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RAMSEY CAMPBELL » Discussion » 'A Voyage To Arcturus' by David Lindsay - Stevie attempts a chapter-by-chapter analysis - MAJOR SPOILERS FROM OUTSET « Previous Next »

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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 12:51 pm:   

Thanks to the generosity of my good mate, Craig Schwartz, I have just started into the legendary underground fantasy novel, 'A Voyage To Arcturus' (1921) by David Lindsay. I already had a copy of 'Dr Death', Craig, but the one you sent me has been passed on to a grateful friend. Thanks again.

I made the mistake of starting into the book like any other casual read and after 5 chapters of increasingly baffled amazement have had to stop myself and determine to restart the thing with rather more concentration.

The book has all the effortless readability and excitement value of any of the kings of intelligent pulp. Verne, Wells, Conan Doyle, Rice Burroughs, Lovecraft, Howard, Lewis, Heinlein, etc all spring to mind.

But - and it is a very big but - the flow of the narrative, the way characters are introduced, the unpredictability of the action (yet its feeling of rightness), the abstract symbolism one has a nagging feeling one should understand, the clarity and detail of the imagery and the way it haunts the mind are too strikingly resonant to read quickly.

As the pages and incidents fly by one is reminded of a Woody Allen or Larry David comedy in which the jokes and subtlety of the character comedy whizz past without us being able to take them all in - except subliminally. But this is no comedy. It already has the feeling of something profound and profoundly entertaining.

Anyone who has read the book is invited to share my thoughts and observations (without spoilers) as I stumble, one chapter at a time, through Lindsay's weird and wonderful adventure.

Okay here goes.

Chapter 1: The Seance...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:18 pm:   

Right, we start the book with the set-up of a seance for the privileged elite of the early 1920s, that could have been written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and that looks forward to Agatha Christie.

The first half lulls the reader into cosy complacency, though I was startled at the mention of Scriabin on the second page [one of my favourite classical composers and as mad as a box of frogs - the way I like my musical heroes (Zappa, Byrne, Cope, ME Smith, etc], as it introduces all the usual suspects; the mysterious medium called Mr Backhouse (Bacchus?), the extravagant playboy host, Montague Faull (Fall?) , his "respectable" and oh so arty-farty mistress, Mrs Trent (the River Trent?), his delicate and rather overwrought sister, Mrs Jameson (my fav Irish whiskey?), the judge, Mr Kent-Smith (Mr Everyman from the Garden of England?), the businessman, Mr Prior (conviction?), the stockbroker, Mr Lang (who also happens to be an amateur magician and fully expects to unmask Backhouse as a charlatan... nice one, David), & the scientist, Professor Halbert (a two-handed weapon used for stabbing and chopping?).

Things settle down nicely with Mrs Trent having arranged a set for the medium's display based on Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' along with some of his religious music for accompaniment. Mr Backhouse doesn't like this but tolerates it (and so he bloody well should).

Mrs Trent - the artistic one who's having a fling with worldly Mr Faull - then announces that she has invited two guests along that none of the present party are familiar with - and that she has only just met. These are a Mr Maskull (mask and my skull?) and his companion a Mr Nightspore (obviously dreams are the spore of night - as well as fear of the dark).

These two gentlemen are late and the medium decides to begin without them. At "precisely that moment" they arrive (as if summoned?).

The performance continues and to everyone's astonishment - except Backhouse & Nightspore - a male form, with all the vestige of lifelessness, is made to appear lying on the couch that forms part of 'The Magic Flute' scenery. The thing appears like a corpse not after life has left it but before life has entered it - this reminded me forcibly of Jack Finney's 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'.

All of them are too horrified to touch the thing apart from worldly Mr Faull who goes up and grasps the thing firmly by the hand. At this the materialised creature opens its eyes and smiles chillingly while Faull feels a thrill of joy throughout himself.

Then this strange bloke called Krag runs in and sets about mocking the entire assembly. A loud crash from above, as of falling masonry, had announced his arrival (at least I think so). The zombie thing is wandering about the room smiling inanely before Krag admonishes it for being there and promptly wrings the thing's neck! It's expression turns to one of malevolence as the "sickening stench of the graveyard" fills the room and the creature dissolves and disappears.

After this Faull pays Backhouse who leaves!

What the fuck was all that about?!?! I've heard of weird literaure but this takes the biscuit, wonderfully so!!!!

