It is
not surprising that such a foundational book as the Bible should be a frequent
source of inspiration for the creators of horror, science fiction and
fantasy. The nearly 70 books that
comprise Holy Scripture cover the gamut of what human beings are capable of
doing in the absence of moral and spiritual guidance, whether you believe that such
guidance comes from above or from
ethical traditions developed by humans over time. (See also Isn’t
Horror Better Than Sunday Worship?)
Though
not all would agree, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos seems mainly to be a riff
on the Old Testament horror of idolatry.
This is especially the case in such classic Lovecraft stories as The Call of Cthulhu (1928), The Dunwich Horror (1929) and The Horror at Red Hook (1927). Lovecraft borrowed imagery from the Old
Testament to describe modern day survivals of pagan terrors, for example, his
“altar-crowned slopes of Sentinel Hill” near Dunwich. (See also Old
Testament Lovecraft)
His
colleague Clark Ashton Smith—a much stronger writer in my view—artfully reimagined
biblical themes in his work, especially in stories he set in his fictional
world of Zothique. Smith was adept at
creating such vividly detailed worlds; the tales he told in them contain
profound insights about human nature—a depth not typically seen in Lovecraft. S.T. Joshi notes that Smith’s Zothique cycle
of stories is his most extensive, containing sixteen stories, some poetry, and
even the script of a play.
Smith’s
Xeethra (1934) is closely related to
other stories in the Zothique cycle, including The Dark Eidolan (1935), The
Isle of the Torturers (1933), and The Planet
of the Dead (1932), among others.
They are all worth reading and in my view represent some of Smith’s
finest weird fiction.
In Xeethra, a humble shepherd boy of the
same name stumbles upon a lush valley while herding his animals across a desert
in late summer. At one end of the valley
he discovers a recent fissure in the
wall of a cliff, as if the rock face had opened itself for him to explore. Readers know intuitively that entering this
cavern will be life changing for Xeethra.
The boy descends both physically and figuratively into the earth, and as
he does so the story transmutes from an adventure yarn to a mythological fairy
tale.
Xeethra
loses his light and his way in the cave, but emerges in a vast glowing
hallucinogenic garden—Smith’s version of the Garden of Eden. The boy’s attention is drawn to “an
orchard-like grove of tall, amply spreading trees, amid whose lush leafage he
descried the burning of numberless dark-red fruits.” Having just crossed the dry desert, the boy
finds the fruit irresistible—perhaps even more so than Adam and Eve did in
their verdent paradise. But the apples
belong to Thasaidon, a powerful demon and the principle deity in the world of
Zothique.
The consequence of eating the fruit drives
the rest of the story, and is the most interesting aspect of the work. What Smith has done is to re-imagine the
Garden of Eden story, in which a forbidden fruit that grants a circumscribed
knowledge is consumed, bringing damnation.
Xeethra lives in a distant future where the sun—now an engorged red
giant—is dying. Human civilization has
collapsed into decadence and barbarity.
Instead of the familiar Judeo-Christian God, the inhabitants fear
Thasaidon, an all-powerful but insightful and world-weary avatar of Satan. Yet Thasaidon is not evil in the same sense
that Satan is; in fact, he may be what our God will become after thousands more
years of human depravity.
For
Xeethra, the consequence of eating the forbidden fruit is not being cast out of
paradise, but a much crueler fate. This
fruit did not come from some mere “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”—a
notion that would be considered quaint in Zothique. Hallucinogenic properties in its juice confer
memory and recollection of past and future lives, effectively unsticking an
individual in time, (As in Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse Five).
During the rest of the narrative, it is uncertain whether Xeethra is still under the effects of the “apple”. He finds it harder to distinguish and keep separate these different realities. The experience is one of disorientation, not only of time and place, but of personal identity. The boy travels across a dream scape of vibrant cities juxtaposed with ruins and beings that are beyond death. He longs to resume the throne of distant Calyz, where he was once known as King Amero, but he also yearns to go back to the simpler life Xeethra enjoyed.
The
knowledge Xeethra acquires is beyond good
and evil, as Nietzsche might say. Being
able to recall and relive past lives dooms Xeethra to the torment of
irreconcilable desires for one life over another—he learns ultimately that in “…all
times and in all places your soul shall be part of the dark empire of
Thasaidon.”
Joshi
notes that Smith’s story is similar in some respects to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Quest of Iranon (1935), possibly the
worst story Lovecraft ever wrote. Both
involve a poor young man who wanders across a fantastic landscape, believing he
will find his former kingdom and resume his throne. Reportedly, Lovecraft lent a manuscript of
his story to Smith, who reread it the summer of 1930. But the resemblance is superficial. Lovecraft’s The Quest of Iranon is a mawkish, self-pitying fairy tale about
unrecognized genius—presumably, his own.
Smith’s story is much deeper, more disturbing, and more universal in its
portrayal of the spiritual horrors of reincarnation.
********************
Several
other stories in Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique cycle have been discussed in
previous posts. Interested readers may
want to look at the following:
Evil
Sorcerer vs. Tyrannical Despot (The Dark Eidolon)
Plague
as Engine of Justice (The Isle of the Torturers)
H.P.
Lovecraft’s Antarian Adventures (The Planet of the Dead)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your interest in The R'lyeh Tribune! Comments and suggestions are always welcome.