DARK LIBERATION

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    DARK LIBERATION

    AN INTRODUCTION

    PHILIP MATTHEWS

    The Dark Liberation Cycleis dedicated to

    Marie HunterJoseph OByrne

    and my brotherRobert Matthews

    whose support made this project possible.

    Philip Matthews 2010 2

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    DARK LIBERATION is a cycle of 16 novels written over a period of forty years, from 1970 to 2010. The fundamental theme of thecycle which only became clear as the novels were written is that thekey to the future of mankind lies within each individual, and not insome external salvator, be it religious or technological.

    While this broad thematic stream runs through the cycle, theindividual novels themselves are intended to stand alone there is norequirement to read the works in sequence or even to read any morethan those novels that take a readers interest. Obviously, though, someunderstanding of the main themes, and of the arrangement of the cyclein a series of subcycles, will help most readers increase theirappreciation of whichever novels they read. For this reason, it would be

    worthwhile reading this short Introduction to the Dark Liberation cycleand the novels that comprise it.

    Plan of the whole cycle

    With the sudden completion of the trilogy, NOTHING

    DARKER THAN THE LIGHT, in late 1983, I was at a loss as to whatto do next. Before I knew it, however, I was sorting out the bundle ofstories I had written from the late sixties up to September 1975, when I

    began studying at Trinity College, Dublin. The name of the charactercame first he appeared in some of the stories. I sorted the storieschronologically and presto I had the life of Richard Butler runningfrom about five years of age up to his late thirties in sixteen episodes.These episodes divided quite easily into four sets of four episodes each,the sets covering successively Childhood, The Group, The Social, andThe Individual. Placing the Individual last was a peculiar thing to do,

    but it was to be the secret motivating power of the entire cycle ofnovels.

    With only the trilogy written and the material for a fourth novelto hand, I nonetheless projected the structure of sixteen novelsmirroring in subtle ways the structure of the pending work, soon to beentitled THE FOURTH MAN.

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    The cycle of DARK LIBERATION can be arrayed in this way:

    First Subcycle: The Mystery of Life

    Nothing Darker Than the LightThe White CityThe Land of FireThe Field of Peace

    The Blue Record

    Second Subcycle: The Mystery of Love

    The Kingswood Black BooksThe Fourth ManLupitaCrow StationSolomons Dream

    Third Subcycle: The Lessons of Love

    The PrinceAnonThe Testament of EveOR

    Fourth Subcycle: The Sacred Marriage

    The Eagle flies on FridayAngel of TruthRestorationReflection

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    INTRODUCTIONS and SUMMARIES

    What follows now is a series of Introductions and Summaries ofthe novels and the cycles that they are divided into.

    NOTHING DARKER THAN THE LIGHT Introduction This was to be a sci-fi fantasy work. I had tried to write a

    novel (about an old man) and had produced a shapeless mess. So,liking science fiction very much the last refuge of the true romantic(those who understand that human beings are ultimately responsible fortheir own lives) I thought a genre novel of this kind was within my

    powers.THE WHITE CITY is this little genre novel and at first I was

    nicely in control and full of confidence. Then the characters began totake over and set about telling another story, one that I came to realisewould extend beyond the rather comfortable world I was in the processof creating. I think it is a virtue to let characters go free, but what theyhad in mind in 1974 was way beyond my capacities at the time. A

    period of preparation was needed as detailed elsewhere then off

    they went, each coping in his or her own way with the utter destructionof their world, through THE LAND OF FIRE and THE FIELD OFPEACE, the remaining novels of the trilogy.

    One consolation, at least, of imaginary characters is that theynever leave you. If you read far enough into the whole cycle you willencounter at least one of the characters from this trilogy who turns up

    just when he is needed to provide a vital service for another of mycharacters.

    THE WHITE CITY Introduction This is the first novel I completed. Woke up one morning in

    October 1974, after a walking tour from Stonehenge to Glastonbury nonstop rain seeing Korkungal staring with disbelief at the WhiteCity. The story told itself, very patient with my usual caution. But itwas my care not to exceed my ability that was instrumental in giving

    the work its abiding freshness: a simple tale told simply.5

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    THE WHITE CITY Summary

    An old priest and his aging warrior guard approach an outpost ofa great empire. The priest is bringing bad news to a friend of his youth,

    an imperial priest. The news is not welcome and the bearer isaccordingly punished. The old warrior? A tribal hero is no match for thearmoured champions of a city of iron and stone.

    Yet a destiny is created here.

    ( back )

    THE LAND OF FIRE Introduction Eight years separated the completion of THE WHITE CITY, the

    first volume of NOTHING DARKER THAN THE LIGHT, and thesecond volume, THE LAND OF FIRE. That time was spent studying ata university. Would a trilogy of phantasy novels require that amount of

    preparation? What if behind the romancing and heroics there appeared

    some sombre questions? For instance, what is divinity that human beings can either believe or not believe in it? Again, if God is dead,might some human beings not feel the need to replace him in sometangible way?

