THE DEEP ONES: "The Unholy Grail" by Fritz Leiber

"The Unholy Grail" by Fritz Leiber

Discussion begins June 5th.

First published in the October 1962 issue of Fantastic Stories of Imagination



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://tinyurl.com/kga46nh

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40833

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Swords and Deviltry
Dark Imaginings
Ill Met in Lankhmar
The Three of Swords

MISCELLANY

http://spaceandtimemagazine.com/wp/marvin-kayes-nth-dimension/in-praise-of-fritz...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser
http://www.isegoria.net/2012/02/fafhrd-the-gray-mouser/
http://www.scifisaturdaynight.com/?p=1128
http://tinyurl.com/mvbepn2

>1 semdetenebre:

Kooky cover! =:^O

Rereading this Just finished rereading this out my approximately 30-year-old paperback copy of Swords and Deviltry. Should make for a fun discussion. 8)

I've bought a rather grimy second-hand copy of Swords and Deviltry (Mayflower Books, 1979) to read this one.

>2 artturnerjr:

Same edition for me.

Three of Swords for me!

You are all more old school than I. I'll be reading from 2012's Sword & Sorcery Anthology.

What I found most striking in this story (particularly after reading tales by Clark Ashton Smith and Lovecraft, where the characters are (deliberately) drawn rather flatly) was the acuity with which Leiber observes his characters' psyches. Here's a good example (in a passage describing Janarrl):

...deep in his heart he knew that fear was always with him - fear of anything or anyone that some day might be stronger than he and hurt him as he had hurt others - fear of the dead he had harmed and could hurt no longer - fear of his dead wife, who had indeed been stronger and crueler than he and who had humiliated him in a thousand ways that no one but he remembered.

But he also knew that his daughter would soon be here and that he could then shift off his fear on her; by forcing her to fear, he would be able to heal his own courage, as he had done innumerable times in the past.

This passage reminded me so much of an acquaintance of mine that I read it to a friend that also knows this person; she agreed that it reminded her quite a bit of our acquaintance.

Something else I like in these stories is the nomenclature - examples include Nehwon (does it get called that in this tale?) itself ("no when" spelled backwards, of course, which, as the crazy kids at TV Tropes point out, may be an homage to Samuel Butler's Erewhon) and the evolution of the Gray Mouser's name (Mouse -> Mouser = prey -> predator).

Ivrian's cowardice is even evidence against her illegitimacy: she inherited it from Janarrl. Also, there' some interesting irony in the mechanism by which "forcing her to fear, he would be able to heal his own courage, as he had done innumerable times in the past," inasmuch as (no matter how pedestrianly psychological it might appear to us) this is a form of the sorcery Janarrl so greatly professes to despise. The irony implicates his self-hatred. There's a lot going on there.

I'm a little puzzled by the title of this one. What's "The Unholy Grail" itself? The memory of Janarrl's wife?

Also, I was surprised at how insignificant the Mouse(r)'s quest-won talisman proved to be in this story.

I was also struck by how easily the Mouser set aside the talisman: that it was not conceived off-handedly is emphasized in its second mention (when Ivrian visits the burnt homestead?). I wondered if it will come up in later tales, as something the Mouser regrets. But in the moment, upon reflection I concluded it shows the fealty Mouser feels for his master. The Mouser would know it probably has significance beyond appearances, but chooses to fulfill his task.

> 10

Yeah, I didn't imagine that the Mouser put the stone there lightly, I just thought that given how important it was supposed to be, it might have a more dynamic part to play in the story.

More generally, there was less of the Weird element in this tale than anticipated. It's been at least 20 years since I've read anything in the series, so my memories are more dilute and transposed than even is normal for me.

My impression of the Lankhmar setting and its characters (prior to this re-read) is defined by the oddity of e.g. Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, the Lovecraftian aspects of the magic and threats in Lankhmar, and the permeating sense as a teen that there was so much more going on than I was picking up. Not much of that here, but I enjoyed this tale as a character study of Mouser (I don't remember this story at all).

