The Cloven

This book is the third and final instalment in Brian Catling's utterly phenomenal series of novels, preceded by The Vorrh and The Erstwhile; and oh man was this trilogy worth sticking with, no matter how bogged down and lost I felt at times wading through its depths.

   Characters collide. Plot threads intertwine. Answers are unwrapped and mysteries implode back into the dark heart of the forest from whence they came. Angels go mad and back again. Humans find themselves thrust up against their closest relatives and hate what they see. War begins to raise its ugly head, and colonialists and locals alike begin to panic, to plan, and in some cases to abandon ship altogether and leave chaos behind. Nothing will be the same again - except the Vorrh itself, though even that will take time to rest and recover. But you, dear reader? You certainly won't be the same again.

   Having finished the trilogy I am now probably about 60-70% certain that I could tell you maybe half of what definitely happened in these books. But I don't care. These are not novels you read for surety, for comfortable solidity or easy solutions to the riddles posed. This is a trilogy that makes you feel like you are wandering through the Vorrh, slowly losing your mind at exactly the same time that your instincts are sharpening and your ancestral memory deepening. To say that this is a well-written trio of magical novels would be like saying that The Godfather series is a well-directed trio of mobster films. I have never read anything like this and I doubt I will again. These books made me laugh maybe once or twice per instalment, brought me to the verge of tears two or three times per instalment, but kept me in a state of suspended anxious confusion and tension for at least three-quarters of the whole length of each. They just don't let up, but they never tread the same ground twice either. I honestly think these may be some of the best fiction I've ever had the privilege of reading for their sheer immersive quality. Read these if you want an itchy mind.

The Erstwhile

This book is Brian Catling's sequel to the incredible fantasy novel The Vorrh, which I raved about. The reason it's taken me several months to finish a book I was extremely excited about is something you may have picked up on in the post about its prior instalment - this is a very hard series of books to follow. Not to swallow - as with its predecessor Catling's prose herein is of the utmost calibre in imaginative flights of darkness, beauty, horror and bizarreness. So as with the first book in the trilogy I can't, and even if I could wouldn't for want of spoiling such a fresh experience, tell you exactly what is going on in these books yet.

   Again, fantastical elements of this biblically-overgrown alternate version of Earth history are blended together with real historical bits, like William Blake or the Bedlam insane asylum. There is at least one thing I can tell you of what happens in this instalment with certainty. As the colonial settlers of Essenwald continue to plunge deeper into the Vorrh, they are beginning to disturb long-dormant strange creatures: these are the erstwhile, the angels who were given by God the task of guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden when humanity had been yeeted from it. However over the millennia, with the growth and thickening of the forest, they have lost their purpose, and in many cases their minds; most burying themselves in the ground and going to sleep. But now, as the Europeans disturb ever closer to the heart of the forest, they are waking up. And doing, to put it mildly, weird shit. One of these erstwhile has ended up in Bedlam, and makes friends with a German doctor who is visiting to investigate a tangential matter. Honestly, that's about all I can say with much surety. It certainly feels like things are drawing together loosely - plot elements overlapping increasingly and variably other characters from differing strands of the prior story crossing paths or conflicting unseen; but as with the first book this is an enigmatic novel and a half. Still beautifully-written though. Catling has a knack for describing actions and expressions or inheritances with a turn of phrase barely three or four words long that punches you in the brain's language centre so hard you wonder how you had never heard that combination of components used before, now it seems so obviously apt.

   As with the first book, a strong recommendation to any and all readers willing to get a bit lost. But be warned. If you spend too long in the Vorrh, it starts to affect your mind...

The Vorrh

This book by sculptor Brian Catling is hands-down the weirdest, most original fantasy novel I've ever read. It blends together biblical mythology, real people from history, critiques of colonialism, generations-long revenge dramas, black magic, experimental science, a cyclops, robot guardians, a mysterious house, quasi-magical mutant elements, and so much else.

   I'm extremely hesitant to try to give an overview of what happens in this, partly because I don't want to spoil in the slightest an incredible experience of being pulled into another world, but also frankly I'm not entirely sure what was going on. I know I'm familiar with the names and strangenesses of a couple dozen characters, not to mention the backdrop setting of Essenwald, a colonial city built within the edges of the vast prehistoric forest called the Vorrh, at the heart of which is said to lie the remains of Eden. But all the elements blend together and collide with or miss each other with such deftness of prose that upon finishing the book I am left with very little of substance that I can say for sure I know was going on. It's like a fever dream; the deepest, most pungent, most beautifully-written fever dream imaginable. And I say that wholeheartedly - this book contains some of the most ecstatic and innovative prose I have ever had the privilege of reading. I can't wait to finish the trilogy.

   I would strongly recommend this to any reader willing to be a bit uncomfortable with their reading experience, even if you don't usually go for fantasy. This is not magical realism, or any other shade of 'believable' fantasy - this is our own world viewed through a kaleidoscope that seems to have been built by a committee of angels and demons and monkeys and monks. Ask me not what the book is about, know only I will be thinking about it for months.