    Anyway, after the BA and the PhD came THE LAND OF FIREand, in a matter of weeks, the final volume, THE FIELD OF PEACE.Just like that? Just like that. Two years per volume had been planned.All written in a wonderful steady flow in a couple of months. That'show it works, believe me.

    THE LAND OF FIRE Summary As part of a global strategy to outflank its rival, The Empire has

    established an outpost to the north of the White City. A smallexpedition is mounted to investigate the coastline further up the coast

    and map the northern heavens to aid future navigation. It happens that6

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    the Priest-Astronomer charged with the latter task was also instrumentalin releasing the prophesy of doom that the Brigan priest, Kandrigi, hadtried to keep to himself. It also happens that the Brigan captive whowould serve as a guide to the northern lands is the one rumours say wassuccoured and entertained by the virgin goddess, Agnanna, and whowould serve some divine purpose during the coming Last Days.

    What should be a routine patrol becomes a world in microcosmsuffering extreme stress as all the traditional values and beliefs areundermined by mounting panic and replaced by drastic reactions thatthreaten to destroy the two ships and their crews.

    ( back )

    THE FIELD OF PEACE Introduction As said, THE FIELD OF PEACE came hot on the heels of THE

    LAND OF FIRE in late 1983. My fear then was that I might fail to do justice to the new scenario that opens in THE FIELD OF PEACE andthe transition to a more global perspective. With the exception of someweakness in chapter two, I should not have worried. The centralcharacters continued to lead their own existences, to work out their veryindividual destinies, as they head towards the final destruction.

    I didn't understand the ending for years, thinking that Pol-Chihad failed and that my artistic vision had been at fault (I had been atfault). But if you consider the following novel, THE BLUE RECORD,as a kind of commentary on NOTHING DARKER THAN THELIGHT, then you see that dying might be a whole lot more difficultthan many believe.

    THE FIELD OF PEACE Summary The Miracle of the North had different effects on different

    people. It spurred the aristocratic Priest-Astronomer, Hepteidon, toconceive a world plan to save mankind. All he needed to do first was totake over the Empire, then perhaps create a miracle of his own.Complications, of course, a slave who seems to will his own death justto make a point, an Imperial concubine who might be demanding theimpossible of him, and a wily Emperor with an agenda of his own.

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    Hepteidon will need his old companions from the Miracle daysto help sort out the mess. Trouble is, the kind of help they bring is notquite what he is hoping for...

    ( back )

    THE BLUE RECORD Introduction To compose a novel about characters existing on the verge of

    consciousness only required an enormous amount of consciousness onmy part. Everything in their world as it effects them had to beaccounted for, both the subtle side events and the endlessly repetitivedetail of their machine environment.

    Does it work? It will put you to sleep, almost. The repetitionwill come to bore you, almost. Then the pathos will seep in ascharacters try to attract the attention of the sun, try to understandthemselves in terms of the machines that surround them, try tocommunicate with each other.

    Does it work? It does.Welcome to human immortality.

    THE BLUE RECORD Summary The time has come when man reaches the peaks of achievement

    promised by science. All the functions on Earth are now controlled bythe World Machine, which is programmed to maintain the WorldPattern indefinitely. Thus mankind has at last achieved immortality,kept alive for ever by the World Machine.

    This system has survived now for many thousands of years.Perhaps in order in maintain a residual meaningfulness for human lifein the World Pattern, slots are provided in the various tasks undertaken

    by the World Machine for human involvement, when individuals arerevived in order to go through a series of routines from time to time.

    One such routine is the periodic war between the North and theSouth. Gorj is the Leader of the South and he has performed this ritualon many occasions over the millennia. But now there has been a slightaccident with a Northern craft and Gorj is instructed to help the pilot of

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    the craft who has been injured. It is the first direct contact betweenhuman beings since they became immortal.

    The outcome is devastating. Gorjs behaviour become more andmore erratic. Symer, the World Agent, whose task it is to maintainorder among the human Immortals, in turn becomes disturbed as hetries to counteract the shocking effects Gorj has on other Immortals. Intime Symers conditioning breaks down completely, which permits theawakening of the one power that mankind cannot completely control,memory and its truths. ( back )

    THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS Introduction THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS form the second sub-

    cycle and comprise the four novels, THE FOURTH MAN, LUPITA,CROW STATION and SOLOMON'S DREAM, that provide an accountof the life of Richard Butler. The origins of the tetralogy lie in an initialunconscious impulse in the 1960s which only came to full conscious inthe early 1980s, after the trilogy, NOTHING DARKER THAN THELIGHT, had been completed.