Given that I'm reading this as part of this thread, I also was far more attentive to the Weird than I would have been. It was instructive: though I didn't see as much of that as compared with the sword & sorcery theme (which I've always considered separate, though I acknowledge not everyone here does), it invested scenes such as the final two (concerning first Mouser's voudun attack on Janarrl, and second the torture chamber) with some of the Lovecraftian eldritch wizardry. I read it as Mouser tapping into powers he was only vaguely aware of, so close to opening up a vast Pandora's Box, which of course he was warned about by his master's contrast of right-hand and left-hand magic.

Of course I'm a different reader than 20 years ago. Still I hope my overall characterisation won't change completely when I read the other stories, but that I'll gain nuances and deepen some of those impressions of profundity and arcana. It's what's made it a favourite series of mine, when so much of what I read in the 80s is no longer on my shelf and my interest has waned sharply.

I suspect the (seeming) unimportance of the quest for the talisman and the talisman itself in the tale is due to a deliberate inversion (or do I mean "subversion"?) of that trope in fantasy literature. Usually the whole tale in this genre is about the quest and the importance of the quest-object; this one starts with the quest already over, and with the quest-object being of little significance.

ETA: From the entry on Leiber in A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction:

His heroic fantasies have made him one of the top names in that field; it should also be noted that he managed the rare feat of satirizing a field before it even existed. His Gray Mouser stories are wonderfully light-hearted send-ups of the sword and sorcery school; the amoral Mouser and his friend Fafhrd appeared first in the magazine Unknown in 1939, long before there were enough like stories to constitute a sub-genre.

>13 artturnerjr:

Interesting point about the trope: certainly it applies to my readings, both in the 80s and now in the 00s. Was it true in 1962? I think of the post-Tolkien knock-off trend as occurring pretty late, but maybe they'd already started by 1960. (I know that the trope is not wholly indebted to the late-70s "discovery" of Tolkien, but it surely was a major influence.)

>9 paradoxosalpha:

The title is puzzling, unless playing around with black magic is the intended reference.

>14 elenchus:

The title is puzzling, unless playing around with black magic is the intended reference.

Yeah, that was my guess regarding what it meant, too.

> 13 "wonderfully light-hearted send-ups"

I wouldn't apply that phrase to this particular story.

Thinking again about the torture chamber scene: Leiber's choice to describe Mouser's out-of-body experience was unexpected for me, and contributed that element of cosmic forces I mentioned. Curious what others made of that description.

>16 paradoxosalpha:

Me neither. This one gets pretty dark, actually (something else I liked about it).

> 17

That description made me think of "A Man Called Horse", if I'm honest. I know there's only a vague parallel, and in fact Leiber wrote this story eight years before the film (and six years before the original story, according to Wikipedia), but that's what I thought of.

I noticed the darker-than-dark undercurrents in this story, too. I kept thinking of A GAME OF THRONES, by comparison. Leiber's influence on the genre cannot be overstated.

I missed Fafhrd in this one! He did have one little cameo, at least.

I think the title "The Unholy Grail" must refer to Mouser's experience on the rack: an ordeal (rather than a physical quest). Hatred and black magic (both damaging/corrupting - hatred from a psychological viewpoint; black magic from a sort of "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" principle) work together so that this ordeal give him access to a source of power.

This is an inversion of the Grail legend, in which (certainly by the time a monk, somewhere, wrote the story of Sir Galahad) only a "pure" hero could succeed and the object of the quest was Christian and spiritual in nature.

Re. the comments in (7), I was impressed by Leiber's psychological acuity too, but in a curious way it almost worked against the story by dating it to the 1960s. What I mean is, the 3rd quarter of the 20th century was such a high-water mark for psychology and psychiatry in the States*, it's almost like watching a historical film of the period, not recognising the actors, but knowing when it was made from the actresses' hair and make-up, or a touch of "method" in the acting.

And (16,18) I hadn't read any of the Fahfhrd and Gray Mouser stories before this week, but I've come across references to them, articles and so on, and I believe the three stories in Swords and Deviltry ("The Snow Women"; "The Unholy Grail"; and especially "Ill Met in Lankhmar") are late-written prologues that serve to cast a backwards pall over the adventures written before.

* Well that's how it looked from the UK: every American film and TV character seemed to have a psychiatrist!

