{"id":1105,"date":"2016-04-01T11:28:11","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T11:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2024-01-27T08:37:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T08:37:29","slug":"impulse-5-july-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"Impulse #5, July 1966"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews: John Boston & Damien Broderick: Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy 1950-1967<\/a><\/em> (Page 293 of 364, Location 5089\u00a0of 7028, 72% Kindle edition)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Kyril Bonfiglioli; Associate Editor, Keith Roberts<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nCorfe Gate<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novella by Keith Roberts \u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Oh in Jose<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Brian W. Aldiss \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe White Monument: A Monologue<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Peter Redgrove \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Beautiful Man<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert Clough \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nPattern As Set<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Douglas R. Mason [as by John Rankine] \u2217<\/strong>
\nA Hot Summer\u2019s Day<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Bell \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Report<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Russell Parker
\nHurry Down Sunshine<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Roger Jones \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nEditorial<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Kyril Bonfiglioli
\nCritique<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Harry Harrison<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Keith Roberts contributes another cover and story combination to this issue with the appearance of Corfe Gate<\/em><\/strong>, the last story in his Pavane<\/em> story-cycle. This 25,000 word novella is a very good end to the series and I will discuss it later.
\nThe rest of the fiction is led off by reprints from Brian W. Aldiss, and Peter Redgrove, the poet. The Oh in Jose<\/em><\/strong> by Brian W. Aldiss (CAD<\/em>, March 1966) isn\u2019t a SF or fantasy story but probably has the feel of one with its three short tales wrapped up in a longer one. Three men are being led over a mountain by their servant and a local woman, when they come across a massive rock. It has the word \u201cJose\u201d carved on it and they each tell a story about how it came to be inscribed there. It materialises that the real reason is known to the woman, who doesn\u2019t speak.
\nThe story by Peter Redgrove, The White Monument: A Monologue<\/em><\/strong> (first published by broadcast on the Third Programme1<\/sup>\u00a0radio channel) is an interesting piece that is the kind of thing that you would have expected the supposedly more experimental New Worlds<\/em> to publish. It is a surreal, fantastic tale of a feral man living at The White Monument. As he tells his tale, we learn\u00a0that it was once his home but that it was blighted by a chimney that created a huge raspberry sound\u2014so loud that the noise was debilitating. He eventually fills it with concrete, inadvertently entombing his wife, and starts a fire that makes the concrete glow so hot he can see her image:<\/p>\n

The tomb was beginning to glow, and the fierce white light from the pit stretched its shadow along the charred lawn towards me, a shadow that thinned as the tomb took more light into itself. Perched on the white hot grate of rocks as it was, gas fired, it got hotter and hotter, red first, like a cube of cloudy jelly, and gradually I began to perceive shapes and shadows in it, which grew in definition as heat clarified it. Now it glowed like a ruby and I saw the china cabinet, tilted and suspended over the high back of her chair, which grew sharper at first, and then filmy, so that the sight of her shape fell through it. My forearm shielding my face I darted and then sidled round, closer and closer, my clothes smouldering again, my eyes staring, my\u00a0face darker and darker tanned as I approached the sun in the heart of which my former love sat enthroned, my eyes starting and unblinking as their lids dried and stiffened, fixing my face in this expression of final worship and adulation.\u00a0 p. 87<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It goes on to an equally combustible end. This is a story that I didn\u2019t care for much the first time around because (as my notes say) \u201cthe style is impenetrable\u201d: I wasn\u2019t paying enough\u00a0attention.
\nThe quality dips with the next story by Roger Clough, The Beautiful Man<\/em><\/strong>, although that is only apparent when we get to the end of the story. This tells of three goat-herders from a primitive flint using society who find a cave in the hills after it is exposed by a landslide. They find several skeletons and a crucifix, the latter having \u201cthe beautiful man\u201d on it. There is further information at the end of the story about the goat-herders which (spoiler) drops this story into the post-nuclear holocaust category (and the crucifix point is also belaboured again), but it was quite a good effort until that point. Roger Clough, like Russell Parker later on, was a \u2018one shot wonder\u2019, never seen again in the fiction magazines.
\nAfter a good start to the issue (this includes the yet to be discussed Roberts piece), and two-thirds of the way through the magazine at p. 94, I wasn\u2019t holding my breath for this winning streak to continue and, sure enough, Douglas R. Mason\u2019s story Pattern As Set<\/em><\/strong> obliges. This one, like his story in #3, has another protagonist with a case of testosterone poisoning:<\/p>\n