Coherent comments please... PRETTY PLEASE!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.154.169.2
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:28 pm:   

I've read his Haunted woman, and while it was very mysterious I can't remember it too well.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:35 pm:   

I think Lindsay requires concentration and focus, Tony. After 5 chapters I was in thrall to his vision but increasingly lost as to what he was going on about.

I have a creeping feeling of growing excitement about this book and I am determined to get to the root of its mystery.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:50 pm:   

Okay, so 'The Magic Flute' is a masonic work - Mozart & the librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, were lodge brothers - and, as we all are aware of Scotland's strong ties to Freemasonry, this would seem to imply that 'A Voyage To Arcturus' should also be read as a masonic work.

Or perhaps a critique of Freemasonry? Let's proceed to Chapter 2: In The Street...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:55 pm:   

Stevie, coherent comments are going to be hard to find from almost anyone (I can only imagine), especially the farther you get. It's written all the way through like solid allegorical literature... but what it's allegorical to, is what proves so maddening. I's like there's a "biblical" text of sorts out there that VOYAGE is constantly referring back to, and that's also unfortunately unavailable for reference. It makes for crazy-making analysis, but a wild read.

As such I'm reminded, oddly, of Brontë's WUTHERING HEIGHTS: it would have been very easy to put in the reasons why, say, Kate and Heathcliff's love is "forbidden" (Heathcliff is the bastard son of their mutual father, etc.), but such easy explanations would have merely reduced the whole to just another romance/gothic novel; divorced of such explanations and reasons, the whole bubbles over in strangeness, even creating and then wholly occupying a strange universe all its own. Now multiply that method by many factors, and you get VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.

It's still amazing to me that Harold Bloom was so enamored by this book, as I've mentioned a few times before. I didn't realize this, but Bloom's sole novel THE FLIGHT TO LUCIFER wasn't just inspired by VOYAGE... it's a sequel! To imagine a critic like Bloom being so enamored of VOYAGE that he read it (he claims) a hundred times over, is like learning... oh, say, Sir Laurence Olivier was obsessed with Elric of Melniboné: really cool, but wow, talk about a clashing of worlds!

(I didn't know this until recently either: VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS was filmed as an indie, back in the early 70's. Wtf?!? Has anyone seen this?)

It would take me another read and another read and another to begin to get to the heart of the novel; do find Bloom's long analysis of it, I'm blanking on which book that appeared in, but I've been meaning to go back to it, he really broke down the novel and its allusions and meanings... well, according to him. He makes the well-supported argument that it's a Gnostic fable: it's foundation is mystical, classical Gnosticism. Maybe.... (Also: Wikipedia I see has a synopsis, chapter-by-chapter, which could make for a helpful guide alongside.)

My pleasure on sending it, my friend! I saw that my local library's used book store always had a copy sitting on its shelves, sadly (i.e., that no one wanted to buy it), so I took that opportunity to send you mine and pick that up. (I also picked up a newer slicker edition of ISLAND OF DR. DEATH there, but couldn't bear to just consign my older edition to the same fate, so....) I will be looking forward to your journey through it, and your thoughts. But you may want to give up on this chapter-by-chapter analysis now, or you may find your mind melting before too soon....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 05:01 pm:   

I'm a tenacious bastard when I get the bit between my teeth, Craig, and have no intention of giving up my analysis. What Lindsay wrote was meant to be understood and understand it I shall.

God help me...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 06:03 pm:   

Don't worry, Craig. Can you not tell that my analysis is only semi-serious and I have no intention of letting it get in the way of my enjoyment of the read. Actually, I find playing with Lindsay's allusions and my own instinctive responses to them to be great craic!

But I'll still have a sound reading of the book ready by story's end...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 06:20 pm:   

It is a great read indeed, Stevie, but I also found it exhausting, and draining emotionally. It seems to me to have no soothing sides, no Elysian Fields or Avalons or Lothloriens... it's a grim alien world throughout, or at least I found it so. I'm reminded somehow of that old foreign (was it French?) movie-length cartoon, about another planet... what was that?... early 80's, or maybe late 70's... damn, what was it called? Can anyone help me on this? Anyway, I have nightmarish images of that film in my head, from when I saw portions of it when I was quite young. And those flashes for some reason come to mind, when I think of VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 10:06 pm:   

I know exactly the movie you're talking about, Craig! Caught it once many, many years ago on late night TV and it's haunted me too ever since. Like an infinitely weirder 'Yellow Submarine' - and that movie was damn weird! I remember it having fantastic Pink Floyd-ish music as well and swore I would hunt down the soundtrack album at the time. What the hell's it called!!!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 10:15 pm:   

Thanks, Tony!

