July-August Miscellany 2026: Minting Imperials

An Empire in Waiting, an Empire in Exile, an Empire of Story Tellers, and an Empire Ended.

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What is your impression of Napoleon III? Marx's 1851 conclusion is inevitably going to be mentioned:

Hegel says somewhere that all great historic facts and personages recur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce." Caussidiere for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the "Mountain" of 1848-51 for the "Mountain" of 1793-95, the Nephew for the Uncle. 

This extends to appearances, with the vigorous and slightly beaky Napoleon I of David's paintings (or anything earlier) contrasting with the fussy moustache and goatee of Napoleon III, even where the pose is quite similar.

By Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1853

Napoleon III was vaguely on my radar - I could have told you he went from President to Emperor, but not much more. I elected to remedy this, starting with Fenton Bresler's Napoleon III: A Life supplemented with a few other sources. This is a biography I can recommend as a starting point, though at times you really can tell that it was written by a barrister; it is sometimes breaks things down in a manner seemingly calculated to appeal to a jury.

First: Napoleon III is nephew to Napoleon I. His mother was the daughter of Josephine Bonaparte by her first husband (Alexandre de Beauharnais); his father Louis Bonaparte (younger brother of Napoleon,  later King of Holland for a time). Bresler does consider the question that Napoleon I may have been his father, and discards it; it is enough that Napoleon I was around Napoleon III in his youth and rose as high as he did, taking the Bonapartes and Beauharnaises with him. 

You know what happens to Napoleon I; if not, Ridley Scott is keen to tell you. What happens to the many Bonapartes who got made crowned heads of several bits of Europe or who made advantageous marriages? Hefty pensions and exiles from France, which suits most of them pretty well. This means that Napoleon III gets a thorough education in a variety of settings, and can later move at the heights of society. More to the point, the elder generation - who saw the rise and fall of the First Empire - are sort of content to either live out their days in luxury or raise their children. The money keeps them subdued, but it doesn't really work with the restless young - and actively means that they can eventually launch themselves out on adventures; a young Napoleon III will get involved with Italian revolutionaries and has escape the Austrians.  Later, he will use that money to print pamphlets, support himself while writing and launch a few coup attempts (first in Strasbourg, then in Boulogne; Bresler notes that no-one in either place cares to remember this).

There's a lot of 'X was imprisoned / under house arrest for six months, then via an impassioned plea by relative Y or ambassador Z, is released / is given exceptionally lenient treatment'. This is slightly frustrating, from one point of view, and I find myself asking how this happened. There's some cases of it with French generals in WWII, who are released via Vichy intervention and then go and join de Gaulle. 'X intervened' is efficient for a biography, but it does make me wonder about the mechanics of it. There's also a sort of aristocratic liberality to this, both in the relative ranks of those involved and in the sense of generosity and freedom offered. That it persists (in certain cases) past WWI and into an age of totalitarian ideology and total war is something I need to tease out. I dare say there's a Marxist analysis of class or caste loyalty.

It helps that while there is an anti-Republic/Napoleon reaction in France, it doesn't really stick, because Napoleon's reforms and ability to marshal all of France against Europe seem to have actually worked (or at least, enough people were convinced they did). Thus you get the government of Louis Phillipe, the Citizen King, repatriating his remains to be buried at Les Invalides and the completion of the Arc de Triomphe. Which makes bringing down the hammer on his heir awkward.

So, while Napoleon III gets monitored and tracked an awful lot, he gets treated pretty leniently. Even when he's imprisoned after the second coup attempt, he gets the opportunity to write essays and pamphlets and articles for newspapers and do scientific experiments. Also, his prison guard at the Chateau of Ham (near the river Somme, blown up by the Germans in 1917) made sure he got a mistress while he was there. Napoleon III has lots of mistresses.

Anyway, Napoleon III escapes the Chateau of Ham in disguise, then returns to France in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848. His coups aren't exactly held against him by this point, though he lets some other Bonapartes run for elected office before he tries himself. The fact that he has had to build his reputation by the press is useful at this point - he's not a decent public speaker (for all that he can apparently charm his way through High Society). 

By this point Bonapartism has to have a theoretical basis rather than just being Napoleon I's supporters. 

It looks like a combination of elements: 

• Appeal to revolutionary sentiment while avoiding any Reign of Terror -Political and national unity 
• A sort of radical (as in, back to the radix, the root) monarchism that has the monarch as keenly aware of the popular need and will 
• Jobs all round - one popular pamphlet in 1844 is L'extinction du pauperisme 
• Military strength, though Napoleon III does at one point stress that there's a carefully separate set of civil posts/honours/etc in the Napoleonic Code rather than a sprawling aristocratic mishmash. It's not government by soldiers.   

Bresler quotes Alfred Cobban's History of Modern France.  'Napoleon III never forgot that he had been brought to power by the masses of the people. His authority had not been created by, nor did it depend on, the army. There was no great party machine*, as in modern fascist and communist dictatorships, to hold the people down. His was a personal and plebiscitary dictatorship and what the people had given the people might take away.'

*Though see Zeldin's Political System of Napoleon III, which indicates that there are quite a few trails of influence and patronage out to provincial France in order to provide, shape or vet candidates. And come the 3rd Republic, there is still a Bonapartist Party.

So, what does this self-promoter and trickster do when he's elected with a startling majority? Well, he chooses the title 'Prince-President', faces a divides National Assembly - and the occasional revolutionary attempt. Then eventually he imitates his Uncle and there's a coup - who could have foreseen it? - and there's a Second Empire, a new constitution, a plebiscite and a wave of swift repression (which lessens fairly promptly, but never precisely wanes).

And then? Intervention in the cause of Italian unification - which does help Cavour and the House of Savoy get the ball rolling. In return, Nice and Savoy itself become part of France. Napoleon III will later fight to keep Rome and the Pope independent of a unified Italy

There's more playing the Great Power game through joining the British in the Crimean War (the Sardinians get involved too), intervention in Lebanon, the construction of the Suez Canal, the defence of French missionaries in Indochina - which will eventually produce a French Vietnam, and wider consequences than the bánh mì. He also helps set up Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico, which goes poorly. 

All this taken with defeat (and personal defeat in battle, at that; Bresler concludes that he was really quite ill, and should have stayed at home) in the Franco-Prussian War doesn't exactly paint a picture of Napoleon III as a ruler you'd want - though it's difficult to deny the vigour of his early years, when he could have become a mere playboy. He at least seems to have had higher aims than many a caudillo. Those eighteen years of secure personal rule and a stable government were probably quite useful for France in the wake of a revolution. 

It's a story that could do with telling more widely, I suspect. Three and half years ago I wanted a dynastic radio series on the Bonapartes - and nothing I've read in the course of this little spree changes that.

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De Gaulle: L'Âge de fer (2026)

First as tragedy, then as farce then as...Quixotism?

Released in English-speaking markets as De Gaulle: Resistance but the titles still clearly show 'Age of Iron'. (Not De Gaulle: Iron Age - which is a piece of time-slip fan-fiction I am not worthy to write). This is the first half of a two-parter, with the second half still to come. It's the story of Charles de Gaulle, 1939-1944. You likely know some of it, but this is a pretty decent rendition of things. 

