Miéville, has since been rejected or severely questioned not only by the initial riumvirate but by several others speaks to the act that most New Weird writers, like most New Wave writers, are various in their approaches over time. Tey are not repeating themselves or the most part. Cross-pollination—o genres, o boundaries—occurs as part o an eort to avoid easy classication—not or its it s own sake, or even consciously in most cases, but in an attempt to allow readers and writers to enter into a dialogue that is genuine, unique, and not based on received ideas or terms. Miéville attempted to place this political element within a complex, multiaceted context, but the reality o how ideas are transmitted meant that this complexity was stripped away as the thought spread and was re-transmitted, re-transmi tted, each time more constraining and less interesting. Te constant ux-and-ow o support and lack o support or New Weird in the same individuals would be taken as “waing” in a politician. In a writer, it is part o the necessary testing te sting and re-testing connected to one’s one’s writing, as well as part o the need n eed to continually be open to and curious about the world. I mysel reacted adversely ad versely to the idea o New Weird Weird in 2003—in part pa rt because it seemed that some writers wanted to claim it, alsely, as a uniquely English phenomenon; in part because I continue to champion artistic discussion and
Jeff VanderMeer
51
publication o “genre” and “literary” work within one context and continuum; and in part because it did seem limiting inasmuch as the term was most useul applied to specic works rather than specic writers (almost impossible to “enorce,” “enorce,” given how labeling works). In retrospect, however, however, my rejection o the term seems se ems premature—because as used in the message board boa rd discussion, “New Weird” Weird” was just a term on which to hang an exploration and investigation o what looked like a sudden explosion o associated texts. While much o the discussion may have been surace, much o it was also incisive, rich, and deep. With less concern about holding onto “territory” and control, rom everyone, those discussions might have led to something more substantive. Eects in the “Real” World
Te other reality about ab out the term “New Weird” Weird” has little to do with either moments or movements and more to do with the marketplace: Miéville’s success, through his own eorts and those o his ollowers, oll owers, became linked to t o the term New Weird. Weird. A practical result o this afliation is that it became easier or this kind o ction to nd signicant publication. It wasn’ wasn’t just “nd me the next Miéville”—rstly impossible and secondly corrosive—but “nd me more New Weird ction.” As an editor at a large North American publishing house told me two years ago, “New Weird” has been a “useul shorthand” not only when justiying acquiring a particular novel, but also when marketing departments talk to booksellers. Conusion about the specics o the term created a larger lar ger protective umbrella or writers rom a publishing standpoint. Many books ar stranger than Miéville’s have been prominently published as a result. By now now,, this eect may have ha ve begun to ade, like all marketing trends, but the writers blessed by its eects now have careers autonomous rom the original umbilical cord. I know that without New Weird, it would have been harder or me to nd publication by commercial and oreign language publishers. Tis is probably doubly true or writers like K. J. Bishop, who had not already had books out by 2001. In a trickle-down eect, I also believe this atmosphere has helped decidedly
52
MONSTROUS CREATURES
non-New Weird writers like Hal Duncan, whose own brand o weirdness is much more palatable in the wake o the “New Weird explosion.” (Inasmuch as there is a “Godather” or “protective angel” o New Weird, Weird, that person would be Peter Lavery, editor at Pan Macmillan, who took a chance on Miéville, Bishop, Duncan, me, and several other “strange” writers.) Te other truth is that even though heroic antasy and other orms o genre ction still sell much better than most New Weird books, New Weird writers partially dominated the critical and awards landscape or almost hal a decade. In a similar way, New Weird has become shorthand or readers, who don’t care about the vagaries o taxonomy so much as “I know it when I read it.” For this reason, writers such as Kelly Link, Justina Robson, and Charles Stross have all been, at one time or another, identied as New Weird. Weird. Tese reader associations associ ations occur because when encountering something unique most o us grab the label that seems the closest match so we can easily describe our enthusiasm to others. (Te result o both careree readers and some careless academics has been bee n to make it seem as i New Weird is as indenable and slippery a term as “interstitial.”) Te eect o New Weird outside o England, North America, and Australia has been various but oten dynamic. New Weird has, in some countries, already mutated and adapted as an ever-shiting “moment”—as well as a potent label or publishers. In some places “New Weird” Weird” has become uniquely independent o what anyone associated with the original discussion in 2003 now thinks o the term and its useulness. For example, in Finland you can say without equivocation that Kelly Link is New Weird. (At the same time, New Weird has largely ailed to penetrate the awareness o the literary mainstream, probably because o its secondary-world nature, which is almost always a barrier to breaking out o the genre “ghetto.”) “ghetto.”) In addition, as alluded to earlier in this introduction, many o the writers associated with New Weird Weird and collected in this volume are already transorming trans orming into something else entirely, while new writers like Alistair Rennie (whose story is original to this anthology), have assimilated the New Weird inuence, combined it with yet other stimuli, and created their own wonderully bizarre and transgressive recombinations. Tis speaks to the nature o art: as soon as something becomes popular or
Jeff VanderMeer
53
amiliar, the true revolution moves elsewhere. Sometimes the writers involved in the original radicalism move on, too, and sometimes they allow themselves to be let behind. A Working Working Denition Denition o the New New Weird Weird
Following the atermath o all o this discussion, research, and reading, the opportunity to create a working denition o twenty-rst-century New Weird now presents itsel: New Weird is a type o urban, secondary-world ction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place ound in traditional antasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping o point or creation o settings that may combine elements o both science ction and antasy. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that oten uses elements o surreal or transgressive horror or its tone, style, and eects—in combination with the stimulus o inuence rom New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such orebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird Weird ctions are acutely aware o the modern world, even i in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part o this awareness o the modern world, New Weird Weird relies or its visionary visionary power power on a “surrender surrender to the weird” weird” that isn’t, or example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. Te “surrender” “surrender” (or “belie ”) o the writer can take many orms, some o them even involving the use o postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surace reality o the text. his deinition presents pre sents two signiicant signi icant ways in i n which the New Weird Weird can be distinguished rom Slipstream or Interstitial iction. First, while Slipstream and Interstitial iction oten claim New Wave inluence, they rarely i ever cite a Horror inluence, with its particular emphasis on the intense use o grotesquery ocused around transormation, decay, or mutilation o the
54
MONSTROUS CREATURES
human body. Second, postmodern techniques that undermine the surace reality o the text (or point out its artiiciality) are not part o the New Weird aest ae sthe heti tic, c, bu butt they th ey are ar e part pa rt o the Slipstream and Interstitial toolbox. Tis Anthology
We We hope hope that that this this anthol anthology ogy will will provid providee a rough rough guide guide to the moment moment or movem movement ent known as “New Weird”—acknowledging that the pivotal “moment” is behind us, but that this moment had already lasted much longer than generally believed, had denite precursors, and continues to spread an Eect, even as it dissipates or becomes something else. (And who knows? Another pivotal “moment” “moment” may be ahead o us.) Ann and I still have reservations about the term New Weird, but in our readings, research, and conversations, we have come to believe the term has a core validity. Te proo is that it has taken on an artistic and commercial lie beyond that intended by those individuals who, in their inquisitiveness about a “moment,” unintentionally created a movement. It is still mutating orward through the work o a new generation o writers, as well. Finally, anyone who reads the initial New Weird discussions will nd that the term arose rom a sense o curiosity, o play, o (sometimes bloody-minded) mischievousness, and rom a love or ction. We oer up this anthology in the spirit o the best o that original discussion. New Weird is dead. Long live the Next Weird.
Conversation #1: China Mieville and the Monsters Weird eird al ales es , 85th Anniversary Issue, 2008
Te publication in 2000 o China Miéville’s second novel, Perdido Street Station, galvanized and challenged the antasy eld with its potent mix o pulp and literary inuences, antasy, horror, and SF, its commitment to “the Weird,” and its epic scope. Since then Miéville has published two more novels set in his New Crobuzon milieu, and Iron Council , along with a YA novel, Un Lun Dun. Along the way, way, he has Te Scar and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the British Fantasy Award, and been a nalist or the World Fantasy Award and the Hugo Award, among others. Many critics consider Miéville’s contribution to modern Weird ction (and the “New Weird moment”) as important as Clive Barker’s in the 1980s with the Books o Blood . Recently, I talked to Miéville about Weird ction and many other topics via instant messenger. What does the word word “weird “weird”” mean to you? you?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’m teaching a course in Weird Fiction at the University o Warwic Warwick, k, so this has come up a lot. Obviously it’ it’ss kind o impossible impossible to come to anything like a nal answer, so I approach this in a Beckettian way—try to dene/understand it, ail, try again, ail again, ail better…I think the whole “sense o cosmic awe” thing that we hear a lot about in the Weird tradition is to do with the
56
MONSTROUS CREATURES
sense o the numinous, whether in a horric iteration (or, more occasionally, a kind o joyo joyous us one) one),, as as bei being ng comp comple lete tely ly embe embedd dded ed in the the eve everyd ryday ay,, rat rathe herr tha thann an an int intru rusi sion on.. o that extent the Weird to me is about the sense that reality is always Weird. I’ve been thinking about the traditional notion o the “sublime,” which was always (by Kant, Schopenhauer, et al) distinguished rom the “Beautiul,” as containing a kind o horror at the immeasurable scale o it. I think what the Weird Weird can do is question the arbitrary distinction between the Beautiul and the Sublime, and operate as a kind o Sublime Backwash, so that the numinous incomparable awesome slips back rom “mountains” and “orests,” into the everyday. everyday. So…the Weird Weird as radicalised quotidian Sublime. So theoretically people should see “the weird” in every day lie. But most don’ don’t see it—or aren’t aren’t prepared to see it, possibly because they’ t hey’re re too inwardturning, not really experiencing the world moment-to-moment? Is that what you mean? Or is that too too New New Age-y or what what you’ you’re talking talking about?
I’m talking about it as a literary/aesthetic eect—my impression is that a lot o us do experience it quite a lot, in everyday lie. But given that part o its dierentia specica is that it is AWEsome, beyond language, expressing it is very difcult. I think a lot o wha whatt we admire in Weird Weird Fictioneers is not that they see, but that they make a decent st o expressing. Tat’s the theory side, in a sense, but expressed on a more personal level, what appeals to you you most about about the weird weird tale?
Te awe, the ecstasy. I was reading Blackwood’s “Te Wendigo” the other day, and the moment when Deago is taken by the Wendigo and wails rom above the trees this astonishing moment o unrealistic speech, “oh, oh, my burning eet o re! Tis height and ery speed!,” the strange poetry o it, I ound very aecting. O course we all have our avourite iterations o Weird, Weird, and or me it dovetails a lot with a love o teratology, so I also hugely love when the Weird is expressed by radical monstermaking, the strangeness o strange creatures, but some o my avourite Weird ales contain no monsters at all. It’s It’s the awe and ecstasy that gets me.
Jeff VanderMeer
57
But not necessarily epiphany? I.e., this awe and ecstasy is a cumulative cumulative eect o the story or it’s what it culminates in?
I don’t think I can distinguish [between] the two. I think or me the best Weird ction is an expression o that awe, which permeates pe rmeates the whole thing, thing, but because you can’t structure a story as a continual shout o ecstasy (at least not and expect many readers to stick with you) it sort o pretends to be an epiphany. But I think it’s the epiphany o realisation—that realisation—that the real is Weird—rather Weird—rather than change or irruption—that irrupt ion—that something Weird occurs. Lovecrat or example is always back-projecting his mythos into history. We don’t know it, unless we’re one o the select unlucky ew in his story, but it’s not that these things have suddenly arrived to mess about with previously stable reality, reality, but that we’re we’re orced to realise—there’ realise—there’s the epiphany, epiphany, it’s it’s epistemological, epistemological, rather than an ontological break—that it was always Awesome. But you are talking about visionary ction to some extent—some o it is hardwired with ecstasy, and that’s why the best examples are short stories, no? Because Bec ause you can’ can’t sustain sus tain that t hat “reverie”?
I think that’s that’s true—it’ true—it’ss much harder to to maintain maintain Weird, or, or, certainly, certainly, ecstasy, ecstasy, over a longer orm. Which is why these stories are about the revelation—not because it’s it’s a surprise (we expect it) but because it’s it’s a necessary kind o bleak Damascene moment. Tere are Weird Weird novels and some brilliant ones, but they’re they’re harder to sustain. What do you you think most surprises your your students studying studying weird weird tales?
I think or or a lot o people peo ple who don do n’t read pulp pulp growing up, there’ the re’ss a real surprise surp rise that the particular kind o Pulp Modernism o a certain kind o lush purple prose isn’t necessarily a ailure or a mistake, but is part o the abric o the story and what makes it weird. Tere’s a big deault notion that “spare,” or “precise” prose is somehow better. I keep insisting to them that while such prose is completely legitimate, it’s in no way intrinsically more accurate, more relevant, or better than lush prose. Tat adjective “precise, “precise,”” or example, needs unpicking. I a “minimalist” writer describes a table, and a metaphor-ridden adjective-heavy weird ctioneer describes a table, they are very dierent, but the ormer is in absolutely no way closer to the material reality than the latter. Both o them are radically dierent
58
MONSTROUS CREATURES
rom that reality. reality. Tey’re Tey’re just words. A table is a big wooden thing thi ng with my tea on it. I think they also are surprised by how much they enjoy making up monsters. Who Who doe doesn’ sn’t? But you say say the they’re surp surpri rise sed? d? Tey thin think k that that’’s too too chil childi dish sh to star start? t?
Yes, Yes, to some extent. It’s It’s something you need to grow out o. Or your monsters are only legitimate to the extent that they t hey “really mean” mean” something else. I spend a lot o time arguing or literalism literali sm o antastic, rather than its reduction to allegory allegor y. Metaphor is inevitable but it escapes our intent, so we should relax about it. Our monsters are about themselves, and they can get on with being about all sorts o other stu too, but i we want them to be primarily that, and don’t enjoy their monstrousness, they’re they’re dead and an d nothing. Right—nobody likes a monster piñata.
Yeah—it’ Yeah—it’ss what oby Litt brilliantly called the “Scooby Doo Doo Impasse”—that Impasse”—that people always-already know that they’ll pull the mask o the monster and see what it “really” is/means. Te notion that that is what makes it legitimate is a very drab kind o heavy-handedness. Do you think a lot o writers create monsters, though, that they don’t mean literally? I mean, do you think writers sit down and go, when writing the rough drat, “Tis is going to be a metaphor or 9-11?” Or is it just that readers and academics think they do?
Well Well I think this is one o the big distinctions between genre and nongenre traditions. I think, or example, that when Margaret Atwood invents the “pigoons” or Oryx & Crake , part o the problem with them or me is I think they are primarily a vehicle or considering genetic manipulation, and only distantly secondarily scary pig monsters. I think plenty o monsters get hobbled by their “meaning.” Te Coppola Bram Stoker’s Dracula vampire had to shue along, so weighed down was he by bloated historical import. None o this is to say that monsters don’t don’t mean things other than themselves—o themse lves—o course they do—but that t hat to me they do so best when they believe in themselves.
Jeff VanderMeer
59
Good point—and o course writers oten look at their rough drat and like oracles pull things out that look like they have meaning…Tis does actually bring me to one o those “weird” questions I’m contractually obligated to ask or this interview: What’s the weirdest (in any sense) movie you’ve ever seen?
Weirdest Weirdest movie? movie? Probably Probably either a Jan Svankmajer—Te Flat —and/or —and/or a Jean Painlevé, Le Vamp Vampire. ire. Also, error error in a ex exas as own own . [Regarding] Pan’s Pan’s Labyrin Laby rinth th— this is spoiler territory—but I know a lot o people who said they thought the end was a lovely escape into the healing power o antasy and I was thinking OH REALLY?!?! REALLY?!?! I had a similar argument argumen t with those people who thought the ending end ing o [Stephen Spielberg’s] AI was “sentimental.” I was thinking, uck, did we see the same lm? Tat was some sadistic shit I just saw. Not that I much enjoyed AI, but I was ascinated by the astoundingly cruel crue l last hal-hour. hal-hour. Do you nd that some readers, related to what you’re you’re saying, don’ don’t recognize a monster, a human monster, when they see one? And I agree— AI is a very cruel movie, unnecessarily so. Whereas Pan is cruel only because it has to be.
I totally agree— AI sadistic, Pan’s Labyrinth politically unsentimental. Very dierent. What do you mean [about not recognizing a monster]? I have a current theory that writers become so in love with their characters that they don’t always recognize when they’ve written a sociopath, or example. And then their enthusiasm blinds readers who aren’t careul and who go along with with the ride, thinking thinking “oh “oh this person is great.”
Ah. It’ It’s an intere interesti sting ng questio question, n, and I’ve I’ve not though thoughtt o it in those those terms. terms. I’ve I’ve certainly been aware o the consideration o certain characters as admirable, or, in other ways, as despicable, when read rom a dierent optic, they are not. I loathed im pression that Hardy and I disagreed ess o the Durbervilles Durbervilles because I got the strong impression about ess. Similarly Simmons’ Te error , with several o his characters. Did you like Te error ?
No. No. I kept wanting to t o nd out what the giant gia nt polar bear was. When I discovered it was, indeed, a giant polar bear, I was deated. I ound it airly page-turny, but I
MONSTROUS CREATURES
60
ound it much too long, too bogged down with its historical research or its narrative, its disclosures and teratological money-shots too contingent to its narrative, and its embedded politics—particularly vis-à-vis homosexuality—oensive. You You don’ don’t believ believee those those embedde embedded d politi politics cs were were part o the historical historical resear research? ch?
No, because I’m not talking about the politics o the characters, but about the politics o the text, as I read it. Specically, the obsessive locus o the evil character’s evil in the act that he was an engager in anal sex. I know lots o people point to the act that there’s a “sympathetic” gay character too (who reads, incidentally, to me, very like someone invented because an editor said “we really need a counterbalance to the evil gay”) but that character is explicitly dened as a goody because he doesn’ doesn’t have sex on the th e ship. Tat’s Tat’s nothing to do do with historical research or attitudes (and parenthetically the idea that in a crew that size two men only would be ucking is ludicrous) but to do with the text’s pathological error o anal penetration which is (spoiler!—hello Te Sparrow ) the usual way culture gets to have a deep-seated pathologising o gay sexuality alongside putatively liberal attitudes to desexualised gay men. You You’’ve just just ruined the innocence innocence o perhaps 85% o Weird ales readers. readers.
Hurrah! My work here is done. Please take ta ke a bow. bow. I really liked the t he book, but I didn’t didn’t catch catc h the subtext s ubtext you’re you’re talking about, in part, probably, because I was turning pages too quickly.
I’m I’m very aware, by the way, way, that loads o readers o this may think I’m being a humourless or po-aced dick about it. Tis is how it reads to me, and I have a big problem with it. And I think arguments about “what the writer really means” m eans” or thinks are a re very point-missing, point -missing, because this stu isn’t isn’t reducible to “intent.” rue, but—and I’m not saying in this case—but in some cases, don’t you have to be orgiving?
It depends o what. Give me an example?
Jeff VanderMeer
61
For example, Philip K. Dick was oten a raging misogynist. misogyni st. But i you unravel the stu about his work that is bad in that sense, you also unravel unravel the good stu. In a sense I’m playing devil’s advocate because I do believe writers should think these things through, because it reects on whether they’ve really created well-rounded characters as opposed to stereotypes.
Tis is not about pissing and moaning just because I disagree with the writer’s writer’s politics—I love passionately Gene Wole’s work, or example, ar more than the writing o many people whose politics are more congenial to me. It’s about saying that as a matter o reading, o literary response, when the politics or concerns or whatever o a particular text impinge on it in certain ways, make it pull in certain directions, interere with other aspects o it, etc. etc., and in my opinion make it not just politically objectionable but work less well as a text, then I eel perectly ree to criticise it on those (politico-literary) axes. Sure—I mean, what you’re saying about Te error makes sense in that— does it make any dierence whether the evil guy is gay or not? o the story? Not really. So then you have to ask yoursel why it’s there.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as “the story” disembarrassed o the other stu, basically. Tat’s why I think about “texts' or works rather than the story, versus/and/or the writing, versus/and/or the characters, etc. In art these things are intertwined. Not reducible to each other, sure, but not little just-add-and-stir packets o sauce that you can choose one but not the other. Did I want to get to the end o Te error and see the bear? Sure. Still, though, I stand by what I said, and I think there’s no contradiction. I don’t mind people disagreeing at all, o course, that’s the point o debate. I do get rustrated when—and maybe it’s my ault or not being clear—people take what I’m saying as “he doesn’t like books by people he doesn’t agree with.” As the Lovecrat, Celine, Machen, Blackwood, Ewers, James, Cordwainer Smith, Blyton, et many al, on my shelves indicate, this isn’t so. And it can operate the other way round too. For me Te Sparrow was a big thing there—that’s obviously a book that intends to be very progressive about homosexuality, homosexuality, but in my opinion it, whatever Russell’s Russell’s belies and intents, is deepstructured by anal-penetration panic.
MONSTROUS CREATURES
62
Since we seem to be approaching this territory anyway, here’s another contractually contractually obligated obliga ted question. que stion. What’s What’s the th e weirdest book you’ve you’ve ever read?
God, that’s that’s a merciless question. All the weirdest weirdest questions are are merciless.
Un Semaine de Bonté , by Max Ernst. Which means that “read” is a bit o a
tendentious verb in this context, but uck it, I’m sticking with my answer. Okay, so we’ve talked about weird books and movies. What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever been?
Probably the East Anglian coast, where M.R. James set loads o his ghost stories, and which I have a long amily connection with. Very reaky places—Cove Hithe, Dunwich, Walberswi Walberswick. ck. Second, the outskirts outski rts o a big actory in the outskirts o Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. But places are all SO weird, that’s a real embarrassment o riches. Ever been to the coast o the Netherlands? Weird. On that note, let’s wrap things up with a “weird” speed round or two. I’m going to list two “weird” writers at a time and you’ll tell me which you like better with maybe a sentence on why, i you want. Ready?
Okay, Okay, cool. I love the either/or game. People who say “ooh can’t I have both” are terrible cheats. Here goes. Jack Vance or Robert E. Howard?
Vance because o DYING EARH . Dying. Earth. And big dying sun. Vance Vance or Lovecr Lovecrat? at?
Lovecrat: (also damn you or making me choose!) Because i) the monsters are revolutionary, revolutionary, and ii) the prose is totally weird. And Weird. Lovecrat or Clark Ashton Smith?
Lovecrat. Because CAS, to whom all honour and respect go, has a post-
Jeff VanderMeer
63
Dunsanian sort o slightly sentimental archaic singsongism that doesn’t doesn’t reak me out as much as Lovecrat’s Lovecrat’s hysteria. Surprise! Lovecrat or Ursula K. LeGuin OR Ray Bradbury?
A roika? Tat’s Tat’s cheating surely! Lovecrat ow sorry sorry Le Guin and Bradbury. Because he reshaped a orm more radically than either o them (to whom innite burnt oerings and love go). ales )? Lovecrat or ennessee ennessee Williams (bot (both h o whom appeared in Weird ales )?
(NO! REALLY???) Lovecrat. Tough W closes up close or that weird play where the guy gets eaten by children—Suddenly Last Summer. Summ er. Also, William Hope Hodgson is pulling ahead o Lovecrat in my head, increasingly recently, workmanlike prose or not. But that’s another discussion. And, nally, nally, mammals or reptiles? reptiles?
Please. PLEASE. Mammals Schmammals. In ascending order, it goes Mammals and birds equally, Reptiles, Amphibians, Insects, Fish, Cephalopods.
APPRECIATIONS OF TH E MONSTROUS
Prague: City of Fantasy Locus Online , March 2009
“I you look at Prague rom up here, as her lights icker on one by one, you eel you would gladly plunge headlong into an unreal lake in which you had seen an enchanted castle with a hundred towers [as] the evening chimes on that black lake o starry roos.” —Vítězslav Nezval, co-ounder o the surrealist movement in the Czech Republic o my wie Ann and me, there may be no more antastical city than Prague, the capital o the Czech Republic, situated on the banks o the Vltava River. River. Its roots in antasy go much deeper than Franz Kaka, who once lived in a room in the city’s walls. Tey also go deeper than the tale o the Golem, one o Prague’s most amous ctitious exports. A penchant or the antastical seems to come naturally to Czechs, perhaps perh aps nowhere more in evidence than Jaroslav Hasek’s tales o the good soldier Svejk. In these absurd stories, Svejk’s abrications become ever more bizarre and grandiose, and yet ool everyone with the sincerity and detail o their telling. In one particular tale, tale , Svejk claims to have discovered such oddities as the SulphurBellied Whale, the Edible Ox, and Sepia Inusorium, a kind o sewer rat. Indeed, Frank Blei, a member o Franz Kaka’s writing circle, must have been taken by the spirit o Prague when he was moved to describe his colleague as part o an imaginary bestiary: “Te Kaka. Te Kaka is a magnicent and very rarely seen moon-blue mouse, which eats no esh, but eeds on bitter herbs. herb s. It is a bewitching sight, or it has human eyes.” Prague has always been a haven or creative people—it had a Cubist art scene second only to Paris in the 1920s—and remains the home o many ne artists and lmmakers, including the animator Jan Svankmajer, whose Alice Alice tells a decidedly macabre version o the classic by Lewis Carroll. Svankmajer was heavily inuenced
Jeff VanderMeer
67
in his choice o career by receiving a toy puppet theater as a Christmas git in 1942. 1 942. His Gamba Gallery sits on a cozy street just north o the castle that overlooks the city. A humble white-washed exterior with iron-barred windows hides rooms ull o wonders, as most o Prague’s Prague’s more surreal creators have exhibited there. It was the streets around the Gamba Gallery that we made us realize that some o the more antastical antasti cal paintings o Hawk Alredson were based on reality. reality. On the streets around the gallery, you will nd houses with inward curving walls, delicate slanted ceilings, and tiny doors that look like they came rom aeryland. In addition, one o the earliest inuences on Alredson’s oil paintings was Prague writer Gustav Meyrink’s Te Golem. Another painting echoes the texture o Wallenstein Wallenstein Palace’ Palace’s Grotesquery in Prague, a strange “orgery” “orgery” o the walls o a limestone cave, complete with stalactites. Much o Prague’s playulness also has an edge to it. For example, with the all o communism Prague was let with a ew ugly reminders o that repressive era—like the local television station. Looking a little like a steel cactus, this grim structure ullled all o the unimaginative requirements o the Soviet era. But, rather than tear it down, the Czechs commissioned a sculptor to create large “space babies,” which were then attached to the sides o the building. Tis solution is un but also oers a mocking comment on the prior regime. Te television station is one o the ew instances o Czechs having to beautiy an ugly structure. As Te Rough Guide to Prague states, the city represents “some six hundred years o architecture almost untouched by natural disaster or war...the city retains much o its medieval layout and the street acades remain smothered in a rich mantle o Baroque, Rococo, and Art Nouveau.” Nouveau.” We We couldn’t couldn’t go anywhere in the Old own own section o Prague without encountering seemingly seem ingly magical buildings with ying y ing buttresses, ramparts, and clock towers. Some o the modern structures also seemed not o this world, including the amous Dancing House, also known as “Fred and Ginger.” Doors are also a highlight o Prague, which boasts entrances that can rival or surpass such ctional marvels as the Mines o Moria door in the wo owers Lord o the Rings movie. Modern Prague Prague continues to exhibit this sense o sly playulness, playuln ess, as evidenced by a major gallery exhibit at the Kampa Museum o Modern Art consisting
68
MONSTROUS CREATURES
o huge plastic bears and rabbits, along with a huge wicker chair by the river, suitable or a giant. Not to mention a ne memorial to John Lennon opposite the Old own, own, where thousands o people a year come to pay tribute. As a modern, thriving metropolis, Prague by day or by night contains so many imaginative surprises that even cynical travelers can be amazed by it. Walking Walking around a corner in the evening, with the old town area lit up like some airy tale setting, we have stumbled across impromptu concerts, street theater, puppetry, puppetry, and stunning stunni ng exhibits o international photography. photography. But one discovery exemplied or us the magical nature o Prague. Walking through the gardens overlooking the city, we heard aint music coming rom a high hedge. We soon ound a narrow break in the shrubbery that led to a little beer bar with a radio and seats made rom tree stumps with green elt as upholstery. Although Although it was the summer, holiday lights had been woven through the gnarled trees. In the back lay a delicate gazebo set amidst a orest o vines and strange metal sculptures. It’s hard indeed to top the reality o Prague, in any art orm. Tis might be why the best history o Prague is Magic Magic Pra Prague gue by Angelo Maria Ripellino. He captures the city by combining ction and nonction. His account begins, “o this day, every evening at ve, Franz Kaka returns home to Celetna Street (Zeltnergasse) wearing a bowler hat and black suit.” Troughout, he interweaves characters and situations rom novels with the actual events that have dened the city’s rich lie. As Ripellino Ripellino writes near the end o his ascinating ascinating account: account: “Te ascination ascination o Prague, the lie o Prague has no end. Its gravediggers will vanish into in to the abyss.” Anyone who loves the antastical will nd n d Prague—its arts, its history hi story,, and its tall tales—a ascinating delight. It may come as no surprise, then, that when Czechs voted, along with other European Union members, on a amous person to best represent their country, their selection was a little dierent. Every other country chose a real person. Czechs chose a ctional character eatured in a series o well-known national plays.
Catherynne M. Valente's The Labyrinth The Labyrinth Introduction to the rst edition, 2007
Flying doorways that “appear in the morning like dew-dampened butteries, manic and clever.” “Latinate clams” that clatter in the water, “their vulgate symphony o clicking nails and meaningless morse code…” Voices “like a rustling o linden leaves, like sand becoming a pearl.” A great hare that speaks, a “handsome golden macaque with a bodhisattva ace,” a decapitated Queen—all this and more awaits you in Catherynne Cather ynne M. Valente’ Valente’ss small jewel o a novel, Te Labyrinth. Have we been here beore? Yes and no—we’ve seen these mountains, those valleys, beore (at least rom aar), but that makes no dierence. Every time language dislocates and damages us with the intensity o its unexpected beauty, and the truth o that beauty, we undergo a similar transormation—and we return so we can be dislocated and beautiully damaged once again, albeit in a slightly dierent d ierent way. way. apping into the same wellspring o charged imagery as the Decadents and the Surrealists, Te Labyrinth displays a condence and sophistication o language rare in a rst novel. Tat the author is drunk with words belies the control with which she uses them. Te reader will be reminded reminde d o such monstrous creations as Latreaumont’s Maldoror, Maldoror, Alice in Wonderland, Wonderland, and Angela Carter’s more surreal ction, but at the same time, Valente’ Valente’ss voice is unique, uni que, her style her own. Metaphors and similes crowd the page, some literal, some gurative. Each sentence has the ability to surprise. Many have the ability to inict damage. Valente is certainly as earless as any o the great non-linear, ur-logical Surrealists or Decadents—or her, language is not a balancing act, but the equivalent o inging onesel o o a cli, determined to sprout wings beore hitting the rocks below. Most o the time, Valente does grow wings well beore annihilation. Or, rather, I should say, writes hersel wings .
70
MONSTROUS CREATURES
But what o the tale? Is it secondary secondar y to the prose? No, not so much secondary as used to the prose—this is one book where the story cannot be b e separated rom the way in which it has been told, which is all to the good. Our nameless narrator navigates her way through a labyrinth as much metaphysical as sensual, as much dream-like as empirical (despite the sharply empirical nature o its many lovely descriptions). Some works simply require savoring at the level o language. Te Labyrinth is one o these works, best enjoyed paragraph by paragraph, word by word. So many ctions are inert at the level o language—as lieless as an old shoe—that I ound it wonderul to be reminded o the possibilities. Te best analogy I can make is to a beach at low tide, rich with tidal tid al pools. Te beach as a whole is quite satisactory, but the tidal pools, which rom a distance are just mirrors mi rrors o the sky, sky, prove to be even more compelling: look into each one and a nd you discover that each teems with lie, each its own sel-sufcient community. community. Te same sam e with Valente’ Valente’ss ction: each paragraph is sel-sufcient and contains an entire world. You can lose yoursel in a paragraph in Te Labyrinth, which is, perhaps, tting. As or the author, author, Valente is only—astonishingly enough—24 years old, wrote this novel in 10 days, and has had a book o poetry published publi shed already. already. I’m I’m not surprised by this last act, however, since in some ways Te Labyrinth is an extended prose poem.
Two Tw o Members of the Shadow Cabinet: Batchelor and McNaughton Heliotrope , Fall 2007
Shadow Cabinets are the great equalizers, the great communicators. It is only within the dark connes o a Shadow Cabinet, like certain Cabinets o Curiosities, that books and authors with little in common nd themselves shoved up against one another, under glass. Like the eccentric elements elem ents in photographs by Rosalind Purcell, juxtapositions create their own classications. Tus, the subjects o this column: two books, two authors, who traveled in completely dierent circles, and yet wound up in the same place: John Calvin Batchelor and his Te Birth o the People’s Republic o Antarctica (1983) and Brian McNaughton and his Te Trone o Bones (1997). Te ormer is a devastating but ultimately compassionate examination o the savage brutality o human nature. Te latter is a dark antasy story cycle set in Seelura, a place that while uniquely its own also evokes Robert E. Howard and classic-era Weird ales . Both constitute exceptional accomplishment, and both are now largely orgotten. 1 “I am Grim Fiddle. My mother, Lamba, rst spied me in her magic hand-mirror late in the evening o the spring equinox o 1973. She was dancing by hersel at the time, in the rear o a shabby beer hall called Te Mickey Mouse Club, located in the oreign quarter o Stockholm, the capital o the Kingdom o Sweden. She was midway between the music box and the bank o telephone booths. She was not under the inuence o any drug, though my maternal grandather was
72
MONSTROUS CREATURES
a Lutheran preacher. preacher. Tere is no urther explanation o Lamba’ Lamba’s vision orthcoming. Mother was Norse sibyl.” —Te opening paragraph o Te Birth o the People’s Republic o Antarctica A prod produc uctt o the the 1960 1960ss and and 1970 1970s, s, John ohn Calv Calvin in Ba Batc tche helo lorr ha hadd what what many many writ writer erss woul wouldd consider a very good career. Between 1981 and 1994, he had eight novels published rom large publishers like Henry Holt. Almost all o these books received some kind o critical acclaim and coverage. However, around the mid-1990s, Batchelor ell o the map, only to reappear as a radio host in New York City ater 2000. Te truth is, Batchelor could be uneven. I always preerred his more exotic work to the American novels like Gordon Liddy Is My Muse . He also could be too derivative o Tomas Pynchon. He could be difcult in a rivolous way. But at his best, he deserved better than he got. Batchelor’s work has a erce intelligence, a deep and abiding interest in the issues o the contemporary world, and an incisive view o the individual’s place in that world. He took chances, sometimes leaping o the edge. He could tell a cracking good story, too, supported by a quirky and rich and brave imagination. imagi nation. (For all I know, know, he still possesses these qualities, but his books are out o print and he hasn’t hasn’t published anything anythi ng new or over a decade.) d ecade.) Te Birth o the th e People’s People’s Republic o Antarctica Antarcti ca is, in my opinion, his best novel. I remember the rst time I read it, picked up randomly because I liked the title. As I began to read, I realized I had something unique in my hands, something that was about to blow the top o my head o. Beleaguered reighters ull o plague victims set adrit by governments unwilling to deal with sick reugees, ated to roam the seas? A uture o religious war and conict over limited resources? A man named Skallagrim Strider, Strider, larger than lie and outside o the law, law, who leads these reugees to a new lie in a ree republic in Antarctica? And all o this recounted by an observer both uncanny in his observations and a ool. Te very act o writing Te Birth was, to my mind, audacity auda city o the rst order, showing the kind o nerve you wish you’d see more oten. Further, in retooling parts o the myth o Beowul , Batchelor had created a mythic resonance that made the whole thing seem timeless—even as it didn’t need that, was as timely then as it is now in its warnings and its revelations.
Jeff VanderMeer
73
Parts o this novel, merciless in its execution and intent, made me cry. Parts Parts o it reminded remind ed me o John Brunner’s Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar . Parts o it were literally like nothing I’d ever read beore. Batchelor’s observations on the railty, cruelty, utility, and bravery o human lie horried me and moved me. Somehow, he managed to use summary more oten than scene and get ge t away with it (something that inuenced me in writing Shriek: An Aterword ),), juxtaposed scenes both terriying and unny, and never let the reader or his characters o the hook. But, honestly, I don’t think I can put it any better than whoever wrote the description on the back cover o the trade paperback edition: “Batchelor has written a stunning lament about the beastliness in man and the violence in nature, about the darkness o hope abandoned and the blood-price o hope regained. It is a bewitching work o proound and prophetic vision.” And now orgotten, at a time when it is most relevant, when many other ctions I read seem childlike in comparison. 2 “Even i they were not immediately eaten by their mothers, the ospring o ghouls would be short-lived, or they are typically ormless things that seem less the product o parturition than pathology. It thereore roused great envy among the mining community when one o their number gave birth to a perectly ormed ormed baby boy; who would have looked rosy, rosy, had anyone been so perverse as to light a lamp in the dank niche where he was born.” —the opening o “Te Ghoul’s Ghoul’s Child” rom Te Trone o Bones Brian McNaughton achieved his greatness ater a lietime o anonymity and toiling in the corpse-lled trenches o the horror eld. McNaughton McNaughton rst started publishing horror in the 1960s, at a time when there was no recognizable horror eld as such. Te only big authors working in horror were people like Robert Bloch. McNaughton got by with a newspaper day job and writing pulpy mass market paperbacks. Ten, when things got worse, in the 1970s, he wrote, as he put it, “a lot o books with the word ‘Satan’ in the title.” He also wrote or men’s magazines.
74
MONSTROUS CREATURES
When he reappeared in the early 1990s, McNaughton McNaughton was only about a decade away rom his own death. At this point, he was wa s working ull-time jobs in actories, unable to nd a publisher or his work. He had stopped writing. Ten, or some reason, he started writing again. Tis time, though, something was dierent, or at least seems dierent rom my perspective. He had a vision, and he appeared to be writing solely or himsel. hi msel. He sold his rst new stories o Seemura to magazines in the now-resurgent horror eld, places like erminal Fright, EKELILI , and Weird Book Book . Te Seemura stories had the look and eel o odd adult swordsand-sorcery tales. Tey had an originality and seriousness to them that bypassed the easy wit o Fritz Leiber’s Fahred & Te Grey Mouser series. McNaughton was Old School, in some cases seemingly Old estament. He was Clark Ashton Smith without the pretty. He was Lovecrat exiled to a oreign, murderous land. McNaughton McNaughton’’s pulp roots provided the grit and grime or these stories, enhancing their verisimilitude. Visceral and extreme, they could be moody, moody, atmospheric, and touching. Necromancers and sorcerer kings, shamen and lovely princesses—all o these elements eleme nts should have seemed amiliar, and yet in McNaughton McNaughton’’s hands they became exotic, undamentally strange, and original again. When McNaughton McNaughton’’s collection o the Seemura Seemura stories, Te Trone o Bones , appeared in 1997, it received acclaim in the horror eld, even won the World Fantasy Award. Ten came a trade paperback edition. Ten that went out o print. And then came a second collection, not as good as Trone . And then McNaughton died, and now, except among some hardcore horror ans, no one remembers McNaughton, or his one remarkable book. wo writers. One a child o the literary mainstream, with pedigree, the other a pulp author or much o his lie, touched by sudden vision, sudden clarity. Tere was a time in the mid-1980s when Batchelor was golden. Tere was a time in the mid-1990s when McNaughton had a modicum o ame and attention. At both times, or both men, to readers and reviewers, it must have seemed as i they were ated to advance rom strength to strength. Tis did not happen. Instead, one petered out and died and the other stopped writing.
Making Her Ow er Own n Light: Caitlin R. Kiernan Introduction to Te Ammonite Violin & Other Stories, 2010
Some writers cannot help themselves. Some writers, by the sheer complexity and reach o their imaginations will always be somewhat unclassiable. For this reason, it’s it’s their view o the world we value, not the category cate gory in which a publisher publish er places them. Tese are the writers who create what they nd to be perectly normal, only to be told it is strange. Such writers I value the most, or they are sui generis . Caitlin R. Kiernan is one o these writers, and in Te Ammonite Violin & Others she goes to very strange places, indeed. In eect, she has created a collection that positions supernatural supern atural elements o myth and olktale in a place ar more primal than even their original context. In a radical move that no doubt came to her as naturally as a dolphin takes to swimming, Kiernan has managed, mana ged, through texture and point o view vie w, to show us the reality o these archetypes. Angela Carter in a collection like Te Bloody Chamber reclaimed iconic stories or eminism, but still used her lush prose in a stylized way that mimicked the atness o tales, which are generally two-dimensional compared to short stories. Kiernan has accomplished something more subversive—hers is a kind o dirty, modern lyricism. Like many o the Decadents, her prose is, yes, lush, but it’s it’s also muscular, allows or psychologically three-dimensional portraits o her characters, and has the exibility to be blunt, even shocking. Mermaids, selkies, vampires, and airies all make appearances in this collection. However, the method o description and storytelling creates a sheer physicality and alien quality to the context or these creatures that both humanizes them—in the sense o making them real, i not always understandable—and makes it impossible to see them—so oten the case when writers describe “monsters” as just people in disguise or as caricatures we can dismiss because they exist solely or our passing risson o unease une ase or terror.