It was 'La Plančte Sauvage' (1973) by René Laloux. Also known as 'Savage Planet' or 'Fantastic Planet'. The music was by Alain Goraguer and is available on CD. It's brilliant - original and supremely haunting!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 11:18 pm:   

Chapter 2: In The Street

After the excitement of the seance everyone then just kind of drifts away leaving Maskull, Nightspore and the mysterious Krag to gather in the street outside, as you do!

The only introduction to Mrs Trent's two guests we had is that she only met them once and believes they too are mediums. Maskull is described as a brawny giant of a man while Nightspore, with whom he is evidently closely acquainted (his dream self?), is lean and tough looking with wild, distant eyes. Krag - we still don't know from where or how he came - is short and muscular with a head far too large for his body. Nightspore knows him of old while to Maskull he is a stranger.

Nightspore mentions a "Crystalman" to Krag in relation to the malevolent expression on the materialisation's face. Krag announces that he is here on Maskull's account and that the three of them are to be fellow travellers on a voyage to Crystalman's country to see such creatures in their native state. This place is called Tormance (romance?), the residential suburb of Arcturus (the star).

Nightspore asks if a Surtur (Satan or Set?) has gone to Tormance and Krag confirms this and that they are required to follow him. As proof of this Krag hands Maskull a small lens of enormous weight through which he looks at the star Arcturus in the night sky - with some difficulty - and it is revealed as a double star, one yellow the other blue, with a satellite circling the yellow sun. This is revealed as the Planet Tormance, their destination.

Krag then gives them instructions to travel to Starkness Observatory on the NE coast of Scotland where he will join them on the evening of the day after tomorrow. Maskull agrees to all this saying he has no wife, land or profession to hold him and that to experience such wonders he would gladly agree never to come back and even give up his life!

All this smacks of the beginning of a voyage of personal discovery for Maskull (as Everyman?) accompanied by his dream self and guided by the interloper between worlds, Krag. Does this mean that Surtur represents some collective identity of the three and what of Crystalman? Dante's 'Divine Comedy' & Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' are strongly brought to mind by this more mainstream chapter.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 02:01 am:   

Indeed, that is the movie, Stevie! It was so haunting, I'm not sure I actually want to ever see the whole thing. I think it would be too freaky, and/or depressing....

SOOOooo... you and Tony are talking secretly off the board, huh?! Just what and about whom, may I ask?...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 09:50 am:   

Tony was kind enough to text me the name of the film. Mobile phones are wonderful inventions.

I've been mulling over AVTA through the night and believe that what we are watching unfold with Maskull, Nightspore & Krag is all still part of the performance put on by Backhouse the medium, with Mrs Trent's artistic connivance, and that everything that has happened since their mysterious arrival at the seance is an illusion being played out on the set of the Drury Lane production of the temple scene from Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'. A work which I believe may hold the key to unravelling the novel!

Remember the words of the medium when challenged by Mrs Jameson:

""What amazes me," she half whispered, after ten minutes of graceful, hollow conversation, "is, if you must know it, not so much the manifestation itself - though that will surely be wonderful - as your assurance that it will take place. Tell me the grounds for your confidence."

"I dream with open eyes," he answered, looking around at the door, "and others see my dreams. That is all."

"But that's beautiful," responded Mrs Jameson. She smiled rather absently, for the first guest had just entered."


Also this passage:

"Backhouse now entered on his task. It was one that began to be famuiliar to him, and he had no anxiety about the result. It was not possible to affect the materialisation by mere concentration of will, or the exercise of any faculty; otherwise many people could have done what he engaged himself to do. His nature was phenomenal - the dividing wall between himself and the spiritual world was broken in many places. Through the gaps in his mind the inhabitants of the invisible, when he summoned them, passed for a moment timidly and awfully into the solid, coloured universe... He could not say how it was brought about... The experience was a rough one for the body, and many struggles would lead to insanity and early death. That was why Backhouse was stern and abrupt in his manner. The coarse clumsy suspicion of some of the witnesses, the frivolous aestheticism of others, were equally onboxious to his grim, bursting heart; but he was obliged to live, and, to pay his way, must put up with these impertinences."

