Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Charles Robert Maturin ( b. Sept 25, 1782 - d. Oct 30, 1824) was an Irish Protestant clergyman ordained by the Church Of Ireland. After attending Trinity college in Dublin, has was ordained curate of Loghrea in 1803. He married the acclaimed singer Henrietta Kingsbury, sister of Sarah Kingsbury, whose daughter Lady Jane Wilde was the famous Irish nationalist poet known by the pseudonym Speranza and was the mother of Oscar Wilde. Maturin was therefore the great uncle of Oscar Wilde by marriage.

Maturin's early works were commercial and critical failures but were noticed by Sir Walter Scott who recommended Maturin's work to Lord Byron. Thanks to the support of these two literary giants, Maturin's play, Bertram, was a success, running 22 nights on Drury Lane.

The play caused considerable scandle and was denounced by Samuel Coleridge as "melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind". Although Maturin had been writing under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy, he had dropped the nom de plume to collect the profits from Bertram. When the Church Of Ireland discovered the identity of the plays author, he was forever barred from advancement as a cleric.

Unable to support his family on his meagre salary as a curate and having spent the profits from the play to help his unemployed father and a bankrupt relative, Maturin was forced to make his living by writing.

After writing a couple of unsuccessful plays, Maturin switched back to novels. In 1820 he published his masterpiece, Melmoth the Wanderer.

The story is based on the medieval myth of The Wandering Jew, in which a man who taunts Christ while he is carrying the cross to Golgotha is cursed by Jesus to walk the earth until the day of last judgement.

The central character of the novel is Melmoth himself, the ultimate byronic-satanic antihero. He has made a pact with the devil. In exchange for 300 years of immortality, he must surrender his soul and be damned forever unless he can find someone who is willing to take his place before his 300 years have expired.

As his deadline approaches, Melmoth searches the earth for someone desperate enough to give up their soul. He seeks out the utterly hopeless in the throes of despair and poverty, in the cells of the madhouse, and the dungeons of the inquisition.

Maturin uses various documents such as letters and memoirs to relate the stories of those who encounter Melmoth in what becomes an indictment of mans inhumanity to man and the tyranny and intolerance of the church and of society in general. Melmoth's long experience with mankind's cruelty has made him world weary, cynical, and nihilistic.

Maturin's prose waxes sublime and eloquent in his condemnation of humanity. Melmoth is the voice of those outcast from society and damned by god.

Maturin has been much condemned as anti-catholic and anti-religious. Perhaps the victims of persecution by organized religion throughout history to the present day would consider his characterization of the church as an evil institution justified. Maturin himself would suffer for his courageous criticism of religious intolerance until his early death at the age of 42, amidst rumours of suicide.

Melmoth The Wanderer has been criticized for it's complicated plot and for Maturin's often long winded and pedantic style. Some have even butchered Melmoth in an attempt to make it "more readable". Persevering through the multiple subplots of Melmoth pays rich rewards. Maturin's writing style builds suspense and atmosphere to a unique level of intensity.

Melmoth is considered one of the great archetypal characters of all time. Honore de Balzac called Melmoth "the most disaffected character in literature" and even wrote a short sequel titled Melmoth Reconciled.

Oscar Wilde himself apparently related to the outcast from his relative's novel. He used the alias and nom de plume Sebastian Melmoth during his Parisian exile in the last tragic years of his life after his release from Reading Gaol.

Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) has become obscure, although at the height of his fame as an author in the nineteenth century he was second only to Dickens, who was a close friend, in publication. In addition to writing prolifically, he was a member of parliament and secretary of state of the colonies, and was also a friend and protege of Benjamin Disraeli. He was a founding member of the English Rosicrucian Society and is supposed to have initiated Eliphas Levi during a mysterious visit to his estate in England.

His anachronistic victorian prose have made him largely unread and even the subject of ridicule in our time. San Jose State University holds a contest for the worst beginning to a novel, called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, inspired by the much maligned opening line-“It was a dark and stormy night...” , from his novel Paul Clifford.

Bulwer-Lytton coined many phrases which are still familiar today, such as; “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, and “The pen is mightier than the sword”. His name is forgotten, but his words have endured.