76
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Part o this authenticity, part o the reason I nd them disturbing, comes rom the simple act that the people in these stories don’t really survive their encounters with the supernatural. Whether in, among others, “Madonna Littoralis” or the two “Metamorphosis” stories, this inability to survive can be literal or gurative, or both—and it occurs because the supernatural isn’t so much something terriying in Kiernan’s view. It can be, but that’s not the true point. Te supernatural to Kiernan is also something beautiul and unknowable in intent, and oten wedded to the natural world. In a sense, trying to know something unknowable will always destroy the seeker. In almost all o these stories, too, the characters seem to encounter the supernatural as part o a need or connection, even i the thing they connect with is Other and will be the death o them. And, once the connection is made, the implications o that passing over are never what they might have seemed to be beore the crossing. For example, the powerul, controlled yet intensely interior narrative “Te Cryomancer’s Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)” burns with its description o an obsessed, unequal relationship: “...she reaches out and brushes rozen ngertips across the space between my shoulder blades. I gasp, and at least it is me gasping, an honest gasp at the pain and cold owing out o her and into me.” Tat there is oten a graphic sexual se xual component to these stories shouldn’t come as a surprise—it supports this idea o trying to connect, even i the connection can turn rom erotic to grotesque, the two elements co-mingling until it’s not always clear which is which. Kiernan also discards the typical plots that you see in antasy or supernatural ction. Tere are ew twists here, little action in the conventional sense. Such artice would orm a barrier to getting at truths about the relationships in these stories, some o which unction as intricate snapshots o dysunction and the attempt to communicate, underscoring that even in normal human relationships, we are all encased in our separate skulls and, ultimately, unknowable. Tis ocus contributes to the sense that we’re reading something new here, even though these stories t comortably within Kiernan’s overall oeuvre— something that is unrelenting in peeling away layers o alsehood in an attempt to get somewhere real. It’s not just the characters but readers who receive what
Jeff VanderMeer
77
seem like true glimpses o what it might be like to encounter the inexplicable, with all blinders o, stripped o any niceties. I won’ won’t lie—Kiernan lie—Kiern an’’s approach can be brutal at times, the true odder or nightmares, but it’s also brave and true. “Untitled 23” exemplies these qualities, with its depiction o a aerie girl mistreated by the Faerie Queen. She’s trapped by the Queen when she chases a lizard—“verdant, iridian, gazing out at me with crimson eyes”—through the orest and becomes a slave, and then even less than that. Te descriptions in this story, which serve to underscore the themes, are devastatingly brilliant. Te Queen is “ashioned o some viscous, shapeless substance that is not quite esh, but always there is the dim impression o leathery leat hery wings, as o some immense bat, and wherever the Queen brushes against the girl, there is the sensation o touching or being touched by matted matte d ur and the blasted bark o dying, lightning-struck trees.” Te girl sits on a “black bed ar below the orest oor,” while the “Queen o Decay moves across her like the eclipse o the sun,” surrounded by “mirrors hung on bits o root and bone and the shhook mandibles o beetles.” Here, then, is the true terrible unknowableness o that which is oten sanitized or only brought orward or our amusement, revealed as terrible because we cannot truly athom it. Even more important, perhaps, is the sense that this is all part o the natural cycle rom the Faerie Queen’s point o view, as much as the pattern o the seasons, and that the natural world around us is a deeply alien place, even though we try so hard to control it. Tus, it’s appropriate that the story ends with the lizard that led the girl to her ate. Te lizard is the real main character in “Untitled 23,” the secret sharer: that which we orever chase without realizing the depths o what we chase. It’s a stunner o a story, and it’s one that only Kiernan could have written. Troughout Te Ammonite Violin & Others , these moments prolierate, mixed with moments o pure horror—“It’s loose in the room with us,” “I cannot look away”—that away”—that always serve to support something beyond just unsettling us. Tese stories are, ultimately, ultimately, driven by deeply human, deeply humane, deeply secret moments. In the rst story in Te Ammonite Violin & Others the beleaguered narrator tells the reader, “Tere are things that are born into darkness and live their thei r entire
78
MONSTROUS CREATURES
lives in darkness, in deep d eep places, and they’ve learned to make whatever light they need. It sprouts rom them, lanterns o esh to dot the abyss like bare bulbs strung on electrical cords, and I wish I could make my own light at the bottom o the walls o the earth.” Caitlin R. Kiernan creates her own light in this remarkable collection, and shines it on dark places. In doing so, she gives us gritty, gritty, lyrical, horrible, beautiul truths.
Unsung Heroes of Science Fiction and Fantasy Bantam magazine, 2008 Underrated. Obscure. Cult. Idiosyncratic. Tese words describe writers who
haven’t really gotten their due, but that readers somewhere, passionate about their avorites, oer up to their riends and post about on blogs. Sometimes, it’s a one-book author who never did anything else. Sometimes, it’s a writer with a reputation in the literary mainstream who remains an enigma to genre readers. Sometimes, it’s just a writer who never got the luck, or the breaks, necessary to make it to wider recognition. Te great thing, though, is that you never know when an unsung hero might just walk into the limelight. Case in point: George R.R. Martin, who, despite success in short stories, experienced a certain amount o commercial resistance to his early novels. I not or Hollywood and his subsequent success, I might be trying to convince you to read his work. Need another example? Te SF/horror writer Jerey Tomas would have made my list i his Punktown novels hadn’t been picked up or commercial publication in 2007. So, with all o that in mind, I’m oering up our “unsung” heroes who deserve your reading attention. Stuart Gordon: Victim o the New Age Fad?
Ater a series series o pulpish pulpish novels novels like Te Bike From Hell (under the pen name Alex Stuart) and an interesting antasy series, Stuart Gordon turned to alternative history science ction, resulting in the cult classic novel Smile on the Void Void (1981) (1981 ) . Smile on the Void , issued by Berkley in mass market paperback, was labeled “the stunning novel o the coming millenium” and eatured praise rom Newsday
80
MONSTROUS CREATURES
and many others. (It subsequently inspired the album Smile on the Void by the Los Angeles band A Produce.) Te novel purports to be the autobiography o Ralph M’Botu Kitaj, who starts out as an arms dealer and winds up ounding a religion, beore disappearing in Venice in ront o one hundred thousand o his ollowers—ater having promised to return when most needed. Kitaj’s story o his rough early years, his transormation rom a lie o crime and other bad deeds, is rendered in realistic, believable detail. From Poland to East Arica to Caliornia, Kitaj’s lie journey ironically ends where it started: wanted by the police, but now because o the religion that has grown up around him. Smile on the Void is oten mystical without being cloying. It is unny, heartbreaking, and beautiully written. Berkley clearly thought it would be a huge hit, one that they could leverage by using terms more amiliar to nonction readers at that time, like “new-consciousness.” Unortunately, this strategy backred when the New Age boom came to an end. As a result, a writer who should have entered the pop culture zeitgeist as thoroughly as Tomas Pynchon has gotten scant attention since. Gordon qualies as an unsung hero because he wrote a novel unique in the history o genre ction, never since duplicated, that, in some alternate universe, is still on top o the bestsellers list. Rikki Ducornet: Invisible to Genre Readers?
Unlike Stuart Gordon, Rikki Ducornet could never be considered a one- or twobook author. She has a large body o consistently excellent ction and has been recognized in some quarters as the nest American surrealist o the past thirty years. What she has not had, however, however, is much o a prole among genre readers, despite having written some o my avorite antasy. Her best novels include Entering Fire (1986), he Fountains o Neptune (1989), he Jade Cabinet (1993), and he Fan-Maker’s Inquisition . However Howeve r, Phosphor in Dreamland (1995), which relates the antastical history o an imaginary Caribbean island, may be the best entry point or new readers. he novel details the attempts o a man named Phosphor to document the island in photographs, while having a series o wonderul, sometimes
Jeff VanderMeer
81
startling startli ng adventures. Evoking Swit in its sharp satire and relevant to current issues like climate change and species extinction, Phosphor in Dreamland is, above all else, a towering work o the imagination. As an ambassador o antasy in the mainstream literary world, and or her other numerous excursions into editing, painting, poetry, and noniction, Ducornet gets my vote or the most well-rounded unsung hero, orging paths or others to ollow. ollow. I you enjoy the work o Angela Carter Ca rter or Kelly Kel ly Link, you’ll love Rikki Ducornet. Rhys Hughes: Hurt by His Devotion to Short Fiction?
Reerred to by some as “the mad Welshman,” Welshman,” Rhys Hughes creates ction that plays with reality and with language, showing the inuence o such diverse writers as Jack Vance, Italo Calvino, Michael Moorcock, and Stanislaus Lem. Although Altho ugh he’s he’s written writt en novels, Hughes’ strength stren gth lies in the short shor t orm. He’s He’s written more than ve hundred short stories, resulting in nine collections. Some o his ction is experimental, some humorous, and some ris o o traditional Welsh Welsh tales. Almost every story st ory has a supernatural or absurd abs urd element that places it rmly in the antasy or horror category. Featuring pirates, bards, explorers, hopelessly lost lovers, mazes, underground antasy worlds, mad inventors and moving houses, Hughes consistently comes up with some o the most imaginative creations in genre. At one time t ime considered on a course or a major career, career, Hughes has thus ar wound up marginalized by his devotion to the short orm, and to idiosyncratic storytelling—which is a shame given the high level o entertainment Hughes provides to a reader in even his most mundane short story stor y. Even internet junkies may nd it difcult to track down original editions o Hughes’ best short ction, collected in Te Smell o elescopes (2000) and Stories From a Lost Anthology, (2002), which rst appeared in lovely limiteds rom artarus artarus Press. For his tireless devotion to, and innovation within, the short orm, Rhys Hughes deserves not only our praise, but the designation o unsung hero.
82
MONSTROUS CREATURES
L. immel Duchamp: oo Daring or Her Own Good?
Although known or short ction in, among others, Asimov’s Asimov’s SF Magazine , L. immel Duchamp’ Ducha mp’ss major work, w ork, the Marq’ssan Marq’ssan Cycle— Cycle — Alanya to Alanya Alanya (2005), Renegade (2006), sunami (2007), and Blood in the Fruit (2008)—remains relatively unknown. Highly praised by Samuel Delany, these novels chronicle a near-uture Earth in which people in the United States are divided into executive and service classes ruled by a repressive government. Ten the Marq’ssan, an advanced race o aliens, arrive and change everything everyth ing by rying all electronics and giving aid to anyone willing to ght or independence rom the existing power structure. In the resulting chaos, Seattle breaks o as a ree zone, among other interesting extrapolations. Te novels n ovels ollow Kay Zeldin, a history proessor who works or the government and is one o Duchamp’s more inspired characters. Zeldin is genuinely conicted—not sure i she should continue to support the government, or throw her lot in with the aliens. Although the rst novel novel has some clunky moments, the series gains strength as it progresses, oering a truly unique vision o the uture that is also relevant to our society today. today. At the same time, these novels oten have the pacing and tension t ension o thrillers, the message embedded in wild plot twists and very real characters caught up in extraordinary times. Considering the erocity and bravery displayed displ ayed by Duchamp in the th e Marq’ Marq’ssan Cycle, she deserves deser ves the title o unsung hero or or her bravery in going where so many ear to tread.
My Additional Misadventures with Engelbrecht Introduction to Engelbrecht Again! , Rhys Hughes, 2008
My rst encounter with Engelbrecht the Dwar Surrealist Boxer, in all o his eccentric glory, occurred when I received Te Exploits o Engelbrecht , a lavishly illustrated tome rom Savoy Books purporting to be the work o one Maurice Richardson, the stories originally published in Lilliput Magazine . As I entertained mysel with tales o dog opera, sports on Mars, witch shoot-outs, and plant p lant theater, I soon came to realize that “Maurice Richardson” must be a portmanteau nom de plume or a garrulous and various collection o ne’er-do-wells and drunkards who had come up with the character o “Engelbrecht” “Engelb recht” in a bar and proceeded to do an Album Zutique project, as per the French Decadents several generations beore. Certainly, this would explain the requent reerences to the “Surrealist Sportsman’ Sportsman’s Club,” Club,” no doubt a phantasmagorical phantasmagori cal version and vision o whatever whate ver worn and seedy pub had originally housed the miscreants responsible as they mapped out their insane adventures on napkins, tablecloths, and the labels o a multitude o wine bottles. Such was the exoticism o the visions laid out beore me. Single authorship seemed not only not credible, but incredible. O course, this issue soon ell rom my mind, erased by the originality and eet-ootedness o the collection...only to return when, upon nishing the last story, “Unquiet Wedding,” I realized that short o erasing my memory m emory,, I would never again reshly encounter Engelbrecht. Never again would I have those initial moments o innocent and not so innocent discovery d iscovery.. So imagine my delight when Dead Letter Press delivered to my door a manuscript by a mad Welshman, one Rhys Hughes, purporting to be Engelbrecht Again: Being the Further Adventures Adventures o Engelbrecht Engelbrecht . Tose multitudinous authorial phantoms concocting Engelbrechtian illusions whilst imbibing absinthe, nepenthe, and things much stranger, apparently had been hard at work in the
84
MONSTROUS CREATURES
intervening years—not just creating new tales, but also re-creating a new pen name; one more believable or being Welsh and or having already resurrected the obscure Argentine dwar/juggler Jorge Luis Borges in convincing ashion or A New Universal Universal History o Inamy Inamy . With trembling trembling hand and twitching twitching eye (a amilial tic amiliar to my amiliar), amiliar), I perused the pages with a strange mixture o dread and anticipation. I longed to learn more o Engelbrecht’s Engelbrecht’s exploits, but was this authorial collective named name d “Rhys Hughes” Hughes” as talented or as lunatic as that tha t previously labeled “Maurice Richardson”? Would Would the multi-brain multi-brain multi-verse multi-verse o “Hughes “Hughes”” read as i it came rom lithe Lilliput or rom its distorted distor ted mirror brother, the uncouth Bleuscudia ? I decided to make a rst pass through the manuscript during which I skimmed the surace, collecting phrases. I this went well, I would delve deeper, as they say, and commit mysel to urther ur ther exploration. I it went poorly, poorly, I would disengage and throw the manuscript in the replace, there to join the chipmunks, voyeurs, and Jehovah’ Jehovah’s Witnesses. Among the sentences I surgically ensed rom the narrative without becoming mired in guerilla warare or anything similarly time-consuming were the ollowing: Not that I wanted him transormed into a mineral, you understand, but it seemed ludicrous to waste such an easy opportunity to recoup my earlier loss. Among the many two-wheeled events sponsored by the Id, the most taxing, physically and psychically, is the annual our de rance. We We expected a tapeworm parade, which the Id always preers to the tickertape version, but celebrations were muted. Te Roulette Wheel was large and terrible, carved rom uranium and powered not by a croupier but jagged lightning which gushed rom the ceiling down a copper cable to a hidden motor under the device. Tere were plenty o headless corpses strewn around the table, in sundry states o decay, which was strange considering this was the Casino’s opening night.
Jeff VanderMeer
85
Te embryonic Romantic had been regrown in one o Dr Sadismus’s accelerated incubators, though he was still too resh to be a proper youth. and, nally, the tantalizingly obscure With the puppets, our strength totaled 77,777 arms and the back o our line wasn’t wasn’t visible rom the vicinity vicini ty o the pit. It was this last mystery that proved my undoing, as I abandoned my structured skim and dove headlong into the story, titled “ug o Worlds,” and just barely managed to avoid alling, there being so much rope in the story I had no choice but to hang on. From there I pulled mysel back up to “Te North Face o the Ego” and, realizing I was in it or the duration, went down to the pub and ordered lunch and some good German beer. Several days later, buttocks calcied upon my stool, I had encountered not only the monkey or all seasons but also a mermaid supper, an Atlantean tango, the Borges twins, and some very odd argonauts, among a million and one other things.1 During this somewhat conused time (I went in wearing an overcoat, sweater vest, undershirt, shorts, and long sockless boots but came out, squinting against unwanted sunlight, in the ull moon-cluttered robes o a high-level reemason), I came to a sudden conclusion. Whereas Where as I still stil l believed beli eved “Maurice “Mauri ce Richardson” Richa rdson” was an amalgama amal gamation tion o a possible dozen talented hal-wits, “Rhys Hughes” was incontrovertibly a single individual talented hal-wit. No one piece o evidence supported this conclusion, but something in the tone, something in the post-absurdist bent o the stories—the underlying mischievous subtext, the cheeky rhythm o the (much longer) paragraphs, the reusal to ever use the word “y’all,” even in 1 My only regret during this reading adventure is that I somehow managed to misplace one tale entitled “Engelbrecht and the Ultimate Secret o lon and the Mad Arab” during an extended drinking session with a girae o my acquaintance. I remember a munching rom above I thought was innocent at the time. Te manuscript sent to me being the original, and Rhys Hughes’ memory being much diminished rom years o eating baby ood laced with laudanum, the story could not be reconstructed or publication here.
86
MONSTROUS CREATURES
dialogue, the weird logic, even more insane than in the original volume— convinced me o this truth. Further evidence appeared when, during some spring cleaning, I unearthed two volumes rom behind a very irritated irritate d bear, bear, itsel wearing a bear suit with lobster lobs ter claws or hands: Te Smell o elescopes and Stories rom a Lost Anthology . Both o these handsome hand some collectible artarus artarus hardcovers contained stories that, despite de spite mentioning Engelbrecht, appeared to be conveying his adventures regardless. Te truth o this is hard to convey, convey, but in re-reading “Journey Trough a Wall,” all,” “Te Macroscopic eapot,” “Te Squonk Laughed,” and “A Girl Like a Doric Column,” among others, I began to eel as i Engelbrecht might have written these tales. Tat in some perverse sense, Rhys Hughes was Engelbrecht, in his later years, having retired rom his sporting endeavors and taken up ction. No matter what the literal or gurative truth o this sensation, it has haunted me, dear reader, ever since, in ways most unexpected and uncanny. I wake up in strange places with peculiar books piled up beside me. I mouth odd phrases to passersby and can barely bring mysel to water the sh or clean the snails rom the carpet. For now I, too, write Engelbrecht stories, and have no clue who or what I am channeling. But, o course, this is none o your concern. For you, this book shall be a delight, an entertainment, a ancy ball, a surrealistic assortment o careully crated desserts. For you, dear reader, the only important detail is that Engelbrecht lives once more!
Alasdair Gray and Lanark
In Alasdair Gray’s terrible aterworld o Unthank, giant mouths descend rom the sky to devour the main character, Lanark, a cold wind rising “with the salty odour o rotting seaweed, then a hot one with an odour like roasting meat.” As Lanark is swallowed up, so is the reader. Gray’s visions in his masterwork Lanark (1981) are as apocalyptic as they are political, and when the antastical becomes entwined with themes o social iniquity, the critic who attempts to pull them apart risks being devoured himsel. “I believe there are cities where work is a prison and time a goad and love a burden,” burden,” Lanark says. Yet Yet embo emboss ssed ed on the the har hardc dcoover ver rs rstt edi editi tion on o Gray ray’s nov novel el Poor Tings (1992) are the words “Work As I You Live In Te Early Days O A Better Nation.” Dragon hide, “as common as mouths or sots or twittering rigor” in Unthank, encrusts the limbs o citizens in a “glossy cold hide,” the color “an intensely dark green” that causes people to act out their hidden nature: “Lanark saw that his dragon st was clenching to strike her. He He thrust it into into his pocket pocket where it squirmed squirmed like a crab. crab.”” At the same time, time, many, many, like Lanark, seek the light in a lightless place, even as the dragon hide conspires to take them into darkness. On the level o prose, at the sub-atomic level, does Gray make his intentions clear through the words o Lanark’s eventual enemy, Sludden? Metaphor is one o thought’s most essential tools. It illuminates what would otherwise be totally obscure. But the illumination is sometimes so bright that it dazzles instead o revealing. Lanark’s Lanark’s success may lie in the use o metaphor in i n prose as tall and true as the title o his second short story collection. Gray’s genius, however, stems rom his ability to portray the struggle o the individual against dysunctional dysunct ional institutions in dual personal and antastical terms. Te entry point or Gray’s exploration o
88
MONSTROUS CREATURES
this theme is the centuries-long struggle o the Scots against the English (and, admittedly, against their own shortsightedness). As Gray said in an interview: My approach to institutional dogma and criteria—let’s criteria—let’s call it, my approach to institutions—reects their approach to me. Nations, cities, schools, marketing companies, hospitals, police orces, have been made by people or the good o people. I cannot live without them, don’t don’t want or expect to. But when we see them working to increase dirt, poverty, pain, and death, then they have obviously gone wrong…Everyone suers or it, so it is an ingredient in all ction except the most blandly escapist. Te novel centers around Lanark’s lie in the underworld o Unthank and that o his previous incarnation in the “real” world, Duncan Taw. Taw, a sensitive artist, attempts to create great art; ailing, he commits suicide ater rst possibly murdering a emale riend. A decaying Glasgow o the 1940s and 1950s, similar to that o Gray’s own childhood, serves as the backdrop to the plot. Lanark arrives in Unthank with no memory o his past as Taw. As he attempts to discover his identity, Lanark makes his way across a grossly exaggerated mirror o a city, in which all the vices and problems o the “real” world have been magnied and distorted. Once Lanark regains his memory o his lie as Duncan, he embarks on a renetic attempt to save the city o Unthank rom destruction. In some o the most surreal scenes, he has a son with his girl riend, Rima, while traveling through a kind o time warp. Rima leaves him or his old enemy, Sludden, but Lanark continues to soldier on—as always hoping to one day experience “light,” although he may not be certain what “light” means. Gray purposeully divides his novel into our “Books.” However, he begins with Book Tree, the rst Lanark section. Te most pragmatic reason or this chronological dislocation is to introduce the reader to the antastical underworld under world o Unthank rst. Te novel must exist within the antastical rame. Given the intensely realistic—even grimly so—quality o the Glasgow sections, the surrealism o Unthank would be too jarring to the reader. Instead, Gray takes the calculated risk ri sk that the realistic sections will seem more integrated i they occur later. later. In a perverse
Jeff VanderMeer
89
sense, Gray, by using this order, makes the naturalistic scenes antasy because they are antasy to the inhabitants o Unthank. It is, perhaps, a truly alternative interpretation to think that Glasgow is the hell hel l and Unthank the reality. reality. Lanark has been called many things by many reviewers. Anthony Burgess praised it as a masterpiece. John Crowley and Michael Dirda (to a lesser extent) both praised the book’s book’s tremendous vision and the brilliance o individual scenes, while criticizing the increased allegorical content o the novel’s latter hal. Te novel does veer toward abstraction in Book Four, the ratio o dialogue to exposition increasing dangerously. Gray also devotes a chapter to cataloging Gray’s thet rom long-dead writers. While the chapter displays Gray’s Gray’s signature wit, it slows the momentum o the narrative. But in the case o Lanark , such criticism is largely irrelevant or the same reason that criticism o the whaling chapters chapte rs in Herman Melville’s Melville’s Moby Moby Dick is irrelevant. Te correction o these “aws” would rob both books o their unique genius. Te hallmark o original, eccentric writers is that what makes the writer dierent, even in a maddening sense, cannot be separated out rom what makes the writer good. Gray’ Gray’s rough edges are the rough edges o what can ca n only be termed te rmed prophecy prophecy . More importantly, importantly, in terms of the fantastical fant astical content, Lanark provides a unique example of the use of o f fantasy in a social commentary c ommentary.. Unlike Animal Farm (1945), Candide (1759),
or
Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Lanark is
not intended primarily as
parody, parody, satire, or parable.
Whether in Lanark or aux Victorian romps such as Poor Tings , antasies o the mind like 1982 Janine (1984) or via the uturistic satire o Te History Maker (1996), Gray writes “regional” literature with such erocity and skill that it transcends its Scottish origins to become universal. I Gray tends to incorporate antasy or science ction, he does so to make ull use o all relevant tools—and because such elements o an unshackled imagination represent the writer’s own seeking o the light. Although not a surrealist, Gray does ascribe to the idea o convulsive beauty: beauty be auty,, even grim beauty, beauty, in the service o liberty. liberty. I discussion discussion o Gray’s work begins and and ends with Lanark , it is or the simple reason that all o his other ction exists within the borders o its imagination. Te black sense o
90
MONSTROUS CREATURES
humor, humor, the obsession with social injustice, the difcult acts o communication between the sexes, the homage, even in altered orm, to Glasgow—all maniest themselves ully in Lanark . Te novel represents the absolute limits o Gray’s eccentricity, postmodern inquiry, and what can only be termed a kind o rough genius . No writer should have to live up to such a book. Tat Gray has produced other novels almost as proound indicates a remarkable tenacity on the part o the author. author.
My Love-Hate Relationship with Clark Ashton-Smith Introduction to Bison Books editions, 2006
Lost Worlds
I’ve I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Clark Ashton Smith’s Smith’s work or as long as I can remember. Te lovely visions o other worlds and other places linger in my memory, but so too do the hyper-elevated prose style, the grimly ormal dialog, and the sometimes sti, ritualistic scenes. In re-reading Lost Worlds , however, however, I’m I’m struck by how little these latter tendencies interere with my enjoyment o many o the stories. I thought this might have something to do with my close reading o Decadent literature in the interim, because I can nally see how Smith’ Smith’s work weds pulp and Decadent-Symbolist writing with the sensibilities o an outsider artist. I’m I’m not sure Smith’ Smith’s ction always succeeds—nor am I convinced that Smith’s aesthetic is the result o conscious intent—but the attempt makes or interesting work. Some o these tales have only historical historical signicance now; however, however, many o them still hold great imagistic power. power. Lost Worlds collects, as one might expect, Clark Ashton Smith’s “lost world” stories, rom Hyperborea to Atlantis, Zothique to Averoigne. Te collection immerses the reader in a sensibility that is oreign but also amiliar. Readers will recognize these settings rom countless movies, other pulp writers, and the work o Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, although Smith has a somewhat dierent take on the subject matter. Unlike most other approaches to “lost worlds,” Smith’s ction tends to eschew the raming structure in which modern-day people come across the “lost” place. Instead, he treats his settings not as lost worlds at all, but as vibrant, living locales peopled with picturesque, oddly ritualistic characters. Tere is no modern world existing existi ng on the “outside.” “outside.” Tere is no “outside” at all, and or this thi s reason these tales might well be classied clas sied as “secondary world” in nature (or even
92
MONSTROUS CREATURES
“primary world,” as Smith’s anatical devotion to his visions seems to eliminate our world altogether). Te descriptions in these tales are somehow altogether more useul than in his tales set in the “real” world. Teir intensity does not seem as out o place, their length seems appropriate when describing milieus that depend so much or their existence on the stu o myth and rumor. “Te ale o Satampra Zeiros” exemplies this approach. Like many o the Lost Worlds stories, Smith tells it entirely in summary with a ew attempts at hal-scene. At rst, the layering o description, as the narrator embarks on his quest, seems excessive. Te reader waits or the story to begin…and then begins to understand that the description is the story. story. Tis is not necessarily necessaril y a bad thing, but it is unusual in this sense: such an approach usually ails. Creative writing instructors generally advise beginning writers to ocus on showing not telling, and or good reason. In Smith’s case, it works more oten than not, due to his pseudo-poetic stylings: Tere were no birds nor animals, such as one would think to nd in any wholesome orest; but at rare intervals a stealthy viper with pale and heavy coils glided away rom our eet among the rank leaves o the roadside, or some enormous moth with baroque and evil-colored mottlings ew beore us and disappeared into the dimness o the jungle. Abroad already in the hal-light, huge purpureal bats with eyes like tiny rubies arose at our approach rom the poisonous-looking ruits on which they easted, and watched us with malign intention as they hovered noiselessly in the air above. Some may note the carelessness o the vague “evil-colored,” among other examples, but on the whole the intensity o such prose serves Smith well. Te reader has little choice but to believe in the world described, even i the reader may not always believe in the story being told. Less Le ss lush prose would cause the descriptions to crumble, the reader let with the banal, rendered in bland summary. However, in areas where a possible Decadent inuence gives way to the
Jeff VanderMeer
93
undigested hyberbolean in-exactnesses o his Lovecratian inuence, Smith alters badly. Later in the story, or example, tentacles come into play: What unimaginable unimagi nable horror o protoplastic lie, what loathly spawn o the primordial slime had come orth to conront us, we did not pause to consider or conjecture. Te monstrosity was too awul to permit o even a brie contemplation; also, its intentions inte ntions were too plainly hostile, and it gave evidence o anthropophagic inclinations. Critics o Smith’ Smith’s prose style may miss the mark in in their assignation o the word “purple” to Smith’ Smith’s writing. I think it is is more that he writes at such an elevated, poetic level that when called upon to put special emphasis on an event, Smith has no option but to engage in near histrionics. Tese histrionics are then accompanied by a lack o specic detail, as i the need to be mouth-rothing has inhibited his descriptive abilities. In such cases, Smith devolves into what can only be called pastiche. (One is driven to wonder why in almost all o these stories the natural nat ural world is such a horribly cruel and evil place, one in which whi ch men—there are no women o note in these stories—must struggle str uggle against not just indierent indi erent nature but “evil” nature. Certainly, this may reect the view o some Decadents, but it is not a point o view vie w necessarily prevalent in Smith’s Smith’s contemporaries.) In similar ashion, the slightly more scene-laden “Te Door to Saturn” contains scenes o beautiul description, but b ut also dialogue like “‘Detestable sorcerer! Abominable Abominable heretic! heretic! I arrest you!’ you!’ said Morghi Morghi with pontical pontical severity severity..” What are we to make o such camp? Is it intentional? Is it intrinsic to writing this kind o story? I don’t know the answer. I only know Smith must have ound it necessary, and readers must orgive him or that necessity i they want to enjoy the stories. As a counterbalanc counterbalance, e, certain passages passages ring with true intrigue, intrigue, as when his character meets “the Ephiqhs, who hollow out their homes in the trunks o certain large ungi, and are always having to hunt new habitations because the old ones crumble into powder in a ew days. And they heard the underground croaking o that mysterious people, the Ghlonghs, who dread not only the sunlight but also the ring-light, and who have never yet been seen by any o the surace dwellers.”
MONSTROUS CREATURES
94
I am captivated by paragraphs like these, so much so that I sometimes eel that Smith was either writing summaries o stories he planned to write at some time in the uture, or was ling reports rom places he’d visited as a tourist. Ultimately, Ultimately, stories like lik e “Te Door to Saturn” Saturn” work due to that mystery myste ry,, but also because o the sense o scale. Smith is orever putting his stories in a deeper perspective. When this works, the eect can be grand-eloquent grand-el oquent yet not grandiose, as at the end o “Te Door to Saturn”: As a cons consequ equenc encee o o this this belie belie,, the the aith aith o o Yhound Yhoundeh eh decline declined, d, and there there was a widespread revival o the dark worship o Zhothaqquah throughout Mhu Tulan in the last century beore the onset o the great Ice Age. In such passages, Smith’s Smith’s sincerity and an d earnestness shine s hine through, illuminating illuminati ng the story. Although there can be an arch tone to his writing—especially in his dialogue—on the whole Smith seems to believe in his worlds so completely that he makes the reader believe in them, too. Smith may not have had the perect comic timing and sense o humor that elevates Fritz Leiber’s Grey Mouser tales above the ordinary. Nor did he have olkien’s completist sense o history. But in the combination o extraordinary detail, sincerity, and grand scale, Smith managed to carve out a unique place or himsel in the canon o antasy ction. Tis is a somewhat singular achievement, as many other pulp-era writers, similarly sel-taught, similarly obsessed with presenting a unique worldview through the cracked mirror o their technique, are now literally pulped and orgotten. In the nal analysis, “visionary” is perhaps the best word to describe these tales, in the same way that much outsider art is “visionary”—in that the vision is sometimes clouded by the writer’s lack o ormal training. Ultimately, this is both Smith’s blessing and his curse. Out o Space & ime
When Clark Ashton Smith was twenty, twenty, Marcel Proust published Swann’s Way and D. H. Lawrence published Sons and Lovers . By the time Smith was twenty-
Jeff VanderMeer
95
ve, James Joyce had written Dubliners , Virginia Wool had written Te Voyage Out and Spengler had completed Te Decline Decli ne o the t he West West . Troughout his thirties and orties, Smith could have encountered new works by Pirandello, Eliot, Manseld, Hemingway, Kaka, Breton, Faulkner, and even Nabokov. However, it doesn’t appear any o these writers, with the possible exception o Kaka, Kaka, exerted any inuence inuence on Smith’s Smith’s own work whatsoever. Instead, he ocused ocus ed on French French Symbolists, already well in decline by the time he became an adult—although it is possibly more honest to say he ocused on the French Decadents as well. (Many o the “Symbolists” were identied as “Decadents” beore academia legitimized legiti mized them.) Tis identication with a literary group that inuenced other important writers but that largely did not reect the mainstream o American literature is one reason why Smith remained obscure during his lietime. Another reason, o course, was his love or pulp ction, in the orm orm o H.P. H.P. Lovecrat, among others. others. Is it any surprise that ali aligning gning himsel in his writing with two “outsider” groups led to his own obscurity? He might have been rescued by the Beat Poets, who had a certain sympathy or the aesthetic o the Decadents, i he hadn’ hadn’t stopped writing well beore they came into being. We We can nd evidence o Smith’ Smith’s dual highbrow-lowbro highb row-lowbrow w sensibility even in his lie. As August Derleth pointed out in the original introduction to Out o Space and ime, Smith was: …the descendent o Norman-French counts and barons, o Lancashire baronets and Crusaders. One o his Ashton orebears was beheaded or his part in the amed Gunpowder Plot. His mother’s amily, the Gaylords, came to New England in 1630—Huguenot Gaillards who ed persecution in France ater ater the revocation revocation o the Edict Edict o Nantes. Smith Smith’’s ather ather, imeus imeus Smith, was a world-traveler in his early years, but settled at last in Auburn, where he died less than a decade ago. At the same time, Smith’ Smith’s own lie as “journalist, a ruit picker and packer, a woodchopper, a typist, a cement-mixer, a gardener, a hard-rock miner, mucker, and windlasser,” was hardly aristocratic; quite the opposite. Just because in his prose he used a diverse, archaic, and ormidable ormidab le vocabulary does not mean readers reade rs
96
MONSTROUS CREATURES
should assume that Smith was an erudite man o letters. It is precisely his overgrasping or literary authenticity in some o his stories that shows us he was not. And it is in a proletarian, pulp mode that Smith has been rescued rom complete obscurity—through genre publications and publishers, which initially resulted in his work being discussed discusse d in terms o other pulp writers, or with wit h vague generalizations and an d waves o the hand toward the Symbolists (who perhaps more specically inuenced his poetry). Tis pulp-genre comparison seems valid in terms o the purported “purple” quality o Smith’s prose. At rst glance, and sometimes second, Smith’s writing does seem overwrought. Tus, it’s it’s easy to dismiss it i t as amateurish, much as others have dismissed Lovecrat’s Lovecrat’s writing in i n the past. I don’ don’t believe that th at this conclusion is alse so much as incomplete. First o all, Smith’s prose is not always lush—it tends to become that way the more descriptive passages inest a particular story. story. In scenes dominated by dialog, the lushness is pushed to the background and the action tends to be better paced as a result. Secondly, Secondly, we read Smith precisely or or his prose escapism, or those ights o ancy that some critics condemn. (Is it too odd to suggest that the French seem to like Smith because in translation a translator can ense those ights that are just a bit too anciul?) In the more banal tales, this sense o prose poetry is restrained, as in “A Rendezvous in Averoigne,” which, with its chateaus and chivalry, exists all too clearly in a recognizably real world. While lovely, the descriptions o a “purling brook,” brook,” a “tarn o waters that were dark and dull as a s clotting blood,” and “skeletons o rotting osiers” seem oddly muted in the context o the story. Tere is no real resonance to the images—they do not seem illuminated rom within but curiously immutable, mere description. Conversely, in “Te City o the Singing Flame,” trans-dimensional travel intereres int ereres with Smith’ Smith’s eectiveness because o his need to explain, or attempt to explain, through his narrator, with passages like: I had read a number o transdimensional transdimensiona l stories—in act, I had written one or two mysel; and I had oten pondered the possibility o other worlds or material planes which may co-exist in the same space with
Jeff VanderMeer
97
ours, invisible and impalpable impalpab le to human senses. O course, I realised at once that I had allen into some such dimension… Or: “My brain reeled beore the innite vistas vis tas o surmise that were opened by such questions.” Or: “Inevitably, I began to speculate as to the relationship between the columns in this new dimension and the borders in my own world.” All o this “business,” as one would say in the world o theater, dilutes the poetic quality o the prose, dilutes the reader’s sense o wonder. Regardless o whether this criticism is merely symptomatic o the dierence in ocus between weird ction rom that period and modern weird ction—ew writers today would bother with much in the way o explanation or extrapolation about the transdimensional actor—this is one reason Smith can seem dated. Conversely, his ability to ignore the niggling need or such explanation at other times preserves preser ves the transcendent quality o some o his stories. Once Smith eels comortable with the idea ide a that, or example, the reader will not reject his initial premise he relaxes into the story and the narrative begins to exert an inexorable in exorable power. power. I returned to the town; and once again I sought to make my presence known to the inhabitants, but all in vain. And after awhile, as I trudged from street to street, the sun went down behind the island, and the stars came swiftly out in a heaven of purpureal velvet. Te stars were large and lustrous and innumerably thick: with the eye of a practiced mariner, I studied them eagerly; but I could not trace the wonted constellations, though here and there I thought that I perceived a distortion or elongation of some familiar grouping.
Te dierence between Smith trying to t o deend his creations and Smith just living comortably inside o them is oten the dierence between success and ailure. At times, I get the sense rom these the se stories that Smith would like nothing nothin g better than to discard the pulp shapings o his plots, abandon the cardboard cut-outs o his rst person narrators, and dive head-rst into the worlds themselves, to immerse himsel in them without need to conorm to the needs o narrative.
98
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Luckily, the core o Out o Space and ime consists o stories like “A Night in Malneant,” “Te Chain o Aorgomon,” “Te Last Hieroglyph” (with its many delights, such as a talking salamander guide), “Te Vaults o Yoh-Vombis,” and others in which the need to explain is generally subsumed by the need to visualize a world or wondrously alien place. In re-reading these stories, I did begin to eel that Smith’s strengths and his weaknesses might be so intertwined that surgery would have to be perormed to separate them. It’s a theory—some would say an excuse—that writers like China Miéville have put orth about several pulp-era writers, including Lovecrat. But it has a ring o truth to it, in that Smith is a classic example o “outsider art” in the literary arena. Sel-taught, everything Smith did outside o writing (sculpture, drawing) had an amateur sheen to it—a sincerity and originality that went hand-in-hand with a kind o unnished or rough drat quality. quality. Why should we assume his writing was any dierent? Both o Smith’s purported centers o inuence—pulp-genre and Symbolist/ Decadent—have, at one time or another, another, been on the outside looking in: illegitimate, disreputable. (Sometimes this reected the desire or aims o the writers associated with both groups, sometimes not.) What ties this all together in Smith’ Smith’s case is that he truly was an outsider outsider artist. artist. I don’ don’t mean “outsider” in the narrow European denition den ition o art or writing by the mentally disturbed, but the broader denition that includes olk art and creative endeavors by those with no ormal training.1 In support o this, I would oer that there are ew writers who seem to write so wholly or themselves, who seem so enraptured in a vision only they can see that they sacrice accessibility or that vision. Smith, it seems to me, is an outsider precisely because, in pursuit o his own gratication, he makes the reader an outsider, outsider, looking in. Tis is what attracts readers to Smith’s writing—that voyeuristic sense o peering in on a world and worldview never meant or us—and at the same time can repel us rom it. I do not believe Smith cared one way or the other about the reader, so long as he could write what he wanted to write, in the way he wanted to write it. His visions may thus be incomplete, sometimes cloudy, but they are also to readers today, ironically enough given his pulp origins, undiluted by any appreciable commercial taint. 1 Per Wikipedia : “Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym or Art Brut (which literally translates as “Raw Art” or “Rough Art”), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuet to describe art created outside the boundaries boundari es o ofcial culture.”
Lovecraft Art: The Link Between Tentacles and Cosmic SF VanderMeer) io9 , June 2008 (with Ann VanderMeer) Te spread o the tentacle—a limb-type with no Gothic or traditional precedents (in “Western” aesthetics)—rom a situation o near total absence in Euro-American teratoculture up to the nineteenth century, to one o being the deault monstrous appendage o today, signals the epochal shit shi t to a Weird Weird culture....Te “Lovecrat “L ovecrat Event,” Event,” as Ben Noys invaluably understands it, is unquestionably the centre o gravity o this revolutionary revolutionar y movement; it’s it’s dening text, Lovecrat’s Lovecrat’s ‘Te Call o Cthulhu,’ published in 1928 in Weird ales. —rom China Miéville’s “M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire,” Collapse IV . entacular horrors, unnamable evils, and quests to the edges o such alienlandscapes-on-earth as Antarctica were just some o the beautiully bizarre qualities o H.P. Lovecrat’s weird ction. Recently enshrined by the Library Series o America alongside Philip K. Dick, Lovecrat has had an enormous inuence on readers and writers. (Remember the Call o Cthulhu RPG?) But what about the art? art? Ever since the rst pulp covers showcasing Lovecrat’ Lovecrat’ss ction, a multitude o visual creators have been interpreting those tentacular horrors, unnamable evils, and odd quests. It is arguably one o the most enjoyable and yet tortuous tasks an artist could have, especially as version ater version o images rom iconic stories accumulate accumulate over the decades, making original ris that much more difcult. Now, Now, Centipede Press has issued one o the most audacious hardcover art books ever created: Te Art o Lovecrat: Artists Inspired by Lovecrat . About the size o a thick tombstone, including over 400 pages o mostly ull-color ull -color art, with nonction by Harlan Ellison, Tomas Ligotti, and others, this absolute stone-cold classic is a testament to the publisher’s publisher’s attention to detail and Lovecrat’s Lovecrat’s enduring inuence.