    In a very real sense, perhaps owing to the way in which the first

    elements of the tetralogy which now form much of THE FOURTHMAN came into being, the biography of Richard Butler is anunavoidably provisional affair. Little of it has been revised and thatonly for reasons of clarity of sense and even less has been rewritten.Each novel had in a way only one chance of being written and we getonly what could be captured on the first attempt.

    There is no standard against which Richard Butler can bemeasured. He exists in a void, and his whole world therefore exists in avoid. That is the nature of freedom.

    The interesting question for me now is this: does the reader getmore than one chance to read the tetralogy?

    THE FOURTH MAN Introduction This in a way is the first novel. It was not conceived as such but

    it was composed in most of its parts before THE WHITE CITY, the

    first novel to be written as such. THE FOURTH MAN has roots in9

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    stories begun in the sixties and composed from then until the earlyeighties. A mixture of overweening ambition and fundamental spiritualtimidity would have prevented the realisation of the work before the

    NOTHING DARKER THAN THE LIGHT trilogy had been completed.However, once the novel had been compiled, its four by four

    structure was seen to provide the underlying structure for the wholecycle of novels.

    THE FOURTH MAN itself is the first novel of the RichardButler tetralogy, THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS.

    THE FOURTH MAN Summary The novel is about the sentimental education of an Irish man,

    Richard Butler. Given the limited possibilities of the biographicalnovel, the experiences of Butler are conveyed by means of sixteenepisodes that concentrate on the key incidents in his life betweenchildhood and his mid-thirties. These sixteen episodes are arranged infour sections of four episodes each. The sections are not titled but theyconcern, in turn, the family, the group, the social, and the individual, thefinal section indicating the meaning of the title of the work: the moral

    imperative that we achieve (what can best be called for now)individuality.THE FOURTH MAN is an attempt to describe on one hand the

    fragmentary nature of modern life, the experience of disconnection anddecentred-ness, yet on the other hand, the intense aura of significancethat accompanies certain key experiences in this alienated life, and how

    by reflection on these intense moments some sense can be made of ourlives by tracing the implicit connections between these moments.

    A variety of narrative techniques has been used to achieve thisend, ranging from first and third person narration, variable focus onButler, rhetorical devices like figuration, reinforcement andconnotation, and a variety of settings in Ireland, England and Europe. Itis hoped that THE FOURTH MAN succeeds in conveying the early lifeof Richard Butler in a convincing way, and that it also provides for thereader an example of how we ought to interpret the moments ofillumination that occur in all our lives. ( back )

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    LUPITA Introduction

    LUPITA is the second novel of the Richard Butler tetralogy,THE KINGSWOOD BLACK BOOKS. It came to be written in 1987 at

    the end of a long period of intensive creative activity, so that it bothmarks the culmination of a significant life-process and the limit of myunderstanding at that time. SOLOMONS DREAM, the final volume ofthe series, written four years later, shows by comparison how myunderstanding grew in the intervening fallow period.

    LUPITA required a great deal of preparation, yet the centralmotifs of the reed boat and the sea journey only appeared once the workitself was under way. Such is the wisdom of the creative power. But itremains an intimate and affectionate novel, firmly rooted in the ordinaryno matter where the creative urge takes us.

    LUPITA Summary Jane Blake, 37, suddenly leaves her mother, with whom she has

    lived since the death in a car crash of her fianc thirteen years previously, to try to make a life of her own before it is too late. This

    action sparks a profound crisis, and she finds that, living alone for thefirst time, as well as trying to decide what to do with her new freedom,she must re-examine her life in order to make sense of this freedom,that is, discover who she really is.

    This situation is complicated by the competing claims anddemands of her family. Her mother, embittered by a life of restriction,might be glad to see the last of a clinging child or might sufferabandonment by the only person who actually cared for her. Her father,long separated from the family and living in England, might want tohelp his favourite daughter without interference from his wife or hemight want a housekeeper in old age. Her mothers lover, Jack, mightalso want to help his favourite in the family, though this rush ofattention could be misunderstood, or else he wants rid of her in order tohave her mother to himself. Her sister, Helen, with great ambition forher banker husband, might resent the shifting of the burden of caring for

    their mother on to her, but complications in her own marriage might11

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    just as well tempt her to slip into a relation of dependence, now that hermother has more time for her. These familial pressures heighten oldresentments and fears and threaten to draw Jane back into a sterile

    passivity masked as a capacity to endure suffering, but they also drawout the vulnerable love and sympathy that arise from relations of bloodand the long-shared fortunes of family life, feelings that give her anautonomous strength and an integrity that surprises her.