I've recently read Edward Bulwer-Lytton's occult transformational novel Zanoni- A Rosicrucian Tale. This book might include a warning label such as "may cause disturbing hallucinations". An occult initiation in novel form, this book incorporates an exercise which can cause a personality split in which the fear and desire of the id and ego(to use Jungian terms) become manifest as a malevolent being called The Dweller On The Threshold. To cross the "threshold" it is necessary to annihilate the ego and overcome fear. Talk about a literary device, this monster can jump out of the book to menace you in...reality! The process for summoning the dweller on the threshold is explained in Rudolf Steiner’s textbook for initiates, Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds. The biblical parallel to this phenomenom is the temptation of Jesus in the book of Matthew. Sometimes called a fire trial, this exercise has been used as a test of courage and character since ancient times. Some form of this test exists in many mystic traditions. It is described in Buddhist and Sufi literature. A similar test was used by the ancient cults of Eleusis and Isis and by the legendary cult of assassins.

Once released this fiendish spectre haunts the rest of the novel causing individual tragedy and death and influencing events as an underlying evil principal at work in the reign of terror of Robespierre. The dweller uses fear and hatred to control the mob and Robespierre himself. Thus evil is portrayed as an active force using men unawares to create the hell on earth that was the reign of terror.

The novels hero is Zanoni, an immortal 4000 year old sage . He voluntarily gives his life in an attempt to save his wife and child. His christ like self sacrifice brings an end to the reign of terror. In this way love triumphs over evil.

This novel illustrates brilliantly the way in which the principals of good and evil struggle for dominance in each individual and how these internal struggles within each individual influence events in society collectively. Where men are not motivated by noble purpose, evil finds an opportunity to bring violence and chaos into the world.

This theme of evil as an active principal in society causing violence and war is also explored in Alfred Kubin’s disturbing novel The Other Side and in Gustav Meyrink’s novel Walpurgisnacht in which the mob of Prague rise in revolt to the beat of a drum made of human skin.

If the students and faculty of San Jose State University could stop giggling at the unfamiliar literary style of another century and get over their own egoism, they might discover some valuable truths in the work of Bulwer-Lytton.

The Forge Of Vulcan By Diego Valazquez

This painting by Velazquez from 1630 depicts the god Vulcan appearing as a beautiful youth to the swarthy blacksmiths making armour at his forge deep within the volcanic bowels of the earth. I make no assertions as to the sexuality of Velazquez and have no information on that subject. I simply wish to point out the great beauty of his naturalistic renderings of the male figure. Just look at the play of light and shadow on the sinewy muscles of those masculine men. It's enough to make any connoisseur of the male figure giddy.


This painting of the god Mars further illustrates Velazquez's mastery of naturalistic depictions of manly subjects. I like that leather daddy moustache Mars is sporting. One wonders about the proliferation of sexy men in seventeenth century Spain.


In addition to painting mythological and religious subjects and portraits of royalty (the standard fare of artists in this period), Velazquez also painted the dwarves( an archaic term in our thankfully more civilized epoch) of the spanish court. These paintings are among Velazquez's most beautiful portraits. I find these of particular interest because they portray persons who overcame the prejudices of the brutal and barbaric world they lived in by exploiting those very prejudices with impressive cunning and tenacity to rise to positions of great wealth and influence.

Vathek by William Beckford

William Thomas Beckford was born in 1760. His father was a member of parliament, a former Lord Mayor of London, and a very wealthy man. William was instructed by tutors at home, and was later a pupil of Mozart. He excelled in painting, composing music, languages, and writing.

On the death of his father, Beckford became one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Beckford was a great patron of the arts and collector. Today museums around the world are filled with paintings, furniture, and objects d'art from his collection.

Beckford learned arabic as a young man and became fascinated by the culture of the Islamic world. He conceived a fantasic novel about a caliph named Vathek.

Vathek is a hedonistic voluptuary with an insatiable appetite. His ambitious and completely amoral mother Carathis spends her time at the top of a great tower burning sacrifices to the forces of darkness in hopes of satisfying her uncontrollable lust for power and wealth.

