Spirits of earth and air,
Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power,
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant—spell,
Which had its birthplace in a star condemn’d,
The burning wreck of a demolish’d world,
A wandering hell in the eternal space;
By the strong curse which is upon my soul,
The thought which is within me and around me,
I do compel ye to my will. Appear!–From Lord Byron’s “Manfred”

 

The Night Land, mixing supernatural and science-fiction elements, blends technological and supernatural worlds in a weird topological landscape of meaningful and meaningless images where the mind, scared of its own shadow, fills in the rest. Then, proto-typically stirring the same cauldron from which the macabre cosmic images of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu would be steeped in, The Night Land set the stage for the 20^th century’s “Dying Earth” theme. Written at a time when the materialistic science of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries had devolved man’s genetic heritage from gods to apes and extended “The-Ring-Pass-Not” ¹⁾See additional symbolism of the “Ring” here. of the circumscribed universe ever further out, while simultaneously, geological time scales were rapidly leaving Bishop Usher’s “Chronology” in the credulous dust, the  “War to end war” was about to permanently stamp out any innocence that survived. It was an environment where spiritualism was bizarrely dancing around science; a time ripe for strange ideas for sure. No surprise that Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned was an offspring child of such times–times that are the very bedrock of our present alternative and conspiratorial milieu. It was in this era that Hodgson plied the seas of his imagination. Although we can easily trace Hodgson’s influence for his sea stories to his own experience, written in a strange prescient manner of a looming Titanic disaster, ²⁾See “Dark Mythos of the Sea” in Voices from the Borderland by Berruti, Joshi, and Gafford, Hippocampus Press (2014) page 56. where did he get his ideas for The Night Land and what made Lovecraft later call the ancient Kraken back up from the watery darkness in the guise of the cosmic Cthulhu ? To answer this, we will let the Kraken of the anamnesic imagination continue to sleep for the moment, and briefly look at the imitation or mimesis inherent in The Night Land imagery.

Notwithstanding that there are many interesting explorations of the “Dying Earth” theme, and that more recent and perhaps, for some, far better “reads” are available, The Night Land stands monumentally above the rest for its sheer originality and scope. Lin Carter, well known author and editor whose importance in introducing a larger audience to The Night Land is second only to H.C. Koenig’s work to initially rescue it from oblivion, felt that The Night Land embodied concepts from multiple genres and indeed that it could not be categorized:

“Since most of the story takes place in the very far distant future when the sun has gone out and the earth is wrapped in unending darkness, you could call it science fiction. But since the mood and setting are of overwhelming weirdness and mystery and awe of the unknown, you could equally well label it a novel of supernatural horror. And yet again, in that it concerns itself with an heroic quest through a strange world of marvels largely left unexplained, you might consider it epic fantasy. To be honest, it is all three forms of fantasy at once.”³⁾See Lin Carter’s introduction to the 1972 Ballantine edition of The Night Land Vol 1 page xi

It has been said that imitation is flattery, and the archetype⁴⁾Dr. Carl Jung adopted the term archetype from classical sources such as the Hermetica. See The Hero with a Thousand Faces By Joseph Campbell p.19 fn; Bollingen, 1968 ed. a collective dream. In world literary tradition going back, at least, to the classical epics and perhaps even the unknown rituals, theatrics and oral traditions that gave rise to them in the first place, certain seemingly antecedent qualities cannot be easily explained by some previous inspired reading. They seem to break a “barrier” of inspiration hitherto unexplored. They submit an originality that invokes an inevitable and continued need for an emulation lineage and a continual asking for their source. The emulations may lack the raw archetype⁵⁾Meaning the essential literary “Urphanomena” or idea from which all others are but copies. of the original meme, notwithstanding any additional merit they will inherently have, but it is the lack of notional precedence in the original idea that is the really compelling nature of a proto-science-fiction/supernatural story such as the Night Land. It is epic in scope and recapitulates a meme deeply rooted in the literary tradition. But, in being original, notwithstanding the heroic archetypal resonances that such stories have, it doesn’t always conform to what is expected of a work of that nature by modern standards, or even by any contemporaneous standards in many instances. Works like this are raw, rough hewn, and without facets, unequal in execution but fascinatingly powerful in their attempt to grab something original or wrest explanation from the “Aether” (The word Hodgson uses) for a description of its ephemeral vision. Imaginary literature of the 19^th and early 20^th century was filled with this resonance. It was the birth of a new phase in fiction with all its attendant messiness. Everett Bleiler, in his Science-Fiction: The Early Years, when commenting on early pulp magazines that pre-dated the classic Weird Tales, said of the stories of that period that,

