 The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1995)
Historical fiction is a strange beast that forces the writer to painstakingly recreate the past using scads of research, and then sandwich a bunch of fake stuff in the cracks. Because of this, hissy-fic falls into one of four categories:
• Stories about fictional characters who fit into real events and places
• Reinventions or dramatic reenactments of actual events
• Clearly fictional tales about historical figures in impossible situations
• What-if stories about real people at points when the historical record is sketchy
For my money, I far prefer the first three categories, if only because, if done well, they let the reader dive into an era with the tacit agreement of what must be accurate and what likely isn't. I'm not so crazy about the fourth category, since it's generally the most awkward combination of truth and fancy. Oh, so a 20 year-old Abraham Lincoln spent six months as a hot-air balloonist in Prague? Riiiight.
And yes, you guessed it, The Lighthouse at the End of the World is among the fourth category, and beyond. (It also, incidentally, shares its title with an earlier book by Jules Verne, probably infinitely better.)
In Lighthouse, we get a radically twisty view of five days late in the short life of Edgar Allen Poe, during which he'd gone missing and finally turned up in rags at a hospital in Baltimore, and died a few days later.
During these four days, Poe either takes part in a series of mind-bending, hallucinatory adventures or fantasizes it all in a severe alcoholic stupor. Regardless, the book is a total slog, densely over-written and confusingly academic.
And yet, because of my overall interest in Edgar Allen Poe, and my desire to watch a technically proficient author drown in his own ambition, I read the whole thing, and considerably faster than other books I've enjoyed a lot more.
Being interested in Poe is different from knowing anything about the subject, and since the author took great pains to incorporate what clearly must be some of his fictional characters into the spiraling narrative, I am certain I know absolutely nothing more about Poe now than when I started reading the book.
I'd be hard-pressed to even offer a one-sentence logline of the story, given its nonstop permutations and repetitions. All I know is, it somehow tracks Poe's attempts to unravel the mystery of his brother's disappearance or murder (with the help of Poe's fictional Detective Dupin), and in so doing, save the world from destruction at the hands of a vengeful primitive god.
All well and good, but what I didn't mention is that this mystery/apocalypse thread may just be Poe's subconscious coming to terms with his own impending death by cycling through fragments of his real and creative lives and fitting them into a single through-line that proves the worth of his muddy existence.
In exploring these themes, Marlowe thrusts Poe into a time-traveling, bi-locating journey worthy of "The Best of Art Bell." Again, I have no problem with any of this at face value (fuck, it'd be awesome to read a book about Poe as a time traveler), and I'm all for fantasies and dream-scapes, but the author refuses to provide any coherence, heart, or sense of humor.
Poe is variously stone drunk in Baltimore while his lovely young wife dies a slow tubercular death, stranded in a remote lighthouse unable to finish a new book, living the high life as a celebrated novelist in Paris, or trekking through dense Southeast Asian jungles in search of a smashed pagan idol made from a comet.
The story occurs during the missing days, and also throughout Poe's life, and during and after his death. It doubles back on itself countless times, and offers so many alternate versions of events (each time, Poe inhabiting a different player), that by the end it's a happy thing that he seems to be actually dying in a regular old hospital bed, and not being chased by lava, escaping the crumbling lighthouse, or pursued by a murderous sailor named Monk, who may or may not be just another drunk Poe stumbles into during the missing days. And it's variously narrated by Poe or any number of Poe's alternate personalities or Detective Dupin or Poe's deathbed doctors, or by letters or interviews.
Add to this not just Atlantis but also Lemuria, stones with magical qualities, castles that appear out of nowhere, scenes that shift and change locations inexplicably, a lifeboat that won't sink no matter what happens to it, and even a moment in which Poe, under hypnosis, actually disappears and finds himself en route to a mysterious mythical tropical island to save the world.
It all amounts to nothing, truly nothing – huge ambition without huge intelligence or ability. Unless the whole book is a joke, in which case Marlowe is either the greatest literary genius ever, or the craziest. Actually, I take that back, in no possible parallel universe is Marlowe "the greatest"; he's a good writer for sure, but Salieri to any number of Mozarts (Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Chabon and probably Poe too, among many others).
Marlowe offers no unique insights or even useful clichés about Poe, the world, or human nature. And, worse, he tips his hat in favor of all the nonsense when, on the very last page of the book, a completely irrelevant side character discovers a piece of physical evidence proving once and for all … that it wasn't a dream!
Oh, puh-lease.
Review by Crimedog |