The uncanny timing of an unwelcome letter

I have mentioned in the past a particular form of unconscious sabotage, one that involves timing. Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey for example is an expert at taking actions that might have been deliberately arranged to deplete or even wipe out his victim’s inner resources and reserves shortly before she needs to draw heavily on them. How could he have possibly known what was going to happen?

I have on several occasions been on the receiving end of such actions myself. The introductory article gives examples of letters that ‘by chance’ arrived at the worst possible time:

“Family letters were infrequent, so the timing of these two was very significant. It is amazing how these unconscious saboteurs can ensure that their victims are hit where and when it hurts most.”

Another such letter arrived out of the blue recently, just before I received some very depressing news. This time however I was not badly affected, just slightly annoyed. If this was yet another attempted attack, it fell very flat!

The unwelcome and unnecessary letter
A letter arrived in the post from a family member I have minimal contact with, offering to send someone round with anything I might need. This was completely unnecessary; I replied immediately that I had not got the coronavirus, had plenty of supplies, could easily get more and had people I could call on for assistance if required.

An hour or two later, I got an email from a friend telling me that her father had died. I knew that he had been ill, but thought that he was recovering. He was an exceptionally nice and kind man; this was not a devastating, heart-breaking bereavement, but I felt very sad indeed to think that I would never see him again.

What a coincidence that the only communication apart from Christmas cards that I have received from this person for many years should arrive just before I had some very bad news, and, conversely, that the only very upsetting news of this kind I have received for many years should have been preceded by this unexpected and unwelcome letter.

Something about Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borribles

Just like Alan Garner’s Owl Service, Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borrible books are for me once read, never forgotten.

The Borrible books are urban fantasy; the Borrible people whose adventures they recount are something of a wainscot society.

The three Borrible books, which were later published in one volume, are:

The Borribles (1976)
The Borribles Go for Broke (1981)
Across the Dark Metropolis (1986).

There are no metaphysical elements in these books and they don’t contain much material that is relevant to this blog, but they do inspire some commentary.

The Borrible books are intended for older children but have a much wider appeal. Although I discovered them only as an adult, I found them fascinating; they left an immediate and permanent impression on the first reading. A big attraction for me is that they are set in London; they mention many places and features that I know well.

The Borrible books are a very good read, but they should have a warning for the faint-hearted and squeamish! They contain some vile, cruel, dangerous and sinister characters, there is much violence and killing, and some of the action takes place in very filthy and squalid surroundings such as sewers and junkyards.

In addition to that, they are sometimes seen as subversive. Across the Dark Metropolis, the third book in the series, was originally scheduled to be released in 1985, but the publishers pulled out at the last moment because of the riots in London. They felt that its strong anti-police message and glamourising of lawlessness made it unsuitable for publication in the climate of the time. By coincidence, some of the riots took place in areas of London that are mentioned in the book, Brixton for example.

What are Borribles?
Borribles are feral runaway children who never grow into adults - so long as they remain at liberty and their pointed ears remain unclipped. Some of them are around one hundred years old, but they still look like children.

Artemis Fowl and the demon cult leader: Part II

The other demon of interest in Eoin Colfer's Lost Colony is called Leon Abbot. He is one of the worst of the demons and the secret enemy of our cute little friend Number One. He is the cult leader type; many of the things he says and does are familiar from personal experience.

Leon Abbott the cult leader
Leon Abbot is the demon pride leader; he makes all the big decisions and has ways of bringing Council members round to his way of thinking.

He is the demons' self-proclaimed saviour and their hero. 

Leon Abbot is a liar and a manipulator. The truth means nothing to him.

Number One sees through him, but the other imps lap up his self-glorifying legends. Number One sees him as a loudmouth braggart, but the other imps and demons worship him, giving him the attention, adulation and total trust and obedience that he demands. 

He may have scales, horns and a tail, but Leon Abbot is  a classic, textbook case. Many of the things he says and does can be found in the list in the cult overview: for example, he has a superiority complex, sometimes behaves like an attack dog and presents himself as the sole supplier.

He is just the type to lead his followers to disaster.

The Demonic Bible
Leon Abbot brought a book back from the old world, a book that would save them all according to Abbot.

The book is called Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow. The demons treat it as their bible and use it not only as the source of all their knowledge about humans but also as a source of names:

“They didn't have real names, not until after they warped. Then they would be given a name from the sacred text.”

This explains the unusual names that demons have, names such as Leon Abbot for example. However, surely the book doesn’t contain nearly enough names to go round!

Artemis Fowl and the demon cult leader: Part I

I read the first three of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl fantasy novels when they were first published. I remembered them recently when compiling a list of light and amusing reading that would help to counteract the effects of negative and disturbing material.

I needed a break from reading about the writer Jean Rhys, which is even more depressing than reading about Stella Benson and Antonia White! I decided to renew my acquaintance with Artemis the young Irish prodigy and his fairy friends.

I found that there are now eight Artemis Fowl books. I am reading my way through them all. I didn’t expect to find anything that would inspire any articles, and I was right - until I reached Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony (2006), the fifth book in the series.