The bulk of the plot is the formation of the Free French as a meaningful force. De Gaulle has a dubious authority, limited resources, truculent comrades, infirm allies and an enormous task in the shape of the liberation of France. Scenes in France - either German-occupied or Vichy - round out the story, and we sometimes drop into the perspective of the Free French forces on the ground - as at Bir Hakeim. 

The great contrast and clash of wills is (of course) not de Gaulle and (say) Rommel, but de Gaulle and Churchill. Both are thoroughly obstinate and awkward types - but Churchill is the face of a kingdom at war. British decisions are made to keep fighting, to deny the enemy, to garner American support - they are, however flamboyant Churchill may be personally*, the practical decisions of a nation in arms with all the capacities and qualities of a state bureaucracy**. De Gaulle is without all these things - and still insists on himself as France (a subtle contrast with Churchill, who is Prime Minister and not monarch). His small personal following is made smaller as he is cut out of decisions - learning about the attack on the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir only after the fact - or as he interferes with vital decisions - as at Dakar. I make no claims for the accuracy of the film.

Yet he remains stubborn, and (with a certain amount of nerve and daring) his forces manage to gain a foothold in the backwaters of France's empire - the latter is on full display, with multiple segments in Chad involving Félix Éboué. The Free French Brigade that finally fights at Bir Hakeim is clearly international - all in contrast to the polished presentation of Vichy Forces. Allied victory is - with, as ever, hindsight - inevitable, so de Gaulle is also contrasted with French admiral François Darlan. Darlan worked with the Vichy Government (until he didn't) and would have been a fairly plausible choice as a leader for Free French Forces.

Anyway, this isn't (necessarily) a very interesting film as a film. But it will probably get you to go out and look up a dozen of the people and place involved, so well done Pathé.

As for the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, the Knight of the Lantern Jaws, the most admirable Don Quixote of La Mancha....the comparison is made explicitly by characters in the film. But the comparison with Napoleon III is inevitable under the circumstances of this post. It probably doesn't go terribly far, but that image of driven rulers of France in exile launching doomed operations goes a certain way. More broadly, that France had rebuilt itself from exile before - with two empires, three republics and numerous other circumstances en route - does connect the two again. No Napoleon III, no de Gaulle? A little stronger than I'd put it.

*Though rewatching a trailer or two for this post, Churchill (played by Simon Russell Beale) is made to sound more callous than his portrayal necessarily ends up being.

**The French being more plucky and obstinate than a Churchillian wartime image of British pluck and obstinacy is slightly funny, in a vaguely meta way.

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Kalpa Imperial, Angélica Gorodischer (1983) tr. by Ursula K LeGuin (2003)

Not a new book, or a new translation, but Penguin have recently done a new edition. 

This is used as the cover art - Ad Minoliti “Carrier Bag Theory - after Ursula K. Le Guin”, (2025). 

 

'In city squares and glittering palaces, a series of storytellers recount the many deaths and rebirths of the greatest empire that never was; a history in which beggars rise to the Golden Throne, mad emperors raise cities and murderous empresses plot against their own children.'

The blurb's description of 'The greatest empire that never was' together with the mention of Italo Calvino in the acknowledgements probably makes one think of something like 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius'; that Borges and Gorodischer were both Argentines doubtless helps. But there's never that Borgesian sense of making a world (at least, I didn't get it) only of shaping one .... give or take some of the reframing elements in the last story. 

The story feel very LeGuin, surprisingly enough. The themes and elements are repeated so often that you could probably make a pastiche quite readily; that's not a mark against Kalpa Imperial per se, but it does have a very clear niche.* I also have to wonder how much of what I've read is LeGuin and how much Gorodischer, which is the trouble with such a famous author as your translator, especially where fields overlap.

These stories are worth reading, if you've an interest in the sort of world that can be conjured from overlapping snapshots of a fictional history, or accounts of scattered locations in a far-off empire - and if you're on a blog of this kind, you likely do.

*And any parody of it would get tired PDQ. I've often thought that a mirror image parody of Mills's Slaine would be hilarious - maybe an ultraviolet female hero of a developed civilisation creating and defending elaborate hierarchies in honour of the Sun God, roundly beating and humiliating all her enemies, accompanied by a loyal, stoic and chaste giantess - but it could probably only last thirty pages or so. The heroine will be called Elnaise.

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After London, Richard Jefferies (1885) 

What if William Morris's News from Nowhere was also a coming-of-age story? And really depressing? And what if the new world were brought about not by a revolt, but by a strange astral body?

We don't quite know how it happened, but the Britain of the 1880s collapsed, after a 'dark body' in space passed by, causing torrential rain and (perhaps) some strange influence on the minds of men, possibly related to biomagnetism. A century later and cities have collapsed; the state is no more, replaced by dozens of petty kingdoms. The south of England has become dominated by a great lake, with an entrance to the sea at the former Bristol and a dividing strait formed of the Chilterns. 'What was once Oxford and is now Sypolis' is a major port. A marsh sits at the eastern end of the lake:

At the eastern extremity the Lake narrows, and finally is lost in the vast marshes which cover the site of the ancient London......

Thus the low-lying parts of the mighty city of London became swamps, and the higher grounds were clad with bushes. The very largest of the buildings fell in, and there was nothing visible but trees and hawthorns on the upper lands, and willows, flags, reeds, and rushes on the lower. These crumbling ruins still more choked the stream, and almost, if not quite, turned it back. If any water ooze past, it is not perceptible, and there is no channel through to the salt ocean. It is a vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would be his inevitable fate.

There exhales from this oozy mass so fatal a vapour that no animal can endure it. The black water bears a greenish-brown floating scum, which for ever bubbles up from the putrid mud of the bottom. When the wind collects the miasma, and, as it were, presses it together, it becomes visible as a low cloud which hangs over the place. The cloud does not advance beyond the limit of the marsh, seeming to stay there by some constant attraction; and well it is for us that it does not, since at such times when the vapour is thickest, the very wildfowl leave the reeds, and fly from the poison. There are no fishes, neither can eels exist in the mud, nor even newts. It is dead.

The flags and reeds are coated with slime and noisome to the touch; there is one place where even these do not grow, and where there is nothing but an oily liquid, green and rank. It is plain there are no fishes in the water, for herons do not go thither, nor the kingfishers, not one of which approaches the spot. They say the sun is sometimes hidden by the vapour when it is thickest, but I do not see how any can tell this, since they could not enter the cloud, as to breathe it when collected by the wind is immediately fatal. For all the rottenness of a thousand years and of many hundred millions of human beings is there festering under the stagnant water, which has sunk down into and penetrated the earth, and floated up to the surface the contents of the buried cloacæ.

Many scores of men have, I fear, perished in the attempt to enter this fearful place, carried on by their desire of gain. For it can scarcely be disputed that untold treasures lie hidden therein, but guarded by terrors greater than fiery serpents. These have usually made their endeavours to enter in severe and continued frost, or in the height of a drought. Frost diminishes the power of the vapour, and the marshes can then, too, be partially traversed, for there is no channel for a boat. But the moment anything be moved, whether it be a bush, or a willow, even a flag, if the ice be broken, the pestilence rises yet stronger. Besides which, there are portions which never freeze, and which may be approached unawares, or a turn of the wind may drift the gas towards the explorer.

So far, so Mordor. There are later more even nightmarish descriptions of it than that. 

