THE DEEP ONES: "Augusta Prima" by Karin Tidbeck

"Augusta Prima" by Karin Tidbeck

Discusssion begins September 30.

First published in Mitrania #3, 2009



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/augusta-prima/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1556204

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Weird Tales Spring 2011
The Time Traveler's Almanac

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Tidbeck
http://www.raintaxi.com/karin-tidbeck/
http://www.karintidbeck.com/
https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/karin-tidbeck-interviewed-by-charles-ta...
http://tinyurl.com/ngmszux

I'll re-read this one out of Jagannath.

I had to keep nominating this one a number of times before it finally got voted in - here's hoping y'all will like it. :)

I've been meaning to pick it up, so I'll think I'll be buying Jagannath and reading it from there.

I'll be reading this in The Time Traveler's Almanac (and yes, I read that Ligotti story that we discussed last week - just haven't had a chance to comment on it yet).

I didn't know anything about this story in advance, so I was delighted to find that it was a subgenre we haven't much touched yet, the Fairy Weird! This one, like Sword & Planet, is a particular interest of mine, with favorites being The King of Elfland's Daughter (Dunsany), Little, Big (John Crowley), and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke). These stories are always at hazard of becoming lessons about the nature of magic and the uses of fantasy, as "Augusta Prima" certainly is.

There wasn't an enormous amount of intertextual allusion here; the croquet game from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was probably the most overt instance. It seems that the repeated phrase "writing desk" is also an allusion to Alice (why is raven like one?). And I really liked the competing/complementary cosmological schemes produced at the writing desk.

Giving the Fairy Queen the name Mnemosyne put me immediately in mind of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, but also suggested some questions. What is the function of "Memory" in an unmappable world ignorant of time? Why does she govern there?

"For various reasons, only two of them could carry a conversation, should one be so inclined." And then we find out one of those reasons when Augusta has one of the two linguectomized. Nice irony.

>5 paradoxosalpha:

"Fairy Weird" - I think you've named a new subgenre! Funny you should mention The King of Elfland's Daughter - I've been trying to gauge when to read that to my daughter, who is 5.

This story had me at "The ball at Augusta’s feet stared up at her with eyes of bright blue porcelain." The casual cruelty and decadence kept reminding me of Melniboné, while the perfectly achieved finish (poor Augusta!) is more in line with a good Dunsany or Clark Ashton Smith tale.

>6 semdetenebre:

I too was reminded of Clark Ashton Smith, but thanks for noting Melniboné! It is surely where the Fairy Weird undergoes a final conversion into Sword & Sorcery. The "casual cruelty" is a fairy thing that is part of the folkloric legacy exploited by this form, but it's been notable lately in books like Strange & Norrell. Even in kid lit, the fairies of Catherynne Valente have a cruel streak.

Arthur Machen's "little people" are Fairy Weird too!

I also knew nothing of the story, and was bowled over. Just read it this morning, so not enough time to reflect upon it all.

I'm reading Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees concurrently, and while I wasn't aware of the Fairy Weird subgenre I think I'd like it very much. Not sure Lud-in-the-Mist quite qualifies, both because the subgenre is new to me and because I've not finished it yet. But of the titles noted in >5 paradoxosalpha:, the Clarke I've read and think should re-read, and both the Dunsany and Crowley are on my wishlist.

>5 paradoxosalpha: What is the function of "Memory" in an unmappable world ignorant of time? Why does she govern there?

I wonder if it's perhaps precisely because memory is so scattered in the land of fairy, ruled as it is by the heart and not by reason, that anyone with memory and reasoning will rule. Augusta Prima seems to be mounting a sort of revolt or coup, though she is not fully aware of it herself. The entire plot brought to mind William Blake's image of the calipers and Newton's Sleep ....

I loved the names used throughout. And the acts of sadism at the opening were hard to read for me, though it settled down a bit as humour later on. That said, it was effective in showing the different world we were visiting, the way the changelings were treated, and went hand-in-glove with the rest of the hedonism. (How about those Aunts?!)

>8 elenchus:

The nomenclature is really interesting here. >5 paradoxosalpha: already caught Mnemosyne; here are some other examples:

Augusta = majestic, grand

Prima = first, leading (also "cousin" or "bonus" in Spanish)

Walpurgis = (broadly) witch

Vergilia = Latin for Pleiades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(Greek_mythology))

Hermine = presumably derived from Hermione (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermione_(mythology))

Azalea = a flowering shrub (which is amusing when you notice that Azalea is first seen "strip{ping} naked next to a shrubbery")

And that's just the first page!

***

I have The King of Elfland's Daughter (complete with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley) in a 1980s-era anthology I recently purchased called A Treasury of Fantasy. Need to get to that one soon.

On the merits of the Fairy Weird subgenre, wondering if anyone here is familiar with Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy. I've not read it, but interested to, and especially interested in her proposed typology of four basic approaches to writing fantasy fiction. I speculate that Fairy Weird would lean heavily toward two types, what she calls intrusive fantasy (an Other intruding into the normal world) and liminal fantasy (in which it's not clear which is which). In any case, those are good brief descriptions of what I like about both Weird Fiction and fantasy generally.

