The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical Essays on the Fiction | |||||
edited by Donald E. Morse and Kálmán Matolcsy | |||||
McFarland, 202 pages | |||||
A review by Paul Kincaid
Let me consider some of the problems with the volume to start with, then we can set these aside and turn to what
is good about it. Some of the problems are minor: at least one of the contributors writing
about Lavondyss, ('Tallis, the Feminine Presence in Mythago Wood:
Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region' by Elizabeth A.
Whittingham) seems to be blissfully unaware that the Mr. Williams that Tallis meets early in the novel is
actually Ralph Vaughan Williams, the composer of, among other things, 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis,' so
missing an entire layer of irony and resonance within the novel. More seriously, there are gaps in the book. There
are no more than passing references to his use of horror, for instance in Necromancer or The Fetch,
even though these works make explicit stylistic elements that run through everything else he wrote.
Works such as The Bone Forest and Merlin's Wood are barely mentioned or ignored completely. I
would also have welcomed some discussion of his short fiction. And while there are two essays on
The Merlin Codex ('"So many names in so many tongues...": Allusive Mythology in Celtika'
by C.W. Sullivan III and 'Thresholds, Polders, and Crosshatches in The Merlin Codex' by Tom Shippey), it is
clear that neither author is in sympathy with the work or is even making any serious effort to understand
it, which also means that they make no effort to put it into the context of the Mythago sequence.
Now, it is true that The Merlin Codex is multilayered, allusive, complex and perhaps not entirely
successful; but at the same time it is perhaps the most ambitious work that Holdstock ever undertook, it
bears a clear and important relationship with the Mythago sequence, and it deserves better than either
of these essays give it.
What we have, then, is a work that actually concerns itself almost exclusively with the Mythago sequence. That
is, apart from the two essays I've mentioned on The Merlin Codex, and one essay ('Time Winds:
Early Science Fiction' by Andy Sawyer) on the three early sf novels, the remaining eight essays focus
exclusively on the five Mythago novels. (The book was clearly completed before the publication
of Avilion, and hence before Holdstock's death; the final novel and the death are acknowledged in
Donald E. Morse's introduction, 'Mythago Wood - "A Source of Visions and Adventure"', but none of the
other contributors seem to be aware of either.) The book is rather oddly structured, in that there are
three thematic essays in Part One, which is called 'Approaches,' followed by eight essays in Part Two, which
is called 'The Novels,' an arrangement that would make perfect sense were it not for the fact that the
three thematic essays in part one cover much the same ground as the five essays devoted to the Mythago
sequence in part two.
The three essays in part one are actually the best in the book. 'The Embodiment of Abstraction in
the Mythago Novels' by W.A. Senior, 'Masks in the Forest: The Dynamics of Surface and Depth in the
Mythago Cycle' by Kálmán Matolcsy and 'Exploring the Habitats of Myth: The Spatiotemporal Structure of
Ryhope Wood' by Stefan Ekman all deal with the five novels (the shorter work in The Bone Forest is still
under-represented) as a whole, which actually suits them. I have no doubt that, when he began the original
novella of 'Mythago Wood,' Holdstock had no notion of the complexities that would unfold by the time he
came to Avilion. Nevertheless, the sequence grew organically. It is significant that none of the books
within itself, nor the sequence as it was written, forms a chronological order.
Though they may jump backwards and forwards in time, the guiding principle of the sequence is the depth
of exploration of the wood:
each successive volume may come before or after the previous one in time, but it takes us deeper into
the wood. Sadly, none of the contributors explore the achronological nature of both Ryhope Wood and the
Mythago Wood sequence, even though such achronology takes us back into the science fiction novels and
on into The Merlin Codex (though Sawyer notes the way that a fascination of time runs through
all of Holdstock's work, it is Ekman who comes closest to perceiving the importance of time as a way of
interpreting the books, and even he stops some way short of the goal). Nevertheless, this organic, achronological
growth of the sequence means that it is easy to take a perception regarding one volume and apply it to a
later work in the sequence, or vice versa. So an examination of the whole sequence opens up more, reveals
more, than consideration of any single volume might do.
As we move into the second part of the book, therefore, we can anticipate that some of the depth and resonance
to be found in the sequence as a whole will be lost. Here, Sawyer's essay on the science fiction novels
feels as though it stands at a tangent to the book as a whole. These novels were important as an initial
development of themes and ideas that would snake through everything else he wrote subsequently; yet none
of the other contributors mention the science fiction at all. And after this, we are back going through
the Mythago sequence one novel at a time. There is one essay on Mythago Wood, 'Profusion Sublime
and the Fantastic: Mythago Wood'
by Marek Oziewicz, which is good but doesn't really break new ground.
As befits its status as, perhaps, the best individual novel in the sequence, Lavondyss attracts two
contributions. There is a feminist reading by Elizabeth A. Whittingham, which raises interesting issues
without really chasing them down, and there is 'Embedded Narratives in Lavondyss
and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness' by Vera Benczik, which has no rival as the most
peculiar essay in the book. I am quite happy to consider a compare and contrast approach to two widely
differing works, if the author can give a convincing reason why they should be looked at in parallel.
Benczik doesn't just fail to give such a reason, but she doesn't even seem to be comparing and contrasting
the same sort of thing. Insofar as there are embedded narratives within The Left Hand of Darkness
it is all part of the encyclopedic structure of the book, providing a wider context for the central
narrative. Insofar as there are embedded narratives within Lavondyss it is all part of the
achronological structure of the book, providing variant perspectives on the one story. I'm not even sure
I would care to call them embedded narratives. In other words, Benczik devotes her essay to comparing
two things that are structurally different, that are intentionally doing totally different jobs, and that
have no other conceivable relationship to each other.
If that is the single worst essay in the book, it is followed by the single best essay. 'Stories to
Illuminate Truth and Lies to Hide Pain:
Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn' by co-editor Donald E. Morse is an examination of childhood guilt
about the suicide of a parent that is the central issue of Holdstock's penultimate Mythago novel. It is a
powerful psychological subject that reflects on how Holdstock used the sequence to address issues that
tend to be at best ignored, at worst trivialised, in most modern fantasy. I was recently on a panel with
Donald Morse at the British Library at which he used the term trauma in talking about Holdstock's
work, and it is that sense of trauma that makes this such a perceptive essay. Indeed the only criticism
could be that he did not extend the idea of trauma across the other works in the sequence.
The essay that follows, '"A Heap of Broken Images" -- The Mythological Wasteland of the Mind:
The Hollowing and Ancient Echoes'
by Ildikó Limpár inevitably suffers in comparison. It also suffers in that, like other essays in the
book, it raises issues, in this case, the notion of Ryhope Wood as a mental landscape, without really
pursuing them to a satisfactory conclusion. Still, it is a much better work than the two distinctly
unsatisfactory essays on The Merlin Codex that follow it.
As a first step towards providing a serious critical study of the work of Robert Holdstock, we have to
welcome this book. But I suspect only a few of its essays will stand the test of time, and we are left
recognising that there is still room for a comprehensive critical study of this most important writer.
Paul Kincaid is the recipient of the SFRA's Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service for 2006. His collection of essays and reviews, What it is we do when we read science fiction is published by Beccon Publications. |
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