Maskull, Nightspore, Krag and the whole journey to Arcturus that follows is one of the medium's tangible dreams presented to the company for their, and our, benefit. This paints the rest of the novel as pure similitude of the nature of Bunyan's famous dream... but metaphysical (with a masonic flavour) rather than Christian.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 04:10 pm:   

We have our "biblical" text, Craig, and it's a good job I'm a Mozart fan, though not especially of opera (except in the most transcendent cases).

I've been doing a bit of studying up on the libretto of 'The Magic Flute' and it is indeed to it that the allegory of 'A Voyage To Arcturus' refers. Maskull clearly is a stand-in for Tamino while I imagine either Nightspore or Krag (not too sure yet) must be his compulsory companion, Papageno, and the mysterious Surtur must refer to Sarastro (the enemy).
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.118.79.71
Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 10:01 pm:   

I see one can download AVTA from Gutenberg. I'm fairly tempted, though Gawd knows when I'll have time to read it. Not before summer vacation, at any rate. The text doesn't appear to be all that obscure or inpenetrable.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 12:25 pm:   

The text is as readable as any great pulp fantasy, Hubert. It's the allusions and the symbolism that are so mystifying. A good thing, imo.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 12:37 pm:   

Chapter 3: Starkness

This is another fairly easy chapter to understand. Maskull & Nightspore travel to Starkness Observatory and find it a semi-derelict, disused mess. They set about waiting for the arrival of Krag and Maskull spends the time getting blind drunk on Scotch. The starkness of his existence - devoid of wife, land or profession - thus being spelt out in unequivocal terms. This is a man (or rather a materialised soul) with nothing to lose, unlike the unhappily married family man of Bunyan's parable, Christian, who walks out on his wife, family, friends and homeland convinced that they are headed for Destruction. Christian apologists claim he wasn't abandoning individuals to save his own skin but giving up a "way of life" that had him marked for certain Damnation. Maskull is just bored by comparison and in need of wonders...

Nightspore stays sober while dropping hints of what is to come (more anon).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 03:28 pm:   

The most interesting occurence in Chapter 3 was Nightspore's subtle guiding of Maskull to the discovery of two bottles filled with a clear liquid. One is marked "Solar Back Rays" and the other "Arcturian Back Rays". On accidentally tipping over the solar bottle it flies off out through the window in the direction of the Sun and Nightspore tells Maskull that light can be pulled back to its source and it is by this means of locomotion that they are to travel to Arcturus! These early chapters were clearly the overriding influence on C.S. Lewis's similarly allegorical pulp sci-fi adventure, 'Out Of The Silent Planet' (1938) - one of my favourites.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 03:46 pm:   

Starkness Observatory is said to be facing the sea at the extremity of a headland seven miles from Haillar Station on the NE coast of Scotland. No such place exists but surely Haillar is a clue. Hail Lar, perhaps?

The Lar was a form of guardian deity in ancient Roman religion "believed to observe, protect and influence all that happened within the boundary of its location or function." [thanks, Wiki]

So is Nightspore a Lar? His perpetual presence by Maskull's side puts me in mind of Pantalaimon, Lyra's daemon in Philip Pullman's epic saga.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 23, 2012 - 03:22 pm:   

Chapter 4: The Voice

Things start getting a bit freaky again in this one. As Krag is expected to arrive in a few hours time Nightspore takes Maskull for a walk along the clifftops to sober him up. They stop at an impassable inlet called the Gap of Sorgie and Maskull is told to lie down and thrust his head over the edge. Doing this he becomes aware of a steady rythmic drumming in 4-4 time (Lindsay likes his musical references) coming up from the invisible depths below. Nightspore calls this "The Drum Taps of Sorgie" and advises Maskull to listen out for them again on the journey ahead, though not under the same name!

They return to the observatory and Maskull notices that the previously padlocked tower (from which Nightspore informed him they are to be launched) is now open, implying Krag has arrived. Nightspore wants to return to the house but, against his advice, Maskull enters and attempts to climb the spiral stair within. Nightspore does not join him - marking the first time they have been separated! The higher Maskull climbs the more he feels a huge weight crushing down on him until he is forced to the ground by a window, exhausted and unable to climb any higher. Looking out he realises the window is one huge lens that once again gives him an even closer view of the double star, Arcturus, with its yellow and blue suns and the Planet Tormance, with tantalising surface details now discernible.

It is at this point that a "low, sighing voice" whispers to him from the shadows above, saying:

"Don't you understand, Maskull, that you are only an instrument, to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return."