    But the most threatening aspect of the crisis is brought to thefore by the attentions of a young man, Michael, who strives to protecthimself from the ghost of his dead mother by becoming a philosopher,guarding empty factories at night as a means to developing an open

    mind. Jane avoids these attentions at first, but as circumstances drawthem together she is obliged to relive her previous disastrous relationswith men. Richard, who said he loved her and whom she abandonedalone in a foreign city, and Terry, who was wealthy enough to marryyet whom she drove to despair and death. She comes to realise she has adestructive effect on men, and as Michaels penchant for intelligentargument opens his mind to very frightening insights, Jane sees thatmen might well have a destructive effect on her in return. At timesMichael certainly seems to consider murder as a solution, though whohe might murder is not clear, yet for her part Jane experiences a growthin herself, sometimes like a light, other times like a sea, and so holds towhat is vulnerable in her, understanding at the crucial point that lovetells the truth if you let it, which turns out to be the case in the end.

    ( back )

    CROW STATION Introduction CROW STATION, the third novel of THE KINGSWOOD

    BLACK BOOKS the Richard Butler tetralogy was a work that oncestarted did not stop until six hundred and sixty six pages had beenwritten. Then the flood of relief was indistinguishable from a flood ofgrief. CROW STATION is the biggest of the novels. It contains pagesof pure dialogue and pages of pure philosophy. It would be moreaccessible without the philosophy and you can easily strip it out but

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    it would be a lesser work for that. CROW STATION was a gift, is agift, proof of the reality and power of artistic inspiration

    If you read it, read all of it. You wont be sorry.

    CROW STATION Summary 1985 is a cool wet summer. Dan White and his wife, Charlotte,have a new son, their first. Dan is using the summer vacation to prepareone of those obscure endowed Memorial Lectures that the olderuniversities have accrued over the centuries. He is also intrigued by hisdiscovery that the Cold War is coming to Ireland in a big way, con trailsup and down its east and west coasts indicating the kind of edgymanoeuvring that could easily slip out of control.

    But they are happy, excepting perhaps Charlottes tendency toagonise over her sons impending loss of innocence. Then Charlottesmother is killed in an apparently senseless motor accident and both theirlives seem suddenly to change, a switch in levels, as it were, rather thanin direction. Charlotte becomes a mother without a mother, a disturbingsituation for her which presses her with the question of what she is,child or parent. Dan, for his part, remembers the demise of his own

    parents, but also acquires a research student with a disturbing take ongender politics and some unwelcome attention for his Cold War theory.Then both Dan and Charlotte discover that they do not know how tomourn, that they cannot comprehend death and its effect on them. Sothey counter death and a funeral with a birth and a pre-christening party,inviting the mourners to celebrate their sons birth.

    Richard Butler returns to Dublin to climb a mountain whileawaiting his publishers decision about his latest offering. He is drawn

    into the circle of a widow and her boisterous teenage daughters, aninvitation to become a father without the discomfort of fathering. He isalso drawn into the mnage about Dan and Charlotte. And as Richardascends his mountain to encounter its resident spirit and answer its very

    pertinent question, Charlotte ascends to her bedroom to restore hermother while Dan finds himself drawn by his research into arcanethoughts that offer him a kind of salvation too.

    ( back ) 13

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    SOLOMONS DREAM Introduction SOLOMON'S DREAM, as the final volume of a four-novel

    cycle relating the life of Richard Butler, marks the culmination of 21years of artistic endeavour. What has been achieved here, the apotheosis

    of a modern hero, was possible only through a curious concatenation ofcoincidences or serendipities. Some of this material had beengathered, for other reasons, during the 1980s, while significant sectionshad to be worked out on the fly during the writing of SD in the latterhalf of 1991.

    SOLOMONS DREAM Summary The novel is a love story inspired by a curious feature of the life

    of King Solomon, that though granted the power to understand man heis later condemned for worshipping the god of his wives. The story isset in the West Country and concerns an Irish writer, Richard Butler,escaping London and a failed relationship, who becomes involved withwhat seems at first a literary coterie but which turns out to be a magiccircle intent upon the salvation of a culture. Knowing that magicrequires a sacrifice of love, Butler tries to protect the likely victim, only

    to find himself, through his love for Louise Grainger, the daughter ofthe hidden master of the circle, intended as the sacerdos of theoperation. There ensues a struggle between the magicians and Richardand Louise, pitting the truth of art against the corruptions of will, thatleads the couple to undertake a counter-work of love, an act of

    purgation intended to define the only possible basis for the regenerationof a corrupted world.