“…quality can vary enormously, from wretched work to craftsmanship that would be recognized as good by mainstream standards. But if science-fiction pulp fiction was sometimes short on technique, it was very high in imagination”.⁶⁾See page xxii of Science-Fiction: The Early Years by Everett F. Bleiler, Kent State University Press, 1990

Ah yes, the imagination, what is it really? But again, we must be careful, we do not want to awake the Kraken too soon…

Thus, even in the case of The Night Land, outré ideas, lost races, high-tech stories and voyages to lands that never were (or at least we think so) do have a pedigree that can be traced in an inspirational lineage. But once a certain original concept is seeded in the consciousness of a culture, it cannot be said that its emulations are original. Originality’s first occurrence is the summoning of a Genii fulfilling wishes of an archetypal need. Realizing this, we also understand that many stories of science-fiction are written after science has actually found something in the real “consensus” universe. Science itself inspires the stories that attempt to context those scientific discoveries for the future and enables authors to project further speculation based on science and discovery. All these stories of technological “wish-fulfillments” are filling in archetypal molds however rough hewn though they be. One would think (or hope) that this can help prepare for possible contact with those who can actually use technological “magic”⁷⁾Arthur C. Clarke’s famous third law… far superior to ours, or at least expand our own minds toward a greater future for all in the context of a vaster universe. This seems to be one of science fiction’s greatest purposes outside it’s other cultural contributions. But, as was somewhat typical of fictional visions of the future of the time, Hodgson’s vision seems to take a darker path. Or, perhaps, more positively, one simply of a warning sort. It is more of a symbolical love story than a “scientific romance”, as such stories might have been called at the time, although Hodgson is literally mixing science AND romance.

Archetypal concepts are not confined to the written art alone. All forms of expression from art to music to story and architecture are possessed by it. The realm of the archetypal muse belongs to space and sky and the suns passage through it, inspiring a connection between heaven and earth in the life cycle of all things. It is an inspiration for the hero cycle, the “monomyth”, and the soul journeying through the astrological constellations as a cyclic symbol of its incarnations in matter. It is in the architecture of temples attempting to bring Heaven to Earth, the “Above” to the “Below” and all the rituals and religions inspired thereby.  It is a struggle to bring the subconcious to conscious realization. Our very existence has been engineered to this. Our reaction to it is the basis of all subsequent cultural expression and the basis of civilization itself. Something in the “deep” is calling and we express it unconsciously in all forms of art and its descendant emulations.

In part 1 of this series, the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights of Hieronymus Bosch was mentioned. Although there is no certainty that Hodgson ever saw this painting, it is inescapably “Nightlandish”.

The central panel of the triptych that forms this work has, as part of its subject matter, five interesting “vessel-objects” (some describe them as “castle turrets”) arranged in a pentagonal geometry surrounding a central globe object in a lake. Although this central panel is as cryptic as any other part of the painting, we realize that it’s a depiction of Eden just as the right hand panel must be the depiction of a worse-than-Dantesque “Hell”. We also see a depiction of the rivers of Eden flowing into a central “basin” or “reservoir”, with a pond or “pit” to the south of the lake with bathers in it etc. ⁸⁾Cf. to what Von Welling called the “Reservoir” discussed here There is an inherent geometry here that implies much that cannot be gone over at the present time.⁹⁾For an excellent study of Bosch see Picturing Science, Producing Art edited by Peter Galison and Caroline A. Jones page 287 “Hieronymus Bosch’s World Picture” by Joseph Leo Koerner However, given the five objects surrounding the main lake, I wonder about the pentagonal setting of the “Watchers” around the Great Redoubt.

