Customer Reviews

A Voyage to Arcturus

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was handed this book years ago by a friend at school, who had in turn been given it by another. I read it, passed it on to a friend and later found out that it was then read by several others before being lost without trace. It is an unforgettable book, extraordinarily rich in imaginative and descriptive brilliance, about one man's journey through a far-away world which may in fact be the mirror of his own psyche. While the writing can be at times turgid, it is more often inspired; the author has a great gift for description, and the various tableaux he describes remind one of the best bits of Tolkien, although perhaps even more evocative. But this is no "Lord of the Rings". Rather than enacting a classic tale of epic heroism, Lindsay takes us on a gripping journey through a planet where good and evil are not only locked in struggle, but cloaked in impenetrable disguise. It is the hero Maskull's task to unmask the truth, and thereby attain his own redemption. The real genius of this book lies in its ability to defy prediction. At no stage does the reader have the slightest inkling of where the narrative might be heading, or how the threads might eventually tie up; but one is nevertheless compelled to read on. A definite must-read for all sci-fi and fantasy buffs; would also be enjoyed by visual artists, psychoanalysts, anyone interested in pagan religion, or just anyone who likes great descriptive writing.

David Lindsay is one of the twentieth century's greatest and least appreciated geniuses. This, his first book, is also his best known, although it's debatable whether the science-fiction/Tolkien-fantasy crowd, into whose hands it has generally fallen, quite have the measure of its overarching ambition and audacious vision. Tormance, a planet of the star Arcturus, is a young world where raw particles of life flow and are trapped in the creations of Crystalman, the god of the visible world. Maskull, a human being, comes to Tormance from Earth and embarks upon an epic journey towards Muspel, the source of all genuine life, which is in constant danger from Crystalman's vulgar machinations. Maskull meets a succession of characters whose various philosophies and points of view represent the stages of his own spiritual progress, until finally he sheds his "Maskull" (mask, shell) self and awakes to the truth which Crystalman's world keeps hidden. The fight goes on, a fight in which pain is an ally and "nothing will be done without the bloodiest blows." This summary cannot begin to convey the complexity of this work nor do justice to its vast scope or the astounding variety of its invention. As he travels through the book's epic landscapes Maskull constantly mutates, growing new eyes, new arms and new organs, seeing new colours and encountering a member of a third sex. Almost everyone he meets soon dies, killed either by Maskull himself or by their own inability to evolve as he does - bloodiest blows indeed. Lindsay's prose is pedestrian and often clumsy, but always clear and never verbose; the story moves quickly, its most complex ideas given concrete shape rather than conveyed through abstract discussion. A Voyage to Arcturus is neither science fiction nor fantasy, but a vision in words, as raw, bleak and powerful as a Scottish mountain. The problems it raises are deathly serious and forever immediate.

David Lindsay's "A Voyage to Arcturus" is difficult to categorize. The book has been labeled "Science Fiction/Fantasy," but it is much more. The novel's hero/Everyman Maskull starts out on a journey to the planet Tormance, but is quickly separated from his two traveling companions. Maskull's journey takes him on an unusual search for the discovery of the truths of the planet and of his own being. He meets several unusual but memorable characters who are so interesting they could each become the subjects of their own novels. The entire book deals with a search for the truth and the struggle between good and evil...and it's not always easy to distinguish which character is on which side.

This is a vast over-simplification of the story. The novel is rich, bold, and imaginative. The reader has absolutely no idea what is about to happen next as the story moves. I found the unpredictability (especially in light of current novels) very refreshing. Several reviewers are hoping for a film version of the book. Some novels should never reach the screen and this is one of them. First, no studio could produce the special effects necessary to bring the novel to the screen without cheapening the story. Second, I don't want to see George Clooney running around attempting to contemplate the meaning of life while playing a caricature of Maskull. Don't wait for the movie...read the novel and enjoy.

This is an excellent book, one I have read many times. Five stars for the story. Never have I read it in such a garbled edition, though. Zero stars to Bison Books. Chapter one (which was as far as I got) contained ten typos, some actually changing the meaning of what was going on ("turned and confronted the party" becomes "turned and _comforted_ the party".) If you haven't read Arcturus, you'll just be confused by textual errors in what is already a demanding book. Nice cover, though.

Maskull attends a seance. After the usual assurances of genuineness, a spirit does materialize - really. That turns out to be the least of the evening's bizarre events, in which Maskull becomes bound up with someone named Krag and another named Nightspore. Mechanism aside, these beings carry him, willing, to a planet that circles the star Arcturus. The place holds many mysteries, among them the immanence of the world's Creator and creative forces. And, in Manichaean balance, a destructive demiurge also inhabits and shapes this world.