    The novel is not an indulgent fantasy, characterisation and therendering of situations and events are kept within the bounds ofconventional realism. Some sections convey imaginative experiences,extensively in the latter half of the novel; these are realised withoutstraining the credulity of the reader (1) by careful preparation ofcontexts in the first half of the work and (2) by having Butler narrate thework as a journal, which permits the use a range of techniques to

    juxtapose and overlap different levels of experience. There are,

    unavoidably, some rebarbative elements, but an attempt is made to14

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    redeem these by careful attention to characterisation and motivation,and by the employment of humour, black and not so dark, and, most ofall, by insight. ( back )

    THIRD CYCLE Introduction It would have been hard to follow Butler's apotheosis in

    SOLOMON'S DREAM with anything but irony or bathos if the firstnovel of the Third Cycle, THE PRINCE, had not as it were grown upwith SD. The Muse had been kind here She has a better view ofthings, for sure.

    In the overall scheme the Third Cycle concerns the social aspectof life, marriage, family and the like. The third section of THEFOURTH MAN tells of a prospective social union that never quite getsthere: it is superseded by the ultimately larger issue of the individual. Ifwe don't know who we are then how can we form a workable society?Likewise here: there are married folk and there are children, but thereare loads of other people with other concerns.

    But the novels of the Third Cycle do have a common concern -

    that of relationship. If the second cycle was about one main character,then this cycle is about the attempts of characters to relate to othercharacters. You will see societies destroyed in the attempt, people whomurder in order to reach futilely to another, who have dealings withstrange beings, and who finally must be utterly broken so that sometrace of genuine love might seep out into the world.

    THE PRINCE Introduction. The Prince was written in early 1992, shortly after the

    completion of Solomon's Dream and during a period of intense activityengendered by the latter. It was originally conceived at much the sametime as Solomon's Dream, in fact some of its strongest imagery waslong associated with the latter and only separated out as SD was beingwritten. Yet while they both have a spiritual dimension, they are alsoquite different in context and tone. The true connection between them

    lies in the fact that SD completes the second sub-cycle of four novels15

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    and The Prince opens the third sub-cycle. They are like the two sides ofa door, each facing in an opposite direction, but joined together at alevel of truth that with a little effort can be comprehended.

    The Prince is the shortest novel in the cycle, though given itsconcentrated narrative structure you will find that hard to believe. It isone of the most completely realised of the novels and yet still one of themost enigmatic.

    THE PRINCE Summary The novel is about the relations between fathers and sons. It is a

    largely metaphorical work, projecting these relations on to an imaginarylandscape in an attempt to display how sons are influenced by theirfathers and what they do under that influence. The story is about a

    prince, whose father, an emperor too gentle to rule, is defeated anddriven to suicide by the machinations of a powerful priesthood and agreat city. The emperors death leaves his son a fugitive, protected only

    by two advisers and a small group of soldiers, and the novel tells of hisreconquest of the Empire and how he goes on to do what his fathercould not do. The chief interest in the novel lies less in the outward

    events, though they are detailed pretty thoroughly, than in the effect thestruggle has on the prince, his two advisers and his close friend; howshame can contaminate love, ambition pervert loyalty, and how the

    prestige of the father can place a tragic burden on the son.The novel is narrated by one of the advisers of the Prince, once

    his tutor and now his confidant, whose relationship with the Prince iscomplicated by the fact that he is also the father of his close friend. Thestyle of narration is simple, in the form of a long letter to the son of thePrinces other adviser, by turns nostalgic or bitter, leavened by thenarrators eccentric humour and distinctive philosophy. He is the

    perfect narrator, close to the events he recalls, a keen eye for localcolour, subtle enough to discern the shifting tensions around the prince,qualified to analyse the hidden influences affecting the Princes action,and finally honest enough to see the part he plays in the drama.

    Given the scale of the work, there are elements running throughthe novel which make it a parable about the contemporary world,

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    especially to do with the decline of spirituality and the growth ofillusion. These elements are allowed to speak for themselves; my chiefconcern has been to compose a work about a group of characters, and tothis end I have endeavoured to create a varied world for them, at timeswhimsical but at times harsh, with the overriding aim of drawing out asmuch truth as I could about my main theme.

    ( back )

    ANON Introduction This novel was written in Brighton, Sussex, during winter-

    spring 1993-4. A strange work containing some of the most

    concentrated writing the author has achieved to date it was written in broad daylight at a wide window with a panoramic view of the SouthDowns. Not the most likely situation for plumbing the depths of whatcan be best called the cosmic aspect of us human beings. Nonethelessthat is how it was done. And when the narrator calls the writer hisamanuensis be sure that he means it.

    ANON Summary The novel is a retelling of the myth of the Minotaur in the form

    of a detective story. Theseus is a corporate investigator on loan to thelocal police to find an unusual Midnight Rambler active in a large city

    park. Ariadnes motives for helping him are ambiguous, caught as sheis between her feelings for her half-brother and her reasons for attachingherself to Theseus. Pasipha is involved, too. Her interest in Theseus isdubious, a compulsion that could well result in the creation of anothermonster. Theseus has no choice but to take the assignment, his careerhas been put in jeopardy by the publicity surrounding his last job. Buthe has talent, and it has been hinted that success this time will put himin line for significant advancement.