Carathis strikes a deal with a supernatural being called the Gaiour. In exchange for committing atrocious crimes in honor of the Gaiour, Vathek will be granted the throne and treasure of the kings who ruled the world before Adam.

Carathis rouses her son from his constant feasting to tell him of the Gaiour's generous offer. They fulfill the first requirement of the deal by sacrificing the one hundred most beautiful boys in the kingdom to the Gaiour.

Carathis then packs her son off to Istakhar(the ruins of Persopolis) where the subterranean palace of the pre-adamite kings is located to claim his throne and treasure, reminding him to commit as many crimes as possible along the way to appease the hideous Gaiour and to remember the Gaiour's warning not to accept anyones hospitality on the journey.

What follows is a marvelous story of amazingly evil crimes committed by Vathek and his mother in a world populated by supernatural beings. The novel is beautifully and poetically written and filled with often very accurate references to Islamic history, customs, and mythology.

Beckford intended to combine the novel with episodes in which several characters who await their punishment at a place of eternal damnation, called the palace of subterranean fire, tell the others of the sins that brought them there. The novel Vathek and The Episodes Of Vathek would never be printed together as Beckford originally intended.

A scandal caused by gossip of an alledged homosexual love affair between William Beckford and the young William Courtenay, the future ninth Earl of Devon, sent Beckford into exile after marrying Lady Margaret Gordon.

Soon after his self imposed exile the man to whom Beckford had entrusted the translation of Vathek, it was originally written in french, published Vathek prematurely without Beckford's permission. Then the death of the charming Lady Margaret while giving birth to their second daughter contributed even further to Beckford's melancholy.

The first episode tells the story of a homosexual love affair between two young princes. We will never know to what extent the rumoured relationship with Courtenay inspired this story. Beckford later attempted to heterosexualize the first episode by making one of the princes a woman disguised as a boy.

Beckfords immense wealth and power did protect him somewhat from the scandal. He returned to england and commissioned the architect James Wyatt to build an enormous gothic palace called Fonthill Abbey to house his huge collection of art. Central to the abbeys design is a tower over one hundred feet tall, reminiscent perhaps of Carathis great tower.

High praise from Lord Byron, who wrote a poem called The Giaour with references to Vathek, made the novel a bestseller in the early nineteenth century and inspired the popular wave of orientalism that encouraged study of Islamic culture in the west and led to the translation of works like The 1001 Arabian Nights.

The original first episode of Vathek and some of the other episodes including an incestuous relationship between a prince and princess have miraculously survived to our time among Beckford's papers. Recently an edition published by Broadview Literary Texts and edited by Kenneth Graham has finally united Vathek with the episodes in a form as close as possible to Beckford's original intention.

It took over two hundred years for this literary and historical treasure to see the light of day. Don't miss an opportunity to experience this beautifully written and wonderfully decadent story which includes extensive footnotes on the mythological and historical details referred to in the story.

L'ecole de Platon By Jean Delville

Here's an interesting painting by Jean Delville, circa 1898, titled L'ecole de Platon (tr. The School of Plato or Plato and his Disciples). The painting is of course a depiction of a homosexual Jesus and twelve very effeminate and affectionate disciples. The title no doubt prevented the inevitable lynching that would have occurred had Delville entitled it "Jesus and his Disciples", but also allegorizes connections between homosexuality, platonism, and early christianity which form part of the canon of aestheticism. Besides the painting is dripping in purple wisteria blossoms which match Jesus' blouse perfectly.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita is one of the most unusual books ever written. Because of the fantastic nature of the story it has been labeled magical realism. But the story is so original and bizarre it really defies any such catagorization.

This book is frequently recommended by one friend to another by word of mouth. I was told about it by a friend who had been told about it by a friend and I in turn have told several friends. This story is so unique and liberating that it inspires enthusiasm to tell others. It is so compelling that everyone who starts it is hooked and cannot put it down until the end. Often people even reread the book immediately.

The title of the first chapter of the book gives us the moral of the story, Never talk to strangers. Bulgakov lived and wrote in Moscow during Stalin's reign and this warning very aptly describes the atmosphere of suspicion in the U.S.S.R. in those days.

