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Night Lands #1: Eternal Love ed. Andy Robertson

A collection of new work that explores and enhances the literary labyrinth of Hodgson's surreal masterpiece
Submitted by: Andy Sawyer
On: 08.01.2004



One of the strangest books of all time is William Hope Hodgsons The Night Land (1912), an epic story of survival at the very end of history, published but a couple of years before the outbreak of that horrific conflict which brought similar apocalypse to the fields of Western Europe and in which Hodgson tragically died. Told in a weird, fractured language and presented in the context of a timeless love, The Night Land is the story of the narrators rescue of the beautiful Naani - who is also the Lady Mirdath of the seventeenth century narrator - from the horrors of a world where humanity is huddled in a fortress besieged by natural and supernatural horrors.

Although Hodgson is often seen as a writer of horror, supernatural, or "weird" fiction, there is a strong Wellsian influence in the earlier-published The House on the Borderland (190 alongside the hauntings and madnesses of the Gothic tradition, and we should not stop at the language of The Night Land, with its mock-medieval cadences and clumsy dislocations of syntax, before investigating what this apparently bizarre story is about. Despite frequent references to supernatural powers, ab-humans and the like, and a back-story suggesting that aeons ago (but aeons ahead in our terms) the barriers between natural and supernatural were broken down, Hodgson was clearly envisaging a world which we could call science fictional. The vast Pyramid which houses Humanity is powered by the "Earth-Current"; and among other devices which were to become common fare in sf novels are telepathy ("Night-hearing"), force fields ("the Air Clog"), and food tablets. On his web-site devoted to The Night Land Andy Robertson has argued, convincingly, that many readers have neglected the sf elements in the novel and that many more potential readers have been put off by the image of it as a vast unreadable horror-romance.

Ive argued for years that people should give Hodgsons language a chance; that whether he was unsuccessfully groping for an appropriate language in which to tell this mixture of far-future sf and medieval romance or whether he was deliberately dislocating language in order to create a verbal analogue of the physical and spiritual dislocation within the story, we should not simply dismiss it, because he is using it to tell one of the great and most disturbing speculations of the first half of the 20th century. Like Wells at the end of The Time Machine, like Jack Vance, like, especially, H.P. Lovecraft with his similar stories about incursions from Outside by powerful and malevolent Beings, Hodgson is voicing the great anxiety of future-speculation: that the future may not belong to us. Robertson has taken a more audacious and imaginative route in the revaluation of this darkly visionary writer. He is giving us new fiction of The Night Land.

So whats new here? Surely everyone who ever put a reasonably coherent imaginative world together has been sharecropped out of all recognition? True, but this is no hackery 'in the great tradition of...' cash-in enterprise. It comes out of the editors passion for the works of Hodgson, and in putting this collection together Robertson is doing more than giving us 'more of the same' hes asking us to read the original slightly differently. Having said that, his brief introductory piece, 'Dream', is very much a prose-poem, even using some Hodgsonian word-twisting ("This is what I dreampt"), faithful to the imagery of the original. But it also, I think undercuts it in a very interesting way: the narrator is recounting how he is haunted by the memory of his part in the death of a female warrior who has been taken over by Outside forces but has kept somehow, deep inside in the middle of torment, her humanity, grace and desire for dignity. It is a haunting, beautiful piece of writing. Not everything that follows lives up to it, but it says more about the spirit of Hodgsons writing, and defends better what I still think is his maudlin eroticism, than five thousand words of exposition.

Following 'Dream' there are ten other stories and two poems. Many of the stories are set after the events of The Night Land, with the events of the story becoming part of the legend and lore of the Redoubt. Nigel Atkinsons 'A Mouse in the Walls of the Lesser Redoubt', the longest story in the book, gives us the events leading up to the destruction of the Lesser Redoubt, and features a young Naani. Atkinson brings us closer to understanding the information technology and the nanotechnology of these far-future humans: like most of the writers here, he shows us that the price of survival is a sometimes suffocating conservatism. The place of women in these Redoubts is very much like that described in Hodgsons original. The change of focus, of language may give them more character, but they still are bound by the mores of their society. John C. Wrights 'Awake in the Night' suggests that things might have once been different, and also that the souls reincarnated throughout the ages may not always be neatly dual soulmates. The focus here is on a triangle rather than a pair, in which the two men are rivals for the lovely Hellenore. "Last time, he lost. This time, me. It does not mean we are not friends and always will be."

Although Andy Robertson is right to present The Night Land as a proto-science fiction novel (and his 'Eater' makes full use of technological terminology to present itself as a full-fledged example of sf) it was written before the crystallising of a named mode of 'science fiction' and before the full achievement of Wells in presenting the idea of science and the scientific method as a central mode for the writing of fiction became apparent. Its largely because of this that I feel that Hodgsons language is important, and it adds extra difficulty to revisiting Hodgsons world.

In Nigel Atkinsons 'A Exhaltation of Butterflies', ironically, the tone is that of fantasy, particularly in the dialogue, with that rather strained combination of colloquialism and archaism which modern post-Tolkien fantasy operates. Many of the writers in this anthology are uneasily grappling with Hodgsons language, trying not to imitate it and to find their own tones. But what? Here, theres a simple story in which the traditional celebration for the appointment of a new Master Monstruwacan coincides with an old mans discovery of the fate of his son. However, Atkinsons afore-mentioned longer story is more effective in creating a picture of the Night Land, even though the 'butterfly' theme (repeated in Brett Davidsons 'Imago' which seems to refer to the events of 'Exhaltation') allows for some neat symbolism. In 'Imago' a young girl flirts with an Airman, eventually joining him on a final flight, which, butterfly-like, includes the idea of metamorphosis. The figure who strides towards the Lesser Redoubt is a very different one from the one seen at the opening of the story.