    The novel is narrated by Dionysos, once man and now god, asan updated performance of a perennial drama he is obliged to stage until

    his characters get their parts right. He has problems with our language,17

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    but he presses on as best he can, patiently explaining his more obscureinsights and apologising as need be for what he fears we might see asthe barbarous excesses of his story-telling.

    The plot remains as simple as Ovid has it, the readers interest isengaged instead with the question of motivation. Why did Theseusvolunteer? He wouldnt tell what happened in the Labyrinth and hedumped Ariadne fairly quickly. But, then, didnt she fall for him fairlyquickly? What about Pasipha, whats a man compared with a bull?And most of all, the Minotaur himself more sinned against, perhaps?Dionysos gives us the gods-eye view, though he knows very well thattelling the truth is more difficult than most of us think.

    ( back )

    THE TESTAMENT OF EVE Introduction To write The Testament of Eve required a level of release

    hitherto unknown to me. Usually, control of a work is maintained at thetechnical level plausibility, expressibility, thresholds of knowledgeand boredom but here even these controls had to be surrendered to therequirements of inspiration. The result? A comic masterpiece? Grossindulgence? A profound revelation? As for me, I still laugh, grin, smile,chortle, holler in memory. But I would say that, wouldn't I?

    Enjoy it there's goodness in it!

    THE TESTAMENT OF EVE Summary The novel is a comedy of omissions that revolves around the

    little-noted fact that, according to Genesis, Adam was only the second person to die, and the first to die a natural death. The story opens withAdam two years abed, his descendents forced to labour in his stead, hiswife to dance attention on him. Eve determines to find a cure forAdams condition, but discovers that the man who might hold the key isone marked by a knowledge that all fear to know, though all are curiousto learn. This man is Cain, the ruler of the city on the plain.

    So Eve sets off to meet him. The result is chaos as two familiesencounter one another. Old memories are dredged up, old woes relived,

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    but new possibilities are revealed, as nine hundred years of evasion andamnesia are literally torn away. Most seek new hideouts, some revealsurprising awareness and even more surprising equanimity. Only Eve,driven perhaps by the exigencies of a composition she undertakes out ofunsuspected motives, seems aware of deeper memories, deeper truths,especially of a deeper knowledge hidden in some appalling event in the

    beginning, where both a profound loss and an inspiring gift await herside by side for ever.

    As a comedy of omissions there are, as might be expected, someobscurities, but given the popularity of the Adam and Eve story readersshould be able to supply most of the answers themselves. The comedyis Aristophanic and so direct, characters graphic but open to

    development as the story unfolds, Eve untiring, the ending as happy ascan be in the circumstances, everyone getting at least what they arecapable of accepting.

    ( back )

    =OR= Introduction = OR = is the twelfth novel in the series. It was completed in late

    1998 at the end of a baffling creative process in which the work grew asentence at a time over many months. There was of course need forsome editing and rewriting, but not nearly as much as might beexpected in the circumstances.

    = OR = marks the culmination of the third cycle of novels, thecycle dealing with the Social, and looks forward to the fourth and lastcycle, which will deal with the Individual. These works have yet to be

    written, but in =OR= the shadow of the Ego, the true darkness in ourhuman lives, can be discerned in Ossie Rising and his disciples.

    =OR= Summary =OR= is the logo of Rising Transport Services, but it only

    incidentally contains the initials of its late boss, Ossie Rising. Ossie wasa respected businessman and the celebrity philanthropist, who wasknown to millions of viewers for the =OR= gold-painted truck that

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    brought much-needed aid to many of the worlds most recent troublespots. Ossie disappeared a few years ago after attending a poetryreading in Brighton, while on stopover en route to Sarajevo.

    His wife, Cissy, now has control of the business, and has almostreached the point where she can cope with the responsibility ofmanagement and the burden of command. It is a lonely task for her,eased to some extent by a loyal staff and the unfailing support of Totty,the long-serving accountant and now her chief advisor.

    There is a problem. Ossie had a brother, Zed, who surrenderedhis share of =OR= to go out into the broad brave world to, well,discover that he could not cut it with the serious sharks, could not makethe billion, bag the big bird, hold the mile high. Now hes back with the

    company, Transport Manager, older but more hungry now that heknows what hes missing. No coincidence that =OR= trucks areincreasingly subject to drug squad investigations in many countries. Nosecret that Zed regrets having surrendered his right to his share of theownership of a still lucrative business.