>21 housefulofpaper:

I believe the three stories in Swords and Deviltry ("The Snow Women"; "The Unholy Grail"; and especially "Ill Met in Lankhmar") are late-written prologues that serve to cast a backwards pall over the adventures written before.

I'm pretty sure that's correct - those three tales were originally published in the 60s and 70s, but the first tale in the series was published in the 30s. Kind of reminds me of Stephen King's Dark Tower series (http://www.librarything.com/series/The+Dark+Tower) which he started writing in 1970 and was still adding to as recently as a couple of years ago. It's got to be odd working on a series that you started 30 or 40 years ago - you are likely a completely different person than you were when you started it.

Would the "unholy grail" not represent Mouse's attaining his ultimate emancipation and self-realization of his "Mouser" persona via revenge by evil magic?

> 23 We might have two different views of the same thing. For me, self-realization makes the outcome sound inevitable and desirable; but on the basis of this story alone, turning from Mouse to Mouser seems to be a choice, and to come with a cost.

>24 housefulofpaper:

On the desirable side, Mouse is freed of his thirst for revenge, and using black magic merely fulfills the tendencies that he had all along. From his point of view it must be something of a relief, but with a cost, as you say.

Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser is actually the weak link in my Leiber experience. In the tales I've read, I seem to recall the Mouser as being more of a thief. Did he also delve into magic in other stories?

> 25

Did he also delve into magic in other stories?
I can't answer that, I've only read this story featuring the Mouser, so far.

>25 semdetenebre:

Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser is actually the weak link in my Leiber experience.

Interesting - that's usually the first stuff people read by him. I don't think I was even aware that he wrote science fiction and weird/horror fiction until after I graduated from college.

>25 semdetenebre: & 26

For what it's worth, the entry on the Mouser in my copy of Deities & Demigods lists his class stats as follows:

CLERIC/DRUID: Nil
FIGHTER: 11th level fighter
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: 3rd level magic-user
THIEF/ASSASSIN: 15th level thief
MONK/BARD: Nil

The text below goes on to state (in part):

The Gray Mouser is very fond of studying things arcane, but has not the magical skills to master his studies... While the Mouser grew up on the streets... his teen years were spent with an old hedge magician who taught him the ways of law and a little magic.

So it would seem (in the assessment of the Advanced D & D creators, anyway) that he is much more advanced as a thief and a fighter than he is as a magician.

This re-reading and group discussion prompted me to purchase the remaining titles (I only have the 1st two books), save vol 8 which wasn't written by Leiber. The reviews on LT almost universally decry the quality of vol 7, but I am a completist and figure I'll want to know what happens to the heroes, even if the writing / story is disappointing.

Has anyone here read the comic adaptation(s)? My instinct is they would be disappointing, as most adaptations are to me, but I don't have any particulars in this instance.

>12 elenchus: There was the very Lovecraftian phrase " ... trickled down from the black spaces between the stars."

>10 elenchus: For awhile, with all the references to ants, I thought Mouser was going to wrack his vengeance with giant ants.

>17 elenchus: For me, Mouser's disassociation as he undergoes torture, his noticing of minute details of the visuals around him, was the stylistic high point of the story, a masterful and realistic depiction of a psyche under stress.

I notice Leiber used spider imagery at several points, something found in other stories of his.

>21 housefulofpaper: If the Holy Grail is an ever replenishing platter (as in the Fisher King story) associated with a virtuous figure, I suppose an Unholy Grail is an ever replenishing force associated not with a figure but the emotion of hate which seems to effect a sort of psychic possession of Ivrain.

I have a middling familiarity with Leiber but, before this story, I never cared much for the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series though I've been haphazardly reading them for more than 30 years. This is the one I've liked best so far.

I'm given to understand some installments have a strong erotic element. I thought Leiber ventured a bit in that direction with the description of Ivrain's appearance -- as Mouser is being tortured.

> 27

I think my introduction to Fritz Leiber was in an anthology entitled The Great Science Fiction Series. I think I was 13 years old when I read it. I features one short story each from the selected series, with an introduction by the author (if possible) along the lines of the autobiographical pieces that Asimov used to do in his later short story collections.

