Princess Pretty –
Flower has a problem
Her younger brother,
still a child, is not able, not even willing to lie with her and make her
pregnant. This is a disaster for she is badly in need to conceive an heir to the
Egyptian throne.
Her father, the King,
has a problem too.
King “Great – House”, has
failed to finish his royal run *, a ritual which seals the prolongation of his Godlike
status for another year. In the sweltering heat, moments before successfully accomplishing
the expected feat he stumbles and crashes down in the dust. The onlookers, his
subjects flocked together to encourage their King, are stunned and schocked. If
the King cannot succeed his run, how can he keep the skies from falling down, how
can he make the Nile rise once more?
As the bloodline of
the Kings has to remain pure and a non – incestuous relation never an option
for the succession, Pretty – Flower’s only possibility is to get her father to sleep
with her. With a lascivious dance, during the ensuing ceremonial feast, she
tries to get his attention. But the old King is absorbed by the chess-game he
plays with his Vizir and the stories his Jester “Liar” tells him. At the end of
a furious dance “Pretty – Flower” collapses. She has failed to arouse her father.
The weak King, symbol of the kingdom
of Egypt
The Vizir, unaware of
the Prince unwillingness to sleep with his sister, starts the preparation of the
King’s planned death and his immediate succession.
Published in 1971, The Scorpion God is a compilation of different
“short novels”: the title story set in a
proto-dynastic Egypt ( 3200 – 3000 BC ), the humorous Clonk Clonk, ( 1971 ) and Envoy extraordinary ( 1956 ) . The three
stories share the theme of early societies in trouble.
This compilation is nearly the last and only
work Faber and Faber could still wrestle out of Golding in ’71. It would effectively
mark a long intermission in Golding’s literary output. Some would even announce
the end of Golding, seeing in the “Impotent King” a symbolic echo of the drying
up of the writer’s inspiration.
During the decade following his first novel
“Lord of the Flies”, Golding had been the most fascinating of writers,
submitting masterpiece after masterpiece: “the Inheritors” ( 1955 ), “Pincher Martin” ( 1956 ),
“Free Fall” ( 1959 ) and “ The Spire” ( 1964 ).
But the sustained hard work and Golding’s
personal problems, most notably the depressions of his son David, had taken
their toll and indeed after the Scorpion God it was over. It was over for the
next eight years until Golding would come back with his “Darkness Visible” and
his “To the Ends of the Earth” trilogy.
The writing of the Scorpion God is still
brilliant and it is truly impressing with what subtlety and with what few words
he creates the ancient civilisation out of the trembling light that hovers over
the incandescent desert sand.
But there is more in the Scorpion God than just
beautiful phrases. A hint to a deeper understanding lies in the “Liar” character. A slave from the North, he is the
Jester and favourite of the King. His nickname “Liar” summarizes the opinion
of what the people think about the many stories he tells. However entertaining, these narratives are so “off the wall”, that the Egyptians think of them as fairy tales.
He speaks for example about lands
surrounded by salt water, he speaks about countries so cold that if you lie
down in the white dust ( which is in fact water ) you turn into a statue,
John Carey, in his biography of Golding
calls this the writer’s “Martian Mode”: showing familiar things from an alien
viewpoint. We of course understand the “Lies”, but it underscores the fact that
we cannot understand the world of the Nile
valley in 3200 BC any more than that the Ancient Egyptians could believe anything as alien as a Northern climate. We cannot comprehend the incestuous
dynasty or believe in a God – Man who holds up the skies and makes the
river swell. We wonder about the killing of the King and disagree with the mass sacrifice of his
court...
And, however mesmerized we are by his
fictional rendition of the world from the past, we would call our entertaining jester, William Golding, a liar too…
Not that Golding did not aim to be a realist.
He had an argument with Faber and Faber, about the cover of his book. The first
edition picture, based on an advice by the British Museum
If nothing else, my illustrated review
gives me the opportunity to give Golding what he asked for: a depiction of the
true Scorpion God!
* Sed - festival
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sedfestival.htm
* Sed - festival
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sedfestival.htm