    This is the position at present. Now it seems that Ossie mightnot be dead after all, that he might well be on his way back. Ossieresurgens might resolve some problems, but he might also create somenew ones. Following the lead here is a delicate matter, a matter both ofuncovering the truth and keeping it at bay. This will be the task of theRising offspring, Nubs, fatboy geek with unsavoury habits andunsavoury friends. Nubs will be the one to worm out secrets and losethem all again if that is required.

    Ossie comes back, alright, looking like something that survivedan autopsy, sounding like something that the sixties left behind, coming

    on like something a new millennium could do without. Ossie will provide the solution to his dear wifes problem.Ossie will provide the solution to everyones problem, that is if

    anyone can work out what the problem is.

    ( back )

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    FOURTH CYCLE Introduction At this stage, it is only possible to speak of the general theme

    guiding the creation of the last four novels.05.05.05: Dear Diary - this cycle of novels is intended to

    witness to the birth of the human Ego, a cosmic event that is happeningnow. However, I have seen far greater truths than this by other means,that leave me wondering if I will ever complete this cycle. I know whatthe next and the penultimate novels are about, but I have little or noinclination to write them out. There is also the fact that hardly anyonehas read these novels. Only one person has read each of the last three,and she is not a practiced novel reader. The world changes and changesand all the time the themes and techniques of the novels become lessand less relevant. PM

    THE EAGLE FLIES ON FRIDAY Introduction Starting a new cycle is always difficult, like changing focus

    from something that has become familiar to something that is new and a bit strange. It is not that the theme of The Eagle flies on Friday wasunknown it's based on the Epic of Gilgamesh but the tendency, as it

    were, of the novel was uncertain. I knew what the novel was to be about but didn't know if I could realise it.As it turned out, the novel found its own way to its end, as they

    all have done. Is that all? Actually, yes. I sat down and wrote it. It tookfar longer than usual. Sometimes I had to wait a week to find out if a

    paragraph worked. It did; they all did.Writing can be very strange, with gratitude due afterwards.

    THE EAGLE FLIES ON FRIDAY Summary The Principal rules the City and so can do what he likes. He

    likes raping women and murdering their male kin should they complain.The City Council must find a way to curb the Principal and so save theirCity from impending chaos. The solution is to provide him with afriend, with the companionship he so desperately needs. They find aWild Man, abandoned in the Desert as a child, as an appropriate friend.

    Because the Wild Man has lived with animals since he can remember,21

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    and the Principal has behaved like an animal for so long, they both needto be prepared in advance.

    It's a curious relationship, with so little and so much in common.The Principal and the Friend come to spend most of the time wanderingin the Desert like outcasts. It is the Wild Man's idea to climb theStairway to Heaven, hidden away high in the Mountains to the East andguarded by a fearsome monster.

    It's an unlikely task for the two of them, and it is likely to betheir undoing

    ( back )

    ANGEL OF TRUTH Introduction A writer starting out often has to content with the problem of

    subjectivity. By this I mean the leaking of his or her own self-ness intowhat is intended to be reasonably objective fiction. For my part, I didnot surmount this problem until I wrote REHEARSALS in the summerof 1975, just before burying myself in a university for eight years. Thusthe first volume of the Richard Butler tetralogy, THE FOURTH MAN,is permeated by this subjectivity for good or for ill. For what it'sworth, I think it helps make the younger Richard that bit more credible.

    Imagine my chagrin to discover that the fourteenth novel of theseries, presented here, was also freighted with the dumb presence ofsubjectivity, after thirty years of relatively well controlled objectivity. Itmade writing ANGEL OF TRUTH extremely difficult. It is a shortishnovel, a limited cast and situation, yet the step from one sentence to the

    next at times seemed impossible to achieve. One page took over twoweeks to write, mainly because I could not frame one fairlystraightforward sentence. I could not understand what was happening atthat point in the novel.

    It took me a good while to recognise what was actuallyhappening overall in the novel. Until the last pages I believed I'm notdissembling here that ANGEL OF TRUTH was a mediocre work, infact the worst I had written. It was only when I had finished it and couldstep back that I saw what had been achieved. The subjectivity I

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    encountered in the novel was not my own, but that of Peter Lacey, themain character of the novel. I know that is a lot to say, but that is how Iunderstand it. Peter Lacey lives in this novel. Read the novel and seehim come to a birth.

    ANGEL OF TRUTH Summary Peter Lacey has been obliged to abandon his life as peripatetic

    researcher into the more obscure areas of Utopianism. Now, he worksas a temporary credit controller in various companies in London. Oneday, while en route to a routine business meeting, he and an associatefrom Sales pick up a hitch-hiker and give him a five minute lift to helphim on his way.

    Within a week, Peter's life is totally transformed.

    ( back )

    RESTORATION IntroductionOne of the problems with subjectivity in a novel is how it limits

    the author's voice. You are trapped in your character. This is notnecessarily a bad thing nowadays. Over-educated authors with theinternet only a browser away can easily overwhelm a narrative withan excess of character development and local colour.