Twelve months\u2019 solitary confinement was coming to an end, and in spite of all the training and the ample provision of every kind of substitute to fill the social vacuum, he was good and ready to hear another hum an voice coming across live, and see other human flesh in 3D. Particularly that. Particularly so, since his relief was Dena Holland.
\n[\u2026]
\nWalking on springy turf across the headland. Sun all the time, burning pictures of Dena into his brain, like the etching fluid on a lithographic plate. Silky, red gold hair, which turned into a dark copper sheath when it was wet, emphasising the modelling of her head with its classically satisfying balance of proportion.\u00a0 p. 95<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our protagonist is the only one awake on a deep-space ship where all the other crew members are in suspended animation. He is the process of getting ready to wake up his relief Dena, hence all of the above. Just as I was beginning to tire of this it gets interestingly grisly when he starts waking her. The problem is that she and the other crew don\u2019t come round:<\/p>\n

He had cleared the torso to the waist when it began to collapse. It melted away; withered away; shrank as a snow figure would disappear in front of a furnace door, until what was left was horrible, obscene, a twisted, atrocious caricature of a human being.\u00a0 p. 103<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, we soon find that it was all an induced psychological dream experiment used to assess space crew candidates. It then becomes utterly exasperating as the woman he was trying to wake up in the dream\u2014and who he did not know existed, and has never met\u2014turns up from another training facility. I think the technical term for this is \u2018idiot plot\u2019. It does have one good line though:<\/p>\n

The only good committee was a committee of two, with one kept away by multiple injuries.\u00a0 p. 106<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Hot Summer\u2019s Day<\/em><\/strong> by John Bell confirms we are now in the middle of \u201ctypical Bonfiglioli space-filler\u201d territory. This takes a bad day on the London Tube and splices it to this thought:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut isn\u2019t that the strain we\u2019re living under? The Bomb, the population explosion, the coloured threat, rush hour, the pressure of business, noise, crowds of people everywhere\u2014it isn\u2019t surprising people lash out now and then.\u201d\u00a0 p.116<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . . and turns it into an overlong story about how miserable London life is. We get ten pages describing over-congested trains on the way to an unpleasant work place, with background political, colour, temperature, etc., problems, followed by another ten pages of uncontrolled violence, arson, murder, etc., as everyone kicks off. Eventually (spoiler) London becomes a smoking ruin.
\nThe Report<\/em><\/strong> by Russell Parker is short squib about a post-nuclear-war world and an Indian Prime Minister opening a report (spoiler) to find that the first attack on Norfolk was actually a meteor strike. D\u2019oh! as I think they say.
\nThe quality improves slightly with Roger Jones\u2019 second story Hurry Down Sunshine<\/em><\/strong>. This satirical and slightly surreal story reminded me of the work of John Sladek. It is about a man in a pointless office job who becomes\u00a0the nation\u2019s official scapegoat (all crime has been eliminated but there are adverse effects). He spends most of the story in a railway coach where the windows are blacked out. When he arrives at a station it is always foggy due to the fog machines the station staff deploy.
\nYou can get a better idea of what this\u00a0is like from the passage below, which occurs when a woman, Mrs Rose, serves him tea in the railway buffet and then disappears under the counter:<\/p>\n

This left him free to concentrate on the problem of Mrs. Rose. He whipped a pencil and notebook from an inner pocket and jotted down a preliminary formulation, thus:
\nWHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD IS THE OLD BAG DOING UNDER THERE?
\nReduced to the more conventional symbols of algebraic logic it looked something like this:
\nN?
\nIt was a fascinating and complex problem as it had both an epistemological and an ethical angle. Properly handled it might take days to solve and soon Smith was absorbed in a fury of calculation, postulation, counter-postulation, hypothecation and inference.
\nSomewhat to his chagrin he found himself, about five minutes later, confronted by the Answer as represented by the expression:
\nP.
\nWhich translated out roughly as: \u201cTry cutting the Gordian knot of metaphysical speculation with the sword of point-blank interrogation.\u201d
\n\u201cI say,\u201d he called. \u201cWhat are you doing under there?\u201d No answer. \u201cAre you by any chance . . . knitting?\u201d\u00a0 p. 157<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two pieces of non-fiction in this issue. There is a short Editorial<\/em><\/strong> from Kyril Bonfiglioli where he moans once again about having to write editorials:<\/p>\n

