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Feb. 18th, 2015 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynBased largely on its TV Tropes page, and on my fondness for the (readable rewrite of) the original William Hope Hodgson book The Night Land, I recently bought the Kindle version of John C. Wright's collection Awake In The Night Land. I know I had other things to do during this ridiculously snowy weekend, but I had an itch to see more done with a universe where the least of humanity's problems is that the Sun has gone out and all other objects beyond Earth's atmosphere are either destroyed or unseen.
Understand that I've never read any of John C. Wright's other work, and the only things I knew about him were that he was a published science fiction author and that he went from being an atheist to embracing some form of Christianity. And even that much I only knew because TV Tropes mentioned it; I've since been told that Wright's denomination of choice was some variety of Catholicism, for whatever that's worth, but that's the extent of what I know about him. Whether this stuff is representative of his usual science fiction style or personal philosophies or what, I couldn't say. (Except to note that TV Tropes said that the most hopeful of the four stories contained in the book was written while he was still an atheist, and the most incredibly bleak one came after his conversion.)
First things first: this is four stories/novellas all set in the Night Land universe. Three of them take place in and around the Last Redoubt of Humanity, a pyramid eight miles high that was long believed to be the only place humanity still existed on Earth. The fourth story takes place long, LONG after the others, although it's in the same universe; it deals with the end of the Night Land universe. The first three stories are separated by several million years each. The fourth story is called The Last Of All Suns, and takes place at the end of Eternity.
Which would be fine, as would the stalled development of humanity- the original book was written around 1912 and it's not as if other science fiction authors haven't treated hojillions of years as a couple of centuries when it came to social development- except that for some reason I haven't been able to grasp, everyone in the first three stories has massively, egregiously classical Greek or Roman names. Understand that in the original Hodgson book, only two characters had names- a woman in late nineteenth century England named Mirdath, and a woman of the far far future named Naani. When James Stoddard rewrote the original book as The Night Land: A Story Retold, he gave a few other characters names- Andrew, back in England; Andros, Cartesius, Ayleos, in the far future. I could sort of deal with that level of classical naming; they're kinda generic names, and Andros was the reincarnation of Andrew, anyway, so that made a bit of sense. Wright, however, used famous classical names. Telemachos, Hellenore, and Perithoos all show up in one story. Aeneas and Serapis are in another. One of the stories is an outright transplant of nine-tenths of the plot of Antigone into the Night Land universe, which would make for a fascinating exploration of that plot and the Night Land universe if he didn't keep everybody's names the same. Seriously. Antigone's brother Polynices is killed in a battle his uncle Creon didn't want him to go to and is left unburied and unreclaimed until his sister violates all the laws and orders to bring him back. It's a little distracting.
There were a few other gratuitous points that bothered me along the way. The first was the retention of Hodgson's rather severe focus on men. The only female character in the first story to have a speaking part was Hellenore, who spoke in a couple of flashbacks, being already rather horribly dead when her name first appears on the page. The second story focused on Antigone, which was something, and had a fair number of background women flitting around. Other than Antigone, though, everybody in that story who actually did anything was a man. There were no female characters in the third story at all, though to be fair the third story had fewer characters in general. One woman appeared in the fourth story, the aforementioned love interest; at least she had a significant role in persuading the main character to make his final, correct decision. She had less screen time than most of the male characters, but she did manage to have an influence. I guess that's something.
I think part of the male focus was rooted in the fact that the original Hodgson book contained this paragraph: "Now there was a Law in the Pyramid, tried and healthful, which held that no male should have freedom to adventure into the Night Land, before the age of twenty-two; and no female ever. [emphasis Hodgson's] Yet that, after such age, if a youth desired greatly to make the adventure, he should receive three lectures upon the dangers of which we had knowledge, and a strict account of the mutilatings and horrid deeds done to those who had so adventured. And if, after this had passed over him, he still desired, and if he were accounted healthful and sane; then should he be allowed to make the adventure; and it was accounted honour to the youth who should add to the knowledge of the Pyramid."
