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Title:
The Night Land
Series: (Standalone)
Author:
William Hope Hodgson
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Adventure
Pages: 681
Words:
197K
Publish: 1912
Back
in 2020, I tried to read The
Well at the World’s End, but had to give up at 9% because
of the faux old time’y language the author used. There has been
lingering regret about that decision ever since and I have felt like
I was defeated by mere words. As someone who thinks that words are
the most important, that defeat just stuck in my craw. Which is
necessary info to understand why I persevered through this current
piece of garbage.
This
story could have been 150 pages but Hodgson puffed it up to over 600,
mainly because he insisted on detailing everything on an hourly
basis, through the narrator. The narrator tells us every time he
eats, sleeps and gets outraged at himself (Dictator Xi Jinping now humps a goat) when he doesn’t do those
things on the schedule he set up for himself. And then tells how long
it has been since he last ate or slept so as to show that he’s
aware of breaking his own schedule and somehow trying to secure our
sympathy.
And
it is all written in Faux 1700’s language.
I
have mentioned in previous reviews of Hodgson’s stuff that I’m
not surprised he’s been swept aside and forgotten by history. This
book really cemented that idea for me though. It also made me realize
that I am wasting my time with Hodgson and thus this will be the last
book of his I read. There are other authors who HAVE stood the test
of time that I should read instead of this guy. Dickens, Dumas,
MacDonald, Hugo, etc spring to mind.
I
considered giving this a 1star because I was so bored with it and
wanted it to end, but 1stars are saved for the truly egregious books
that cross moral lines and are poisonous to the reader. This was like
a HUGE bag of store brand buttered popcorn that was stale. It’s
disgusting but it isn’t poison.
★✬☆☆☆
From
Grokipedia
Framing
device
The framing device of The
Night Land presents
the entire narrative as the visionary manuscript of a 17th-century
gentleman mourning the death of his beloved wife, Lady Mirdath the
Beautiful, who died young. [15] [16] Overwhelmed by
grief and loneliness, the narrator experiences a series of dreams and
waking visions in which he "waked into the future of this
world," perceiving the life and thoughts of his own
reincarnation millions of years ahead. [17] These psychic
or telepathic impressions reveal events in a distant era after the
sun's death, which he recognizes as connected to his soul's eternal
continuity. [17]The story is thus conveyed as a "found"
record or transcribed vision from this historical narrator, who
describes his experiences in an archaic, ceremonious prose reflective
of his time. [15] [17] He frames the account as a
personal testimony born of sorrow, noting that such knowledge came to
him through spiritual sympathy and reincarnation memory, allowing him
to witness his future self's existence. [17]This framing
structure creates significant temporal distance between the
narrator's 17th-century perspective and the remote future events,
lending the tale a mythic, prophetic tone that heightens its sense of
solemn wonder and cosmic scale. [15] [18] The device
also transforms personal bereavement into a broader meditation on
enduring love across aeons, offering consolation through the promise
of reunion beyond death. [17]
The Last Redoubt and the Night
Land
The far-future Earth depicted
in The Night
Land lies in
perpetual darkness, enveloped in an everlasting night after the sun's
extinction millions of years earlier, with the planet grown cold and
hostile to life. [19]Humanity's last remnants—millions of
people—survive within the Last Redoubt, a gigantic pyramid
constructed of grey metal, measuring more than five miles along each
side of its base and rising to a height exceeding seven miles,
surmounted by a tower nearly a mile tall. [19] This
colossal structure contains 1,320 stacked cities across its floors
and is protected at its base by the Electric Circle, a great ring of
light generated by the Earth Current, which extends outward for a
mile on every side and forms an invisible barrier that repels
monstrous entities and evil forces. [19] The Earth Current
serves as humanity's sole remaining power source, sustaining life
within the pyramid—including vast underground fields that form a
stepped pyramid of country lands reaching a hundred miles deep and
wide at the lowest level—and providing illumination, agriculture,
and defense, though its finite nature poses an ultimate threat to
survival. [20]The surrounding Night Land extends as a vast,
lightless wilderness of profound horror, lit only by scattered
unnatural sources such as the Red Pit's fiery glare, the Vale of Red
Fire, the cold glow of the Plain of Blue Fire, the fitful red light
of Giants' Kilns, and low volcanoes along distant borders. [19] This
landscape teems with monstrous entities, including the four principal
