"To flee from the unspeakable, as some of lesser mettle have from time to time suggested, and take refuge in the craven surrender of madness or the complacent ignorance of a new Dark Age may be acceptable behavior for those who lack the strength of will to take up arms against what at first might seem a sea of insurmountable troubles; but even should his defiance prove in the end to be in vain, a man of fortitude can, at the very least, demonstrate to those who insist upon troubling such as he that they had best be prepared to deal with the inevitable consequences," The Testament of Alexander Fletcher (1)
Today I want to look at two stories by K.M. Tonso, "The Testament of Alexander Fletcher" and "Last Rites". I will note that K.M. Tonso is a pen name for Gaèl Baudino, an American writer with several series of fantasy novels to her credit. The very fact that I am writing about these stories indicates that I found some merit in them. I will use this post to explain why. It was only after reading "The Testament of Alexander Fletcher" recently that I remembered that I had read "Last Rites" some years ago. I rated it as ok at the time. I had some reservations then, which I will discuss below.
I do want to look at "The Testament of Alexander Fletcher" first, however. I read it in The Worlds of Cthulhu, edited by Robert M. Price. The plot of the story unfolds as a fairly standard mythos tale. Fletcher is a British academic born in Dorset, England. His area of study is the influence of the mythical civilization of Leng on the Sumerians. He is about to deliver a lecture on his completed research, which will ensure his graduation and possibly a post at the university. Then he will marry his fiance Florence, but disaster strikes when a few days before the lecture, he collapses. After several hours Fletcher awakens. But he is not well; he has lost some motor skills, and his speech is affected. His fiance Florence is summoned, but after seeing Fletcher, she claims he is not the same man and flees never to return. Fletcher does deliver his lecture, but his claims are so outlandish and wild that his academic career is ruined. At the time, he was largely unconcerned and he embarked on three years of travels around the globe, visiting strange cults and libraries housing collections of forbidden books. Then having returned to his parents' home, he constructs an unknown device in their shed. Things come to a head when a strange man of foreign mien is seen to breaking into the shed. There follows a great deal of noise and smoke. When the family investigates the device is in ruins, the notes Fletcher has kept during the last three are burning in the stove and he is unconscious on the floor. The first thing Fletcher does when he wakes up is ask for Florence. It seems he has no memory of the previous three years.
Fans of the work of H.P. Lovecraft will observe similarities to his story, "The Shadow Out of Time". In this story, the mind of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a lecturer at Miskatonic University, is displaced by that of a member of The Great Race of Yith. The alien then spends five years using Peaslee's body to research Earth, especially several strange cults. Meanwhile, Peaslee occupies the body of the alien located in an unknown city in Earth's distant past. Like Fletcher, Peaslee awakens only to find he has been abandoned by most of his family with his reputation in ruins. But while Peaslee quietly tries to rebuild his life, Fletcher wants revenge. And just how you can be avenged on a race of sentient cone-shaped plants that lived 250 million years ago is the substance of the tale.
The second story by Tonso that I want to discuss is "Last Rites" which appeared in The Madness of Cthulhu edited by S.T. Joshi. This is the story of a student at Miskatonic University named Alf (Alfred?) Marsh and his advisor Dr. Paul Dyer. It is only when Marsh turns to the study of geology that Dyer warns him it is a perilous subject, mentioning his father, William Dyer. Intrigued Marsh does some research and learns about the Miskatonic University expedition to the Antarctic and the discovery of the Elder Things, Shoggoths and the Mountains of Madness. He also learns that William Dyer's claims have been disproved by the Starkweather-Moore expedition some years later. Not only were there no Elder Things or Shoggoths, but the mountains themselves had disappeared. ( I have to admit the geological shenanigans required to accomplish this were the basis for my reservations the first time I read this story). Whether this is a sign, I have matured or regressed, I am not sure. But now I acknowledge that if I wanted scientific rigour, I probably would not be reading about strange prehuman cults, winged extraterrestrial cucumbers and massive protoplasm steam shovels run amok. The knowledge that this ruined Dyer senior's career does not dissuade March for the study of geology. Eventually, he and Dyer become colleagues and housemates. They specialize in the study of oceanic geothermal vents, and it is this study that leads them to a very unusual reunion.
I would now like to make some general remarks about Tonso style in these stories. It is somewhat mannered and convoluted, and some sentences require rereading. Especially in Testament, her vocabulary can be a bit unusual or archaic; the word sputum appears both stories, for example. Perhaps it could be a deliberate attempt to skirt parody in specific passages.
"That my praxis resulted in real, perceptible, and physical effects I could not deny, and it was with a mixture of elation and disgust that I regarded the results of my first operations: elation because I knew that I had now come into possession of the key that would unlock the means of my revenge, "The Testament of Alexander Fletcher (151)
I do want to mention that Testament is a revenge drama in the best tradition of the weird tale, and some might, for that reason, find it unpleasant. All I can do is point you to the stories of the father of the Weird Tale, Edgar Allen Poe and let decide for yourself. I think Tonso is also channelling H.P. Lovecraft in the story.
Fletcher, for example, notes he is not proud of his actions. But excuses them because the many of the cultists that fall prey to his machinations are described as inconsequential vagrants, mere gypsies and their families, ill-mannered foreigners, not only those who might have added in his dislocation but their mates and mewling spawn as well. I am pretty sure this is parody folks. One thing that interested me is that Fletcher eventually came to contrast his reaction to his experience with the response of Peaslee.
To some extent, the concept of revenge may also inform "Last Rites", but what attracted me to the story was the friendship between Dyer and Marsh, the invocation of mood in the portrayal of the life of academic bachelors. "But it seems now that I have once more followed in my mentor's footsteps, for the house is again empty and still, furniture settled in like brown smoke, curtains drawn, the kitchen, the study, the laboratory and my bedroom the only areas that see use." (213)
What attracted me to these stories? I will say I liked them better upon rereading. I think it was the fact that for me, they fell comfortably within the long continuum of not just the mythos tale but the weird tale in general. They were based on two of Lovecraft's best-known works but presented me with me a new focus or interpretation. I felt Tonso had troubled over the writing of them, matching vocabulary, sentence structure and characterization with the mood she wished to convey. I enjoyed them.
I started this post with the opening paragraph of "The Testament of Alexander Fletcher " I suspect that passage alone should be enough to interest most H.P.L. fans
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