The Dream Archipelago Week 9: The Cremation conclusion

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SUMMARY

  • Graian Sheeld has just had a discussion with Alanya Mercier at the cliff house and he decided to head back on his own.
  • He finds a path - not the one he had arrived by, but seemingly going in the right direction. However, after a time he finds the way blocked by exposed tree roots and disturbed soil - signs of thrymes. so he heads back.
  • When he returns to the house, Alanya is locking up. She accuses him of wanting to have sex and then blackmail her for the family money.
  • She claims that every person leaves a trace, and that the Merciers are proficient at following these traces.
  • Sheeld denies this version of events, and (on the surface at least) they seem to reconcile their differences. She agrees to lead him back to the house.
  • On the way back, however, she keeps insisting she has been wronged and spurned by him.
  • At one point, she claims to see a thryme by his feet. He feels panic, but it turns out to be a fruit, not a thryme.
  • Alanya tries to get him to eat the fruit with her, saying it's a method of expressing reconciliation in local custom. He refuses.
  • Back at the house, a servant tells them that Fertin Mericer wants to see them. Alanya tells the servant 'not now'.
  • Sheeld tries to leave, but again the fruit is pushed upon him. He takes it in his hand but refuses to eat.
  • He tries to leave again, but the servants block him. He is told to wait in the garden.
  • While he is waiting, he gets thirsty and decides to eat the fruit to quench his thirst.
  • Just then the family enters, led by Fertin Mercier - Alanya's husband.
  • Fertin accuses Sheeld of indiscretion with his wife, and when this is refuted, with insult at the rejection. Fertin tells him the only way out for hi is to eat the fruit.
  • Sheeld says he already did. The family gasp, and then it's revealed that the black pips in the fruit are juvenile thrymes. Sheeld is already dead and is told he will be cremated. As he dies, Sheeld witnesses the spiral of planes caught in the vortex above.

DISCUSSION

  • There seems to be plenty of foreshadowing in this story. Did it hold any surprise for you? Did he bite it just when you had thought he escaped?
  • What role does the Trace play in this story?
  • Is this a version of The Garden of Eden turned on it's head?
  • What's the significance of the last sentence, in which Sheeld sees the planes converging in the vortex?

Comments

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    To be honest this all seemed a bit motiveless. I came away not in any way understanding why the various people did what they did. I had assumed at one stage that the thyrmes were a kind of stand-in for sex (seeing as how they enter the body and populate it with offspring) but that didn't seem carried through either.

    I suppose within the constraints of this story I never got to care enough or be involved enough with any of the characters to feel anything for them. So I wasn't bothered when Graian died, nor particularly surprised... but on the other hand I still don't know why the family (seemingly) wanted him either discredited or dead. It sort of feels like a vendetta without original cause.

    Likewise, I couldn't really see what connection the vortex had to the plot or the characters, though it was a nice visual touch to add at the end. Is Trellin equatorial? I thought the vortex was only over one region of the world, but maybe I was wrong, or maybe I was right and Trellin fits the location.

    Garden of Eden? I don't really see that here. Neither party has any kind of innocence, even by their own standards. I'm not sure any of the key motifs of that story really enter here? Did you have something particular in mind?

    It did occur to me that (and this is probably a good thing, not a flaw) the stories have moved a long way from the horror-of-war ones that we were reading at the start of this book. The basic global setting is much more like that of Islanders, with a kind of steady-state background conflict which doesn't really touch the islands, rather than an active conflict which threatens to draw them in.

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    This reads like a folk horror story, in the vein of The Wicker Man and similar stories. There's also a strong line of the "Brits discovering Greek islands" feel from the 1970s setting. Person goes to unknown island, lots of things happen without seeming reason, he gets into danger and is killed by the natives and his ignorance. On that level, it's a successfully atmospheric horror tale. It doesn't make a great deal of logical sense, but I don't think Priest was too worried about that.

    There's an implication that Graian's past philandering is why he was chosen to die. It's what he's escaping, and Alanya says that the family know a lot about him. That's connected to him being trapped by the offer of sex.

    The whole thing seems like an elaborate way to kill a sinner without actually killing him directly. He didn't have to eat the purthryme's core. I wonder what would have happened if Graian had resisted temptation,and eaten the fruit only when invited by Alanya or Fertin? Would he have survived?

    I think we're supposed to deduce that the original funeral was for a thryme victim.

    Garden of Eden? I don't think its a story of lost innocence: no-one in the story is innocent. I think it's a story playing on our fears of the exotic and outsiders, and their mysterious, dangerous ways.

    Contrails? I think it's adding to the poignancy of Graian's death, distant form but within sight of, what's familiar and home.

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    @NeilNjae said:
    This reads like a folk horror story, in the vein of The Wicker Man and similar stories. There's also a strong line of the "Brits discovering Greek islands" feel from the 1970s setting. Person goes to unknown island, lots of things happen without seeming reason, he gets into danger and is killed by the natives and his ignorance. On that level, it's a successfully atmospheric horror tale. It doesn't make a great deal of logical sense, but I don't think Priest was too worried about that.