100
MONSTROUS CREATURES
It also provides a wonderul gallery setting or H.R. Giger, Bob Eggleton, John Coulthart, Michael Whelan, Lee Brown Coye, Virgil Finlay, Ian Miller, Gahan Wilson, Wilson, John John Picacio Picacio,, Harry Harry O. Morris, Morris, J.K. Potter, otter, and many others. others. Oten, the images in the book mix antasy with Lovecrat’s take on “cosmic horror,” the idea that the universe is hostile and inert. In SF-nal terms, Bob Eggleton interprets that cosmic horror as alien inuence: “Lovecrat’s elder gods, unspeakable ones, shamblers and so on...were all in reality malevolent aliens al iens rom other worlds. Tey were ancient and evil, but b ut the act they’re they’re rom another world is i s lost in the mists. His stories had reerences to astronomy, astrology and science and yet took this 180 turn into something scary and dark. Nigel Kneale, or instance, wrote the Quatermass series in much the same way. Quatermass & Te Pit was truly Lovecratian.” Lovecratian.” John Coulthart notes, too, that “the young Lovecrat Lovecrat was a keen astronomer who became acquainted at an early age with a sense o cosmic scale, the vastness o the universe and so on. Tis combined with a natural pessimism, and his later atheism gave him a strong sense o human insignicance in the ace o cosmic enormity. ‘We live on a placid island o ignorance in the midst o black seas o innity, innity,’ as he says at the opening o Te Call o Cthulhu.” Not exactly the most upliting o messages, but denitely powerul—and revolutionary within genre at the time. “His problem as a writer was that most Western supernatural ction up to that point had some kind o Christian dimension to it, even i this wasn’t directly stated,” Coulthart says. “Tat was obviously a problem or an atheist writing a orm o ction which needed something malevolent at its core. His solution was to replace the Devil and the Christian idea o evil with vast extradimensional entities which disturb or threaten us because we mean as much to them as microbes do to human beings.” Disappointingly (to us at least), Harry O. Morris rules out a literal cephalopodic element to the idea o cosmic horror: “[It’s] not a giant squid descending rom outer space, but rather an all pervasive per vasive sense o dread that permeates everything we think we know, know, including our aces in the mirror and the knives and orks at the dinner table.” table.” For Ian Ian Miller the concept is more m ore visceral, citing lms like Alien Alien as Lovecratian
Jeff VanderMeer
101
in mood: “Tings hidden in the shadows, in tight dark places, dangerous, scratching, moving, creeping, stalking, mysterious, and always at the peripheries o one’s vision waiting in the shadows to spring out and bite you...Tings arcane. Airless Airless dark places with strange smells. Dark cupboards. cupboards. Tings that scratch scratch and suocate. ight shoes and sh eyes...I suspect ear ueled by adrenalin gave rise to the notion o warp speed, speed , though I’m sure some would disagree.” How, How, then, do these artists ar tists put their own personal stamp on something so strong and powerul on the page, and thus indelibly imprinted upon readers’ minds? For Eggleton it’s it’s trying to give “a kind o epic eel to [the paintings]. paintin gs]. A sense o the amiliar and then at the same time, something alien and bizarre.” Harry O. Morris approaches Lovecrat Lovecrat through ambiguity: “For me, the best way to express this uncomortable aura visually is to leave portions o the picture undened, in shadow, shadow, and inuenced inuenced by chance/chaos. chance/chaos. Also, I’m I’m inclined to try and convey a sense o timeless antiquity which seems to be a cornerstone o Lovecrat’s vision.” John John Picac Picacio io also also believe believess the best Lovec Lovecra ratia tiann art doesn doesn’’t try to show show everyth everything ing.. “It leaves something to the imagination, a ew conceptual voids here and there, purposely let or the mind to ll with something personal and thereore much more potent....I think trying to literally illustrate a Lovecratian monster usually misses the mark. It’s just not as scary anymore because the terror has somehow been contained in the lines and the strokes, and thereore distilled. Tat’s why his stu is so difcult to eectively translate to comics and lm although so many have tried.” Coulthart is one o those creators who, in addition to his Lovecratian paintings has successully translated the icon’s icon’s vision to comics: “I wanted to take tak e Lovecrat’s ction seriously on its own terms, something which—in the comics world especially—wasn’t happening very oten. When I started illustrating his work in the 1980s there was little apart rom the Lovecrat special issue o Heavy Metal rom 1979 which had attempted that. I tried to match his dense writing style with an equally dense and detailed drawing style and tried to make things look solid and historically accurate. I’ve always been interested in architecture, and Lovecrat’s Lovecrat’s concept o alien architecture continues to ascinate. a scinate.”” Tis might make the art a rt seem ultra-serious, but it’s it’s not all “cosmic.” “cosmic.” As Jerad Walter, Walter, the genius behind Centipede Press points out, “Some “ Some o the artwork is
102
MONSTROUS CREATURES
humorous or whimsical, and rather good-natured. Tere’s Tere’s a dierence in humor between the ‘Deep One’ Horrora Model Model Kit image, which is more m ore nostalgic, and the ‘Where the Great Old Ones Are’ image, which is just a send-up o Lovecrat and Maurice Sendak, and the black humor o the Gahan Wilson piece, which is just over-the-top. over-the-top. It is the black humor o some o the material that works best in the book, or me at any rate. I think that the humorous side comes out because all o these bleak, nihilistic visions o Lovecrat can be so dreary and depressing that a send-up o it all is just inevitable.” All All o thes thesee appr approa oach ches es and and many many more more are are show showca case sedd in Te Art o Lovecrat . It’s a stunning love letter to a long and storied tradition. Walter Walter says, “I don’ don’t think any reader o weird weird ction can ever look at tentacles tentacles the same way ater Lovecrat. I remember boiling some squid and chopping o the heads, putting them o to one side sid e o the cutting block, planning to save sa ve them or something, until my wie quite reasonably asked i I was out o my mind.” When we asked Walters how long it took to bring this amazing project to completion, his answer displayed a rereshingly anatical approach to the details. “It took about two years. Te hardest part was simply contacting all o the involved artists and narrowing down the range o material. It was physically demanding, too, in that hours and hours were spent color correcting all o the scans. Many images took upwards to 20 hours to get them just right.” As or his own avorites in the book, Walters told me he likes it all, but “perhaps the Lee Brown Coye section and some o the old-outs. Te thumbnails section is useul. With any project o this size, o course there are going to be small sma ll details that you wish you could change. However, I eel very ortunate in that everything I wanted to be in the book is in the book, and everything I wanted to do has been done. I do miss the presence o Wayne Douglas Barlowe, whose Old One would have been a good inclusion. However, I eel very privileged to have made a book that includes at least one work o every major antasy and horror artist o the last 50 years. Wrightson, Frazetta, Whelan, Giger, Morris, Potter, Fabian, Coye, Rowena, Palencar, Eggleton, Bok, Finlay, Ian Miller, im Kirk—they are all in here.”
Alfred Kubin and the Tortured Triumph of The Other The Other Side Side Omnivoracious, June 2009
Austria Aust riann Alred Al red Kubin Kubi n (1877(18 77-195 1959) 9) ts loosel loo selyy within wit hin an Expres Exp ressi sioni onist/ st/ Decadent/proto-Surrealist tradition. A highly praised artist, he produced only one major work o ction, Te Other Side , published in 1908. Although still underrated, the novel has managed to retain a cult status simply because it has long been a avorite o a variety o writers and artists. It would be hard to believe, or example, that Mervyn Peake had not read Kubin prior to writing his Gormenghast novels. ( Te Other Side is perhaps most akin in tone to Peake’s itus Alone .) .) Te details o Kubin’ Kubin’s lie relevant to his hi s ction are these: his hi s mother died when he was ten, he had a sexualized relationship with an older, pregnant woman when he was eleven, and his ather was a tyrant whose death in part triggered the writing o Te Other Side . Kubin, in his nonction, is amazingly rank about all o these personal issues, giving us rare insight into motivation and inuence. Tese events, as well as unhappy romances, contributed to his uneasy, melancholic state, which maniested itsel in unique visions, which then maniested in his art as the truest way o portraying the nightmares occurring in his head. Kubin had no internal editor telling him “no, this is too much.” Moreover Moreover,, he may not even have realized real ized that what he was creating might startle start le people. Did it amuse or horriy him when gentlemen and ladies who viewed his art reportedly ainted? Tere’s the sense, too, in reading the praise o Kubin’s contemporaries that they ound him too rough, too awed, and yet it’s impossible to separate out the “good” rom the “bad”—a condition common to some o the best “weird”
104
MONSTROUS CREATURES
writers and artists. As Austrian critic Richard Schaukal noted in a 1903 review, “He has not studied drawing. Tat is clear at a glance. But what does that tell us when conronted with this stunning oeuvre!” 1 Given these underpinnings o Kubin’ Kubin’s inspiration, inspi ration, it’ i t’ss perhaps perha ps remarkable that Te Other Side has as much story as it does; not merely a series o images strung together, it is a true masterpiece o rising tension and horror. Te Other Side tells the tale o a Munich dratsman asked by an old schoolmate named Patera to visit the newly established Dream Kingdom, somewhere in Central Asia. Patera rules the Dream Kingdom rom the capital city o Pearl. Te wealthy Patera has had a European city uprooted and brought to its new location, along with sixty-ve thousand inhabitants. Te narrator, ater some hesitation, agrees to visit and travels with his wie through Constantinople, Batum, Batu, Krasnovodsk, and Samarkand—Samarkand being the last o any identiying landmarks on their journey. Te narrator soon nds that the Dream Kingdom is, well, a kingdom o dreams. People experience or live “only in moods” and shape all outer being at will “through the maximum possible cooperative eort.” A huge wall keeps out the world and “the sun never shone, never were the moon or the stars visible at night....Here, illusions simply were reality. reality.” Over time, strange rituals and aberrations have sprung up. Pearl also shits in odd ways, and in this sense has a kinship with M. John Harrison’s aruture Viriconium, which also unctions rom more o a metaphorical than a chronological oundation. Tis doesn’t doesn’t bother the th e narrator at rst, but as the city’ ci ty’ss changes become more and m more ore grotesque, it’s it’s clear that the Dream Kingd Kingdom om is altering, descending into madness. Despite the claustrophobic atmosphere atmosph ere and unseen horrors that orm the emotional oundation o the novel, Te Other Side is remarkable not just or its vivid imagery, laden with surrealistic subtext, but or how the relatively modern aspects o the novel—American tourists, or example—are perectly integrated into a timeless, estering milieu. Te battle that occurs between the irrational and rational as the Dream Kingdom disintegrates takes on 1 All quotes not attributed taken rom the excellent and highly recommended Alred Kubin: Drawings 1897-1909 (published by Neue Galerie).
Jeff VanderMeer
105
an updated Grand Guignol quality that oddly enough has the texture o modern-day war. It’s almost as i the novel channels Apocalyp Apoca lypse se Now by way o Hieronymus Bosch. Where Whe re did d id Te Other Side come rom, other oth er than rom rom Kubin’ Kubin’s visionary visionar y art? Consider this tangle o inuence: Kubin had been commissioned to illustrate a book o Edgar Allan Poe novellas by a Munich publisher in 1907. At roughly the same time, Kubin met with Gustav Meyrink to discuss illustrations illustrati ons or Meyrink’s Meyrink’s novel-in-progress Te Golem. When Meyrink hit a snag in nishing Te Golem , Kubin took his preliminary sketches and ound ways to use some o them in Te Other Side . Not long ater publication o Franz Kaka read and enjoyed it, and then later la ter used elements Te Other Side , Franz rom it in the creation o his own Te Castle . (Kubin might have been aware o Kaka Kak a’s early work, as well.) Labels like “outsider artist” aside, Kubin was denitely connected to the creative communities o his day. Indeed, when Kubin arrived in Munich, Germany, to study art as a teenager, who should he be discovered by than the iconic Franz Blei, who was also one o Kaka’ Kaka’s riends. Blei gives us a semi-amused description o Kubin as a “rail young boy who was always dressed in black and had a pale ace that was always straining a little to grow dark and pretending to be as shy as a young world that had been dragged dra gged rom a hollow into int o the light.” Tat Kubin was a creator who either “was compelled by orces that guided his hand,” or trained himsel to be so compelled, is clear even rom his description o his reaction to an exhibition o Max Klinger’s etchings in Munich in 1882: I grew moody...And now I was suddenly inundated with visions o pictures in black and white—it is impossible to describe what a thousand-old treasure my imagination poured out beore me. Quickly I let the theater, or the music and the mass o lights now disturbed me, and I wandered aimlessly in the dark streets, overcome and literally ravished by a dark power that conjured up beore my mind strange
106
MONSTROUS CREATURES
creatures, houses, landscapes, grotesque and rightul situations.2 In that context or Kubin’s inspiration, there’s perhaps no ner evocation o the eect Kubin achieves in his art and in Te Other Side than this 1903 description rom the Berliner Illustrirte : “Tis art always dreams o the last things in apocalyptic antasy; its bei beings ngs and orms are not o this world, and you cannot measure them by the ruler o correctness or anatomical possibility; they are complete distortion, total gruesome exaggeration; just as their landscapes dream away in the eternal twilight behind time and space. But you will always nd one thing in this art, which dispenses with every depiction, every illustration o being, it has a convincing power to make things present and will grip you and sweep you away, conveying to you ideas and moods o uncanny reality that will burn themselves into your brain as i with hot iron punches...the suggestion o this oreboding art o the soul, the rare, the distant, the lustully dreadul...is always powerul and enduring.” Te Other Side still appeals to a modern reader because o these qualities, ater many novels initially seen as more enduring have aded rom memory.
2
In counterbalance to this depiction, Andreas Geyer notes in Alred Kubin: Drawings 18971909 that although Kubin might have emphasized the raw, pure nature o his art ar t and inspiration, “It must always be recalled that Kubin had a constant tendency to sel-promotion, sel-stylizing, and posing.” In pure Nietzschean Nietzschean ashion, Kubin “initially presented himsel rom the perspective pers pective o a ‘most ‘most aithul, most trusted riend,’ r iend,’ who ‘because o his high status had to remain [the] anonymous [artist character] Kubin.’ Tis ‘Kubin’ ‘Kubin’ is a genius.” All o these contradictory but not irreconcilable aspects o Kubin’s character presage the antics o such surrealists as Salvador Dali—creators who tap into deep subconscious impulses and desires while at the same time constructing outer personas that seem ake or contrived but in no way take away rom the power o their work.
The "Black Books" of Derek Raymond “I have said a lot about writing in these memoirs, with particular reerence to the black novel. I could not have described my lie in any depth d epth without almost constant reerence to the work that has given it meaning—the eect that being a writer has had, not only on mysel as a person, but on how I have transerred my experience to others—in act, how I regard the other. Yet, Yet, in order order to be able to take a realis realistic tic view o the other other, to eel him, him, know him and in an apparently magical way to some extent become him, it is necessary to do that difcult thing, become onesel rst.” —Derek Raymond, rom his memoir Te Hidden Files 1. Experiencing the Factory Novels
“I put down the book stunned. I was sitting outside and, suddenly, quite ordinary trafc along Camp Bowie Boulevard seemed raught with meaning. Streetlamps came on, dim and trembling in early twilight. I realized that this novel on the bistro table...had carved its way into me the way relentless pain etches itsel indelibly upon the body...Five or six times in a lie you come across a book that sends electric shocks skittering and scorching through the whole o you and radically alters the way in which you perceive the world.” —James —James Sallis, about I Was Dora Suarez Te rst our Factory novels by Derek Raymond—He Died with His Eyes Open, —have Te Devil’s Home on Leave, How the Dead Live , and I Was Dora Suarez —have long been hailed as classics o noir mystery myster y, with the th e new Serpent’s Serpent’s ail ail editions editi ons eaturing introductions by the likes o Will Sel and James Sallis. Reviewers oten reerence the seeming contradictions o the series, or example the Daily elegraph’s observation that the novels contain “a bizarre mix o Chandleresque
108
MONSTROUS CREATURES
elegance...and naked brutality.” But lie gives us order and elegance in equal measure with betrayal and brutality. Some o us are lucky enough to experience only the order, but Raymond knew that most o us experience some orm o disorder or upheaval during our lives, and the most extreme version o this situation exists in the orm o murder and murder investigations. In the Factory Factory series, the nameless narrator works as a detective in the Department o Unexplained Deaths. He oten clashes with his superior, Bowman, and has turned down promotion at every chance. His wie is in a lunatic asylum and is responsible or the central tragedy o the detective’s lie—as is an earlier relationship with a woman who remains the love o his lie but who can never be brought back to him. He has a sister he wishes he were closer to, but otherwise, at the time o the cases related in the novels, the detective is utterly alone. Tis isolation is key to understanding the inner psychology o the Factory novels. Te detective literally lives through his work, and eels most ully engaged and connected to the world when he can ca n inhabit the lives o the victims. Although the detective alludes to other cases, ones not related in the novels, the reader has the sense that he wasn’ wasn’t as invested in those victims. He can recite the details, but there’s there’s no emotional emotiona l lie to them. But the cases in ront o him—they’re all about an inner lie, o bringing back the dead in a sense. In each case, to greater and lesser extents, the detective reanimates the victims, attempts to identiy with them, attempts to honor them, to memorialize them through his eorts. In How the Dead Live , the detective has empathy or a doctor trying, in essence, to do the same thing in a more gurative sense. It takes love to bugger up a lie and smash it to pieces, yes, it takes love in its stranger orms to do it, good and evil being so hopelessly mixed up in all o us...So, suddenly, it was all over, and I understood yet again how everything is ar more complex and serious than we suppose, as though I had ever doubted it... “You understand how passion changes us back again into what we once were, must have been” been” [he said]. I told him I understood, even though I wondered i I did. Perhaps the only true crime is knowing what understanding means, so that as you live or the other, you also die or him.
Jeff VanderMeer
109
But it’s it’s not always clear what came ca me rst: the dissolution o the detective’s detective’s lie or his empathy or the victims he encounters in his job. Is the empathy ully replacing what he’s lost in his personal lie, or did, to some extent, his obsession with the dead push out his ability to understand and appreciate the living? Perhaps the detective’s own secret guilt provides the key or why, in He Died with His Eyes wit h Charles Staniland, an alcoholic whose Open, the detective identies so ully with diaries reveal to the the detective that here was a man in existential crisis—a man o genuine passion, eeling, and empathy whose quest or experience, and or nding meaning in lie, robbed him o his amily and put him into a downward spiral with a woman he was obsessed with but who wasn’t good or him… Staniland’s question was the question I had once read on a country gravestone erected to a child o six: “Since I was so early done or, I wonder what I was begun or.” Tough Staniland had died at the age o ty-one, he still had the innocence o a child o six. Te naive courage, too—the desire to understand everything, whatever the cost...Tis ragile sweetness at the core o people—i we allowed that to be kicked, smashed and splintered, then we had no society at all o the kind I elt I had to uphold. I had committed my own sins against it, out o transcient weakness. But I hadn’t hadn’t deliberately murdered it or its pitiul membrane o a little borrowed money, money, its short-lived protective shell—and that was why, why, as I drank some more beer...I knew I had to nail the killers. He Died with His Eyes Open is the rst Factory novel, and perhaps the nest.
Certainly, it is the most perect o the books in intent and execution. In it, the reader nds the purest distillation o those elements that make the series so compelling: a satisying murder mystery coupled with an extraordinary eye or the details o lower-class and villainous London, an enervating and sad personal lie or the narrator, a great ear or (oten darkly unny) dialogue, dia logue, and a victim in the case whose lie could itsel have made or a great novel. O all o these elements, the genius or describing people and places seems the most important. It’s this ability on Raymond’s part that makes the novel
110
MONSTROUS CREATURES
gritty—and gritty plays perectly against agai nst the existential angst o both the detective and Charles Staniland. Te shabby, shabby, decaying quality o lie recalls the best b est scenes in the original version o the cult classic movie Get Carter (not the remake). Tese details also work to make bearable the pervading per vading sadness in the series, with the detective meeting any an y number o what you might call “colorul” characters in any number o authentically seedy places. Put another way, it’s as i someone took the characters rom Paul Auster’s New York York ril rilog ogy y , or the world-worn detective rom any o a number o European mystery series in which the anonymity anonymi ty o the setting provides a kind o luminous quality...and dragged them through the dirt, shoved their noses in the grime, made them look at it all rom ground level, even to the point o the obscenity o staring directly at, or example, an arm hacked at by an ax. Here’s Here’s a good general example rom How the Dead Live : What What madd madden ened ed me some someti time mess wit withh my my wor workk at at A14 A14 was was tha thatt I coul couldd not not get any justice or these people until they were dead. Tese university dropouts, these mad bareoot beauties that had been turned away rom home who staggered down the streets with plastic bags lled with old newspapers against the cold—wrongo’s, drugo’s, olk o every age, colour, and past, they all had that despair in common that made them gabble out their raging dreams in any shelter they could nd. Tey screamed at each other in Battersea, moaned over their empty cider bottles in Vauxhall, not having the loot or a night in Rowton House, their aces the colour o rotten stucco under the glare o the white lights at Waterloo Bridge and wreathed in the diesel umes o the orty-ton ruit trucks that pounded up rom Kent to Nine Elms all night long. In the days you could see them, white, aded and stained ater such nights in winter; I saw them at the morning round-up at the Factory, waiting in various moods to be taken or sentencing at Great Marlboro Street—the thin, crazy aces, strange noses, eyes, hands rendered noble by madness and hunger, the rusty punctures in their arms, their whiplash tongues, and then, later, the at, sullen grie o their meaningless statements to the magistrate.
Jeff VanderMeer
111 111
Tere’s a hyper-real aspect to such descriptions that wouldn’t be out o place in M. John Harrison’s Viriconium novels. It provides a solid, roughly beautiul, context or the grimness o Raymond’s plots. So, too, does the way he depicts violence, as in this scene rom I Was Was Dora Suarez : Roatta immediately screamed Wait Wait! but his eyes were brighter than he was, and knew better. Tey had stopped moving beore he did, because they could see there was nothing more protable or them to look at, so instead they turned into a pair o dark, oily stones xed on the last thing they would ever see—eternity in the barrel o a pistol. His ears were also straining with the intensity o a concert pianist or the rst minute action inside the weapon as the killer’s nger tightened, because they knew that was the last sound they would ever hear. So in his last seconds o lie, each o them arranged or him by his senses, Roatta sat waiting or the gun to explode with the rapt attention o an opera goer during a perormance o his avourite star, leaning urther and urther orward in his chair until his existence was lled by, narrowed down to, and nally became the gun...As age goes in the world Roatta was ty; but as he detected the rst, barely perceptible sound in the gun’s mechanism he was suddenly a hundred and ty, then a thousand and ty, and then two hundred thousand and ty until, when the killer red, Roatta’s ace was bright yellow and he was a million years old, his ace hardened in iron concentration beore the bullet even struck. Tus what might have seeme seemedd overly dramatic in the Factory novels becomes just part o the hardness o existence. For readers who wonder why some writers have to include not just the acsimile o lie but the real piss-shit-sweat-cum o it in an oten hopeless context...well, the Factory novels answer that question: because at the micro level, this is i s where we’re we’re at sometimes as intelligent intell igent animals whose passions outweigh our intellects and whose nite lives cause a ormless anxiety and pain by denition.
112
MONSTROUS CREATURES
I Was Was Dora Dora Suarez Sua rez is perhaps the novel that least asks or our orgiveness on this
score. In act, it’s it’s a novel that, in trying to get to the center o such questions, oten jettisons jettisons the kinds o scenes scenes and the kinds o responses responses we as readers readers expect expect rom a “mystery” novel. For this reason, I can’t call Suarez a perect novel—it veers into moments o melodrama and it has nothing like a brilliant story arc as a mystery or noir. Tis makes it the most honest o the novels, however. however. It steadastly reuses to give the reader the ability to escape the enervating horror and sadness evoked by the detective’s investigation. It steadastly reuses to give up on the idea that our lives are melodramatic and lled with passionate last stands and reversals and irrational attachments and all o the other creations o our minds that attain a reality o the soul regardless o how they maniest in the physical world. But to get to that place, to be allowed all owed that kind o sel indulgence, indulgence , Raymond rst oers the reader perhaps the nest opening thirty pages o any novel I have ever read. It’s a masterpiece o sustained narrative and tight, elliptical writing, as the detective recreates the murder scene rom several perspectives, coming back again and again to the horrible details o Dora Suarez’s death—and each time giving us something new, something else we can’t escape. Tere are transitions to the past and back to the present within these passages that display a talent comparable to writers wri ters such as Vladimir Nabokov, Nabokov, and in Raymond’ Ra ymond’ss deliberately deliberate ly brash way, every bit as careul and precise detail. Te skill and discipline and nerve required to pull o this eat is comparable to the emotional resolve it took to write the novel in the rst place. I wish I could quote the opening in ull, because no excerpt or summary can really convey the eectiveness and verve o those thirty pages. Here’s Here’s an excerpt: Her sprawling limbs admitted only one image. Tey were what they could only be—joints o chilling, upset meat—and her bloodstained grin, the xed, yet slack absence o her dark eyes were the worst o all sentences, the one that condemned a killer by looking past him. Yes, something had gone wrong this time. Now the place chilled him; it had acquired an intensity o its own. Since he was in no way equipped to ace the appalling result o his butchery, raging, he blamed the
Jeff VanderMeer
113
room. While he was out it, being sick, it must have ound a subtle opportunity to plot against him, and that was why now the motionless air in there, the eeble electric light, had become thickened, slyly menacing him...He glanced into the mirror at which he had so lately smiled in triumph. He shouted: “I look pretty good!” and exed his muscles, but any third person would have registered nothing more there but a bent and hollow shadow, a seamed, yellow ace and eyes that would have made even a trained nurse turn away in horror. But it’s not just the detective examining the scene rom every angle, it’s also the killer dening the boundaries o his personal cage o ritual, rage, and insanity. Te plot, too, circles in on itsel, as the detective relates scene ater scene o interrogating the same subjects over and over until they break—interspersed with recollections o Suarez also dening the limits o a cage caused by poverty and disease. Just as Standiland in He Died with His Eyes Open kept trying to escape. Te core o what the detective is really circling in Suarez , however, isn’t so much the murder as the act that in encountering the victim he has, ha s, or once and or all, in the twilight o his career, utterly alone, ound the love o his lie, and she is already a lready dead, and there’s there’s nothing he can do about that. He can ca n’t bring her he r back. He can’t do anything except nd the killer, which in this context is an act o love. It’s It’s an irrational, irrationa l, scary, scary, sad, terrible terribl e thought that Raymond explores, and it hardly bears contemplating. In a truly brave part o the novel, the detective leans down to the murdered woman. Raymond has brought us again to the murder scene, this time not during the act but during the detective’s detective’s exploration o the apartment, apar tment, and again he brings the reader something new ne w, as that this circling now is revealed to serve the purpose o obsession, o the narrator’s narrator’s obsession with the primary thing he knows about the woman he loves: her death. Te passage is worth quoting at length. Presently Presently I got out my ashlight and shone it over her, because the place where she had collapsed and died between the beds was so dark, and the old white
114
MONSTROUS CREATURES
light-shade overhead, thick with dust, was wrongly placed to shed enough light on her. In the glare o the torchlight her indierent eyes glittered coldly past me. On these eyes, the dust o our great capital was already beginning to settle. She was still a very beautiul girl or a ew more hours yet as long as you looked at the untouched part o her, or she was only newly dead. Only her brow, drawn in the sti rown o terror, spoiled her expression, and her lips were unnatural; they were slightly but slackly parted to show her teeth, as though she were nally bored with some argument...but the saddest thing to me, because it was totally incongruous, was the outung gesture o her unhurt arm, which seemed to be waving to everyone in the world, telling them not to be araid but ollow her—and it was only when I touched her back and elt the arch o her spine impossibly bent against the side o the bed that I saw how, in her last abominable agony, the poor darling had wanted to try to stand up again to escape death or just one second more so that she could explain everything that she was so suddenly having to leave...A short way rom her, three eet rom the beds, stood a low table which had not been overturned in the struggle; on it lay a magazine open at a travel agent’s agent’s advertisement oering cut-price charter ights to Hawaii...It was then, and only then, that I understood what it really meant, the eeling o people’s rightul ury and despair, and it came together with my desire to bend over Suarez and whisper, “It’s all right, don’t worry, everything’ll be all right, I’m here now, it’ll be all right now”—and the eeling was so strong in me that I knelt and kissed her short black hair which still smelled o the apple-scented shampoo she had washed it with just last night; only now the hair was rank, matted with blood, sti and cold. I love is a orm o madness, then the detective has one o the severest maniestations: love at rst sight, in the most perverse setting possible. As once the murderer kneeled over Suarez, now the detective does as well, and i his aims ai ms are 360-degrees apart rom the murderer’s, then still it means he stands back-toback with him. It’s It’s a scene o the th e alien, and a scene o deep characterization, and it allies our sympathies with those o derangement.
Jeff VanderMeer
115
Following on this scene, Raymond opens up Suarez’s character, and thus the detective’s attachment to her, through the use o Suarez’s personal diary. A variation o this technique occurs in three o the our novels, absent only rom coincidenta lly,, is my least avorite Te Devil’s Home o Leave (which, perhaps not coincidentally o the Factory novels). Raymond’ Raymon d’ss excerpts excerpts rom Suarez’s Suarez’s diary diar y work well enough, e nough, but but they don d on’’t have the same resonance as those rom Standiland in He Died with His Eyes Open . For some reason, I didn’t have the sense that a particular excerpt came rom some longer entry. Indeed, in some cases, Suarez’ Suarez’s excerpts seem intended i ntended simply to create sympathy in the reader. Tis is a difcult thing to ascertain, though, especially when you deal with individual people rather than types, with specics rather than generalities. And Raymond also saves Suarez rom the maudlin by withholding detail, too. “Don’t you remember how you used to invite me in to the back o the shop or tea? Don’ Don’t you remember how you said to me: ‘Courage, girl,’ Suarez writes. She knew I had terrible problems at home; she was one o the ew people I told. ‘Have you ever known love?’ I asked her once, ‘because I never have, not yet.’ ‘Only once,’ you said, turning away. I don’t now why, but that was the moment when I thought to mysel: ‘Only rotten things will happen to me.’” Sel-pitying, perhaps, but Suarez does have AIDS, ater all. Also, the reader never receives the specics o those terrible problems at home that would, ironically, render Suarez banal by their inclusion. Raymond allows the character to hold onto those details as truly personal—or, rather, the detective protects Suarez by, or the most part, not entering them into his account. More eective by ar are entries by Suarez detailing her riendship with her landlady, Betty Carstairs. It’s in that relationship—in which Raymond is able to imagine a closeness between two women that requires no controlling male inuence or aegis—that Suarez truly comes alive as a person, and the detective seems to acknowledge this in how he also provides the dignity o the specic to Carstairs in relating details o her lie and death. Carstairs was important to Suarez, so she’s she’s important to the detective. dete ctive. Standiland’s Standiland’s journal entries entrie s by contrast have ha ve the luxury o being by a writer, writer, and thus all more naturally into the orm o anecdote and story. For example:
116
MONSTROUS CREATURES
I dreamed I was walking through the door o a cathedral. Someone I couldn’t distinguish warned me: “Don’t go in there, it’s haunted.” However, I went straight in and glided up the nave to the altar. Te roo o the building was too high to see; the quoins were lost in a dark og through which the votive lamps glowed orange. Te only light came through the diamond-shaped clear panes in the windows; it was aint and cold. Tis neglected mass was attached to a sprawl o vaulted ruins; I had been in them all night; I had wandered through them or centuries. Tey had once been my home; burned-out raters jutted like human ribs above empty, reezing galleries, and great doors gave onto suites soaked by pitiless rain. Standiland’s purpose, too, is getting to the heart o the tragedy o his jettisoning supercial happiness or a ool’s chance at some greater truth. He’s in all ways a “beautiul loser” who’s who’s never going to get back to the right side o anything. But he keeps trying, just like Dora Suarez keeps trying—and as the doctor in How the Dead Live keeps trying. In How the Dead Live , the conessionals take the orm o tape-recorded conversations between the doctor and his sick wie. It’s part o their ritual or staving o death, here maniesting in a literal rather than gurative orm—their hubris leading to tragedy t ragedy.. Te eect, then, is much dierent d ierent than in the other two novels that use this technique. Te detective ghosts their voices into the narrative in the appropriate places, the reader at rst wondering how the detective can possibly have eavesdropped on such intimate discussions. At times, they even seem to be echoing the detective’s very thoughts. At other times, the transcripts document a descent into madness—yet another decaying orbit entered into through love-induced insanity. I so, Raymond through the detective tells us madness is preerable to sanity at times; some orms o madness are more lucid, more real, than the alternative. Part o the madness that inorms all our novels also involves how the detective puts himsel in harm’s way during the climax. It’s not required by the plots, but by the detective’s detective’s very nature. As he h e conronts the absolute darkness o
Jeff VanderMeer
117
the soul, he must conront the eventuality o his own negation, and in regaining dignity or the victims, he must make himsel a victim—in a sense relive what they could not survive. Each time, then, he oers himsel up to death, and it’s oten the sheer verve ver ve o this act—the act he h e doesn’ doesn’t care i he lives or dies—that di es—that saves him...because the killer lacks that particular brand o insanity (or bravery, depending on your perspective) and can neither neit her understand nor replicate it. In a very real way, the killers are conused by the detective’ detecti ve’ss actions, because they see in the detective a servant o order, when he is actually no such animal. In conversation with another ofcer in I Was Dora Suarez , the concept o objectivity comes up: “It seems to me that the worst o a serious police enquiry— by which I mean enquiry into a murder—is that too oten the investigating ofcer, and he can be the best you like, can’t stop unconsciously thinking about how he is getting on with his enquiry enquir y in relation to his superiors—he will always tend to commit the error o thinking o himsel. Te result o this is that it blinds the ofcer to the dead person, and since he is generally unaware that he is committing it, it is a very hard ault or that ofcer to correct.” For the nameless detective, the ault is caring too much, and he’ll never be cured o it except by death. He’ll anger, even enrage, his superiors at every turn i it means he can get to some truth about the victims and their killers. He’ll tempt death because, quite simply, simply, there’s there’s nothing else in the world that engages his passion or his humanity. It may be a orm o madness, it may mean that he’s past redemption, that he’s a creature imbued with lie only through the lives o others, and that, in a sense, he’s avoiding engagement with the world by not allowing the living to impact upon him. But in a world we create in part with our memories and our passions, it’s a orm o madness that might not be any worse than any an y other. Ater I Was Dora Suarez , Raymond didn’t write another novel or quite some time. It’s easy to see why. ruly great writers live inside their narrator’s heads, and while working on Suarez , Raymond had to inhabit a place that must have been devastating. Words Words on a page are at one remove rom the true reality o any an y novel—a barrier o translation that the reader has, protecting him or her rom
118
MONSTROUS CREATURES
the storm o rage or grie encountered there. But the writer has no such barrier, nor even the ability to put down the book, because the story is in your head, even the deleted scenes. In the theater o the mind, there’s there’s a resonance and immediacy that can drain you, burn you out, even, potentially, potentially, destroy your lie i you dig too deep. dee p. I can’ can’t tell you that reading Derek Raymond is upliting upli ting or joyul, but I can tell you that it’s it’s a hard-won victory to come out the other side, and that along the way you’ll you’ll experience extremes o horror and strange beauty, beauty, o humanity and passion, that are oten ote n revelatory. revelatory. Raymond’s Raymond’s not a perect novelist, but I’m I’m not sure I want perect in the context o his Factory novels. I’ll “settle” “settle” or honest and an d brave. 2. Te Pathology o Dead Man Upright
“Killers are like mushrooms; the deadly ones look like the ones you have or breakast, unless you happen to have the sense to turn them over and look at the unny underneath.” Raymond’s Factory series Dead Man Upright , the th and nal volume o Derek Raymond’s is altogether a dierent beast than its predecessors. It inverts the structure and intent o most o the prior volumes by ocusing more on the killer than the victims; in this respect, it most closely resembles Te Devil’s Home on Leave , but with more variation and more interesting situations. Dead Man Upright also presumes a lot. Tere’s Tere’s not much o our nameless detective’s detective’s personal lie, li e, mined to such eect in the other our novels, and as a result the killer assumes even more signicance, especially e specially or readers read ers who haven’t haven’t encountered the other cases related by our Unexplained Deaths detective. Several reviews o Raymond’s Raymond’s ction indicate that Dead Man Upright is a dying all ater the ourth Factory novel, I Was Was Dora Dora Suarez Suarez ; in act, it is a continuation with the preoccupations o that novel, sans the emotional involvement o the detective with the victim. In some ways, with Our Anti-Hero beyond love and absolved o the sorrow o his past i only by dint o its remoteness, Dead Man Upright is the most sober and sobering o the Factory novels. Although the change in emphasis may throw some readers, all o the Raymond strengths maniest herein: the great ear or
Jeff VanderMeer
119
dialogue and local color, the ability to animate the minds o victims and killer, and the edginess edginess and conict conict o the detective detective’’s relations rela tionship hip with his superior. super ior. Tere’s no getting around the act that serial killers are mostly men and that their victims are mostly women, and that Derek Raymond is a male writer, and yet within that constraint Raymond manages in the novel to create astonishingly precise and individual ind ividual portraits o the three or our victims he proles. We We don’ don’t eel their victimhood so much as their erce individuality, which eeds into the sense o the killer being a consummate actor. (Tat said, there is a need within noir to provide some antidote or this paradigm, much as Achebe’s Tings Fall Conrad’s Heart o Darkness .) .) Apart provides the antidote to Conrad’s Sotening the harshness, the detective or once has actual riends in the novel, rom his colleague Stevenson to the retired cops Ballard and Firth (who, in this case, serve as able replacements or the gutter-speak and ash o the rogues and villains that serve ser ve as bit actors in the other books). In this sense alone, then, the n, Dead de tective has relaxed into Man Upright seems more comortable than intense: the detective his role within the Department o Unexplained Deaths; he seems at peace with the idea o living out his days there. Once again, though, Raymond reuses reuse s to deal in V cop hyperbole, as the mystery itsel isn’t much o one—just like most real cases. Firth suspects his upstairs neighbor o being a serial killer, given a high turn-over among emale visitors: six in eighteen months, each abruptly disappearing rom the lie o Ronald Jidney. Te mystery is more in the many aliases Jidney uses, and the search or evidence to orce his arrest, than in any ambiguity as to the identity o the killer kille r. As in I Was Was Dora Suarez Sua rez and Te Devil’s Home on Leave , the police work mostly takes the orm o mind-numbing (or the detectives) repetition o interrogation and research. Where Dead Man Upright veers rom the prior Factory novels is in its altered use o conessional, personal materials. Gone are the diaries and journals o the victims. Gone, too, as mentioned, is much insight into the detective’s personal lie. Instead, the reader gets the prolonged letters o Jidney and re-creations o his lie. In a sense, the detective oers up his account o the case as a prole o Jidney, Jidney, and in cataloguing the strange appeal o evil, banal or otherwise, manages to
120
MONSTROUS CREATURES
provide just as unique an experience as Tomas Harris’ Te Silence o the Lambs . Here’s Here’s a representative selection sele ction rom Jidney’s Jidney’s letters: lette rs: People never really go into i nto the killer’s killer’s state o mind. Tey only think they do—I reckon it’s it’s because they’ the y’re re too rightened o what they the y might nd buried in themselves i they really got in there. Frightened they couldn’t get out again. So they do it the easy way, way, waste their time trying to assess a killer killer by their own standards, sta ndards, it’s just childish, childish , you can’ can’t catch the moon m oon in a buttery net. Tey’re Tey’re up against interchangeable interchangeab le man, the gregarious loner, loner, the man with another man to go with him who’s who’s got to be disguised as a normal man, because he’s not that abnormal that he wants to get caught. All those old prats you see at a sae distance on the box putting the moral point o view about murder, priests and so on, they ought to spend a night with me alone in a room. Tere’d be no violence—old men and bores don’t turn me on—but we could have a talk, and they’d be singing a very dierent tune in the morning…People ought to see a killer when he’s in between times—he’s as sae as a parked car! You could drink a pint with him, you could share a room with him! Even in Harris’ novel, there’s an element o perormance, o being on a stage, in Lecter’s grand escapes and amboyant gestures. On some level, through both the novels and the movies, we’re made as observers nd something to admire in Lecter, something we wish we had, had , almost as i he’s he’s a rock star. Tere’s Tere’s none o that in Dead Man Upright . Tere’s Tere’s something somethi ng more insidious and subversive: an attempt to make us understand Jidney, and by understanding Jidney Jidney see something common in his experience—something experience—something we all share, in some part o our reptile brains, but not something we want or admire. Raymond also makes no attempt to sugarcoat or dramatize the women’s deaths. Instead, the reader receives matter-o-act depictions that seem so perectly out o an actual case le that we both accept the details too readily and are repulsed by the sheer tired-soa, worn kitchen-counter aspect o them (“…and when the blood’s dried on you go and lie down on
Jeff VanderMeer
121
the bed and pick the little crusts o”). Te planning and execution o these slaughters also takes place in a conveniently conveniently amiliar context, and thus attain a comortable aspect even as they horriy us. A killer wouldn’ wouldn’t mind being normal—he’ normal—he’s a hyena that would rather be just a man in an armchair, and he can give a good imitation o one, too. I he’s living with others he does his share o the housework and washing-up. Nine days out o ten he’s just someone walking up to the o-license or beer and cigarettes—people can’t seem to get it through their heads that even i a man’ man’s a killer he’s he’s still got to nd a place p lace to live, pay the rent, get a job, buy clothes, go out and get pissed; he eels up, he eels down the same as a normal john. It’s hard to call a novel “mesmerizing” when the reader knows the answer to the mystery within a ew chapters, but Dead Man Upright is indeed mesmerizing. Te pathology o its characters brings us through to the end, and i it’s a dying all, it’s one o great and piercing insight—and in no way a disappointment. Te novel also gives the reader the satisaction o seeing a much-loved character—a hard-won love or a detective whose means have oten been suspect—reach at least a provisional truce with himsel, a kind o sel-acceptance that removes the image o agitation and anguish that marked him at the end o I Was Dora Suarez . Still, by the denouement o Dead Man Upright , Raymond gives readers o the complete series the understanding that the past isn’t dead, that it still haunts and changes the person who has experienced it, as the detective writes: “All at once I am speeding ater [my daughter], who is wobbling down our ront path on her bike. Next week, she’ll she’ll be nine. I am rushing ater her with wit h my arms open and calling out: ‘I love you! I love you!’ But she is always just out o reach.” Tis is how the dead live, and this is how Raymond—through a erce, sad love—animates words on a page so that they bring us out and into the world, no matter how merciless or ultimately unknowable.
A Giant of Literature, J.G. Ballard Omnivoracious , April 2009
J.G. Ballard Ballard (N (Nove ovember mber 15, 1930 - April April 19, 2009) rewired rewired the brains o generations generations o readers and writers. A member o the largely British New Wave movement o the 1960s, Ballard wrote mind-bending stories that changed reader perceptions o space and time, along with novels that dealt with every conceivable major theme o the twentieth century. His ctionalized memoir o his childhood, Empire o the Sun (1984), was made into a movie that brought him more readers than ever beore. Ballard’s devastating satires o American politics, in particular his notorious jab at Ronald Reagan, Reagan , went right to the edge o ctional possibility. But controversy and pushing boundaries were never problems or Ballard, as proved by books like Crash (1973), with its examination o vehicle-based auto-eroticism. Such books also proved the lasting value o both literature and experimentation, being irreproducible in other media. Another Another giant o post-W post-World War II literature, literature, Michael Michael Moorco Moorcock, ck, said, “Ballard and I, together toget her with the late Barry Bayley, Bayley, ‘plotted’ ‘plotted’ what became the New Wave Wave revolutio revolutionn in the late 50s 50s and early 60s. 60s. A regular regular and reque requent nt contributor contributor to New Worlds , he was a hugely inspiring and generous riend, i a little reclusive. Raised his three children single-handed ater his wie died suddenly suddenl y in Spain while on holiday and wrote a moving, exceptionally warm memoir, memoir, Miracles Miracles o Lie , which was published in 2007, when he knew he was dying. dy ing. His inuence on a generation o writers in all elds, including Martin Amis and Will Sel, was enormous and he remains perhaps the nest imaginative writer o his generation. He reused a CBE rom the Queen in protest at the United Kingdom’ Kingdom’s involvement in Iraq, and because he thought the title o Commander o the British Empire a ludicrous title or a modern Briton. He leaves a partner, Claire Walsh, who was his companion or over over orty years and nursed him through his long illness. ill ness.””
