Book Review: Demon Prince: The Dissonant Worlds of Jack Vance-Jack P. Rawlins

Book Review: Demon Prince: The Dissonant Worlds of Jack Vance-Jack P. Rawlins

Vancealot: Jack Vance in Review, TJ Jones

Borgo Press/Wildside Press, trade paperback & hardcover, 104 pages

Release Date: 1986, reissued 2007

Availability: Paperback and hardcover edition may be purchased new from Amazon as of 2/24.

Published in 1986 this is volume forty of the series "The Milford Series: Popular Writers of Today."  Jack P. Rawlins has a Ph D from Yale University and is a retired Professor of English from California State University in Chico.  He has taught courses in composition, language education, linguistics, and literature.  Other books he has written are "The Writer's Way" and "Thackeray's Novels: A Fiction That Is True."  He also wrote the forward to the Spatterlight edition of Jack Vance's Night Lamp.  Rawlins indicated that he began reading Vance when he was an undergraduate at Berkeley and that Vance became one of his "private loves."

The book begins with a four page chronology of Vance's major writings ending in 1985 with The Green Pearl.  The first chapter is a four page article by Rawlins "About Jack Vance."  The main analysis begins with chapter II.

In the second chapter titled "Vance's Worlds" Rawlins discusses Vance's talent for creating other worlds that "are over-stuffed, struggling to contain more alien cultures, flora, colors, and smells that the page can hold."  He further sates that "Vance is best known for creating eccentric cultures" where "each sentient race has its own psychology and its own distinct symbolic furniture--dress, architecture, religion, pecking order--that is the physical expression of that unique cultural psyche."  Vance is supremely gifted in his ability to build other worlds.  For me no other writer even comes close.

In the subchapter "Vance's Exposition" Rawlins addresses Vance's techniques for introducing the reader to a new alien world.  Vance often "lets the representatives of each alien culture speak to each other, and allows the parameters of the new environment to become apparent to us by showing people unselfconsciously living by them."  Conversations are often overheard.  In such ways "we experience these places like foreign visitors without benefit of a tour guide."

In the next subchapter, "The Primacy of Background," Rawlins discusses how Vance's characters often make a long journey while musing about important issues, "the plot is only something to be doing, while the important business of letting the furniture of the world infuse its esmeric into our souls goes on."

Under the heading "Pursuing the Subtle Esmeric" the author expands upon the idea that, "Vance loves to dramatize scenes of impossibly subtle, utterly alien, supremely imaginative esmerics, and to deliver." 

Under "Vance's Logistics" Rawlins explains how Vance creates magical illusions, often skimming over unneeded factual or detailed scientific explanations.  The scenes, creatures and worlds are often symbolic portraits that appeal to the subconscious mind and do not get weighed down with excessively detailed explanations.  Vance's "worlds project a dense mosaic of deeply-felt symbols."  As an example he mentions, "the Pnume have remained symbols of secret terror.  In practical terms, they are nothing: silent cloaked creatures that stand in the shadows and live in rabbit warrens.  In symbolic terms they are awesome..."

One of the most interesting subchapters is "The Idea of a Culture."  For Vance, "culture is primarily a delightful arbitrariness, institutionalized quirkiness, eccentricity elevated to the status of dogma."  Religions, like customs, are also often arbitrary and sometimes absurd.  In The Eyes of the Overworld, for example, Cugel is told by the leader of a community, "We prostate ourselves before the fish-god Yob, who seems as efficacious as any."  A person either accepts all or most of the beliefs of a culture and joins it or becomes an outsider.  "People who share a set of answers to the basic questions are a culture; people without answers (Vance's heroes) are condemned to seek them."

Additional subchapters or topic headings are beyond the scope of discussion in this brief review but include:  "Responding to a Relativistic Universe," "Culture as Jungian Individuation," "Myth #1: The Outsider," "Myth #2: The Iconoclast," "The Iconoclast Versus Artificial Society," "The Iconoclast in the Wild World," "Myth #3: Home," and "The Pull of the Past."

The third chapter is titled "Vance's Words."  Here the author begins by explaining how Vance's writing should not be judged by typical literary standards.  But I think he overstates his case when he claims that, "If we approach him from conventional standards and expectation of 'good prose,' he's a horrid writer: wordy, redundant, often grammatically incorrect, awkward and impenetrable."  Vance is not overly concerned with correct grammar, but I don't think he is a "horrid writer" by any standards and rarely find him wordy or redundant.  I'm usually amazed at how much ground, action and world building he can cover in so few pages.  Jack's stories within stories can sometimes seem tangential to the main theme and he can be somewhat awkward at times.  But impenetrable?  I sometimes find Gene Wolfe's novels to be somewhat impenetrable and Joyce's Finnegan's Wake certainly was impenetrable for me, but I almost never find Vance's prose, plots, journeys, worlds, or characters to be impenetrable.  Perhaps others do.  I'll grant that Jack might not emphasize academically correct, textbook perfect, polished prose but the technical quality of Vance's writing certainly for me never distracts from its magic or effectiveness.  Rawlins seems to agree with this when he continues on to say, "Vance chooses to write in this manner.  He has full command of the alternative style of lean, axiomatic terseness."