Using a familiar narrative tool, Lindsay marches Maskull through different zones of this world, each one under the influence of some different intangible. Maskull first lands in a region devoted to - love? generosity? Although the mood is clear in narration, I don't think I know any one English word that captures it. The next territory founds its thinking on self-centeredness. Not quite selfishness, a slightly different thing, but a numbness to the feelings of others offset by active awareness of one's own desires. Next comes a land of duty, though not as simple an urge as that word suggests, followed by others. Physical changes accompany Maskull's entry into each sphere of influence. In the loving place, Maskull sprouts organs that perceive the vital principle in living things. The self-centered place replaces those with a sensory organ that detects how important each thing is to Maskull, and so on through change after change.

As he wanders, like Dante traversing the Inferno, Maskull acquires his guiding Beatrice. In fact, he acquires a new one at each border - they often die, often at his hands. But, somehow, his murderous nature in each region arises from the same vicious innocence that a snake displays in crushing a rat, or a cat in tormenting a broken bird.

All this just describes the first half of the book, though. The story maintains its subtlety and casual violence of mood as it approaches the godhead. Although the physical descriptions remain concrete, the spiritual transformations become more conflicted and ethereal.

The book's contradiction and ambiguity, the vagueness and vividness re-emerge in my own responses to the story. I'm not really sure what I feel about it, except that I feel it very strongly. Lindsay's words imprison sensations that I find familiar, even when I have no name for them, and present them for study. This remarkable story defies easy analysis or even analogy. At the same time, it invites enjoyment with tinges of wonder. Open yourself to it.

-- wiredweird

"A Voyage to Arcturus" was David Lindsay's first and perhaps best novel ("The Haunted Woman" though more a novella than a novel is also very good). By the standards of science fiction "Arcturus" is extremely old. It was first published in the 1920s when Lindsay was late middle aged. Lindsay was a contemporary of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, yet he could write in a very modern (timeless) style. The novel's age makes proper appreciation somewhat problematic. The story starts out slow with the setting in a English gentleman's house with the characters attending a sceance. The wring style for this first part of the book is typical of turn-of-the-century novels and gives no hint of what the reader is about to experience. When the plot moves to Scotland and the characters prepare to leave Earth, the reader gets a hint that something magical is about to happen. However once the plot gets to the planet Tormance the story undergoes metamorphosis from dull shades of gray to brilliant colors. The reader immediately sees that Lindsay had a genius for writing speculative fiction. However this genius is difficult for a modern reader to fully appreciate because Lindsay had no real science ficition tradition to draw from (he was creating all of his SF concepts from scratch). Though the novel is entertaining to read as a simple adventure story, it has incredible depth. The planet Tormance is a world where God and Anti-God (like the Gnostic tradition) are competing for control of the planet. Both beings go by different names and are symbolized by different aspects of the planet. For example, Arcturus is portrayed as being a binary star with a large orange star symbolizing the god Shaping and smaller blue star symbolizing the god Surtur. Each star has three primary colors but share one color. The influence of the two gods is subtly color coded throughout the novel. The principle character is named Maskul (Man/Skull). He was approached by the character Krag at the English gentleman's sceance and given the opportunity to travel to Tormance with the understanding that he could never return to Earth. Krag's relationship between the different gods of Tormance becomes clear as the story progresses. After arriving on Tormance, Maskul begins a journey of discovery as he travels across the planet. The two gods try to influence Maskul through various means. Maskul's journey is not unlike a detective story. He is basicly trying to unravel to truth about Tormance. However this is no easy matter because one of the two gods (the anti-god) is evil incarnate. This god is so wicked that he has made virture appear to be evil, truth to be lies and himself seem the genuine god while the true god is a pretender. All of this is done in a story where almost every object has two or three different forms of symoblism (some true and some false). One can read "Arcturus" as a simple story but the story is so rich that it's better to keep notes because there is so much going on. "A Voyage to Arcturus" is a remarkable story: It's a novel that almost no one has read. However it is almost unique and anyone who does read it will be permanently affected by it. David Lindsay made almost no money on this novel. When first published, "Arcturus" was panned in book reviews and latter remaindered (people in the 1920s were not ready for it). However this book has never been out-of-print and will always have a loyal following. Gary A. Allen, Jr.

My favorite myths are Midas, Prometheus, and Brave New World. I think Arcturus could enter this pantheon, particularly in our age, when we seem only to be able to think in terms of pastiches of myths. We get several different mythical ideas in the novel, and even at the end it's unclear whether a key epiphany is real or merely a "take" of someone overly influenced by Krag (just as, say, Joiwind's views are a "take" of someone overly influenced by Crystalman).