Jeff VanderMeer
123
Born and raised in an American-controlled part o Shanghai, China, Ballard went on to study medicine at King’s College at Cambridge, intending to become a psychiatrist. However, realizing that this career would not allow him time to write, he let King’s College in 1952 to study English literature at the University o London. Stints in the Royal Air Force and as the editor o a chemistry magazine were contiguous with writing short stories, and he soon ound a home or many o them in i n the now-iconic New Worl Worlds ds magazine. New Worlds would eventually become the agship o the New Wave, which included writers like Michael Moorcock, James Sallis, and M. J. Harrison. In 1962, Ballard published his rst novel, Te Wind From Nowhere , and quit his day job to become a ull-time writer. Ballard came out o science ction but, like other iconic gures, transcended the limitations o any particular genre. He dealt with issues like colonialism, worldwide disaster, sex, and, yes, such classic themes as love and death. Because o this, his inuence was writ large. large . In terms o pop culture, Ballard also inuenced bands like Radiohead, Te Sisters o Mercy, Mercy, and Joy Division. Novelist Novelist Elizabeth Hand recalls recal ls “reading “reading him when I was young in the 1960s, 196 0s, in some New Wave Wave anthology or other...and other...and then when I was older I sought him out wherever I could, and reviewed several o his later lat er books. Tere was something so exhilarating about his vision o the world’s world’s decline, this combination combina tion o a very cold-eyed observation o humanity’s greed and ailings, and then a sort o glee in reporting it. His earlier work, things like Te Drowned World World (1962) and Te Crystal Crysta l World World (1966), was so sensual in its detail; and then you ran head-on into stu like Te Atrocity Exhibition (1969)...ueled by that completely in-your-ace rage and more o that inhuman glee, and so uriously intelligent—it was very heady stu. My our dystopic SF novels and much o my earlier short ction were inspired by Ballard.” Ballard was uninching in examining humankind’s ecological eect upon the world. But in placing most o his ction, until recently, recently, in projected utures or other speculative settings he ensured that it would largely remain timeless and undated. Writer Writer and reviewer Paul Di Filippo began bega n reading Ballard in U.S. science ction magazines around 1967, when he was thirteen years old. “He stretched
124
MONSTROUS CREATURES
my adolescent mind to new permanent ractal dimensions, an eect he had on many o my generation, and on plenty o adults as well, both 40 years ago and or the next several decades o unaltering artistic accomplishment. He was the truest prophet and journalist o everything we saw going down around us during those tumultuous days. His astringent yet joyous take on all our sel-inicted dooms, technological, sexual, and cultural, assured us that the uture would be much weirder than any Arthur C. Clarke prediction, even i we never let the surace o the planet, but only delved deeper into his patented realm real m o ‘inner space.’ Te world is now deprived o a vital voice we still need, possibly more than ever.” On a personal note, I came to Ballard through his short stories while still a teenager, through collections like erminal Beach (1964) and Vermillion Sands (1971). I rst encountered Ballard on the back shelves o used bookstores, and thought he was one o the best treasures I ever discovered there. I always elt, reading his work, that I didn’t process a Ballardian piece o ction; instead, it processed me. I saw the world dierently ater reading Ballard. Oten, while in the middle o one o his stories, I would literally eel as i the spatial dimensions around me were shiting and that I was adrit. Somehow, as Martin Amis has said, Ballard got to a dierent part o your brain than other writers. Tis sense o enveloping the reader in the unknown and alien had a huge inuence on my own ction, and gave me permission to experiment in a way I don’t think I would’ve would’ve done otherwise. other wise. “I think it’s it’s sae to say there the re are very ew writers write rs o speculative ction who came o age ater the 1960s who were not inuenced by him in one way or another,” Hand told Amazon. “He captured the zeitgeist o a world in crisis and wrote about it earlessly, and while his work was oten cruel, it was never cold. He was an iconoclast who seemed to revel in the sound o our world shattering.” Te depth o that inuence became apparent as messages on Facebook and witter rom all types o writers write rs ooded the Internet Sunday aternoon. Reviewer and critic Ed Champion wrote: “Ballard was one o the greats: an imaginative giant, a prooundly erudite erudit e iconoclast, one o those rare talents who came up with a warped concept i it was wild and provided the speculative het needed need ed to keep
Jeff VanderMeer
125
a thought experiment going.” Experimental novelist Lance Olsen commented, “We’re all poorer or the loss. It doesn’t get much better, much more unhinged, than Crash or Te Atrocity Exhibition . Ballard taught us worlds.” And, as Czech editor Martin Šust said, “He was one o my avorite authors, especially or his short stories. He was a writer with international inuence. His works are still unorgettable, and he is now immortal or all o us.” Ballard commented in his own autobiography that the imagination transcends death. In the eyes o the readers he challenged and the writers he inspired, this statement is by no means hyperbole. He will be missed. In addition to his devoted partner pa rtner Claire Walsh, Walsh, Ballard leaves behind behi nd three children: James, Fay, and Beatrice.
The Cosmology of Jeffrey Ford Introduction to Jerey Ford’s Te Cosmology Cosmolog y o the Wider World World , 2006
Jer Jerey ey For Fordd is the kind kind o guy you can sit down down with with and have have a beer beer and shoot shoot the the breeze about sports—or have a long, intricate conversation about some aspect o literary theory, or talk about the oibles o some long-dead eccentric. His comments are as likely to be pithy and unrepeatable as they are to be rather wise and lengthy. lengthy. I mention this act because it pertains to his ction. Ford’s short stories, novellas, and novels oten seem to have a comortable and laid back aspect to them. Te characters are ordinary guys who readers can easily and quickly identiy with and ollow during the course o the story. And yet... yet ... there’s there’s also al so a surreal, serious, dreamlike, and eccentric quality to Ford’s ction. In the quintessential Ford tale, we start somewhere strange but unthreatening and it becomes stranger strange r, or we start with the amiliar only to have our comort level undermined in some way. Te reader almost always comes to realize that the strangeness was there all along. I nd the eect close to the process by which divers avoid getting the bends by descending and ascending slowly, slowly, by degrees. (And yet, worth the wait—or wait— or when they reach the ocean oor, what marvelous oddities they nd there.) What I love about ab out Ford’s Ford’s ction is i s that, despite de spite this t his acade ac ade o comort com ort,, it rarely rarel y seeks, in the end, to be comorting. Te comort comes at the beginning, in the eortless voice, and the skill Ford has in nding a way into the story that allows the reader ull access as well. In his latest work, Te Cosmology o the Wider World , Ford presents the reader with the tale o the minotaur Belius. Te minotaur, minotaur, o course, has a long and storied past. In Greek myth, Teseus, aided by Ariadne, slew the minotaur to stop King Minos’ yearly taking o tribute in the orm o human lives. Te minotaur lived in a maze called the Labyrinth on the island o Crete. As a creature that had citizenship in
Jeff VanderMeer
127
neither the animal nor human world, the minotaur came to be seen as a symbol o that which exists outside the conventional bounds o society. society. In the twentieth century, the Surrealists embraced the minotaur as representative o the West’ West’s dual nature; one o the principal principa l surrealist magazines, magazi nes, Albert Skeer’s Skeer’s review, Minotaure , which appeared rom 1933 to 1939, used the minotaur as its central moti. Ford’s Belius borrows rom both the classic minotaur o Greek myth and the more surreal modern representations. Belius doesn’t live inside a physical labyrinth, but a mental one—haunted by his past and trapped in a maze o his own thoughts. He is his own monster. As Ford Ford takes us us into and out o Belius’ past, the character, who seems mythic and strange, becomes more and more recognizable as one o us. Te alienation and angst are just more extreme versions o what most o us go through at some point in our lives. Even the events that bring Belius to the Wider World are not so ar removed rom our own experience—certainly experience—certai nly,, each o us at some point has realized that but or ate or chance, our lives could have taken a very dierent turn. Belius’ quest to understand himsel and the world he lives in is the same quest we all embark upon, taken to an extreme. Te core o the maze that is Te Cosmolog Cosmol ogyy o the Wider World World might be Belius, but that surreal Wider World World is itsel the maze, and part o the genius o the book. Ford’s striking depiction o talking animals such as Pezimote the tortoise and Vashti the owl are as adroit in their quick brushstrokes as is his more lingering characterization o Belius. I took much delight in the details o these depictions. But, again, that delight becomes counterbalanced by the unsettling. Te more we learn about this world o talking animals, and the ways in which its inhabitants try to help Belius, the more we realize we’re not in a Disney movie. Te machinations o the old ape Shebeb and Belius’ relationship with a ea are the kinds o elements more usually ound in the interstices o existential noir ction. Te animals’ nal solution to Belius’ problems is odd and a nd yet logical, but could have come right out o a Decadent-era novel. Te ultimate ate o Belius’ hal-nished manuscript “Te Cosmology o the Wider World”—his World”—his attempt to nd meaning—could not be more tting, or strange.
128
MONSTROUS CREATURES
In short, it’s it’s unlikely that you will have read anything quite like Te Cosmolog Cosmology y o the Wider World World , with its mix o the amiliar and the odd, the slapstick and the serious. Where else but in the mind o Jerey Ford could you nd a suering minotaur, a philandering tortoise, bestiality, a love story, multiple reerences to Dante and multiple reerences to drug culture, the real world, and the Wider World? World? And where else would it all make sense?
Five Years of Sfar and Trondheim’s Dungeon Series Omnivoracious , May 2009
One o my great reading pleasures this thi s decade has been the discovery o Dungeon in the lovely little volumes rom NBM Publishing, which provides English translations o this near-iconic series originally released in France. Tis month, you could do worse than check out the whole series, as NBM is celebrating ve years o Dungeon with the tenth volume, Zenith: Back in Style . Dungeon is the brainchild o French geniuses Joann Sar and Lewis rondheim. Part o their brilliance in creating these books is to both send-up the heroic antasy genre and provide one o the most compelling arguments or its relevance. Te Dungeon books chronicle the adventures, trials (sometimes literally), and tribulations o the inhabitants o the titular dungeon, which is run by the Dungeon Keeper, an old bird with a thousand stories under his wing. Recurring characters include the heroic battle veteran Marvin the Dragon King, the sometimes oolish but b ut always eisty Herbert the t he imorous imorous Duck—perpetually in love with the cat-like Princess Isis—and Marvin the Red, a crazy rabbit named ater the dragon king, and clothed in what sometimes looks like atomic armor. Each o these characters, and many supporting players, are eshed out over the course o the series to an astounding degree. One masterstroke by Sar and rondheim rondheim in mapping out the narrative was to create dierent story “threads.” Tus, readers can enjoy three main series—the dungeon’s Early Years, Zenith, and wilight—with minor stories that still support the main narrative collected in the parallel series Monstres and Parade. Not only does this allow the creators, and a series o guest artists, to work on whatever parts o the narrative interest them at any particular time, it makes the eect truly three-dimensional. Further, Further, you can, more or less, begin with any particular thread you want, and then read through the others—every point o entry creates a dierent di erent experience o situation and character.
130
MONSTROUS CREATURES
For example, i you start with the Dungeon Zenith series, you may have a view o the Keeper as a somewhat cold, jaded character. But, i you then backtrack to volume one o Te Early Earl y Years, Years, Te Night Shit , you nd a riveting, oten tragic tale o how the Keeper came to run the dungeon, and your view o the character becomes much more charitable. Another Another example? example? Marvin the Dragon Dragon King, also known known as the Dust Dust King. Troughout the series, he’s he’s the bed-rock bed-rock o everything that’s that’s noble and a nd reasonable and heroic in a recurring character, even with a ew lapses. Marvin projects those qualities no matter where readers rst encounter him. However, the Dungeon wilight volumes one and two deepen and provide nuance to Marvin’s character. Te “twilight” o the dungeon also reers to the twilight o the world o erra. erra. In this series, erra has stopped turning, creating a perpetual world o light and a perpetual world o darkness. A now-blind Marvin must undertake und ertake a harrowing quest to the graveyard o the dragons, accompanied by his namesake names ake Marvin the Red. Tis volume is airly dark, and among the most aecting in the series. Ater his experiences in the dragon cemetery, Marvin, renamed the Dust King, has become invincible, although it’s not a power he much wants. Setting out to discover the whereabouts o his son, he and Marvin the Red embark on a journey both apocalyptic and at times hilarious, while the planet o erra disintegrates around them. Along with volume one o wilight, Armageddon showcases the apparently limitless powers o Sar and rondheim. rondheim. Indeed, the wilight wilight volumes in particular contain some o the nest artwork, characterization, and storylines o any comic I’ve ever read. It’s rather remarkable that embedded within some excellent humor (and some o it slapstick, at that) readers will eel a real emotional connection to the characters. Other highlights include the aorementioned Early Years volume, Te Night Shit , and the rst o the Zenith volumes, Duck Heart . In Te Night Shit , Te Keeper’s Keeper’s idealistic ormative years are explored in a story s tory o Machiavellian intrigue and betrayal. Te Keeper becomes a kind o would-be super hero, deending justice in the city, city, only to come up against hard truths, have his heart broken, and almost get killed. Tis is i s one o the most complex tales in the series, morally ambiguous and at times heart-breaking.
Jeff VanderMeer
131
Duck Heart, meanwhile, is the rst book to properly introduce the main characters o the series. Tis wonderul mix o adventure and humor also has a truly awe-inspiring ull-page panel o a summoned monster rumbling, “I am absolute evil, and I hope you didn’t bother me or nothing.” As with all o the Sar-rondheim volumes, the panels are uncluttered yet ull o precise detail. Marvin and Herbert take center stage. Another Another worthy volume, volume, A Dungeon Dungeon oo oo Many , occurs between the rst and second Zenith volumes. Tis story o a rival dungeon setting up next door to the Keeper’s Keeper’s dungeon has some side-splitting laugh-out-loud humor in it. Although it doesn’t strive or the emotional depth o some o the other volumes, it more than holds its own in terms o exquisite pacing and complexity o situation. As the two dungeons compete to attract adventurers, the stakes get higher and higher. Guest artist Manu Larcenet’s Larcenet’s light, uid style sty le emulates the story in a pleasant way. I’ve mentioned story and character, but not the art. Especially in the volumes created by Sar and rondheim alone, Dungeon eatures some o the most imaginative and beautiul art in antasy comics. Tere’s a clarity and sharpness—an ability to create diversity and complexity within panels without crowding or cluttering things—that reects a mastery o composition. Te art oten recalls Bosch or Brueghel in its prolieration o cleverly drawn monsters. Some sequences are little short o miraculous. wilight: Armageddon serves as a particularly outstanding example, especially when an entire planet splits into chunks. Te audacious storytelling is matched by the art. Several times, I’d turn a page and just stare at the art beore even continuing with the story. Te original French editions are in a much larger ormat, but I’m not convinced bigger is better. Te NBM reproductions are excellent, and very readable. Te series itsel appears to still be growing in strength and scope. Sar and rondheim have threatened to produce over three hundred volumes by the time they’re they’re done, but I’d I’d be content conten t just to have ha ve the next ten translated in, oh, I don’t know, the next six months.
How to Raise and Keep an Imagination: Joseph Nigg and the Power of Power of Fantasy Realms o Fantasy, 2008
Once upon a time, in a world in which Harry Harr y Potter Potter and the Spiderwick Chronicles had primed children’ children’s imaginations to expect the extraordinary, extraordinary, a rather remarkable book called How to Raise and Keep a Dragon appeared in bookstores. Tis lavishly illustrated tome—supposedly written by a descendent o the 17th-century British naturalist Edward opsell, opsell, author o the Historie o Serpents (1608)—presented an array o antastical serpents, including such delightul eccentricities as the Joppa Dragon, with its walrus-like nose and “blazing eyes.” Each entry came complete with a map locator or each species, skin swatch, egg description, and height/size details. opsell also claimed to provide all o the inormation needed to acquire and take care o a dragon, up to and including the addresses o supposed dragon sellers. Te would-be dragon owner could also learn more prosaic details, such as housing basics, training tips, and showing dragons in competition. Practical advice included such wisdom as: “the larger the dragon, the more expensive it will be” and to “Be honest [about wanting a dragon] because i you’re you’re not, you—and your dragon—might be in or much grie.” As might be expected, then, this rare and anciul book became an international bestseller—although not without certain consequences or the true tr ue author. author. Perhaps some collisions between antasy and reality are inevitable. Noted author Joseph Nigg, who wrote How to Raise and Keep a Dragon under the anciul pseudonym “John opsell, opsell,”” ound that out in 2006, soon ater publication. Nigg began to get an mail rom kids who wanted their own “Standard Western Western Dragon” Dragon” or “Multi-headed Dragon.” Dragon.” ypical questions were a testament to the eortless level o detail detai l Nigg had brought to his creation. “How big should
Jeff VanderMeer
133
a miniature dragon’s dragon’s room be, at the smallest?” sm allest?” one child asked. Another wanted more inormation on common dragon diseases: “I saw the thing about mouthrot but how do you see it and [cure] it?” One o the world’s oremost experts on imaginary beasts, Nigg was no stranger to the spotlight—he had been the subject o requent interviews, been reviewed in USA oday , and appeared on the “Dragons” episode o A&E’s “Ancient Mysteries” V series. Nigg’s 1999 Oxord University Press anthology, Te Book o Fabulous Beasts: A reasury o Writings rom Ancient imes to the Present, which traces the literary evolution o a host o mythical beasts, rom the
Babylonians to olkien, had established him as perhaps the Joseph Campbell o his eld. Respected experts like David Leeming had called Te Book o Fabulous Beasts “the denitive work.” None o this prior experience prepared Nigg or the tidal wave o reaction to How to Raise and Keep a Dragon —in part because, as he noted in an Edmonton wrote it as an adult book, as a parody o animal-raising anima l-raising books. Journal Journal interview, “I wrote I gured bookstores would put it next to the books on how to train dogs.” But by the time the book was published, it had morphed into a ake but serious dragon guide aimed at children, with convincing two-page spreads by the somewhat less mythical artist Dan Malone. Previous books and awards had put Nigg on the map, but via opsell’s creation it now appeared his ans were drawing him into uncharted uncharte d territory territor y. He’d He’d never experienced e xperienced “anything like the enthusiastic readership that How to Raise and Keep a Dragon enjoys.” “Enthusiastic” might be an understatement. wo wo years later, Nigg Nigg continues to receive an mail rom young readers and some parents; he even received a new one on the day I interviewed him or this article: “I would like to nd the actual address and phone number or Dragon House Inc. because I think it would be awesome awesome to have a miniature Standard Standa rd Wester Westernn Dragon. By the way, way, please don’t don’t order me a dragon.” dragon.” Nigg’s approach to writing the book—not winking, not giving in to the temptation to reveal the abrication—is not without its dangers, as his an mail reveals. Some who have written to Nigg express this cautiously, as exemplied by the reader who told him, “I am an eleven-year-old an o dragons, and I am
134
MONSTROUS CREATURES
wondering what you think about them. I must ask, do you truly tr uly believe dragons are/were real? Please answer truthully, I do not like being misguided.” However, others have clearly taken the “deception” more personally, with one child writing: “Why “W hy did you lie to me? I was so upset when I asked my mom where Babylon was, because I wanted to train a Mushussu dragon. She told me about how it was now Iraq and that it no longer exists. I hate you!” Another interesting dynamic soon emerged as well. While some parents had clearly told their children the truth about dragons, others had ound ingenious ways to support their kid’s imagination, without exactly lying. One anonymous commenter wrote, “My dad believes, but he believes belie ves they are in a dierent world, and that you have to get there through a portal. He knows a dragon summoning spell, but he h e said it’s it’s too hard or me.” me.” Nigg used to try to gauge rom the tone o correspondence whether a child or parent was “playing or serious.” Depending on the context, he would give a whimsical or realistic response. But now, now, because it’s it’s oten difcult to determine context, “unless I can tell i a young an is playing (already has a dragon that sleeps on the couch, goes to the store, etc.), I give my standard response about mythical creatures and lizards li zards called ‘dragons,’ ‘dragons,’ and that I recommend imagining a dragon riend and raising it while reading the book.” More publicly, publicly, an oten heated debate over the existence o dragons d ragons still rages in the comments thread to an Amazon.com eature on Nigg’s book. On this thread, any statements that dragons are imaginary imaginar y have been met with contempt by the kids invested in responding. Some dragon enthusiasts on the Amazon.com thread also lament their lack o a dragon, like a boy named ian, ian, who wrote, “I am a student dragonologist and it would be really helpul i I actually HAD a dragon! Tat way I could ask it so many questions, like ‘How do you breathe re?’ Te phosphorus method doesn’t doesn’t work. I tested it mysel. Please post back to the question how to get a dragon!” Others actually have a dragon, like Ashly: “I just got the drakon dragon and it’s a boy. He is so cute. Has very hard scales that are orange-ish-yellowish, has three rows o teeth and has a three-orked tongue. He’s a miniature, and he ate his egg when whe n he was born. His egg was golden and an d shiny. shiny.”
Jeff VanderMeer
135
Still others have used the Amazon debate to spin tall tales about dragon creation. An entry by a boy named Indago related how he came across a spell that helped him nd a dragon. Ater “going through the inconvenience o getting thirty banana slugs, I did the spell.” A week later, says Indago, he bought a Dragon o India gurine in a pet store, as an adornment or an aquarium. Te next day it was gone, “and so were the sh.” Later, he ound the live dragon, which he has named Gold Fire, while walking on his amily’s two-acre lot. So ar as anyone knows, k nows, Indago and Gold Fire are still inseparable inseparab le companions to this day. day. Among the hundreds o emails and letters Nigg has received, he has a couple o clear avorites. “Te most touching was a kid who cut the Worldwide Dragon Club registration application out o his book, completed it, and with wit h his grandmother’s grandmother’s help, sent it to me. Even though I made it clear to him that this was a antasy, I returned the orm to him, approved, along with a Certicate o Merit that the application promises. His grandmother sent me a photograph o him with a dragon he made o baking clay body and coee lter wings, and told me that in his school play that night he was a dragon that escaped rom a dungeon and became a hero. Te grandmother thanked me eusively or a wonderul experience or her grandson and wrote me later that he had bought another copy o the book—which remained intact. “I was also delighted by the postal letter o a young girl in New Zealand. Along with her questions questions about dragons dragons was a colored colored drawing drawing she made o a Mushussu and a hand-drawn map o her country countr y, containing a dot labeled, ‘Tis is Where I Live.’ She requested a picture o a Mushussu to hang on the wall o her room, so I sent her one.” As might be expected, Nigg nds this level o commitment healthy: “It’s natural. Separating the [real and the unreal] is the process o maturation, socialization, but to live ully is to balance the two.... Whether they believe in dragons or joyully participate in the antasy, antasy, young dragon ans have vibrant imaginations that one can only hope they retain in later lie.” lie.” Supporting a child’s imagination is oten an important part o becoming
136
MONSTROUS CREATURES
a healthy adult. As Nigg puts it, “Te richer their youthul imaginations are, and the longer they can nourish them, the uller and happier their lives are likely to t o be thereater. therea ter.”” Te classic antasist Lloyd Alexander is amously known or quoting another icon on this subject: “When asked how to develop intelligence in young people, Einstein answered: ‘Read airy tales. Ten read more airy tales.’ Fairytales and antasies nourish the imagination and imagination supports our whole intellectual and psychological economy.” But why have dragons so captured and ascinated so many young imaginations? Nigg has some theories. “Dragons are the most ancient and universal o all imaginary animals—and the most difcult to write about, because they are so uid. People o virtually every culture since the Babylonians have needed dragons so much that they created their own—perhaps, at least in part, to control ears o cosmic orces they did not understand. Even ater 17th-century science discredited most imaginary animals, such creatures eventually returned in art, literature, and all commercial orms. We—and not just kids—wanted them back. We needed them or our inner lives. In the case o children, there is also the xation with dinosaurs, extinct relatives o imaginary dragons.” Nigg also points out that, “it’s “it’s not just kids and dragons. dra gons. A lie-long geologist riend o mine, a serious scientist, was disappointed when he realized that the documentary he was watching on the discovery o ossilized dragon bones in an ice cave in Romania was a anciul dramatization. And what about our perennial interest in Bigoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman, and all? Hamlet says, ‘Tere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than you have dreamt o in your philosophy, philosophy,’ and we all translate that in our own way. way. We We want there to be more than what we see around us. It’s It’s our way o nourishing the t he inner lie, balancing it against the outside world. Tat’s just the way we are.” Nigg’s inner lie has long included the antastic, starting with a ascination with “an image o a winged lion with a sh tail, on an old brass oil lamp rom my parents’ antique shop. Intrigued by the creature’s hybrid nature, I began researching imaginary animals, which led me to the eagle-lion grifn. Years
Jeff VanderMeer
137
later, when my young boys were playing on the living room oor and a riend’s daughter was showing me a unicorn book she’d gotten or Christmas, a grand grifn gure surprisingly materialized in my imagination. Soon ater that, my wie Esther told me about a grifn she knew o in a storeroom at the local art museum. When we went down there, the sta allowed me to see—and actually —an ancient Persian silver cup embossed with a grifn image. hold in my hand! —an ime melted or me. I was hooked.” For this reason, the eagle-lion grifn is perhaps Nigg’s avorite. “It was the rst that showed me the rich cultural histories o imaginary creatures. Also, the combined King o Beasts and Monarch o the Air, personiying both the real world and the transorming imagination, is, or me, the ideal writer’s emblem. I dedicated the book to my sons, sons , Joey and Mike, and Joey Joey still collects grifns. My grandkids have grown up with a three-oot-high grifn in their living room. “I’m “I’m also enthralled by the mythical phoenix, phoen ix, which dies in its nest and rises, reborn, rom its own ashes. Te wondrous bird’s transormations in literature and art through the ages mirror its simple able. We all relive its story every day by sleeping through the dark and rising with wi th the sun. I’ve been working or years on a phoenix phoen ix book, ‘Bird o Wonder, Wonder,’ balancing it with commissioned books on dragons—and answering emails rom young dragon ans. My work hours these days are divided between these two animals, variations o the two that are so oten depicted together in Asian art.” Te ascination children have shown toward How to Raise and Keep a Dragon may have something to do with the dedication Nigg has demonstrated in documenting his love o the antastic. Certainly the instant-classic quality o the book reects Nigg’s level o comort with the material—it’s unlikely anyone else could have made it so playul yet assured. Nigg’s wie Esther, who has helped him on many projects, and to whom he has dedicated several books, has been in a unique position to observe the progression o Nigg’s Nigg’s career and a nd passions. “I got to watch the books about abulous animals take o: Te Book o Gryphons , the Oxord University Press book, and all the others,” she says. “Te latest book—and his availability through his website—has been crazy. Te
138
MONSTROUS CREATURES
proessor who’s deeply grounded in mythology is now in daily communication with ans, especially dragon-anciers, who want to play the game, to raise their own dragons. He nds a way to answer them all, even as he works on a major new project...Amazing.” project...Amazing.” Nigg points out that all the books have been enriched by the ideas o amily and riends—the current tome most o all. “Everybody who knew I was working on the book enthusiastically oered anciul tips about how to raise a dragon,” dragon,” he says. Tis learned and even-tempered man with multiple degrees to his credit, and a stint at the amed Iowa Writers’ Workshop, seems today as engaged and energized about these “imaginary” animals as when he published that rst book, Te Book o Gryphons , back in 1982. Since then, in addition to Te Book o Fabulous Beasts and his current volume, he has also published A Guide to the Imaginary Birds o the World , Te Book o Dragons & Other Mythical Beasts , and Wonder Beasts: ales and Lore o the Phoenix, the Grifn, the Unicorn, and the Dragon, a collection or middle-school students.
“Te more I delve into the cultural histories o ‘mythical’ creatures, the more ascinated I am by the transormation o ideas and images across time. It was nearly ve hundred years between Herodotus’s seminal account o the phoenix and the next major telling o the tale. Tat second passage, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses , did much to generate the rst ourishing o the phoenix story, in Greco-Roman writings. A phoenix illumination in a medieval bestiary rises again in D.H. Lawrence’s amous phoenix emblem. And so it goes, with literary archeology multiplying the dots and connections between them.” Nigg’s passion extends to enthusiasm or the words o others on his avorite subject: “When Goethe’s Faust sees mythical creatures on the Pharsalian Plain, he says: ‘Fresh spirit lls me, ace to ace with these / —Grand are the Forms, Forms, and Grand the Memories!’ and then, in Shakespeare’s empest , one o the astonished travelers watching spirits dance in Prospero’s court, exclaims: ‘[A] living drollery. Now I will believe / Tat there are unicorns; that in Arabia / Tere is one tree, the phoenix’ throne; one phoenix / At this hour reigning there.’ It is to be noted that this is an ironic passage. I also like Milton describing the phoenix as having ‘ages o lives.’” Perhaps only in an area as universal as myth and antasy could you nd
Jeff VanderMeer
139
such a spectrum o responses, rom Milton to a ten-year-old kid who writes, “I do have a dragon pipling (baby) that no one knows about except or a ew o my riends. He is a green and red Standard Western Dragon named Briton (Br-it-on). He looks just like the one displayed in the dragon breed section o the book. He is so cute and loveable, and yes he is real but he turns invisible and unhearable when strangers come around. He also shrinks or un, and when strangers are around. He is very protective o me and everybody I know that is nice to me. I your parents tell you that dragons do not exist, exist , they’re they’re wrong, they probably think that because they lost their kidlike mind and plus, it is very hard to purchase a dragon.” dragon.” Nigg’s Nigg’s own antasy lie, too, began beg an early. early. “My ather supervised super vised the building b uilding o power plants, so I grew up in a house trailer all over the Midwest. My only constant riends were Huck, om, Jim Hawkins, Mowgli, and the host o characters in my treasured stack o Classic Comic Books.” Now, much as those classics nourished him, his latest book is nourishing a new generation o readers. As or that an mail, it isn’t likely to level o any time soon. How to Raise and Keep a Dragon has been published in more than 20 countries to date.
Authors in Praise of Beer Omnivoracious , April 2008
For a long time, I’ve wondered why wine and ood should have all the un. Here at Omnivoracious, we also believe in the complementary pairing o books with... Now, please note that we’re we’re not advocating ad vocating irresponsible reading, but with beer . Now, the current popularity o micro-breweries and the role o beer in the writing o books over the centuries, it seems somehow irresponsible not to pair the two. We’ We’re re rankly a little surprised no one’s one’s done it beore. Tus, I took it upon mysel to explore the connection between hops and writing chops, going ar aeld to ask a diverse group o writers what beer or beers would go best with their latest work. 1. Light Beers, Lambics, Arrogant Bastard, and More!
Naturally, everyone approached the question in a slightly dierent way. Eastern European surrealist Zoran Zivkovic appeared to have already sampled a brew or three, sending in the rhyming verse, “Drink Bud West, drink Bud East,/Drink Bud reading Steps through the Mist .” Elizabeth Hand Han d echoed Zivkovic, even while conessing she hasn’t drunk beer in thirty years: “But the last time I did have one, it was almost certainly a glass o Bud with a shot-glass o Jack Daniels in it. A boilermaker, which is what Cass Neary in [the dark thriller] Generation Loss would drink—24/7, and minus the beer.” beer.” Arianna Hufngton, author o Right Is Wrong , decided on a more political (and surprisingly conservative) approach, writing, “Busch, o course! Besides the homonymic convergence, distribution o this beer helped make Cindy McCain rich and unded John McCain’s political career.” Other books that apparently take a lighter approach include Karen Joy
Jeff VanderMeer
141
Fowler’s Wit’s End , paired with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: “Te company describes it as a new take on a classic theme; it’s light, but complex. Tis is a North Caliornian company, which ts me and my book. But what I like best is the slogan—‘the beer that made Chico amous.’ Te where ?” ?” Similarly, Similarly, new writer Jo Graham says o her wonderul wond erul antasy novel Black Ships , “I think [it] needs a nice lightweight beer or hot days—I recommend Corona with lime!,” while Ekaterina Sedia (Te Secret History o Moscow ) suggests “Flying Fish Indian Pale Ale. It looks so golden and welcoming and sae, but you take a sip and it assaults you with its unexpected unexpe cted hoppy bitterness. bittern ess.”” Francie Lin also named several relatively light beers or Te Foreigner , a great mystery set in aiwan: aiwan: “Te literal-minded literal-minde d might go or a can o Boddington’s Boddington’s or aiwan aiwan Drat” to evoke aipei’ aipei’ss seedy see dy back bac k alleys. alle ys. “ “ aiwan Drat is also the th e drink o choice among expats in aiwan, so there’s that connection too.” She also suggests “a pint o the People’s Pint’s Provider Pale Ale...Fast and hoppy, it’s it’s a summer drink, but b ut one with enough bitter bitt er undertones to remind remi nd you that autumn is near.” O course, some writers have more invested in the beer-book question than others. Rising star Lauren Gro, author o the Orange Prize-nominated Te Monsters o empleton , has rst-hand experience, having worked as an intern “one very uzzy summer in college” or “the country’s best brewery (in my humble opinion) in Cooperstown, New York, which is where my novel is based—Brewery Ommegang. Tey make Belgian-style beers. Tough all o their beers are absolutely stellar, I’d say their Tree Philosophers goes best with —they call it a “luscious blend blen d o rich malty ale and cherry cher ry lambic.” Like Monsters —they MO, MO, it’s it’s ruity on the surace with a dark, rich texture beneath.” Sot Skull Press’s Richard Nash also suggests a cherry lambic or another “monster” book, Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewol Girl : “Tere’s an earthiness to the role o the werewol, a carnality, carnality, that’s that’s the lambic or me, and then the n the cherry cherr y is the ruity eminine, but not so purely eminine as a raspberry raspberr y lambic...[Besides,] it looks gorgeous, and I think our book does too, i I do say so mysel.” Peaches and badgers, not cherries and monsters, enter the beer discussion or im im Lebbon Le bbon’’s gritty heroic antasy anta sy novel Fallen. Lebbon rates rate s highly Badger’ Badge r’ss
142
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Golden Glory, a Hall & Woodhouse ale: “It’s a bitter but subtly avoured beer with a hint—some would say a orbidden breath—o peach. It’s long been said that a git o peach blossom bring good ortune and happiness to the recipient, and such a git would be well-received by the two yoyagers in Fallen....Golden Glory would light their [orbidden journeys] with its eager reshness, but it’s denitely an ale with a hint o danger ... and it’s not araid o a ght.” Fanciul pairings or not, Gro’s, Nash’s, and Lebbon’s suggestions are rooted in reality—whereas Michael Chabon and Daniel Grandbois seemed to have been drinking rom the same strange, otherworldly brew when they responded. Chabon rightly pointed out that “the proper pairing with Te Yiddish Yiddi sh Policemen’s Policemen’s Union would o course be a nice cold bottle o Bruner Adler lager, brewed right in the Federal District o Sitka by Shoymer Brewing, Inc.” Inc.” Grandbois, meanwhile, went o on this ri or a very rare beer that seems like it might appeal ap peal to Flann O’Brien: “Te peculiar pallor o Feathered Hat Lager rom rightully obscure upstarts Tree Men on a Bike Brewery, whose marketing plan consists solely o the three ounders donning eathered eathe red caps and riding a single bicycle together through any town that will sell their products, should yield enough warning about the taste and possible health risks to come rom ingesting it, but to those who little heed such counsel, my tales o Unlucky Lucky Days oer the perect complement (or, should we say, antidote) to the beer. Te absurd ‘ritzing-bulb’ punch lines throughout these stories should prod even the most obtuse cerebellum into convincing its maverick mouth to eject the lager beore it’ i t’ss too late.” Beer lovers with less “maverick” “maverick” mouths may preer the more sensible choices o nonction writers Peter Zheutlin and John Grant. For Zheutlin’s Around the World on wo Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride , the author suggested a brand I like a lot: “Fat ire Amber Ale, a Belgian-style beer with picture p icture o a retro bike on the label. It’s It’s a U.S brew named in honor o the ounder’s bike trip through Belgium. Tough the bike on the label is more o a 1950s-style bike, it’s just sitting against a tree without a rider. Annie would have hopped on and never looked back.” I would also enthusiastically enthusiasti cally second Grant’s Grant’s choice or his brilliant bri lliant Corrupted I’m talking about the political, p olitical, theological Science : “For the later chapters—where I’m
Jeff VanderMeer
143
and ideological crimes—I’d crimes—I’d certainly suggest as most m ost appropriate the Caliornian brew called Arrogant Bastard. Tis also has the advantage o being a airly strong beer, as strong as some o the less potent wines, and thus one that efciently delivers the necessary soothing eect.” (For those looking or more inormation on beer, Grant, under the name Paul Barnett, has written a great book on the subject called simply Beer: Facts, Figures & Fun .) Sometimes, too, the beer chosen has a distinctly personal relevance related to the emotion surrounding a certain place and time, as with the vastly underrated anyo Ravicz’s new and excellent short story collection called Alaskans. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ll drink a boutique beer b eer as easily as a Rainier.. R ainier...but .but not as happily. Alaska [to me] m e] is i s sitting sit ting on a gravel bar b ar in i n the t he summer sum mer sunshine in the middle o nowhere without my shirt on drinking cheap beer with a riend while the sunlight plays on the water and the river rustles by. Te beer must be Rainier. Up through my 30s that’s that’s all I would’ve ever bought is a cheap, watery beer like Rainier. Nowadays in the Palm Springs Albertson’s I can’t nd a Rainier, not even in the warm beer section, and I get a dry eeling in my throat and have to remember there is no recovering the past. But even so, the beer that goes with Alaskans, like a caper with its caviar, caviar, is Rainier, not because I put down a air number o them back when, which I did, but because that’s where my heart is.” 2. Continuing a Good Tought with Pale Ale, Guinness, and More
Much has happened since posting Part I o the book-beer pairings eature. First, I tested out Tree Philosophers with Lauren Gro’s Te Monsters o empleton and ound that (1) it is indeed a great Belgian-style beer, with some very subtle yet strong avors, and (2) it goes very well with Gro’s book. Ten, I decided to check in with Gavin Grant o Small Beer Press because... well, how can you do this kind o eature and not talk to a publisher called Small Beer Press? Gavin has a lot o respect or both books and beer—and access to both locally. “We have a antastic brewery (ok, we have a ew) in the Happy Valley in i n Massachusetts: the Berkshire Berkshi re Brewing Company. Company. Teir raditional raditional Pale Ale is a summer time treat and all winter we survive on their Drayman’s Drayman’s Porter. Porter.
144
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Which is what we were were drinking drinking when the UPS guy delivered delivered galleys galleys o our next collection, Ben Rosenbaum’s Te Ant King .” (You (You can now download download John Kessel’s Ke ssel’s excellent new collection Te Baum Plan or Financial Independence and Maureen F. McHugh’s powerul Mothers Mothers & Other Other Monsters Monsters rom the Small Beer website.) Although most participants in the second hal o this eature preerred matching a dark beer with their books, a ew hold-outs or lighter imbibication include Tomas Disch, Nick Mamatas, and Chip Kidd—Kidd mostly because, as a purist, he deerred deer red to his novel: “In Te Learners , Happy and Himillsy down Rolling Rocks at Modern Apizz in New Haven, so that would be appropriate. Otherwise, everyone drinks martinis.” Mamatas probably wouldn’t typiy his pick as a light beer, although it is: “Te ofcial beer o Weinbergia, the country in Under My Roo , is Red Stripe. Short and hip, sweet and a bit more dangerous than you might at rst suspect. Plus, hipsters dig di g it like lik e they dig di g uncombed hair hai r and -shirts -shirts rom 1985. 19 85.”” Similarly, Similarly, Disch, author o the orthcoming Te Word Word o God: Or O r, Holy Writ Rewritten, selected either Rhinegold or Lowenbrau or his orthcoming arcical “memoir”: “In the New York o my youth (I was 17 when I got here in ‘57, and Miss Rhinegold was then an annual tradition. Te contestants had their pictures posted in the subways. Tere was also a Miss Subways. Tey have both disappeared in our new, unsexed era, but there is another good reason to serve Rhinegold at the book party. It is the beer Wagner made amous. Not much o a beer in itsel, as I recall, which is why it may have become extinct, and not the best opera in the Ring either, but no one has ever dared to bring out a beer b eer called Gotterdammerung....I was actually in Lowenbrau Hobrauhaus in Munich (in 1966). Tere were tiers o drinking halls where roisterers bellowed out drinking songs. A kind o Valhalla.” .C. Boyle suggested a great American beer I can personally recommend, to go with his novel Te Women: “[Te novel] deals with with Frank Lloyd Wright Wright and the the women in his lie. It is set in rural Wisconsin, at aliesin, aliesin, just outside Spring Spring Green. Tat is, in beer central. So my pick or sipping—or guzzling or or even gargling—while reading reading this scintillating, tragic and very unny book, is Spotted Cow.” A worthy brew, indeed, as I recall rom a wonderul night in Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, a ew years back.
Jeff VanderMeer
145
Graham Joyce’ Joyce’ss choice involved his time living in i n Derby “in the dark heart o England,” England,” where “there was this shadowy sha dowy street in an a n interstitial interstitia l zone o the city. city. At the road junction there were three pubs, one on each corner and a nd one across the road. It was called the Derby riangle because people seen going into these pubs would oten disappear or days or sometimes months. One sold draught Guinness, one dispensed Pedigree Ales and the third and most cobwebby o the three pushed something called Teakston’ Teakston’s Old Peculiar—usually a bottled bottle d beer, but here they had it on tap. Black as night, with a mushroom and nut savour to it, it had an alarming, syrupy body. body. But it slipped down well. Tis beer is most like my book Te Limits O Enchantment . Teaksto Te akstonn’s Old Peculier. I don do n’t know kn ow where but it took me there.” (Old Peculier, Americanized sometimes to Old Peculiar, even has a crime writing contest.) Clare Dudman also had memories o peculiar brews: “Tere is only one beer that I can associate with One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead and that is the one that the grandson o Alred Wegener Wegener (the real-lie character who inspired my novel) gave me—the product o his own brewery in a grand old Schloss in Bavaria. Like his grandather, he showed himsel to be multi-talented; ater treating me to a classical recital o a string quartet in the hall o his castle (he played the violin) we had a typical German meal with the beer as the essential accompaniment. His brewery produced three sorts, but the one I liked the best was uncharacteristically dark and strongly avoured or a German ale. In act it was very much like Old Speckled Hen—golden rather than brown, pleasantly sweet without tasting o treacle, and a bitterness that reminds you to drink long and slow...and slow...and relish each ea ch mouthul.” She added, “I wish I hadn had n’t written that— the memory memor y is too good and there’ the re’ss only wine in the house.” Michael Swanwick (Te Dragons o Babel ) and Daniel Abraham ( A A Betrayal in Winter ) both recommended Guinness, Wise Old Man o Beers, Swanwick “because it’s the avored draught o storytellers” and Abraham as the perect ending or the book, ater “starting o with a dark ale.” Swanwick’s selection o Guinness, he said, must include the reader picturing “me standing with an elbow on the bar and the glass in my hand, saying, ‘Listen. Tere once was a boy who loved dragons, and suered because o it, but learned better...’” Abraham was
146
MONSTROUS CREATURES
also emphatic on beer purity: “nothing with unny avors in it. No blackberries or raisins or any o that.” Hal Duncan, author o Ink, agreed: “It has to be Guinness—dark, black and rich. It’s It’s a scientically scient ically proven act, act , you know, know, that Guinness is orty-ve percent ortitude.” Coming in with a variation on the Guinness theme, James Morrow wrote o the happy collegial bond between book and beer combination: “Te Philosopher’s Appren Apprentice tice traces directly to an inormal society, devoted to reewheeling philosophical discourse and studious beer consumption, that thrived or many years at a Penn State agora known as Caé 210 West. Te novel is best consumed in tandem with the libation libati on that gave it birth: the Irish cooler, created created by our Plato scholar, scholar, now an instructor at George Washington Washington University. University. Fill a pitcher to the midpoint with a reliable lager. op it o with Guinness stout. Add a otilla o lime wedges. Stir. Pour yoursel a glass. Read the rst chapter o Te Philosopher’s Appren Apprentice tice , sipping as you turn the pages...A novel is a long work o ction that has something wrong with it. Pour and consume a second Irish cooler. Read chapter two. Repeat the process until the novel’s aws no longer matter.” Yet, Yet, truly, truly, the award award or Mother Mother o All Beer Responses must go to Australian Australian Margo Lanagan, who primes our hearts, heads, and palates or the release o her novel this all with this Ode to beer, ood, books, and everything luxurious to our senses (and which I cannot bear to truncate): “My upcoming novel ender Morsels (Knop/Allen & Unwin/David Fickling, October 2008) goes perectly with a schooner o oohey’ oohey’ss Old Black Ale, ‘a great Australian dark ale’ to go with a great Australian dark tale. Not knock-you-over in the alcohol stakes (4.4% alc/ vol), this is probably a good thing, because there’s a lot to keep track o in this book: bears, babes, treasure, dwarves, giant eagles and a spot o time slippage. Te story is lightly hopped, giving the reader/drinker a ew underhand laughs during the smooth transition rom malty, dead-sexy beginning to bitter, nonetoo-clean nish. Te black malt enhances the orested gloom o much o the book, as well as its nicknames, ‘Black Juice revisited’ and the Doylesque ender ender Morsels Bwa-Ha-Ha. Many readers/drinkers are timid when it comes to dark (t) ales. I you are curious about the dark side o beer/bears, oohey’s Old/ender
Jeff VanderMeer
147
Morsels is a great place to begin your exploration. Broad-hipped childbearing avour gives way to the berry nice esters, which blend well with hoppiness hoppi ness and a hint o raw ptarmigan to nish with a bitter blend crescendo that will leave you wondering WF? Why haven’t haven’t you been a dark d ark ale drinker all your lie? Do you dare to turn o your bedside lamp tonight? ry ry ender Morsels and ooheys ooheys Old Black Ale with a juicy, juicy, still-slightly-bloody roast, with game pies p ies and slow cooked meats. Old is also a great avour to go with strong cheeses such as gorgonzola, blue vein and Wensleydale. But pretty much anything art-producing will do. Just don’ don’t expect a comy night’s night’s sleep ater you’ve you’ve stomached this lot.” Still, not everyone advocates beer with their book, although ironically it’s the mind-expanding, techno-surrealist Rudy Rucker (Postsingular ) who urges a more commonsense approach: “I preer to see my readers drinking a ragrant, stimulating oolong tea.” tea.” Lydia Millet agrees with the no-beer idea, making makin g an even more revolutionary proposition: “o be honest, How the Dead Dream is probably best read with water. Water or coee. Or something resh and sour like lemonade. But i you really wanted to be drunk while you read it, and you rejected hard liquor and wine, I’d I’d say a light-tasting light-tasti ng beer rom Europe.” Europe.” As or my own books, including City o Saints & Madmen and Shriek , I always recommend the marvelous Belgian dark beers Delirium Nocturnum and Lee Brun, the Bavarian Aventinus (a wheat doppelbock), Arrogant Bastard, and several others. Te next step in this literary experiment, o course, is to acquire all o the aorementioned beers and books, and report back on just how appropriate these pairings are. Whether this will result in another Amazon blog entry or a rather ridiculously beuddled weekend remains to be seen.