Watchers—immense, immovable beings of hill-like bulk radiating
steadfast, hideous intelligence and positioned to menace the pyramid
from the north-west, south-east, south-west, and south—as well as
giants, Night Hounds, Ab-humans, the Silent Ones, and other grotesque
creatures that lurk amid features like the House of Silence, the Pit
of the Red Smoke, and the Country Whence Comes the Great
Laughter. [19] [21]A smaller, failing outpost known as the
Lesser Redoubt exists elsewhere in the Night Land, built as a
three-sided pyramid no more than a mile high with a base scarcely
three-quarters of a mile along each side. [20] Housing no
more than ten thousand inhabitants by the time of renewed contact, it
draws upon a comparatively weak stream of the Earth Current through a
deep shaft, resulting in long ages of dwindling vitality,
listlessness, and premature aging among its people until a recent
resurgence restored some vigor. [20]
The
journey and resolution
The protagonist establishes a
telepathic bond with Naani, a woman from the distant Lesser Redoubt,
and recognizes her as the reincarnation of his past love
Mirdath.[17] [22] When the Lesser Redoubt loses its
protective Earth-Current and is overrun, leaving Naani and a handful
of survivors to flee its ruins, he resolves to abandon the safety of
the Last Redoubt and undertake a solo quest to find and rescue her
despite the immense dangers.[17] He equips himself with the
Diskos, a powerful two-handed weapon that draws on Earth-Current to
produce a flaming, vibrating blade capable of cleaving through
monstrous foes.[17]The outward journey across the Night Land lasts
weeks or months and subjects him to extreme isolation and peril. He
traverses nightmarish landscapes including the Plain of Blue Fire,
the dark Mighty Slope, the Great Gorge with its blue gas flames, and
the Country of Seas and Fire dotted with volcanoes and dried
seabeds.[17] He must skirt or pass near fixed terrors such as
the immense Watchers, the House of Silence, and the Road Where the
Silent Ones Walk, while fighting off active threats including packs
of giant Night Hounds, great slugs, Humped Men, the four-armed Yellow
Beast-Man, and other ab-human and bestial creatures in desperate,
prolonged combats.[17] [23] Starvation, exhaustion, and
repeated brushes with madness test him, yet the Diskos and his
determination sustain him until he reaches the ruined Lesser Redoubt
and reunites with the starving, barefoot, and injured Naani along
with a small number of other survivors.[17]The return journey, often
more grueling than the outward trek, sees most of the accompanying
survivors perish from monster attacks, wounds, or fatigue, including
a major battle against Humped Men on a raft island in a fiery sea
region.[17] Naani repeatedly nears death from cold, hunger,
exhaustion, and injuries, forcing the protagonist to carry her for
long stretches while fending off continued assaults from Night
Hounds, slugs, and other horrors.[17] In the final approach to
the Last Redoubt, Naani succumbs to a spiritual assault from the
House of Silence and appears to die in his arms just outside the
protective Electric Circle.[17] Yet she miraculously revives
during the burial procession inside the Pyramid, restored by the
Earth-Current.[17]Both recover from their wounds and hardships, marry
first in private and later in a grand public ceremony, and share a
period of peaceful "Love Days" within the Last
Redoubt.[17] The protagonist is commemorated with a statue in
the Hall of Honour depicting him forever carrying Naani in his broken
armour, symbolizing the triumph of love and endurance.[17]
Characters
Protagonist
and narrator
The protagonist and narrator
of The Night
Land is an
unnamed man whose existence spans two distinct lifetimes connected
through reincarnation. In his first incarnation, in a past age, he
falls deeply in love with Mirdath the Beautiful, marries her, and
suffers profound grief when she dies in childbirth. [23] [22] This
loss haunts him until a mystical connection allows his consciousness
to merge with his reincarnated self millions of years in the
future. [24] [23]In the far future, he is a Monstruwacan in
the Great Redoubt, humanity's last refuge, stationed in the Tower of
Observation where he develops his natural telepathic abilities under
the guidance of the Master Monstruwacan. [25] He wields the
Diskos, a formidable personal weapon consisting of a sharp, spinning
disk of grey metal mounted on a rod, charged by the Earth-Current and
forming a unique affinity with its owner, often described as a
companion in battle. [26]The narrative is delivered in the first
person from this future incarnation, employing deliberately archaic
and formal prose that reflects the influence of his past life, marked
by phrases of solemn devotion and ceremonial gravity. [23] [25] His
personality reveals exceptional courage in facing the terrors of the
Night Land alone, profound and unwavering devotion to his
reincarnated beloved, and an emotional arc shaped by the lingering