England has become, as said, a great many petty kingdoms and republics - prone to squabbling and raiding one another. Slavery is commonplace, under a thin veil of debt bondage. The Welsh and the Irish mount sea-borne raids on all these in revenge for past wrongs (the Scots are too far off to care.) From the limited view of the narrative, being either an in-universe document from Southern England or from the point of view of a resident Wales and Ireland appear united, or united enough to be capable of playing Viking; goodness knows why they didn't collapse into petty kingdoms - and let's not ask what happened in Ulster.

New breeds of beast stalk the renewed forests: black wood-dogs, the thorn-hog, the white hog, the hill-hog However, men maintain some domesticated beasts - draft horses or hill-ponies; 'The poodle is extinct, the Maltese terrier, the Pomeranian, the Italian greyhound, and, it is believed, great numbers of crosses and mongrels have utterly disappeared....We still have, among tame dogs, the mastiff, terrier, spaniel, deerhound, and greyhound, all of which are as faithful to man as ever.'

Also in the woods lurk Bushmen (apparently descended from tramps); seemingly vicious, squalid and secretive. The southern plains are populated by 'gipsies, those who are now often called Romany and Zingari' - nomads, raiders and prone to vendettas, if more willing to parley than the Bushmen.

All this is laid out in the first section of After London in an in-univese text. The second section details a young man moving through it: the eldest son of a Baron, a sensitive and educated youth - but still trained in arms. Our hero is Felix Aquila, who (through a variety of circumstances, including an upset in the course of love) travels the great lake in a canoe. It is through his eyes that we see the world, knowing just enough of the past to see what was lost, being young and idealistic enough to feel the sting of present woes. 

For the collapse of London - a London spoken of in terms of 'the rottenness of a thousand years and of many hundred millions of human beings' - has not led to a gentler, kinder land. Scarcity, close-mindedness and competition reign and stifle regrowth. It is, on the whole, a dispiriting vision. I found a second-hand edition with an introduction by John Fowles:

Particularly pertinent to After London is what Jefferies often called 'villadom' in the Notebooks (and Butler Ygrundism, Grundyism in Erewhon); conformity, apathy, smug narrowmindedness. It is associated with London there; yet it continues to infest the survivors of the annihilation of London in the novel, and plainly in Jefferies' view it would not die with the urban, or suburban, society that especially fostered it. It is the unthinkingness, or rather the unfeelingness, of ordinary mankind, both town and country, both middle and lower class that appals him - the inability to build one's own boat, however home-made, and sail for something better....

 If this sound very favourable to the intellectual and free-thinker, it isn't. We are told that after the passing of the celestial body the 'richer and upper classes made use of their money to escape. Those left behind were mainly the lower and most ignorant, so far as the arts were concerned, those that dwelt in distant and outlying places; and those who lived by agriculture'. 

All this is illustrated by Felix moving through the world - contemplating the culture of the time, such as it is, and the perils of the time, including war, social jostling, envy and the hazards of the material world.

After London is short, neatly crafted and freely available over at Project Gutenberg. Give it a look, see if there's anything you'd care to draw from this melancholy tale of the human quest.

March-April 2026 Miscellany: Raging Wazirs of Angelic Khartoum

I have been reading, writing, and occasionally watching. 

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I re-read the Mortal Engines Quartet and gave my own particular take on twenty-five years of that series, hopefully improving the grade of TRACTION CITY DISCOURSE. 

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     Worldbuilding & Woolgathering and
     The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990) and
     The Wazir and the Witch (1990) and
     The Worshippers and the Way (1992)

A return to Hugh Cook. As before, these were read in the wake of the False Machine two-part review of all ten of the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. For those after a fairly quick introduction to the series, I could do worse than point you towards these two summaries with a smattering of comment by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I also read between posts The Women and the Warlords, The Walrus and the Warwolf and The Wicked and the Witless, but there wasn't the time or impetus for a post on them.

I don't have any new comments on Cook here, or anything much I'd like to add to the linked material. The main thing I would stress about Wishtone, Wazir and Worshippers is that they are set in contrast one to another. Wishstone and Wazir we will treat as one for these purposes, set against Worshippers.

To it: Wishstone is set on the baking, fertile remote island of Untulchilamon (which produces many exotic commodities), far from the centre of power of its nominal imperial ruler; Worshippers is set in Dalar Ken Halvar, city of the Silver Emperor - a notably dusty and infertile place with near-exhausted silver mines. Wishstone's protagonist is the callow youth Chegory Guy, an Ebrell Islander. Worshippers' is Asodo Hatch, a middle-aged man of some experience (thanks to the Combat College, experience and systematised knowledge barely any on the planet could hope to match), and a Frangoni - who have been pitted against Ebrell Islanders on the continent of Parengarenga. Chegory Guy struggles to unite with the object of his affections; Asodo Hatch has a wife, several children - and, in time, a mistress. 

Untulchilamon in Wishstone contains the city of Injiltaprajura, beneath which is the ruined spaceship-arcology of the Below; this is unmapped and poorly understood by those in the city above. Dalar Ken Halvar in Worshippers is home to the Combat College, of the same space-faring civilisation as the Below but intact, utterly familiar to many of the main characters and working sort-of as intended. This extends to the alien entities and machine-minds of the Below and the Combat College. 

Wishstone sees a constant confusion, a chaos of multiple moving parts, deceptions, miscommunications, bluffs, feints and ploys (something added to by the many metatextual elements). It's not that clear what Chegory Guy or Justine Thrug (who we may as well treat as the protagonist of Wazir) actually have to do to come out on top. Worshippers sees Asodo Hatch face off against Lupus Lon Oliver to become Instructor of the Combat College; if he can accomplish this - by fair means or foul - he will become basically secure. There's no ships arriving in harbour with parties of questing heroes or false government officials: his opponents are there and effectively obvious from the start.

At the end of Wazir Justina Thrug and many of the main characters leave Untulchilamon. This is sad - exile and flight from somewhere you once had power, from a bustling and prosperous city in the face of imperial power (as wielded by Ardarch III, Mutilator of Yestron - who sounds charming). But Untulchilamon was always a bit crazy - it could be actively unpleasant if you were an Ebrell Islander  - and Justina didn't really manage to improve the place much. Why not try elsewhere? Asodo Hatch wins the day in Worshippers beating out his opponents in the Combat College, subduing the city, curing his wife and even squaring the AI that has somehow maintained the Combat College through the millennia. But he has given up so much to reach that point that exile could well seem the preferable option - at least, for Hatch personally. 

Just as all that suggests, Worshippers may be the bitterest of the Chronicles since Wizards. In some ways, I'm surprised there weren't more Chronicles in this tone. But taking Wishstone and Worshippers together, we have Cook asking us something like this: Comic Defeat or Tragic Victory. The answer is not an easy one.

As in the previous review, I was interested to read Worshippers by reason of comparison with the setting and backstory of Punth: A Primer. Having done so - they're not as similar as all that. The remnant of a space-faring civilisation warps a society to their will in both, but the Worshippers-analog events in Punth happened centuries (perhaps most or all of a millennium) before the Primer was written. It's also noteworthy that the Combat College is following its original purpose  fairly closely, unlike whatever the Qryth are doing by this stage. 

