Lud-In-The-Mist

Hope Mirrlees has been called the ‘forgotten female modernist’; she and her partner Jane Harrison had close links to writers such as T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf - who famously referred to them as ‘living in a Sapphic flat somewhere’ and commented on the size of Mirrlees’s ankles in her diary. Mirrlees’s epic modernist poem ‘Paris’ was originally published by the Hogarth Press, it was widely praised, and said to have influenced Virginia Woolf’s own ‘Jacob’s Room’. Mirrlees also wrote three novels. Yet, unlike Woolf and Eliot, Mirrlees’s work was out of print for many years until her 1926 book ‘Lud-in-The-Mist’ was revived in the 70s, claimed as a founding text in the development of the fantasy genre. It’s also frequently promoted by author Neil Gaiman whose own ‘Stardust’ pays homage to Mirrlees’s work; and now it’s been reissued yet again as a commercial paperback.Mirrlees draws on her knowledge of classical mythology, folklore and superstition to construct a complex fantasy world centred on the country of Dorimare. Dorimare has a traumatic history, once a land of magic ruled over by the despotic Duke Aubrey it’s now a republic firmly rooted in the material and the mundane, exemplified by its capital the prosperous commercial town Lud-in-the-Mist. Yet the memory of a past ‘dim and evil, a heap of rotting leaves’ although repressed refuses to entirely disappear, the geography of Dorimare won’t allow that: to the south is the sea, north and east are mountains, in the middle regions a lush plain but in the west past the Debatable Hills lies Fairyland, unvisited for centuries. The west, in myth and folklore, is often associated with the setting sun and the ‘land of the dead’ so perhaps it’s unsurprising that no traveller has ever returned from Fairyland to tell their tale. The only trace of Fairyland in Dorimare is the illicit trade in fairy fruit which - as in Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’ or the myth of Persephone- has sinister connotations and even more sinister effects for anyone who eats it. The citizens of Dorimare are so anxious to avoid contamination by fairy fruit that anyone who’s suspected of consuming it will be shunned.The central character of Mirrlees’s story is Master Nathaniel Chanticleer the newly-elected mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist. Chanticleer’s from a prominent family, like his fellow Ludites he appears to take pride in a ‘lack of imagination’ and ‘inability to feel serious emotion’, yet he has a secret fear. As a child he came across an ancient relic from Dorimare’s past, a lute which gave out a note ‘so plangent, blood-freezing and alluring’ that it continues to haunt him – the ‘allure’ suggests a link to the siren song referenced in the novel’s epigraph. The ‘note’ sets him apart and his name – the rooster in fairy tales and fables – suggests he will be instrumental in some kind of ‘awakening’. The story takes off after Chanticleer’s son may have eaten fairy fruit, this is followed by a series of mysterious events: at Crabapple’s Academy for Young Ladies the soles of its pupils’ slippers are worn down by their obsessive, near-ritualistic dancing, like the legendary Maenads they may have conjured up ancient spirits or ghosts; the town is rife with suspicions of hidden identities, murder, and the sense that facts are ‘losing their solidity’, it seems that finally Fairyland must be confronted.I found this novel fascinating for its construction of other worlds and its invocation of myth and legend. It’s beautifully written, lucid and packed with lush imagery particularly that of the natural world. Mirrlees also introduces familiar tropes that were interesting to track and identify: Chanticleer the unlikely hero forced to undertake a quest for knowledge, although the quest is more an internal one which forces him to question his beliefs; the idea of the world beyond borders which harbours the unknown, a source of pollution, that is simultaneously denied and desired. It was easy to see why the novel’s been subjected to a range of academic considerations of fantasy literature; its themes of mortality, desire and transgression allow for a multiplicity of interpretations, Freudian and beyond. However, as a general reader I found this a challenging read, not in terms of the writing but the structure, for me far too much space is given to exposition at the expense of plot; it wasn't until late in the story that I had any real sense of what the novel’s concerns might be. Although that uncertainty was also pleasurable, the novel was clearly written in relation to the complex, mysterious fairy tales that preceded it –George MacDonald’s for instance – rather than the fantasy novels that came after, which meant that the narrative didn’t progress in accordance with genre conventions I could easily identify. Overall, I think this book is worth reading but only if the reader is prepared to match their pace with its own leisurely steps, otherwise I think it could be a frustrating encounter.

