THE DEEP ONES: "Clockatrice" by Tanith Lee

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THE DEEP ONES: "Clockatrice" by Tanith Lee

3AndreasJ
Editado: Abr 2, 2022, 8:30 am

From the lack of comments, I guess I wasn’t the only one finding it difficult to find time to read this week?

Got around to it today, though, and rather liked the story, though I took a quick dislike to both Dru and Trenchall. Not sure if Lee intended the reader to?

I was a bit confused as to the logic, if any, by which the cockatrice chose its victims. Trenchall and Southurst may have been punished for being lousy boyfriends, but what then did Diana do to deserve worse than Dru got?

Lee seemed to like the word “blond(e)” here. Not only did it get applied to things, like clothes, rarely so described, but it even appeared in adverbal form (“blondly”), which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.

4JohnEThomas
Abr 2, 2022, 8:35 am

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5housefulofpaper
Editado: Abr 2, 2022, 6:25 pm

>3 AndreasJ:

True for me. I did listen to the story last weekend but haven't had the time to put my thoughts in order before now.

I get the sense, from this story and a few others by Tanith Lee that I've read (I admit that I haven't read very much of her work) of somebody doing the same kind of thing as Angela Carter, but having less of a political or philosophical agenda and being more about just telling a good story. And I didn't want this to come across as damning with faint praise.

There's a stronger strain of Romance (as in the modern genre) here than in most of the stories we've looked at. It seems to me that the notion (which I know I've harped on about before) that the Supernatural/Faerie world is a dangerous and unpredictable thing to tap into or even come to the notice of, is combined with the high emotions of the Romance (actually, it's more emotional undercurrents here, but then the characters are English, ha ha). Oh, and the selfishness of the Artist, too.

Diana was just somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time, it seems; and had a worse fate than anybody.

6AndreasJ
Abr 3, 2022, 2:47 am

I guess it’s relevant that Diana is killed directly by the cockatrice, while the rest are affected mediated by the clocks. She died because that’s what a cockatrice’s gaze does to you, they were deliberately targeted.

7paradoxosalpha
Abr 3, 2022, 3:01 pm

This story is what I'd expect if you asked Tanith Lee to write an M. R. James tale. It has the sort of pacing and antiquarian absorption of James, and sort of his style of the implacable, dangerous supernatural. The sex and sentiment are more typical of Lee, of course.

8elenchus
Abr 3, 2022, 11:19 pm

I've not read a lot of Lee, the most recent stories being those read for this group. I'm again impressed with the writing, it propels me along even as I'm startled by an occasional turn of phrase, so that clearly I'm reading to the end even if I haven't decided whether I like the story, or not.

Instead of daylight the moon boiled white across {the sundial's} brazen spike.

But reaching the end, I decided I very much liked the story. It's a wondrous blend of myth and understated horror, realism and supernatural hints, all while poking at patriarchy and chauvinism.

>3 AndreasJ:
I was a bit confused as to the logic, if any, by which the cockatrice chose its victims.

I wondered about this, too. Dru didn't irritate me as much as the other characters, but objectively I concede she was as selfish as any of them. Still, I didn't expect her to be victimised. And Diana certainly didn't seem to "deserve" her fate.

Alongside the mystery of the cockatrice and its victims, are the various stories told by and to the characters about the cockatrice and its victims. Some of those characters seem to believe the stories from the beginning, and some don't. Something about all that feels important, the way all this intertwines.

9RandyStafford
Abr 4, 2022, 7:13 pm

For me, there was a theme of spurned women here exacting unconscious revenge. Robert Trenchall doesn't seem to be enough of a cad to deserve his fate. After all, Dru didn't even expect her one-night stand with him.

And Diana seems angry that her Robert didn't share her fate.

I took away a sense of the power of the artistic imagination with Dru recreating, from her imagination and without access to an actual cockatrice egg, the Grete Clocke.

I did find an ambiguity about how much Dru knows about all this. It definitely seems she doesn't know the stranger details of Trenchall's death. But how much did she know about the Grete Clocke? We hear Robert promising to tell her about it, but does he? We know the Clocke no longer exists. Also, how much of Robert Southurst's later life does Dru know? We hear about his confession to the priest, but we are also told the priest's records were destroyed in Cromwell's reign.

All in all, though, I liked this one.

10AndreasJ
Abr 5, 2022, 2:08 am

>9 RandyStafford: And Diana seems angry that her Robert didn't share her fate.

I took that as the cockatrice playing on Robert's survivor's guilt.

11elenchus
Abr 5, 2022, 11:57 am

>10 AndreasJ:

Interesting -- do you think Diana's ghost is genuine, or merely an illusion wrought by the cockatrice?

I did think that survivor's guilt was a part of Robert's reaction, but it hadn't occurred to me that might be a deliberate ploy on the part of the cockatrice.

12AndreasJ
Abr 5, 2022, 1:19 pm

>11 elenchus:

I assumed Diana's ghost was an illusion wrought by the cockatrice, yes.