Moon Age Daydream
By Shaun Von Dragen (a.k.a. Pamphage)
As any spintrian could tell you, the grotesque fascinates as it appalls. Horror has its own twisted beauty, and insofar as the grotesque may be perceived, so is it of truth; for if all perception may be said to be true insofar as it has the ability to exist or subsist, so even “horror” is in itself valid – else the universe is “wrong”. It may be. Of course, one might argue that the experience of horror is nevertheless a false perception when considered in the light of either the Buddhist’s “universal sorrow” or the Thelemite’s “existential joy”; but whilst the perception of horror may indicate an ignorance of the benign whole, yet it does have a certain piquant quality which, in the act of escape, may be productive of a species of mental exaltation in the reader. An inoculation, perhaps; or just a kind of spice.
In any case, horror (or more properly its cause, inescapable fascination) seems to produce extraordinary, though often short-lived art. The effective destruction of a star in a supernova does produce a great deal of light, and is not only essential for the existence of intelligent life in the universe, but also enlarges our understanding of that very universe. However, before I’m tempted to extend this to a disquisition on the spiritual nature of binary neutron stars, I wish to be as generous as I can about this book. It deserves to be read.
The foremost quality of this book is that it’s one of those rare works where the seed of its inspiration seems to have contained in itself its own Alpha and Omega – a literary sonata as distinct from a fugue; but more than that, it was conceived fully-formed. Evidently kindled in the afterglow of a magickal operation (in this case apparently an invocation of an “Evil Genius”), I can only suggest that it seems to be a technically accurate description of that operation. Thinking of the parallels in the magickal, and particularly Thelemic literature, there is none which comes to life such as this. Whilst others publish their magickal journals – more or less edited for the sake of their author’s personal embarrassment – here the author has created, with tremendous flare, a work of art. It is probably the first of its type.
This will raise some hackles with many of those who are active on the magickal scene. It’s the “Abramelin Has A Lot To Answer For” syndrome. I would even go so far as to suggest that there is a kind of magickal apartheid in evidence; but I suggest a careful reading of Liber AL v. II:19 and desire to move on, avoiding the temptation to get a bumper-sticker proclaiming my own Righteousness. I do disagree with the author on some fundamentals; but, as a brilliant symbolic account of a particular kind of event, it is an important book.
The narrative takes place in the first person, and the writing is unstuffy and fluid. The imagery is clear and compact, in a way which allows the plot to develop at a nice pace, although the spartan descriptiveness of the prose (and I don’t mean the vocabulary) may not appeal so much to others as it did to me. Despite the fact that the author has conceived a futuristic semi-fantasy world for his characters, complete with some very apt linguistic and technological inventions, there is a strong sense that some of the descriptions, characters and events were penned from direct memory; added to which the emotional content seems so sincere and unforced that I think myself not unreasonable to have counted it as semi-autobiographical, or rather purely autobiographical but cloaked in symbol and allegory.
The overwhelming impression is that there was little conscious interference on the part of the author with his inspiration. Naturally, that requires competency at prose, which in this case there certainly is. However, in parts the author has evidently taken whatever weapons were at hand, and I did notice an unfortunate tendency to use the odd second-hand phrase in the body of the text. I noticed particularly the phrase “as empty as a boy can be” on p. 93, lifted from the same band that was fairly quoted on p. 70, the Cure.
However, aside from a nod and a wink to Jabberwocky and a scene very reminiscent of the elsewhere referenced film The Shining, I remain, as my old English teacher, blissfully ignorant of possibly many other examples of discreet – ahem! – hommage. Apart from the title, that is, and several of the chapter headings; not counting the bits from The Book of the Law. But then I can comfort myself with the feeling that at least I could get to grips with the magickal meaning and terminology which informs his technospeak, although I also get the feeling there’s a lot more in it if one wishes to take the trouble. Examples like “Tantalian Khierzenslide”, “Evolreven Seid”, “splitchka” and “halopreme” give the flavour, but it works on any level, and adds nicely to the atmosphere without grating or jarring.
The semi-fantastical universe also has several nice touches, and is frankly a damn sight more convincing, as a whole, than a lot of the contrivances of writers who do similar things from “the Court of the Profane” such as Philip Pullman (esp. re: the Daimons) and the bankrupt J.K. Rowling1“US Congress members who visited [Guantanamo Bay] said an interrogator read the boy wizard's adventures aloud for hours until the detainee put his hands over his ears.” (Source: BBC); and as far as this book can be termed “sci-fi”, there is none of the coldness which usually drains the life out of such books for me and makes them detestable or just dull. By going effortlessly beyond the banal mechanical models of Artificial Intelligence and melding the magickal, technological and philosophical aspects of it in a simple phrase such as “Sometimes the Princess descends alone”, he is, perhaps unconsciously, redefining our very notion of “strong AI”. And whilst the line between machinery, computers/intelligence and biological organisms has long been blurry in sci-fi, Von Dragen dives right in and finds relationships between sex, energy, matter and geometry. Admittedly it gets a little gory, but it’s never gratuitous.
However, to return to the main strength of this book, which is its conceptual self-sufficiency, in order not to spoil the story I have deliberately avoided any kind of summary, and so I can only say that the plot does not fizzle, nor should it disappoint. The perspective of the plot narrows just as the psycho-impact intensifies, in a way which I found both horrifying and compelling; and whilst some would perhaps reckon this to be at the expense of characterization, I think there’s an adequate balance in what is, as noted, a first-person narrative. If one accepts the premises, the rest follows on at the allegorical level that the author is evidently aiming at. It is perhaps a warning sign that Von Dragen won’t seek to step out from the perspective radix in his future works, but I am heartened to see that his forthcoming Eudaimonia suggests by its symbol that it will do just that.
Whilst it definitely squeezes at least one foot in the pigeonhole of horror (regardless of its subtitle), nevertheless Moon Age Daydream is horror at its best, with the sort of realism that imagination can’t invent; and though you might want to take the proverbial bath afterwards, it’s not excessively optimistic to think that, because such books as this are being written these days, Thelemic writing may well be coming of age. Halopreme!
– Sir Anon.
28th June 2005 a.v.
1 “US Congress members who visited [Guantanamo Bay] said an interrogator read the boy wizard's adventures aloud for hours until the detainee put his hands over his ears.” (Source: BBC)