Science fiction magazines are almost the last survivors of the editor personality and readers\u2019-letters cult which arose forty years ago: another example of the paradoxical old-fashionedness of science fiction.\u00a0 p. 2<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He introduces Harry Harrison, who will contribute an essay instead:<\/p>\n

Indeed, this very issue contains his first critique, in which he whirls his great club Castigator about his head to no small purpose. Let it be quite clear that the publishers and I do not necessarily associate ourselves with anything Mr. Harrison writes.
\nReserving only the right to change \u201ccracker\u201d to \u201cbiscuit\u201d and to expunge four-letter words, we have given him a free hand: no-one who knows him would believe for a moment that he would settle for anything less.\u00a0 p. 2-3<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bonfiglioli\u2019s next editorial in SF Impulse<\/em> #7 would be his last.
\nHarry Harrison\u2019s first essay in the new series, Critique<\/em><\/strong>, does not inspire confidence. It starts off complaining about a TLS<\/em> review of one of his books and then goes on to surmise that you need to have knowledge of SF to review it. Then he starts a competition for a definition of SF (groan) before finishing off with comments on various biologists\u2019 views about the chances of life out there in the universe. I hope these improve because I think I\u2019d rather listen to Bonfiglioli moaning.<\/p>\n

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Finally we come to\u00a0Corfe Gate<\/em><\/strong> by Keith Roberts, a major novella to end his Pavane<\/em> sequence. This is set in a parallel world where Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated, the Spanish Armada invaded England, and the Catholic church rules supreme.
\nThe reason I am reviewing this story last is that I want to cover it at some length (and this includes multiple spoilers). Partly this is because it is a dense, resonant story that is worth examining in detail; partly it is because the story in the magazine varies considerably from the version that eventually ended up in the book. This is unlikely to be of interest to anyone who isn\u2019t a Roberts completist or in love with the novel Pavane, <\/em>so if you aren\u2019t one of those people, move along.
\nThe long simmering rebellion against the Catholic Church erupts in this final story it gets off to a cracking start with Henry, Lord of Rye, riding to Corfe Gate to force Eleanor, Lady of Corfe, to pay taxes to Rome\u2014taxes that if paid will starve her people. Henry is brutal, and does not suffer fools gladly (I wondered if this character was Henry VIII in our world), and he treats both the local folk and the Signallers harshly on his way to Corfe Castle. Then, when Henry eventually arrives at the castle gates, there is a gripping confrontation when Lady Eleanor still refuses to pay the taxes or hand over her weapons:<\/p>\n

