In a line – Piranese is a charming fantasy, as light and satisfying as a dream in the mid-afternoon. It’s well-written, too, and easily digested in few hours, leaving a fresh, expansive aftertaste.

I’d put it alongside that particularly English style of occult-inflected fictional classics like Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni, Dion Fortune’s Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, and others.

Like the classics of the genre, this has a feeling of being true, or true enough; a roman-à-clef. Susanna Clarke spins this yarn extremely well, and the pacing is perfect; the tension is artfully seeded, built, released and expanded.

As with these, there is that particular but definite characterisation in the actors who populate this short novel. Clarke gently, deftly captures the ambivalent mores and overall posture of the practicing occultist actually working towards something compelling.

I know nothing of the author, her previous work, or her circumstances – though on these grounds, keen to read more. Piranese came to me as one of those great blind recommendations, following a wide-ranging conversation, that will no doubt lead to more.

It’s really nice to read something so fun and classy, and completely outside my own reading stacks.

Here be spoilers

As we descend further into this post, be warned – heavy spoilers below. If you’d rather not let the Sphinx out of the bag, go read it and come back later.

We’ll be here. We’re always here, until we’re not.

Keys lost and found, climbing nightside trees on hills of dreams

It certainly doesn’t feel like this is sewn from virgin cloth, though – making it more fascinating still. There are so many things that feel so achingly familiar here. I love that this feels like a riffing of so many classics, pulled together into something new.

The entire concept – a trapped explorer, in an ancient, adjacent world – brings to mind Kenneth Grant’s bewildering guidebook, Nightside of Eden. Specifically his chapter on accessing the Qlippothic tunnel of Amprodias, via Aleister Crowley’s (or someone’s) sigils of Liber 231.

On re-reading Grant's text, perhaps this is a long bow to draw; Clarke’s serene halls are not haunted by bewitching sylphs that paralyse then parasitise the unwary – though the sense of immensity and endlessness resonate in both.

Even the description of the character Laurence Arne-Sayles kind of matches biographical accounts of Crowley – the lascivious, queer, notorious magician of Piranesi sounds a lot like a non-fawning borrowing of character elements from the magnificent master Therion.

Grant’s 1997 novel Against the Light also featured highly specific candlesticks. Some say this references actual events. Some say all sorts of strange things, especially in these twilight pursuits.

The treatment of the protagonist is like the reverse of the journey of the aspiring writer in Arthur Machen’s 1907 novella, Hill of Dreams. Both are told in the first-person, by completely unreliable narrators.

For pretty deficient character, Piranese gets a moderately-wholesome redemption arc; it's questionable whether he actually deserved it, and certainly didn't save himself. Machen’s hapless naif-of-letters suffers the usual, gothic/romantic/pulp fate of those failing to integrate the expansive experiences of this nature.

As the narrative of Piranese twists, to feature a classy, nostalgia-lite throwback to a vanished world of “things we got up to at university”. These segues have a cozy The Secret History feel to it. Piranese feels a bit like stepping into a similar circle to that so artfully cast by Donna Tartt in her text, back in 1992. The dark academia vibe is immaculate.

Finally – the whole world seems so reminiscent of the masterful Library of Babel of Jorge Luis Borges. But – Clarke’s story is kinder, has more heart and hope. One does not read Borges for heart and hope, but perhaps for inoculation from their tides.

Flashing, yearning, finding

There are so many other flashes of connections present in this book, which makes it all the more charming.

It’s a light, gentle but firm touch in a genre beset with copycats, failed psychologists, bawdy shockjocks, and the ponderously boring.

Sure, literature can be like magic, but actually magic is magic, and unless you’re putting something down, you’re not really playing that game.

The doorways exist. Piranese reads like a love letter to this yearning, and its realisation.

#review

The slightly salacious inclusion of the provocative term “Demons” in the title notwithstanding, this slim text efficiently, elliptically ties together the shaggiest of dog stories into a tangential masterpiece.

I adore this guy's work, unreservedly. Lecouteux's work always makes me think. I'm always enhanced, in some oblique way, by reading one of his books.

Demons and Spirits of the Land is no different – it's another wild folkloric ramble through various centuries and dozens of texts, from one side of Europe to the other, and leaves the reader with more questions than answers. But – the questions are good and necessary ones.

Saints as the “Athletes of Christ”

For me, this text caused a complete reappraisal of what Christianity had to offer early Pagans – namely, a powerful, centralising force, enabling the peasants spiritual domination over assorted troublesome entities, and their fearful conditions.

These canonised heroes of the faith come across as motley but muscular and sincere quasi-vagrants; they drift into town, deliver wild eyed sermons and promises of eternal life, then head alone into the wilds.