    When I read this I thought of Simon Fowles's The Magus, though as I recall the protagonist survives that book.

    There's an implication that Graian's past philandering is why he was chosen to die. It's what he's escaping, and Alanya says that the family know a lot about him. That's connected to him being trapped by the offer of sex.

    Maybe that's what's behind the other guests saying "GraianSheeld" in patois which he assumes is another word that happens to sound the same - in fact they're reminding each other what "everybody knows" about him?

    I think we're supposed to deduce that the original funeral was for a thryme victim.

    Yes, I agree, though I suppose we are now meant to wonder what will happen at Graian Sheeld's own cremation... will another ignorant stranger be lured in and killed off to repeat the cycle endlessly? Nobody wins except the thrymes...

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    @RichardAbbott said:
    To be honest this all seemed a bit motiveless. I came away not in any way understanding why the various people did what they did. I had assumed at one stage that the thyrmes were a kind of stand-in for sex (seeing as how they enter the body and populate it with offspring) but that didn't seem carried through either.

    I suppose within the constraints of this story I never got to care enough or be involved enough with any of the characters to feel anything for them. So I wasn't bothered when Graian died, nor particularly surprised... but on the other hand I still don't know why the family (seemingly) wanted him either discredited or dead. It sort of feels like a vendetta without original cause.

    Likewise, I couldn't really see what connection the vortex had to the plot or the characters, though it was a nice visual touch to add at the end. Is Trellin equatorial? I thought the vortex was only over one region of the world, but maybe I was wrong, or maybe I was right and Trellin fits the location.

    Garden of Eden? I don't really see that here. Neither party has any kind of innocence, even by their own standards. I'm not sure any of the key motifs of that story really enter here? Did you have something particular in mind?

    It did occur to me that (and this is probably a good thing, not a flaw) the stories have moved a long way from the horror-of-war ones that we were reading at the start of this book. The basic global setting is much more like that of Islanders, with a kind of steady-state background conflict which doesn't really touch the islands, rather than an active conflict which threatens to draw them in.

    My feelings were very similar to Richard here. There was no horror, just a puzzled 'why?'. The story feels heavy and inevitable, in the sense that every move Graian attempted to avoid things was just flat out denied him. Don't even give him water so he's forced to eat the ball o' thrymes? Why? It just seemed pointless.

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    I agree it all felt… constructed. Not an organic unfolding of events, but a manufactured tale. I suppose that means I didn’t ‘find it convincing’ but on the other hand, I’m not sure Priest was trying to convince me of anything.

    The idea of a garden of eden scenario turned on its head was brought to me by the fruit. Here we have a man who enters the garden (didn’t originate here) and is tempted by a woman to eat a fruit. The fruit isn’t forbidden, but it is forbidding. Eating the fruit leads to his expulsion from the garden - not by exile, but by death.

    It probably doesn’t hold up, though.

    Another thought is that Graian Sheeld has something to do with the myth of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which tale the wife of the green knight tries to seduce Sir Gawain. The similarity ends here, though, and The Green Knight is the tester, rather than the testee, so perhaps this is nothing more that inspiration.
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    @Apocryphal said:
    Another thought is that Graian Sheeld has something to do with the myth of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which tale the wife of the green knight tries to seduce Sir Gawain. The similarity ends here, though, and The Green Knight is the tester, rather than the testee, so perhaps this is nothing more that inspiration.

    I like that! There could be mileage here...

    BTW I realised on rereading what I last wrote that I called the author of The Magus Simon Fowles, when he was (of course) John Fowles. An especially odd slip when John Fowles added a testimonial quote to the front cover of Dream Archipelago! I did a quick Google search for links between the two and it is clear that CP has a lot of time for JF's writing, perhaps to the point of being a key influence. In particular he describes his first read of The Magus, with no idea what was in store for him, as "a memorable experience" (for non-Brits, this laconic understatement means he found it utterly moving). The interview in which he said that can be found at https://amazingstories.com/2013/06/priest1/

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    Yes, I also thought about the similarity with The Magus.
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    @Apocryphal said:
    I agree it all felt… constructed. Not an organic unfolding of events, but a manufactured tale. I suppose that means I didn’t ‘find it convincing’ but on the other hand, I’m not sure Priest was trying to convince me of anything.

    On the other hand, this is the only story I can remember from my first reading of this anthology many years ago. It may be constructed, but I found it successful.

    @Apocryphal said:
    The idea of a garden of eden scenario turned on its head was brought to me by the fruit. Here we have a man who enters the garden (didn’t originate here) and is tempted by a woman to eat a fruit. The fruit isn’t forbidden, but it is forbidding. Eating the fruit leads to his expulsion from the garden - not by exile, but by death.

    It probably doesn’t hold up, though.

    I see what you mean about the parallels. Yes, they're there but I also think it doesn't hold up.

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