Conversation #2: Eaten by Bears—Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels Tender Morsels Clarkesworld , October 2008
Despite having already published several novels, Australian writer Margo Lanagan rst came into ocus in most readers’ minds with the publication o World Fantasy Awa Award rd-w -win inni ning ng coll collec ecti tion on Black Juice (2004) and its signature story, “Singing My Sister Down.” Down.” Since then, she has published another collection, Red Spikes , which was named a Publishers Weekly book o the year and a Horn Book Fanare. Her latest novel, ender Mor M orse sels ls (Knop, October), is a tour de orce o sustained narrative, weaving olktale with brutal reality reality.. eenage mother mother Liga, Liga, abused by her ather ather and others, others, escapes escapes to her own alternate world, only to be ollowed by wild bears and other dangers that threaten her saety. saety. From there, the reader is drawn into a rich, original story that sometimes cloaks itsel in the amiliar but is at its heart deeply strange in the best possible way. ender Mor M orse sels ls recalls such masters as Angela Carter and Rikki Ducornet, while being intensely Lanagan’s own. I interviewed Lanagan about ender Morsels via email. Who is the tender tender morsel?
Te most obvious tender morsels are the daughters, Branza and Urdda, and
Jeff VanderMeer
149
the dwar Collaby Dought indicates this when he’s just about to be eaten by a bear, pushing the girls orward and saying “Tere is nothing o me but a scrap o leather! Please, my lord, have these! So plump, so tender! Full o juice and at! Tey will make a ne meal or you!” Less obviously, obviously, Lisa is a tender morsel too, devoured by her beastly ather and by the town boys. Even less obviously, obviously, all the women are tender morsels, at the mercy o the men’s beastlier instincts as well as being protected and prized by them. Joining Joining them in their vulnerability vulnerability to abuse are the children children o the town, town, Vivius Strap’s donkey, the wild bears when a party o hunters is ater them, and every horse, dog, sheep and goat that comes under the control o a human being. Te novel novel is told in very distinct distinctive ive voices. voices. How difcult was that to maintain mai ntain throughout?
Easy-peasy, once I got it going. Te trouble was not writing in it when I moved on to other things! No, the narrative voice was there pretty much rom the rst scene I wrote (which remains as the rst scene o chapter 1, the rst miscarriage scene). And then, just when I thought it was all getting a bit smoothly owing and pleasant, Collaby Dought introduced himsel, and he was so rude and greedy and blunt and unny, he rereshed the whole story. [Ten] I had Bullock take over that role o the ungrammatical but very straightorward st raightorward speaker spea ker,, and Muddy Annie’s Annie’s dialogue was also in that vein. But I always wanted the story to eel like a airytale, and the main thirdperson narration I wanted to have the weird combination o privileged pri vileged knowledge and slight distance, slight hovering-over the subjects’ lives and stories, slight objectivity, that traditional oral-based stories oten have. Right rom the opening lines, this is a very “adult” YA novel. Do you think about audience when you write a book like this?
I try to think less about audience than I used to. With this one, though, I was conscious, mostly as I wrote the rst couple o chapters where all the awul sexual stu happens (oh, and the good sex o the prologue), that it was likely to
150
MONSTROUS CREATURES
be marketed somewhere as YA, so I was careul (a) to warn people straight s traight up with the rst sentence (“Tere are plenty would call her a slut or it. it .”) and (b) to glide without description over the very worst parts o the assaults on Liga. You never see the details o her being raped by her ather, and there is a big jump-cut past her rape by the town boys. Tis way, readers who want to preserve something o their innocence can glide right with me; they know that something awul happened, but they don’t don’t have to watch either event as Muddy Annie says, “rom rst umble to last thrust and drizzle.” Less innocent readers will have to endure the images their imaginations throw up at them, and may not even realise that I only suggested them, didn’t actually draw them on the page. You You deal with with issues in your your ction that some people people nd controv controversial, ersial, like sex, abuse, etc. et c. But I don’ don’t get the sense sens e that you set out to be controversial. Are you surprised when people nd something controv controversial ersial in your your ction?
Not really; I know the parts o lie that t hat I like to explore in ction are oten the parts that many people peopl e don’ don’t like to even look at, let alone spend spe nd time wondering about, so I have to expect the occasional knee-jerk reaction. But really, really, compared to the movies and just your normal day’s day’s worth o ree-toair television, my stories are quite tame. I sometimes think it’s just easier to attack a book, because it isn’t backed up by so much money and celebrity power, than it is to complain about a movie or V show you think is showing sex or violence too graphically. Te movie/V powers-that-be tend to shrug and say, ‘Well, no one’s orcing you to watch,’ but the same rule rarely seems to be quoted in relation to books—their simple presence, their availability, say, in a school library, is enough to have some people cough Ms Palin cough oaming at the mouth. o what extent does living in Australia inuence your ction? Some would claim that when you write antasy the place in which you live is at best expressed in your ction indirectly...
Tis is a big, rich question. In terms o ender Morsels ...Well, ...Well, I was just about to say, this is not Australia, this is some kind o airytale Eastern Europe, but in act you don’t have to look very hard at this book to nd the kind o
Jeff VanderMeer
151
boohead male behaviour Australia has something o a reputation or, so maybe my homeland is making itsel elt that way. Ten you could start drawing all sorts sor ts o parallels about St Olared’s Olared’s being the centre o commerce and politics and power and Liga’s cottage being all isolated and remote down d own there in the valley—but then you’ you’d be getting gett ing silly. silly. I don’t know that this is a question that can be answered rom the inside. Tere are some US readers who say they can see a characteristic ‘Australianness’ in my stories, but I don’t really know what they’re talking about. People tend to xate a little on this, and spot Australianisms where they don’t exist; or example, assuming that any strange turn o phrase they encounter is something characteristically Australian, when in act, you know, know, I’m I’m a writer writ er,, I make things up. Or that any dark-skinned person in a story is Aboriginal; generally my darkskinned people are just dark-skinned people. Why do you you write? And what would happen happen i you you stopped writing? writing?
I write because, when I was pushing pushin g thirty, thirty, I decided that, as I had no n o burning ambition to do anything in particular, pa rticular, I needed to choose an activity to ocus on that I could possibly develop into a career, but that was also rewarding in itsel. I think perhaps I concentrated too hard on the career-development aspect or a while; these days it’s primarily the reward-in-itsel that I try to keep oremost in my mind as I write. I I stopped writing, I’d have to nd some other outlet or this vast backlog o ideas I’ve accumulated. I’d probably collage, and maybe take the WD-40 to my drawing skills. What about the world world do you you most love? love?
Te act that I’m not here by mysel.
INTERROGATING OTHER PEOPLE’S MONSTERS
Prague Reimagined: Michal Ajvaz’s The Other The Other City City Omnivoracious , June 2009
he Other City by Czech writer Michal Ajvaz repopulates the city o Kaka
with ghosts, eccentrics, talking animals, and impossible statues. As the jack ja cket et copy co py read re ads, s, the th e novel nov el ser se r ves ve s as a kind ki nd o “guid “gu ideb eboo ookk to this th is invi in visi sibl blee ‘other Prague,’ Prague,’ overlappi overlapping ng the workaday world: a place plac e where libraries can turn into jungles, secret passages yawn beneath our eet, and waves lap at our bedspreads.” Clearly, the publisher, Dalkey Archive Press, is trying to evoke echoes o Italo Calvino and Jorges Luis Borges. However, he Other City tells a more conventional story than Borges and it is too much Ajvaz’s own creation and style to be called “Calvino-esque”—especially since Ajva Aj vaz’ z’ss pro p rose se in tran tr ansl slat atio ionn is i s mea m eati tier, er, les l esss dr d r y in i n its i ts hu humo mor, r, more mo re gene ge nero rous us in its descriptions. A book, naturally, naturally, triggers the adventure embarked upon by our nameless narrator, a book that shows that “the rontier o our world is not ar away; it doesn’ doesn’t run along the horizon or in the depths. It glimmers aintly close by, in the twilight o our nearest surroundings; out o the corner o our eye we can always glimpse another world, without realizing it.” Tere’s Tere’s a denite deni te whimsical streak in Te Other City , and at rst I thought it might overwhelm the solid oundation o reality needed to make most antasies work. However, However, the whimsy becomes encrusted en crusted with the absurd and the grotesque until it begins to make the reality look l ook almost ephemeral by comparison. Strange scenes involving bizarre sh and other monstrosities evoke the great Czech lmmaker Svankmajer, with a hint o Dali in their nimbleness. Ten there are overheard conversations, as when the narrator eavesdrops on a surreal discussion between a teacher and a girl, with the teacher bombastically
Jeff VanderMeer
155
making various claims only or the girl to give this remarkable speach: “Te girl moved closer to the teacher. ‘Don’ ‘Don’t ool yoursel,’ yoursel,’ she said harshly harshl y. ‘Te artillery artiller y will never return. Tey will study in a decaying, incredible Oxord o garbage tips. Te candied books will be conscated and, or the glory o shiny and cruel machines, they will be tossed into saurians rom the reviewing stand. (Saurians in those days will still parade obediently our abreast, but soon aterwards they will conspire with us little girls and declare aloud what has been hushed up or centuries, namely, that dogs have no objective existence).’” When the teacher protests that he has solved this problem by purging “geometry o polar animals. Are you saying that was all in vain?” the girl replies, “O course it was all in vain... You You purged geometry o polar animals...You animals...You’’ve orgotten the rst axiom o Euclid states that there will always be one or two penguins in geometrical space?” And so it goes. Tere’ T ere’ss a tension in Te Other City between the anciul and the baroque, the cleverly odd and the deeply odd, odd , that makes the novel work. It’s It’s the kind o book you let wash over you in waves—episodic, unny but not too silly, silly, and marked by a rst-class imagination. It deserves deser ves a longer review than I’ve given it here, but ull marks to Dalkey Archive Press or introducing readers in English to the talented Michal Ajvaz.
The Perils and Triumphs of Transformation: China Mieville’s Un L Un Lun Dun Previously unpublished
Commonsense tells us that antastical cities must contain echoes o real cities— rom architecture to culture, rom the cadence o street speech to the heelextinguished cigarette in the gutter. Usually the oundation o the imaginary creation comes rom the general eel o one or two amiliar cities, onto which the writer grats the more speculative elements. Like all grats, some antastical cities are more successul or “authentic” than others. For each reader the point poin t o ailure to make a place believable may be quite dierent. It might be as simple as a sloppy detail or as complex as a alse note in the way a city’s government deals with its citizens. (Historical novelists ace some o the same technical tech nical issues, because, in a sense, they are creating phantom cities.) Te writer o contemporary ction has an arguably dierent burden o proo. Portraying a city as i through a window is a kind o creative journalism. Consult your avorite travel guide series, excise some interesting acts, and sprinkle them throughout your narrative at your peril. Actually traveling to or living in the city in question gives you a much better shot at getting it right. You know how the place sounds, eels, and tastes. You know its caes, its bars, its attractions, and its rhythms. Still, you may get it wrong. No matter how these rhythms may seem the same, every city has its own surprises. At a train stop at a city in Germany last summer, summer, my wie and I walked through a bustling station and up to t o our platorm. wo minutes later, I wandered back down to get some snacks. Every shop was closed and there wasn’ wasn’t a soul in the station. sta tion. I’d I’d chanced upon an unamiliar unamili ar,, very specic urban pattern, but to me it was like entering an eerie antasy land. When a writer provides a deliberate reection or shadow o a real city, the situation changes somewhat. Many readers will be amiliar with the reality and
Jeff VanderMeer
157
judge the extrapolation or transormation in the antasy more sternly because o it. Authenticity, even when it comes to shadows and reections, matters to readers. So does playulness, however, and a deliberate reinterpretation provides a myriad o possibilities or play. China Miéville’ Mié ville’ss Un Lun Dun ollows this third route, taking t aking London’s London’s urban grime and ashioning a shioning an UnLondon rom it in which the real city’s city’s problems are literalized, sometimes in unexpected ways. Te novel ollows the misadventures o Zanna and her riend Deeba. Ater Zanna receives a series o hints in the real London that she is “the chosen one,” the two girls nd their way to the mirror UnLondon. In UnLondon, honest—i strange—olk are ghting against evil smog that threatens to kill them all. Ater a series o encounters and a return to London, Deeba embarks on what amounts am ounts to a tour o UnLondon while dealing with traitors, trash can ninjas, bloodthirsty giraes, and many other odd things, beore, as might be predicted, everything returns more or less to normal. As a antasy or children, Un Lun Dun contains many delights, including Miéville’s plentiul illustrations, which may remind the reader o work by the amous German illustrator Walter Moers. Adults may have difculty enjoying the novel, however, as the characters are at and interchangeable, their dialogue oten seeming like a placeholder or something more authentic. A kind o aux moxie seems to be Deeba and Zanna’s main attribute, which becomes grating, especially when the novel comes to a clattering halt or lengthy conversations in which helpul eccentrics explain various aspects o UnLondon to them. However, Miéville largely saves Un Lun Dun by virtue o his transormative imagination, as he turns Real into UnReal. In doing so, he tends to make his antasy city universal by deault: an ur-urban place o waste and decay and pollution in which those elements become perversely charming or the most part, rather than threatening or depressing. In short, this is not UnLondon, but UnCity. UnCity. For Londonphiles, this may seem like a wasted opportunity or a ailure o nerve. o o which I say, say, i you want a good dose o gritty g ritty young adult ad ult urban antasy antasy set around London, read the Borribles trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti. I you want the literalization o extended metaphor at the service o universal urban elements, you’ll you’ll enjoy Miéville’s Miéville’s vision. visi on.
158
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Miéville’s principle means o urban transormation is anthropomorphic in nature. Tis is evident rom the rst scenes in UnLondon, in which the two girls wind up with a pet milk carton ater being ollowed by a “trash pack,” a pile o living reuse: Te rubbish was close. It had slowed, and was creeping towards them. Te stinking heap came with motions as careul and catlike as its odd shapes would allow. Te stench o old dustbins was strong. Ragged black plastic reached out with its rip-arms, trailing rubbish juice like a slug’s slime. In this visceral way, Miéville reminds us o what a city leaves behind—and that what it i t leaves behind behi nd doesn’t doesn’t disappear. It has to be dealt d ealt with by someone. Buildings receive various random treatments throughout the novel, depending, I would imagine, on Miéville’s mood at the time o conception. Some are “like London terraces, but considerably more ramshackle, spindly and convoluted.” Others are comortingly domestic/rustic, basically trees with “open-ronted bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen” perched in their branches, people visible “brushing “brushin g their teeth or kicking back their covers.” Still Still others dey real-world parallels, such as “a house-sized st...with windows in its knuckles” or “the shell o a huge turtle, with a door in the neck hole”—although certain architectural experiments o the 1960s and 70s come to mind. Houses in Miéville’s imagination, as oten in ours, can also “leer,” they can look like “skyscraper-high chests o drawers,” with “spires like melting candles” or “like enormous hats.” Except, in UnLondon you can never be sure just how guratively to take such descriptions. Sometimes while reading the novel, I imagined Miéville walking walkin g through the streets o London, transorming the city cit y. Such descriptions, while oten just eye candy, are still wonderul to read. In terms o an urban ecosystem, Miéville creates tie-ins to the architecture that make a rough biological sense. Perhaps the most dramatic o these is the grossbottle, a kind o y that eeds on dead buildings and also serves ser ves as transportation or rogues. A gian giantt y y eas eastin tingg on on urba urbann rema remains ins is a pote potent nt symbol o the cycle o decay. decay.
Jeff VanderMeer
159
But the most ubiquitous urban element in Un Lun Dun is smog. Disappointingly, ingly, given the blissul lack o explanation explanati on about his other literalizations, literalization s, Miéville decides to explain how smog became alive in UnLondon: Tere were so many chemicals swelling around in it that they reacted together. Te gases, and liquid vapor and brick dust and home dust and acids and alkalis, red through by lightning, lightnin g, heated up and cooled down, tickled by electric wires and stirred up by the wind—they reacted together and made an enormous, diuse cloud-brain. Because o the Frankenstein explanation, the smog is one o the ew imaginative elements that at rst seems trite. However, out o smog and smog brains comes a wonderul assortment o smog underlings and byproducts, including smog zombies, stink junkies, smog zones, and smoglodytes. All o these creations bring a smile when rst encountered, being horribly delightul, but then a rown. Tat these images are escapist is an inescapable conclusion— they make tolerable, even cute, something that in reality is ar worse than any maniestation o it in UnLondon. Te smog subculture isn’t the only stroke o inspiration in the novel. Another relates to our inability to accept the consequences o our consumption: the concept o “moily technology, technology,” derived rom the acronym MOIL, or Mildly Obsolete in London. A bus driver points out “a building made rom typewriters and dead televisions” and explains: You You’’ve seen an old computer, or a broken radio or whatever, whatever, let on the streets? It’s there or a ew days and then it’s just gone. Sometimes rubbish collectors have taken it, but oten as a s not it ends up here, where people nd other uses or it. It seeps into UnLondon. In other areas o invention, Miéville does, admittedly, miss opportunities or come up short. For example, there’s a denitely underwhelming shock o the new when Deeba and Zanna rst arrive in UnLondon and are conronted
160
MONSTROUS CREATURES
by a sloppily-described market: “It was big, ull o stalls, and scores o people, movement, the bustle o a market.” A bus the two girls ride in, even when it unctions like a hot air balloon or grows arms, cannot match such classic public transportation transormations as the cat bus in Miyazaki’s My Neighbor otoro otoro and seems like a second-rate invention. More importantly, while reading Un Lun Dun, I never got a sense that the author knew his creation that well. Character descriptions and literalizations literaliza tions like the gross bottles or the smog zombies aside, there is a sense missing o how the streets come together, o where one place is in relation to another, and even the basics o where characters are standing in certain scenes. sce nes. Ater awhile, you eel as i you’re on a stage or production set—that i you push too hard against a wall, it will all down and reveal a parking lot and the corner ast ood restaurant. Te sense o place is rooted less in the place than in the literalizations that inhabit the spaces used or scenes in the novel. In a sense, the grossbottle, the trashcan ninjas, the trash pack, the smog zombies—these characters charact ers are the setting and there’s there’s no there there anymore. For this reason, Un Lun Dun is a sometimes maddening mix o rst-class imagination and an odd inability, inability, on one level, to visualize the City ransormed. ransormed. Characters, likewise, are colorul and brash, but no more so tthan, han, say, say, the grossbottle. Is Miéville saying that urban landscapes devour people? Tat people in a city exist at the same level o relie as the material things around them? I don’t think so. I think these are just aws in an interesting, oten un, but never perect novel.
Two Tw o New Anthology Series, Tw Two o Views of Comics Bookslut , November 2006
Te Best American Comics guest edited by Harvey Pekar
Clearly a lot o thought and love went into the creation o Te Best American Comics , this rst volume in a new series rom Houghton Miin. Te gold highlights and lovely subdued mystery o the cover match a commitment inside the book to a layout that eectively showcases the content. (Some readers may note a similarity si milarity to the McSweeney’ McSweeney’s comics volume, a great model.) Guest editor Harvey Pekar and series editor Anne Elizabeth Moore have assembled an equally attractive collection o thirty-one comics, including work rom Kim Deitch, Chris Ware, Ware, Alex Robinson, Lynda Berry, Berry, Robert Crumb, Cr umb, Ben Katchor, and Rebecca Dart. Moore says in her preace, that “Te collection o work you now hold in your hands is a small army o… examples o insolence. Many o the works are political in nature, disdainul o war, corporate culture, the death penalty, labor rights, and rampant right-wing politics.” Tis may be true, but there are several apolitical pieces, and the style o illustration varies rom simple to complex, rom the pseudo-primitive to ne-art sophistication. Sources are as various as McSweeney McSweeney’s, ’s, Te Guardian, and World War War III Illustrated , among others. Moore also admits to a preerence or “inventive yet accessible graphic storytelling,” but her denition o “accessible” demonstrates great range. For example, I can’t can’t think o anything I’ve I’ve seen in comics or ction cti on recently (well, maybe Mark Danielewski’s latest novel) as wonderully odd, as ormally experimental, and yet as satisying as Rebecca Dart’s RabbitHead. Tis mindblowing sequence o surreal adventures begins as one narrative thread and branches out into seven threads beore collapsing back in on itsel. RabbitHead
162
MONSTROUS CREATURES
demonstrates a twinned playulness playulne ss and seriousness that hooks into your thoughts or days ater reading it. I asked Dart about her inspiration or the comic, and she wrote back: It was the summer o 2004 and I was watching a Polish Movie Movie rom 1965 called the Saragossa Manuscript . It’s a great movie, a little long and slow in some parts, where a couple o characters start to tell a story and the narrative switched to that story and this continues until you have all these stories that have to wait their turn to be told. I thought this was a really neat structure, but it was easy to get lost and orget who was whom. I thought it would work better as a comic [because] you could have the stories running r unning simultaneously on the same page. So I worked out a structure in thumbnail orm and just sort o made up the story as I went along. I had also just seen [Jodorowsky’s] El opo on the big screen, and ell in love with the symbolic messages being painted with a western brush…I did a thumbnail rst to work out the structure and the basic story, so I drew the narratives simultaneously. A lot changed as I drew out the nishes and re-worked some things. When the narratives ended, I worked backwards or a ew panels to make sure they ended e nded where they were supposed to. In contrast, a comic like Justin Hall’s “rue raveled ales” draws as little attention to its structure as possible in telling the very human and sad story o the narrator’s narrator’s encounter with a disturbed woman during a bus tour o Mexico. A realistic yet stylized approach with eective use o black or contrast reects the weight o the tale being told. Jonathan Bennett’s “Dance with the Ventures” rom Mome Mome uses the simple structure o ollowing a man as he walks around the block near his apartment and yet manages to include childhood memories and a series o commonplace neuroses that somehow take on a mysterious rather than annoying quality. quality. Lynda Barry’s Barry’s ull- and hal-page comic “ “ wo Questions” is about ab out what it means to be a creative person. he style is deceptively simple and yet each rame is so alive with image and motion that you can study a panel or a long time and not exhaust its richness. he honesty o the questions
Jeff VanderMeer
163
posed by the narrative capture the reader, while grace notes like a recurring octopus delight or their own sake. Other highlights include the stark desperation o Anders Nilsen’s Nilsen’s “Te Git,” Git,” the deeply silly adventure ris o Joel Priddy’s Priddy’s “Te Amazing Lie o Onion Jack,” Jack,” the bold, b old, unapol u napologeti ogeticc “Nakedness “Naked ness and a nd Power” by Seth obocma obocman, n, erisa erisa urner, urner, and Leigh Brownhill, and the sobering realism o Joe Sacco’s “Complacency Kills,” to name just a handul. A ew entries do phone it in. Alex Robinson’ Robinson’s ricked had a really bad pay-o and was mediocre compared to his amazing Box Ofce Poison, so I was a little surprised to see ricked excerpted in this volume. Tere are also no surprises in R. Crumb’s Crumb’s entry and an d some readers will wonder wond er i his inclusion is or iconic reasons alone. But, in general, this book is alive, vibrant, and engages the world in a variety o ways, rom the overtly political to the surreal and the subtle. I also like what Pekar has to say in his introduction. Tere’s Tere’s a kind o absolutist mentality displayed d isplayed by many m any year’s year’s best editors ed itors that isn i sn’’t present in his approach: “Now listen, I’m I’m not claiming these the se are the absolute best comics com ics issued in a given twelve-month period. I haven’t haven’t seen all o the comics published in that time and neither have the hard-working, painstaking pai nstaking people I’m I’m working with. with . But there’s there’s good, oten original stu in this collection that I hope will open readers’ eyes to the breadth o subject matter that comics can deal with eectively.” Any year’ year’s best is going reect a mere sampling o quality, quality, especially in a eld as crowded as comics and graphic novels. However, I think Pekar and Moore have done an excellent job o presenting a variety o voices and approaches. It’s an auspicious, raucous, multi-aceted debut. An An Antho ntholo logy gy of Grap aphi hicc Fictio ction, n, Carto artoon ons, s, & rue rue Stori tories es,, edited by Ivan Brunetti
First, the good and most important news: editor Ivan Brunetti has created a lively, rambunctious overview o the North American comics scene with this our-hundred-page tome covering the past several years, along with several classics. Some o my avorite comics o all time are in An Anthology o Graphic Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & rue Stories , including R. Sikoryak’s “Good Ol’ Gregor
164
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Brown” and work rom the amazing Lynda Barry, Jim Woodring, Richard Sala, Adrian omine, ony Millionaire, and Bill Grifth, among dozens o others. Te best work I hadn’t encountered beore—I overlooked his contribution to —was the creepy and insanely stippled “Agony” by Mark Beyer, McSweeney McSweeney’s ’s —was which in part ris o o the style o Munch’ Munch’s “Te Scream.” Scream.” Four hundred pages isn’t enough to be systematically comprehensive (where’re (where’re Matt Groening, Will Eisner, and Charles Burns, to name nam e but a ew?). e w?). For example, I would have liked to have seen more surreal and antastical work in this volume. However, an editor should play to his passions and Brunetti tries very hard to be diverse and inclusive within his own set o likes and dislikes. (Although Brunetti should have resisted the impulse to include his own work in the volume.) Te other good news is that, graphically, Anthology , like Best American Comics , reers back to the McSweeney McSweeney’s ’s comics volume, which, it appears, has become the design touchstone or these kinds o books. (Someday, someone in a laboratory somewhere may come up with something more original that works better, but in the meantime...) Now or the bad news. Almost all o the essay-article text in the book is mediocre, starting with Brunetti’s Brunetti’s introduction. It seems as i it is there mostly to take up space. Anyone who “behooves to articulate” or who reduces comics down to banal statements like “...when we begin to read [comics], we enter their world so to speak, and suddenly characters, situations, and emotions are seemingly animated in our mind’s eye” is aching to be put out o the reader’s misery. An ill-ated extended analogy comparing comics to “the inexorable march o lie” reminded me o the English papers o countless rst-year college students trying, in excruciating ashion, to reach a minimum word count. Tere’s really no other way to explain something like this: “O “ O course there’s there’s also the eventual calcication calcicati on and decay o old age, not to mention the inevitability o death, so it may be best not to urther belabor this ragile, shaky metaphor, wholly unounded as it is.” Te rest o the nonction is a mixed bag, with Charles Schulz’s essay the most grossly repetitive and simplistic. Te placement also seems unbalanced,
Jeff VanderMeer
165
given that most o the nonction appears in the rst ourth o the anthology, ater which it disappears until the very end. Like the editors o McSweeney McSweeney’s ’s , Brunetti eschews using a table o contents (other than a useless whimsical illustrated one) so you can’ can’t nd anything anythi ng easily, easily, especially the nonction, and the reader has no clear idea o when most o these comics were rst published or where, or which might be originals, i any such exist in the book. Some o the excerpts include copyright dates, some don’t. Part o the point o an overview is to provide anchors to time and place, and Brunetti’s only concession to this is to end with thumbnail creator notes, which are marginally helpul. ake, or example, “Good Ol’ Charlie Brown,” mentioned above. I vaguely recall seeing it in a volume o RAW RAW . Tere’s no way o telling rom Anthology whether I’m I’m right or not. In this sense, and a ew others (like having an ungainly subtitle as a title), Brunetti has created an inspired sprawl rather than a ocused anthology. Why does this matter? It matters i you care about things like the dierence between being an editor and a caretaker o an anthology. anthology. It matters i you think the details are important. And it matters i you think, like I do, that comics are maturing (not in Brunetti’s Brunetti’s simplistic chronological sense) and that thereore t hereore not just their history but the acts o that history are important. Now, do I still think you should run right out and buy Antholo Anthology gy ? Yes, absolutely. No single volume can really do the comics scene justice. You have to cross-triangulate i you want completeness. Acquire the McSwee McSweeney ney’s ’s comics volume or some insightul essays and excellent excerpts. Buy Best American Comics or material published in i n a particular year. Get Anthology Anthology or a richer sense o American comics and or its sheer exuberance. And then go out and buy Flights or a crosssection o more antastical are that includes American creators.
Tove Jansson’s Moomin Comics Bookslut, Omnivoracious Omnivoracious , July 2009, February 2008
Among the many pleasures o visiting Helsinki, Finland, Finland, last year—sauna, year—sauna, island restaurants, choppy boat rides, great people—was discovering the multi-aceted work o the late ove Jansson. You couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over Moomin books, picture books, cartoon collections, stued toys, erasers, stationery st ationery,, and a thousand other things. At rst, beore we knew the context, Moomin was a mysterious creature. We even thought that perhaps Moomin was a cartoon character created by the Finland tourism board to acilitate acilita te communication with visitors. But slowly, as we walked through Helsinki, everything became clear… Utterly delightul or children and adults, Moomin is a hippopotamuslooking creature who, along with cohorts like giant rats, white nger-looking creatures, and others, has strange and wonderul adventures. Moomin and the other creatures Jansson drew are rendered in an appropriately simple style, s tyle, while the backgrounds are oten nuanced and complex. Te Moomins orm a strong amily unit, accompanied by a cast o revolving secondary characters including, erm, Snorkmaiden. Te sense o amily is strong in these comic strips, even when they argue. Also strong is the sense o humor, which varies rom slapstick to a more subtle undercurrent o wry amusement about the world. Absurdity also plays a part, as when Moominpapa tries to reassemble two broken household appliances and winds up building a time machine instead. What makes the whole world o the Moomins work, however, is something kind o old-ashioned and yet sincere: love and aection not only or each other but or the world. Although conict and plot complication based on conict exist in Jansson’ Jansson’s universe, she also a lso manages to make the stories st ories work because o themes like riendship and working together to solve problems. In less skillul hands, this would be odder or sticking one’s nger down
Jeff VanderMeer
167
one’s throat in revulsion at the treacly whimsy o it all. However, ove Jansson was a pragmatist and also, i her work is any indication, a wise person. Beneath the gentle surace o Moomin Moomin there is a sly, wicked wit and much non-didactic commentary about the world and people’s place in it. Moomin: Te Complete ove ove Jansson Comic Strip rom Drawn & Quarterly nally collects the Moomin comics or U.S. readers. First run in the 1950s in the London Evening News and syndicated around the world, Moomin has a timeless quality. Te antasy element and the emphasis on universal themes like love and riendship—combined with eccentric quests (sometimes with a slapstick quality to them)—allow modern readers to appreciate these classics all over again. A typical storyline might include Moomin having to house unexpected relatives and thus seek out extra money to cover the expense, leading to a series o misadventures rom which he emerges unscathed but none the richer. Something also must be said about the eortlessness o these comic strips. Tere isn’t a word or image out o place. I cannot think o another comic strip that gives me as much pleasure as this one. Because o these qualities, there’s a pleasure in reading Moomin that’s somewhat unique. We’re battered all day by various types o white noise and by all kinds o blaring media, rom television to video games. Moomin has a restorative, calming eect while never being maudlin, sentimental, or boring. (Indeed, Jansson’ Jansson’s eye or satire can be sharp and unorgiving, within the context o her beloved characters.) In her native Finland, Jansson’s creation is the equivalent o Mickey Mouse here or Bugs Bunny in the United States—beloved and a national institution. It’s wonderul that English-language readers can now collect the entire comic strip in such attractive editions. Jansson also wrote books or adults, and I highly recommend her Te Summer Book , a unny, sometimes sad, and always wise series o vignettes about a grandmother and and granddaughter living on one o Finland’s Finland’s outlying islands.
Bittersweet Fantasy: Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper Realms o Fantasy , 2007
Te history o Fantasy is littered with the scattered remains o books that took their magic seriously but not their characters—or, characters—or, more accurately, didn’ didn’t take lie seriously. rue antasy classics, in any medium, reect what we know about the real world: that it is a bittersweet place in which terrible things sometimes happen or no apparent reason. Further, imagination and creativity must be wedded to the personal, with actions having real consequences. Otherwise, we’re let with diaphanous eye candy that may hold up on a rst read but doesn’t remain in the reader’s memory any longer than the weather report on the evening news. Which brings me to Kazu Kibuishi. As the editor o the groundbreaking Flight series, a very good yearly anthology o antasy comics, Kibuishi has introduced readers to great antasy storytelling rom a wide variety o creators. Now, in Te Stonekeeper , book one o his Amulet series, Kibuishi unveils the beginning o a truly imaginative yet grounded story that may well become a classic. In the opening scene o Te Stonekeeper , Emily and Navin’s ather, David, dies in ront o their eyes during a car accident. wo years later, the children and their mother, mother, Kathy, Kathy, move to an ancestral home because they can’ can’t aord to live in their the ir old house anymore. Silas Charnon, the children’s children’s great-grandather, purportedly locked himsel himsel away in the house ater the death o his wie and a nd was never heard rom again. Now, years later, Kathy is spirited away into a tunnel by a tentacled creature. Te children race ater her, only to nd themselves in a strange underground land. In their thei r attempts to nd their thei r mother, mother, they encounter all manner o peculiar creatures and people. Elves, robots, and mysterious cloaked strangers make appearances, without these disparate elements seeming to clash. In terms o the larger story arc, the children seem to have stumbled into a larger battle, the outlines o which they can only vaguely see, but which, in part,
Jeff VanderMeer
169
revolves around an amulet Emily ound in the house. By the end o book one, a ew mysteries have been resolved—like, what happened to Silas Charnon—but new mysteries have replaced them. Te art in Te Stonekeeper is ully up to the task o illuminating illuminat ing the complex and multilayered plot. As a counterpoint to the intense nature o the action, Kibuishi nds joy and delight in ingenious portrayals o monsters and o the underground land through which Emily and Navin travel during most o Te Stonekeeper . Giant mushrooms used as parachutes, stampeding herds o huge tick-like creatures, land-dwelling squid embedded in the walls o a corridor, a marvelous ying ship—these are only a ew o the wonders that await readers. Te color palate throughout is burgundy-rich without being garish, Kibuishi’s drawing style expressive and det without being acile. Te detail work on backgrounds is complex but not overwhelming. In interviews, intervie ws, Kibuishi has cited Je Smith’ Smith’s Bone and Hayao Miyazaki lms as inuences. I so, the inuence is subsumed enough that Te Stonekeeper doesn’t eel like pastiche. Unlike Bone , Kibuishi doesn’t indulge as much in slapstick— given the serious subject matter, it would be difcult to incorporate too much humor. Te book also lacks Miyazaki’s environmental concerns, which tend to aect the overall tone and individual set pieces in his movies. In act, there’s a great old-ashioned eel to Te Stonekeeper , in that there’s little irony and no winking at the audience. Tis helps to reinorce suspension o the reader’s reader’s disbelie even e ven during the most m ost outrageous events. For example, could a giant mushroom really work as a way or a child to glide rom the top o a cli to saety? Probably not. But, under the spell o Kibuishi’s Kibuishi’s magic, we believe it i t or as long as we need to. Tis old-ashioned quality is mirrored in the design o the robots in the book, which harkens back to the 1950s. It’s a charming eect. Te Stonekeepe Stonekeeper r is being marketed to children and young adult, but it contains plenty o marvels or all readers. I highly recommend it.
Dream Worlds: David B.’s Nocturnal Conspiracies Omnivoracious , June 2009
Te inspired grotesqueries o dreams haunt or delight those who experience them, become ready-made anecdotes to tell to riends and amily at least in part to dilute their power, sometimes even to reassure the dreamer that there’s no reality to them. Opportunists like writers and artists go a step urther and use dreams as the odder or inspiration. Sometimes the nal drawing or story, painting or novel, strays ar rom the original sleeping vision, with the less organic but oten necessary necessar y accoutrements o plot or o a larger context added add ed to give the spark a greater or more complex or just more logical lie. But at other times, the temperament o the creator—or example, an Alred Kubin or a Franz Kaka, an Angela Carter or a Rikki Ducornet—is perectly suited or taking dream and making it powerul or an audience without adding much. Simply by reporting back rom the realm o the subconscious, their voice, their style, their view o the world, creates a satisactory reaction rom the reader or audience. For this type o art to work, it must be composed primarily o what I call “charged” images. On a basic level, an image in a book or a painting can either be inert or charged, with other descriptions o this latter state ranging rom “luminous” to the banal and simplistic “symbolic” (because the term inevitably reduces image to one thing or another, and evokes the word “Freudian,” which imposes strict purpose on imagery in a way I nd distasteul). An inert image is one that more or less is what it represents, without any urther lie inhabiting it. A charged image ima ge is also what it represents, but contains some other quality that t hat animates it in the reader’s reader’s mind. It has a resonance that connects with something universal, or perhaps even something personal. In addition, because a dream-story or dream-art tends to bring the stylized, stylized , the ritualized, to the oreground—in a sense making subtext physical—there’s
Jeff VanderMeer
171
a kind o intensity o detail that must occur to make the surace o the story or art work. Let’s say a bear in a dream has some psychological or other signicance beyond being simply a bear. Placed into a story or piece o art in a dreamlike way, that bear must still unction at some level other than symbol—although its actions may be symbolic or in some way use other-logic , the physicality o the bear provides the surace or skin o the story or art. Tis is why so many surreal paintings, or example, require a realistic approach on the micro level o detail detai l to make the macro level o grotesquery seem convincing. Tis is a somewhat roundabout way o saying that David B.’s Nocturnal Conspiracies , a graphic novel o nineteen dreams dreamt by the creator, works because these illustrated vignettes vignet tes get the details right, and David B. knows when to add just enough causality to allow his images to remain charged and dreamlike without diluting their eect. It’s irrelevant whether this is because he’s true to dreams in which he is a passive observer to active events or because he’s added this element o suspense. Te press release in this case is quite right that “there is nothing deeply de eply Freudian here,” here,” but the images im ages are charged, they are powerul, they are not inert. For this reason—because David B. doesn’t doesn’t edit the erocity or insanity insani ty o the images that orm the nuclei o his dreams— d reams—Nocturnal Conspiracies can be deeply disturbing in places. People on spits. A corpse being devoured by monsters. A creature in the orm o a gun. Sometimes these elements have a political, contemporary element, and sometimes they do not, but the block print quality o David B.’s art lends them all the same detailed-yet-surreal imprimatur o dream. It brings cohesion through strength o style to what might otherwise seem random—it makes the book more a continuing journey than a series o episodes, with images eeding o o each other in interesting ways. Tere’s Tere’s a sense, too, o the jolly jol ly grotesquery o, well, Grotesques, which were oten amusing drawings o antastical beasts created by gold- and silversmiths, even i we are most amiliar am iliar with them in i n the context o Bosch’s Bosch’s more apocalyptic work. A cat-squid creature resembles a spirit-world cat bus rom Miyazaki’s delightul movie m ovie My Neighbor otoro. otoro. A panel o covers rom “books by Roland
172
MONSTROUS CREATURES
opor which I didn’t know about” includes a boy-headed dog looking at a dogheaded person. A book o documented dreams can encompass both the horriying and the absurdly unny in part because the wellspring or both impulses is the same. Finally, there’s the urther risson while reading Nocturnal Conspiracies o recognizing that because David B. is working in a non-realistic non-reali stic although detailed style we are only getting an approximation o an approximation o his actual dreams, many o which you’d really have to call nightmares. In recognizing the distance between what’s disturbing on the page and what’s disturbing in someone’s mind—where realism comes with no pricetag, no matter how expensive a dream-scene might be to stage in a movie—then you could also say there might have been some necessity on the th e part o David B. to set these images down on paper. paper. Te block print style creates intimacy or the reader read er but distance or the creator. I know when I write a dream out into part o a story, whatever I write—which invariably cannot match the incredible sensory (sometimes terriying) detail o the experience—replaces the dream in my head, and i it’s particularly nightmarish, nightma rish, this has a cathartic eect. In sense, it’s it’s therapeutic, even i this has no bearing on how my readers view the story. Tis line o inquiry, however, begins to make claims or David B.’s purpose that cross into the highly speculative. Te main point here is: David B. has created a graphic novel that manages to be playul, wildly revelatory, revelatory, darkly imaginative, and outright creepy by nding a medium through which to make his dreams interesting to a reader. It’s a great book, and i I’ve meandered here it’s in part because it evoked a complex reaction rom me.
Silence and Aversion: J. Robert Lennon’s Castle Barnes & Noble Review , April 2009
Intense psychological proles dominate the literature o unease, sometimes known as “neo-gothic” “neo-gothic” and typied by such modern masters as Brian Evenson. In these tales, the suggestion o something not quite right about the narrator or the protagonist is ollowed by the dread that we will learn unsettling unsettlin g inormation not only about the character but about ourselves. In Castle, an oten brilliant new ne w novel by J. Robert Robert Lennon, this classic paradigm is updated update d or a new century and a new context. Castle continues Lennon’s ascination with obeat and alienated characters, explored in a dierent voice and meter in his prior novel, the black comedy Mailman. errible events rom the past anchor Castle. Teir psychic weight presses down in unexpected ways on the present and in particular on Lennon’s narrator, Eric Loesch. Loesch returns to his childhood town o Gerrysburg, New York (pop. 2,310), intending to make a resh start ater experiencing severe trauma. A nancial settlement received as a result o his discharge rom military service has provided him with enough money to buy an old house sitting in hundreds o acres o nearly impenetrable orest. Te details o Loesch’s temperament and history aggregate to produce a subtly o-kilter portrait. A loner, Loesch keeps people at arm’s length out o an impulse to do no harm. He regularly practices relaxation techniques to keep himsel calm. Te circumstances o his parents’ death are sketchy at best, and he doesn’t keep photo albums because he isn’t “prone to reection at all.” As Loesch puts it, “I make my most important decisions according to the acts on the ground, and do not allow the past or some sentimental interpretation interpretati on o it, to interere with my present actions.” Te tragic absurdity behind these somewhat bloodless words becomes apparent later, but at the time the statement makes Loesch appear somewhat grounded and practical.