The Lost Colony contains some material that immediately reminded me of what I have read and written about cult leaders and people who feel different on the inside from everyone around them.

The Artemis Fowl books contain many supernatural entities, including elves, dwarves, trolls and goblins; The Lost Colony features demons.  One of them reminds me of certain writers who felt different right from the start and went on to develop a special gift, and another one behaves exactly like a cult leader. 

Something about Eoin Colfer’s demons
Eoin Colfer’s demons begin life as imps. They go through a process called ‘warping’, which turns them into demons. It sounds similar to the way in which a caterpillar builds a cocoon then emerges as a butterfly.

A very few imps never warp into maturity. While ordinary full-grown demons have no magic of their own, these special imps become warlocks who can perform magic.

Most of the demons are collective-minded, bloodthirsty and aggressive with few redeeming characteristics, but there is one exception.

This special, different demon is called Number One.

John Buchan, L. M. Montgomery and some snakes

I neither love and revere snakes nor hate and fear them. I once horrified a friend by trying to stroke a big snake in a small zoo. I couldn’t understand why she reacted the way she did! 

Snakes certainly bring out strong emotions in people, and in fiction they represent evil more often than good.

The discovery that both Stella Benson and Antonia White were lovers of snakes made me wonder whether any more writers of interest shared their views. Did anyone other than Stella Benson believe that they had the soul of a snake?

I looked for obvious personal opinions as opposed to standard Biblical references where they are classic symbols of evil.

I couldn’t find any more positive references to snakes by the people featured on here apart from Gerald Durrell, who doesn’t really count because he was a conservationist and zookeeper who loved all wildlife.

I found that neither John Buchan nor L. M. Montgomery had a good word to say about snakes. Buchan used them to describe some of his villains and L. M. Montgomery obviously loathed and feared them.

A few snake references from John Buchan
This is from The Thirty-Nine Steps:

“...the real boss... with an eye like a rattlesnake.”

“Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal of all. There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever. They fascinated me like the bright eyes of a snake. “

This is from The Power House:

“It was with profound relief that I found myself in Piccadilly in the wholesome company of my kind. I had carried myself boldly enough in the last hour, but I would not have gone through it again for a king's ransom. Do you know what it is to deal with a pure intelligence, a brain stripped of every shred of humanity? It is like being in the company of a snake.”

This is from Mr Standfast:

“Blenkiron got out of his chair and stood above me. 'I tell you, Dick, that man makes my spine cold. He hasn’t a drop of good red blood in him. The dirtiest apache is a Christian gentleman compared to Moxon Ivery. He’s as cruel as a snake and as deep as hell.'”

Context and the total picture: Part II

Part I introduces the idea that putting painful experiences into the context of the lives of well-known people can have both positive and negative effects. 

Some people are the worse for learning that they are not alone, some take comfort in the idea and try to make the best of things and a few of them take another big step forward: they start noticing patterns, joining dots and making connections. 

It seems strange to me that some of the writers featured on here appear never to have reached even the first stage. Their writings are full of insights about themselves and their lives but they looked at it all in isolation. 

No context for their lives
I first mentioned this important point in an article about the poet Kathleen Raine: I said that while she made a good, honest evaluation of herself and her life, she did not compare it with the personalities and lives of other creative writers. She actually had many ideas, insights, feelings and experiences in common with some of them, but she never, at least publicly, did much to put her life into the context of the lives of other, similar, people. 

For example, she admitted that her thoughts about and feelings for Gavin Maxwell placed a heavy and intrusive psychic burden on him and that he eventually turned against her because of this. He may not have been the only person she had a bad effect on: he called her a destroyer.

Would it have made things better or worse if she had known about the terrible effect that J. M. Barrie had on the Llewelyn Davies boys and their parents or Benjamin Disraeli had on various people?

Antonia White and a few more familiar elements

This article contains a few more examples of elements that Antonia White had in common with other people featured on here. 

Telepathic connections
Antonia White is said to have established a telepathic connection or psychic rapport with a few people during her lifetime.

This is from her daughter Lyndall Hopkinson’s book Nothing to Forgive:

”...a strange telepathy...had again and again compelled me to leave for England just when Antonia most needed someone, although she had never appealed for help.”

Another link was with a young solder called Robert Legg. As Jane Dunn tells us in her biography Antonia White: A Life, they played a game in which they would not communicate verbally. Antonia White describes this phenomenon in her autobiographical novel Beyond the Glass:

“She had become so expert at ‘the game’ that he had only to will her and she went instinctively to the right place at the right time.”

This reminds me of what Joyce Collin-Smith said about the Maharishi Yogi:

“He seemed to have definite hypnotic power. Most of us could be summoned at a distance and would come at the inner command...”

Antonia White too had a telepathic link with an Indian guru, a mystic called Meher Baba. She too believed that he was sending her hypnotic commands.

Feeling different and copying others
Feeling that they are not real people, feeling different on the inside from everyone around them and imitating others for various reasons are common elements in the lives of Antonia White and Stella Benson - and many other creative people.