Nigel Browns 'Catharsis', more of a vignette than a full story, suggests war and dissension within the Pyramid. One rather odd experiment is James Stoddarts 'The Testament of Andros', nothing less than a rewriting of the first section of The Night Land which some might refer to as 'translating the novel into English'. I remain, after several re-readings, in two minds about this. Stoddart has introduced several minor characters to create more of a backstory, but Hodgsons own stammering cadences are more atmospheric, altogether weirder, and while a 'translation' of The Night Land is an interesting project I cant help feeling that it is like rendering Shakespeare into modern English: useful for enabling understanding and rewarding for presenting a viewpoint but no substitute for the effort expended in teasing out the real thing.

Naturally, Time as well as Place and Language is another a major theme of The Night Land and John C. Wrights 'Awake in the Night', mentioned above, is both atmospheric and authentically creepy, Brett Davidsons 'Meanwhile She Dreams' plays with this (and also adds the collections best new 'monster') with a reference to a statue of a warrior 100,000 years ago who brought back the last survivor of the Lesser Redoubt. Andy Robertsons 'Out' focuses on the tension between honour and duty versus love and the mingled despair and stoicism of the original. As well, the poems 'Black Irises' (Lucy A. E. Ward) and 'Seeking Survival' (Erin Donahue) add atmosphere.

Not all of Eternal Love works as well as it might. While the references to the events of the original echo convincingly as part of the vast tapestry of future-myth, not all the 'new' events go beyond the level of pastiche, although as with Lovecraft and the many Cthulhu Mythos continuations, the presence of pastiche does not mean the lack of good story. Inevitably, we are to receive different story, though, if the project is to be successful. Hodgson was charting the fears of a different century than this one. We have seen, in rather horribly un-symbolic form, many of his night-terrors realised and before his death he was to recognise the landscapes of his imagination in the devastated European fields in which he was to perish.

This is certainly a collection that succeeds in opening up The Night Land and presenting new aspects of Hodgsons vision, but there is, I think, a difference between stories like Atkinsons 'A Mouse in the Walls of the Lesser Redoubt' and Wrights 'Awake in the Night', say, and what Robertson appears to be doing in what turns out to be a double version of a single story, his framing 'Dream' and 'Eater'. As Ive hinted, the contrast between the styles of language with which the stories are told show us the double vision with which we have to approach Hodgson if we are to appreciate him. 'Dream' is a hallucinatory prose-poem which calls to the Fantastic and Romantic elements of The Night Land. 'Eater' (although set slightly aside from conventional prose fiction by its present-tense narrative) is a science fiction story which notes "the oval screen", "scale bars", "enhancement routines" and "interfac[ing] with the electronics" in its opening paragraphs but which, like many good sf stories, refuses to explain every aspect of its world and opens up rather than reduces. Both are stories of tragedy, and their positioning is a rather clever manner of emphasising Hodgsons fusion of Love and Despair. Robertson has linked into Hodgsons 'Cosmic Vision' in a way which seems to preserve it rather than rewrite it. The result is something which many people consider inherent in sf but which is in reality quite rare: a sense of mythology, or rather the awe and terror which mythology attempts to explain. Possibly because the love-story of Hodgsons original is absent from Robertsons framing, weve moved beyond pastiche to what might be another romantic legend which will echo throughout the dark emptinesses of the Night Land.

We also, as is the case with one or two of the other stories, see the interior of the Redoubt as nothing particularly romantic or desirable in itself but as a natural reaction to the state of siege. The Last Redoubt is, after all, not Camelot but a huddled and frightened mass of humanity with defeat before its eyes. The expendable Khrestens fate is not only not her fault (although her refusal to succumb to it is her merit) but is to some extent bound by her superiors.

Im sure other Hodgson fans will disagree with some of this, because my reading of Hodgson has always been somewhat idiosyncratic. But then, any reading of Hodgson is idiosyncratic. All I can say is that Eternal Love is a collection which will speak to anyone who has ever thrilled to The Night Land and will also have much to say to those (that perhaps larger number) who know that The Night Land is something worth reading but have never actually got round to it or, worse, have stumbled through the first pages with disbelief. Try it again. And bring along Eternal Love to help you, and visit home.clara.net/andywrobertson/nightmap.html as well.

Publisher: Betancourt & Company (UK)
Date: December 2003
Price: 27.95
Format: Hb
ISBN: 1592246788
More Info: Amazon.co.uk

Nice ***** reader review at AMAZON.COM

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...s&n=507846

Quote:

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Do you like far future stories? Do you like Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance's time of the long shadows? Do you thrill to Smith's Zothique? Well then you've probably tried Hodgson's Nightland.

I suspect many who tried to read Hodgson's masterpiece have had the same reaction I did, "great idea, horrible execution". I never made it through the original and always wished someone would have taken his idea and cleaned up the archiac prose. Well my wish was granted! This is a spectacular collection that only makes me want to give Hodgson another go. After finishing the Robertson and Wright stories I promptly ordered everything I could find in print. John C. Wright also has a particularly moving paen to Hodgson directed to blockheads like myself who dismissed Nightland because of stylistics.

(If there are any John C. Wright fans out there, his contribution in the form of a novellete is breathtaking)

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Many thanks, the money is in the post in used fivers oh damn . . . . . ,