174
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Have circumstances orced Loesch to come home, or is he searching or something? He asserts that “the world was my enemy; it had driven me here, to this sanctuary sanctuar y,” but can we trust him? hi m? Te “sanctuary” o Loesch’s house has a cellar that terries him. Invoking a traditional gothic eel, Lennon describes the paint on the walls as actually “peeling, although rom an underlying dampness and rot.” rot.” He also nds, among other peculiar things let by the ormer owners, a child’s drawing o a “kind o castle, made o stone and turreted, with crenellated parapets, cannon ports, and a broad keep with round-arched windows.” Te house may be odd and creepy, but it’s the huge rock jutting out o the orest that proves downright perplexing. For starters, his realtor conrms that it doesn’t belong to him, despite being surrounded by his property. However, the monolith’ monolith’s physical presence disturbs Loesch more than the question o ownership: “...the way it interrupted the gentle curve o the land seemed like some kind o challenge or rebuke. It appeared much the way I imagined a great whale might break the surace o a calm sea to draw a mighty breath.” Troughout the novel Loesch hides many things beneath b eneath the “surace o a calm sea,” sea,” revealing them only in his nervousness or unease. Lennon’ Lennon’s symbolism here may seem too overt, but it’s it’s only rom such clues that we can begin to piece together Loesch’s story. Ater renovating the house, Loesch sets out to discover the owner o the rock. In doing so he sets in motion a series o events that orce him to conront his past, and each encounter jars loose more memories. First, his sister Jill visits, and he drives her away because be cause o a past grievance involving their thei r amily. amily. Ten he becomes xated on an ethereal white deer that appears at odd moments. He tries to penetrate the woods to reach the rock, only to become disoriented despite his military training. Tis disorientation causes him to tumble into a pit clearly dug to trap human beings. While he is stuck in the pit, stress brings the memory o his parents’ death to the surace. For awhile, the world does seem to t o be Loesch’ Loe sch’ss “enemy, “enemy,” or at least l east somewh s omewhat at threatening and mysterious. When Loesch nally makes it to the rock, he receives a urther jolt to t o his psyche: “Tere was not one such outcropping, it now appeared; there were three, plus a ourth that was shaped like a box. Tey were all
Jeff VanderMeer
175
connected by a high stone ston e wall, and were not natural ormations orm ations at all.” In short, the rock is the castle in the drawing Loesch ound on the wall in his new house. Loesch’ Loesch’s discoveries at the rock—and a subsequent nightmarish nightm arish retreat rom the orest ater someone steals his backpack o supplies—are the scenes on which Lennon’s Castle pivots and where the novel begins to subvert reader expectations. Lennon’ claustrophobic style and mood, which could support a classic supernatural approach, begin to veer instead toward the mundane. Meanwhile, the novel’s trajectory wormholes deeper into the past, opening up even more memories that Loesch has tried to keep hidden through his tricks o non-reection. Te primary pri mary revelation concerns the details o his parents’ involvement with a psychologist named Dr. Avery Avery Stiles. Stiles’ methods were unsound, his research experimental, his results controversial. Te man has also been missing or quite some time. Pushing up against this discovery o Stiles’ role in Loesch’s past are other mysteries. What was the castle’s purpose? What happened to Loesch in the military? Who is stalking him through the orest? Te answers oten shock both Loesch and the reader, leading to a conclusion that is satisying, appropriate, appropria te, and oddly hopeul. But plot doesn’t carry Castle —that —that burden alls to Loesch, the true castle under siege. He captures our attention by the bewildering number o deenses he builds to shut out what he doesn’t want to remember. In his silences and his aversions, we begin to see the outline o his burden, and we come to care about him because he chooses to try tr y to shield others rom the weight o that burden by locking it all inside. Tis tale o alienation and unease, o a war both internal and external, serves as one o the best arguments I’ve read or the potency o neo-gothic literature in the 21st century. Lennon has mobilized all the elements o the classic horror tale— including the descent o a character into dark places—to speak to modern issues. power, relevance, and Castle proves that in skillul hands these elements retain their power, surprising ability to humanize, even in our jaded and surreal times.
Stairs to Nowhere: House o House of Leaves f Leaves , Mark Z. Danielewski A house hou se that’ tha t’ss bigger big ger on the insid in sidee than tha n on the outsi out side. de. 1 A amily lmed alling apart apa rt and coming back bac k together again, again , horror mixed with a love story, story, the love story intertwined with a metaphysical/metactional mystery—and all o that hidden by rames within rames and doors within doors. Is House ne ver happened, o Leaves a document related to a horror movie o events that never or is it a record relating the events behind a documentary? 2 Tis is just one o the compelling questions set up by Danielewski in his ever-moving kaleidoscope o a novel. But I am so taken with House o Leaves not because it represents an updating o techniques irst canonized by Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, and, later, the irst postmodernists. Nor do I admire it primarily because, in its copious use o visuals, ootnotes,3 annotated texts, appendixtype material,4 color-coding, and odd typography, 5 it represents one o the 1 Danielewski is exacting about just how much the house subverts reality. When the novel’s protagonists move into the house, it has an extra six eet o corridor inside that should not exist. Not our eet. Not seven. Not some undisclosed amount. No, the husband actually measures it, based on the house’s house’s outside dimensions, dimens ions, and comes up with six eet. Somehow, Somehow, the precise nature n ature o this measurement adds to the horror. 2 Danielewski sprinkles his story with quotes about this lm rom amous artists, lmmakers, etc., but in such a context that the novel absorbs them. Seventy years rom now, even i no one knows who Dr. Joyce Brothers is, her quote will still resonate in House o Leaves . In a sense, the novel devours and recycles the real world whenever, through use o specic detail, it comes into contact with it. 3 It may be true that that some o the novel’s novel’s copious copious ootnotes stumble through the text like wayward wayward explorers caught in the bowels o a house bigger on the inside than the outside—sometimes a little closer to home, sometimes completely lost, and losing the reader at times, too. 4 It may be true that the additional additional text in the novel’s novel’s coda provides lovely epistolary entertainment while not always justiying its presence in the narrative. 5 However, However, all o this can be orgiven as a necessary subteruge—a kind o sel-conscious camouage that helps House o Leaves achieve greater depth and breadth. Sometimes a book has to be bigger on the inside so it can be bigger on the outside too.
Jeff VanderMeer
177
irst novels that could be considered a creature o the Internet.6 No, I love House o Leaves because the author deploys its myriad eects in the service o scaring you hal to death and making you care about its characters. Will Navidson, award-winning photojournalist and his (sometimes estranged) wie Karen Green, achieve a remarkable remarkab le reality in Danielewski’s Danielewski’s mirror-ractured narratives. Teir struggles with lie, their attempts to love each other, their attempts to deal with the horrors o their house—all o this has a raw yet sometimes delicate del icate poignancy. Tat may seem like a simple response to a novel composed o complex parts, but, really, the duality o love and horror orms the heart o House o Leaves . o dismiss or ignore these elements in avor o ocusing on the pyrotechnics o Danielewski’s approach is to ignore the reason why this novel has lingered in so many readers’ imaginations like some strange, dark, hal-remembered song. It also ignores the reason why House o Leaves , already a cult novel, will someday be considered a classic horror novel. I love House o Leaves or moments like this one about a Raleigh colony-era hunting expedition caught in winter blizzards, conveyed in a ootnote that, when I rst read it, had me shivering with the delight-in-shock that speaks to the so-called “primitive” part o the reading experience:
20 Janiuere, Janiuere, 1610
More now. now. Bitter cold. Tis is a terrible terribl e Place we have stumbled stum bled on. It has been a Week nce we haue spied spie d one living thing. Were Were it not or the torm we would have abandoned it. Verm was plagued by many bad Dreames last night. ...
6 Tat House o Leaves is at least a amiliar o the Internet is echoed by the story that the novel was rst published in various editions on the Internet. Is this true? It doesn’t matter; given the ephemeral nature o electronic publication, the rumor has a kind o mythical truth to it
MONSTROUS CREATURES
178
22 Janiuere, 1610 We We are dying. No No ood. No helter. iggs dreamt he aw all now about us turn Red with blood. And then the last entry: entr y: 23 Janiuere, 1610 Ftaires! We We have ound taires!7 Tis digression provides a miniature example o how the author has managed to channel the marvelous sense o expanding-contracting space and time J.G. Ballard perected in his early short ction—almost as i Ballard had taken a sudden right turn into the horror eld. Troughout House o Leaves , Danielewski plays with the reader’s sense o scale, meshing more cerebral mind-bending with the emotional struggle at the heart o the book. In what other novel can the reader nd the more disturbing elements o the Blair Witch Project cross-pollinated with a Kierkegaardian existential quest? In the end, the novel achieves its greatest eect through its exploration o Karen Green and Will Navidson’s wounded relationship—and through Will’s obsession with discovering the mystery myste ry behind the house and Karen’s Karen’s willingness to risk everything to try tr y to save him. Tese two elements could be lited rom the oldest o horror novels. Because, i you slough away the various tricks and special eects, House o Leaves is a tangled and knotted narrative rope leading leadin g down into a ormless abyss. We care about the characters clinging to that rope, and do not want to see them all.8
7 At the time, I was in a small plane that was making a difcult landing in a thunderstorm, but nothing could tear my attention away rom House o Leaves . Despite the sometimes maddening digressions, the novel held me as rapt as any airport thriller, making it hard or me to decide whether to read ast to nd out what would happen next, or to read slow to savor the heady sense o unease. Te hint o the house’s inuence extending into the past, conveyed through that one short ootnote, created the same shudder o recognition as more visceral shocks I’d had reading more direct horror novels. 8 “But what about Johnny Johnny ruant? What What about Zampano? Zampano? How How can you you ignore two whole whole layers o the novel?” you may ask. o which I reply, I haven’t ignored them at all, i you examine this record closely.
Future Past: Brian Francis Slattery’s Liberation Te Believer , February 2009
Central Question: What’s the dierence between a criminal and a liberator? Representative Representative Sentence/Line: Sentence/Line: “Write your anger on the surace o world in letters
o re, and let them rage until the words have destroyed everything.” In Brian Francis Slattery’s second novel, Liberation: Being the Adventures o the Slick Six Ater the Collapse o the United States o America , the collapse o the dollar has led to a slavery-based society run r un by the new boss o Manhattan, a man known as the Aardvark. Facing o against the Aardvark is Marco Angelo Oliviera, a kind o killer’s killer whose stealthy-ast methods seem superhuman. Marco is a member o the Slick Six, a scattered and diminished gang o international criminals. Escaping a prison ship, Marco decides to re-orm the Slick Six, resulting in a trek rom New York to North Carolina, then to Louisiana and on through to Caliornia. In addition to tracking down his ellow Slick Sixers, Marco encounters, among others, the New Sioux (a group o Native Americans hell-bent on avenging injustices) and the Americoids (a group o hippie nomads led by Doctor San Diego). He and his cohorts also march deep into his own past, and the country’s country’s past, aided aide d by a psychic emanation called “the Vibe.” Vibe.” I this sounds like Tomas Pynchon or John Calvin Batchelor territory, you would be correct. Slattery’s approach walks a tightrope between absurdism and a kind o accentuated Byzantine realism. Marco’s portrayal, or example, lies somewhere between outrageous comic book anti-hero and true three-dimensional characterization. Surprisingly, it soon becomes clear that Marco’s need to bring the Slick Six back together is as much about a nascent sense o amily—and proving that he’s he’s still human—as huma n—as it is about liberating liberatin g the country countr y.
180
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Still, it’s not the characters so much as the novelist’s roving, restless eye as Marco travels west that gives the novel its true sense o poetry and purpose. Trough a series o brilliant descriptions, Slattery writes a love-song to a poor, multi-cultural America that survives on the debris o the past. Kids play with “a soccer ball skinned o its color, patched with duct tape, denim, and glue” (109). A “colony o dogs lives inside the rusting body o an armored troop carrier” (116). Tese depictions o America transormed are oten long, and, in another anoth er kind o novel, might have become unwelcome digressions. However, However, in Liberation most o these sections give gi ve the reader a crucial understanding o Slattery’ Slatter y’ss vision o the uture and urther illuminate Marco’s own complex past. Tey also provide the anchor or the reader’ read er’ss belie in the new slavery slaver y that orms the t he heart o Slattery’s Slattery’s post-collapse economic system. As Slattery writes, “Te places that used to sell stirrups, spurs, and license plates to tourists are now ophouses, whorehouses, stands selling heroin and whiskey in tiny increments. Men and women in dirty clothes, tattered cus, ragged hems, stand in a jagged line and wait or their x, to call up their courage, blunt bl unt their terror te rror at selling themselves into slavery. slavery.” rue rue to the spirit o America, there are “men in sandwich boards selling binoculars, the woman estooned in colored oils yelling lollipops, lollipops , cotton candy, candy, tin toys or the children.” Te dollar may be dead, but a severely warped brand o capitalism is still going strong. As the Slick Six begins to get back together and Marco is stalked by the Aardvark’ Aardvark’s enigmatic enigm atic assassin, assa ssin, the novel’s novel’s pace quickens, gaining gai ning momentum mom entum at the expense o Slattery’s vision o a twisted American Dream. Te satisying i inevitable nal clash between the Aardvark and Marco is pulled o with skill, but the truly amazing moments come rom Slattery’s vision o America, past, present, and uture.
Not Good at Dying: The Many Deaths of the Firefly the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen Los Angeles imes , February 2010
“We…we just jus t can’ c an’tt die.” d ie.” “No, we seem to be pretty good at dying. But something’s not letting us stay dead.” Set in the Depression-era Midwest, Tomas Mullen’s second novel, “Te Many Deaths o the Firey Brothers” (Random House) tells a rip-roaring yarn that manages to be both phantasmagorical and historically histori cally accurate. In its labyrinthine, luminous narrative, reminiscent o Michael Chabon’s best ction, readers will nd powerul parallels to the present-day. Te Firey Brothers, bank robbers Jason and Whit Fireson, wake in a police station morgue ater having been shot dead. Tey do not remember the events leading to their demise. Conused but undeterred, they escape and embark on a crime spree intended to bring in enough e nough cash to disappear or good. Complicating their plans, Jason’s girlriend Darcy Windham has been kidnapped by rogues unknown. Will the Firey Brothers nd her in time? Will their law-abiding but jobless brother Weston Weston turn them in or the reward money? More importantly, importantly, what happens i the police shoot them dead again? Te elements a jaded reader might expect are all present: the plucky main squeeze, stumble-bum cops, accomplices with names like Brickbat or Chance McGill, greedy bankers, an intrepid ederal agent, and the sometimes glib but darkly glamorous outlaws themselves. But Mullen avoids cliché by digging deep into the past lives o his characters, exploring not only the bond between brothers, but their relationship with their uncompromising yet deeply awed ather, Patrick Fireson—a man who conjures “invisible advantages rom the darkness,
182
MONSTROUS CREATURES
had taken emptiness and poverty and turned them into the raw materials o a lie’s adventure...” Te novel also eatures brilliant set pieces, like a shoot-out in an old house and a harrowing car chase, while even incidental descriptions are appropriate to the time period. “Te old man’s ace was unreadable,” Mullen writes, “like a pile o discarded typesetting keys in a junkyard.” Te sound o bullets hitting a metal harness is “almost musical, like coins plinking a pond’s surace as they’re transormed into in to wishes.” Mullen’ Mullen’s careul observations obser vations o the brothers, post-resurrection, help ground the novel as well. Ater their second miraculous return ollowing a shoot-out, Whit nds that he’s he’s covered in purple welts where “the cop had riddled him good.” good.” His ngers are “tacky with blood.” Ater awhile, Jason not yet conscious, “[Whit] needed to escape his brother’s presence or a moment, needed to be spared the horrible and unknowable responsibility o being a living person in the company o the th e dead.” Te novel also keeps circling back to creation o the myths surrounding the Firey Brothers. A populace desperate or hope has turned them into olk heroes while, in stark and damning contrast, ordinary people are disappearing: “Tey vanished rom the actories and warehouses and workshops…the doors padlocked, the buildings like tombs.” Te desolation o such passages comes not so much rom an appreciation o hardships suered in the past as rom the overlay in readers’ minds o similar scenes rom the present-day. Te longer the Firey Brothers remain on the lam—the more times they die only to return—the greater the power o their mythology: “Tat was the thing about death: it could leave the old mysteries unsolved. Te stories could go on telling themselves with the passage o time.” But which stories, and which versions? Some stories contain a hint o the truth, while in others the brothers are “impregnating ex-lovers, coaxing kittens rom imsy branches, delivering impromptu sermons at Congregationalist services.” Federal agent Cary Delaney sees the Firey Brothers as “men who couldn’t handle the pressures everyone else is acing, so they decided to just take rom decent de cent people, pe ople, even e ven i it means me ans killing kil ling along a long the way w ay..” Darcy, Darcy, as Jason’ Jason’s lover,
Jeff VanderMeer
183
tries to turn the bank robber into a superhero, telling one o her kidnappers, “[Jason] walks through walls. He can change aces, slip through stakeouts… Bullets pass through him.” him.” Sometimes, though, the participants don’ don’t want to be part o the myth. my th. In a ashback conversation, Jason tells Darcy about a time he saved Whit’s Whit’s lie, saying with disgust, “I let them put a bunch o other sick olks in my car, too, so the story gets twisted that I’m this saint errying the poor to the hospital, like I run my own ambulance am bulance service ser vice or the needy.” needy.” Part o Jason’ Jason’s disgust stems rom the way the stories have outgrown his ability to control them or their message. By novel’s novel’s end, reality and myth are entangled e ntangled orever, and nding one single version o the truth seems unimportant. Mullen provides enough traditional resolution—Darcy’s ate, the acts behind Patrick Fireson’s involvement in a murder—that any ambiguity to t o the secret behind the brothers’ resurrection seems less a tease than essential to the novel. Te brothers live within a ongoing and unsolvable story: “Whit “Whi t asked Jason i he thought this would keep happening, or i maybe this was the last time. How much longer would they haunt each other like this. Or would they both vanish, to each other and the world.” Mullen’s rst novel, Te Last own on Earth (2006), garnered signicant praise. It’s easy to see why. In Te Many Deaths o the Firey Brothers Mullen has created a stunning work o ction that is intense, deeply satisying, and always uniquely American.
Re-envisioning the West: Emma Bull’s Territory Science Fiction Weekly , 2006
Emma Bull’s Territory is a rich blend o antasy, ambiguity sheer pleasure,
inducing entertainment, and retold American myth. When a stagecoach is robbed, suspicion alls on supposed lawmen such as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Holliday. Simultaneously, a strange man named n amed Jesse Fox enters Tombstone, Tombstone, odd events ollowing in his wake. Fox’s confdant is a somewhat mysterious Chinese man name Lung. In this novel, historical and made-up characters reely mingle, each equally ascinating.
ake, or instance, Mrs. Mildred Benjamin, secret writer o suspense tales or spends her days setting se tting type type or ombsto ombstone’ ne’ss daily Gallagher’s Illustrated Weekly Weekly , who spends newspaper, Te Nugget . When the Earps and Holliday catch one o the supposed stage coach robbers and put him in jail, Mildred quickly becomes involved in a jail break. At the urging o her boss, Mr. Henry, Mildred gets the mysterious Fox to help ree the man beore either Earp or Holliday can stop him rom talking. However, things take a turn or the worse the next day when the man’s severed arm shows up outside o the newspaper’s ofce, much to the horror o both Mildred and Fox. Fox. In the man’s man’s hand is a strange silver s ilver wire. When Fox takes it to Lung, Lung tells him it’s “a warning sent rom one knowledgeable man to another.” A sorceror’s warning—and anyone who has knowledge o it will be unable to hide that act i they touch it. Despite Lung telling him to throw it out, Fox keeps it and goes looking or trouble, in the orm o a local poker p oker game. He throws the wire in the pot, hoping to get a reaction reacti on rom the players, but gets only a measured stare rom Earp upon seeing seei ng it. Does Earp know what it is? Just what kind o shadow war is being ought behind the scenes here? Curly Bill Brocius doesn’t make things less tense by pretending to shoot at Doc Holliday as an April Fool’s joke. Drunk, he accuses Holliday o being
Jeff VanderMeer
185
involved in the stagecoach hold-up. Meanwhile, the Guilded Age Mining Company is trying to buy up everybody’s land, using a heavy-handed approach. Something odd is going on in ombstone, and it’s not quite o this world. As Mildred and Fox get more and more entangled in what is, as the title suggests, a deadly battle or territory, more bodies turn up and things only get stranger. Emma Bull has conjured up a truly unique American novel rom the reality and myth o the Old West. From romance to gunplay, political intrigue to betrayal, Bull writes in a seamless, muscular style that will captivate any reader. Some scenes, like Fox’s taming o a skittish colt or one o the Earp brothers, are masterpieces o attention to detail while others, especially a conrontation between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, are nothing short o incandescent. Many passages deserve to be quoted at length, but I’ll restrain mysel to this one section where Holliday learns Earp has used his Kate as a ploy in an interrogation connected to the stage coach robbery: Anger Anger was was like like a wild wildre re in him, him, the the kind kind that that skim skimmed med thro through ugh the dry dry grass unnoticed until it met the trees, to explode up the trunks and leap rom bough to bough.... Outside the moon was up, ull and bright and low in the east. Wyatt was untying his horse rom the porch rail. Doc took hold o the reins just below the bit. “Do I bandy your wie’s name about?” Doc said. Te re in his chest had grown until he could barely speak above a whisper. Wyatt’ Wyatt’ss back was to the moonlight; Doc couldn’ couldn’t see his ace. “I don’t don’t know. Do you?” “I I did, what would I get rom you?” “I think you know.” From his voice, Wyatt was smiling. “Ten tell me what you deserve or lying about Kate.” A gust o cold wind rattled the scrub around them. “You’re not angry because I made use o Kate,” Wyatt said calmly. “Besides, I did her no harm.” He took hold o the reins below Doc’s hand. Doc didn’t let go. “I don’t believe you gave a damn about that.”
186
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Wyatt stepped orward. He occluded the moon, so that the black shape o him was rimmed in silver. Te night wind whistled through brush and boards and every opening that might hum with it. Tere was a knie hidden in Doc’s sleeve...But he elt helpless even so. “I didn’t give a damn,” Wyatt answered, cold as snow. “I I have to hurt everyone in the world to protect what’s mine, I will do it like a shot...” shot...” Wyatt Wyatt drew his reins out o Doc’s Doc’s ngers, backed b acked his horse, and led him o toward the corral. Doc clutched the porch rail and stared out at the silver-and-black landscape. Te air elt thin in his lungs, searing as he dragged it in. He’d thought he was the wildre. wild re. Now he knew he was only the tree. I have to admit that historical characters eshed out in historical novels oten seem stilted to me. I am also not the biggest an o Westerns, perhaps because some o them are ormulaic. However, in reading erritory , I ound that Bull overcame all o my reservations about both Westerns and historical characters. In act, perhaps the most astonishing thing about Bull’s accomplishment in el ement. She has managed to portray erritory has nothing to do with the antasy element. Doc Holliday, Holliday, Wyatt Wyatt Earp, and the rest o her historical histori cal gures as deadly deadl y, unny, unny, laconic, real, and yet also larger-than-lie. Tese men have a sense o their own place in history. Tat she has managed to this while placing them in such an imaginative and lively context, with the made-up characters ully as ascinating is even more impressive.
Hollywood Punk: Steve Erickson’s Zeroville Washington ashingt on Post Book World , November 2007
My rst encounter with Steve Erickson was Arc Arc d’X d’X , which I devoured in 1993 while atigued and everish and bedridden. In that context, it became one o the great reading experiences o my lie, virtually phantasmagoric. But I don’ don’t know i Arc Arc d’X d’X would have seemed any less hallucinogenic under normal conditions. Over his entire career Erickson has challenged readers with a ercely intelligent and surprisingly sensual brand o American surrealism that can, at times, seem impenetrable. For this reason, it surprised me that almost everything in Erickson’s new novel seemi ng watered down or slight. Zeroville is Zeroville Zeroville entertains so readily without seeming unny, sad and darkly beautiul, built around short chapters that allow the author to capture the essential moment and move eortlessly through time. Set primarily in the 1970s and ’80s in Los Angeles, Zeroville eatures an ex-divinity student named name d Vikar, Vikar, a punk in the age o hippies hipp ies who on his shaved head has a tattoo o Montgomery Clit and Elizabeth aylor rom the movie A Place in the Sun . Damaged, violent and probably slightly autistic, Vikar arrives in Hollywood to pursue his devotion to the movies. He soon nds work building sets on a studio lot, meets a renowned editor and gets a ew editing ed iting jobs. He becomes amous when he re-cuts a movie in New York York City that has ha s a controversial debut at the Cannes Film Festival. As with with everyth everything ing that that happen happenss to Vikar Vikar,, he stumble stumbless into into the good good and the bad with equal indierence. He is always looking ahead to some glowing theater screen in the distance, and nothing in his immediate eld o vision carries any weight. Tat single-minded devotion, the way it creates a counterpoint in Vikar’s interactions with other oth er characters, is oten ote n hilarious. I can’t can’t recall having laughed laugh ed out loud so much reading readi ng a novel. Vikar is a bit like Chance rom rom Jerzy Kosinski’s Kosinski’s touche s o Voltai Voltaire’ re’ss Candide , which leads to some outstanding Being Tere , with touches
188
MONSTROUS CREATURES
set pieces. Ater Vikar surprises a thie in his apartment, knocks him out and ties him to a chair, they wind up having a long conversation about lm while watching bad movies on V. V. When Vikar goes to Madrid or or an editing gig, he is kidnapped by revolutionaries and orced to splice together porn scenes scene s and other ootage to create a propaganda lm. When he visits France or the release o his experimental lm, he attends a press conerence that goes hideously wrong. Tese scenes aren’ aren’t just unny—they exhibit a curious combination o satire and depth, in part because Vikar, despite his limited emotional range (or because o it?), may be Erickson’s Erickson’s most likable character. character. Whether he is calmly ranting at the Cannes reporters, having a private conversation with a prostitute or reliving childhood memories that suggest the movies might literally have saved him, Vikar’s Vikar’s devotion to lm lends him an integrity that puts him above ab ove the ray, ray, making him untouchable. Te novel is just as steeped in lms and lm lore as its main character. Subtle Subtle cameos by a young Robert De Niro and other stars are skillully handled, while Erickson does a nuanced job o depicting both genuine artistic impulse and all that corrupts it. Best o all, Erickson mixes high art and low pulp throughout Zeroville . “Emmanuelle 7,” or example, is as likely to be mentioned as “Te Long Goodbye,” which are equals equal s in Vikar’s Vikar’s eyes. However, However, Erickson isn’t isn’t content with this wonderul exploration explorat ion o character chara cter and place. Te hyper-surreal elements o his prior novels gradually inltrate Zeroville . Vikar’s random encounters with a woman named Soledad, who may be the daughter o Spanish lmmaker Luis Bu¿uel, take on a cryptic cr yptic signicance. A search or a lost lm suddenly becomes important, evoking comparisons to Teodore Roszak’s Roszak’s cult-classic cult -classic novel Flicker . Ghosts appear, real or imaginary im aginary.. A recurring rerain throughout the novel, n ovel, “God hates children,” children,” takes on more than tha n symbolic weight. Finally, Finally, a shit in perspective perspecti ve occurs, with Erickson intentionally violating the internal logic o his own structure. By the end o Zeroville 1993 , reading Arc Zeroville , then, I was back in bed in 1993, Arc d’X and not “getting” all o it—my heart more convinced than my head—but blissully happy nonetheless. Zeroville is that kind o novel. You want Vikar to have his peace, and you want Erickson to have his ending, because Vikar always acts according to his nature, regardless o the hand o God or author.
Exchange Students Plot to Take Over America: Chuck Palahniuk’s Pygmy Washington ashingto n Post , Arts & Living, May 2009
Sloppy yet smart, simultaneously structured yet staggering around like a drunk living in a strip mall m all parking lot, l ot, Chuck Palahniuk’s Palahniuk’s Pygmy gets a lot o things right and an equal number wrong. Within a page, sometimes a paragraph, the novel veers rom the sublimely ridiculous or deadly to just plain ridiculous or dead. A inltrating agent rom a nameless authoritarian country, country, the narrator, nicknamed “Pygmy,” joins the Mid-western amily o Donald Cedar. “Host ather,” as Pygmy calls him, works or the Radiological Institute o Medicine, and has access to bio-toxins. Pygmy is just one o several undersized operatives masquerading as high school exchange students so they can unleash Operation Chaos on an unsuspecting American populace. Much o the novel’s demented genius derives rom Palahniuk wisely eschewing either broken or perect English or Pygmy. Instead, Pygmy writes using a clipped, precise syntax. “Host mother claws keep shut inside mother talon” describes the hand o Cedar’s wie, or example. Tis economy extends to speech, as when Pygmy says to an aging Wal-mart greeter: “Revered soon dying mother distribute you ammunitions correct or Croatia-made orty-ve-caliber long-piston-stroke APS assault rie?” It’s It’s a gut-busting gut-bustin g line in i n a novel lled with them, but I can’ can’t gure out what wha t it has to do with running a covert operation—and this is part o the problem with t hat he’s he’s willing to Pygmy . Palahniuk has such a lust or a good or a proane joke that sacrice consistency o tone, even logic, to get to a situational absurdity. Brutal ashbacks to Pygmy’s rigid indoctrination also sit uneasily next to later sections that, one could argue, consist mainly o extended vibrator jokes— nearly near ly,, you might say sa y, vibrator vibrat or mise en scene —which —which turn Pygmy into broad arce.
190
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Even worse, just about every adult in the novel acts like an idiot, rom the boob o a host ather to the priest who ( que surprise! ) sleeps with under-age girls, rom the vapid host mother to the teacher-judges o the high school science sci ence air. Most Most o this stupidity by adults occurs so that Palahniuk can advance his plot. Tat’s Tat’s a shame, sha me, because Palahniuk is brilliant brillia nt in sharing Pygmy’s Pygmy’s background, and juxtaposing its horrible madness with the equally horrible madness o contemporary American society. Pygmy, or example, has a preternatural sense o smell, and describing Donald’s breath as “In talk, breath o Viagra, reek o Propesia, and… chewing gum” tells us volumes about his character and his hi s status as a twenty-rst-century American white male. A scene in which the high school stages a model United Nations summit may be some o the nest comedy the author has ever written, with descriptions like “Operative Chernok as delegate Italy sucking the earlobes o Lady delegate Venezuela.” Pygmy’s speech as the United States’ delegate is hilarious and pointed, including the unorgettable “make available cherished American children, ship overseas as lielong chattel slaves, gesture shown o goodwill.” Still, it’s another great scene sacriced to the novelist’s lack o discipline. A climax at the national science air that seems right out o a made-or-V movie rushes to a sentimental ending in which Palahniuk seems so in love with Pygmy that he won’t let him behave as to his true nature; this is, ater all, an agent so indoctrinated he brutally raped a boy who bullied him. Maybe Palahniuk’s not capable o doing more with Pygmy’s Pygmy’s great voice than to use it to strike a series s eries o poses comparable to the narrator’s Striking Cobra Quick Kill or Lashing Lynx kung-u, not caring about consistency or clashing eects, or maybe I am just immune to the holistic pleasures o a novel that eatures more slang terms or breasts than the Inuit have ha ve or snow. snow. Either way, way, Pygmy could’ve could’ve done with ewer vibrator jokes and more ripping out o jugulars.
Looking for for Love: Alexander Theroux’s Laura Warholic: Or, The Sexual Intellectual Washington ashingt on Post Book Boo k World World , January 2008
Can a novel about love and the illusions o love be created out o almost 900 satire-laced pages devoted to obscene invective, hatred, pettiness, ignorance, pity, pride and hubris? Tis is the question raised by Alexander Teroux’s rst novel in 20 years, Laura Warholic: Or, Te Sexual Intellectual . I the answer is “maybe,” the blame lies less with Teroux’s prodigious natural talent than with how he has chosen to structure his narrative and the repetitive nature o his characterizations. Eugene Eyestones writes a sex column or Quink, a Boston magazine edited by the slobbish Minote Warholic and staed by an eccentric band o misanthropes with names like Duxbak, Ratnaster, Clucker and Discknickers. Eyestones has been seeing—with the intermittent requency and heat o a sputtering light bulb—Warholic’ bulb—Warholic’ss estranged wie, wi e, Laura, while obsessing over the unobtainable bakery baker y employee Rapunzel Wisht. Although apparently a Vietnam veteran, Eyestones acts like a teenager, idealizing Rapunzel while cataloguing Laura’s every ault. Te intensity o this scrutiny is magnied by the torrent o insults oered by Minote Warholic, most o Quink’s sta and several others. Tey present Laura’s deects in eloquent and lengthy detail, “slacker and total skullcase” being perhaps the most understated o these comments. Eyestones becomes complicit in this character assassination by his silence, a passivity also exemplied by his unwillingness to either ditch Laura or commit to her. Teroux’s use o metaphor in these sections remains as startling and daring in its brilliance as in his masterpiece, Darconville’s Cat (1981). Trough the early pages o this new novel, Teroux’s genius appears to reect a generosity o spirit toward character akin to that o 19th-century inuences like Dickens and rollope. However, However, it soon becomes clear that Teroux is using his amazing a mazing powers
192
MONSTROUS CREATURES
o grotesquery and caricature to make almost everyone look morally, ethically and intellectually ugly. As a result, the reader’s delight at Teroux’s descriptive powers quickly changes to disgust at the unrelenting brutishness o these characters, and that disgust, nally, is transormed into boredom as the barrage o details and constant repetitions begin to seem not only gratuitous but insulting to the reader. Teroux does try to vary the tone and orm o Laura Warholic . In addition to insults that have the wit and bawdiness o Shakespearean monologues, he includes pages o Eyestones’s sex columns, notes or columns, a airy tale and oten scandalous monologues on Jews, religion and lust. In the middle o a lengthy road trip during which Laura and Eyestones argue their way across the United States, Teroux even oers up chapters on sex and democracy, hodgepodge collections o acts and observations with no particular organization. Darconville’s Cat also contained digressions, but they served to intensiy that novel’s eect. Here, where the main characters practice indecision, digressions merely intensiy the lack o movement. Near the end o Laura Warholic , ater the mismatched couple has broken up, Eyestones has a change o heart. He wonders: “Had not he blundered blund ered by looking at Laura ar too closely, just as he had looked at Rapunzel rom ar too great a distance? Would not his attempt at solving both riddles have been avoided in a state o proper balance?” Tis epiphany is oered up around Christmas, that most sentimental o holidays, and it is so jejune—creates a portrait o a character unaware through so many hundreds o pages—that pag es—that I began to wonder i Teroux meant or his novel to be satire, and satire only. But surely not. Surely he means to be sincere on some level because otherwise we have read his mammoth undertaking only to be told that lie is a pointless arce, and that is not an answer worth enduring all these pages. It seems only appropriate that Laura Warholic ends with a two-paragraph lecture rom the author ater the main characters have exited the stage. A little more space or the reader, a little less or the author, and this ercely intelligent, rustrating, disturbing, wonderul, dawdling, horrible and ultimately didactic novel might have been a masterpiece.
The Lost Girls of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie Bookslut, October 2006
For me, Alan Moore’s Te Watchmen, V or Vendetta , and From Hell orm a visceral trilogy o masterpieces created with an uncompromising intelligence and vision. Moore has, over the years, made it seem as i anything were possible in the graphic novel orm. In his latest late st endeavor, Lost Girls , Moore and his collaborator Melinda Gebbie create a pornographic cornucopia that attempts to be salacious but moral, inquisitive yet responsible. In a way, way, Moore is like the t he director in erry erry Southern’ Southern’s novel Blue Movie who sets out to make “an artul erotic motion picture, with studio support and mass-distribution” (terrysouthern.com). Moore has chosen a very simple plot (perhaps too simple): Tree women staying at a hotel in Austria on the eve o World War I become riends and then lovers. Tey share the secrets o their dark sexual histories against a backdrop o repression and liberation. Almost every possible orm o sexuality is explored, all in the colored pencil textures and pastel hues o Gebbie’s artwork. Te women are meant to be (the real-lie?) Wendy, Wendy, Dorothy, Dorothy, and Alice rom Peter Pan, Te Wizard o Oz, and Alice in Wonderland Wonderland . Te bizarre coincidence that brought these three (ctional?) women to this particular hotel at the same time is let to the imagination. In Lost Girls , all three have been b een stripped o their antastical context. Tere’s Tere’s a suggestion that Alice’s mirror talks to her (or she talks to it) and that Lewis Carroll, making an appearance as a pedophile, is inspired by Alice to write his books. But in general Moore presents the pasts o the three women as realistic explanations or the antasy an tasy elements in those th ose works. For example, Dorothy lives through a twister during which she experiences a sexual awakening. When she walks out into the ruined landscape, a damaged road sign now reads “OZ,” but
194
MONSTROUS CREATURES
she’s still in Kansas. Peter Pan is just an androgynous male prostitute and there is no Never Never Land other than the mental one in which Peter leads Wendy and her brothers into a sexual initiation. I oten wondered while reading Lost Girls i Moore had so unhinged some characters rom their ctional origins that they could no longer unction as those characters in i n any meaningul meani ngul way. way. I don’t don’t think this is a niggling point. More perplexing, given the already static structure o a rame mixed with memories o the past, is the relative lack o characterization in Lost Girls . Moore has chosen to let le t the women’s women’s sexual histories serve as their thei r entire background. Is Moore saying that or victims o sexual abuse, the whole world becomes about sex rom then on? I don’t think so, but the practical eect o ocusing solely on sex is to rob us o three-dimensional portraits o these women. (Tat Moore seems to recognize the possibilities o integration is evident rom this Onion interview excerpt: “I think in the uture, I’d preer to take what I’ve learned rom Lost Girls and ollow that back into my other work. o include sex scenes alongside the adventure scenes and everyday-lie everyda y-lie scenes, as i they were all part o the same thing. Which o course they are.”) But what about Lost Girls as pornography? Gebbie’s art is supple and ever-changing, whether in the main sequences or parodying Victorian-era pornography. Te sotness o the colors makes the sex scenes more human and less mechanistic or harsh. Te level o detail in backdrops is precise but not cluttered, with Gebbie able to modulate her eects to convey scenes o unease and horror. horror. Her drawing technique proves better than I would have thought or conveying motion, so that her rendition o an orgy scene during a showing o Te Rites o Spring might as well be in motion. Oten, too, the distance between her color choices and the events in Lost Girls proves eective—or example, the atter, less grainy style chosen or Wendy’ Wendy’ss memories. memor ies. As a work o art, Lost Girls is as exible, inventive, and heartelt as a good lover. As or Moore’ Moore’s story, story, the erotic set pieces demonstrate once again his mastery o the graphic novel orm. At the beginning beginni ng o book two, or or example, Dorothy’s Dorothy’s repressed husband writes to a colleague, his banal, blind-to-debauchery letter
Jeff VanderMeer
195
juxtap juxtapose osedd with with riotou riotouss sex scenes scenes that that mische mischevio viousl uslyy underm undermine ine his accoun accountt o events. Several o these set pieces work as erotica while being structurally innovative. However, Lost Girls is as much a commentary on sexuality and pornography p ornography as an artiact o pornography. For this reason, readers will be simultaneously turned on and disturbed by the book. Many times the erotic act is stimulating, while the context provokes a “I shouldn’t be reacting this way” response. Tis technique allows Moore to engage both heart and head, head , and it does give all three women more depth than they would have had otherwise. (Otherwise, they’re just delivery systems or nontraditional sex.) As As the women tell their stories, Lost Girls gradually becomes a tale about the price o sex, the price o coercion, and the attraction o abusing power in personal relationships. (Although a case can be made that Lost Girls is about this subject rom the very beginning, given the interplay between the three women.) At one point, in the middle o an orgy, orgy, while examining a book o pornography, the hotel manager says: You You see? Incest, c’est vrai , it is a crime, but this? Tis is the idea o incest, no? And then these children: how outrageous! How old can they be? Eleven? welve? It is quite monstrous… except that they are ctions, as old as the page they appear upon, no less, no more. Fiction and act: only madmen and magistrates cannot discriminate between them… You see, i this were real, it would be horrible. Children raped by their trusted parents. Horrible. But they are ctions. Tey are uncontaminated by eect and consequence. Why, they are almost innocent. I, o course, am real and since Helena, who I just ucked, is only thirteen, I am very guilty. Ah well, it cannot be helped.
Tere’s a lot going on in this speech. Te hotel manager isn’t real, either, so any outrage or pleasure is also a construct. But Moore provides just that extra level or layer so or a second se cond we’re we’re thinking: Te manager’s blasé about committing rather, one possible cycle o thought): a crime. And then the cycle o thought (or, rather,
196
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Is thinking about such things a crime? Maybe not, but can’t someone hurt another person just at the level o the imagination? Isn’t Isn’t that part o what inequality, sexual or otherwise is all about? And is Moore telling us we might as well disregard the pain o his protagonists and just revel in the sex? (But isn’t it just the manager talking?) o what extent is he letting the reader o the hook by stating this? Or is it more o a kind o taunt, Nabokov-style: We all know this is a ction, but i I do my job you’ll still be horried at what happens to these characters? Lost Girls is a vehicle or sex and ideas about sex that overows with
intelligence and eeling but didn’t always work or me. oward the end o book two, I began to be bored by the sex scenes, especially the lesbian scenes between the three women. I ound my attention driting in part because o the stilted dialogue in some o these scenes, but mostly because they become narrative and artistic time-wasters time-waste rs between gradually revealed backstory backstor y. At times the backstory couldn’ couldn’t hold my attention, atten tion, either eithe r. And the denouement, den ouement, tying tyi ng into World War War I, just seemed an end rather than an end ing . However, despite these reservations, Lost Girls is always alive , it deals with subject matter that isn’t always given this kind o emphasis, and it takes serious chances. Ultimately, Lost Girls rewards a serious (and not so serious) read, but I’m I’m conicted as to whether it or not it belongs beside Moore’s Moore’s best work.