Perhaps this may have influenced Hodgson (either consciously or unconsciously) with the five “Watchers” around the redoubt itself? If so, he was transmuting the Eden of Bosch into an eternal Night. Hodgson may have imagined what it would be like if Bosch had taken the dark images on the far right panel of the triptych and extended that darkness to the central panel. The inverted five pointed star of the ritual-like, electric-pentacle-cum-electric circle theme and “Watchers” (like monsters of gateways/barriers) around the great redoubt is a subject we will examine in detail later.

 

 

Additional painters like John Martin or Gustave Dore may also have contributed imagery to Hodgson’s muse. For instance, John Martin’s Bellshazzar’s Feast,  with pyramidal like ziggurats in a dark setting may have been some sort of influence.

Or perhaps The Tower of Babel of Pieter Bruegel the Elder may have:

For a dark night setting, what better place than Hell itself as a suitable influence? Indeed, the land of the Night around the Last Redoubt, is the epitome of Hell (again symbolic of the ancient underworld). John Martin‘s painting of The Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium suitable reflects John Milton’s oppressive descriptions in Paradise Lost:

To brighten the subject a bit we can surmise that the “Underground Fields” below the Last Redoubt may have been influenced by Martin’s “The Plains of Heaven”:

Finally, for a possible inspiration for the creation of the “mighty valley”¹⁰⁾”And there came a mighty chasm, so deep, that none might see the bottom thereof; and there rushed therein an ocean, and the earth did burst afresh with a sound that did shake all the cities of the earth for many days, and there was a mighty rain.” See page 107 of The Night Land, Volume 1, Ballantine edition, 1972 wherein the last remnants of humanity are huddling, John Martin’s apocalyptic vision transmutes the textual remembrance of the “War in Heaven” meme into a painting paroxysm of divine punishment in the painting, The Great Day of His Wrath:

Thus, painting may have been one of Hodgson’s muse’s also.¹¹⁾For those interested, David Goff has prepared a neat overview of Hodgson’s Night Land and Victorian era painting specifically how they relate to the perception of Time It may not have just been a previous reading of a story such as H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, or John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, with its dreadful narrative of the “Fall of Man” or its descriptions of the “Temple of Pandemonium”, that gave rise to the notion of the siege of the Pyramidal “Last Redoubt” or its architecture and setting. Maybe a reading of the King James Bible–especially the “Book of Revelation” with its weird archetypal imagery made an impression? But instead of “revelation” being something that is going to happen, it’s built upon imagery of things that have already happened?  We don’t know for sure…¹²⁾ We can only be imagine what kind of imagery that John Martin and other epic painters of the Romantic period would conjure up on the canvas had they read The Night Land or Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories. Of course, if Martin had painted some of the “beasts” described in the “Book of Revelation”, we might imagine that they would have some proto-resemblance to Hodgson’s “Watchers”.

Sorry the “Kraken” again…

…well, at least the “Watchers” in The Night Land are a ghastly take on the ones from the bible, right?

We may yet find that some obscure architectural theme Hodgson picked up on may have given him the idea for the pyramidal redoubt. One possible place where he may have garnered the idea of a pyramidal city could have come from the 1891 book The Crystal Button by Chauncey Thomas. In fact, a detailed study could be made that it formed a blueprint for The Night Land and it’s unforgettable Mighty Pyramid.  Regardless, Hodgson still gave the “local habitation and a name” in which that “Mighty Pyramid” resided. The idea of the huge organs of music in the “Underground Fields” beneath the Last Redoubt may have come from the “brass globes” idea in a book entitled A Crystal Age by W. H. Hudson published in 1887. Hudson is best known for his book Green Mansions. The communal house concept in Hudson’s Crystal Age, if an actual influence for Hodgson, becomes a darkly cosmic image both in The Night Land with the “House of Silence” and in The House on the Borderland with the House itself. The Last Redoubt could also be an larger example of a communal house as mentioned by Hudson.¹³⁾ For other interesting explorations of this subject see “Buildings of the New Age: “Dwellings and the Natural Environment in the Futuristic Fiction of H.G. Wells and William Hope Hodgson”” By Emily Alder, in H.G. Wells: Interdisciplinary Essays ed. Steven McLean. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp.114-29Granting all this, any one of a number of poets or their works could also have inspired him.   For instance, Lord Byron’s “Darkness” or his gothic “Manfred” have definite thematic echoes in The Night Land that may have sublimated from a previous reading.