If a story's going to be about somebody going out into the Night Land, and the people of your story hold to that paragraph's law, it kinda limits your options character-wise. The story that spent the longest inside the Redoubt, the Antigone one, had the most women in it- but like I said, they were sort of flitting through the background and everybody who actually did anything was male. There was some discussion in the Antigone story of why the law existed in the first place, but it was a very brief kind of figleaf discussion- "oh, well, this one theory says that women are more spiritually powerful than men and that having one go abroad in the Night Land would make the Evil Powers stronger than a man doing the same thing, but this other theory says that if one of the Evil Powers captured a woman they'd use her to breed horrible half human hybrids capable of invading the Pyramid, and either way it's a bad idea". Antigone complains about how both she and the female lead of the original Hodgson book walked the Night Land and things aren't markedly worse for it, and is told that there had been women who went out, but that for whatever reason the women's stories were covered up so as to prevent other women from being tempted to go out and cause disasters.
Given that Hellenore is literally the only other female character besides Antigone to do anything of significance in these stories, though... it kinda sets my teeth on edge.
There were a few other spots that set my teeth on edge, too. In the first story there's a moment where Telemachos' friend Perithoos is talking about scholars of a new kind of learning who're trying to propose that humans actually evolved from small animals found in the low levels of the Redoubt and never lived outside the Pyramid, or that if they did they succeeded in colonizing the Pyramid because they were the only animals sized to work the doors and controls correctly, or something like that; it's presented as a grotesquely silly theory that flies in the face of everything both the main character and the reader know to be true and as a sign that bad things are going to happen to people who believe it. It seemed like an excessively gratuitous slap to the face to modern science that came out of nowhere, for no good reason- and as far as I know that story was written before Wright's conversion. It took up maybe one page, but it was still jarring as hell. So was the Blue Man in the fourth story, who was from a point in time between 30,000 AD (I think) and the building of the Redoubt. He was from what TV Tropes would call a Free Love Future, among other things. Wright said in his prelude to the story collection that he disapproves of that kind of thing being presented as normal, and it kind of showed; it was hard not to notice the giant "this person is a pervert and really shouldn't be trusted any farther than absolutely necessary" sign hanging over him.
On a much milder note, the grimmest of the stories and the final story both made references to other people's science fiction concepts. I didn't mind the mostly-hive-minded residents of the Pyramid calling themselves the Seventeenth Men, as a reference to Olaf Stapledon's book Last And First Men and its speculation about future speciation of humanity, but there was a mention that as the far future drew closer and eternity started to go to pieces the Hounds of Tindalos that move in the angles of time would manifest. I didn't really need to have Lovecraftian elements bred into the Night Land universe. It was just fine on its own. There were a few references in that story and in The End Of Eternity to elements of the Carcosa mythos of Robert W. Chambers- the Pallid Mask, the black suns, etc. I didn't mind those so much. Chambers' work isn't as omnipresent as Lovecraft's (I know it's all over True Detective, but that's an unusual thing).
This isn't to say the stories aren't fascinating. They are. I appreciated the discussion of societal changes in the Pyramid over the aeons, since anywhere that houses humans for millions of years on end is going to see society and the species change, sometimes rising, sometimes falling back, sometimes rebuilding itself to levels it used to reach without effort. I was also thrilled to see the exploration of something very important to Hodgson's book. One of the basic themes of the Hodgson work was that even in the face of unremitting horror and the clear and certain knowledge of the inescapable End, Love is the strongest force humanity has at its core. Hodgson's book was about what romantic love can drive people to do and to endure. The Wright stories are about other kinds of love. The first story, Awake In The Night Land, focuses on the love that binds friends together (there's some romantic elements but they're mostly there to kick off the plot). The second story is the Antigone one, and the focus there is the heroine's love for her brother; there's no romantic elements at all. The third is about the love of a son for his father and a father for his son. The fourth has romantic love, but broadens its focus to an exploration of love in general. It makes for interesting consideration and stuff to think about long after the stories are over.
Overall, I was fascinated enough by the universe and by all of the exploration and love and respect and care John Wright poured into the Night Land setting to read the whole thing and ultimately like it, but... really, the gender stuff and the moments that felt like Wright deliberately slapping readers in the face were jarring. I strongly suggest reading either the original Hodgson book at Project Gutenberg or The Night Land: A Story Retold, which can be bought at Amazon in either paper or ebook format, first. If you wind up as interested in the setting as I was, go ahead and buy the Wright book. The stories are good, and it's wonderful to see the Night Land setting again, it's just that some bits... yeah.