London’s Last Stand: Jonathan Barnes’ The Domino Men Men Te Washingto Washingtonn Post Book B ook World World , January 2009
Te premise o Jonathan Barnes’s renetic, uneven, sometimes bleak Domino Men, a sequel to his rst novel, Te Somnambulist , sounds like a combination o spy novel and Lovecrat pastiche: From 1857 to the present day, the mysterious Directorate and the English Engli sh monarchy’s monarchy’s House o Windsor have waged a secret war against each other because o a pact between Queen Victoria and a supernatural monster known as Leviathan. Long ago, the queen accepted Leviathan’s oer to “guide us, keep us, protect us [and] render us inviolate against invasion.” In return, the queen promised to eventually hand over London to the monster. Leviathan has been kept at bay due to the eorts o a missing Directorate agent named Estella, who must be ound to end a stalemate in the conict. Te key to nding her lies with the Domino Men, two diabolical killers imprisoned within an inernal circle beneath 10 Downing Street. Te Somnambulist , set in 1901 (also in London), eatured a wonderul reak show o magicians, time travelers and the undead. undea d. Barnes made this grotesquerie reader-riendly through brilliant narration and a dark sense o humor amiliar to ans o Douglas Adams and erry Pratchett. With very dierent results, Te Domino Men uses a similar mixture o the grotesque and humorous. Te narrator, Henry Lamb, works at a thankless job or the Civil Service Archive Unit. Unit. His ather dead and his mother indierent to him, Lamb is a loner who has a charming crush on his landlady. Te only distinction he has achieved to date was as a child star on a BBC sitcom, “Worse Tings Happen at Sea.” But Lamb comes rom stock with higher ambitions, as he discovers when approached by sinister men ater his grandather granda ther collapses into a coma. Te men tell him that his grandather was a Directorate agent, and they want Lamb to take the old man’ man’s place. In a secret part o the London Eye Ferris Ferris Wheel, he meets the head o the
198
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Directorate, Dedlock. “Wrinkled and puckered, wattled, creased and liver spotted,” Dedlock, deender o the city, city, is almost as strange as Leviathan: He lives in water, has what appear to be gills and can inhabit the bodies o his employees. When Wh en Lamb La mb asks as ks quest que stio ions ns—u —und nder erst stan anda dabl blee given give n the th e circum circ umst stan ance ces— s— Dedlock tells him, “Comprehension is unnecessary. From now on you simply have to ollow oll ow orders.” orders.” hose orders include includ e talking to the dangerous dan gerous Domino Men about Estella, something Lamb dreads but does without much complaint. Unortunately, Unortunately, as the extent o Leviathan’ Leviathan’s evil plans becomes clear, I began to wish Lamb would question orders more. Instead, he obeys and obeys, despite operating in a miasma o ignorance. Te result is a kind o narrative impotence. When a ormer agent pleads with Lamb to take action ater a Domino Men jailbreak, Lamb merely replies, “What can I do?” Barnes eventually provides a good reason or Lamb’s inaction, but that doesn’t make his role as a chess piece any less problematic or the reader. Conusing matters urther, another voice begins to hijack the narrative. Identied only at the novel’s end, this narrator provides background on the queen quee n’s deal with Leviathan Le viathan and briey brie y re-invigorates the story with its sarcastic counterpoint counte rpoint to Lamb’s Lamb’s account. But soon the second se cond narrator just seems repetitious, because there’s no reason Lamb couldn’t have related the same inormation himsel. However However,, nothing—not the promise o its opening nor the lurching complications o its middle—can prepare the reader or the shock o Te Domino Men’s resolution. It’s one o the most perplexing endings in recent memory. Characters are brutally tortured while London suers cataclysmic upheaval. A nal, extremely odd science ction twist brings the reader back to the realm o dark humor. Perhaps the key to making sense o all this is to orget Lamb entirely and remember the book’s book’s title, which turns turn s the spotlight on the Domino Men, those “creatures “creatures o re and sulphur. sulphur.” Introduced in Te Somnambulist , this leering leeri ng pair, otherwise known as Hawker and Boon, are terriying in a jovial, vaudevillian way: a demented, supernatural weedledum and weedledee who take pleasure in pain. Tey are Barnes’s greatest achievement in this novel, and he gives them unmatched lie and verve.
Jeff VanderMeer
199
Te jaded reader may doubt that Barnes intended this usion o hysterical hilarity and renetic nihilism, suspecting, instead, that the author simply surrendered to his material. Does he really mean to combine gonzo science ction ct ion with detailed sadism? I he does, doe s, it’s it’s because he let l et the Domino Men—more than Dedlock, Lamb or even Leviathan—take control o this novel. Otherwise, all is chaos.
The Newt Speaks Volumes: Jack O’Connell’s The Resurrectionist Te Washingt Washington on Post Book World , June 2008
You You would think that a conversation between a mad scientist and his prized newt might not stand out in a novel dominated by sociopathic bikers, a ather’s unbearable guilt and a sad quest by a group o sideshow reaks. You You would be wrong. In the strange crucible o o reality and imagination that is Te Resurrectionist , by Jack O’Connell, their one-sided exchange exemplies the author’s sheer chutzpah: rom its meticulous attention to detail to the parallels between Dr. Peck, ounder o a coma clinic, and his blue-spotted newt, Rene. “Both [man and animal] were naturally nocturnal,” O’Connell writes. “Both were dea to conventional wisdom. Both were regenerators, magicians who could raise up that which had been lost or damaged or cut away.” Despite its static qualities, the scene is a classic o recent modern ction, revealing worlds about a pivotal character chara cter.. Te Resurrectionist is ull o such surprising scenes. An emotionally damaged man named Sweeney has brought his son, Danny, to Dr. Peck’s clinic. He’s trying to get away rom Cleveland, the site o the accident that led to Danny’s condition and killed Sweeney’s wie. Tough the boy is comatose, we see his dreams about a band o reaks rom his avorite comic book, “Limbo.” O’Connell threads these reaks’ purgatorial adventures throughout the novel. Meanwhile, in the real world, a biker gang led by a thuggish visionary intends to enter the comic book world o “Limbo” by means that might either harm or save Danny. Danny. When Sweeney discovers that Dr. Peck has been subjecting his coma patients to horrible experiments, he must navigate through this unhouse landscape to try to save his son and himsel. Much o this unholy amalgamation, set in the same contemporary “rustbelt” city ci ty as O’Connell’s O’Connell’s prior novels, shouldn’ shoul dn’t work—and work—an d some o it doesn’ doe sn’t.t. At
Jeff VanderMeer
201
times the layering o levels and symbolism doesn’t quite cohere. And aced with an overabundance o plot complications, O’Connell allows certain characters to disappear or too long. Yet Yet these aws seem minor in the context o the novel—nullied by brilliant writing, original concepts, emotional resonance and O’Connell’s earlessness. I’ve read Te Resurrectionist twice now, now, and both times it came as something some thing o a revelation. It seems odd we should care so much about the reaks, or example, when we know they’re merely characters in a boy’s comic book. Nor should the dream-lie o a coma patient be so resonant, and yet it is. Te newt may be mute, but it speaks volumes.
Not Enough Bite: Victor Pelevin’s The Sacred Book of the Werewolf the Werewolf Te Washingto Washingtonn Post , Arts & Living, October 2008
Rough werewol-on-wereox sex. Were-creature philosophy that doubles as satirical content. Plucky underage Russian prostitutes who are actually millenniamillenn iaold supernatural beings. Nonstop reerences to iconic authors, philosophers and pop culture. I you enjoy having all these elements in your ction, you’ll love Victor Pelevin’s Te Sacred Book o the Werewol. Te rest o us, though, might come away rom this novel eeling eeli ng bitten. Tere’s Tere’s something distinctly dist inctly unholy going on here, something Vladimir Vla dimir Nabokov might have ha ve labeled “poshlost,” poshlost,” or “philistine vulgarity, vulgarity,” or all the times Pelevin tries to use the old buttery collector to prop up his own words, citing everything rom Lolita to Ada . Tis tul, phantasmagorical tale—a tale —a bestseller in Russia—is told by A Hu-Li, a wereox posing as a 15-year-old hooker in Moscow. She bewitches her johns using the magic properties o her tail so she can eed o o their sexual energy. While her victims believe they’re they’re having sex with her, her, she sits in a corner reading magazines. But ater a couple o missteps, including killing a customer when he sees her true orm, A Hu-Li runs into trouble with the Russian secret service. Col. Mikhalich apprehends her or his mysterious boss, known as Alexander. In a masterly sequence—one o the ew times Pelevin sits still long enough to really develop a scene—Mikhalich decides he wants to sample A Hu-Li’s services beore turning her over to Alexander. But that requires Mikhalich to reveal that he’s he’s a werewol, too, by injecting a powerul psychedelic into his h is own arm. Among A Hu-Li’s special skills is the ability to see into people’s minds. Her description o Mikhalich’s drug trip is a wonderul example o making the abstract and personal into something concrete: “Tere was a ash, with pulsating
Jeff VanderMeer
203
stars and stripes o ame receding all the way wa y to the horizon like the markings on an innitely long runway. It was blindingly beautiul and reminiscent o a news report I saw in the 1960s o a trimaran speed-boat that crashed: the speedboat lited up o the water, perormed a slow, slow, thoughtul loop-the-loop and a nd shattered into small ragments against the surace o the lake.” Every scene involving the menacing, terse and sometimes comic Mikhalich takes on a satisying weight. Unortunately, however, he is relegated to a minor role. It is Alexander who plays the male lead here, becoming entranced with A Hu-Li. Tis attraction drives the plot or the rest o the book. Te two have rough werewol sex, ollowed by long, obvious conversations about, among other things, the Little Red Riding Hood olktale. A Hu-Li’s growing attraction to Alexander eventually leads to an irreversible, possibly tragic transormation, and the novel ends in a zzle o nebulous Eastern philosophy and unearned redemption. Suspended over this plot like a bomb that’s never dropped looms the myth o the super-werewol, who, it is oretold, will soon walk the Earth, delivering something special to the were-peoples. Te nature o that special something only becomes clear late in the novel, in a bit o arcical anticlimax. By that point, the reader has been asked to invest too much time and eort in an existential joke that really doesn’t matter. In an interview in Te Paris Review , Nabokov dened his made-up word “poshlost” as, among other things, “Corny trash, vulgar clichés…imitations o imitations, bogus proundities, crude, crude , moronic, and dishonest pseudoliterature.” Pelevin is neither crude nor moronic, but his personal Rubicon is a seeming inability to stop using others to shoulder the burden o writing his novel. Tus the reader must endure Bulgakov sightings, silly doubled-up reerences (“I suddenly understood that Pushkin was killed by a homonimic shadow o Dante”), and stultiying snippets o dialogue in question-answer orm about various movies. Many readers will realize they are bearing witness to an odd kind o abdication o responsibility on the part o the author. Pelevin doesn’t seem to understand how his borrowing creates “bogus proundities.” Or that his philosophical points would be more interesting in essay orm. Or that his pacing is too slow to make the humor sparkle. Yet on
204
MONSTROUS CREATURES
the rare occasions that Pelevin dispenses with all the clutter, he demonstrates a remarkable talent that makes me want to read more o his ction. For example, an undeniably eerie yet unny scene in which Alexander and Mikhalich, in werewol orm, conjure oil out o the earth compares avorably to the work o the best Russian absurdists. Near the end o the novel, Alexander and A Hu-Li hole up in a bomb shelter shel ter,, in a scene that displays much-needed tenderness. A Hu-Li says to Alexander, language is “the root rom which innite human stupidity grows. And we werecreatures suer rom it i t too, because we’re we’re always talking. talki ng.”” Ultimately Te Sacred Book o the Werewol ails ails because Pelevin just can’t shut up long enough to tell his story.
Hot Ice: Marcel Theroux’s Far North New York York imes Book Review , August 2009
In Marcel Teroux’s Teroux’s post-Collapse post-Colla pse novel Far North, global warming has reduced civilization to largely pre-industrial levels o technology, and made sparsely populated areas like the Siberian tundra saer than lawless cities. Tere’s a satisying sadness and nality to Teroux’s vision, but the true power o the story comes rom the hard-won victories o Makepeace, Teroux’s remarkable narrator. Far North’s enduring achievement is to eature a character that lives up to Makepeace’s Makepeace’s own claim that “a person is always better than a book.” Face scarred by past violence, Makepeace patrols the streets o deserted Evangeline, a Siberian town ounded by Quakers. Ater mistakenly shooting a Chinese boy named Ping and then nursing him back to health, Makepeace learns that Ping, like her, her, has a secret—and it’s it’s the same secret. Ping is a woman, disguised as a man to ool a violent world. In Ping’s case, she’s also trying to disguise her pregnancy. Teroux is never shy about subverting reader expectations. Soon ater Ping recovers, Makepeace writes with typical yet heart-breaking understatement, “I can’t dwell on what happened next...but in June, Ping died, and the baby died with her.” her.” Ping’s Ping’s death serves ser ves as a kind k ind o turning point or Makepeace: Makepeace : it will kill her or it will orce her to engage the world. Witnessing a plane crash saves Makepeace rom suicide by replacing despair with a question: Is the plane pl ane a sign o returning civilization? During Makepeace’ Makepea ce’ss quest or the answer, members o a strange cult take her prisoner and sell her to slavers. Te line that destroys the reader is the same one that destroys her: “Sometimes, when you’ve suered a lot, it turns out to be the small thing that breaks you. Tat chain almost nished me.” In contrast, the harrowing account o the journey to the work camp has the ull weight and context o twentieth-century history behind it. But when
206
MONSTROUS CREATURES
Makepeace reaches the camp, personal revelations again dominate Far North. ranserred rom hard labor to working in a garden, Makepeace is unable to bear “the ghost o what might m ight have been” and is “mired in the shame sham e o what I’d I’d become.” I being shackled can break you when you’ve you’ve already suered so much, then small pleasures, like gardening, can also break you by making you oolishly believe that you have a chance or a normal lie. Next to such moments, even desperate scenes in a contaminated city—where city —where workers are orced to search or technological marvels—seem oddly unimportant. unimporta nt. Teroux can do little more in this wider context than echo dozens o disaster ction predecessors, rom rom J.G. Ballard to Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy. But echoes have their own integrity and resonance. Te true aws in Far North are coincidences that betray Makepeace or seek to articially tie her past to the novel’s present. Would Makepeace, having escaped once rom religious anatics, really return to the same settlement without the author’s prodding? Is it believable that the person responsible or Makepeace’s disgurement runs the work camp? Te reader doesn’ doesn’t need banal explanations, e xplanations, and Makepeace doesn’t doesn’t need the closure. Makepeace also doesn’t need the rebirth moti at the end o Far North—it borders on the sentimental and is ar-etched in conception. It’s easy to orgive Teroux, though, or succumbing to the temptation. So much has been taken rom Makepeace that she’s earned some orm o kindness. Deep into this unbearably sad yet oten sublime novel, Makepeace writes, “Everyone expects to be at the end o something. some thing. What no one expects is to be at the end o everything .” Tere’s Tere’s nothing let le t to say ater that—and yet Makepeace keeps going, and the reader ollows oll ows her i not hopeully than in the hope that she will win out, and that her lie will have meaning to someone, somewhere.
Philosophy in Fiction ’s Clothing: Neal Stephenson’s Anathem Barnes & Noble Review , September 2008
1 Anathem:...an aut by which an incorrigible raa or suur is ejected rom
the math and his or her work sequestered (hence the Fluccish word Anathema meaning intolerable intole rable statements or ideas). Any writer writer who wants wants to to create create a sense sense o o veris verisimil imilitu itude de about about an imagi imaginary nary setti setting ng must wrestle with how to convey both the similarities and dierences between the created milieu and the real world. In his previous novels, Neal Neal Stephenson has aced this test while attempting to convey an amazingly deep array o ideas and situations. From the hip nearish uture o Snow Crash to the nanotech-encrusted Te Diamond Age, Age, and even in such “historical” novels as Cryptonomicon and the three volumes o the Baroque Cycle, Stephenson’ Stephenson’s challenge has been making the alien real enough so that he can then explore the implications o various philosophical or technological issues, providing entertainment to the reader at the same time as he engages in a complex dialog about our present and our uture. In Stephenson’s new book, Anath Anathem, em, a stunning sprawl o a novel set on the planet Arbre, clever new solutions to the problem spring up in every paragraph, on every page—without which not a single line o dialogue, a single character study, study, would convince the reader one iota. Among Among the most most impress impressive ive o Steph Stephens enson on’’s accomp accomplis lishme hments nts in this this area area is how quickly the reader adjusts to terms like aut and raa raa and suur rom the quote above. An aut is a ritual. A raa raa is a male “avout,” a suur a emale avout, and avout roughly means “monk.” For example, Anath Anathem em’s narrator is the 19-year-old raa avout Erasmas, and he lives in a “math” that is thousands o years old. Te maths
208
MONSTROUS CREATURES
are more or less monasteries or scientists and philosophers, protecting accumulated knowledge rom the rise and all o civilizations outside their walls. A Saunt, or saint, is not a religious martyr but rather a “great thinker,” a lovely inversion. In another brilliant tactical move by Stephenson, the Sæcular world outside o Erasmus’ math during the events related in Anath a s our own today. today. Tis creates Anathem em is as sophisticated as important opportunities or contrast between the two cultures. Te mystery that emerges rom Stephenson’s meticulous world building involves nothing less than a threat to the planet. It’s It’s a truth that slowly comes into ocus as Erasmas shares seemingly surace details about his lie, his surroundings, and his mentor, Fraa Orolo. Tese early sections o Anathem Anathem are mesmerizing, the discussions among the avout both mind-blowing and hilarious. Some o the nest scenes in the novel occur as Stephenson expertly takes take s the reader through the rituals o Erasmas’ math. (It is difcult to think o another writer who could make a long description o a clock-winding ceremony so ascinating.) Soon, though, Stephenson expands the scope o Anathem Anathem to include the rest o Arbre—indeed, the rest o the cosmos. Erasmas, Fraa Orolo, and others notice disturbing deviations during routine observations o the nnight ight sky. sky. Teir subsequent investigation puts them in grave danger as they acquire orbidden knowledge. As a result, Fraa Orolo and Erasmas in turn are expelled into the Sæcular World; however, while Orolo’s departure is the result o an anathem, Erasmas’ expulsion may well be part o a plan to aim a weapon at the heart o a mysterious enemy. 2 Ita: In late Praxic Orth, an acronym...whose precise etymology
is a casualty o the loss o shoddily preserved inormation that will orever enshroud the time o the Harbingers and the errible Events. Almost all scholars agree that the rst two letters come rom the words Inormation echnology echnology,, which is late lat e Praxic Age commercial bulshytt or syntactic devices. Te third letter is disputed; hypotheses include Authority, Authority, Associate, Arm, Archive, Aggregator, Aggregator, Amalgamated, Analyst, Agency, Agency, and Assistant.
Jeff VanderMeer
209
Stephenson’ Stephenson’s ability to create and deploy convincing terminology makes Erasmus’ story possible. But it’s it’s his playul sense o invention in eshing out his world, bringing to mind his youthul exuberance in Snow Crash, that gives Anath Anathem em most o its energy and makes it largely a joy to read. Calling a truck a “etch” is merely clever, but elements like an extended discussion between students and instructor about Sæcular perceptions or the avout—“iconographies”—is in a dierent class altogether. altogether. In the Muncostran Iconography, or example, a scientist is thought o as “eccentric, lovable, disheveled theorician, absent-minded, means well.” Te Pendarthaan Iconography, Iconography, by contrast, portrays por trays scientists as “high-strung, nervous, meddling know-it-alls who simply don’t understand the realities; lacking physical courage, they always lose out to more masculine Sæculars.” Sæculars.” Te undeniable satirical sati rical quality o these iconographies is wedded to a practical purpose: avout who come into contact with the outside world need to understand which stereotypes, which belie systems, represent a threat to them or their maths. Tis initial discussion o perception and belie beli e recurs repeatedly, repeatedly, a continual probing o the nature o reality and the power o the mind to construct its own version o it. Troughout Ana Anath them em,, Stephenson displays a genius or creating details that multitask by being clever and unny and and unctional. Tis is particularly important during the middle o the novel, in which Erasmas travels across a continent to reach a rendezvous point or an expedition that may lead to answers about the threat rom the heavens. Te pacing that worked so well in the math seems somewhat slower during Erasmas’ journey, the theoretical conversations more ponderous. Te insertion o oddly absurd yet believable elements, like “Everything Killer” weapon systems and an internet that runs on “bulshytt” and “bulshytt elimination,” elimination,” helps make this slower pace more palatable. 3
earl y Reconstitution, a Bulshytt: In Fluccish o the late Praxic Age and early derogatory term or alse speech in general, genera l, esp. knowing and deliberate alsehood or obuscation... Te overall level o bulshytt in Anathem is relatively low. In one sense, o
210
MONSTROUS CREATURES
course, the entire novel is bulshytt o the kind expected rom proessional liars: game playing at a level l evel so high that in some places the author’s author’s imagination alone keeps the whole audacious contraption spinning in the air long ater it should have cracked to pieces against the oor. But what negative bulshytt does exist occurs because Erasmas is a deliberate, detail-oriented narrator with a somewhat understated approach. Te reader is given the sense that this is part o his training, and in the context o his math this restraint works well. However, when Erasmas is out in the wider world this quality lends Stephenson’ Stephenson’s prose an “and-then-this-happened-and-then-that-happened” quality. quality. Erasmas maintains the same tone, whether he is describing being buried in the snow while traveling over the north pole o Arbre or narrating his narrow escape rom an angry angr y mob with the help o some truly tr uly butt-kicking “ninja” “ninja” monks. Te liveliness o the ideas ide as surrounding Erasmas’ adventures oten masks this deect but cannot, or example, disguise the increasingly supercial nature o his romantic relationship with Ala, a suur avout with a pivotal role in the plans being made against the enemy. His reactions to their separation, and to the dangerous prospect she aces, ace s, become atter atte r and atter, even as Ala’s Ala’s own initial complexity dissipates, perhaps losing out to Stephenson’s ascination with ideas. Further, Ala’ Ala’s habit o becoming emotional not only undermines the idea that Erasmas’ restraint is culture based but also makes her stereotypically “emale.” Still, these aws seem minor in the context o the triumphs on display here. As Stephenson writes in his introduction, Anathem “is best read in somewhat o the same spirit as John L. Casti’s Te Cambridge Quintet , which is to say that it is a ctional ramework or exploring ideas that have sprung rom the minds o great thinkers o Earth’s past and present.” In this sense, then, Anathem is a worthy successor to the ambitious Baroque Cycle. Such a reading o Anathem doesn’t excuse some o the baggy-ness o the 900-page novel, or the impassive qualities o Erasmas; but the ideas are so attractively presented, the context so perect or their exploration, that it’s hard to nd too much ault. In the last act, Anathem also provides some unbelievably intricate space adventure—some o it attaining attainin g the audaciousness o a Roger Moore—era James Bond movie—wedded to spectacular scientic extrapolation and speculation
Jeff VanderMeer
211
about alternate universes. Tis action-oriented reprise in-the-esh o the abstract hypotheticals discussed during the novel’s rst hal has the satisying eel o watching blueprints turn into aesthetically pleasing real-world objects. Perhaps, then, what Stephenson has accomplished with Anathem is the ultimate synthesis o techno-ascination/Geek-SF sense-o-wonder with the ar more ancient general quest or knowledge about the world, and what lies beyond our grasp o it.
The Books of the Decade Omnivoracious, January 2010
In general, “Best o Decade” book lists are arbitrary and too close to the period they pretend to cover. At point o impact, the pool o visible worthies has been reduced due to environmental actors that (sadly) include lack o the right push by the publishers, lack o charisma or some other quality on the part o the author, or a writing style or subject matter that bravely pushes against the grain o what’s acceptable or the time. A decade rom now now many “best o” o ” books will no longer be seen as such, while some lucky ew will be re-evaluated and resurrected—becoming visible in a way they did d id not upon publication. Hype and the ever-greater domino eect o commentary on the Internet will ade and a nd the excited crushes o yesteryear will give way to a more mature and lasting love. For this reason, I haven’ haven’t applied anything approaching a scientic method to my picks or the books o the decade. Tis doesn’t mean I didn’t have a process, however. however. First, over a period o days, I thought about the books I’ve I’ve read that I still intensely remember. Second, to supplement my memory, I went back over a good many o the reviews and eatures I’ve written over the past decade. As I re-read these pieces, some elicited an emotional reaction and some did not. More than a ew connected with me on several levels—as levels—as a reader, certainly, certainly, but also as a writer whose principal accomplishment in the aughts was to nish the Ambergris Cycle: City o Saints & Madmen , Shriek: An Aterword , and Finch. Tus, there was a weird doubling eect o seeing the books rom several angles, because many o them made me think think about my own ction in a new way. way. Te resulting list is in alphabetical order by author. Some o these books received the appropriate amount o attention upon publication. Some did not. Some choices readers will easily see as legitimate and others, due to their obscurity or to the perception o the genre in which they are categorized, will
Jeff VanderMeer
213
not. But each, it seems to me, does something unique and not easily replicated by other books. Each, in its own way, creates its own universe. Te Elegance o the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (2008) – Delightul and bittersweet,
this translation o a bestseller in France creates lovely portraits o an eccentric concierge and a melodramatic but gited twelve-year-old girl. It lazes along at a leisurely pace, interjecting bits o philosophy and character background until the arrival o a Japanese gentleman at the apartment complex. From there, the plot begins to quicken and the various pieces o the story become luminous and at times devastating. It’s the kind o novel that could easily have become precious, and it’s a testimony to Barbery’s strengths as an author that instead it’s it’s a quietly eective and lasting achievement. What It Is by Lynda Barry (2008) – As I wrote as part o an Omni eature, Barry’s extraordinary book is “An exploration o the imagination, an invitation to create, and a moving autobiographical account… one o those rare books that oers solace or the soul and brilliant commentary on the artistic impulse. Te images by themselves would be amazing, the text by itsel wise and luminous yet pragmatic. Te combination o text and art provides new insight that eels three-dimensional and oddly soothing. I cannot over-emphasize the therapeutic eect o What It Is .” Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2007) – In this story o her dysunctional amily, Bechtel perects and showcases the ways in which graphic novels can oer as much or more than novels or movies. It is the perect synthesis o image and text, with the visual impact o a lm and the easy ability to slip through time, double back, and return to the present that typies the best ction. Te illustration style is perect or the subject matter, making the settings, rom old gothic house to uneral parlor, evocative and real. 2666 2666 by Robert Bolanos (2008) – Powerul, haunting, proane, political, and simultaneously wide and personal in scope, 2666 2666 may well prove to be the novel o the decade. Bolanos keeps turning inward and outward, his narrative riddled through with ancillary stories that seem to digress but in some luminous way hint at hidden patterns. Te recitation—the endless and unrelieved repetition—o the details o murders o women in a Mexican city is unsettling, brilliant, and makes the crimes impossible to ignore, or, ultimately, to comprehend. Most impressive, perhaps, is
214
MONSTROUS CREATURES
how equally comortable Bolanos is writing rom such varied perspectives pe rspectives as a ormer Black Panther, Panther, a Mexican congresswoman, or the German novelist whose mysterious lie provides just one o the many puzzles o human existence explored in 2666 2666 . Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey – As I wrote in a review or Locus at the time, this novel is “simply the best Gothic antasy o the new century… stunning in its use o a dark antasy ant asy atmosphere even though, as in Mervyn Peake’ Peake’s Gormenghast books, nothing antastical happens. Francis Orme narrates this story o an ancestral mansion converted to apartments, apar tments, o a place in the country become a virtual island, surrounded by urban trafc. But Carey, at every step, raises the stakes; he isn’t interested in just portraying eccentric characters in an eccentric setting. He wants nothing less than Mastery—o technique, o characterization, characte rization, o setting, o memory, o resonance.” Observatory Mansions , with its critique o our modern attachment to things, its portraits o damaged but sympathetic sympa thetic characters, and its beautiul, incisive writing, is another novel that deserves more attention. About About Writing: riting: 7 Essays, 4 Letters, Letters, and 5 Interviews Interviews by Samuel Delany (2006) – One o the best books on writing I read in the aughts, About About Writing riting eatures a ew reprints rom books like Te Jewel Hinged Jaw , but mostly collects previously uncollected nonction. Te letters, which I thought would be slight turn out to be one o the best things about the book—insightul, ocused, and consistently ascinating. Te interviews are sometimes a little too detail oriented, but still wonderul to read, and the essays are, o course, magnicent. I love that when Delany talks about even the most basic details detai ls o writing, it resonates with me in a way that makes me see certain technique and approaches in a totally new light. One Day the Ice Will Reveal All o Its Dead by Clare Dudman (2004) – A closely observed, passionate, and complex historical ction centered on the discoverer o continental drit, Alred Wegener, Dudman’s novel delivered a perect blend o science, characterization, adventure, and pathos. As I wrote in my review o the book or Publishers Weekly , “Dudman…displays an astute git or characterization. Wegener’s complex relationship with his brother Kurt and his love or his wie, Else, as measured against his lust or meteorological expeditions, is expertly, oten heartbreakingly portrayed. Te emotional yet understated nal scenes are particularly ne. Above all, Dudman shows us one
Jeff VanderMeer
215
incontrovertible truth about her Wegener: he loved the world, in all o its riotous complexity. complexity. Some may say the same o Dudman ater reading this t his wise, beautiul novel.” Criminally underrated, this book deserves much more attention. Zero Zerovi villlle e by Steve Erickson (2007) – Erickson is a writer whose sense o history and the absurd suuses his books. Zero Zerovi villlle e , about an eccentric, damaged man who stumbles into lm directing, is primarily set in the Los Angeles o the 1970s and 1980s. As I wro wrote te in my Washington Post Book World review, “Over his entire career Erickson has challenged readers with a ercely intelligent and surprisingly sensual brand o Amer Americ ican an surr surrea ealilism sm that that can, can, at time times, s, seem seem impe impene netr trab able le.. For this this reas reason on,, it surp surpri rise sedd me that almost everything in Erickson’s new novel Zero Zerovi villlle e entertains so readily without seeming watered down or slight. Zeroville is unny, sad and darkly beautiul, built around short chapters that allow the author to capture the essential moment and move eortlessly through time.” Te Book o Preaces by Alasdair Gray (2000) – Te great Scottish writer who produced such classic novels as Lanark and Poor Tings endeavored early in this decade to publish…a book o preaces. Te eccentric, brilliant result is nothing less than an exploration o the evolution o the English language. Divided into sections including “Te First English,” “English Reorms,” “A Great Flowering,” and “Between wo Revolutions,” Te Book o Preaces reprints preaces rom books by everyone rom Chaucer to Darwin—-all o it annotated and illustrated by Gray. In the groupings and analysis, we learn more about language than rom any more conventional history. Light by M. John Harrison (2002) – Winner o the James iptree Award, Light shares some similarities with Bolanos’ 2666 br utish 2666 in its willingness to give sometimes brutish depictions o human behavior while also demonstrating mind-blowing depth o vision. A pres presen entt-da dayy thre thread ad invo involv lvin ingg a kil kille lerr mes meshe hess with with a ut utur uree narr narrat ativ ivee cen cente tere redd arou around nd the mysterious mysterious Keahuchi Keahuchi ract ract in deep space. space. As I wrote at the time time in a SF Site review review, “Light is a book to make both Iain M. Banks and Vladimir Nabokov blush with envy, a book that uses hard SF concepts like poetry and is merciless in its assault on the irrelevant. I cannot think o a SF novel in recent memory that has both mocked the stereotypical ‘sense o wonder’ and yet simultaneously created a sense o wonder.” Te Summer Book by ove Jansson (1976, 2008) – Te reprinting o this sublime
216
MONSTROUS CREATURES
classic about a girl’s adventures under the tutelage o her grandmother on an island o o Finland conrmed Jansson as one o the twentieth century’s greatest humanists. Wise Wise,, touc touchi hing ng with withou outt bein beingg sent sentim imen enta tal,l, inte intens nsel elyy magi magica cal,l, and and vibr vibran ant,t, Te Summer Book rereshes and restores the reader at every turn. It succeeds at that most difcult o tasks: to build interest and depth without resorting to conventional conict. Te depictions o nature, wedded to great characters, are also phenomenal. (Te reissue o Jan Janss sson on’’s Moomi oominn comi comics cs by Drawn rawn & Qu Quar arte terl rlyy also also dese deserv rves es ment mentio ion. n.)) ainaron by Leena Krohn (2004) – A translation rom the original Finnish, this short novel consists o thirty letters written by an anonymous narrator visiting the city o ainaron, a metropolis populated by human-sized intelligent insects. Krohn is a writer o the rst rank, comparable to Kaka, and the novel contains scenes o startling beauty and strangeness. Krohn also eortlessly melds the literal with the metaphorical, so that the narrator’s explorations encompass both the speculation o science ction and the resonant symbolism o the surreal. In addition to the sometimes horriying images—sel-immolating insects; a uneral subculture centered on dung beetles—ainaron contains a strong undercurrent o emotion. Krohn’s genius is to use the homesickness and oblique personal inormation in the letters to substitute masterully or more conventional character development. While ainaron received good reviews upon publication, the novel has been criminally ignored since. Hopeully some publisher will republish and relaunch ainaron, ainaron, as it deserves resurrection. resurrection. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004) – Spanning 200 years, Mitchell’s brilliant novel concerns nothing less than the end o history using several diverse storylines. Te virtuoso stylistic perormance would be pointless, however, i not or the complexity and compelling nature o the characters—-some o them doomed, some o them hopeul, some o them deluded about their place in the world, and some o them, like the vanity publisher in one section, possessing a keen sense o the absurd. Cloud Atlas is a sprawling yet tightly controlled novel that manages to explode the traditional structure o the novel without being gimmicky or merely clever. (In a similar vein, Jeanette Winterson’s Winterson’s lesser but still worthy Te Stone Gods echoes these concerns.) Dungeon wilig wilight, ht, Vols. Vols. 1 and an d 2: Dragon Cemetery and Armageddon by Joann Sar and Lewis rondheim (2006) – Te French geniuses Sar and rondheim
Jeff VanderMeer
217
delivered perhaps their most sublime reading readin g experience in the guise o a swordsand-sorcery graphic novel about an immortal lizard king’s relationship to his mother and ather. Stunning Stunning visuals are matched by exciting and compelling compell ing plot lines about the end o the world and its rebirth. But none o this would mean anything without the compelling characterization. an (2006) – As I wrote in my m y Bookslut review: “Wordless “Wordless Te Arrival by Shaun an yet containing worlds, Shaun an’s Te Arrival demonstrates the power o antasy to show us our reality. Te story is simple: an immigrant arrives in a strange city and tries to make a lie or himsel so that one day he can send or his amily. He encounters strange, antastical creatures that are as natural as breakast, lunch, and dinner to the native inhabitants. He learns the stories o other immigrants who have come to the city….Te complexity and the richness o Te Arrival come entirely rom the painstaking and eortless execution o the central idea, using a myriad o panels that, mostly in warm sepia tones, convey not just movement but the moment .” A wordless classic as central to the new century as Bolanos’ 2666 . Teroux’s post-apocalyptic post-apocalyptic novel provides Far North by Marcel Teroux (2009) – Teroux’s a good example o critical reevaluation, even in the short term. When I rst read it, I had reservations about some o the plot devices used by the author; to some extent, I still eel the structure is awed. However, the protagonist, Makepeace, has haunted me ever since I read Far North; I can’t shake her, and thereore I can’t shake the novel. Ultimately, that immersive experience—o deeply believing in a ctional person—means I cannot shake Far North rom this list, either. As I wrote in Te New York imes Book Review , “Deep into this unbearably sad yet oten sublime novel, Makepeace says: ‘Everyone expects to be at the end o something. What no one expects is to be at the end o everything .’.’ Tere’s nothing let to say ater that—yet Makepeace keeps going, and the reader ollows her, i not hopeully then in the hope that she will win out and that her lie will have meaning to someone, somewhere.” Wa Tingo (2007) – Chaotic and absurd, Te Wizard o the Crow by Ngugi Wa satirical and wise, Te Wizard o the Crow is set in the imaginary Arican country o Abruria. Te plot concerns, among many other things, a sick tyrant with a ridiculous plan to create the tallest building in the world to celebrate his glory. Scheming ministers, a rebel group called Te Movement o the Voice o
218
MONSTROUS CREATURES
the People, gure prominently. So does the wizard o the title, an educated, unemployed man named Kamiti who joins the rebels. He’s not a wizard, even though many mistakenly think he is, but Ngugi Wa Wa Tingo is denitely a wizard or juggling all o the elements o this madcap mad cap romp o a novel. Te sublime and the silly coexist within Te Wizard o the Crow , but ultimately the message is as serious and cutting as the text is nimble and uproarious. Maps o the Imagination: Te Writer Writer as Cartographer by Peter urchi (2004) – Tis brilliant exploration o creative writing through the metaphor o the map makes you see crat and orm rom a dierent perspective.Chapters like “Projections and Conventions” and “A Rigorous Geometry” provide insightul analysis o various short stories and novels in the context o topography. Te copious illustrations not only enliven and explicate the text, they oten suggest new approaches to ctional structure, characterization, and description. Rising Up, Rising Down by William . Vollman (2004) – Even in the abridged one-volume version, Vollman’s history o violence is a ormidable and eccentric accomplishment. Tis exploration roams rom the rst world to the third, rom an image outside his apartment window to the catacombs beneath Paris. Vollman’s cleareyed analysis, his continual questioning o ideas and o situations results in a ascinating and essential guide to both barbarity and the pillars o our so-called civilization. Te Jerusalem Quartet by Edward Whittemore (1977-1987/2002) – Old Earth Books did the world a tremendous avor by reprinting the our novels o Whittemore’s Whittemore’s Jerusalem Quartet: Sinai apestry apestr y , Jerusalem Poker , Nile Shadows, and Jericho Mosaic Mosaic . As I wrote in an article or Locus Online at the time: “With his Jerusalem Quartet, Whittemore set out to do nothing less than map a secret history o the world, ocusing on the Middle East, where a welter o religions converge, sometimes with tragic results. Te novels are loosely related, in that several memorable protagonists appear in all our, slipping in and out o the narrative as walk-on, secondary secondar y, and main characters. Inasmuch as he he Jerusalem Quartet tells one story, it ollows the exploits o a man named Stern Strongbow, Strongbow, who hopes to create peace in the Middle East. It also covers the years 1900 through 1975, weaving together dierent times and places or a thematic resonance that ar exceeds anything Tomas Pynchon accomplished in his excellent book V .”
Conversation #3: The Monstrous Capybara of Austin Texas Ecstatic Days, June 2009
My rst encounter with a capybara was sad and strange: I saw one in a cramped cage at a county air as a teenager teenage r. In amongst the rides, the shooting galleries, and the weird ood, just this tiny cage and this incredibly peculiar creature that I’d I’d never seen beore, or even imagined existed. e xisted. It had unbelievably beautiul eyes. Ever since then, I’ve I’ve been ascinated with capybaras because they seem so antastical and they also have this gruy wise look to them. (I only wish I had ound some way to rescue that rst one rom what couldn’ couldn’t have been a great lie.) li e.) Recently, Recently, I had a dream about capybaras. I dreamt o a land o talking tal king capybaras and their guinea pig minions. Tey were in a war against a land o meerkats and their vole minions. It was not cute. It was not whimsical. I was their secret weapon. But although I could describe advanced weapon tech I could not build it. Funny thing about the dream…we were in the General capybara’s capybara’s command-and-control tent the whole time with the guinea pig subords running in and out o the ap while the capybaras plotted strategy around a map o their world on a table. Te capybaras were human-sized. All very serious and gru. It was pretty musky and muddy in there—just planks on the oor and then the dirt/mud. It must’ve been
220
MONSTROUS CREATURES
raining outside. So I never saw the world, just the inside o this tent with these serious capybaras asking my advice on strategy and weaponry weaponr y. Some o them wore helmets with spikes coming out o them like the Kaiser’s soldiers during WWI. Tey had little colored pins stuck in the maps and little plastic models o their capybara inantry and some cavalry, cavalry, although I never did nd out what a capybara might ride. Te dream ended because I kept getting smaller and smaller and eventually I ell through the eye o one o the capybara ofcers and into a vortex o black light. Astoundingly Astoundingly,, a capybara capybara named Caplin Rous responded responded in the comments comments thread when I posted a blog entry about my dream. Tis led to urther investigations, and the discovery that Caplin Rous lives in exas, and that Melanie ypaldos dons the Caplin Rous (Rodents o Unusual Size, i you remember your Princess Bride ) persona or her website devoted to her capybara. Not only that, ypaldos has just released a kid’s book called Celeste and the Giant Hamster, which does include appearances by a capybara. It seemed only natural, given the topics that crop up on Ecstatic Days, to interview Melanie ypaldos about Caplin Rous, as wonderul a capybara as I’ve ever seen. Te answers about capybaras may surprise you, including what sounds they make! It’s It’s just a great interview inter view.. How did you wind up with a capybara in exas? And had you ever had one beore?
Six months beore we got Caplin Rous, I went to the Los Llanos region o Venezuela with my two grown children, Philip and Coral. One o our goals was to see capybaras in the wild. We were lucky enough to see quite a ew o them… actually hundreds, maybe thousands. Our most amazing experience was holding a three-month-old capybara that our guide simply picked up o the road one evening. Te docile nature o that capybara in our rst up-close experience started us thinking that a capybara might make a good pet. When we got back to exas exas we researched capybaras ca pybaras on the web and ound surprisingly little inormation on their suitability as pets. However, we did note that some sites stated something somethin g along the lines o “commonly kept as pets” with absolutely no data to back the claim.
Jeff VanderMeer
221
What What kind kind o a pet pet is a cap capyba ybara? ra? How How smar smart? t? And what what kind kind o tempe temperam ramen ent? t?
When we questioned questione d locals in Venezuela, Venezuela, they stated in no uncertain terms that capybaras are the dumbest animals on the planet. Our experience is quite the opposite. Caplin is at least as smart as a dog, although dierently motivated. He won’t do anything i there isn’t something in it or him. It seems like he recognizes every person he’s ever met and reacts dierently to them. In general, he is a very sweet and aectionate animal. He likes to sit on the couch next to me or in my lap while I eed him treats. Since he weighs 100 lbs, I can only have him in my lap or a ew minutes beore be ore it starts cutting o circulation in my legs. At night, Caplin Capli n likes to sleep under the covers i the weather weathe r is cold, or on the oor beside the bed in warmer weather. In a single word, I would describe him as needy. He always wants to be with me and can “eep” loudly i he knows I am nearby but he can’t get to me. He ollows me around the house and the yard and expects me to watch him while he swims or grazes. He panics i he doesn’t know where I am. When he thinks it’s time or me to come home rom work, he will go to the gate and wait or me. How on earth did you train Caplin Rous?
Like many rodents, capybaras are very smart and Caplin is no exception. When he was a month old I taught him to shake hands by saying “shake” “shake” and tapping his paw until he picked it up. It took 15 minutes or him to gure it out. Te last trick I taught him was to go in a circle when I signal. I saw a video o a capybara in a zoo in Japan that could do this trick. Tere aren’t many other capybaras that can do any tricks at all and I didn’t want the Japanese capybara to one-up Caplin. o teach this I used one o his avorite oods, a ruit popsicle. Keeping the popsicle just out o reach, I led him in a little circle, rewarding each correct step. Ater two popsicles, he knew the trick. What is it that you you like so much much about capybaras? capybaras?
What I love most about Caplin is how much he loves me and how smart he is. I also love his noises. When people hear him they are always amazed. His voice
222
MONSTROUS CREATURES
is oten mistaken or a birdsong. When he’s he’s nervous he sounds like the dinosaurs in Jurassic he’s happy he sounds like a Geiger counter. Jurassic Park Park . When he’s Do people do double-takes when they see Caplin Rous or the rst time? I shared photos with riends and they thought they had been Photoshopped.
I take Caplin out in public a lot just because I like to have him with me. It is un to watch people’s reactions. Most people have no idea what he is and some take that as a personal aront, angry that such an animal could even exist. But most people are excited and enthusiastic about him, oten reerring to him as a giant hamster. Tat usually means they like him. Tose who reer to him as a giant rat are more likely to be araid. He is conused with a variety o animals such as tapirs, wombats and peccaries. One thing that amazes me is that very small children in strollers who can hardly speak a dozen words will point at him and say sa y, “Mouse!” Tey are almost better at making that connection than adults are. How many other animals do you have? Does Caplin get along with all o them?
