the silver key

or, the long road to literary enlightenment

I hope you'll have the patience—or tenacity—to stick with me on this one. This is a landmark post. Seminal, you might call it. Yeah, definitely seminal. It marks a turning point in the career of that damn novel sitting under my bed, dusty and neglected.

Sometimes it pays to reread things. Be it a news feature, an essay, or a work of literature, there's usually some information to be gleaned from it the second time around...and only on the second time around. I knew this to be true with humor pieces (like Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series) and epic novels, but just a few minutes ago, I received a surprising piece of inspiration from an unexpected piece of material. It's funny how the passage of time and the garnering of experience can alter one's perspective.

Maybe this lays a morbid cast over my efforts as a writer, but the source of this evening's epiphany was none other than the master of cosmic horror himself, H.P. Lovecraft.

I have a tradition. I instituted it this autumn. When the weather turns cold, grey, wet, and otherwise inclement, I take out my H.P. Lovecraft collection and reread it. It's a modest collection, but it includes almost all of his better-known short stories and a modest number of undiscovered gems. It consists of two books: the novel-length At the Mountains of Madness, which has a few brief stories tacked on at the end, and a compendium, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

I didn't really believe that I'd find anything truly instructive in them. Like I've said before, I read for pleasure and education. There's always something to be learned from any book. Every author's style is either a lesson or a warning. I had been warned against Lovecraft's writing by Stephen King, who, by his own admission, adores Lovecraft's talent for horror but loathes his tin ear for dialogue and adjective-soaked prose. Both King and I are ardent fans of Lovecraft and hold the man in high esteem, but I can see King's point. So I keep the editing goggles on whenever I read Lovecraft, to protect my own writing from negative subliminal influences.

So there I was, perusing Lovecraft's best works. I was flipping through the pages, vaguely wondering what to read next. I had reviewed "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Thing on the Doorstep," had devoured the very brief "In the Vault," "Pickman's Model," and "The Rats in the Walls," and was making inroads on "The Whisperer in Darkness." It was a toss-up whether to proceed onto "The Haunter of the Dark" or "The Colour Out of Space," the latter being lengthier but of considerable quality.

Then something caught my eye: "The Silver Key." I have a photographic memory, and a title will usually remind me of the finer details of plot and character. "The Silver Key," however, evaded the grasp of my recollection. Curious, I began to read.

The following passages hit me like a thunderbolt.

     He had read much of things as they are, and talked with too many people. Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value one above the other. Custom had dinned into his ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists, and had made him secretly ashamed to dwell in visions. Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.
     They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic moulded all the little vivid fragments and prized associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the newfound prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atom's vortex and the mystery in the sky's dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creations.
     ...
     With his dreams fading under the ridicule of the age he could not believe in anything, but the love of harmony kept him close to the ways of his race and station. He walked impassive through the cities of men, and sighed because no vista seemed fully real; because every flash of yellow sunlight on tall roofs and every glimpse of balustraded plazas in the first lamps of evening served only to remind him of dreams he had once known, and to make him homesick for ethereal lands he no longer knew how to find.
     ...
     Then he began once more the writing of books, which he had left off when dreams first failed him. But here, too, was there no satisfaction or fulfillment; for the touch of earth was upon his mind, and he could not think of lovely things as he had done of yore. Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight minarets he reared, and the earthy fear of improbability blasted all the delicate and amazing flowers of his faery gardens. The convention of assumed pity spilt mawkishness on his characters, while the myth of an important reality and significant human events and emotions debased all his high fantasy into thin-veiled allegory and cheap social satire. His new novels were successful as his old ones had never been; and because he knew how empty they must be to please an empty herd, he burned them and ceased his writing. They were very graceful novels, in which he urbanely laughed at the dreams he lightly sketched; but he saw that their sophistication had sapped all their life away.

Wow.

This is heavy stuff.

And with it came a revelation, a breakthrough, a foe-tossing flood of self-discovery.

I was stricken on two fundamental levels: first, I recognized that I had been laboring to construct my own science fiction novel as...well, fluff. Under the noble guise of science fiction, a revered medium which the savants of yesteryear employed to paint pictures of the Universe both unsuspected and overawing, I had constructed something intolerably artificial, mere varnish laid over a poisonous message of social criticism and allegory. Second, it reaffirmed my confidence in my chosen genre. The more I tried to summarize to myself (and explain to others) the premise of my novel, the more I found myself overcome with shame and doubt, a creeping disbelief in the credibility of science fiction as a vehicle for one's literary goals. Sci-fi, I increasingly allowed myself to believe, was kid stuff: childish and immature, not as worthwhile or credible as "realistic" novels.

