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July 2008
A Mortal Glamour by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Lynda Williams writes science fiction set in the "Okal Rel Universe." Recurring themes in her work center around culture conflict and the moral and social impacts of radical changes in technology, including re-written rules of gender relations as a consequence of bio-engineering. She is published by Edge Fantasy and Science Fiction of Calgary, Alberta and Windstorm Creative of Seattle, Washington. She is producer and co-editor of Reflections on Water, an online journal which features writers and artists of the northern interior of British Columbia, including special theme issues that strive to represent the diversity of writing interests in the north.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro introduced me to the idea of good vampires in my teenage years with her much loved hero, the intellectual, sexy and heroic Count Saint-Germain. Because of this formative experience with Yarbro, I settled down to read A Mortal Glamour with the wrong expectations: it is not heroic fantasy with elements of horror, it's a horror story with elements of fascination for the evil-doer at its heart. As with all good horror writers, Yarbro seasons the main dish of death and destruction with interesting characters and intriguing back stories, but the reader is well advised to keep the emotional distance appropriate for tales of doom. In deciding how to handle the book in this review, I therefore opted to confess, up front,—out of respect for an author I have spent many happy hours with in my youth—that I am not a lover of horror as a genre, because some of the things which disappointed me about A Mortal Glamour may be the very same things a lover of plots in which no one is left standing will love. It is also worthy of note that the International Horror Guild made Yarbro the first woman ever to be declared a Living Legend of horror at their 2005 awards (http://www.horror.com/php/article-1427-1.html). Clearly she knows what she's doing on this front, and with endorsements for the book by authors with the stature of Stephen King, I am sure Yarbro is well beyond being put out by any quibbles on my part. As a reviewer, however, I feel my duty to share my own reaction for the benefit of others, despite my affection for other works of Yarbro's I have known and loved. Before getting to my disappointments with the book, I must stress my respect for Yarbro's mastery of historical fantasy and plot, which are well illustrated in A Mortal Glamour. The tale is set in the late 1380s in France and begins with the arrival of a formidable new mother superior at a beleaguered little backwater convent caught up in the struggle between rival popes, and mired in the quirks and quarrels of its inmates. I admire the seamless way Yarbro accomplishes the difficult task of establishing an historical setting and handfuls of characters all at once without any hints of stage-managing left over to distract the reader from the story as it unfolds. Writers interested in doing likewise for a book of their own would be well served by poring over A Mortal Glamour as a lesson on the subject. My one quibble in this area is the heavy repetition of formulaic greetings and ritual exchanges among the people in religious orders, which while doubtless realistic, sometimes bogs the dialogue down. I couldn't help wondering if some of the 25,000 words restored to this uncut edition of the book might have been better left out. Of course, the use of such language is sardonically hilarious where a battle of wills is couched in terms of pious references to God's will, and a certain amount of it is necessary to create the right atmosphere, but overall the verbal genuflecting became a monotonous basso continuo, dulling the reader's attention instead of heightening appreciation of the abounding hypocrisy and fear that pervades the book. Yarbro's interweaving of papal politics, scheming priests, jaded whores and bullying nobles creates a solid backdrop for her yarn, in which a stealthy succubus slowly destroys not only the convent but all who come in contact with it, through the power of its own dark desires. Seur Aungelique, a rebellious wanton thrust into a nunnery by her father, is the ostensible heroine, catching the reader's attention at the start, but she is only one of a constellation of willing victims by the end of the book, who all succumb to the seductive lures of the supernatural presence personified in the character of a suave courtier named Thibault. I suspect many of the 25,000 words restored in the uncut edition are devoted to the kinky sex, whippings and other erotic passages in the work, which constitute a potent element. I read A Mortal Glamour from end to end with pleasure and appreciation for the author's craftsmanship. In the end, however, I felt nothing in particular upon finishing the last page of the book. There were a series of minor jolts as all the most sympathetic characters go down like dominos, and I felt some satisfaction in seeing repressed, hypocritical bullies ruined by their secret desires. To summarize my lukewarm reaction, however, I can only conclude I neither loved nor hated any of the characters enough to finish the book with a chuckle, a tear or a roar. Maybe it would have been more poignant for me if the cold, fey Thibault had been threatened by a sliver of compassion for a victim; one of the cast had managed to escape despair; or the hideous downfall of a nasty churchman could have been experienced vicariously through some sympathetic character as a bitter-sweet revenge. The enemy defeated in the novel is the false piety of the secretly lustful characters, but the bleakness inherent in the religious life of the characters, as portrayed from the first page, made this enemy feel like a paper tiger to me from the start. Perhaps the novel would pack a greater punch for people with personal experience of sexually repressive religious orders; or perhaps Yarbro failed to make a strong enough case for Thibault's ideological enemy by lending such little weight or power to the few characters, like the mad Seur Marguerite and sweet young lovers Tristan and Philomine, whose contentment with ordinary joys makes them immune to Thibault's offer of illusionary ones. Whatever the reason, the triumph of lust over false piety and supernatural aloofness over messy human schemes, felt oddly bloodless to me despite the body count. My favourite characters in the book are the ones without grand pretensions for either holiness or debauchery, who get caught up in the wiles of others, including one of the priests attached to the convent and Pierre, a rough soldier type, who is no better than a man of his time but no worse either. Pierre, in particular, goes to his death with a soldier's honor in the end, despite blowing it big time over sexual fantasies come true, with a disguised Thibault. Finally, Thibault himself is an interesting device, quite different from the sympathetic vampires of Yarbro's Saint-Germain series. But if he is the true protagonist of the book, bemused by human passions even as he feeds on them, he is too well disguised throughout most of the story, and too unchanged by its events, to satisfy whatever itch was left unscratched for me by the end when he finally reveals himself, answering lingering questions for the reader concerning details of the cleverly constructed plot. Interesting, is my last word, but not personally satisfying. But lovers of disaster movies and the kind of mysteries one reads to learn how each character dies, will doubtless disagree. I also recommend it to fellow writers as a study in techniques for establishing an historical setting, and working with a large cast of characters furiously scheming away under the radar of a repressive, increasingly corrupt authority. |
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