Setting
is one of the foundational stones in any fictional wall, yet there
are times that authors create places so malleable and adaptable as to
be perpetually open to further creation. Epic fantasy worlds have,
of course, spawned innumerable volumes, not to mention a hero or set
of characters have propelled many a series into multiple volumes.
But like arrows shot into an apple tossed into the sky, what we’re
talking specifically about here are places where individual stories
have been told and completed, only for the author to return some time
later and tell a entirely separate tale. Different characters,
different themes, some classic examples include Michael Bishop’s
Catacomb Years, M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books, Ursula
Le Guin’s Earthsea, Ian Macleod’s Aether stories, China
Mieville’s Bas-Lag, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles,
Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris works, Thomas Disch’s 334, and
essentially anything by William Gibson. To this list of quality
fiction we must certainly add Christopher Priest’s The Dream
Archipelago.
A
twenty year gap, the stories in The Dream Archipelago were all
published individually between 1978 and 1980 yet were not collected
(in English) until 1999. (The French, in their infinite wisdom,
collected the stories in 1981.) In honor of the English publication,
Priest wrote a fictional introduction. More scene than story, “The
Equatorial Moment” describes an airman’s experience as he crosses
over a horizon point in the dream archipelago. Priest deploying his
powers of description subtly, it belays the leaving behind of the
real world and sets the stage for further revelatory experiences.
A
horror take on a Hemingway-style story, “Whores” tells of a man
convalescing in a village destroyed by war. Looking for a woman he
formerly knew who had to resort to selling her body to survive the
fighting, he moves among the brothels to find her. What he finds
tears at him, literally and figuratively. In perhaps the most
mainstream story in the collection, “The Cremation” tells of a
young man who has been sent on behalf of an uncle to attend the
funeral of a distant relative on one of the more primitive islands of
the archipelago. The natives having their own traditions,
particularly surrounding the poisonous insect which killed the
relative, the young man finds his adulterous past catching up to him
in ways he’d rather it not.
In
what is likely the most transcendent story in the collection, “The
Negation” tells of a young conscript sent to guard a distant,
mountainous border against the enemy. The freezing, snowy village
where he barracks is not entirely disconnected, however. The ruling
power, in an effort to offset its oppression with effusiveness, has
commissioned a well-known writer to travel to the village and write a
patriotic story. Said author having penned the young man’s
favorite novel, The Affirmation, he is ecstatic to meet her
before she arrives but nervous when actually standing face to face.
The two having a good conversation, the realities of war,
nevertheless, interfere. (In one of the rare moments Priest plays
with intertextuality, The Affirmation is, of course, the next
novel Priest himself would publish.)
The
least successful story in the collection, “The Miraculous Cairn”
tells of a woman being escorted by a constable to a remote religious
seminary to make arrangements for an elderly relative who died there.
The seminary holding bad memories for the woman, the story flashes
back and forth to her youth and time spent with her relative, even as
the sexual tension with her escort escalates. Closing the collection
in intriguing fashion is “The Watched.” About the inventor of a
tiny-tiny camera he calls a ‘scyntylla’, things go smoothly until
production of the small cameras becomes ubiquitous, meaning they are
everywhere and into everything. People hiding them to spy on others,
the man chooses to quit his life and move to a remote island and
there do something more interesting: study the local natives.
Observing them from afar, he takes notes, all the while vacuuming his
home each day to remove the scyntyllas that build up. A strange
occurrence happening one day, it leads to the question: who is
watching who? An oddly prescient story given the growing presence
security cameras and monitoring have in the Western world, it’s
fair to say Priest touches upon the aspect of humanity that dreads
constant observation in literary, abstract manner.
The
one dream archipelago story missing from the collection is the first
published, “Infinite Summer”. But I think the reasons behind its
absence are clear (even the French did not include it in their
edition.) Though set ostensibly in the islands, it’s really more
of a time travel story, and thus doesn’t readily fit alongside the
relative realism of the stories that were collected. I would guess
Priest himself even thinks twice about having used the archipelago in
the story given the lack of consistency with the later stories and
novels.
Body
horror, sexuality, war and conflict, voyeurism, and being confronted
by inner demons I would say are the main themes of The Dream
Archipelago. If there are any shortcomings to the collection,
one would have to be the similarity of tone. Each story bleeds into
the next with little to distinguish them save setting. In fact, for
the majority of “The Miraculous Cairn” I thought the main
characters was male, so similar in tone and approach is that story
following upon the previous featuring a male protagonist. Otherwise,
Priest’s story are polished, focused, and whole. None feel tossed
off, half-hearted, or lacking underlying purpose or direction, not to
mention Priest’s legendary skills with precise diction are on full
display. And the last note I would make is that though there are
relatively few stories in the collection, a few are novellas, giving
the collection a substance and depth that the table of contents may
not indicate.
Published
throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the following are the six short stories
and novellas collected in The Dream Archipelago:
The
Equatorial Moment
The
Negation
Whores
The
Cremation
The
Miraculous Cairn
The
Watched
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