David Lindsay (1) (1876–1945)

Viagem psicodélica fantástica por outro mundo onde uma série de encontros leva o protagonista a episódios em que o mal e o bem entram em questão. Há um renovado confrontamento com novos valores morais e formas de perceber o mundo. E o protagonista assim é afetado, absorvendo esses valores e formas para depois confrontá-los, em novos encontros ou em situações trágicas. A dor, a violência e a morte se fazem presentes, e a falta de empatia e o confronto entre as visões de mundo leva o personagem ao assassinato e à destruição. Tudo ocorre em um ritmo acelerado, de um encontro a outro, como uma jornada de descoberta espiritual e de crise quanto ao que é válido e significativo, e o papel do amor, das emoções e do prazer nessa travessia.… (more)

I hated this novel. It's really not a sf novel. It is some sort of philosophico-religio-fantasy acid trip (I know it's clumsy) with a sf framework to set up the fantasy. Ultimately it espouses some sort of gnostic reality for the universe.

Did Lindsay really personally believe this? If not, what is the point of this clumsy dull, ultimately pointless, novel? Maskull's adventures are laughably unlikely: after a sf setup that transports him and two "friends" to the Arcturus system, he traverses all the interesting parts of the planet and meets all the important characters by just walking around a bit. Each character seems to present some philosophical system that is ultimately rejected and the character nearly always dies (You don't want to meet Maskull.). Maskull undergoes a number of weird transforming experiences and encounters along the way and ultimately dies after a partial revelation of who he is. In the end only Nightspore is allowed to glimpse the "truth" about things that the nefarious Krag already knows.

The whole thing might have been tolerable if the ideas had not been presented in such an excruciatingly boring manner. I had to force myself through the last quarter of the novel.

Other authors, Philip K. Dick come to mind, plumb some of the same depths but do it more effectively both because their writing and stories are more interesting and they ultimately leave things more open ended.

The book only warranted a second star because it was thankfully not too long.… (more)

Wow, what a great novel; totally different in all ways from [b:A Voyage to Arcturus|1064084|A Voyage to Arcturus|David Lindsay|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328819689l/1064084._SY75_.jpg|923907], which I have to admit I probably under appreciate. A romance hidden in a haunted house, hidden in a science fiction-parallel world, philosophical novel. This Tartarus edition has an afterword, that is properly an afterword and not an introduction, that explicates the novel so succinctly that it is a wonder in itself.

Lindsay's breadth is truly remarkable. I will have to go back and reread Arcturus. I think I was put off by it's rather dated plotting and style and did not appreciate its philosophical aspects as well as I should have.… (more)

David Lindsay's visionary first novel A Voyage to Arcturus was influential among writers of twentieth-century fantasy, although its metaphysical preoccupations and sheer strangeness have barred it from a wide readership. Michael Moorcock called the book "one of the great originals," but it clearly has roots in Blake and the Romantics. In particular, "Klingsohr's Fairy Tale" by Novalis tells of a series of adventures leading to the reunion of the heavenly court of Arcturus with the terrestrial household of humanity, and the triumph of Eternity over Time, and it seems to have been an influence for Lindsay. But Lindsay's Arcturian tale involves a more pessimistic gnosis, in which the wrong of the beginning is continually expressed in conflicts and obscurities.

My copy of the book is the 1985 Citadel Press edition, to which is prefaced "David Lindsay and the Quest for Muspel-fire" by Galad Elflandsson. Aside from a biographical sketch of Lindsay and a short bibliography, this essay mostly consists of plot spoilers and debatable interpretations, despite Elflandsson's professed intention to "eliminate some of the confusion one would normally find upon reading it 'cold'" (9). I recommend leaving it for after reading the novel.

The apparent protagonist of A Voyage to Arcturus is Maskull, a name that is never supplemented or fully explained, although a start is made by the character Panawe, who draws on his intuition to ask, "Has there been a man in your world who stole something from the Maker of the universe, in order to ennoble his fellow creatures?" (58). This particular characterization of the Prometheus myth does seem on some level to underlie the action of the larger book.

The story begins with a bourgeois séance in London, carefully introducing a large set of persons who become entirely irrelevant after the first chapter. Maskull, along with Nightspore and Krag, characters who are pivotal to the novel, are late arrivals here for what turns out to be a debacle. These three then go to Scotland, in order to embark in a "torpedo of crystal" (43) to the planet Tormance, which is in the double-stellar system of Arcturus. Maskull loses consciousness during the trip (projected to take nineteen hours), and awakes on Tormance with no trace of the ship or his companions.

Maskull's adventures across Tormance take up the bulk of the book. He travels from place to place, in each encountering one or two figures with whom he develops relationships that involve affection, hostility, inspiration, and instruction. A peculiar feature of his journey is that his physiognomy is repeatedly altered, particularly by the growth and attenuation of new sensory organs in his forehead and his breast. The people he encounters often have similar or related features. He moves northwards throughout, at first in a sort of aimless way, but with a mounting determination towards the end of the tale. In addition to its people, Tormance features bizarre life-forms that transgress boundaries among animal, vegetable, and mineral; colors unknown on earth; and surpassingly strange landscapes.

The level of enigma and exotic adventure in this book is off the charts, and the best comparandum for these features may be Lloyd's Etidorhpa. (In fact, the books complement each other: Arcturus can be read as the ouranian sequel to the chthonic Etidorhpa.) Why did René Laloux die without making this story into an animated feature? The injustice of the universe is adequately demonstrated.… (more)