We We have our horses, three rainbow boas, two leopard tortoises and a rabbit. Caplin and the rabbit are great riends although we constantly worry that he’ll step on her. Te tortoises sometimes invade Caplin’s corner o the yard and he will do his threat display o clicking and barking to try to drive them o. Tey ignore him. He is scared to death o the snakes, probably imagining they are anacondas. O the our horses, only the oldest and gentlest one is allowed near Caplin. I don’t don’t trust the t he others not to paw him out o curiosity. Does Caplin Rous roam ree? And do you need a permit to keep Caplin?
I treat Caplin just like a dog. He goes in and out o the house at will and has pretty much ree roam o the enced enced area. I don’t don’t let him out at night because we have coyotes that sometimes come near the house. When we’re we’re outside the yard I always keep him in his harness and leash. Catching a capybara is something like catching a greased hog with their similar body shape and his tendancy to be wet and covered with mud. Where I live in exas, exas, no permits are required to own a capybara but this is
Jeff VanderMeer
223
not true in many places. State and local restrictions may apply. New York and Caliornia have particularly stringent rules concerning rodents. What’s What’s your your avorite avorite thing about about Caplin Rous? Rous?
It’s It’s hard to pick just one aspect, but b ut I think I love his noises the most. Since I used to do pharmaceutical research and had requent occasion to use a Geiger counter, I never would have thought that sound could bring a smile to my ace the way it i t does now. now. Did Caplin play a role in the writing o your book?
Caplin was the inspiration or my book. My granddaughter wanted a book about cats but I soon ound the capybara taking over the story. Te cats mimic human reactions including ear, anger, curiosity and surprise, nally resulting in riendship and acceptance when they get to know the capybaras in the book. Without Caplin, I would not have known about these reactions or about capybara behavior, which is very poorly documented. When did you start pretending pretending to be Caplin Rous? What do you nd interesting interesting about inhabiting the persona o a giant rodent?
One day as I explored MySpace I noticed that a surprising number o guinea pigs had their own pages. Just or un, I created a Caplin page. He immediately attracted riends, either people or “anipals,” who were interested in capybaras. Since I’d had so little luck nding inormation about pet capybaras, I wanted to do my part to contribute to the knowledge base. Even though the blog entries are a re written in Caplin’s voice, they contain a lot o inormation about his behavior, both good and bad. Te day Caplin bit me I posted a blog expressing both o our conusion over the event and his subsequent hostility. Over time, I realized he intended me to be part o his herd and I was not cooperating. Eventually we worked through this. I also kept a chart o his growth and had him discuss his medical issues, which included a brie period o paralysis ollowing neutering. New capybara owners now have a little more inormation about what they are getting into than I did when I got Caplin.
224
MONSTROUS CREATURES
What about capybaras do you think would come as a surprise to someone who doesn’ doesn’t have one as a pet? pet?
Te existence o capybaras surprises people more than anything else. Once they get over the shock o a giant rodent, they tend to admire his calm demeanor dem eanor.. When Caplin does a trick, such as shaking hands, they are surprised by his intelligence, requently claiming that he is smarter than their dog. I think he is just better trained. People with some prior knowlege would be most surprised by what active and agile swimmers they are. I you see capybaras in the zoo, they are almost always doing nothing. Caplin is a very graceul in the water, more like an otter than a dog. He has an above ground swimming pool that is about 15 x10 x5 and he zips around underwater, putting his orepaws against his stomach and pushing o with his hind eet. I love to watch him play with his pool toys. He especially loves to swim through hoops. '
'
'
PERSONAL MONSTERS
The Hannukah Bear
I rst moved up to allahassee allahassee to be with my now-wie Ann in October o 1992. At the time, Ann’ Ann’s daughter was six or seven years old and as accepting o the situation as she could be, most tension assuaged by the act she still saw her ather on a regular basis. But I was still anxious to show her that lie as she knew it wasn’t going to change too drastically, and that it might even be un. Hannukah was coming up, so I suggested we go shopping or Ann at the local mall. Erin agreed and we set o or the mall in high spirits. Erin, in those days, was a mischievous little sprite o a girl with dark eyebrows and a glint in her eye that was either piratical or good natured depending on her mood. She would say things like, “I want to be a taxi driver, but i that doesn’t work out I’ll be a doctor or lawyer. And i that doesn’t doesn’t work out I’ll just be a plain old beauty queen and live at home with my mom.” Once, she said she’d like to be a “scientist o crayons.” For awhile, she used to say twenty minutes was “churney midgets.” She was the cutest little kid I’d ever met, but also tough as all get out. I enjoyed telling her impossible things as act and getting that little indignant hal-smile out o her and the olded arms, which told me she was entertained but she wasn’t wasn’t buying any o it. I should perhaps mention now that at the time I didn’t know anything about Hannukah. I had not come across any traces o Hannukah learnin’ in any books I’d read or through any people I’d met. But, being an agnostic, I had no organized aith or Judaism to come into conict with, and I was eager to learn everything I could. So I was in perhaps an overly receptive state o mind as we entered the mall. As we shopped or Ann, we eventually encountered the inevitable Santa Claus display, complete with the man in the ake beard ho-ho-ho-ing or the kids. Erin looked at the Santa without comment, but a little later, when we
Jeff VanderMeer
227
passed a display showing a huge white animatronic bear holding a red wrapped present, she said, sai d, “Oh—look. It’s It’s the Hannukah Hannuka h Bear!” A certain cer tain madness seized me. Here was an opportunity to learn lear n something someth ing about Jewish culture. “Te Hannukah Bear?” I said. “What’s the Hannukah Bear?” “You know,” she said, “the Hannukah Bear. It’s the bear that helps light the menorah. It helps with the cooking, too, sometimes.” “Really?” I said. “What else can you tell me about the Hannukah Bear?” Te glint in Erin’s eye intensied and as we walked toward a Walden’s Bookstore, she told me all about the Hannukah Bear. A lot o what she said is lost in the arthest reaches o my sieve-like memory, but I remember that she went into a complex explanation o the Hannukah Bear’s relationship to Hannukah, what it symbolized, where the reerence had come rom, and a lot o other stu. Wonderul was the Hannukah Bear! Excellent in all o its intentions and abilities! Why, Why, it even appeared in the night sky sometimes sometime s as points o light! It was a beautiul and brilliant bri lliant concentrated ow o bullshit, o smartassery smartasser y, that ooled me utterly. I don’t think beore or since I’ve heard anyone eed me such a wonderul line o sustained, extemporaneous crap. And I bought it. I bought into it completely. completely. By the time we got home, I was stued ull o acts about the Hannukah Bear, and eeling very pleased with mysel. I had learned something about Hannukah. It was knowledge I could use when meeting Ann’s synagogue members or the rst time. I could even show Ann that I was trying hard to learn about her religion and culture! Alas, o course, there were instead looks o puzzlement, even concern. When I realized how completely comple tely I’d I’d been ooled, ooled, I laughed my ass o. Since I’d I’d arrived in allahassee, I’d been abricating little stories or her o and on. She’d just returned the avor, in spades...with a shovel, so I could dig my own grave. It was, as I say, say, one o the most amazing amazi ng extemporaneous displays display s o applied imagination imagi nation that I’ve ever been privileged to witness. From then on, it was no-holds barred. Whether it was the pet iguana Erin and I pretended lurked around the house when her timid riends came over to play or the extended “incident” at Chucky Cheese involving the giant rat mascot
228
MONSTROUS CREATURES
and an ill-timed kick, we had a series o adventures based almost entirely on rifng o o each other’s other’s imaginations. imaginati ons. Eventually, she became too old to have un with parental units and those times aded into memory. But the Hannukah Bear story is still a staple o amily lore and legend—the event that started it all.
Fantasy and the Imagination Introduction to Best American Amer ican Fantasy, Fantasy, Volume Volume 1 (2007)
In her extraordinary creative writing book Te Passionate, Accurate Story , Carol Bly presents a hypothetical situation. One night at dinner din ner a girl announces to her ather and mother that a group o bears has moved in next door. door. In one scenario, the ather says (and I paraphrase), “Bears? Don’t be ridiculous,” and tells his daughter to be more serious. In the other scenario, the ather says, “Bears, huh? How many bears? Do you know their names? What do they wear?” And his daughter, with delight, tells him. Te imagination is a orm o love: playul, generous, and transormative. All o the best ction hums and purrs and sighs with it, and in this way (as well) ction mirrors lie. Tis is how we think o the ction collected in this rst volume o Best American Fantasy . Tere’s a icker, a utter, at the heart o these stories that animates them, and this movement—ever dierent, ever unpredictable—makes each story unique. Does it matter i the imaginative impulse is “antastical” in the sense o “containing an explicit antastical event”? No. It matters only that, on some level, a sense o antastical play exists on the page. Bears have moved in next door. We We oten disregard this sense o play. play. Why? In part, the idea o “play” seems immature or rivolous, especially in a society still blinkered by its Puritan origins. However, we also tend to discount play because it speaks to an aspect o the imagination that dees easy measurement. It brings yet another level o uncertainty to an endeavor already supersaturated with the subjective. During Medieval times, the imagination was oten associated with the senses sense s and thus thought to be one o the links between human beings and the animals. Only with the Rennaissance was the imagination rmly linked to creativity and thus the intellect. Both views, however, and modern ideals o unctionality unctionality and
230
MONSTROUS CREATURES
—even, sometimes, the idea in modern ction o invisible prose —ignore —ignore or utility —even, have no place or the sense o play that precedes and inuses creative endeavor. Tis is perhaps no surprise, given that you cannot teach imagination in a creative writing workshop. As Bly explicitly states in Te Passionate, Accurate b e taught Story , by the time a person reaches the age where they want to write and be to write ction, that particular muscle, that particular maniestation o the soul, is rmly locked in place. A good instructor can perhaps per haps draw out an imaginative impulse in a timid student but cannot instill it as other, more empirical aspects o ction can be instilled with patience and a rm hand. o pull out a hoary old quote, Jung once wrote: “Te dynamic principle o antasy is play, which belongs also to the child, and as such it appears to be inconsistent with the principle o serious work. But without this playing with antasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. Te debt we owe to the play o imagination is incalculable.” In the stories contained in Best American Fantasy , events continually challenge and surprise our own imaginations. In this anthology , you will nd talking alligators, alligat ors, a man as big as a s a county, county, baboon playwrights, a ying y ing woman, sordid superheroes, men who marry trees, the ragments o a storyteller, and the very edge o the world. You may even nd the end o narrative. What you will not nd is a set denition o “antasy. “antasy.” I you enter into reading this volume eager or such a denition or searching or the antastical event that you believe should trigger the use o the term, you will overlook the many other pleasures that await you. Tese are the same pleasures you can nd in non-antastical stories: deep characterization, thematic resonance, clever plots, unique situations, pitch-perect dialogue, enervating humor, and luminous settings. Te extraordinary depth o imagination in the best stories aects not merely their content but their orm, the orm shaping the content, until we realize the two are not separate, that they are, in the best writing, united by the same imaginative act. In a sense, dening “antasy” “antasy” in the context o ction is a losing proposition— simply not worth the eort. e ort. We We do not really talk like li ke people talk in ction. cti on. Lives do not have the kind o narrative arc or denouement oten ound in ction.
Jeff VanderMeer
231
Tereore, we should not look askance at writers who change chan ge the paradigm, who have no interest in replicating reality i it does not suit their purposes. (A more interesting discussion o antasy, antasy, beyond the scope o this t his introduction, might be to dene it in the context o metaphor, because a writer’s writer’s voice may be described describ ed as abulist rather than t han mimetic based solely on metaphor, regardless o the nature o the events occurring in the story. In all o this, it is important to remember that even ights o ancy must have anchors to be successul. Te antastical has no reality without its characters. Te alligator knows the plot o the tale better than anyone. Te man as big as a county is weeping or a reason. Te ying woman has an admirer. Te ailed superhero has bills bi lls to pay. Te edge o the world isn’t isn’t the end en d o everything . Even baboon playwrights and men who marry trees may have hidden depths. Te ragments o the storyteller collect themselves long enough to tell one last story. Tere’s no real end to narrative, just as there is no real end to the ways in which “antasy” “antasy” elements can be b e put to use in the service ser vice o narrative. Every time someone reads Bly’s A Passionate, Accurate Story and comes to the part where the ather asks his daughter about the bears, there’s the tantalizing possibility in the reader’s mind that she’ll say something dierent—something wonderul or horrible or bittersweet. Tere’s every possibility that what she says will be dierent or every reader, depending solely on the generosity o the individual imagination.
My Father ’s Pipe Los Angeles imes, “O the Shel,” October 18, 2009
When I was growing growing up, my dad had a amily amily heirloom heirloom that that ascinated ascinated me: a small small tobacco pipe with a glass-covered pinhole in the side. I you looked through the hole you could see a microche-like photograph: our rows o stern-looking men and women, along with names and other inormation in German or Dutch. My dad explained that the photograph depicted a group o dissidents rom the days beore World War I. He didn’t know whether the image was intended as a “hit list” or the secret police or a way or the radicals to keep track o their own. But those kinds o details didn’t register with me anyway. For me, the pipe was a compelling oddity, a window that delighted me because I could look through a tiny hole and see so much. Over the years, I kept thinking about that pipe—my mind just wouldn’t leave it alone. Ten, while working on my noir noi r antasy novel Finch, it resuraced as belonging to the ather o my detective hero, John Finch. Finch’s ather is a mysterious gure with shiting allegiances between various actions in my wartorn imaginary city o Ambergris. In a scene in the novel, Finch is shown the pipe as a child, much as I was shown the real pipe pip e by my dad. d ad. Here, though, there is an added layer: that Finch’ Finch’s ather is trying to communicate something about his real role in Ambergris that he cannot state directly without endangering his son. Finch looks through the pinhole and sees “[a] whole map o the known world. Tere was a dot or Ambergris. Te line o the River Moth…. Te Kali ’s empire covering the west beyond the Moth. Exotic city ater exotic city marked in that vast desert, the plains and hills beyond.” But my ctional pipe also has a pinhole on the other side, which shows “black-and-white photos o twelve men and women.” Finch’s ather tells him,
Jeff VanderMeer
233
“Te owner o this pipe ran a network o spies. Te map…is really real ly a code. It tells the owner something somethin g about the spies whose pictures you’re you’re looking at.” A secret history o the world. A topography o the imagination in which cities become shorthand or people’s lives. For me, writing antasy has always had that element. Each novel has contained autobiography tied to setting—with details taken directly rom the exhilarating and mundane aspects o my past and my amily’s past. Do readers see those elements as personal, as transposed rom reality? Probably not in most cases, and it certainly isn’ isn’t necessary necessar y. But it’s this hidden element, this strand o subtext, that—unseen by readers but elt by them—breathes lie into ction and is especially important or ction set in imaginary places, which might otherwise other wise be so disconnected rom reality as to become meaningless. meanin gless. A novel that isn’t isn’t anchored to some aspect o the human condition, to some universal aspect o our disparate experiences, is usually a novel inert and lieless on the page. Tis subtext acknowledges that what’s private is also public, that the world beyond our immediate experience has an impact on us and thus on our ction. As a kid, my ather’s ather’s pipe represented represent ed a potent poten t possibility or adventure, a sense that the world was wa s deeper and wider than I could then know. know. It also represented a way o bonding with my dad. But as an adult, it became a dierent kind o mystery, with a dierent set o questions. Who were these people trapped inside the pipe? What had they lived or? What had they been willing to die or? Slowly, the political mixed with the personal, and yet I didn’t want the real answers. My mind was seeking ctional ones instead. I ound them in writing Finch. Te novel is set in a ailed state run by a dictatorship that doesn doe sn’’t understand the people pe ople it is governing. Te consequences consequence s are both tragic and absurd. Although Finch has a mystery plot wedded to a surreal antasy element, the context, the setting, the lives o the characters are inormed and shaped by the last eight years, rom Sept. 11 to occupation to torture to suicide bombings. Writers Writers oten mention the need to get distance distance rom events events in their lives beore beore they deal with them in ction, but I nd a similar need or distance rom history
234
MONSTROUS CREATURES
and politics. Without that—and the transormative power o the imagination—a ction writer risks creating an unsubtle polemic. Writing in a antastical setting helps me, as it immediately changes the paradigm, while retaining the intellectual arguments and questions, the tone and texture, o the original events. o me, then, antasy continues to be highly personal because the political, the historical always takes a toll, even on those o us who occupy the sidelines. As a writer, writer, you cannot remain unaected by that, tha t, even i you sometimes someti mes can’ can’t see how to work with it. Ambergris enables enabl es me to write about it. Fantasy enables me to write about it. Tat prism is like putting my eye to the hole in the pipe and seeing this ragment o another world that’s still part o our own, no matter how distant in time or space. Te truth is, Ambergris has always been porous: Tere’s no barrier between me and it, and thus no barrier between it and the world. Te world continually horries, moves, elates, bores and changes me—and, in a very organic, intimate way, Ambergris is continually being colonized and redrawn in my imagination as a consequence. Tere are no maps o Ambergris because there can be no maps o Ambergris, no matter what an image in a pinhole tells you. In Finch, it is a beleaguered city, linked by psychic distress to places like Baghdad, Beirut, even occupied Paris during World War War II. But what will it be tomorrow?
The Novella: A Personal Exploration Originally presented at the 2004 Associated Associa ted Writing Writing Programs Conerence in Vancouver, ancouver, Canada
Te novella has always been a very personal orm or me because it was through the novella orm that I came into my own as a writer. Even today, it speaks to me in a more personal way than either the short story or the novel. Perhaps this is because although I have not written nor ever want to t o write the perect novel, I have come close to, or me, me , writing the perect per ect novella. Similarly, Similarly, although I love the short story orm, it is too restrictive in its it s miniaturization and compression—I have created short stories that were too perect or their own good, in a sense. Te novella also has a personal resonance or me because it marked the beginning o a long journey in the wilderness ater years o having built up a reputation as a writer o short stories. I soon ound that writing novellas might best serve my progression as a writer, but it did not best serve my career. For several years in the mid to late 1990s, ater I began to write almost exclusively novellas, I ound that I had difculty getting them published, and when I did, d id, it was in venues that had more limited circulations and reputations. Suddenly, I went rom being an up-and-coming talent to being a kind o sequestered hermit or eccentric, or at least that’s how I elt. Publications that were happy to risk a limited number o pages to a new writer were less interested in devoting a lot o pages to that same writer. For ve years, I labored in utter obscurity, obscurity, writing...novellas. It was perhaps per haps the most liberating experience o my lie. Although I had not considered publication while writing the short stories, I had come to expect that I could place them, and would continue to place short ction, even i it was in the longer l onger orm o the novella. When that expectation turned out to be alse, I retreated urther rom the idea o “audience” and “market.” “market.”
236
MONSTROUS CREATURES
In a way, way, this preserved preser ved and protected me. Free o any expectation o success or o career, I matured as a writer in ways that I would not have h ave otherwise—and all almost exclusively through the novella orm. I became more original. original . I invested more in my characters. I invested more in the prose. Tis was in part because o the orm. Tere couldn’t be the instant gratication o completing a rough drat in a day, as with most o my short stories. Tere also, I knew, wouldn’t be the semi-instant gratication o a nice acceptance letter lette r in the mail once I sent it out, either. So, I was content—and even happy—to simply spend each day held by the vision and promise o whatever novella I was working on. In short, I wrote more intrinsically or mysel than ever beore. Now, or some writers this might have been sel-indulgent and the lack o audience might have resulted in lack o ocus or in lack o progression. But or me it worked because it re-established a high wall between art and commerce. It gave me the distance and the space to rediscover mysel as a writer. I had some vague idea o “the reader” who might encounter my novellas at some point in the uture, well ater my death, the manuscript ound in some aunt’s attic and resurrected with appropriate introduction, aterword, and tragic endnotes, but or the most part this shadowy reader had my own ace. Te novella became, ultimately ultimat ely,, deeply conessional in a way, way, exploring what writing meant to me as well as the nature o the imagination, obsession, and love.I think I can say with certainty that I was never happier than during that period when I had no prospects and no hope o a career. Eventually, most o the novellas were collected in a book entitled City o Saints & Madmen, which went on to be a Publishers Weekly and Amazon.com Amazon.com year’s best pick and has been, to date, translated into ve languages, indicating ironically enough that sometimes the best career move is to write unpublishable novellas until they become publishable. But why the novella? What about the novella was so attractive? Was Was it just that I couldn’ couldn’t write novels yet? Tat I didn’t didn’t have the marathon endurance to do so? Reecting back on this period beore I wrote novels, I think the novella seemed so attractive because when you deal in images charged with a magic
Jeff VanderMeer
237
realist or surrealist sensibility se nsibility,, when your style, as a s a reection o your worldview, worldview, is naturally antastical at the level o metaphor, whether anything antastical occurs in your ction, then the novella provides the perect orm or what is, at base, visionary literature. By a naturally antastical worldview, I mean that the style itsel is suused by it, so that on the level o metaphor a novel like Mark Helprin’s A Soldier o the olkien’’s Great War is more intrinsically antasy or abulist in nature than J.R.R. olkien Rowling’s Harry Harr y Potter series. Lord o the Rings or J.K. Rowling’s Tis concept goes beyond the clichéd idea o suspension o disbelie. It’s true that abulist novels can be harder to sustain because the implications o the antasy element are harder to sustain (generally) in a believable manner than the implications o a realistic setting or realistic events—at least in part because readers are already amiliar ami liar with the here and now. now. However, However, I don d on’’t believe belie ve this is the primary reason I attempted novellas beore novels. Ater all, every writer, as they say, say, creates his or her own reality realit y when sitting down to write wri te ction, and this can be just as difcult a task or the writer o “realistic” ction. It’s more that there is a deep anti-rational or irrational element to the best antastical or visionary ction, something that speaks to the intuition and the subconscious. Many times it comes out o the resonance o images connected to characters—or the way in which setting and style attain a hyper-realism. As Michael Moorcock writes in his collection o essays Wizardry and Wild Romance , this kind o ction “may not be judged by normal criteria but by the power o [the writer’s] imagery and by what extent their writing evokes that power, whether trying to convey wildness, strangeness, or charm; whether like Melville, Ballard, Patrick White, or Alejo Carpentier, they transorm their images into intense personal metaphors.” While such elements can be sustained in the short sh ort story or novella orm, at the novel length, they oten become diluted, and thus more ordinary, robbing it o its intrinsic intrinsi c power. power. In a novel, some elements o plotting or other “business”— even practical considerations like moving characters rom scene to scene or the need or dialogue as narrative—can undermine the surrealistic vision. It isn’t about the suspension o disbelie on the reader’s part—it’s about
238
MONSTROUS CREATURES
the inevitable decaying orbit on the part o the writer, the succumbing to the mundane. Sometimes “ller” can take a orm other than the wasted scenes in a typical commercial paperback. Sometimes too much ocus on the rational can also be ller lle r. (I’m (I’m tempted to t o say that it’ i t’ss about the dierence between a 25-yearold scotch straight up and one on the rocks.) Anothe Anotherr elemen elementt that that entere enteredd my novel novellas las at the time time was postmo postmoder dernn techni technique que.. Very little that I used o postmodern technique hadn’ hadn’t been done beore in so-called realistic ction. I wrote a ctional essay about my antastical city at novella length, which more or less compressed plot and character. Another novella inserted the author into the text. A third used an annotated bibliography to convey plot. I ound that using these techniques to support ction set in a antastical city changed the context o the postmodern technique considerably. considerably. Which is to say, say, those techniques that might be said to break the ourth wall instead reinorced the reality o the antasy ant asy.. But postmodern technique can be perilous in more than small doses. Although certain narrative techniques can be deployed successully over the novel length, I do believe the novella length is the upper limit or the success o some o these approaches to ction. (Tat said, someone will always come along to prove you wrong...) So I believe this is also why I wrote novellas—the combination o the visionary and the postmodern made the novella length perect, in that the visionary element didn’t become diluted and the postmodern element didn’t begin to annoy or seem aected. Certainly, it is even more difcult to sustain postmodern technique and visionary qualities over novel length when you are also trying to support the reality o a secondary world without allowing pure description/exposition to take over—in other words, trying very hard or the hull o your ship not to become so encrusted with barnacles barna cles and other extraneous matter that it aects your speed and manueverability. And, in act, when I moved to the novel length, as with my new novel, Shriek: An Aterword , I ound that I was writing in a slightly more conventional mode, jettisoning some elements o the antastical and the postmodern in avor o strategies that work better at the novel length.
Jeff VanderMeer
239
Now, at the same time I’d been writing novellas, I’d started an original ction anthology called Leviathan. Te purpose o Leviathan was to map the continuum o short ction, recognizing that works tackling the same themes would generally have more similarities similari ties regardless o “genre” “genre” than just, say, say, “antasy” “antasy” stories versus “mainstream literary” litera ry” stories. Leviathan mixed works o realistic and non-realistic ction, using theme and other elements as a guide or coherence. Because I’d I’d ound so ew publications willing to even consider novellas, I decided that the second volume o Leviathan would be devoted to them. (Te irony o editing an anthology o novellas that I couldn’t submit to mysel wasn’t lost on me.) So, or over six months, I read more than our thousand novellas o all varieties, in all genres. Tis was an instructive i exhausting exercise. I was able to observe all o the myriad permutations rom a wide range o beginning-toexperienced writers—rom writers who had been published in Te New Yorker or hadn’t published anywhere at all. al l. Omni to those who hadn’ Te most common reason, besides inadequate inade quate grasp o technique, or rejecting novellas during that reading period came rom the realization that many o these so-called novellas were actually short stories. Many o them had unnecessary scenes or scenes that dragged on too long, or scenes that did not operate at the multiple levels necessary to make them “real,” thus necessitating the writing o additional scenes to make up or this lack, and just perpetuating a general slackness . In short, many o the novellas read to me like rough drat short stories, and seemed to lack the recognition that a novella might be longer than a short story but that this didn’t mean you could simply write something longer than usual and it would magically become a novella. It still had to have a pleasing orm, a pleasing structure. Te other aw that became preternaturally prevalent was the novel excerpt presented as a novella. While I do believe that the much-maligned A to B “sliceo-lie” short story structure can still oer up new and delightul variation, I do not believe that, in general, it is sustainable at the novella length. And yet we received many submissions that had either been deliberately sampled rom a novel or novel-in-progress, or, more interestingly, novels-in-waiting that the writers didn’t realize should be longer, and at the novella length appeared to be
240
MONSTROUS CREATURES
A to B “slice-o-lie” “slice-o-lie” tales. A novella novella is not simply an interesting stretch o o novel, would be one lesson to be learned rom reading slush pile novellas o this type. Although there are obvious exceptions, thereore, I don’ don’t think that a novella justies apparent plotlessness as easily as a short story can. Short stories, like poems, can be about a moment in time quite easily. But the structure o the novella seems more practical—that i you are going to stretch your canvas over that length, you should have more to say on a structural level than just here’s a segment o someone’s someone’s lie. Which brings me to a third problem, one that can, o course, be inherent in a awed short story as well, but that becomes more apparent in a novella: weak ideas or characters only become weaker at the greater length. Te nervous stylistic tic that in a short story might even seem charming becomes unbelievably unbel ievably annoying in a novella. Te character chara cter that might stand sta nd up under the reader’ read er’ss jaded gaze or the length o a short story crumbles under the pressure exerted by the greater responsibilities created by the novella. Even a propensity on a writer’s writer’s part to suggest setting through quick ashes o description can, in the novella orm, begin to suggest a lack o commitment. Tese statements might make it sound as i I think that short stories are a lesser orm; not true. Te ideal short story and the ideal novella are equals. I am talking about the context o slush pile submissions, the context o reading with an eye toward selecting work or publication. But it does make me think about the limits o the short story orm in terms o your average published short shor t story. How many writers run through the nish line, so to speak? How many o their characters really do have a lie beyond the end o the story? 1 Since Leviathan 2 , novellas have continued to play an important role in the anthology. Both Leviathan 3 and Leviathan 4 contained several novellas. In 1 What I did nd interesting in making nal selections was how many novellas used the original denition o the term—o many stories meshed together into one story cycle. Tat or some writers the novella was an opportunity to weave stories within stories within stories, in a way that, just or length reasons alone, would have been impossible at the shorter length. For example, a novella rom Stepan Chapman, “Minutes o the Last Meeting,” takes place aboard a train in Czarist Russia, as it is about to be attacked by anarchists. Chapman uses the dierent compartments o the train almost as separate chapters or stories in his novella, spinning stories o o the inhabitants o each that intertwine and contribute to a greater whole.
Jeff VanderMeer
241
many cases, we were the market o last resort and the work would have gone unpublished otherwise. Ironically, these pieces are the ones that almost always receive the most praise rom reviewers, which to my mind means there is a need or more markets or novellas. It may also be a perception issue, too. One writer I cajoled into sending in a novella had put it aside in a drawer and had no plans to send it out, having no idea id ea o anyone who would be interested in a cross-genre piece o that length. Tis attitude uncannily echoes my own experience in the mid-90s, when I ran out o markets willing to look at anything longer than a certain number o pages—or unwilling to look at anything surreal or magic realist in nature. For my own part, I have lately ocused more on short stories and on novels. But both have been greatly enhanced by working in the novella orm. Because o working with novellas, I have a greater appreciation or, on a purely instinctual level, what a short story does well and what it cannot support. It has, by way o contrast, made me better understand how a short story coils and compresses inormation and situation. At the same time, working with novellas has allowed me to organically transition rom writing short stories to writing novels. It has allowed me to experiment with using larger casts o characters, character s, unctional digressions (the kinds o things that novels thrive on), and to discover the kinds o textures stylistically that work best at the longer lengths, without having to commit to them rst or the years it takes to complete a novel. For all o these reasons, the novella remains my avorite orm o ction, both to read and to write. I believe it will continue to be a source o innovation or a long time to come.
Two Tw o Essays on Hiking VanderWorld Blog , June 2005, and Ecstatic Days , May 2009
Inspiration Inspiratio n (ogether) (ogether)
My wie Ann and I have been hanging out around estuaries and pool halls. Tis past weekend, we took a 12-mile hike on a trail in St. Mark’s Wildlie Reuge. Te trail transitions rom pine orest and swamp to salt marshes and reshwater ponds. At one point, you come out on the th e salt marsh to your let and an d the reshwater ponds to your right. On the let, there’s what amounts to a long canal, ringed on the ar side si de by reeds that spread out to the horizon, interrupted interr upted only by the earthen islands o clumps o trees and the byzantine maze o the estuaries that eed into the ocean. Te light, even on a cloudy day, that reects o the tan grasses, is oten remarkably luminous, like a urner urner painting. painti ng. It’s It’s easy to imagine you’v you’vee stumbled across a cross some primordial terrain t errain and that you’re you’re never going to make it back to the 21st century. As we’ we’re walking along, around around mile nine, we notice two straight straight lines coursing coursing through the water some sixty eet ahead o us, waves rippling out rom the lines. Now, the brain is a strange and suggestible muscle, delicate as it is despite being housed in bone. It is much aected by context. We We had been expecting the possibility o otters in the t he water. When we saw the two straight lines, we thought we were seeing evidence o two otters swimming toward us across the canal. But no, as the lines came closer, we saw that it was something much more odd or that place. In an odd, almost magic realist reali st way, way, the otters morphed into the orm orm o two dolphins, their ns cutting through the water orming the two straight lines. Te canal was shallow and they were only able to submerge up to their ns. Teir blowholes made surly air-expelling sounds. Tey roved back and orth across the brackish canal, making the alligators nervous. Some o the alligators
Jeff VanderMeer
243
came out o the water while others dove in, caught between the unexpected dolphins and the slightly more expected humans. We We watched the dolphins as they swam up the canal back the way we had ha d come, until they were out o sight. It was a surreal moment or us, especially because we were in that part o the hike where you lose your bearings a little bit—not becoming disoriented, but working simply at walking, talking less, in your own thoughts, and the pristine nature o your surroundings bringing you deeply into whatever ctions the mind may deliver to you. Later, on our way out o the reuge, we stopped at the visitor center, worried that perhaps the dolphins had gotten lost or trapped. Te water there was at least partially resh water, and the shallowness o it bothered us too. But the ranger at the center reassured us, saying that every once in awhile a ew dolphins would ollow high tide into the estuary system to eed in the salt marshes, and then go out to sea again at the next high tide. We were, though, lucky to see them. In the many years I’ve been going out to St. Marks I’ve never seen dolphins while walking one o the trails—only when out at the lighthouse, in the open sea. (Although, I have seen alligators swimming out at sea, the delineation between resh and salt water becoming blurred; sometimes shermen become a little startled, out there at low tide in their long boots, seeing a sudden reptile, sinuous and oddly close. We We ollowed up our hike with a sojourn to a local pool hall, or beer and a spirited dozen games. Ann and I are evenly matched in pool, and it’s been un to nd a sport to share. It was the prototypical smoky pool hall, with an odd mixture o college co-eds, young proessionals, older couples, geeks, reaks, scantily clad waitresses, and players. Our cue ball had a crack in it. Te crack o billiard balls and the plastic smack o balls hitting pockets mingled with the distant crowd noises rom the televisions tuned to sports events. Te smell o cigarettes and beer had an oddly invigorating eect. I thought about Lake Baikal while we played, and secret lives, and the role o a character named Sybel in my novel, Shriek . I thought about what awaited me at the day job the next day, and wondered why Ann was kicking my butt so thoroughly in some games and not in others. I wondered where Liz Williams
244
MONSTROUS CREATURES
would be taking my plastic alien baby next. I talked with Ann about the Dark Cabal and about Shriek , and the International Horror Guild Awards. But mostly, mostly, or some odd reason, I thought about Lake Baikal and its reshwater seals. And about Alaska and its melting glaciers, which made me worry about St. Marks, wondering i someday, maybe when I am sixty, I’ll go out to the amiliar paths, and the sea levels will have risen, and the whole reuge will be under water. And once, near the end o one game, I saw the clean geometric ge ometric line o cue ball to eight ball to pocket as the clean slice o a dolphin n through water. Te Unknown and the Luminous (Alone)
“Te mass o men lead lives o quiet desperation. What is called resignation is conrmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yoursel with the bravery o minks and muskrats.”* Tis may be so, but it doesn’t eel like desperation at the trail head. It eels like adventure. It eels like you are about to test yoursel against a task hard and worth doing, and even i you retreat rom it back into the normal rhythms o your lie, you will learn something about yoursel in the process. Memories o dodging wild pigs, standing silent while a panther walked by you, and jumping over allligators—the stu o tales exaggerated later over beers, and thus untrue even though true—melt away into another image: o having been disoriented and lost in a thunderstorm on these very same trails, and how that brought back childhood memories o walking on the ree at night in Fiji, with no way to tell sea rom shore, and how, in some guise, you are hoping to recreate that experience that cannot be recreated, because in being lost in the natural world you actually eel more alive, more sae, than at any other time in your lie. Tat’s how you start at least: in the abstract, and in your recollections, rather than in the moment. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to ront only the essential acts o lie, and see i I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Jeff VanderMeer
245
Nowhere is this sense o urgency more apparent than in passing through the swampy orest that lies a mile or two in, with woods meeting a dank blackwater gutter, the place you’ve most oten seen bears and heard things rustling in the darkness that the imagination assigns horrible orms to. Hiking alone is a dierent experience than hiking with someone. Te pleasures o conversation distract rom the still, standing water, rom the reections o cypress knees and the oppressive Southern Gothic eel to the air, the sky blocked by scraggly pine trees. Tis, too, is the corridor where wild pigs once charged, and while danger is minimal, the imagination magnies it, and in the absence o company the mind exaggerates and nds ghosts where none exist. “Nature” “Nature” in this context is something some thing aggressive that wants to cause harm, even though it’s not true. Once through that gauntlet, you eel oolish, you eel dumb, you wonder why you bothered with the anxiety, anxiety, or brought your senses to heightened height ened alert. It’s It’s just a walk in the woods. “ime is but the stream I go a-shing in. I drink at it: but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” Ten the trail becomes straight and long and bright, and you’re trudging across the sandy soil wondering wonderin g how the Spanish invaders with their heavy hot armor ever hacked their way through the swamps. Tis section seems to last orever, and even as you remain vigilant, scanning the trail ahead or signs o motion, still your thoughts stray, time become elongated and porous. Tere’s the memory o each past experience traversing this stretch, and the awareness that you’ve you’ve come early enough to beat be at the biting bi ting ies or once, and then you’re you’re somewhere else. You’re driving across Hungary toward Romania in a tiny car. You’ You’re re lost with your wie on a plateau plate au in a park above San Diego, where the grass is the color o gold and reaches to your knees and the trees are blackened rom re. You’re hiking up a mountain in scrubland outside o Brisbane, each breath labored, every ever y muscle in your legs protesting protest ing even as you’re you’re possessed by a wild giddiness gid diness that keeps k eeps you moving past exhaustion. You You’’re back in the rst year o college when you wanted isolation and walked the ve miles rom the
246
MONSTROUS CREATURES
campus home in utter silence every day, receiving the world through a hole in your shoe and knowing you weren’t lonely but just alone. Tese thoughts are an embarrassment embarrassmen t to you later. later. Tey seem to give signicance to the mundane, mundane , but heightened awareness combined with a strange comort is a signature o being solitary in solitary places. “Te lie in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and ood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventul year…” Ater having passed the unofcial gauntlet o bears and wild pigs, along with the stretch nicknamed “alligator alley,” your stride has achieved a rhythm, and your legs are no longer tight, and you can eel the muscles moving as you move, and you come out o the scrubland into the wetlands, with the reshwater canal serving as a buer to the t he salt marsh and, ultimately, the sea. You You’’ve seen dolphins there, searching or ood at high tide, beore being pulled out again at low tide. You You’v ’vee seen otters and heard the call o curlews. Te water means more lie than anything the woods can support, in a myriad o orms. It’s also an area struck awhile back by hurricane, and you can still see the marks o that abuse, even though the water level’s long since receded. Once, this section was much harder to traverse because o that violence—you had to make your way through thigh-high water, always wary o that sudden tickle that might mean contact with an alligator. Now, though, they’ve lled those spaces in with concrete, and you’re vaguely disappointed. You’re now seven or eight miles out, and yet you’re conronted by this articial bridge. No one is anywhere nearby, and yet there’s no escaping the act people were here in numbers once. “Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts o the system, behind the arthest star, beore Adam and ater the last man.” Finally, Finally, you reach the arthest-most ar thest-most point, beyond which you are but returning returni ng and returning still, eeling the pull o mile markers and the road beyond. But or
Jeff VanderMeer
247
that moment, you’ you’re so remote that there’s there’s no one or miles—and you eel that. th at. You You eel it strongly. strongly. You You’’ve gone rom being a little on edge to being a little tired. And you’ you’ve come out onto this perectly still scene that tha t looks rom the light like urner painted it. And you just take a deep breath and relax into the landscape. “A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion o the air above it is i s shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, water, ull o light and reections, becomes a lower heaven itsel so much more important.” important.” And so you walk along the shore o this lower heaven, in the middle o nowhere and are rejuvenated by its perect stillness. stillnes s. Your Your legs or a time tim e are no longer tired, and you are araid o nothing, and you have no room or memory or thought or anything except this moment, and this one, and the next. I a place can be called perect or pristine or timeless, this stretch o the trail has all o those qualities, and your peace o mind is absolute in its embrace o the sky’s reection. “In any weather, at any hour o the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick o time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting o two eternities, the past and uture, which is precisely the present moment. m oment.”” Te present moment elongates again, ignited by the heat, once past still ponds and into the eleventh mile. You live in the present by dint o blistered eet and chaed ankles and biting ies drawn to the sweat on your ears or orehead and the parched eeling in your throat despite drinking water rom the canteen. Te sun has decided to lodge itsel behind your eyes and shine out so that the inside o your head eels burnt. Every beautiul thing you see ahead o you you know you’ve already seen at least once behind you. Eternity is ound in the repetition o your steps and the constant way the light grips the ground and sends its heat back up at you. Tere’s no memory in you now. Tere’s no room. Te present has lled you up. “At other times watching rom the observatory o some cli or tree, to
248
MONSTROUS CREATURES
telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops or the sky to all, that I might catch something, though I never caught much…” Te larger things in this context all away, until you revel only in small details— the dark line o a marsh hawk ying low over the water, the delicate racture o the water where a snake bird submerged, and, between, the strangely satisying long grass that cascades like hair rom the ground. “By the words necessary o lie, I mean whatever, o all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been rom the rst, or rom long use has become, so important to human hum an lie that ew, ew, i any, any, whether rom savageness, or poverty, poverty, or philosophy ph ilosophy,, ever attempt a ttempt to do without it.” it.” In the nal miles, the sun is so bright and hot you actually eel a little delirious, even though you know this is a mirage—you mirage —you have water and you’ you’re still hobbling hobbli ng through your blisters and petty aches. How can the sun be so oppressive and yet the scene so unbearably beautiul? Te nal mile approaches, and you bend down to tighten the laces on your boot. Tere’ Te re’ss a tiny black-and-red bl ack-and-red grasshopper, symbolic as a scarab, beside your oot. From what seems like a great distance, you hear a scrambling hu rom the marsh beside the trail. For an instant some odd, broad-shouldered marmot pushes its ace through the reeds. Ten sees you and hurriedly disappears with a plop into the water behind it—while you rise, startled, the grasshopper leaping onto your leg. Ten you’re walking again, laughing a little, and in a ew minutes you’re back at the road and your car, everything pressed out o you except a yearning or water and a clean shirt. And you’re unaccountably happy, grinning even. And you eel monstrous, perhaps, but you also eel clean. *(All quotes rom Henry David Toreau’s Toreau’s Where I Lived, and What I Lived For )
About the Author
Je VanderMeer anderMeer grew up in the the Fiji Fiji Islands Islands and and has had books books published published in over over twenty countries. His books, including the bestselling City o Saints & Madmen and Finch, have made the year’s year’s best lists o Publishers Weekly , LA Weekl Weekly y , Amazon Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle , and many more. Considered one o the oremost speculative ction writers o his generation, VanderMeer has won two World Fantasy Awards, an NEA-unded Florida Individual Writers’ Fellowship and ravel Grant, and, most recently, the Le Caard Cosmique Award in France and the ähtiantasia Award in Finland. He has also been a nalist, as writer or editor, or the Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, Philip K. Dick Award, Shirley Jackson Jackson Award, Award, and many others. others. Te author o over three hundred stories, stories, his short ction has appeared recently in Conjunctions , Black Clock , or.com, and Library o America’s America’s denitive anthology American American Fantastic antastic ales , edited by Peter Straub. Collections include Secret Lie and Te Tird Bear (called essential reading by Junot Diaz). He reviews books or, among others, the New York imes Book Review , the Washington Post Book World , the Los Angeles imes , and the Barnes & Noble Review, as well as being a regular columnist or the Omnivoracious book blog. Current projects include Booklie: Strategies and Survival ips or the 21st-Cen 21st-Century tury Writer , the noir antasy novel Finch, and the orthcoming denitive Steampunk Bible rom Abrams Books. He currently lives in allahassee, Florida, and serves ser ves as assistant director or Woord Woord College’s College’s Shared Worlds writing camp or teens (Spartanburg, South Carolina), in addition to conducting workshops and guest lecturing all over the world.