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The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain, George Owers, 2025

A quite recent book detailing English politics in the last decades of the seventeenth century and the first few of the eighteenth. Some of the highlights were familiar (Titus Oates, Marlborough, The Favourite, the Monmouth Rebellion) as were the broad strokes of nonconformist and Anglican, Jacobite and Hanoverian. But frequently histories dance over all this promptly in time for Queen Anne to die or concentrate on the War of the Spanish Succession, so view of the period firmly addressing domestic politics is welcome.

A warning: this is high-middlebrow history, though it still will occasionally drop in a sensationalist line one-line paragraph to round off a chapter or feel it has to define a halberd or refers to 'Carry-On Antics'. Further, whatever the merits of The Rage of Party, it still is making a bid for Relevance, with the introduction discussing the migration of Palatine Germans to England and the Tory bid to end Marlborough's 'Forever War' in Europe (and beyond) set against Whig vows of undying support for their Dutch and German allies. 

But, importantly, it doesn't get stuck in this mode. Whig and Tory swap roles as Optimate and Populare, but this maps poorly onto the present - and, more to the point, Owers provides a goodly number of instances where both sides employ both modes (or are made up of both types, in varying proportions). Other elements feel contemporary without very direct parallels having to be drawn: Defoe's Shortest Way with Dissenters is received as both a genuine and ugly attack on nonconformists and a piece of satire. Addison's Cato is warmly welcomed by both Whig and Tory, and plays to packed and hearty crowds applauding different sections, despite being from the pen of a committed Whig. An assassination attempt is made on Robert Harley, the Earl of Oxford and Tory Chief Minister via a rigged parcel - the Bandbox Plot, 1712 - and because it is privately thwarted, is regarded as a hoax (Jonathan Swift was there, and his private correspondence certainly suggests that it was real, and he was worried). As some of those names suggest, there is a flowering of literary patronage in the period.

The element that gets stressed - rightly - is religion. For all that an acquaintance with the Vicar of Bray will help, The Rage of Party will take you painstakingly through Occasional Conformity Bills and Tackers. The fame of Henry Sacheverell ought to be far better known, as a marker of the power of religion and the strange contortions of popularity and fame. 

I've enjoyed The Rage of Party for it's own sake, but it clearly has a bearing on The Rest of All Possible Worlds. Certainly, Malmery-as-written is fevered by the Rage of Party and hasn't blossomed to what it could be. Religion is less stressed by TRoAPW than it might be, for all that The Majestic Vision has been outlined, as have the Schools of Calliste that Teach It. While the Schools will have their political influence and effects, I suspect that politics in TRoAPW should foreground magical debates over religious ones. 'How dare you tax us so heavily to pay for more mages!' 'The systematic creation of mages divorced from their customary state will result in a tyrannical ruling caste of sorcerer-kings!' 'Magic should be for the people, not the Lords!'

Also, A Tale of A Tub is the equivalent of a Substack composed of equal parts political ranting and esoteric vignettes.

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In addition to diving into the riddle-games and vasty imagery of Solomon and Saturn, here's an essay on Carolingian Angelology, in which the ranks of the saints blend into the ranks of the angels. There's an obviously fantastical image there, though I wasn't expecting the use of the angelic hierarchy as a tool by the Emperor and the Episcopate. I'd certainly heard of folk saints and Guinefort the Holy Greyhound and so forth, but I'd taken it that the proper replacement was an approved sacred virgin or apostle or something - to say nothing of 'Angels in the guise of Martyrs'.

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I read (and approved of) Queen Mab's Palace, as well as several rather different forms of space travel.

...and speaking of Medieval space travel, this post somewhat resembles my own Faufreluches, categorising and cataloguing the Dying Earth subgenre. You will likely want to pick holes in some of it, though a line between The Night Land and Viriconium is sensible. One question being: Is Yoon-Suin Dying Earth? Certainly, Viriconium and The Book of the New Sun are in its Appendix N. But I'd argue that there is a mild but telling difference between a world where deeds and actions will be swallowed by the death of all (and many deeds and actions have already gone before) and a world where all deeds and actions will be swallowed by growth and fecundity and the weight of a thousand cycles of this in ages past.  

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The Troy Book of John Lydgate, partially employed in my last post, also has a long section on armour as the Trojans arm for battle: Book III, line 40 or so onwards.

W[h]ere alle þe worþi noble werriours 

Of Troye toun to-gydre assemblid be, 

And many oþer to be-holde and se 

Þe famus knyȝtes arme hem in þat place.

And some of hem gan ful streite lace

Her doublettis made of lyne cloth,

A certeyn fold þat a-boute hem goth;

And some also dempte most surest

To armen hem for bataille of arest,

And dide on firste, aftir her desires,

Sabatouns, grevis, cusschewis, and voideris—

A peire breke, aldirfirst, of maille;

And some þer wer eke þat nolde faille

To han of maille eke a peir[e] bras,

And þer-with-al, as þe custom was,

A peir Gussetis on a petycote,

Garnyssched with gold vp on-to the þrote,

A paunce of plate, whiche of þe silf be-hinde

Was schet and clos, and þer-on, as I finde,

Enviroun was a bordure of smal maille. 

Like Chaucer, his near-contemporary, try reading it aloud (treat yogh - ȝ - as Y and thorn - þ - as Th: Þe famus knyȝtes arme hem in þat place -> The famous knights arm them in that place). 

So we see armour: 'Sabatons, greaves, cuisses and voiders'; a pair of breeches, made of chainmail. 

Choices of armour vary:

some wold armyd be more liȝt

In þikke Iackys curid with satyn;  

'rather be clad in a thick jack cured with satin'.

As do choices of weapons:

To welde hym wel, whan þat he schal fiȝt.

And some wiln han a target or a spere,

And some a pavis, his body for to were,

And some a targe, makyd strong to laste;

And some wil haue dartes for to caste,

Some a pollex, heueded of fyn stele....

A target shield, a spear, a pavise, darts, poleaxes..... 

And some a swerd his enemy for to mete.

And some wil haue a bow for to schete,

Somme an arblast, to stonden out a-syde;

And some on fote and some for to ride

Arraie hem silf, her fomen for to assaile;

Lydgate has no special knowledge of arms and armour, and openly proclaims it, suggesting that you may correct it as you prefer. This is not a technique likely to impress your PhD supervisor, but it's honest and interesting here.

I haue no konnyng euery þing to telle,

And vn-to ȝow it were to long to dwelle—

Where I faile, ȝe mote haue me excusid;

For in swiche crafte I am litel vsid,

And ignoraunce doþe my penne lette,

In her ordre my termys for to sette.

And oft chaungeth swiche harneis & devis;

And ȝe þat ben þer-in experte & wys,

Disdeyneth nat þat I speke in þis place

Of her armyng: for al is in ȝour grace,

Riȝt at ȝour luste to correcte euerydel.

An abridged and annotated version of the Troy Book is here; the arms and armour segment above is here.

***

Khartoum, dir. Basil Dearden, 1966

This is not a very good film, while being a lavishly-funded epic; bad for different reasons than B-Movie blood and guts. It details the 1884-85 siege of Khartoum, and the conflict between General Gordon (Chinese Gordon, Gordon of Khartoum) and the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal, known as the Mahdi. I've made no focused study of Gordon, but had encountered some of his life, his intransigence, his drive and notable Christian faith. Even setting aside his spectacular death, I suspect that the biographers would be making hay of him in any event. Obviously, do some reading of your own on the Mahdist War. (You may find a detailed summary of the film here).