>9 artturnerjr:

When I saw the name Hermine, I was immediately reminded of my recent reading of Hesse's Steppenwolf, where Hermine is pointedly the feminine form of Herman, and in a book where Hermann is the name of the novelist himself! Similarly, Vergilia is a feminized form of Vergil, and no one seems quite sure about an etymology for Vergil, beyond the reference to the famous poet Publius Vergilius Maro. So these "twin lovers" suggested to me writing or authorship somehow. Perhaps the idea is of the incestuous relationship between author and character?

>10 elenchus:

I haven't read the book, but based on the thumbnails of her typology, I don't think I could consign the whole of Fairy Weird to any one of the four, although the "immersive" type seems the least common. Still, I think you can see it in some Dunsany short stories. Gaiman's Stardust is mostly the "quest" type I think, and it is very direct progeny of The King of Elfland's Daughter.

I have a certain preference for the "intrusive" style of fantasy myself. For me, the paragon of that (though not particularly Fairy and only remotely Weird) is The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper.

I've been considering the Dark is Rising series as a possible read-aloud with my daughter, and your mention only raised my interest. I only heard of it as an adult, and haven't read it myself.

>13 elenchus:

It's an old favorite of mine that I re-read for my own pleasure and enjoyed as an adult. I tried reading it to my daughter, and she wasn't sold, though.

This is definitely a case where this group broadened my appreciation, if not enjoyment, of this story. So, thanks everyone.

>9 artturnerjr: I noticed some of the significance of these names but certainly didn't catch everything.

>5 paradoxosalpha: and >8 elenchus: given my knowledge of fairy lore is scant and all comes from old folk songs I certainly didn't have any reference points as to where to place this story in the context of fantasy literature as a whole.

Still, kind of ho-hum for me in affect though I liked the idea of the day being divided between the mind and heart. (Shades of Zelazny's Jack of Shadows with a world half science/reason, half fantasy/dream.)

>2 AndreasJ:

Can you confirm / deny that another story in Jagannath is set in the same world? It appears from other reviews here that the story "Aunts" deals with the characters of the same name, which I noted in >8 elenchus:.

Think I'll want to read that story, if so. I'd very much like to re-visit the world Tidbeck creates.

I was immediately reminded of the work of Michael Moorcock as well, but it was specifically The Dancers at the End of Time sequence, rather than Melniboné.

I'm afraid this one didn't quite do it for me. All the elements were familiar, I felt, and not recombined in a sufficiently novel way to make the story really take off. It feels, in fact, like a one-off tale that Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman could have produced in comic book form in the 80s.

>11 paradoxosalpha:

Hadn't really considered that angle, but yeah, that's a neat theory. It also plays around with the (heteronormative?) stereotype of lesbians as masculine in an interesting way.

>15 RandyStafford:

I noticed some of the significance of these names but certainly didn't catch everything.

Google-fu is more to thank for that than any of my own personal erudition, I'm afraid.

>17 housefulofpaper:

It feels, in fact, like a one-off tale that Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman could have produced in comic book form in the 80s.

Yeah, definitely. It could have been a sort of companion piece to the "Midsummer Night's Dream" issue of Sandman:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman:_Dream_Country#A_Midsummer_Night.27s_D...

>16 elenchus:

Yes, "Aunts" is set in the same world. I'm not aware that anything else she's written is.

Tidbeck noted in an interview that said world is inspired by a roleplaying game. The one in question is quite clearly Changeling: The Lost.

Re Mnemosyne's name, note that she's the only one besides Augusta whom the djinneya wants to speak with. Quite possibly simply because she's the one in power, but it helps suggest she's above the mindless hedonism of her courtiers.

Speaking of names, it's notable that Walpurgis is the only named male character, and he's got a feminine name!

>19 AndreasJ:

My, there's a whole world there! I'm not active in RPG so didn't recognise that game, though I know like comics that aspect of fantasy has blossomed since I was in school. Now you pointed out the source, I feel like someone who read one of those DragonSlayer books without the slightest inkling of AD&D or its ilk. No reason to appreciate it any less, but still, an odd feeling.

Do you know if the story uses any established characters from the game or world, or did she only borrow Arcadia, and create her own characters?

ETA DragonLance, I guess, not DragonSlayer. Mixing my cultural references.

>20 elenchus:

The characters are all original creations AFAIK. It's a long time since I played Changeling, but I think the cosmology isn't a quite perfect match either. As I recall, in the game the idea a Fae can be rejected by Arcadia doesn't make sense - the former create the latter rather than vice versa. Inspired by rather than based on, I guess.

I note that Tidbeck's written a novel that's apparently set in the same setting:

The Memory Theater

On the recon list it goes, and served to remind me to look into the "Aunts" story, as well.

I just snagged The Memory Theater off the shelf of my public library today.

Please let us know what you think of it :)

Read and reviewed: https://www.librarything.com/work/25292921/details/214838092

Thanks for heads up. I shall have to give it a try at some point, though given the lack of reading time lately it may be a while.

>26 paradoxosalpha:

They took away the thumbs-up rating feature for reviews?

>28 semdetenebre:
It's still available if you go to the main work page and scroll down to the review. (Whether it was ever available on the details page paradoxosalpha linked to I don't know.)

>28 semdetenebre: It's still there. Click the number under Reviews (currently '5') to go to the main reviews page and the thumbs up tool appears there.

EtA: Crosspost! ;)

Ah, sorry. That's why I should have linked to the main reviews page. I do like getting thumbs.
https://www.librarything.com/work/25292921/reviews/214838092

>31 paradoxosalpha: >30 ScoLgo: >29 AndreasJ:

Have a thumb! :-D