They return with the spirits, shackled and subservient, handing them over to the retribution of unwashed peasants in exchange for their eternal souls.

The terrorised peasants usually abuse then kill the elementals – a diminished end for these beautiful, enchanting, gift-giving beings.

Lecouteux delicately handles this matter – all sides get a fair hearing, good representation, relatable motivation. This in itself is commendable and gently instructive.

As a teacher, he deftly coaxes sparks of subject interest into a hungry fire that throw back the darkness, while casting longer shadows still.

Aside, comment: At Carcosa Bound, we do not approve of or condone this sort of behaviour towards spirits. We are firm proponents of overcoming our own terror, our ignorance of the unknown, as well as any material and spiritual poverty. We prefer interactions based on appropriate communication, knowledge exchange and mutual benefit.

Do your thing, relentlessly. Take no shit, generally. Harm ye none, conditionally. Do what thou wilt.

Experience and results to date suggest those of the spirit world respond to this, as well.

Questing Knights

In contrast to the adventures of ragged missionaries with their miraculous saviour, the other lead actors notably referenced as having landspirit dealings are quest-bound knights.

These either vanquish spirits, or more frequently encounter some sort of pivotal insight. Arthurian Grail quests abound.

Frequently – and in stark contrast to the early Christian stories – the accounts of the knights feature failure and humility, and the improvements made possible through this.

Lecouteux also makes a number of illuminating comments and hints on the identity and mysteries of the Green Knight, encountered by Gawain, of the Court of Arthur. Water spirits also frequently feature, as does a taxonomy of sorts, for easy identification in the field, as it were.

He leaves a trail of breadcrumbs, in the form of excellent references to many free-to-access public domain works, for those who wish to explore further.

A course of instruction, in a twilight tradition

The short monograph offers an introduction to a number of key texts.

Among these – Melusine, compiled by Jean d'Arras in the 14th Century. Huon of Bordeaux, a Chivalric tale featuring the Fae King Oberon, who has a curiously similar (near-identical) description to Lucifer in the grimoire tradition.

A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and other spirits, by Paracelsus. His recommendations equip the naive reader to explore these primary texts for themselves.

Really, one could wish for no better or more expert guide for forays into these difficult, archaic texts, and the veiled mysteries they contain.

I'd hesitate to say you could become a modern-day Geralt of Rivia with this book alone – but it could put you on this track, or a number of others.

If this is your jam, highly recommended.

#review #spirits #myth

As a novel, it's a lot like the Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson, in terms of content. This was hugely influential on me, so I've a soft spot for historical and alt-historical conspiracy fiction. It's a great way to explore and enflesh ideas.

A key difference though is in the style – RAW was heavily influenced by James Joyce and Ayn Rand – big, flaccid, discursive narrative arcs that meander like a stoned hippy flaneur.

Jason Reza Jorjani keeps it tighter, sharper – it has more Ligotti in terms of narrative twists, ever towards the darker. There's a resonance with Hesse there too, in terms of constant escalation into another grim realisation, always within reach but beyond grasp.

There's a lot of occult sex to go with the named, brightly-lit horror here too, and the writing is brisk and efficient. It avoids Lovecraft territory, while sacrificing none of the effect. Great portrayal of multiple potential timelines, too – much clearer than the mind shredding (but equally wonderful) excesses of Michael Moorcock.

There's a wonderful plot thread involving awaking consciousness by remote viewing Atlantean Nordic space beings (him) and their genetically engineered fucktoy slaverace (humanity in general, his girlfriend in particular) that he riffs off of. It's in line with his compelling breakaway Promethian operatives within an Olympian/Nephilim Ancient Aliens coming back to dominate us” theory. It's great stuff.

Maybe mad, possibly bad, definitely dangerous knowledge

Jorjani is an interesting dude, too. He's clearly up to something. Altogether too smart for his own good, in a wonderful way; an incendiary character whose incandescence could catch him on the pyre of his own making.

Like, that kind of exciting, dangerous outsider, heavily influenced with heroic doses of Neitzsche.

Jorjani takes this mind bending stuff out of the inconsequential contemplative gooncave that it too-often lives permanently inside, into a fierce practice.

His bio is full of all sorts of adventures and campaigns, with varying degrees of success (as yet) – though the man is extremely laudable and inspiring in how he gives apparent impossibilities a relentless, gods-honest try.

Diagnosis: a good, quick, wild read

Overall – Faustian Futurist is a fun read; among the more-accessible, well written and coherent examples of this genre I've been able to read.

Definitely keen to explore more of his work – finding exciting, actually intellectually dangerous writers seems an unfortunate rarity. Jorjani though – he's out there on the frontier, bearing messages of a coming storm – and the darker forces hiding within it.

#review