July-August 2024 Miscellany

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian, 1951
(trans. into English 1954 by the author and Grace Frick)

Historical fiction.

Read in light of a recent spell of reading historical fiction about classical antiquity - see also The Corn King and the Spring Queen and Gore Vidal's Creation. 

It purports to be the memoirs of the emperor Hadrian, written to a young Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian lays out the course of his life in a number of sections, from youth to military service to supreme authority to impending death. The sections are named for lines of a poem, apparently written in Hadrian's last days.

All well and good. But what makes this an interesting book and worth your time? For one, I find the style most appealing. Magisterial, in a way that rather fits. This was not just fun to read, but a work I very deliberately stopped myself from reading to quickly (unlike Vidal).

For another, the figure of Hadrian is beautifully drawn. Even considering the purposes of a memoir, it's a rare portrait of a historical figure that feels so natural and so unfamiliar. Compare and contrast the last paragraph here. The other obvious comparison is I, Claudius*. This differs - not least in being less explicitly drawn from Suetonius - in the approach. Unlike the afflicted, sensitive Claudius (who is, of course, also writing his memoirs - albeit to a mystical future audience rather than a defined successor) surrounded by a family variously boorish, hedonistic, Machiavellian or mad, Hadrian is far less of an outsider. He writes as one immersed in his work as a soldier or imperial administrator, one clearly with factional leanings and politics, if not as a partisan. When he is finally made Emperor, he is able to use that office far more adroitly than Graves's Claudius. This is coupled with a sort of measured indulgence on his part - Epicurean rather than gluttonous - which makes him more obviously vital. 

Further, he appears to have a far more developed religious belief than Graves's characters. He participates in rites of a dozen different cults and undertakes magical experiments. When someone in I, Claudius is proclaimed a god - especially if they proclaim themselves a god - eyes are rolled and eyebrows are raised and the whole business is treated as lamentable (largely). When it happens in the Memoirs of Hadrian it is far more natural; an exceptional event, to be sure, but not an unthinkable one. 

The death of Antoninus is interesting, and connects with the portrayal of those events in Mike Walker's Caesar! But Hadrian narrates this story and his grief is the equal of his distance. 

I shall be re-reading this. I shall also look out for more of Yourcenar's work; she seems to have lived an interesting early life, ending up on an island off the coast of Maine. There is a book of essays - The Dark Brain of Piranesi and Other Essays - which not only has some material that complements the Memoirs of Hadrian but also deals with that perennial OSR figure Piranesi. 

[On that Note .... time for some carefully separated nerd-talk. Hadrian is an accomplished imperial figure, a decorated soldier - he's well-liked, physically active, well-travelled. He delves into the occult, is a member of numerous secretive religious bodies, sees the sacrifice of those near him, is willing to consider that he may become a god.

He would be, I think, a fascinating model for an ambitious somewhat sympathetic sorcerer-king type. Think Paul Atriedes in imperial mode. It's been at least a decade since I opened any of Jordan's Wheel of Time, but I suspect that later books had this kind of approach to the messianic Rand al'Thor. Even Warhammer 40,000's God-Emperor of Mankind (at least in his 30k not-yet-a-plot-device version) works. Hadrian's background and mortality feels far more natural to producing the grandiose golden armoured chap than the whole perpetual and/or shamans business.]

*Have a brief reminder of some of Brian Blessed's best work as Augustus. 

***

Robert Sobel, For Want of A Nail, 1973

Historical, fiction?

There's an experience some of you may recognise. You find out about alternate history and it's sold as exploring a world where (say) Julian the Apostate was far more successful or a British Civil War broke out over the Abdication Crisis. 

But then you read one or two famous works, and it seems that it's less about that world than using it to explore something else. Alternate history as a means to explore questions of identity, to re-iterate moral lessons from the past, to assess the tendencies of the present or to parallel the sweeping effects of a technology, to ground a work's aesthetic or genre roots (Dystopia, adventure fiction)....

Think, in the last few years, how many have picked up a copy of The Man in the High Castle after seeing the television series. 

Anyway, For Want of a Nail is that rare thing - an alternate history that is just a history. A history from another timeline, complete with references and GNP figures and election results - and a critique from another author at the end. And in 1973, rather than from an obscure forum in 2006. However, this is a novel of three elements. 