    However, what if your character is weird and wonderful? Howfar can you go in being true to this weirdness? I suppose it depends onthe character. In RESTORATION the heroine has little or no memory(due to spending too much time in reality). She is also obsessive andextremely determined (characteristics of artificials). She is also charged

    with the mission of saving mankind (against its better judgement).You cannot easily live with such a character; she is just too

    strange and because of the lack of memory too empty. Yet you are possessed by something the atmosphere of the world she inhabits, theodd insight you get into her which sustains you between writingsessions. I developed the habit of waking up at 5 AM each morning andspending two hours letting that day's work as it were grow in me. Andyet what went down on the page was often a too simple, step-by-stepnarrative about a monomaniac woman and her derelict world, written in

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    an semi-literate phonetic English. Sometimes I feared the onset ofAlzheimers or the like and developed a second habit of carefullyscrutinising that day's work as soon as possible, while the memory ofwhat I intended to write was still with me.

    Yet I got to know her so well. I was never sadder finishing anovel. I miss her company. But she has gone back into the oblivion ofreality again, where she has become someone else for the duration.

    RESTORATION Summary It is about a thousand years into the future. The world is a dried

    out husk, most of the water having been exchanged for omnium fromthe Other World. The human race is dying out because most women canno longer bear children and the alternatives don't work. Artificials areself-obsessed and clones die of loneliness. The few natural offspringthat there are called natals rule the world as a time-serving

    bureaucratic clique. The rest of the human race subsists on what isknown as Machine Maintenance, a superlatively efficient welfaresystem that oversees life from incubation bottle to render plant.

    Into this hell on earth awakens the artificial woman who will be

    known to some as Sophie. She has just lost her fortune in the latestBubble and so finds herself turfed out of reality into the tender metalcare of the Machine. Her memory has been destroyed by her overlongsojourns in reality, and her only consolation perhaps are the strangedreams she has when she manages to sleep.

    Even so, she is filled with an overwhelming desire to journeyacross the desolated land towards the high towers on the northernhorizon. She doesn't know why she wants to go there, but she goes inany case if only because she cannot do otherwise.

    ( back )

    REFLECTION IntroductionThis is the last novel of the cycle. You might expect the great

    climax fireworks and what-not but what you get is the first novel I

    was not able to write forty years ago. Very strange and for me very24

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    touching: to come so far in order to say what I would like to have beenable to say when I was twenty!

    The novel is in part a retelling of the tale of Oisn and hissojourn in the Land of Youth, which is then completed by means of amodern second part in which the Fairy Princess of legend is enticedinto our realm, the Land of the Wise.

    REFLECTION SummaryAfter the failure of a love relationship, a young man travels to

    Kerry in order to throw himself into the ocean there. Complications prevent him from doing this, so that he finds himself instead carried offto another part of the country, to an ancient house that nestles close tothe same ocean. In this house there is an equally ancient crystal mirror,and through this Looking Glass there is everything a young man mightwant. But of course there is also much more that might take the youngman a lifetime to understand

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    AFTERWORD

    It might be that few will be prepared to read through the cyclewith the intense concentration and openness of mind with which thenovels were written. So, for those who agree with this sentiment, let metell you a secret:

    The primary beneficiary of a work of art is the artist himself even when he or she has no idea that this is the case. A work of art isthen more like a discarded husk than the object of aesthetic enjoyment.However, this husk retains the lineament of the artists endeavour much as a husk in nature retains evidence of the form of the fruit thatdeveloped within it so that it is possible for a peruser of the work to

    re-enact the artists labour and thus catch a glimpse if only partially orfitfully of the original inspiration that informed it. Now the value ofsuch an experience lies not in the knowledge gained about the artistsintentions or the like, but rather lies in the degree to which such insightshelp to stimulate that part of the reader that is analogous to the artistssource of inspiration. This does not mean that he is necessarily made anartist, or that he should hunt out artistic experience just so as to feelagain the thrill of stimulation. The artists source of inspiration is not anartistic source, it is a universal spring found in every human being.What the artistic stimulation can do is make people aware of this springwithin themselves.

    What happens then is down to the individual.

    Philip Matthews

    25 February 2011

    Here is a small volume of essays that may help those who wish toenter more deeply into the experience of this universal spring. Note thatmost of these essays were composed between the third and fourth subcyclesof Dark Liberation, that is between =OR= and THE EAGLE FLIES ONFRIDAY. Some experience of the earlier novels will therefore help in

    assimilating the content of the essays. 26

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/125295323/6320265-the-Gryphon-Mysteryhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/125295323/6320265-the-Gryphon-Mysteryhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/125295323/6320265-the-Gryphon-Mystery