He shouted again then, waving an arm; at the gesture a soldier spurred forward lifting a bag from the pommel of his saddle. \u201cThen your liege-folk in this isle pay with their homes and their property and their lives,\u201d panted Henry, slashing at the cord that held the canvas closed. \u201cIt\u2019ll be blood for iron, My Lady, blood for iron. . . .\u201d The string came free, the bag was shaken; and down before her dropped the tongues and other parts of men, cut away as was the custom of Henry\u2019s soldiers.
\nThere was a silence that deepened. The colour drained slowly from Eleanor\u2019s face, leaving the skin chalk-pale as the fabric of her dress; indeed the more romantic of the watchers swore afterwards the blue leached from her very eyes, leaving them lambent and dead as the eyes of a corpse. She clenched her hands slowly, slowly relaxed them again; a long time she waited, leaning on the gun, while the rage blurred her sight, rose to a high mad shrilling that seemed to ring inside her brain, receded leaving her utterly cold. She swallowed; and when she spoke again every word seemed freshly chipped from ice. \u201cWhy then,\u201d she said. \u201cYou must not leave us empty-handed, My Lord of Rye and Deal. Yet I fear my Growler will be a heavy load. Would not your task be lightened if his charge were sent before?\u201d And before any of the people round her could guess her purpose or intervene she had snatched at the firing lanyard, and Growler leaped back pouring smoke while echoes clapped around the waiting hills.
\nThe heavy charge, fired at point-blank range, blew away the belly of the horse and took both Henry\u2019s feet off at the ankles; animal and rider leaped convulsively and fell with a mingled scream into the dry ditch. As if by common consent the crossbows of the defenders played first on them; within seconds they were still, pierced by a score of shafts. The grapeshot, ploughing on, spread ruin among the soldiers on the bridge, tore furrows from the buildings of the village square beyond. Shrieks sounded, echoing from the close stone walls; the arquebusiers fired into the struggling mass on the path; the Captain rode away, leaning from his horse while his blood ribboned back across the creature\u2019s rump. Then it was finished, dying men whimpering while a thin haze of smoke drifted across the lower bailey toward the Martyr\u2019s Gate.\u00a0 p. 16-17<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The narrative then flashbacks to Eleanor\u2019s childhood, and works forward to her rebellion against the Church. This account of her life is enriched by details that bleed across from the other stories, such as her family origins (The Lady Anne<\/em>\/Lords and Ladies<\/em>):<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember years ago telling me a story?\u201d she asked. \u201cAbout how my great uncle Jesse broke his heart when my grandmother wouldn\u2019t marry him, and killed his friend, and how that was somehow the start of everything he did. . . . It seemed so real, I\u2019m sure that was how it must have been. Well, I can finish it for you now. You can see the Cause and Effect right the whole way through. If we . . . won, it would be because of grandfather\u2019s money. And the money\u2019s there because of Jesse, and he did it because of the girl. . . . It\u2019s like Chinese boxes. There\u2019s always a smaller one inside, all the time; until they get so small they\u2019re too small to see but they keep on going down, and down. . . .\u201d\u00a0 p. 52<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there is the Signaller who arrives at the castle with a message warning them that troops are coming, which must have been sent by radio (The Signaller<\/em>\/The White Boat<\/em>):<\/p>\n

She went pale, but a red anger spot glowed on each cheek. \u201cHow can you know this, Captain?\u201d she asked coolly. \u201cLondon is well over a day away, and the towers have been quiet. Had it been reported, I would have been told.\u201d
\nHe shifted his feet where he stood with legs apart on the carpeting of the dais. \u201cThe Guild fears no man,\u201d he said finally. \u201cOur messages are for all who can to read. But there are times, and this is one of them, when words are best not given to the grids. Then there are other, swifter means.\u201d
\nThere was a hush at that, for he meant necromancy; and that was not a subject to be lightly bandied, even in the free air of Eleanor\u2019s hall.\u00a0 p .34<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesse Strange\u2019s locomotive (The Lady Anne<\/em>) appears for the final time during\u00a0an attempt to capture Eleanor and is destroyed in an accident:<\/p>\n

