Customer Reviews

Caves of Terror

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If you've never read any of Talbot Mundy's Asian books, he is a lot like some sort of Rudyard Kipling on steroids. There is the same grand sense of adventure, the belief in the individual, the same belief that there is more to the East than meets the eye, the same impatience with officialdom. On the other hand, Mundy's writing is less humourous and there's a lot of "pulp" elements thrown in. If you've never read Kipling, think of Talbot Mundy as a vague cross between "Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom" and "Gunga Din"

This is pretty standard Talbot Mundy fare, really, using characters out of King of the Khyber Rifles (a much better novel, in my opinion)

Some of the ideas in "King" are repeated to fairly good effect: the dancing girls that hypnotize the unwary, and the imminent awakening of the East are good examples. There is also the same fascination with Caves and underground temples (was this guy afraid of wide open spaces?)

Unfortunately, this book feels like it was meant to be part of a much bigger book. An inordinate amount of time (several chapters actually) is spent on the actual "caves of terror", which are described in minute detail and yet are only meant to be a test of courage before the characters embark on a much bigger mission (in America, of all places)

The detail is fascinating, but I found that the book finished all too quickly leaving me somewhat disappointed.

Caves of Terror was a landmark in Talbot Mundy's career, fully revealing his incorporation of fantasy to facilitate the presentation of Eastern philosophy. Precisely what caused him to veer into this new mode is unknown; his discovery of theosophy was still more than a year in the future, and previous hints of the occult had only been a secondary theme, as in King--of the Khyber Rifles and The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb. (There is more on Mundy's writing career in my book, Talbot Mundy: Philosopher of Adventure, by Brian Taves.)
The shift represented a fundamental departure from Mundy's previous writing. Such works as "The Soul of a Regiment," Rung Ho!, The Winds of the World, Hira Singh, and The Eye of Zeitoon belong to the time before the disillusionment of World War I changed literary conceptions of heroism, military ethics, and colonialism. Adventure has a logic of limitations, whose situations no matter how unlikely still could be true. Fantasy is not its extension, but its antithesis. Adventure, taking place in the past or present, remains within the physically possible despite improbability or unlikelihood, while in fantasy the characters exceed human reach through access to supernatural forces. The violation of the bounds of physical reality are fantasy's motif and narrative highlight, as the larger-than-life hero undergoes mystical experiences. These range from the gods in the tradition of Homer and Greco-Roman mythology, to the genies and magic found in the Arabian Nights--making fantasy ideal for Mundy's new focus on occult forces in India and Tibet.
Caves of Terror originally appeared under the title The Gray Mahatma in the November 10, 1922 issue of Adventure. Despite deviating from the norm in Adventure, the story was readily accepted, readers voting it their favorite novel of the year, and such approval may have encouraged Mundy to continue in this vein.
While reuniting King and Yasmini for the only time after King--of the Khyber Rifles, Caves of Terror simultaneously links King with Mundy's recent Jimgrim novels by having Meldrum Strange send Jeff Ramsden to work with him. However, at the center is the figure represented by the original title, The Grey Mahatma. This is the first of Mundy's fantasies centered on a Westerner's quest for indigenous magic, and using a sage-like Indian priest. He is absolutely unsentimental about human life, but is also intensely human, wisdom not having robbed him of friendliness, "the common touch," or a sense of fun. A man of both East and West, he holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, but found no man in the United States worthy of trusting with the rudiments of Indian science.
Caves of Terror offers Mundy's vision of the Inferno as the Grey Mahatma leads King and Ramsden through hellish caverns where the secret science of India is practiced. These become not only literal, but a series of Dante-esque steps into a phantasmagoric region, as the Mahatma reveals to King and Ramsden practices never before seen by Western eyes. They see the Indian religious philosophy in its totality, both its vast possibilities, and its pitfalls, leading to self-torture.
Caves of Terror becomes a fictional explication of Mundy's belief "that, while many of the native magicians are frauds and charlatans, some of them really possess 'occult' powers that truly come under the heading of magic--in the sense that science has not yet explained them or explained them away." Superstition serves merely to protect the secrets, from both the uncomprehending eyes of the ignorant masses or the interference of colonial governments.
The Mahatma believes India and the entire East are emerging from the end of Kali-Yug, the age of darkness. For Yasmini this implies that India, rising from the shackles of colonialism, can use her secrets to harness the power of mob violence and subjugate the West. For Mundy, King, and the mystical Grey Mahatma, the close of Kali-Yug has a more positive meaning, Indian independence and freedom. King has been chosen to carry this message to the United States. The Mahatma unselfishly refuses to be saved by King and Ramsden, or by Yasmini for her own purposes, and together King and the Mahatma dash her plans for conquest.
Caves of Terror is one of Mundy's most unconventional works, both for its relative brevity (barely novel length) and the self-effacing manner in which it deals with profound questions. The tight structure is part of what makes it so perfectly formed and highly disciplined, with each chapter a movement in the drama. A multi-layered work, like an Edgar Allan Poe story, the surface emphasis on morbid thrills covers a deeper meditation on the mysteries of life. Caves of Terror is also unforgettable through its picturesque, highly visual, almost surrealistic style, and is one of Mundy's most unusual and extraordinary novels.