It’s important to make these points on antecedent influences because it should be clear that this explanation is understood and realized before we proceed to other explanations for those ideas. However, it should also be established, that all these possible influences on Hodgson do not necessarily preclude his ideas having arisen full blown in his own fancy like Athena from Zeus’ head “shaking her spear“. Hodgson, like any writer, can have a completely original idea all their own. Where those ideas come from could be anyone’s guess.¹⁴⁾Athena, or Minerva, has been related to a most intriguing symbol for the bridge between Nous as a preserver of information of the so-called “Oversoul” and the manasic or mental plane of existence. See Manly Hall’s audio lecture seminar Greek and Roman Deities as Personifications of Divine Principles.

In addition to what we have already discussed about the meme of time, (See part 2) what additional imagery in Wells’ Time Machine, or his other stories, finds its way into the fictions of Hodgson?

It is not only apparent to well established Hodgsonian literati, but any general reader familiar with both H.G. Wells’ and William Hope Hodgson’s work, that there are clear influential memes from The Time Machine echoed in the compositions of setting in The Night Land and House on the Borderland. ¹⁵⁾In the case of The House on the Borderland, Wells’ “The Plattner Story” might have contributed to the idea of a “Green Star.” The mention of a “Gorge” in that story might also seem familiar to readers of The Night Land. For additional study of Wells and Hodgson see “The Long Apocalypse” in Voices from the Borderland by Berruti, Joshi, and Gafford, Hippocampus Press (2014) page 182-192The Time Machine, initially published in serial and book form in 1895, could be construed as a proto “Dying Earth” theme. The Night Land, however, is a true full blown “Dying Earth” story and virtually the first of its kind although, there are pre-cursors.¹⁶⁾See  Dying Earth Wikipedia article.

The dichotomy of the weirdly and hopelessly innocent Eloi people of the future from The Time Machine story and their mysterious and carnivorous antagonists, the Morlocks , seem echoed in the Humans and Ab-Humans of The Night Land. The Humans in The Night Land are similar to the Eloi in that they have all sorts of technology around them but they dont remember or understand how it was engineered although they are able to use it, unlike the Eloi.  The Morlocks in The Time Machine are mutated because of long term underground living. The “Ab-humans” in The Night Land are a sort of hybrid of strange occult experiments of science gone wrong. This contrast of innocence and savagery, both in The Time Machine and The Night Land,  is perhaps somewhat metaphorical of the fin de siecle Victorian psyche and environmental angst  of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Wells’ works, Time Machine and War of the Worlds, capture the feeling of a certain hopelessness that closed the 19^th century with the ever accumulating materialistic outlook on the universe—a universe which increasingly seemed to engulf what was left of humanity’s innocence into a soul destroying void. This feeling is symbolically echoed by the mountain sized “Watchers” in The Night Land. They are the embodiment, whether Hodgson realized it or not, of the slowly creeping realization of mans meaninglessness in a meaningless universe. These hideous “Watchers” creeping and crawling ever so slowly over hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years are, in a real sense, a more insidious and sinister version of Well’s “vast cool and unsympathetic” intelligences in his War of the Worlds. Yes, they are “vast”. Yes, they seem “cool” (in a very un-cool way).¹⁷⁾Satan is one of the original “vast”,”cool”, and “unsympathetic” characters of human mythology. When the original meaning of the moniker “Lucifer” became corrupted, it then suggested the omnipotent unsympathetic type. God, when taken literally, seems himself to take on the role of a vast, cool and unsympathetic intelligence—especially in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we read of a “…no respecter of persons” diety. See Acts 10:34. For additional philosophical implications see here and here. And, I am absolutely sure, they are “unsympathetic”. By this I am suggesting that Hodgson was deliberately taking the “greater intelligences” idea of Wells and making his monsters as even “vaster” than Wells’ as they transcend space and time. They watch and wait over millions of years until the earth current will die out and presumbably gobble up the souls of the trapped humans in, by that time, an “arcology of the damned”. A particularly unnerving aspect about these “Watchers” is the fact that they are telepathic and by this bear an interesting sympathy with Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories which would be written some decades later.