She burned the rest of the day; it was night before a peasant child crept close enough to the wreck to prise the naveplate from one mighty wheel. He kept it in his cottage, polished bright; and half a lifetime later he would still tell his children the tale, and take the big disc down and fondle it, and say it came from a great road steamer called \u2018The Lady Anne\u2019.\u00a0 p. 46<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there are hints about a cyclic structure of time:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a . . . dance somehow, a minuet or a pavane. Something stately and pointless, with all its steps set out. With a beginning, and an end. . . .\u201d She tucked her legs under her, as she sat beside the fire. \u201cSir John,\u201d she said, \u201csometimes I think life\u2019s all a mass of significance, all sorts of strands and threads woven like a tapestry or a brocade. So if you pulled one out or broke it the pattern would alter right back through the cloth. Then I think . . . it\u2019s all totally pointless, it would make just as much sense backwards as forwards, effects leading to causes and those to more effects . . . maybe that\u2019s what will happen, when we get to the end of Time. The whole world will shott undone like a spring, and wind itself back to the start. . . .\u201d\u00a0 p. 52<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are also questions raised about the longevity of her seneschal, Sir John Falconer, and who or what he may really be:<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn,\u201d she said, \u201chow many years did you serve my father, Robert?\u201d
\nHe sat his horse impassively and considered before he answered. Then finally, \u201cMany years, My Lady.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd his father before him?\u201d
\nAgain the same answer. \u201cMany years. . . .\u201d\u00a0 p. 28<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me, Sir John,\u201d she said, and her voice was lost and tiny, barely stirring the harsh air. \u201cCome to the window here, and tell me what you see. . . .\u201d
\nHe stood silent a long time. Then, heavily, \u201cI see the night mists moving on the hills, and the watch fires of our enemies. . . . He made to leave her; but she called him sharply.
\n\u201cFairy. . . .\u201d
\nHe paused, back turned to her; and as he stood she used his proper name, the sound by which he was known among the Old Ones. \u201cI told you once,\u201d she said acidly, \u201cwhen I required the truth, then you would know. Now I charge you. Come to me again, and tell me what you see.\u201d
\nShe stood close while he thought, head in hand; he could feel the warmth of her in the night, scent the faint presence of her body. \u201cI see an end to everything we know,\u201d he said at last. \u201cThe Great Gate broken, [Pope] John\u2019s banners on the walls.\u201d
\nShe pursued him. \u201cAnd me, Sir John? What for me?\u201d
\nHe didn\u2019t immediately answer and she swallowed, feeling the night encroach, the dark slide into her body. \u201cIs there death?\u201d she said.
\n\u201cMy Lady,\u201d he said gently, \u201cthere is death for everyone. . . .\u201d\u00a0 p. 58-59<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of this is woven into a compelling story that details the growing rebellion that spreads through the country, and the preparations made by Rome to deal with the uprising:<\/p>\n

The semaphores seldom stopped. The country was aflame; Londinium was arming, levies from Sussex and Kent were marching toward the West. Then came worse news. From France, from the castles of the Loire, men were streaming to fight in the Holy Crusade while to the south a second Armada was embarking for England.\u00a0 p. 53<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eventually, King Charles, who has been visiting the New World, returns and goes to Corfe Castle to establish peace:<\/p>\n

He rode forward, ducking his head beneath the iron as it climbed up into the stone; they heard the hooves of his horse on the hard ground inside. He dismounted, going to Eleanor; and only then did the cheering spread, through the village and the soldiers and the ranks of people on the walls, up and away to the tower of the Great Keep. So the place yielded, to its liege-lord and to no other. . . .\u00a0 p. 61<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are further developments concerning Eleanor but I will limit my comments here to saying I was not entirely convinced about what eventually happens to her.2<\/sup>
\nSo far so good, and if you are reading the book version then this is the story of Corfe Gate<\/em><\/strong>, which is then followed by a 3,000\u00a0word Coda<\/em> explaining that in this world the church deliberately delayed progress to stop mankind destroying itself, as it had in another timeline. Where the magazine version of the story differs\u2014and to its considerable advantage\u2014is that the Coda is broken into four sections and inserted into the aforementioned narrative about Lady Eleanor and the rebellion. And it is not the Coda<\/em> in the book either, but a longer 5,000 word version that is significantly different.
\nThe first section of this variant Coda<\/em> appears after the confrontation with Henry. This tells of an arrogant young nobleman (a member of the Privy Chamber) visiting the ruins of Corfe Castle in the future (he arrives in a Falcon turbine and is\u00a0informed by laserphone that his sister will be delayed). After wandering the castle ruins for some time\u2014and having seen a huge crab symbol\u2014he moves on to the village:<\/p>\n

I wandered there a time, enjoying the stares of the local girls; curiously frank they are in their appraisal, as if a son of noble blood were no more to be respected than some local clod raised among ploughs and the feet of horses. At length I reached a churchyard.\u00a0 p. 20<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There he finds a grave with another\u00a0crab symbol and the word \u2018Eleanor\u2019. He is joined by a stranger. The nobleman\u00a0identifies himself as Paul, son of the Lord of Bristol and Bath; the stranger does not identify himself but, seeing Paul\u2019s interest in the crab symbol on the gravestone, admits to carving both it and the one at the castle. This implies that he is Sir John, Lady Eleanor\u2019s seneschal. . . . He goes on to tell Paul of his version of what happened in the Revolt of the Castles, and then continues with the story of Eleanor\u2019s life.
\nThe second of the Coda sections is a very short one just before King Charles\u2019 intervention, explaining that he ended the revolt as his nation could not fight the rest of the world.
\nIn the third section, Sir John explains that the Revolt of the Castles led to the downfall of the church some twenty years later. He explains the meaning of the crab symbol:<\/p>\n