The story begins with two men sitting on a park bench on a hot summer day in a park called Patriarchs Pond (a real place close to where Bulgakov lived in the 1920's). The park, usually crowded at this time of day, is strangely deserted. The men on the bench are Mikhail Berloiz, editor of an important literary journal and chairman of the board of one of the largest literary associations in Moscow called MASSOLIT, and a young poet named Ivan Nikolayevich who writes under the pen name of Homeless.

Berloiz feels frightened for no apparent reason and his heart skips a beat, then suddenly an apparition of an incredibly lean man over seven feet tall wearing a jockey cap on a tiny head and a checked jacket much too short for him appears before him as if woven of air. The apparition vanishes and Berloiz assumes it was an hallucination due to heat stroke.

The two men begin a conversation. Berloiz has commissioned Homeless to write a long antireligious poem about Jesus Christ. Berloiz wants Homeless to rewrite the poem because he says it makes it sound as if Jesus existed. Berloiz insists Jesus never existed and provides impressive historical and intellectual proofs to that effect.

A mysterious stranger appears, sits on the next bench, and enters the conversation uninvited. The stranger is tall, clean shaven, and appears to be in his forties. He wears a grey suit, grey shoes, and a gray beret worn at a jaunty angle over his ear. He has platinum crowns on one side of his mouth and gold crowns on the other side. His right eye is black and his left eye is green. One eyebrow is higher than the other, he has a twisted grin, and he carries a cane with a black handle in the form of a poodles head.

The stranger begins to debate with the two men insisting that Jesus Christ had existed. Even talking as if he had known Jesus personally. He offers them a cigarette asking what brand they would like. When he opens his cigarette case it contains their brand as if by magic. The two men are suspicious, taking the stranger for an informant. They demand to see his papers.

The stranger offers to show them his papers and tells them he is a polyglot and specialist in black magic. He says he has come to Moscow to decipher the manuscripts of the tenth century necromancer Herbert D' Aurillac for the state library.

The stranger predicts that Berloiz's head will soon be cut off by "a russian woman, a member of the young communist league." He says that Berloiz will not be able to keep his appointment for a meeting at MASSOLIT that evening because " Annuska has already bought the sunflower oil, and not only bought it but spilled it too. So that the meeting will not take place."

As chapter one ends the stranger says in regard to the issue of Jesus," There is no need for points of view...he simply existed, that is all." Then he says in a low voice: "Everything is very simple: In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate of a cavalryman..."

Chapter 2 begins a second narrative relating a first hand account of the trial and crucifixion of Yeshua (Jesus) from Pilates perspective. It begins:

"In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate a calvaryman, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colannade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great."

Later we learn that the mysterious stranger is traveling under the name Professor Woland and that he is none other than his majesty Satan himself. He is accompanied by two henchmen. One is the tall lean man in the checked jacket. He says his name is "..let's say Koroviev." The other is a tomcat as big as a man named Behemoth who is a crack shot with a beretta pistol.

The trio proceed to cause all kinds of mayhem in Moscow. Professor Woland performs a magic show where among other "tricks" a man is decapitated. Woland and his minions move into an "evil apartment" (a real apartment where Bulgakov lived) where all kind of strange phenomenom take place and people keep disappearing without a trace.

Later we are introduced to the Master (based on Bulgakov himself), who is writing the story of Pontius Pilate. The Master meets a beautiful, intelligent, and good woman named Margarita (based on Bulgakov's third wife). Margarita and the Master fall in love. When the Master tries to burn the manuscript he has been working on, Margarita rescues it from the fireplace and glances at the first page. It begins with the already familiar words: "In the early morning of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate of a calvaryman..."

The Master and Margarita are separated. Margarita desperately tries to find the Master. She runs into another of Professor Wolands bizarre sidekicks called Azazello who gives her a jar of his special cream. Margarita goes home, strips naked, and rubs it all over her body. The cream enables her to fly and renders her invisible. Margarita flys out the window and gleefully flys around Moscow playing practical jokes on people who are behaving badly and deserve a kick in the behind. This chapter is great fun and is very liberating. Everyone who reads this book says they want a jar of Azazello's cream.

Margarita then flys towards the river per Azazello's instructions. There a flying car awaits to chaffeur her to Satans Ball where all the great composers of history perform for all the great villians of history.

