Wrens, Romans, Countrymen
I read "I, Claudius" and a horror/fantasy novel about why you should kill little helpless birdies before they getcha
O where are you going, Creatures?
In this edition, two short book notes.
I, Claudius, Robert Graves’s retelling of the life of the first-century AD Roman Emperor Claudius and his doomed basement-dweller longing for the lost Republic, is a reread for me. I expected to get more out of it this time around than in high school, since I have a little more context for its events. But either the book tells you what you need to know, or I know even less about Roman history than I thought, since I didn’t feel like my appreciation of the historical context had changed in the intervening decades.
It moves quickly without being deft—it lumbers, which Claudius knows, and his chiding himself for his bad prose style is often gently funny. The humor in general is not scathing, but situational. Other people underestimate Claudius, while he observes them, but he’s not a gimlet-eyed observer of the human comedy—he’s matter-of-fact about his own humiliations and fearful truckling, and he does not seem to enjoy judging others, finding and pressing a covert finger against their soft spots. There are some haunting images, like the singing statue of the Egyptian god. The paganism feels sacred, in the sense of alien—a mystery, meant to make us feel the littleness of our own brightly-lit convictions.
The historical context I definitely did notice this time around is the year it was published: 1934. That gives a certain extra pungency to the passages where Claudius ruminates, in highly uncomplimentary fashion!, on the German national character. I had thought that the year of publication might also suggest a contemporary parallel to Tiberius’ treason trials, but it turns out I had the dates slightly wrong; call it an eerie coincidence or call it a reminder of how tyrants use one another’s tools. That said, Claudius doesn’t feel like a mouthpiece for then-contemporary opinion. There’s some fascinating, very Orlando Patterson stuff in the intertwining of Claudius’ yearning for the Republic and Roman liberty, and his casual acceptance of slavery. Patterson, iirc, argues that that isn’t a contradictory mindset, but rather that ideas about “liberty” and its importance emerge in slave societies precisely to define, and thereby reinforce, the distinction between slave and free. What to the slave is the Ides of March?
Then I turned to a very different angle on paganism, Elizabeth Hand’s horror/fantasy Wylding Hall. Interviews for a documentary tell the story of Windhollow Faire, a band that emerged from the 1970s English Folk Revival before imploding after the disappearance of its lead singer under spooky circumstances.
Wylding Hall is a fast read, and I enjoyed it—I finished it in two days. But I ended up with very mixed feelings. The prose style was simply too bland for me. Rachel Manija Brown (one very big spoiler at that link) calls it “stripped-down,” in contrast with Hand’s usual “lush” prose. I can see how that kind of prose would fit naturally into a novel told through interviews, but the voices feel way too similar—and way too normal. Let some of them seem really shipwrecked by their experience at Wylding Hall! Or, if the rest of the band did go on with their normal lives and that’s part of the point (life goes on for them, but not for their lost friend), let something abnormal break through from under the surface—a longing, maybe, for what terrifies them, or a curiosity about what it was like for the vanished singer. Why him and not me? That kind of thing. They encountered something that shatters what we think we know about humanity, nature, history, time and space! Shouldn’t they be more changed by it?
That said, there were a lot of specific choices I really liked. Wylding Hall itself is a terrific haunted house, with all the trimmings: secret rooms, impossible staircases, creepy carvings, multiple architectural eras… things that go bump in the night. I loved the use of real English folklore. I both respected and loved how much Hand doesn’t show, or tell, or do—it’s all hints and glimpses, and yet if you’ve read enough of these stories, you can intuit the chilling scenes outside the margins of the page. There are several gooseflesh one-liners. And there are strong hints that the story of Wylding Hall and Windhollow Faire is not yet over. I would read Return to Wylding Hall, but then again, I don’t feel like I need it. I know what happens in this kind of story. Far more frightening to imagine the story going the way it has to go, events taking the course they always take—under the hill, while oblivious archeologists drill toward their doom, in the place where the years walk sideways.
I’m not sure what I think about the theme, or rather, the absence of theme. I am grateful that this is not one of those modern horror stories where like the Sidhe are grief, or the Sidhe are capitalism. Some of those are good stories but I can’t wait for a pendulum swing away from the didactic. On the other hand (heh), there are themes lying around here for the taking: youth, and what it might be like to never grow up, and how those two ideas have shaped the contemporary pop music industry for a long time now; the limits of our knowledge, and our endless desire to sail like Dante’s Ulysses beyond those limits; nature as beauty and mother and devourer. None of these characters have kids I think, and yet that isn’t ever treated as important. One of them becomes a professional psychic after Wylding Hall and nothing bad happens to her because of it! She’s just “sensitive,” and she’s careful so nothing bad happens. That isn’t how any of this works!!! I think the absence of attention to theme is part of what gives me this weird, unsatisfied feeling, that the world of the book is fraught with terrifying mystery but the characters in the book are just normal.
icymi
I wrote about pastoral care for lgbt+ (etc) Catholics in the wake of the recent Vatican document about blessings of couples in “irregular situations.” I may commit further journalism on this topic so, you know, you’ve been warned.
Too Online
This essaylet about having an unexpected saint’s name is a real pleasure: “My Final Profession of religious vows caused great inconvenience for the sister who makes the liturgy booklets for our community, for she had to find an image of my name-saint to put on the front cover in which he was not depicted murdering someone.”
Now Playing
Chumbawamba, “The Cutty Wren.” Lol I absolutely love English Rebel Songs but Wikipedia suggests that there’s no real reason to believe Chumbas’ claim, in the liner notes, that this song is about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt rather than witchy woodsy woo. It’s still a fantastic song.
A happy hog
Thank you to the two people who bought me books off my wish list! I don’t know who bought The Friendship of Christ, but thanks very much to RC for Prayer as a Political Problem.
Bust of Claudius photographed by Richard Mortel, found via Wikimedia Commons and used under a Creative Commons license.
One of the many things that made me dislike Wylding Hall is the way the interviews are constantly hinting at big reveals when real interviews for a documentary or whatever would not be like… And Then The Thing Happened… Had I But Known…. I do not like this when it's done in first person narration either etc but in the interviews it just drove me wild.