It is a world where - as the subtitle say - Burgoyne won at Saratoga. The American War of Independence dies in its cradle and a new settlement is implemented - the Confederation of North America. Meanwhile a number of defeated rebels travel into Texas to found the state of Jefferson - which will eventually merge in the aftermath of war to create the United States of Mexico.

Yes, this is a world without the United States - though one shouldn't assess the CNA and USM as merely 'Greater Canada' and 'Greater Mexico'. There's a more to it than that, and Sobel is going to explain as much over many chapters. 

The history and dynamics of both are laid out in a fairly convincing way - the statistics might be made up, but seem to be fairly consistent. There are things that a contemporary history wouldn't do, or would feel obliged to mention - but that very fact makes one think about the business of writing history, especially when one knows the whole thing is very much fake. Either way, it's quite convincing - nothing too spectacular, nor so conspicuously hard-nosed and materialistic to look fake. Men - even quite wealthy men - are swayed by appeals to grand causes, or to national pride, or to utopian ideals. 

That is the first element, a well-confected not-history. The second element is a boardroom drama in which Ayn Rand was given a brief spell as script doctor.
The USM gives birth to a firm, Kramer Associates. Which slowly gains power in a number of vital industries, influencing the fate of the USM and being actively involved in its elections. One can only assume its directors all look as (fittingly) smug and self-satisfied as Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair. 

Anyway, even when Kramer Associates gets booted out of Mexico, it hops over to the Philippines and then Taiwan. Then detonates it's own nuclear device. I'm well aware of powerful corporations in our own past - as the East India Companies (Dutch or British) or those that gave us the phrase 'banana republic'. Even so, Kramer's continual success is a trifle too dramatic to take entirely seriously, though I will grant it is arresting.

The third element is the history of the rest of the world, which occasionally produces some eyebrow-raising moments - as when the Global War in the 1930s and 40s between (largely) the British Empire and the German Confederation (The CNA sits this one out) leads to things like the Germans going from Ottoman Turkey to Indochina conquering most everything in their path in three years. Rather than indulge an image of turbo-Blitzkrieg, I will quietly assume that those territories were only ever lightly held. 

But the first element is the dominant one, and that remains interesting. A deal to profitably chew over here.

***

The mod Fallout London has been released, to much fanfare and comment. I have written on this before and had an eye on it for a while.

I haven't yet played (and I'm not altogether likely to). But I have dug into some material online. Is it impressive? Yes, it is a tremendous accomplishment. Have I revised my opinions of it? Not quite, in the same way as I can admire the work put into (say) a skyscraper while disliking the building itself. No matter how many obscure firearms appear in the game.

Among other things, and acknowledging the limitations of a mod, I'm a little disappointed by the lack of a status quo ante ending (Cf. siding with the NCR in New Vegas). Although I would be intrigued to learn if the conclusion to The Prisoner influenced one part of it. 

***

HCK over at Grand Commodore has recorded a reading of 'Hell Screen' by Ryunosuke Akutagawa - I enjoyed it! An interesting comparison with Togo Igawa's version for BBC Radio.

***

A tantalising project coming up from the False Machine - a novel called Queen Mab's Palace, about 'an adventure through a decaying, dying space-ship inhabited by crazed transhumanist radicals, through the eyes of a Medieval Scribe.' One to keep an eye on. 

City of Libations

You must never call it a necropolis, for it is no such thing. It is merely the city where the dead dwell. No memorials, no tombs, no graveyards are to be found there.

The dead dwell there, and have a sense of obligation to the living. At set intervals through the year, therefore, the dead make offerings to them. Shrines radiate out from the city like the spokes of a wheel, set at the end of long roads of white stone. Before the shrines are gardens and covered arbours. The shrines themselves vary in ornament and detail, but not in form. There is a broad double door at the front, facing a back wall with a shallow stage. In the left and right walls are small doors, facing one another in line with the stage. It is usual for a bench to run along every wall other than the back.

Each shrine is associated with a village or the quarter of a town. The people of the region go to their shrine, which they furnish and decorate with painted patterns, geometric motifs and local symbols. Sometimes they sweep out leaves or cobwebs, but the shrines themselves remain curiously free of decay. 