On shining a light no one is there and Maskull descends the tower again to be met by Nightspore. He tells him of a mysterious voice that warned against him. Nightspore is nonplussed and merely says, "Yes, you will hear these voices too."


So what can we infer from "The Gap of Sorgie" and "The Drum Taps of Sorgie"? Perhaps a reference to the German music theorist, Georg Andreas Sorge, whose theories on figured bass and harmony had such a profound influence on J.S. Bach? Either that or an anagram of "orgies"? Who can tell...

But I suspect the voice was that of either Surtur or Crystalman, the lying enemy, trying to make Maskull doubt his companion.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 23, 2012 - 03:41 pm:   

Have to say that Lindsay's prose is wonderfully atmospheric and mysterious. He creates an overwhelming feeling of excitement, tinged with just the right amount of dread, in these opening chapters. Lord knows what lies in wait once we have left terra firma...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Friday, March 23, 2012 - 11:01 pm:   

So Nightspore (or Papageno) has not revealed his true nature yet, being asleep, if the Voice is to be believed... and going back to the mention of Scriabin in Chapter 1, whom Mrs Jameson had been playing on the piano when she became overcome by the melody, could this be a reference to the piano transcription of his famous 3rd Symphony, "The Divine Poem".

All things point toward a journey of musical ecstasy by which humankind may be elevated to a state of divine grace - as was Mozart & Schikaneder's intention with 'The Magic Flute'.

Scriabin would have gone even further by incorporating coloured light displays and sprays of overpowering scent in his unperformable, 'Mysterium'. And how does all music begin? By a simple beat, bones hammered in time on a rock or a hollow log, the primal "Drum Taps"... perhaps?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 03:34 pm:   

Chapter 5: The Night Of Departure

People may find my reading of this chapter a tad controversial but here goes...

Having returned to the house to await Krag, Maskull starts into the Scotch again, no doubt to calm his nerves after the Voice's warning, and, perhaps made suspicious, interrogates Nightspore about what he knows regarding Surtur. Nightspore will only divulge that he is a great master.

Then Krag makes his entrance all ready for the great departure but must first perform a small operation on the two men. He makes a deep cut with a knife in the arm of each and spits into the wound claiming that this will enable them to climb the tower against the force of "Tormantic gravity".

They ascend the tower to the top without any difficulty this time and Maskull notices that the windows no longer act as lenses. Once aloft Krag strips off his clothes and orders them to do the same - as they may sprout new limbs on Tormance!! Maskull is dubious but complies while Krag slaps him on the back and cries, "New pleasure organs possible, Maskull. You like that?" Krag then cracks open a bottle of "wine" and bids him drink. Maskull describes the effect as like drinking "liquid electricity". Starkers and completely plastered Maskull is then dragged to the floor and some, ahem, "naked horseplay" ensues as the odious Krag forces himself on Maskull in a thinly veiled description of male rape (the book was written in 1921). Nightspore sits back dispassionately observing this somewhat unexpected turn of events until the insensible Maskull finds himself strapped into a forty foot long, by eight foot around crystal torpedo that points toward Arcturus. Nightspore joins him while Krag hunches cackling over the controls and releasing the "Arcturian Back Rays" they are launched into the heavens. At this point Maskull blacks out...

The words "naive bugger" spring to mind!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 01:15 pm:   

Chapter 6: Joiwind

The morning after Maskull awakens "sprawling on the ground" with a "numbing pain, which he could not identify" and the mother of all hangovers!! Realising what a dickhead he has been he slaps his hand to his brow and discovers - to his unutterable horror - that a plum coloured "fleshy protuberance" has indeed sprouted from his forehead. Not only that but two globular pudenda now dangle below his chin. [I swear I'm not making this up] But somehow even more unsettling is the flesh crawling, alien tentacle that has budded from his chest. There is no emoticon remotely appropriate!

Wondering what the hell was in that "wine" Maskull is unable to stand and as the red blur surrounding him comes into focus he realises he is alone, with no sign of his erstwhile "companions" (typical!), and lying on sandy wasteland dotted with scrub bushes. Just then, a tentacle - not his own - touches his neck from behind and he jerks around to be confronted by a woman dressed in a diaphonous green garment! Initial relief is offset by the realisation that she too has a penis and testicles growing out of her head...