Then he took from round his neck a medallion [. . .] He turned the disc to me, covering the lower half of the design with his hand. \u201cSee,\u201d he said, \u201ctwo arrows. And\u00a0again. . . .\u201d He moved his fingers, concealing the\u00a0upper part of the circle. \u201cTwo more.\u201d
\nI frowned. \u201cTwo arrows point outward; two point in, toward each other. So there is some meaning in the scrawl. What\u2019s it supposed to infer?\u201d
\n\u201cProgress,\u201d he said, tucking the charm away. \u201cThis the Old Ones knew, when they carved it centuries ago. After fission, fusion; this was the progress the Popes fought so hard to halt.\u201d\u00a0 p. 62<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a pivotal scene in number of ways. Not only is the meaning of the crab symbol explained but it tells us that the Old Ones have a perplexing knowledge of potential future events.
\nHe continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ways of the Church were mysterious, her policies never plain. The Popes knew, as the Old Ones knew, that given electricity we would be drawn to the atom. Given fission, we would come to fusion. Because once, beyond our Time, there was a great civilisation. There was a Coming, a Death and Resurrection; a Conquest, a Reformation, an Armada . . . and a burning, an Armageddon. The Church knew there was no halting progress; but slowing it, giving us time to reach a little higher toward Reason . . . that was the gift she tried to give the world. And it would have been priceless.\u201d\u00a0 p. 62<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul thinks about this:<\/p>\n

I sat frowning ; my imagination refused to grasp at one attempt the ideas he had put before me. The notion of a repeating cycle, and endlessness of destruction and creation broken at last by what the Church had done, was altogether too big for me. But were it true, if the Popes had really achieved such a miracle as he suggested, then . . . it seemed I would have to return in all seriousness to my books. There was much I had never understood, and much I wished to learn, about this Church. . . .\u00a0 p. 63<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This introduces into Pavane<\/em> an A Canticle for Leibowitz<\/em>-ian\u00a0<\/em>concept of a cyclical rise and fall of humanity.
\nThe scene ends with the Seneschal\u2019s identity all but confirmed:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what about her seneschal?\u201d [Paul] asked. \u201cI\u2019ve gathered through your story he was more than a little attracted to her; did she ever see him again?\u201d
\nHe nodded. \u201cHe found her, alone of all her people. She had taken the dress and the patterned nylons of a\u00a0serving-wench, but he knew her for his mistress. He the Fairy. . . .
\nI laughed, pleased at so charming an ending to the legend. \u201cWhy then,\u201d I said, \u201cI suppose he had his way with her. When she was no longer a great lady there would have been no barrier of rank.\u201d
\nHe clenched his hands at that, and looked so queer and black I reached for the gun at my belt again; but the mood was past in an instant. \u201cHe served her till she died,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cShe was the Lady Eleanor, and he her seneschal.\u201d\u00a0 p. 64<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The final half page is a great ending to the novella, and has a transcendent last line:<\/p>\n