The ideas of Crystalman and Krag guide the narrative journey. Although at first it's frustrating to get so many accounts of these "characters," these shifting accounts reflect how little we know of pleasure and pain, how many disparate experiences we group under these concepts. The Crystalman grin at death reminds me of those great Dickinson lines:

The heart loves pleasure first
And then release from pain
And then a little anodyne
To ease the suffering

And then-if it should be
The will of its inquisitor-
The privilege-
To die.

Likewise, Krag/pain sets the whole narrative in motion, just as we would scarcely move on to higher achievements without pain of dissatisfaction at our present state.

I love the idea of all friction, suffering, and pain being caused by the admixture of spirit and matter. The final triumph of materialism would indeed lead us to treat our bodies and moods entirely like machines and output readings; to manipulate each with any device or drug available (and thus to end the mixing of spirit and matter, and to banish all pain). The idea of the world of will created by partial absorption of spirit stream into Krystalman's matter recalls Virgil's account of metempsychosis in Hades in the sixth book of the Aeneid, where Anchises "explains the cosmos, death, and the afterlife. A divine spirit sustains the universe; mortal souls are its seeds imprisoned and contaminated by the mortal body:"

Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.
For this are various penances enjoin'd;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plung'd in waters, others purg'd in fires,
...
But, when a thousand rolling years are past,
(So long their punishments and penance last,)
Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
Compell'd to drink the deep Lethaean flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labors, and their irksome years,
That, unrememb'ring of its former pain,
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."
VI. 735-751

The Thomistic synthesis of Aristotelianism and Christianity tries to overcome this dualism....to endorse the mutual interdependence of souls and bodies. But of course, this kind of interdependence sometimes feels like imprisonment. (Our manner of) dancing can only exist in a world with gravity-but gravity must feel like a torment to the dancer. Similarly too death is a precondition for (our manner of) life.

[I use "our manner" there very cautiously. The very comprehensibility of deathlessness renders relative our implicit assumption of death as a common fate. One of my favorite ideas in Arcturus is the dependence of our ideas and dispositions on our sense organs. Perhaps if we all had mind-reading "sorbs" like Joiwind, we'd be capable of achieving her level of empathy. Similarly, organs like those of Oceaxe's might speed us on our way to the brutality and egotism of Iffdawn.]

But here's a paradox: what exactly is Krag's mission? Does he "pain" all beings in order to make them realize that they are-or harbor within them--something "higher" than material bodies, and the pleasures they enjoy? I think only a Buddhist or Hindu could wish to become one again with the Muspel stream-a nirvana-like state in which all sense of individual consciousness is lost and one merges with all existence. Christian and Muslim theology endorses an afterlife of embodied souls (but, of course, has not reconciled numerous paradoxes...as even Jesus recognized when asked about the place of second and third spouses in an afterlife that seemed to promise to restore not only individuals, but their happiest relations).

There's one way in which this book is dated-the persistent identification of woman with matter, and man with spirit. Although the women in the book (Joiwind, Oceaxe, Tydomin, Sullenbode) are strong, they persistently "divert" the hero from his course (recalling Dido/Aeneas, Circe/Odysseus).

The only reason that "A Voyage to Arcturus" is classified as a science fiction book is that it takes place on another planet that required a rocket ship for our hero to reach it.

The fact is Tormance, the planet revolving around the binary star Arcturus, could have easily have been another "realm" or "dimension" that could have been accessed by a looking glass or a pair of ruby slippers.

This story is basically a philosophical parable is which Lindsay's hero, Maskull, journeys through the world of Tormance in search of the truth. During his travels, he meets several interesting individuals, each of whom represent a different lesson. And as Maskull meets these people, he goes through a series of spiritual transformations that sometimes manifest themselves as physical changes to his body.

Lindsay skillfully uses the philosophies of Calvinism, Shamanism and Buddhism (and probably some others, too) to set up some interesting questions. And like all good philosophers, he leaves it to us to determine our own answers.

I found his ideas on gender relationships, truth, nature and good and evil to be very thought-provoking.

I also had fun trying to read into some of the names he gave his people and places. For instance, a character whose core philosophy is based on self-loathing is called "Hator" ("hater"?). Could "Tormance" refer to a series of "torments" that one must go through to find the truth? Only the author, who passed away many years ago, knows for sure.

Word of warning: I have to agree with the reviewer who complained about this particular edition's proof-reading. There was at least one typo on every other page. Most of them are easy to spot..."me" is typed as "mc"..."far" comes out as "fat"...etc. But it does make me wonder if any of the errors were subtle enough to change the meaning of the story.