To get one thing out of the way first: Laurence Olivier plays the Mahdi in brownface, adopting a silly high-pitched accent. This look unnatural against everybody else and doesn't work very well, but otherwise isn't that interesting (other than that it's a real contrast with more contemporary portrayals of Islamic revolts, and for every nineteen reviews that fulminate against it, you can find one that quite likes Olivier).

Gordon is played by Charlton Heston, with what I think is something of a cowboy affect. His defence of Khartoum has a touch of 'defend the frontier town' about it - though the film is quite clear that Khartoum is an old city, with a mixed population of Sudanese, Egyptians and Europeans. He is introduced on a train, which feels a rather Western touch (if without any Colonel Mortimer shenanigans) and later rides out alone into the desert to confront the Mahdi before the siege begins. His personal bravery, strict moral code and quiet defiance of Gladstone et al adds to this. But maybe I'm just reading back from an actor's biography. (Though actually, a Western transplanted to the Sudan might be interesting...)

The film (shot in Panavision) looks a bit sad in places. There's some good wide scenes of battle and fury and armies, though often there's a sad-looking insert with a backdrop for Charlton Heston; these scream 'Charlton didn't want to sit around in the desert'. The soundtrack is often quite what you'd expect, though there's a quote from 'Highland Laddie' that works as a sort of 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' with its contrast of youthly vigour and splendour - and a doomed expedition. To say nothing of the Scottish connection between 'Highland Laddie' and Gordon (as in Highlanders) himself.

The elephant in the room is Lawrence of Arabia, the dialogue of which references Gordon directly. They're trying to capture some of the same magic, but it's not as spectacular, not as impassioned. It lines up very nicely in some ways: the imperial ambitions, the desert war in an Islamic culture, the driven and eccentric protagonist clashing with his political masters. Gladstone and his ministers make multiple appearances, unlike in Lawrence - which drains something from the desert setting, and spells things out in a way that Lawrence didn't do so bluntly with Allenby and Dryden; although in fairness, the tangle of British involvement in the Sudan probably required a little more background for audiences than the First World War. Further, Gordon as an experienced colonial administrator and general can't well be compared to the callow lieutenant Lawrence. The brief, clumsy narration at the start of Khartoum is far vaguer and emptier than the reflections on Lawrence's life at his funeral. 

But there are the lines of a better story, with an often clumsy execution. Gordon's ruthless pre-film efforts to eliminate slave trade and bring peace to the Sudan have produced death and disruption, as the Mahdi notes - and cost him local allies. In theory, this ought to be a contrast of similar personalities: two messianic, highly successful, fanatical warlords, and how their respective cultures treat them. What if both sides had a Lawrence? What if both sides had a Kwasitz Haderach?  

(In theory, this is Feyd-Ruatha. But he's riding on the Baron's coat-tails - and while the Dennis Villeneuve film nods at his popularity, the freakiness of the arena scene, his blatant viciousness and the Nuremburg-like processions distract from this and imply something different with the propaganda spectacles. His moments of military competence are there, but it's never clear that he could found an empire or play the game of imperial politics. Cf. this assessment.)

But, alas, Heston's Gordon is somewhat too heroic; his popularity with the British public is never quite apparent enough to contrast with the Mahdi's dervishes and his clashes with Gladstone's representatives and the delays of Wolsey's forces don't have a good contrast in the Mahdi's ranks. Admittedly, this would have made the film longer and more complex, but if you are going to set yourself up as another Lawrence, such a thing is inevitable. 

Anyway, don't expect to be amazed - but do contemplate giving it a watch. Per one interview, it's a guilty pleasure of Martin Scorcese. And it was enough to make me write all that. 

Solomon and Saturn: Saxon Sages

I recently discovered the Old English dialogue of Solomon and Saturn. This is, of course, highly relevant to my interests. 

There are several of these dialogues, either in poetry or prose. They appear back to back in the same manuscript and are largely thought to have been written at the end of the first millennium. Saturn is here a Prince of the Chaldeans, though not without some measure of knowledge. Solomon is still Solomon, but without some of the more oriental aspects with which he is sometimes presented (see Kipling, for instance, aside from the whole business of summoning demons). 

Saturn calls on Solomon, setting him a series of questions, sometimes with a reward. He either trying to get details of the power of the Lord's Prayer, or quizzing him about the state of the life of man, the nature of creation and God's will. In the former he is sceptical and offers a sounding-board for Solomon's long discussions of the power of prayer. In the latter, he becomes a testing, probing presence; not diabolic, but clearing pushing at a few boundaries. 

Here's an example of the text:

SALOMON cwæð:

Þæt gepalmtwigude  Pater Noster
heofnas ontyneð,  halie geblissað,
Metod gemiltsað,  morðor gefilleð
adwæsceð deoflesfyr,  Dryhtnes onæleð.

Solomon said: The palm-twigged Paternoster opens heaven, blesses the holy, makes the Lord mild, fells murder, extinguishes the devil's ire, kindles the Lord's.

The Lord's Prayer is not only potent, but highly decorated: 'Golden is the word of God, studded with gems, it hath silver leaves...'. The letters of it are themselves given magical and specific associations.

prologa prima  ðam is . ᛈ . P. nama;
hafað guðmæcga  gierde lange,
gyldene gade,  ond a ðone gr[im] man feond
swiðmod sweopað;  ond him on swaðe fylgeð
. ᚪ . A . ofermægene  ond hine eac ofslihð.
. ᛏ . T . hine teswað  ond hine on ða tungan sticað,
wræsteð him ðæt woddor  ond him ða wongan brieceð.

prologa  prima,  which  is
named . ᛈ . P.: the warrior has a long staff, with
a golden goad, and brave he ever swipes at the
grim fiend; and in the track . ᚪ . A . pursues him
with mighty power and also strikes him. . ᛏ . T.
injures him and stabs him in the tongue, twists
his throat, and shatters his jaws.

The prose dialogue features a battle where between the devil and the Paternoster where they take on various forms:

Solomon said: The devil first will be in youthfulness, in the likeness of a child, then the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of the Holy Spirit. In the third instance the devil will be in the likeness of a dragon; in the fourth instance the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of an arrow, which is called brahhia dei. In the fifth instance the devil will be in the likeness of darkness; in the sixth instance the Pater Noster will be in light’s likeness. In the seventh instance the devil then will be in the likeness of a wild animal; in the eighth instance the Pater Noster will be in the likeness of a whale that is called Leuiathan.

Saturn even desires to know of the Features of the Paternoster.

Saturnus quoth. But what kind of head hath the Pater Noster?
Salomon quoth. The Pater Noster hath a golden head and silver hair; an although all the waters of the earth should be mingled with a the waters of heaven into one channel, and it should begin to rain them together upon the earth and all its creatures, yet might it stand dry under a single lock of the Pater Noster's hair; and his eyes are twelve thousand times brighter than all the earth, though it be overspread with the brightest lily-blossoms, and the leaf of every blossom should have twelve suns, and every blossom twelve moons, and every individual moon should be twelve thousand times brighter than it was ere Abel's murder.

'The world was young, the mountains green, no stain yet on the moon was seen'?