The minstrel fell silent once more; and I own I was deeply disturbed by the strange things I had heard. To hide my confusion I began to part the grasses by the grave, there in that sunny place under the warm sky. I came on the Sign again, stamped over and over in the stone, and the symbols of Eleanor\u2019s house, the leopards passant and the Flower of Lys; and I was startled too, for as I touched the grass some bird burst from it and rushed into the sky, was lost in the brightness of the zenith before I could properly make out its shape or size. Also I saw, coiled round and round the stone, what I had not noticed before, sprays and leaves of briar. I drew back startled, then collected myself; for necromancy died with the breaking of\u00a0the Old Church, ours is the Age of Reason.
\nI made to speak to the storyteller, but could not. It seemed some heaviness had touched my limbs, so that\u00a0though I heard the monorail call and the voices from the village street I could neither speak nor move. And he himself seemed vague, as though seen across a great space of air; though that was absurd, for he sat so close I could have touched the hem of his cloak with my hand. Also the stones on the hill glowed suddenly above his head, but no longer ragged; they shone white and proud and foursquare against the blue. In time the fantasy vanished; and then I think I dozed. I must have dozed; for how may a man turn to a golden glamour, and melt into a restless sea of glass, unless one sleeps and dreams?<\/em>\u00a0 p. 68<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For some reason, both Roberts and Bonfiglioli felt that this version was problematic and, in the book version of Pavane<\/em>, the Coda<\/em> parts of Corfe Gate<\/strong><\/em> were stripped out and rewritten to become a separate section, although the rest of it was left largely untouched.3<\/sup>
\nI think this was a mistake. As I hope the extracts above show, the material in the original Coda<\/em> sections reinforces and amplifies and, in some cases, explains matters from the Lady Eleanor narrative, e.g. the cyclical time motif, the politics behind the rebellion, Sir John\u2019s longevity, etc. It also partly shifts the centre of gravity of the story from Eleanor to John the seneschal, which has the effect of tying the story to the Fairies\/Old Ones material which runs through the series. Further, it lets the story telescope backwards and forwards in time giving it an almost four-dimensional reality and, finally, the original Coda has a narrative arc which the revised one does not.
\nPerhaps the best description of the damage done can be taken from\u00a0from the pavane\/tapestry metaphor passage above:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you pulled one [thread] out or broke it the pattern would alter right back through the cloth.\u201d\u00a0 p. 52<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think this is essentially what happened to Corfe Gate<\/em><\/strong> on revision: a number of threads were removed from the story resulting in a less detailed, less complex, and less impressive work
\nEven before I found this original version, I thought the book Coda<\/em> was an unsatisfactory end to the novel. It reads like an unnecessary and clunky deux ex machina<\/em> that retroactively alters your impression of everything read to that point.4<\/sup>
\nIf you love Pavane<\/em>, and haven\u2019t read the magazine version of the story, I strongly recommend you do so.5<\/sup><\/p>\n

A highly recommended issue.\u00a0\u00a0\u25cf<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. The Third Programme (which run till 1970) sounds like it was a very high-brow and elitist radio channel (a bit like an ultra version of Radio 3 or BBC 4, but without the latter’s excellent cop dramas The Bridge<\/em> and Spiral)<\/em>. There is a Wikipedia page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. In the book there is a line that is not in the magazine version (emphasis mine): \u201cFrom Charles Eleanor got an open door, the sleepiness of a sentry. A horse at the postern, these things can be arranged. Money was provided, and advice<\/u>. She ignored both. She fled back to what had been her home.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. The Eleanor thread in the revised version of Corfe Gate<\/em><\/strong> has an extra 500 words inserted at the end of the King Charles section (p. 259 Gollancz Masterworks edition of Pavane<\/em>) and before the section starting on the October day. There are some minor changes in the remaining material.
\nThe book version of the Coda<\/em> section is completely different, and\u00a0is a stand-alone section which consists of three parts. The first has a short \u2018tourist guide\u2019 introduction before a man arrives at Corfe Castle and explores the area. The intensely atmospheric writing makes it clear to us that he is more than a tourist:<\/p>\n

He reached the great grassy prow of the mound. The road wound by it, up into the village square. He followed it. Or rather he was borne without volition on some strange earth-tide of memory. A memory not of the brain, but of the blood and bones. He shook his head, half angry at himself, half amused. He asked himself, how could a man come home, to a place he\u2019d never seen?\u00a0 p. 271<\/p>\n

He moved on slowly. Through broken archways, past spurs and shattered groins of stone, up to where he could feel again the fresh wind from the heath. Sat in the shadow of the Great Keep, feeling the stone cool against his flesh. From that height the reactors of Poole Power Station were visible, gleaming silver in the sun. Far out in the purplish haze of the sea white dots showed where the hovercraft boomed over the waters of the Channel.
\nHe became aware, by slow degrees, of the Mark. It hung there frozen on the stone, deep-carved, level nearly with his face. The voices of the tourists below seemed momentarily to fade; he moved forward to it in a cold dream. Touched the carving, fingers tracing over and again its smoothness. Big it was, a full yard across; the symbol, enigmatic and proud, the circle enclosing a crab-network of triangles and crossing lines. Over it the cloud shadows moved, birds flapped and cawed in the sky above; its outline echoed the shapes of the reactors, its configuration stirred deepest roots of memory. His lips moved, soundless; one hand went unconsciously to his throat, touched the thin gold chain, the medallion beneath his shirt. The symbol he had always worn, the tiny copy of the thing there on the wall.\u00a0 p. 271-2<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the second part he reads a letter and we find out that the man is called John. It tells of the Church losing its New World colonies ten years after the breaking of Corfe Castle\u2019s walls. It more clearly explains the Mark:<\/p>\n

