The Chalk Giants

In Keith Roberts’ writing you will encounter the beauty and horror of open spaces. He takes us to the expansive Neolithic fields of Wiltshire, where in the distance his protagonists glimpse the chalk mounds of Silbury Hill. These wind-swept mounds harbor ghosts of a past lost to the whispers of legend. Into this forgotten lore, Roberts beckons us toward a world of gods who breathe life into the grain, call rain to the spring, and bring forth a red sun bursting through the white shrouds of winter. Across the great heath and the villages scattered among the plains, we venture deep into the forests and marshes, where unknown forms linger and do strange things to appease their gods.

The Chalk Giants, like Pavane, is a series of variations on a theme of time and place. Where Pavane is static in its locale, The Chalk Giants hurtles through phases of history while the thematic pulse driving each narrative pounds a drum of guilt and suffering. Each story builds a historical arc that lapses between the present, the ultimate post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future, and the rich past of old — where Roberts shines like no other writer, leading us from paganism to the dawn of Christianity.

The novel opens with “The Sun Over a Low Hill,” a framing narrative that establishes its central themes. Some argue that this was not necessary, but the writing more than justifies its existence. There is also an allusion here to the paintings of Paul Nash, and Roberts was clearly intentional about this. As the reader encounters the wheel of time grinding on throughout the work, it helps to view Nash’s paintings — particularly Solstice of the Sunflower and The Eclipse of the Sunflower. Nash was alert to the horrors of the 20th century and juxtaposed that modern flesh wound with the beauty and cruelty of nature, pervading in a perennial gestalt across the epochs.

In “The God House,” Roberts recounts the events leading to the creation of the Cerne Abbas Giant hill figure in Dorset. A girl named Mata lives in a small village neighboring the chalk cliffs that overlook the English Channel. In a coming-of-age tragedy, Mata bears witness to the practices of her people at the advent of spring. The chief priest of the village, parading as the Grain King, takes a young girl from the village each year for ritualistic pleasure in a sacred hut on a chalk mound. Mata is selected for grooming and undergoes a process of sexual preparation at the hands of one of the older women. Her experience in the hut is unforgettable and is also the inspiration for the strange but wonderful Peter Jones cover on the 1975 Panther edition.

Roberts has the skill to compose legend upon command. In “Usk the Jokesman,” his gift is on full display in a Shakespearean composition that tells the tale of a late king who believes his purchased wife is a goddess. He adorns her with riches, believes she has allowed him to become the grain, the rivers, the very chalk outlining its mysterious forms in the hills. The story plummets into tragedy with a stunning beauty I cannot adequately put into words.

Each story is a masterpiece that neighbors the hand of Mervyn Peake in its ability to feel a place, to live inside of it. The locale and character here affect you deeply and reverberate long after the pages close.

Language fails me when I try to describe how arresting this work is. It is a mosaic of a forgotten time, conjured to the page with such skill that we find ourselves sitting beside an old hearth — snapping logs send sparks behind our closed eyes, the wind flows busy among necklaces of goats, sounding their wooden bells — and all along the way you are aware of a great, unfathomable mystery, as priests and gods awaken their rituals in the night and the chalk figures fade in and out as the moon glowers over their forms.

Keith Roberts was an unsung genius. It’s a shame that the NYRB did not get hold of his lesser-known works, which is really everything but Pavane. His ability to detach himself from contemporary world views is something few writers can claim. His ideas are original, drawn from a pagan-laced web of dreams that bubble to the surface of the modern day only to evaporate into forgotten dust. The critical frameworks needed to analyze these stories are starting to culturally disappear — and this, in turn, is precisely what makes them special, perhaps even treasured. Every serious reader should explore his work. He was among the rare few who could use the ideas of genre fiction to accomplish staggering artistic achievements.

P.S. — Avoid the 1975 G. P. Putnam’s Sons and the 1976 Berkley Medallion edition. They both omit Keith’s framing story, which was uncalled for. The UK versions are a bit tricky to track down but with some patience, one will find you.