anguish of past loss and the intense fulfillment of reunion. [22] He
briefly establishes telepathic contact with Naani, which propels his
journey. [23]
Naani
and Mirdath
Naani is
a young woman living in the Lesser Redoubt, a smaller pyramid-shaped
stronghold housing a dwindling human population far from the Great
Redoubt. [17] As the daughter of the Master Monstruwacan of
the Lesser Redoubt and a gifted Sensitive capable of strong
telepathic perception, Naani possesses unusual abilities to reach
across the vast darkness of the Night Land. [17] She
initiates faint, exhausting contact with the narrator using the
Master-Word and an ancient love-name once reserved for Mirdath the
Beautiful, his beloved from a previous life. [17] This
recognition reveals Naani to be the reincarnation of Mirdath, whose
soul has returned after ages apart, as confirmed by shared spiritual
essence, old gestures such as kissing food tablets before eating, and
Naani’s emerging memories of their past union. [17]Mirdath the
Beautiful, described in the narrator’s earlier existence as his
cousin and betrothed, shared a profound romantic bond with him until
her death in childbirth, an event that plunged him into lasting grief
and inspired tender, sorrowful poetry. [17] The narrator
perceives Naani’s voice and presence as Mirdath’s returned,
declaring that “she was Naani and she was Mirdath,” with their
reunion evoking the sense that “Eternity had been rolled
backward.” [17] Their connection underscores a theme of
eternal love persisting across vast temporal distances through
reincarnation. [27]Naani’s peril escalates when the
Earth-Current sustaining the Lesser Redoubt fails suddenly and
catastrophically, draining vitality from the inhabitants and leading
to widespread madness, despair, and a fatal exodus into the
monster-haunted Night Land. [17] Left alone amid the
destruction, Naani wanders starving and exposed for a prolonged
period, her calls growing fainter and more desperate as she faces
imminent death from exposure, hunger, and lurking threats. [17] Her
dire situation and continued telepathic pleas, invoking the past
love-name and signaling her mortal danger, serve as the central
impetus for the narrator’s resolve to leave the safety of the Great
Redoubt and cross the Night Land to save her. [17]
Antagonistic
forces
The Great Redoubt stands
besieged by an array of malevolent forces that surround it in the
eternal darkness of the Night Land. The most formidable of these are
the Watchers, immense, mountain-like entities positioned at various
points around the pyramid, embodying a hideous, steadfast
intelligence as they observe without cease. Described as "mountains
of living watchfulness and hideous and steadfast intelligence,"
they remain immobile, never sleeping or moving perceptibly, having
watched "from the Beginning" through eternity. One, the
Watcher of the South, is portrayed as "a living hill of
watchfulness... squat and tremendous, hunched over," having
approached slowly over twenty thousand years until halted by a rising
protective dome. Other Watchers exhibit distinctive features, such as
the North-West Watcher with its vast chin lit by red pit glow, the
South-East Watcher as a "squat monster" with a
lumbered-forward head, and the North-East Crowned Watcher marked by a
blue luminous ring and a constantly quivering
bell-ear.[26][26][28][26]Abhumans represent another category of
threat, consisting of mutated and degenerated descendants of humanity
who have become evil, bestial beings adapted to the harsh outer
world. These include various tribes such as the Humped Men—squat,
powerfully built figures with humped shoulders, large teeth, and
brown hair who hunt in predatory packs—and other brutish or
giant-like forms, often described as half-man and half-beast,
incredibly hardened to suffering and hostile to the Redoubt's
inhabitants.[26]Additional antagonistic entities encompass a range of
monstrous creatures, including giant slug-things—black, beslimed,
and wrinkled with eye-stalks and long white tongues that move slowly
and emit a dreadful stink—as well as large serpents thick as a
man's body, night hounds great as horses that bay and tear in packs,
and hybrid horrors such as four-armed yellow beings with talons or
low, bristled yellow things resembling living hillocks that attack
with poisonous hairs and sharp legs. Evil spirits and psychic forces
also lurk, particularly in locations like the House of Silence, which
exerts an irresistible drawing power.[26]These threats are held at
bay by the Earth Current, a fundamental energy drawn from beneath the
pyramid that sustains the Redoubt's light, heat, agriculture,
weapons, and communications while generating protective barriers.
Chief among these defenses is the great Electric Circle of light,
burning eternally within a transparent tube around the pyramid's base
and creating an invisible wall of safety, such that "none of the
monsters have power to pass across it" and it affects the weaker
minds of lesser creatures.[26]