Two arrows point outward ran the letter. Two point in, toward each other. This is the end of all Progress; this we knew when we first carved the mark many centuries ago. After fission, fusion; this was the Progress the Popes fought so bitterly to halt. The ways of the Church were mysterious, her policies never plain. The Popes knew, as we knew, that given electricity men would be drawn to the atom. That given fission, they would come to fusion.\u00a0 p. 275<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The letter also explains the Church\u2019s actions in restricting science and technology:<\/p>\n

Because once, beyond our Time, beyond all the memories of men, there was a great civilisation. There was a Coming, a Death, and Resurrection; a Conquest, a Reformation, an Armada. And a burning, an Armageddon. There too in that old world we were known; as the Old Ones, the Fairies, the People of the Hills. But our knowledge was not lost. The Church knew there was no halting Progress; but slowing it, slowing it even by half a century, giving man time to reach a little higher toward true Reason; that was the gift she gave this world. And it was priceless. Did she oppress? Did she hang and burn? A little, yes. But there was no Belsen, No Buchenwald. No Passchendaele.\u00a0 p. 275<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This holds closer to Roberts\u2019 stated intent that the concept was supposed to be one of a dual timeline, and not the cyclic one partly suggested in the original.
\nThe last scene has the man disturbed by a young woman after several hours. In this rather aimless sequence she eventually departs to see if she can organise accommodation in her father\u2019s pub. This maybe refers\u00a0to Anne\/Margaret from\u00a0the very first story, which would again hint at the cyclic view of history in the original version. Whatever, this revised Coda<\/em> has a most peculiar structure.<\/p>\n

4. I thought that the ending of the book version of Pavane<\/em> was referred to negatively in a number of reviews, but could only find one when I went looking through the ISFDB list. Algis Budrys said (Galaxy Bookshelf<\/em>\u00a0(Galaxy<\/em>, April 1969):<\/p>\n

The book would be very much improved as a work if the afterword entitled Coda were torn off and thrown away.\u00a0 p. 117<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He is more pointed later on:<\/p>\n

Only in the Coda are we in any way brought in touch with this<\/em> Earth, and only in the Coda is there a clear statement of intervention from this Earth, for reasons germane to\u00a0this Earth. Roberts has done his work too well, by that time. All your involvement is with Pavane\u2019s England, and the events of \u201cCoda\u201d became a pious meddler\u2019s insult.\u00a0 p. 117<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The original story does not suffer in the same way, or at least not to the same extent.<\/p>\n

5. If you can\u2019t find a copy of Impulse<\/em> #5 (or a scan on Luminist.org<\/a>), the original story is in Perchance to Wake: Yet More Selected Stories from Science Fantasy<\/a> by\u00a0Damien Broderick\u00a0&\u00a0John Boston, which is a \u2018Best Stories from Science Fantasy<\/em>\/Impulse<\/em>\u2019 volume 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u25cf<\/p>\n

Edited 13th<\/sup> November 2018: Several minor-ish text changes; formatting changes; addition of Budry\u2019s quotes; edited cover, and added page and back cover images.<\/em><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB link Other reviews: John Boston & Damien Broderick: Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy 1950-1967 (Page 293 of 364, Location 5089\u00a0of 7028, 72% Kindle edition) _____________________ Editor, Kyril Bonfiglioli; Associate Editor, Keith Roberts Fiction: Corfe Gate \u2022 novella by Keith Roberts \u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217\u2217 The Oh in Jose \u2022 reprint short story by Brian W. Aldiss \u2217\u2217 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-impulsesf-impulse"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-hP","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14896,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/14896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}