And in the Pater Noster’s right hand is the likeness of a golden sword, unlike all other weapons; its gleam is clearer and brighter than all the constellations of the heavens, than there are ornaments and fairness of gold and silver in all the earth: and the right edge of the lordly weapon, is milder and more moderate than all the sweetness or the perfumes of the earth; and the left edge of the same weapon, is fiercer and sharper than all [middle-earth], though between its four pinnacles it should be driven full of wild-beasts, and every individual beast should have twelve horns, and every horn twelve tines of iron, and every tine twelve points and every point should be twelve thousand times sharper than an arrow which has been tempered by a hundred and twenty hardeners. 

The assorted hyperbole and vast numbers and shifts of perspective are somewhat psychedelic, even faintly Hindu in a certain light.

Solomon was more famous; however, Saturn, the bold strategist, had the keys of certain books in which learning was locked. He wandered through all the lands: the land of India, the East Cossias, the kingdom of the Persians, Palestine, the city of Nineveh, and the North Parthians, the treasure halls of the Medes, the land of Marculf, the kingdom of Saul – where it lies south by Gilboa and north by Gadara – the halls of the Philistines, the fortress of the Cretans, the forest of the Egyptians, the waters of the Midians, the cliffs of Horeb, the kingdom of the Chaldeans, the skills of the Greeks, the race of the Arabians, the learning of Libya, the land of Syria, Bithynia, Bashan, Pamphylia, the border of Porus, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Christ’s homeland – Jericho, Galilee, Jerusalem.

Saturn is well-travelled, well-read - but not quite supernatural. He might be associated with gloom and be a fairly melancholy type and ask questions about old age, but isn't the god of old age.

Saturnus cwæð:
Nieht bið wedera ðiestrost,  ned bið wyrda heardost,
sorg bið swarost byrðen,  slæp bið deaðe gelicost.

Solomon cwæð:
Lytle hwile  leaf beoð grene;
ðonne hie eft fealewiað,  feallað on eorðan,
ond forweorniað,  weorðað to duste.
Swa ðonne gefeallað  ða ðe fyrena ær
lange læstað,  lifiaðhim in mane,
hydað heahgestreon,  healdað georne
on fæstenne  feondum to willan,

Saturn said: Night is the darkest weather, need the hardest of fates, sorrow the most oppressive burden, sleep is most like death.

Solomon said: Leaves are green for a short while, then later they fade, fall on the earth and decay, turn to dust. Just so, then, fall those who earlier persist for a long time in their sins – they live in crime, they hide great treasures, they hold them eagerly in strongholds, to the delight of  the enemies....

I've been dancing between two translations here, accessible by an academic library: that of Dr Daniel Anlezark and that of John Kemble. You can find the latter here and a third partial for comparison here.

It's not a unique piece of work: one sage setting riddles for another is a familiar enough pattern for Norse legend. But the introduction of Saturn and Solomon as protagonists is noteworthy, though not unique. There's a few interpretations I've come across since encountering this on the shelves a few days ago; that this is a form of catechesis is one. 

But I've not tapped the limits of what's in this poem - for instance, the vast bird, feared by the Philistines (and by Saturn) and called by them Vasa Mortis, due to appear at Doomsday. Anlezark says in his commentary 'the Vasa Mortis passage ranks as one of the most obscure in Old English'. Anyway, there's a greater variety here (if perhaps less focused) than in the tale of St Erkenwald. For your consideration?

Frenchmen and Fairies in Space

There are the books I planned to read and the books I didn't plan to read. I didn't quite plan to read the books by, for and about Frenchmen in space.

***

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) L'Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune (1657), trans. Thomas St Serf (1624-c. 1669) as Selēnarhia, or, The government of the world in the moon a comical history (1659)

Bertrand de Fontenelle (1657-1757), Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686), trans. Aphra Behn (1640-1689) as A Discovery of New Worlds (1688)

Voltaire (1694-1778), Micromegas (1752), trans. Douglas Parmee, 2014.

Well, maybe that's not quite true. I had half an eye open for Micromegas, having seen it referenced in Terra Ignota. Further, Marat of Red Berries for the Red Planet had referenced 'Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds' in my TRoAPW Appendix N post. I didn't make the connection on first seeing my second-hand Hesperus Press copy, but soon did. 

Some notes on translators:

Aphra Behn was a remarkable author in her own right. I've read a number of her plays and novels. Many deal with affairs of the heart (I won't list her with Rochester as a libertine, though she's undeniably a coquette), and a number are set in the Catholic parts of the Low Countries - where she was a spy for Charles II. Her work Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1688) has stayed in print these many years, and provokes much interest as a narrative of an African slave's early life and rebellion in Dutch Suriname. Accomplished as she was, Virginia Woolf's praise for her catapults her onto Feminist reading lists (though I note that in her translator's note, she takes a moment to complain about the foolishness of the Marquise); her Toryism is not necessarily stressed.

Thomas St Serf is far less well-known, but in digging up dates for this I found him to be the son of a Scottish Bishop (their surname is rendered as Sydserff, Sincerth, Sydceff and more, confusing the issue). In addition to his translation, he was also the producer of a short-lived Scottish newsletter, the Mercurius Caledonius - which has all been transcribed online.

Both are appropriate sources for TRoAPW - though Behn has perhaps the wider application. The Mercurius Caledonius would make a great deal of sense for characterising Malmery.
I note that other translations are available on Project Gutenberg.

 

Statue of Aphra Behn, outside the Beaney Library in Canterbury.
Again, unlike Rochester, I can't tell you which Warhammer Army she collected.

         

Let's look at some summaries. In Selēnarhia Bergerac's narrator projects himself to the Moon (following a crash in Canada - New France) using vials of dew. When he arrives at the Moon, he is taken as an animal, and presented to the queen as her beast. He is slowly drawn into lunar society - where meals are taken entirely as scents, poetry is used as money, the language is music (with proper names all rendered in musical notation) and other wonders abound. There are long disputations on natural philosophy (and whether the Moon is a Moon). 

Among other things, the men of the Moon enjoy audio books.

At the opening of the Box, I found in one of them ſomething of Metal, almoſt like our Watches, full of little ſprings, and almoſt imperceptible Machines : tis true, it is a Book, but a Miraculous one, which hath neither leaves nor letters. In fine,it is a Book, wherein to learn any thing, the eyes are altogether unneceſſary, and the ears are only to be uſed. When any one then hath a mind to read in it, he winds up with a great many little Springs this Machine, then he turns the needle upon on the Chapter he intends to peruſes and ſtraight, as from the mouth of a man, or ſome Muſical inſtrument, there iſſueth forth diſtinct and different ſounds, which the men of quality make uſe of in the Moon for the expreſſion of their thoughts.

 They also make use of mobile towns:

 Amongſt our Towns, dear Stranger, there be Motional and Fundamental; the Motional ones of that we are now in, are made as I ſhall  now tell you: the Architecture as you ſee of each Palace upholds it upon light wood; we make it upon four wheels: in the thickneſs of one of the walls, he puts ten great pair of bellows, whoſe ſnowts paſs by an Horizontal line thorow the laſt ſtory from one pinacle to the other; ſo that when they would remove the Town to another place (for they change the Air each ſeaſon)each one unfolds on one fide of his houſe large ſayls, juſt before the pipes of the bellows; then having bent a ſpring to make them play, their houſes, in leſs then eight dayes, by the continual guſts which thoſe windy Monſters vomit, are driven a hundred leagues: as for thoſe we call ſtable, they are almoſt like your Towers, except that they are of wood, and that they are pierced in the Centre, by a great and ſtrong Vice, which goes from the top to the bottom, to mount or diſmount them at pleaſure. 