This is very fun story to read. Bulgakov's characters turn the Moscow bureaucracy upside down and dispatch petty officials unceremoniously, avenging every bad experience you've ever had at a government office or perhaps calling your telephone company. The story is absurd and over the top, Yet it is an amazingly accurate depiction of life in the soviet regime or in any modern bureaucracy. This brilliant illustration of the absurdity of modern societies and the systems that govern them speaks of Bulgakov's genius and the importance of this novel as a masterpiece of world literature.

Several translations are available. The translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O' Conner is the most accurate and complete. Earlier translations were based on the censored 1967 soviet edition. The Burgin/O'Conner translation has the complete text and the benefit of thirty years of Bulgakov scholarship. That said, my favorite is still the wonderfully lyrical Mirra Ginsberg translation.

Middlebury college has created a wonderful website with all kinds of background information on the characters and locales in the novel. I recommend using this site as a reference when reading the book. However it is not necessary as everyone relates to this story without any background information.

This book has a cult following and the "evil apartment" in Moscow where Bulgakov lived has become a shrine for fans and even satanists in Moscow.

Read this book. You'll be glad you did, and remember to "never talk to strangers".


The illustration of Berloiz, Homeless, and Professor Woland on the park bench above is by Charlie Stone. See more of his wonderful illustrations at the Middlebury website.

Visit The Master and Margarita website at Middlebury College:
http://cr.middlebury.edu/public/russian/Bulgakov/public_html/index.html

The Fiery Angel by Valery Bruisov

Valery Bruisov is an interesting character in literary history. He lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when revolution was brewing in Russia and the people were rejecting traditional beliefs and cultural conventions.

Spiritualism, the occult, and fin de siecle decadence were fashionable among the Russian intelligensia in this era. Bruisov himself was an authority on the occult. He performed seances and magic rituals and was even rumoured to use witchcraft against his enemies.

He is described as having had a very mephistophelean appearance with arching mongol eyebrows and a black pointed beard on his chin. He cut a very satanic figure as the self created leader of the poets, novelists, and artists of the russian decadent and symbolist movements. He was considered a magus, an expert in the black arts, and some considered him a villian. There are stories of magical battles and a duel.

The Fiery Angel is his masterpiece. A historical novel set in medieval Germany, it is the story of a knight named Rupprecht who has just returned from the new world. He stops at an inn to rest for the night. He hears a womans cries coming from the next room. When he investigates he finds a woman lying on the floor convulsing wildly, apparently possessed by devils.

After the convulsions pass the woman tells Rupprecht that her name is Renata and that she has been visited since childhood by a beautiful angel with fiery golden hair and blue eyes. She says the angel came to her in human form using the name Count Heinrich. They had been married, she claimed, and gone to live in his castle. Recently the Count had changed suddenly and left her and she was desperately trying to find him. She implored Rupprecht to help her and not to leave her alone because devils or evil spirits pursued her and might attack and possess her again at any moment.

Rupprecht falls for Renata immediately and sets off with her to help her find her Count Heinrich. A series of misadventures follows in which Rupprecht and Renata study occult manuscripts and perform a complex ritual in a magic circle in an attempt to enlist the aid of the spirit world in Renata's desperate quest.

Further adventures include a flight to a witches sabbat, after liberally applying hallucinagenic flying ointment, where Satan himself, addressed as Master Leonard, holds a black mass complete with orgy. Later our knight Rupprecht visits the famous Magus, Doctor Agrippa of Nettesheim, and meets Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles, becoming their traveling companion.

The story is told in a style similar to Boccaccio's bawdy and amusing Decameron and is filled with more accurate historical detail and medieval occult arcana than you can shake a satanic stick at, and there's lots of sex.

There is a wonderful afterword to the book written by Gary Lachman, a founding member of Blondie, filled with lots of juicy details about Valery Bruisov's fascinating life and about the real life love triangle that inspired the one between Rupprecht, Renata, and Count Heinrich in the book .

The Fiery Angel was translated by Igor Montague and Sergei Nalbandov and is yet another lost classic rescued for us by Dedalus Books. God love em..or in this case perhaps, Satan.