The Short-Stories, and Works of Fiction, of David Myatt

The Short-Stories, and Works of Fiction, of David Myatt

Introduction: Pseudonyms

       Since I - along with many other people who have written about Myatt or who have studied his life and works - consider that "Anton Long" is one of Myatt's many pseudonyms, I have commented on some short-stories written by one "Anton Long".

I have also commented upon some recent stories, such as In The Sky of Dreaming, written by one "Algar Merridge" - which I, and some others, regard as another of Myatt's pseudonyms.

Short-Stories, Fiction, and Myatt's Style

In addition to the works mentioned here - which are mostly short-stories - it is my opinion that the novels of the so-called Deofel Quintet, originally published by the ONA, were written by Myatt, sometime between the 1970's and the late 1980's. These novels are, in no particular order,

      Falcifer: Lord of Darkness
      Temple of Satan
      The Giving
      The Greyling Owl
      Breaking The Silence Down

Of these, my personal favorite is The Giving, with its description of ancient rural practices and of the somewhat seedy goings-on of two of the characters, Mallam and Maurice Rhiston.

Ultimately, however, the above mentioned novels are - in my personal opinion - somewhat mundane in style, and neither outstanding nor particularly memorable works of fiction, although they may indeed fulfill at least something of their stated purpose, which was to be "entertaining instructional texts [for Occult Initiates], written in fictional form, designed to be read aloud..." Certainly, two of these novels - Falcifer, and Temple of Satan - deal in an overt way with Satanism, in a manner which some readers may find interesting.

A possible exception, to such mundanity, might be made for Breaking The Silence Down, which is most unusual in that it is written by a man, describing as it does Sapphic relationships, and the sensitivities of some women, rather well. That said, and to be fair, there are several sensitive, perceptive, and quite well-written, passages in some other of these works; consider, for instance, the following, from The Greyling Owl, which describes an entry that one of the characters, Alison, makes in her Diary:

The corridor was dark - all the rooms were closed and I felt afraid. I could not bear a repeat of my last visit – the angry words, the tears, needs that were not fulfilled, things left unsaid. I remember I said: "It’s better if I never see you again" – hoping he would plead with me to stay. He said nothing. I couldn’t resist any more: "What shall I do?" I cried, catching the lapels of his jacket, tears on them, my tears as I clung to him, trying to make a bridge. "Come on Wednesday" he struggled to say. "On Wednesday," I repeated.

Such a dark corridor, outside. Last time I just stood in the kitchen, kicking the door and shouting at it: "Why do you never understand me!" Yet I was back again – I had no pride left. Was this need really love? What would I say this time? Could I find a way of letting him understand – of getting through? I knocked on his door. "Come in." The voice was subdued. He was sitting in his chair I remember as if it was a moment ago. Dispirited. "What is it?" I wondered if all relationships were like this – so charged with emotion. "Your letter, your letter," he struggled to say. "I've hurt you," I whispered with awe. Then, sitting on his lap, my head against him, buried. Crying. "It’s alright." A soft voice, a soft touch on my face.

It did not last. "Are you pleased to see me?" I asked. "About as pleased as a Mickleman can be." Then, the inevitable wandering hand. The moment gone, and never repeated.

But, in my view at least, these memorial parts are rather let down by the stories themselves, for it does seem rather hard to care about any of the main characters, with the possible exception of Alison, in The Greyling Owl.

The same general mundanity of style and content rather applies, in my view, to most of Myatt's other older works and stories, such as the short science-fiction story The Adventures of Hassan and Jorg, although that story is notable for its attempt to depict Jihadi Muslims, living on another planet, as "freedom fighters" battling an evil, and expanding, militaristic "world-empire". Myatt's other works - such as the short story, One Connexion - often seem somewhat self-indulgent, in an autobiographical kind of way, and yet again I find it difficult to empathize with, or indeed care about, any of the characters.

Horror Fiction and A New Mythos

It is only in much later, and recent, works - such as his recent Occult short-stories Herewith The Darkness, and The Moon's Tidal Moving and the related story Cantaoras: Dark Daughters of Baphomet - that Myatt seems to have found a suitable, original, evocative, and rather sinister voice, and produced stories that are both interesting and intriguing.

In Herewith The Darkness and in Cantaoras - and the related three stories Jenyah, In The Sky of Dreaming, and Sabirah - Myatt (writing as either Anton Long or Algar Merridge) creates in effect a modern sinister mythos, for these are stories of powerful, dark, extra- dimensional and - interestingly - female sinister entities (or "demons" or Dark Gods), who often have assumed human form (or rather, occupied and taken over human bodies), and who require "the life-force" of human beings in order to sustain themselves in our world. This is a modern, if somewhat disturbing, update of the vampires of legend and conventional horror fiction, with Myatt suggesting not only that these sinister, long-lived female vampires, from the dimensions of the acausal universe, are living amongst us, actively searching for victims, and able to reward whomsoever they choose with the gift of eternal life, but also that it is possible for us to call such sinister entities forth into our own world to bring chaos and disruption and evil.

In one of these short-stories - In The Sky of Dreaming - Myatt plays games with time itself, suddenly shifting the time and place of the narration as if to suggest, in accord with his theory of causal and acausal and nexions, that certain "acausal entities" (that is, "demons" or Dark Gods) can alter time itself, or at least the time we, as human beings, are familiar, and comfortable, with.

It is these recent, above mentioned, sinister short-stories - and The Dark Trilogy [See End Note (1) ] - that stand out in both the literary, and the Occult, sense, with Myatt using words, and phrases (sometimes repeated) to often successfully evoke a sinister scenario, and to, rather seductively it must be said, glamorize dark, satanic, deeds. Which is something of an achievement, in itself. This glamorization is particularly evident in the sinister character of Eulalia in Herewith The Darkness, and The Moon's Tidal Moving.

In terms of the genre of horror, Myatt, in the stories Herewith The Darkness, and The Moon's Tidal Moving, does rather successfully evoke a disturbing, original and genuinely horrific atmosphere, of primal "Dark Entities", as he calls them, hunting and killing humans and leaving behind dried corpses, and of a female half-human vampire-like creature (Eulalia, the main protagonist) not only in a Mephistophelean way playing games with humans and their feelings, but also creating terror by slaughtering humans in their thousands, and it is these two most recent of his stories (especially in The Moon's Tidal Moving) that Myatt has achieved, in my opinion, and through his use of language and his new mythos, works of genuine literary merit.

Compared to these two stories, his earlier works, such as The Deofel Quartet, seem - and indeed are - rather dull, tame, and devoid of literary significance.

Julie Wright
Oxford
August 2008 AD
(Updated September 2008 AD)

End Note:

(1) The Dark Trilogy is described as A Sinister Concerto in Three Movements, and contains three linked short stories, entitled Nythra, Kthunae, and Atazoth.