Understand that I've never read any of John C. Wright's other work, and the only things I knew about him were that he was a published science fiction author and that he went from being an atheist to embracing some form of Christianity. And even that much I only knew because TV Tropes mentioned it; I've since been told that Wright's denomination of choice was some variety of Catholicism, for whatever that's worth, but that's the extent of what I know about him. Whether this stuff is representative of his usual science fiction style or personal philosophies or what, I couldn't say. (Except to note that TV Tropes said that the most hopeful of the four stories contained in the book was written while he was still an atheist, and the most incredibly bleak one came after his conversion.)
First things first: this is four stories/novellas all set in the Night Land universe. Three of them take place in and around the Last Redoubt of Humanity, a pyramid eight miles high that was long believed to be the only place humanity still existed on Earth. The fourth story takes place long, LONG after the others, although it's in the same universe; it deals with the end of the Night Land universe. The first three stories are separated by several million years each. The fourth story is called The Last Of All Suns, and takes place at the end of Eternity.
Which would be fine, as would the stalled development of humanity- the original book was written around 1912 and it's not as if other science fiction authors haven't treated hojillions of years as a couple of centuries when it came to social development- except that for some reason I haven't been able to grasp, everyone in the first three stories has massively, egregiously classical Greek or Roman names. Understand that in the original Hodgson book, only two characters had names- a woman in late nineteenth century England named Mirdath, and a woman of the far far future named Naani. When James Stoddard rewrote the original book as The Night Land: A Story Retold, he gave a few other characters names- Andrew, back in England; Andros, Cartesius, Ayleos, in the far future. I could sort of deal with that level of classical naming; they're kinda generic names, and Andros was the reincarnation of Andrew, anyway, so that made a bit of sense. Wright, however, used famous classical names. Telemachos, Hellenore, and Perithoos all show up in one story. Aeneas and Serapis are in another. One of the stories is an outright transplant of nine-tenths of the plot of Antigone into the Night Land universe, which would make for a fascinating exploration of that plot and the Night Land universe if he didn't keep everybody's names the same. Seriously. Antigone's brother Polynices is killed in a battle his uncle Creon didn't want him to go to and is left unburied and unreclaimed until his sister violates all the laws and orders to bring him back. It's a little distracting.
There were a few other gratuitous points that bothered me along the way. The first was the retention of Hodgson's rather severe focus on men. The only female character in the first story to have a speaking part was Hellenore, who spoke in a couple of flashbacks, being already rather horribly dead when her name first appears on the page. The second story focused on Antigone, which was something, and had a fair number of background women flitting around. Other than Antigone, though, everybody in that story who actually did anything was a man. There were no female characters in the third story at all, though to be fair the third story had fewer characters in general. One woman appeared in the fourth story, the aforementioned love interest; at least she had a significant role in persuading the main character to make his final, correct decision. She had less screen time than most of the male characters, but she did manage to have an influence. I guess that's something.
I think part of the male focus was rooted in the fact that the original Hodgson book contained this paragraph: "Now there was a Law in the Pyramid, tried and healthful, which held that no male should have freedom to adventure into the Night Land, before the age of twenty-two; and no female ever. [emphasis Hodgson's] Yet that, after such age, if a youth desired greatly to make the adventure, he should receive three lectures upon the dangers of which we had knowledge, and a strict account of the mutilatings and horrid deeds done to those who had so adventured. And if, after this had passed over him, he still desired, and if he were accounted healthful and sane; then should he be allowed to make the adventure; and it was accounted honour to the youth who should add to the knowledge of the Pyramid."
