Post by GRWelsh on Jul 12, 2009 20:15:27 GMT -5
I am reading The Moon Pool by A. Merritt. This edition has "A Forerunner to ABC's LOST" on the cover and an introduction that plays up on that, as well as similarities to other works. I'm about half-way through it, and I don't really see that many similarities to LOST. The Moon Pool is set in the southern Pacific, and at one point some of the characters go to Melbourne, Australia. There is something called the "Shining One" which is a bit like the smoke monster in LOST... but the "Shining One" is made up of swirls of opalescent mists, and makes sounds like silver chimes. It is described as being both heavenly and vile at the same time... A subterranean civilization of humans seem to worship/live in fear of it/hate it.
Since it is in the public domain, I get the impression this edition was published so someone could jump on the LOST bandwagon (the introduction was written by someone who also wrote a book called Unlocking the Meaning of LOST). I suppose I'm just happy to see an A. Merritt book get printed in a new edition in 2008.
I don't want to give too much away. But the main characters are not ship-wrecked or crash-landed on a mysterious island. They do not argue about whether the phenomena they experience is better explained by the supernatural or by science. One character, a comical and enjoyable Irish-American, makes joking references to his belief in banshees and leprechauns, including even recounting a mock conversation with one. But his friend the narrator gathers that The O'Keefe is just as skeptical as anyone else -- for anything supernatural "outside of Ireland" that is. The narrator, by the way, is named Goodwin. That was also the name of one of the "Others" on LOST -- a superfical link, if it is one.
Maybe something in the last third of the book will make me say, "yeah, this really is a lot more like LOST than I thought!"
But so far, it seems like a fairly typical "lost civilization" story from that era. A group of men, from various countries and backgrounds, find an entrance into a subterranean civilization with its own caste system, religion, politics, etc. The subterranean blonde priestess of the lost race, who is both beautiful but has wicked "devil lights dancing in her eyes" becomes infatuated with The O'Keefe, in scenes that could only make me think of alien women falling for Captain Kirk.
There are footnotes occasionally with comments on the culture or scientific speculations which made me think of Jack Vance stories (he often did that, too). I think that might have been part of writing style of the time in the early pulp era... an attempt to give everything a scientific or scholarly air. Lovecraft is said to have been influenced by Merritt, as well. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when seeing the adjective "cyclopean" a couple of times in its pre-Lovecraftian usage.
One of the things that really stands out for me, and makes me think of EGG, is A. Merritt's obvious delight in description and colors. From the description of the Shining One: "It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd, unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and glittering atoms drifted though it as though it drew them from the rays that bathed it" and about it whirled seven glowing lights "like seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish leap beneath the moon." It is these sorts of descriptive pieces, and the imaginative technologies and vistas, that I enjoy the most in this story. But that particular affinity for color in an author reminds me so much of Jack Vance and EGG.
Since it is in the public domain, I get the impression this edition was published so someone could jump on the LOST bandwagon (the introduction was written by someone who also wrote a book called Unlocking the Meaning of LOST). I suppose I'm just happy to see an A. Merritt book get printed in a new edition in 2008.
I don't want to give too much away. But the main characters are not ship-wrecked or crash-landed on a mysterious island. They do not argue about whether the phenomena they experience is better explained by the supernatural or by science. One character, a comical and enjoyable Irish-American, makes joking references to his belief in banshees and leprechauns, including even recounting a mock conversation with one. But his friend the narrator gathers that The O'Keefe is just as skeptical as anyone else -- for anything supernatural "outside of Ireland" that is. The narrator, by the way, is named Goodwin. That was also the name of one of the "Others" on LOST -- a superfical link, if it is one.
Maybe something in the last third of the book will make me say, "yeah, this really is a lot more like LOST than I thought!"
But so far, it seems like a fairly typical "lost civilization" story from that era. A group of men, from various countries and backgrounds, find an entrance into a subterranean civilization with its own caste system, religion, politics, etc. The subterranean blonde priestess of the lost race, who is both beautiful but has wicked "devil lights dancing in her eyes" becomes infatuated with The O'Keefe, in scenes that could only make me think of alien women falling for Captain Kirk.
There are footnotes occasionally with comments on the culture or scientific speculations which made me think of Jack Vance stories (he often did that, too). I think that might have been part of writing style of the time in the early pulp era... an attempt to give everything a scientific or scholarly air. Lovecraft is said to have been influenced by Merritt, as well. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when seeing the adjective "cyclopean" a couple of times in its pre-Lovecraftian usage.
One of the things that really stands out for me, and makes me think of EGG, is A. Merritt's obvious delight in description and colors. From the description of the Shining One: "It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd, unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and glittering atoms drifted though it as though it drew them from the rays that bathed it" and about it whirled seven glowing lights "like seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish leap beneath the moon." It is these sorts of descriptive pieces, and the imaginative technologies and vistas, that I enjoy the most in this story. But that particular affinity for color in an author reminds me so much of Jack Vance and EGG.