At this point I passed out!!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 05:46 pm:   

Ah yes. Didn't I mention the penises growing out of peoples' heads?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 06:12 pm:   

Forget what I said about Edgar Rice Burroughs. This book is starting to give Wild Bill a run for his money!

Somehow I can't see it getting the big budget CGI treatment anytime soon!!

It is of course quite brilliant for that very reason...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 26, 2012 - 01:11 pm:   

Continuing the somewhat dramatic events of Chapter 6...

Having recovered his senses, Maskull engages the girl in conversation and she introduces herself as a native of Tormance, called Joiwind, and explains that she and her husband, Panawe, became psychically aware of his presence near their home and that she had set forth to escort him to safety, as it is their habit to assist all helpless lifeforms.

But first she must perform a small operation to make him able to withstand the gravity of Tormance. This involves making a cut in his arm and exchanging bodily fluids...

"Hang on, sister," he exclaims, "the last time I heard that one I ended up being buggered halfway across the known galaxy by a deranged hydrocephalic dwarf, and woke up a cock-headed freak!"

She waits until he has calmed down and insists that unless he is given some of her blood he will be unable to survive on the surface of Tormance. Eventually, feeling weak and dispirited, he agrees. She makes an incision in his arm and one in her own, from which she bleeds not blood... but semen. Yes, the girl has pearl jam running through her veins.

Maskull turns to camera and somehow we are able to read his thoughts, "You had nothing better to do, so you thought you'd seek adventure...", he sighs heavily as an expression of doomed resignation crosses his face and he gives himself up to the inevitable.

To be continued...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 12:33 pm:   

Once enlivened by exchanging some of his blood with Joiwind's vital fluid - "he felt a stream of pleasure entering his body through the incision" - Maskull is able to move about with ease, while she complains of feeling polluted!

They then set off for her home, Poolingdred, and we are presented with a parade of wonders as Maskull takes in the increasingly alien landscape filled with beautifully described animal and plant life, weird geological formations and strange natural effects of the Tormantic gravity. This is when the book really comes into its own as a brilliantly imaginative flight of visionary fantasy. Rivers flow up into the sky where they evaporate into dense cloudbanks, fields of plants uproot themselves and move en masse to follow the suns rays, sheep-sized three legged creatures trundle by, chittering hello to Joiwind, sentient gas-bags fill the sky, and Maskull is astonished to perceive two new primary colours, known as "ulfire" and "jale", etc...

As they walk he asks questions and she is happy to educate him. She explains the purpose of the new organs he has been endowed with; the cranial phallus is called a breve and they are able to read each others thoughts by it [Maskull experiences a shiver of relief], the scrotal neck-sacks are called poigns and they enable him to understand and sympathise with all living creatures [hence why she appears to speak English], while the chest tentacle is called the magn or "god organ" and is the means by which they make love!

"Interesting... I think perhaps I could get used to this place," muses Maskull, retracting his breve.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 11:26 am:   

But the most disturbing news that Maskull learns from Joiwind is that the so-called enemy, Surtur, is considered by the beings of Tormance to be their much loved creator God - their name for him is "Shaping" - and that the one called Krag is their equivalent of the Devil himself.

"You don't say," replies Maskull, ruefully rubbing his backside.

Also the Tormantians are able to subsist purely on water as it is considered a crime against nature to eat or otherwise make use of the flesh or substance of any living creature! Wasn't there some mad Australian woman started a cult some years ago professing the same thing? Must check...

The startlingly hot white sun above them she calls "Branchspell" and during the hottest time of their roughly 48 hour day all life must take shelter from the surface. This is the time they call "Blodsombre", and they arrive home to be met by her husband, Panawe, just in time to avoid it.

Rather a long and fascinating chapter that one...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 02, 2012 - 06:49 pm:   

More parallels with 'The Magic Flute' are apparent in Chapter 6.

Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to the temple of Sarastro, the enemy, to foil his plans and rescue her daughter, Pamina, but learns upon arriving that Sarastro is not evil but a much loved and benevolent ruler and that the Queen has deceived him. This enforces the identification of Maskull with Tamino and Surtur with Sarastro while seeming to imply that Krag represents the Queen of the Night.

It remains to be seen if the love interest, Pamina (Joiwind?), the companion, Papageno (Nightspore?), his love interest, Papagena, and the villainous Monostatos are to appear in Lindsay's allegory. If Maskull goes on to find love on Tormance and must overcome a series of ritualistic ordeals to win the object of his love then the parallels will be complete.

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