[Reading] "The Great God Pan" - All hints, no happenings

[mokie]

"The Great God Pan," by Arthur Machen
Edition: Manybooks.net's plain text & Librivox's audiobook on mp3

Info
Published in 1890, "The Great God Pan" was reportedly blasted by Victorian critics due to its lurid style and sexual content. Many readers and authors of weird fiction/horror, however, consider it to be one of the best examples of either ever written. The inaccurately named TV Tropes refers to the work as "one of the prototypes of the Cosmic Horror genre"; H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" is based on the story, and it was the inspiration for Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods and Mother of a Thousand Young, whom I still can't think of without a perm, thanks to Bruno the Bandit's Shub Megawrath.

Story
Convinced that this world is merely an illusion, a crackpot doctor of 'transcendental medicine' believes he can snip a few synapses and allow someone to 'see the great god Pan'--the more-real reality underlying all things, lost to modern man but passed down in myth and legend. The experiment is a wash: though his test subject clearly experiences something the doctor cannot sense, she's left mentally incapacitated by the experience.

The doctor's witness, an upstanding member of society who secretly enjoys cataloguing the supernatural, is years later approached by individuals with stories of a pre-teen girl involved with another girl's being (it's suggested) seduced and/or sexually assaulted, a gentleman's ruination after marrying a woman with horrifying (it's suggested) proclivities, and the scandalous suicides of a number of well-to-do gentlemen, all of whom were friendly with a mysterious and charming woman new to the local social scene. Of course, all three turn out to be the same woman, described both as incredibly attractive and inexplicably repulsive. After a (suggested) confrontation, her true form is revealed--or formlessness, as she shifts between gelatinous goo, genders, species, and various combinations thereof before dying. Hearing this, the witness contacts the doctor, who finally reveals that in his arrogance and eagerness to cut a hole into reality and peer in, he hadn't anticipated what might come through from the other side.

Progress
Finished. I finished it a while ago, actually, which maybe tells you how excited I was to write up a review. (I give it two 'mehs'.) I like the idea of the story. I like the components. When I lay out the plot, and chatter about the symbolism and meanings and connections, it's all very fascinating. It was reading the damn thing that was a problem.

Very little happens. Character A tells character B what he heard from character C, with character B waiting till the end to fill in what he heard from character D, and both proclaim that they are just shocked and scandalized. Everything is a step removed. Where there should be creeping dread, there is only the creeping pace. At every point, Helen is passed along like a bad penny, with nobody wanting to take responsibility--not the quack responsible for her creation, nor the upstanding citizen who knew what the quack had done and what Helen must be; I came away thinking of our heroes as an extremely unlikable bunch.

The author's cloak and dagger Victorian subtlety felt like a Monty Python wink-wink-nudge-nudge routine in earnest. I don't need graphic violence and explicit sex, but had I gotten this from a modern novel, I'd jab it right in its metaphorical eye and call it out as laziness:

"But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite that she--"
He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear.
"Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense. I assure you. Indeed, it is better as it is; I am quite certain of that."

So what was happening that they couldn't say outright? The sacrificial lamb offered up for experimentation, Mary, was not a virgin; her supernatural rape and conception, though, was virginal. Symbolism! I also figure Helen was turning into a satyr and sodomizing the young gentlemen of London. (Is it pegging if you can grow your own penis?) Of course, I could be wrong, in which case I misread the story entirely. That kind of thing can happen when the whole damn book is hints and innuendo.

The sad truth is that I enjoyed reading about the novella more than reading the novella itself. For example, "Arthur Machen’s Panic Fears: Western Esotericism and the Irruption of Negative Epistemology" offers historical context, not just on the fin de siècle disenchantment with the Romantic movement (that embraced Pan as a benevolent nature spirit) reflected in the story, but also with contemporary literary connections, including one that suggests 'Vaughn' may be meant to tie Helen explicitly to the Devil. Miss Darcy's Library draws a line between Helen Vaughn and Helen of Troy: "The beauty of both Helens - and, of course, it must also be inferred, their great sexual magnetism - leads to madness, destruction, and death."

After finishing the story, I wondered if maybe I'd gotten an abridged copy, but I wasn't keen on reading Machen's tortured dialogue again. I decided to grab the unabridged audio book from Librivox and give it a shot, even though I generally can't stand audiobooks, podcasts, talk radio and the like. I don't take in audio information well, especially if I'm doing anything else at the same time; I shut down one or the other, usually the audio. (And that's why people who talk to me while I'm working may have things thrown at them.)

I was pleasantly surprised--Machen works much better aloud than he does in print. (Lovecraft, on the other hand, I had to stop taking with me on housesitting gigs, because there's nothing like creeping yourself out in a neighborhood prone to brown-outs. But read a page aloud, and it's the silliest crap ever.) It turns out I hadn't missed anything and it's still not my cuppa, but I gave it a fair shot.

[Reading "The Great God Pan": And I thought I was wordy (12 Nov '12) / All hints, no happenings (25 Jan '13)]