Lovecraft saved me from that self-destructive train of thought. In one stroke, he made me realize the needlessness and puerility of embedding a sociopolitical message in the flesh of my fiction (indeed, why should it not stand on its own?) and simultaneously assured me of its worth. He reminded me of the marvels of science fiction and fantasy, the wonders which the mind can create, the boundless adventure that the wizard author may manifest on the printed page for all the world's dreamers, poets, thinkers and star-gazers to enjoy.

So here's where the seminal part of this blog post comes in. I'm instituting a major (and I mean major) overhaul of my novel manuscript, effective immediately. I haven't touched the thing in months, years. Perhaps I've been overcome with reality. Logic and realism have—how does it go?—"dinned into my ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists." I've been unsure of myself as a writer, but more than that, unsure of myself as a writer of science fiction. Thanks to Lovecraft, I'm no longer afraid to delve into fantasy. Why the heck not? It's fun, dang it. You're supposed to do what you want with your life, aren't you? Hang the critics!

But most important of all, I'm ridding my novel (and all subsequent novels in the series) of all traces of ulterior message. The political significance, the social commentary, the biting satire—out with it. I don't need it. It was becoming too much to handle anyway: constantly scrutinizing my plot devices and characters to ensure they encapsulated the proper symbolism. Fundamentally, the novel is about doing what you want with your life, and having the guts to actually carry it through to the finish. So that's what I'll focus on. To the blazes with all the rest. If my fiction isn't good enough to stand by itself without political messages, social mores, commentary or satire, then it shouldn't be written in the first place. I've been ignoring the advice of Stephen King all along: I should write first, and worry about the thematic elements later. I should be teasing them out during the editing process instead of hammering them in too early. I'll write first, and if a message develops out of the subsequent product, then I'll refine it. But it won't be anvilicious and it sure as hell won't be political. If I was meant to be a political writer, then you'd be reading about Obama and Romney and Palin and Pelosi on the Sententious Vaunter, and not Lovecraft and Heinlein and Asimov. Same thing applies to my novels, starting this minute.

So, now that you've borne witness to the Great Revelation, I'll go one step farther and include you in the Great Work. I am GOING to start rewriting my novel soon. I'll keep you up-to-date on the process. In my long hiatus from novel-writing, and my long steep in the cleansing waters of inspirational science fiction and related literature, I've had a few other minor epiphanies which I feel will thoroughly improve the plot, pacing, and characterization of my novel. I'll take this opportunity to implement those changes. And when I get done...I'll have a real, honest-to-God manuscript, not just a bunch of loose pages bundled together and stuck under the bed with the dust bunnies.

And now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to take Lovecraft's silver key and use it to open the gate of dreams. It's been shut far too long, and for too trivial a reason. Stay tuned.

May your epiphany come to you likewise, and bear equally righteous fruit.

recommended reading

Boy, it's been a while since we did one of these, hasn't it?

When last we spoke, I was in the middle of Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu and World War Z, by Laurence Bergreen and Max Brooks respectively. There is little more I can say about these two works that I have not already said previously, mainly because I haven't finished the Polo book (it's been buried in the bottom of my suitcase since late June) and the zombie book continued in largely the same vein that I delineated to you before. That is to say, excellent, poignant and mind-blowing.

Now on to the real meatballs in the batter: Ice Hunt by James Rollins, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Candide by Voltaire, and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I couldn't wait until I hit the flight deck. I cracked Ice Hunt the first day in Jeju. I finished it a couple of days later. I won't deny that it was a cheap sci-fi adventure novel, but hey, James Rollins really knows his trade. It was a gripping book, to say the least. Russian intrigue, submarine warfare, assassination attempts in Arctic Alaska, plenty of shootouts and dubious vehicular stunts, sabotage, lost ice stations, top-secret human experimentation, blizzards, explosions, and long-dead monsters reawakened from a frozen tomb; let's just put it that way. Rollins somehow does something I am deathly afraid I won't be able to do: create a complex and intriguing plot, populated with dozens of fascinating secondary characters. The various tendrils of this plot all coordinate seamlessly with one another and build toward a truly heroic and spectacular climax. I could learn a thing or two from this. This book (perhaps) also holds the dubious distinction of being the first and only adventure novel to use Ambulocetus as a bad guy.