On the days when the dead make their offerings, everyone in the village is meant to come. It is known that the very ill cannot or should not, and that women heavy with child may not - no stigma is attached to this. The misfortune of illness, the laborious necessity of childbirth and the empty gap in the year's cycle is considered burden enough. The wayfarer is not compelled to come, neither are they told what day is coming. A resident outsider, as a foreign merchant, may in time become part of the ritual. 

In the early morning, the village will rise, dress and march the long miles to the shrines. There, they do two things before entering. In the gardens before the shrine are set long troughs of rainwater, with which they wash hands, face and feet. Then, they sit to eat at long benches. The food varies with season and locale - but it is generally both portable and plentiful. Often it is cooked on fires in stone braziers. Flatbreads are not uncommon. 

Aside from the usual business of the daily meal, this has two functions. Firstly, it prepares the villager for the effects of a libation. The wine of the dead is strong and it is largely considered best to have something in your belly before you imbibe. Secondly, the wine of the dead is not of the living; it is otherworldly. Therefore, it is best to face it with a ballast of the mundane within you. There is the tale - invariably passed down from the teller's grandparents - of a lean season, and men eating balls of clay before entering a shrine.

When they have eaten, all enter. Those that tire readily are seated on the benches; most stand. The main door is closed and the shrine is lit only from high windows. after some time, the side doors open and the dead enter. A prominent villager stands nearest the stage, holding a large bowl. Unseen, the dead cross the stage, and moisture is seen condensing on the bowl. Eventually, the last of the dead passes by. In local tradition, this may be the newly departed, the oldest in recollection, the famously tardy, the notably dutiful or something else entirely. The bowl is now full and the side doors close.

Within the bowl is a strong, pallid wine. The taste has been compared to plum brandy. Villagers each extract a small travel cup from their clothing and advance to take a measure. Slowly or quickly, they drink and leave. It is consider well-mannered to pause briefly outside and see how your companions are doing, but this is not a place for conversation. The last out will close the doors and clear any remnants from the garden.

Curiosity is expected of men, and this includes villagers. It is quite common for a youth to walk a ways down the white stone road where the dead walk - but not generally on the day of a libation. Some eventually become brave enough to enter the city itself. 

Those who do report back on two things. Firstly, the white stone which makes up the roads is used for the houses as well. Secondly, the lack of any of the patterning and motifs that artisans would employ in houses or clothes or other worked items in the village. Third, the half-silence that moves in a slow bubble around them as they pass through the courts of the city. Fourth, the cypherbirds. Cypherbirds are seen outside of the city as well, but clearly make the city their home. From a distance they appear to be peafowl of a sort of drab cream colour. Those who actually make into the city have seen them fan open their tailfeathers, displaying inscrutable symbols on a pallid screen. No-one agrees quite what these mean; to the bold, they are pictograms of courage and strength - to the splenetic, they show spite and insolence. To the fearful, they confirm each contradictory fear.*

Those that go the deepest into the city report a taller building with three arched entrances at the front. No light can be seen from within these, nor any sign of a door or side passage. Some have thought this a vault; some a great meeting hall, some a temple. Faded glyphs cover the outside, which may be the same as those on the cypherbirds. 

Curiosity is expected of men, and this includes those not from the villages. Bandits, treasure hunters and bravos have long assumed that the city of libations has within it fabulous wealth. So, they attempt to cross the walls, avoiding the open roads of white stone and the shrines. They find themselves confronted by dense walls of cut thorn, rather like those reported on the savannah. However, these thorn branches appear to be petrified.  

If they can safely cross these, they must climb the walls, and then they must navigate a crowded cityscape of toughly-built homes and high walls. Further thorn clumps are found within. They will be followed - by the cries of cypherbirds, by swarms of insects, by dull roaring that may or may not be the wind, by footprints - and by the open eyes of the dead. 

You must never call it a necropolis, and tomb raiders are unwelcome. 

*   'To the melancholy this sound is melancholy and to the hysterical it is hysterical. To me it has always sounded like a cheer for an invisible parade.'
Flannery O'Connor writing in 'The King of the Birds' on the peacock.