The whole thing resembles more than a little Gulliver's Travels, though is (on the whole) less bitter and misanthropic. A sequel takes place in the Sun. 

A Discovery of New Worlds, by contrast, is an account of stargazing, in which a young astronomer instructs a young Marquise in the wonders of the cosmos. Accordingly, a lot of it is to do with orbital dynamics and Copernicus vs Ptolemy, but there are occasions for discussions of who dwells on the Moon and other worlds, and what sort of men they are. Do they fear eclipses, as men do on earth? Comparisons are drawn with the inhabitants of the New World prior to the arrival of Columbus; and, accordingly, the possibility of frequent travel between the Moon and Earth in time to come. There is also an extended passage discussing Ariosto - teachers now and then refer to cultural touchstones.

Then we have Micromegas. In which an inhabitant of the planet Sirius, the titular Micromegas has to leave the Sirian court after having written a heretical book - he was taught by that planet's Jesuits. They get everywhere! In journeying through the cosmos, he eventually lights on our solar system, and pays a visit to Earth in the company of a Saturnian. A problem presents itself: the Sirian is 24,000 feet tall and the Saturnian 6,800 feet tall. They eventually make microscopes to observe life on Earth, and begin conversations with a boatful of philosophers. Micromegas approves of Locke, but laughs mightily at the suggestions of a theologian from the Sorbonne quoting Thomas Aquinas, and promptly quits the scene.

What are we to make of all these? Well, one could see it as an evolution of astronomy: first the moon as fairyland, then the systematic examination of the solar system, then the vast beings and vaster distances of the galaxy. This is a narrow slice of Early Modern tales of star-faring, of course, so that's a little too glib. Indeed, the ideas don't only evolve: the use of microscopes and vast differences in scale in Micromegas are matched by discussion of a louse on a human body in Selēnarhia. There is the use of alien beings: Fontenelle's sober-ish speculation against Voltaire's whimsical culture-war puppets.

In any case, the attitudes and discussions are just those one might expect of TRoAPW. The curiosity for other worlds, the self-confidence, the whim and threat of lunar monarchs or star-archons - all might find a home in Calliste!

***

I did plan to read about Fairies in Space. Which is to say that I backed the Kickstarter for Queen Mab's Palace. It arrived a few weeks ago, and I have been slowly working my way through it.  

How to describe it? Well, we may turn to the author's own words:

This book is a Science-Fantasy Adventure story which follows the  a medieval scribe in his quest to to save six children, stolen from his village by Fairies and taken to Queen Mab's Palace.

The reader will quickly realise what the protagonist does not; this is no 'magic palace', but a gigantic, dying space ship, taken over by insane transhuman radicals and populated by mutants and loons. 

The author being, of course, Patrick Stuart. Queen Mab's Palace was illustrated by August Lake Cartland.

There's a few things to say about the conception of QMP. Much of it is detailed here, but I would note two things. First, that QMP was for a time meant to be read two ways: as a science fiction piece, and as a fantasy adventure - as in, one could flip the book around and read it right to left for a different experience. Second, that it was (like Stuart's other work) initially a game book: the structure of events, in which a quest has multiple destinations and interconnected possibilities presumably owes much to this, though this doesn't feel like an artefact of earlier versions (for reasons to be discussed below). The Appendices do, but this is a touch more charming and is integrated (or not-quite-integrated) into the story in a fitting fashion. The acquisition of a weapon, a map and a lamp in a bustling and mysterious market is a section that strikes one as very RPG; the division of weapons into man-killer, crowd-killer and Lady-killer is both a good moment to describe the world and enjoy the literary use of lists, and quite close to scrolling through the available weapons at an armourer in an RPG (the characterful purposes of such a categorisation are not lost on me).

A moment on art. The cover manages to be A) evocative, B) accurate but not slavish and C) good-looking. This is a hard set of qualities to fit together.

The interior illustrations tread a line between fantasy and science fiction, as they should, and largely do it well. Too far towards fantasy, and you get Arthur Rackham or Aubrey Beardsley. Too far towards science fiction and you get Chris Foss (whose mix of colour and detail and vastness would work quite well in places!) or H.R. Giger. Illustrations have to show some of the mechanical and high-science detail, along with the 'crunchy' chainmail and bracers and belts fantasy, and escaping into the impressionistic would be cheating. And it does this without summoning up comparison with John Blanche - who is good, but probably not good for fairies. Some elements dial up the whimsy too far, but an assertion of the artist's personal touch on the work is oft-times welcome, even where it doesn't quite align with text or tone (I've seen this said of Josh Kirby's illustrations for the Discworld, for instance, as contrasted with Paul Kidby). Bravo Cartland.

QMP's cover, shorn of the title. Found here. 

Having raised John Blanche, there is one way I think I would characterise QMP. The feudalistic or some-how devolved society in a generation ship is a well-established trope or feature of speculative fiction. Consider Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, or Aldiss's Non-Stop, or Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. Likewise, consider the mingling of the feudal and futuristic in Dune or A Canticle for Leibowitz. QMP does something not immediately so different to all of these, but differs in two ways. First, in that the voice is somehow more medieval: as if the whole of QMP could be a string of allegorical scenes - or, rather, as if it is something strange and bewildering that is being communicated by one whose nearest reference point is colourful, complex allegory (almost as if the author is very familiar with Edmund Spenser). This isn't perhaps constant, but is frequent enough to matter. (I'd comment on Shelley's poem Queen Mab here if I had anything more than a superficial acquaintance with it).

Second, in that it lingers in the Blanche-esque. That needs explaining: John Blanche's illustrations for Warhammer 40,000 are well known (or, at least, presumably well-known if you've found your way here!) but aren't always 'in focus'. That is to say, they are set next to army lists and functional prose and stat-blocks, which pull one away from the madness and ruin of Blanche. What is more, it does this without becoming Ian Watson - or a toy commercial (see here and here; contrast discussions here). The new reader shouldn't expect too much in the way of Warhammer, but I think that this is a way to express an element of what's going on in QMP.

I take it that the Frenchmen and Fairies reading this will consider this a recommendation. Goodness knows what the Star-Archons make of it.

From the Nile to the Wall: Noises on the Memoirs of Hadrian

I read Margurite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. Then so did Patrick. Over the last week we decided to get together twice for some chat on the subject.

The recordings of both are presented below. The first is intended to be a better introduction, and we get a little more discursive in the second. 

1, Pt 1:

1, Pt 2:

2, Pt 1:

2, Pt 2:

Included in our discussion: Wolf Hall, Gene Wolfe's Peace, Starship Troopers, *CURRENT AFFAIRS!*, Piranesi, Piranesi, The Dark Brain of Piranesi, Agatha Christie, Rebecca West, classical architecture, the 1976 film Coup de Grâce and Napoleon. 

***

Animula vagula blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula rigida nudula
Nec ut soles dabis iocos

Too Like the Lightning-Rod: Serendipitous January Reading

I suppose I could bulk this out into a fuller miscellany, but January's almost over and these go quite well together.

I acquired two bits of reading which I only got round to in the last month or so. Both have a nice connection to the Magical Enlightenment stuff I've been putting together under the name The Rest of All Possible Worlds.