Far more terrifying than this picture makes it seem.

I didn't open another book until I got home. My seat on Flight 63 from Tokyo was so cramped and uncomfortable that I didn't want to read in case the unfavorable circumstances somehow tarnished my perception of the book's content. That happens to me a lot, you know. I need conditions that are conducive to contemplative perusal; otherwise, not only will I not be able to concentrate, but I will forever associate the book in question with such unfavorable circumstances. Once home, however, after a hard day of job hunting, I picked up The Three Musketeers and started in on it. I was now floored by Alexandre Dumas's writing ability. He, like Rollins, is able to invent a complex plot with dozens of supporting characters and resolve the various plot lines into a cohesive and satisfactory ending (and an emotional one to boot). However, Dumas has also created no less than four three-dimensional, entertaining protagonists (I think you know which four I'm referring to). Moreover, Dumas really knows how to set up an engaging storyline quickly. Within the first few pages, he had introduced me to young D'Artagnan and started that young lad out upon his grand romantic adventure, with nothing more than a few écus, a tatterdemalion horse, and his father's sword...thereby getting me hooked on the story immediately.

That story is classic. D'Artagnan meets his three future best buddies under less-than-ideal circumstances upon arriving in Paris. In fact, he winds up challenging each one of them to a duel. However, a hostile encounter with the scheming Cardinal Richelieu's men interrupts their clash, unites them, and makes them fast friends. There follows a swashbuckling series of sorties, swordfights, quests, rallies, marches, missions and information-gathering, culminating in...well, I won't spoil it. Suffice to say, I highly recommend both Ice Hunt and The Three Musketeers.

The candy bar's not bad, either.

Next was Candide, by Voltaire. It's one of the oddest books I've ever read. First of all, it's only 85 pages. Moreover, it has about sixty chapters, each of which is usually only one or two pages long. It's a quick read. It was also one of the most merciless, blatant, overt works of satire I've ever read. Voltaire skewers everything from philosophy to science to international politics (and takes shots at his detractors along the way). All of this is couched in rather extreme situational comedy...an elderly midwife who was once a princess until she was captured by Turks and had one of her buttocks cut off; Candide himself, the hapless protagonist, who winds up getting his skin whipped completely off before discovering El Dorado; Dr. Pangloss, Candide's mentor, who despite nearly dying of leprosy, being kicked out of his homeland by an invading army, getting improperly hanged in a foreign land, narrowly escaping drowning during a shipwreck and witnessing countless instances of depravity and tyranny during his travels, keeps insisting that "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

"If this world is the best," Candide unsurprisingly wonders, "what about the others?"

I shan't divulge the various trials and tribulations Candide endures in his travels around Europe, Asia Minor, and the New World in search of his lady love, Cunegonde, nor the interesting folk he meets on his way. I'll merely say that, in the end, Candide does discover what's best in life. And it's not crushing your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women, either. That was Voltaire's aim in writing this little work: to show up the petty, grandstanding, overbearing nature of humanity's political, religious, and carnal concerns. Perhaps all of them can be replaced with something far simpler...?

Having completed these three doughty volumes, I then progressed to All Quiet on the Western Front. In terms of sheer writing ability, I think Erich Maria Remarque outstrips a good 95% of all the authors I've ever read. His story of German boys fighting a bloody, soul-scarring war that's not their own is one of the most powerful pieces of literature I've ever touched. That's no understatement. This book isn't called the best war novel of the 20th century for nothing. Remarque paints a vivid, gruesome picture of the front. His depiction of life behind the lines, at times bawdy, silly, bleak, poor, and toilsome, is no less gritty (in every sense of the word). In a time of bombastic patriotism and international pride, Remarque dares to stand up and challenge the paradigm with his brutally honest account of heartrending loss of life and innocence. The tragedy of war, and the sure destruction of even those who survived, are revealed on no uncertain terms, drawn in simple descriptive phrases and the most frugally eloquent prose I've seen in a long while. It's a thousand times more accessible than The Red Badge of Courage and a thousand times less pretentious than Johnny Got His Gun. Though the word "masterpiece" gets chucked around meaninglessly nowadays, this book fits the bill.

I'm working through a literary self-help book, too (How to Write a Damn Good Novel, by James N. Frey), and some historical reference books to succour my novel (Antiquity by Norman F. Cantor and A Short History of the World by Geoffrey Blainey) but I'm too superficially involved as yet to offer a useful opinion. I have no idea what I'll read next (for fun). So stay tuned...