This is an enjoyable book that tells an imaginative story and encourages you to think. and I highly recommend it...if you like that sort of thing.

This book is often classified as science fiction. While this is perhaps appropriate given the fantastical nature of the story, such a categorization is hardly all-encompassing. I have never cared for science fiction at all and this is my all-time favorite book.

Others have detailed the plot as well as possible so I will not get into that. I only wish to say that the images from this book are very far-reaching and the messages are virtually innumerable. But the thing that is so marvelous about the way it is put together is that these lessons are not put forth in any kind of straightforward or didactic manner. They are given to the reader however he chooses to take them (well, with just a bit of help from the author). It is definitely one of the least manipulative books I have ever read, and it assumes great intelligence of its reader. This is very refreshing and fairly rare, in my opinion.

Some would say this book is not for everyone. I disagree. I think it is for anyone, provided that the reader just puts in a bit of concentration and a whole lot of imagination. It is not a book that can be read in an evening or digested in a week. It can even be slow going at times, given the reader's mood, and it's true that David Lindsay's writing is far from flawless. Yet even with these faults, there is no question in my mind that it is a five-star book. It is the only book to which I come back year after year, just to keep certain parts of my brain open. David Lindsay was a unique and fearless writer and there is no other book quite like this one. (Good luck finding it, I don't even have my own copy, I just borrow the same sad dog-eared copy from the library every year.)

A Voyage to Arcturus enjoys an almost unchallenged reputation as an important--albeit little-known--amalgamation of fantasy, science fiction, and philosophy. Some of this intellectual esteem is likely attributable to the book's allegorical style, which makes its themes obvious and easily understood, despite the assertions of its fans that the book is unusually complex or esoteric. In fact, as an allegory, A Voyage to Arcturus is facile by definition, a Gnostic analogue of works like John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, complete with symbolic names such as Nightspore, Sullenbode, Tormance, and Maskull.

Another likely reason for the book's reputation is the contemporary lack of familiarity with Gnostic systems of thought. Gnosticism is diverse, but in general, it proposes that this world is inferior or fallen and was created by an evil demiurge who is in dualistic conflict with a greater, truer divinity. If you've already read The Other God by Yuri Stoyanov or similar books on religious dualism, or if you have any kind of grounding in ancient theology or the history of sects like the Manichaeans or Cathars, David Lindsay's ideas in A Voyage to Arcturus will seem kind of trite and predictable.

On a literary level, even advocates of A Voyage to Arcturus admit to its rudimentary quality. In the afterword to the Bison Books edition, Loren Eiseley lists "overdramatic names" and "rude and awkward" prose among the novel's flaws (I would add "one-dimensional characters" and "episodic plotting" to that list). Those whom the book has inspired--Harold Bloom, Colin Wilson, Alan Moore, and C.S. Lewis among them--seem primarily interested in its occult and religious aspects, and therefore their literary judgment in this case is suspect.

I say all of this not to disparage Lindsay's innovation as a novelist, but as a corrective to the sometimes uninformed and unjustifiably enthusiastic praise that A Voyage to Arcturus has received. What is interesting about Lindsay's novel is how he adapts a Gnostic worldview to a science-fiction landscape, e.g. two suns and creation via trapped matter. Unlike other reviewers, I also found the first few chapters to be intriguing and atmospheric--more so even than the rest of the novel.

On the whole, however, A Voyage to Arcturus is a plodding, humorless book. Your time would be better spent reading Elaine Pagels and watching a marathon of original Star Trek episodes.

PS -- Here's Colin Wilson from his introduction to the Centipede Press edition of Medusa by E.H. Visiak, who was a friend of Lindsay's: "Like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Arcturus consists of a series of encounters and adventures. But while Bunyan's characters are allegories of 'worldliness'--Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Giant Despair, and so on--Lindsay's are symbols of philosophical ideas. It sounds boring, yet the sheer power of Lindsay's imagination transforms it into a masterpiece. Again and again his vision leaves us stunned. Having said which, it sounds almost a contradiction to add that Lindsay writes badly, almost amateurishly; but it is regrettably true, and explains why subsequent novels, like Sphinx, The Violet Apple, Devil's Tor and The Witch, are virtually unreadable." Accordingly, if one disagrees with Wilson's judgment of the book as a "masterpiece," and also finds Lindsay's treatment of philosophical ideas rather trite compared with more academic works on subjects like Gnosticism, there's little else in A Voyage to Arcturus that makes it worth reading as literature.