***

No. 1 : The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

These were a chance find in a book giveaway. I picked up the Everyman edition. 

Lady Wortley Montagu was alive from 1689-1762. She's perhaps most famous for having gone with her husband as part of an embassy to Constantinople and brining back smallpox vaccination. That's impressive, but forms only one part of her letters. 

She writes sending back reports of her travels - to her lady friends in Britain, to the Abbe Conti in France. These are a mix of responses to their letters, personal news and her discussions of the places she visits. Her journey across Europe takes her through Amsterdam, Prague, Genoa, Leipzig and such places - and she finds time to comment on the local habits, the doing of the aristocracy and so forth. It's when she reaches Ottoman territory that things become more interesting (though comparisons of 18th C London and Amsterdam have their purposes). 

Thus, then to Belgrade, Adrianople, then Constantinople. We are given her impressions of these territories quite closely, with the consciousness of being 'outside of Christendom' (however many Greek or Armenian Christians she encounters). Aside from how observant and discerning Lady Wortley Montagu may herself be, she also has the advantage of being able to enter the women's quarters - to go into the bathhouse and harem and report back. This isn't exactly untitillating, though I note her discussions of Western Europe weren't shy of mentioning dalliances. But it does give her a different insight into the ways and means of another culture - which she uses to pass comment on European customs, be they Catholic or Protestant.

Indeed, Lady Wortley Montagu is sufficiently questing, sufficiently outspoken and well-connected to make her something of a proto-feminist. She's not the model of a Bluestocking - that would come later in the 18th Century - but her remarks on women's education and status certainly indicate a dissatisfaction with the status quo (at least for her class) and places value on the work and wisdom of her sex. 

She wrote throughout her life, and her letters from Turkey only form part of this. Indeed, once she gets past reports from abroad, she is able to write in a more focused way on the place of women - especially to her daughter. Lady Wortley Montagu would live apart from her husband in Avignon and northern Italy toward the end of her life; her letters are still undulled by a long stay and full of the observations of another country.

None of this is crucial reading, of course. But I found it valuable to read the sort of accounts that would fuel what we think of as the Enlightenment; read them in their original mix of the dull, the obvious, the prejudiced, the now-remarkable and the exciting. If you are the sort of person to have read your way to this blog, I think I would suggest reading a similar set of letters at some point. 

***

No. 2 - Terra Ignota

A recent series of four novels (published 2016-2021) by Ada Palmer, Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Chicago (I've approvingly linked before now to her blog, Ex Urbe). It's a semi-Utopian society in the year 2454 and a series of tensions and conflicts within it.

First things first: this is embedded with - shall we say - culture war lightning rods. Nation-states as we know them are abolished, courtesy of rapid transport in the form of flying cars. Citizens present themselves in as gender-neutral; that the narrator is going back through apply 'He' and 'She' is controversial. The nuclear family has fallen so far out of favour as it may be said to be abolished. Public religion has been banned, following a period in the 21st century called 'the Church Wars'. Reservations for religion still exist, as do private counsellors called senssayers. Censorship is widespread, if sensitively applied. There is an ongoing in-world controversy about childrearing and cybernetics which is akin to other debates about home education and significant surgery for minors. 

Hence my image of lightning rods. I don't know if anyone was jumping up and down hoping to burn these books, but this is clearly inflammable stuff. Which, naturally, makes it fascinating. 

I've seen Terra Ignota referred to as a dizzying mix of heaven and hell to a 21st century reader, rather like 2025 would be to a human being of the 16th century. This is not wrong, though clearly some would find it far more heavenly than others. And, indeed, you should likely prepare for something to bother you unpredictably in Terra Ignota. 

The world of Terra Ignota has been divided into Hives. These have coalesced over time into several large entities, more akin to culture-blocs than nations - and certainly not geographically contiguous. Wikipedia's guide to these is quite good, laying out the nurturing Cousins and ambitious Humanists. 

It is a world of solid freedoms, drawing from the Enlightenment - and deliberately written to evoke the 18th century. Thinkers of the period are quoted - Voltaire especially - and the writing style is composed to match. There is a focus on the correct form of government, of conflict bounded by a sense of goodwill, of plenty, of debate, of competition among elites. This last part is rather characteristic; it is both delightful that we get such a top-down and wide-ranging view of things, from characters who can and who want to learn all they can about a situation - but one does sometimes have to wonder what the lowest members of the Hives do with themselves. 

I think that this is especially the case with some groups. Palmer seems to have a moderately good idea of who the Cousins are, what sort of person joins the Utopians, and so forth. But while I can see that she knows that there are the sort of people (who aren't Princes or wunderkind) who would join the orderly Masonic Empire I don't get the impression she has a notion of how they think or act. Which is a problem if part of the conditions for later conflict is that the Masons have become the largest hive, with no sign of stopping!

One can certainly take the whole series as an extended meditation and discussion of the Enlightenment, and how it might shake out if sufficiently embraced and extended. There's a set of scenes toward the end which could certainly be read as referential of A) Postcolonial thought and B) A transition from Liberal Democracy to Social Democracy. That is, the end of the Enlightenment, or perhaps a phase thereof. 

I won't delve into the plot here (really). I was more often appreciative of it than swept up in it. The main point I have is that I was not quite satisfied by Terra Ignota, and you should probably read it. It is doing the things that one would wish Science Fiction to do, and it is doing them from a well-read informed position. 

Certainly, it sometimes tries too much - the elements of theodicy are not what they could be (but then, perhaps they are as good or as informed as our theologically innocent [or, perhaps, theologically sophomoric] narrators). The vast list of characters is benefit and hazard both. The extensive reference to the Iliad and Odyssey are apt, but liable to flap a little too loose. There are elements that clearly point forward from present debates - but then the approach to them and the framing feels a little too like the early 2010s, at least in rhetoric, and it turns out that this is exactly when this was written. This can make it feel...late to the party. (The art, culture and sensibilities of the Utopians feel especially guilty of this. It's not un-sensical in universe, but it really does have something too much of Tumblr in it. Though paradoxically, Terra Ignota doesn't feel that 'online', really. Thank the 18th century and the flying cars.)

There are other ways Terra Ignota undercuts itself. I've highlighted the Masons above. There's a sense in which the Mitsubushi are having their cake and eating it by being so based in East Asia without being formally a national or regional culture (also, though it almost certainly isn't the intention, it's difficult to un-see a Yellow Peril element). Religion is private, but there are lines in the fourth book, Perhaps the Stars, of it being unspoken general knowledge that certain hives have a reputation for having many members from a certain faith. And that the religious reservations are freely accessible. This reframes things awkwardly, and if it was going to appear, should have done so earlier. 

There's an anime-esque cast of thousands, along with long scenes of back-and-forth dialogue in moments of vital action. A little cumbersome, but not objectionable - and better than the alternative. There are one or two moments of smug, glib, triumphalist anti-authoritarianism that I associate with the (movement? subgenre? tendency?) tendency Hopepunk, but these are happily few and far between. Palmer has explicitly linked Terra Ignota and Hopepunk in essays and such material, but that doesn't distress me. 

I suppose my reaction to Terra Ignota is largely that I wish to like it more. The flaws it possesses are not severe, but they are flaws. But it is undeniably of such a substance that one can grapple with.

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 too 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. 

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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.

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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.