I don't think I'm well-read enough to review this book -- as is the case with many British writers of that period, Mirrlees is far better classically educated than I am, and I'm sure I missed quite a few of her references. However, I now firmly agree with Neil Gaiman that this is "the single most beautiful, solid, unearthly, and unjustifiably forgotten novel of the twentieth century" so I felt I should attempt to review it here in the hopes that I get a few more people to seek it out.This is most distinctly not the sort of fantasy novel that would be able to get published today. Tolkien's Shire feels strongly influenced by Mirrlees' Lud, but it's not the Shire that so many fantasy writers and publishers have taken as their model, it's all that pesky questing and evil-battling. There are no epic quests in this novel, and there is definitely nothing as comforting as a black-and-white delineation of good and bad.Instead, Lud-in-the-Mist is somehow at the confluence of high fantasy rooted strongly rooted in folktale and a political thriller. It is written in a surprisingly straightforward, earthy style that nonetheless has plenty of room for some of the most beguiling and delightful descriptive passages I've ever read. It uses broad comedy side by side with the melancholy and the bittersweet. It can be read as a parable of class struggle, or as an endorsement of mind-altering drugs (keep in mind that it was published in 1926, so I highly doubt that this was what Mirrlees intended). It is most certainly about balancing the mundane and the miraculous (paraphrasing Gaiman's introduction), which perhaps explains how it came to be all these things at once.There are quite a few elements that turned people off (judging from the reviews I've seen online) but every single one of them worked for me: yes, the first third or so was highly episodic; yes, Nathaniel Chanticleer seems a bit of a bumbling fool at first, and isn't exactly likable; yes, it is very British, and quite old, so everyone reads white (though the women come off quite a bit better than in most of the fantasy written by men at the time) and as I mentioned above there are plenty of classical references. If your reading diet is entirely post-Tolkien fantasy, this novel will come as a bit of a shock to the senses. But if you actually enjoyed some of those classics they forced on you in school (things like  Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics) , for instance, whether you read the satire or not) and want some fantasy with both a brain and a heart, this is absolutely the book for you. Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics)

Really enjoyed this book. Had been meaning to read it for ages. Despite the age of the book it’s fantastic to read, the story flows well and I especially loved the character descriptions and the images of the country the author describes. Read it in a couple of days and will absolutely keep close to hand to read again. Beautiful story.

Disappointing. DNF.

I discovered this old and rare jewel recently and reading it was a quite unique experience. The beauty of this book is not so much in the action, but in the general atmosphere and in the masterly use of English language. After ending it I thirsted for more - but it was in vain, as Hope Mirrlees didn't write any more fantasy books.Written in 1926 this book was for a longtime out of print and forgotten before being rediscovered in the 90s, to the greatest happiness of fantasy lovers. This element only adds to the aura of mystery surrounding Lud-in-the-mist, the imaginary town in an alternative world where most of the action takes place. I swallowed this book fast the first time and then I read it a second time, in a deliberately slower way, to enjoy it even more. I warmly recommend it to anybody who likes fantasy but also to a wider public, willing to discover an old, half forgotten treasure.I must however add one - very limited - ounce of criticism. I didn't like the last three chapters (XXX to XXXII). I do not want to take off one star for that, but in my modest opinion this book would be perfect, if it have stopped at the last line of chapter XXIX. So if I can offer an advice, the first time you read this book, stop at that moment, then give yourself a couple of days to savour this experience, and only then read the last three chapters. If you like them, fine. And if you do not, well, you will have always the memory of your first impression...This is an excellent book, a rare jewel - to buy, read, keep and pass to your children.