Customer Reviews

Ancient Lights: 2

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pleasure. Humility. Incest. Small furry dogs. All of this and more in the once in a lifetime publication from the late Mr. Grubb. Davis, as I am sure he would prefer to be known, is second to none in this epic, mind altering, sexalicious, hedonistic, sensory freefall into the world of Sweely Leech. The world is plenty organized in Sweely's world, truly, truly organized. Too organized, in fact. The surly, reptilian, quagmire that is New York satellites itself to the feral green wilderness that Sweely calls home. Thickets of rose petals, lavendar and comfrey litter the garden of the Gallimaufry, beds are alive with the sharing of ten bodies worth of love, mysterious heirloom clocks time travel, and little people relatives abound in this sumptuous story of Love with a capital L. Sweely celebrates the way of the world, and the evils of complicated living. Equally embracing badness with goodness makes him a very dangerous fellow. TRUCAD is forced to ask itself,what happens if everyone figures out how to be self directed, and fully understand God? How can the behavior of the government be explained then? Machines for heads, hearts and minds make for an unhappy alliance of bad boys looking to do Sweely in. He ascends beyond the mechanism of government known as TRUCAD, openly toying with the stability the modern world hallucinates. Heck, forget toying, Sweeley delivers outright blasphemous good doing! Leaving in his wake a progeny of enlightened daughters, Fifi Leech, his super star, finds herself the center of an immense and thoroughly earthshattering, teeth rattling and jawdropping escapade. Inexplicable coincidence lays itself at her feet, posing Lindy, her younger sister, as the other character in this amazing drama, and guides them all from the safe haven of home, to the writhing pit of Blake's New York. A full fledged miracle of a book, it examines everything in the known world as being connected to this amazing, potent and ridiculous dance we are doing on this spinning ball, and encourages you to remember that "dey's all debbil's beurre." I remind you that you cannot live without reading this masterpiece. Truly the most original and exciting thing I have read in my life. Well, you understand what I mean.

The author of this book is, unfortunately, no longer on this Earth to appreciate my sentiments toward, in my opinion (and his, I've read), his greatest work of literature. Drawing from his own carefully built system of ideals as well as the mythologies and religions of other cultures and the literary work of William Blake and others, he creates a fictional universe of characters so numerous and easy to cheer for that it rivals not only the worlds of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, but the real world itself. His almost mad lust for truth, freedom, and equality lead you on the winding road of a semi-futuristic mission to rescue the human race from the false face of Organized Religion. Sweeley Leech and his daughter Fifi serve the world of overzealous, materialistic Christians the same way Jesus Criste (as he is called in this book, so as not to be mistaken for the cliched "Christ" the churches praise) served the pompous, ritualistic, and judgmental Hebrews of his day. The pair loves all people, regardless of whether those people are on their side or against them, and as they go on a truly Christian "unrobbery" of a bank in New York, they meet the colorful inhabitants of the underworld, and say goodbye to Fifi's lover Dorcas (yes, Fifi is bisexual). Sweeley receives a divine vision of a great book and completes it only to have his other daughter, Lindy (a member of the Organized Church), submit it to the TRUCAD (an amalgamation destroying the edict of separation of Church and State), thus organizing and glorifying it against its creator's will. Lindy means no harm, but doesn't relize that putting it through "La Machine" (TRUCAD) will cause it to be praised and lauded, but then forgotten. On their journey to recreate the divine manuscript, they encounter some very bizarre characters and situations, but all of them with an air of quiet mystery and an almost foreboding sense of apprehension in waiting for the final climax of the book. Just read it, It's infinitely better than I can describe in this little review! But don't get mad at me if it offends you. It is not for closed minds, but for those willing to change or modify their vision without sacrificing their entire ethos. It changed my ideas, and for that I would like to thank the late author and his charcters, who seemed so real that I could write a letter of appreciation to them. This book was possibly the best work of art since the Bible, and is, in my opinion, to the New Testament what the New Testament was to the Old. A truly admirable book.

This book is unique. It falls roughly into the category of "paranoid politico-religious conspiracy" novels, along with the ILLUMINATUS trilogy and numerous of Philip K. Dick's books, but even in that crowd it stands apart. Grubb's images are so unusual that they stick in your mind long after you've finished reading the book: well, who else could have conceived of horny Hasidic fairies? I sincerely hope that ANCIENT LIGHTS comes back into print, because it has disappeared from my library and I would very much like to read it again

Commenting on her desire to have sex with fairies (the real-mythical variety that steal freckles from the skin of inner thighs), the narrator of Ancient Lights, Fifi Leech comments: "Do I seem to your tired Christian mind too utterly depraved? So be it. Both I and my father, Sweeley Leach, know a truth - that in these furious times we must appeal to what you consider the lowest part of your human nature because it is in that region that your highest human nobility has taken refuge. Until the spiritual revolution which is coming, you will - unless you are a member of the Children of the Remnant - remain staggering and baffled and choking in the brimstone pollution of this dying age." And so the amazing adventure of Fifi, Sweeley, and the Children begins; at the same time guided by and in search of the Criste Light to save the human race from itself and its machinations.

I finished this novel for the third or fourth time. There is nothing like a book filled with absurdities and prophetic pronouncements to ground one in the reality of today.

Ancient Lights is so unique...probably why it is so little known...I suppose the closest comparison I can make is: If you're a Helprin fan, you will love this book!

The first time I encountered this Rabelaisian tale was in the trade paperback edition on the shelf of the public library in Topeka, Kansas, in 1983. (Topeka is also mentioned -- once, obliquely -- in the story, which is the only reason I could think of for this gnostic, orgiastic, ecstatic end-times tale to be on the shelf in such a notoriously uptight burg.)

Davis Grubb wrote in an incredibly rich, dense, witty Faulkner/Whitman/Wildesque style, and heroine Fifi Leech deserves no less. This very long story plays entertainingly with language and drives some modern moneylenders from the Temple. It's ribald, magical, multilingually punning storytelling and characterization of the first order.

The author knew he was dying before he finished it, and it came out just after his death. Nobody has ever heard of this, Grubb's chef d'oeuvre, if indeed they have heard of him at all. His best-known novel is Night of the Hunter. You should also read Voices of Glory.

Not as nice as the outsize trade paperback I have also bought (I've given away several copies of this story; it really is my favorite novel).