There is also an definite expansion of the vision of Wells’ Time Machine in both The House on the Borderland and Night Land.¹⁸⁾ For a good summary of this subject consult Voices from the Borderland by Berruti, Joshi, and Gafford, Hippocampus Press (2014) pp. 169, 182. In The Night Land we visit the end of the Earth when the sun has died, first hinted at in The Time Machine, and see the things that are going to happen. In The House on the Borderland we go beyond the death of the sun and, in some sense, what happens at the end of the “Borderland” story is after the events of The Night Land, as there are definite thematic cosmological connections between the two.

There are also intra-worked motif links hidden within other stories we encounter in Hodgson’s work that connect with the cosmologies of his “Night Land” and “Borderland” stories. The “Carnaki Ghost-Finder” story, “The Hog”, furnishes information that potentially gives us additional insights about The House on the Borderland’s pit under the house, the Hog-men etc. The circles described in this story are almost certainly functionally connected to the Electric Circle in The Night Land. The “Outer Monstrosities“,  mentioned in the short story “The Hog”, have fully materialized on the physical plane and have become the “Watchers” at the end of time in The Night Land. In the past, as suggested by “The Hog” (a story essentially taking place in the past of The Night Land cosmology) the “Watchers” were presumably known as “Outer Monstrosities”. They are disembodied. In the future they will be called “Watchers”, thus the “Outer Monstrosities” are now embodied, due to the misuse of science and technology as suggested in the narrative of The Night Land.  The concerns of soul destruction are also similar in “The Hog” and give us an increased understanding of what that meant in The Night Land and why the suicide tablets surgically implanted into the skin of some of the inhabitants of the Last Redoubt, who actually went out to confront the landscape, are a merciful alternative. The lost love in The House on the Borderland may be there as a hint that we are reading another story about an alternate incarnation of “X” from The Night Land and Hodgson’s preoccupation with a lost love and time’s haunting abyss played again and again. Even the alternate edition of The Night Land, entitled “The Dream of X” has a manuscript very similar of the manuscript we read of in The House on The Borderland. Yet, for all this background that Hodgson envisioned for The Night Land and The House on the Borderland, we realize that the “elemental kinships” he had spoken of in regard to his “Glen Carrig” and other sea stories, were not fully realized to his satisfaction in his cosmic yarns due, perhaps, to the constraints of time and practicability. There is enough provided however to fill in the gaps and, in the final analysis, furnish a  cosmological “kinship” of sorts. Indeed, one could argue that all the monsters and ghastly encounters in all his writings inhabit various facets of a singular Night Land and The House on the Borderland continuum.  ¹⁹⁾For additional insights into intra-related connections of Hodgson’s works, see “Against the Abyss: Carnaki the Ghost-Finder” in Voices from the Borderland by Berruti, Joshi, and Gafford, Hippocampus Press (2014) pages 90-91 This is much like how H.P. Lovecraft tied his cosmology together except in the case of Hodgson, the ties are tenuous and in Lovecraft they are more marked. Hodgson’s main connecting link was the continual emphasis upon “Gateways”, “Thresholds” and “Barriers” over which unholy unknowns would soon cross… ²⁰⁾ For more on metaphysical barriers, see here.

To be continued…

Continue to part 4

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