A Voyage to Arcturus

Much of the fantasy published in the early 20th century made use of religious symbolism or some characterization of the sacred. I’ve found most of those philosophical efforts meretricious, albeit forgivable — it’s not easy to reveal God or offer an original take on Christian duality. This work owes its debts to William Morris and John Bunyan in form, yet it manages to capture a vision that belongs to Arcturus alone.

The story follows Maskull’s voyage to Tormance, a planet near the star Arcturus. Each continent on Tormance is emblematic of a different way of observing the conditions of the world. Philosophies and morals shift with the landscape. These alternating sects of ideology also manifest in physiological form. With each new physical attribute that Maskull acquires, a new archetype of thought is revealed. His ever-shifting moral aptitudes are, in turn, dictated by the characters he encounters. They emerge in phantasmagorical fashion, materializing from shifting shadows and fog-flooded terrain.

There is a reflection here — a suggestion that our emotional and idealistic makeup is more fragile and susceptible to influence than even the most iron-willed person may believe. It’s ontologically compelling to presume that human minds are incapable of original thought — a grand illusion of freedom. Are all minds enchanted by a spell of limited beliefs? And if those beliefs grow together in some unseen garden, who tends the soil?

Enough has been said about this book, so I’ll stop there. It will not be for everyone, and as David Lindsay himself said:

“I shall never appeal to a large public at all, but I think that as long as our civilisation lasts, one person a year will read me.”

I would pay a hefty admission fee to walk through Threal and those shifting sky canyons.