The Leiber story was "No Great Magic", representing his "Change War" series. What really struck me was the introduction in which he matter-of-factly describes his alcoholism, and how it once engendered a long lucid dream in which he visited different time periods, and which in turn inspired the series. This anecdote struck me, at that tender age, as grown up, and sophisticated, and horrifying all at once.

I missed Fafhrd in this one! He did have one little cameo, at least.

Prior to reading this story today, I only knew of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by popcultural osmosis - does the above mean I was right in guessing the guy in Mouser's vision was Fafhrd?

>27 artturnerjr:

For me it was a first encounter with Conjure Wife early on, then short story collections which ran the gamut and probably included a couple of Fafhrd/Mouser tales along the way. A bit later, I ran headlong into Our Lady of Darkness, which caused lightbulb after lightbulb to go on in my head, as far as the horror genre goes. Never have owned any of the Fafhrd/Mouser paperbacks, though!

It's funny that you posted that Deities & Demigods description - I was thinking of looking there! Interesting literary resource, isn't it?

>29 RandyStafford:

Leiber's oeuvre abounds in eroticism. See his autobiographical essay "Not Much Disorder and Not So Early Sex" for clues. You're right about spiders/spider imagery, too - a fairly common trope!

For those interested in more Lovecraftian horror from Leiber, I recommend The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich: A Study of Mass-Insanity at Smithville. This novella was actually written in 1936, then lost until it was finally published in a nice 1998 TOR paperback, which can still be had cheaply.

Our Lady of Darkness was an early favorite for me, and then The Big Time. I've only read sporadically in the Fafhrd & Mouser material.

On the comics front, I found the adaptations surprisingly good. I'm something of a fan of the old O'Neil/Chyakin combo, but Mike Mignola's more recent effort also holds together nicely.

The comic book Rogues! just put out a first issue recently from Amigo Comics. It is transparently and admittedly inspired by the Fafhrd & Mouser stories, and rather heavy on the sex and comedic elements.

Reading through some of the misc links posted in >1 semdetenebre:, it's stated Leiber was originally published by Arkham House and that he and Fischer sent their early Fafhrd & Mouser material to Lovecraft, who is quoted as finding Leiber the better writer but Fischer the more imaginative. I'd no idea there was a direct interaction there!

>31 AndreasJ:

The "open-faced, hulking red-haired youth" could only be Fafhrd!

>33 paradoxosalpha:

Didn't Mignola also do the eye-catching covers for the White Wolf Fafhrd/Mouser releases in the 1990's?

Leiber's iconic sword & sorcery series was also an obvious template for Michael Shea's highly enjoyable Nifft the Lean.

>34 elenchus:

Leiber & Lovecraft were correspondents during the last year of HPL's life. This was extremely early in Leiber's writing career. The letters have been collected in Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark from Wildside Press.

>30 housefulofpaper: et al.

Like a lot of authors, I own more Leiber than I've read. The first thing I read by him was the Swords and Deviltry paperback that I read for this Deep Ones discussion - I was probably 15 or 16 at the time. Shortly thereafter I picked up the next book in the series (Swords Against Death), read 20 or 30 pages, and then abandoned it (like most teenagers, I was pretty capricious). Still have that book somewhere though.

After that, I generally encountered his better-known stories in SF anthologies ("Coming Attraction" in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, "Gonna Roll the Bones" in Dangerous Visions, etc.), but I really feel like I am just beginning my education on this fine writer's work.

>32 semdetenebre:

It's funny that you posted that Deities & Demigods description - I was thinking of looking there! Interesting literary resource, isn't it?

Yeah, it's actually quite useful. I haven't played D & D (or any other RPGs, for that matter) in over a decade, but I still pull it off the shelf from time to time.

I just finished a full read of the F+GM omnibus The Three of Swords and posted my review.

>38 paradoxosalpha:

Excellent review. I enjoyed your comparisons between Conan and F/GM.

Thanks!

Agreed -- I've never been a Conan fan, I think I read one story in grade school and never saw the need to continue. Knowing his importance to the subgenre, though, I welcome the opportunity to read about it rather than read it firsthand! Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, on the other hand, I recently re-read and remain enamoured of their adventures as well as Leiber's writing style.