Rawlins indicates that Vance sometimes uses unusual or archaic words, even creating his own words, and that his convoluted, indirect character dialog are used to create moods and scenes that stimulate the readers imagination.  "Vance's effects often depend on our not comprehending, and if we understand too well, the magic disappears."  Rawlins does not intend this as a negative.  Poetry often has indirect hints and magical impressions that are creative and intuitive but not exactly logical.  Rawlins continues on to say that, "Vance's characteristic 'subtlety' is often only an impression achieved by cloaking mundane matters in a near-impenetrable fog of redundancy, fractured syntax, vacuous abstraction and circumlocution--an intentional obscurity."  For me it is more than simply creating the impression of subtlety.  It is subtle in itself, not the mere hint or suggestion of it, and has much more to do with humor, irony, poetic license, psychological impact and artistry.  In an overly simplistic way it is somewhat like Hitchcock in Psycho where the graphic parts of the killing are left to our imagination.  This is much more effective than depicting every slash of the knife with blood spurting out.  With Vance, however, we might not even see blood flowing down the drain.  He can be even more subtle and, I would argue, more appealing to the subconscious mind.  His writing can be like a painting that moves or disturbs us but we are not sure how or why it does so.  Vance often creates haunting images, such as with the strangely haunting Phung, that are not just illusive and mysterious but deeply archetypal.  When I first read about the Phung I recalled Roethke's poem "Night Crow" where "A shape in the mind rose up" and flew "Into a moonless black, Deep in the brain, far back."  But when Vance wants to provide details he is tremendously skilled at doing so.  He is a very visual writer who is a master at painting physical descriptions of characters, alien beings and worlds.  Of all the writers I've read Vance's writings are the most successful at evoking a fully colored, detailed movie inside my head while I read him.  So when Vance leaves out details he does so intentionally for the effects.  He knows how much to include to activate the imagination, but he also knows how much to leave out so the magic is not ruined or the story becomes bogged down.

And, of course, Vance's dialog, dream like images and portraits of magical worlds can not only be deeply moving psychologically but are often infused with an element of absurd humor.  Certainly much of Vance's playfulness with words is highly influenced by his amazing sense of humor.  Rawlins seems to concur and states "for Vance, languages is the stuff of life--a fascinating game, an absurd joke, a treacherous delusion." Later Rawlins is even more direct when he says, "No one else in SF has a vision as profoundly humorous as Vance, and that humor is sardonic, grim-lipped bemusement."  The only other fantasy/science fiction writer that I find to be as humorous as Vance is Terry Pratchett.

Rawlins also finds that Vance's literary worlds "find their unique energy in dissonant counterpoint between extreme, super-abundant emotion, passion, and sensuousness, and a language that refuses to reflect that intensity."  At times this is almost a matter of humor or irony meets horror but on a more intimate and archetypal level.  Vance flashes subliminal images that we understand but often can't articulate.  Rawlins continues to say that, "In this sublimely, hideously inappropriate mix of style and subject matter lies the core of Vance's world, and a message about the way human beings use humor to survive it." 

There are other subchapters in chapter III but I'll refrain from commenting on them.  These include: "Language as a Reality Map," "Creating the Alien Aura," "The Reality Map: Part I," "Vance's Lists," "Latinisms and Nominalizations," and "The Reality Map, Part II,"

"Vance's Plots" is the title of chapter IV.  Vance's plots or lack of them has been discussed by readers many times over the years.  Vance usually writes clear traditional plots for his mystery novels but in his speculative fiction (he disliked the term "science fiction") we often encounter a situation where the journey or adventure is the plot.  The protagonist pursues a goal or tries to reach a destination or find person or object.  Obstacles must be overcome, things must be figured out, escapes need to be made, improbable chance often plays a role and the rules of a Newtonian cause and effect universe are tossed aside at times for an imaginative quantum quirkiness embellished with humor.  Vance certainly has episodes and stories within stories that have a beginning, middle and end, and there can be secrets and mysteries with unusual disclosures and findings.  But Vance's works often have more a Don Quixote type quest than a traditional, structured, easily identified plot.  As Rawlins points out, though, the "poorness of the plots is not Vance's failure, but rather his message to us that plot is not the thing that matters in his fiction." 

Another interesting observation by Rawlins is that, "Vance's favorite deux ex machina is the "Fully Informed Stranger."  "When the protagonist needs to know something in order to advance, and the information cannot be plausibly revealed by the probable actions of the characters in the drama, Vance simply has the protagonist run into a stranger who knows everything the protagonist needs to be told." 

Rawlins also discusses the conclusions to many of Vance's novels where the protagonist, despite heroic exploits, often ends up back where he started or at a rather disappointing anticlimax.  "For Vance, a hero is a person making the swiftest possible progress toward his chosen, sterile absolute."  Etzwane ends up sitting in his tavern looking toward the door after Ifness leaves while the band leader asks him if he wants his old job in the band back.  Gersen feels strangely empty after killing his enemies, the Demon Princes, almost as though they have abandoned him.  In a way it reminds me of Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus where the effort is what is meaningful, not the end goal.  Or perhaps it is like Camino de Santiago where the pilgrimage matters more than the final destination.  But I much prefer an ending by Vance to some silly, feel good ending and almost always find Vance's endings to be satisfying.

Chapters II, III and IV contain the main observations, analysis and interesting material.  But there is still more to read:  Chapter V is titled "Afterword: New Directions" and is mildly interesting as Rawlins tries to classify Vance's writings into three categories and predict his next direction.  This is followed by a more interesting section "An Interview with Jack Vance" done in 1985.  The book then ends with a Selective Secondary Bibliography. 

A thorough review of Rawlins' excellent book would take many pages and is beyond the scope of this brief review.  Rawlins brings up many very interesting points to be pondered or discussed, regardless of whether one concurs or not with all of his observations or conclusions.  (He seems to minimize the cruel behavior of the Star Kings, for example.)  The important thing is that Rawlins stimulates us to think about Vance's writing and its magical effects on us.  I carefully read Rawlins' book twice but still feel the need to go back and read it again.  There is a lot here to think about and digest.  Most Vance fans will probably find this book thought provoking and invigorating to read.  It is for me the most interesting book about Jack Vance's writings. Rated 5.