If a story's going to be about somebody going out into the Night Land, and the people of your story hold to that paragraph's law, it kinda limits your options character-wise. The story that spent the longest inside the Redoubt, the Antigone one, had the most women in it- but like I said, they were sort of flitting through the background and everybody who actually did anything was male. There was some discussion in the Antigone story of why the law existed in the first place, but it was a very brief kind of figleaf discussion- "oh, well, this one theory says that women are more spiritually powerful than men and that having one go abroad in the Night Land would make the Evil Powers stronger than a man doing the same thing, but this other theory says that if one of the Evil Powers captured a woman they'd use her to breed horrible half human hybrids capable of invading the Pyramid, and either way it's a bad idea". Antigone complains about how both she and the female lead of the original Hodgson book walked the Night Land and things aren't markedly worse for it, and is told that there had been women who went out, but that for whatever reason the women's stories were covered up so as to prevent other women from being tempted to go out and cause disasters.
Given that Hellenore is literally the only other female character besides Antigone to do anything of significance in these stories, though... it kinda sets my teeth on edge.
There were a few other spots that set my teeth on edge, too. In the first story there's a moment where Telemachos' friend Perithoos is talking about scholars of a new kind of learning who're trying to propose that humans actually evolved from small animals found in the low levels of the Redoubt and never lived outside the Pyramid, or that if they did they succeeded in colonizing the Pyramid because they were the only animals sized to work the doors and controls correctly, or something like that; it's presented as a grotesquely silly theory that flies in the face of everything both the main character and the reader know to be true and as a sign that bad things are going to happen to people who believe it. It seemed like an excessively gratuitous slap to the face to modern science that came out of nowhere, for no good reason- and as far as I know that story was written before Wright's conversion. It took up maybe one page, but it was still jarring as hell. So was the Blue Man in the fourth story, who was from a point in time between 30,000 AD (I think) and the building of the Redoubt. He was from what TV Tropes would call a Free Love Future, among other things. Wright said in his prelude to the story collection that he disapproves of that kind of thing being presented as normal, and it kind of showed; it was hard not to notice the giant "this person is a pervert and really shouldn't be trusted any farther than absolutely necessary" sign hanging over him.
On a much milder note, the grimmest of the stories and the final story both made references to other people's science fiction concepts. I didn't mind the mostly-hive-minded residents of the Pyramid calling themselves the Seventeenth Men, as a reference to Olaf Stapledon's book Last And First Men and its speculation about future speciation of humanity, but there was a mention that as the far future drew closer and eternity started to go to pieces the Hounds of Tindalos that move in the angles of time would manifest. I didn't really need to have Lovecraftian elements bred into the Night Land universe. It was just fine on its own. There were a few references in that story and in The End Of Eternity to elements of the Carcosa mythos of Robert W. Chambers- the Pallid Mask, the black suns, etc. I didn't mind those so much. Chambers' work isn't as omnipresent as Lovecraft's (I know it's all over True Detective, but that's an unusual thing).
This isn't to say the stories aren't fascinating. They are. I appreciated the discussion of societal changes in the Pyramid over the aeons, since anywhere that houses humans for millions of years on end is going to see society and the species change, sometimes rising, sometimes falling back, sometimes rebuilding itself to levels it used to reach without effort. I was also thrilled to see the exploration of something very important to Hodgson's book. One of the basic themes of the Hodgson work was that even in the face of unremitting horror and the clear and certain knowledge of the inescapable End, Love is the strongest force humanity has at its core. Hodgson's book was about what romantic love can drive people to do and to endure. The Wright stories are about other kinds of love. The first story, Awake In The Night Land, focuses on the love that binds friends together (there's some romantic elements but they're mostly there to kick off the plot). The second story is the Antigone one, and the focus there is the heroine's love for her brother; there's no romantic elements at all. The third is about the love of a son for his father and a father for his son. The fourth has romantic love, but broadens its focus to an exploration of love in general. It makes for interesting consideration and stuff to think about long after the stories are over.
Overall, I was fascinated enough by the universe and by all of the exploration and love and respect and care John Wright poured into the Night Land setting to read the whole thing and ultimately like it, but... really, the gender stuff and the moments that felt like Wright deliberately slapping readers in the face were jarring. I strongly suggest reading either the original Hodgson book at Project Gutenberg or The Night Land: A Story Retold, which can be bought at Amazon in either paper or ebook format, first. If you wind up as interested in the setting as I was, go ahead and buy the Wright book. The stories are good, and it's wonderful to see the Night Land setting again, it's just that some bits... yeah.
