Do you enjoy a good literary argument? Then this month’s choice may be just the book for you. It is an intriguing novel by American author, John Barnes, called One for the Morning Glory. This was first published in 1996 and currently seems to be out of print. You can still find fairly cheap second-hand paperback copies. I wish an ebook version was available because if more people are able to read One for the Morning Glory perhaps a super-reader will emerge who can explain it to everyone else.
The plot of One for the Morning Glory manages to be both very traditional and very peculiar. Long ago and far away lived a king called Boniface; a widower with one small son, Amatus. When Prince Amatus was only two years old he was the victim of an extraordinary accident – or possibly plot. The Royal Alchemist and the Royal Witch had just finished the complex process of distilling the Wine of the Gods. In spite of the well known saying that a child who tastes the Wine of the Gods too early is only half a person afterwards, Amatas manages to take a sip and instantly loses the left half of his body. King Boniface is furious and executes the makers of the Wine of the Gods and the two people who were supposed to be looking after Amatas – the Prince’s Personal Maid and the Captain of the Guard. Boniface and his loyal Prime Minister, Cedric, then try to divide the duties of the dead courtiers between themselves while they advertise for replacements.
King Boniface discovers it is harder than he expected to look after even half a toddler but for a whole year he fails to find any suitable applicants for the empty positions. Then, after a year and a day, four applicants arrive together. Amatas instantly declares that two of them are nice and two of them are scary. The nice ones are jolly, big-bellied alchemist, Golias, and a soft-spoken young girl called Psyche. The scary ones are a witch called Mortis and a gigantic warrior known as the Twisted Man. Most witches become ugly through constant use of their magic but Mortis is still eerily attractive. It is difficult to see anything of the Twisted Man apart from his hat, cloak and weapons and he is said to be under an unspecified curse. Boniface follows the usual rules and sets each of the applicants a task. They all succeed and so, inspite of warnings that the four are practising unusual magics, Boniface appoints them to be the prince’s companions.
The years pass and Amatas grows into a difficult teenager but his four companions don’t seem to age a day. The relationships between the four are complex and it remains unclear how far they can be trusted. Amatas also acquires some wild friends to have misadventures with, including the dissipated Sir John Slitgizzard, the corpulent Duke Wassent and a notorious young woman called Calliope who disguises herself as a man and is rumoured to be the sole survivor of the royal family of neighbouring Overhill who were murdered by Waldo the Usurper.
One night, after listening to a ballad about a girl called Sylvia who was carried off by the goblins who live under the city, Amatas impulsively embarks on a rescue-mission. In Goblin Country, Amatas and his friends manage to get past the monstrous Riddling Beast and terrorize the Goblin Court into giving up their prisoner. On their way home, one of Amatas’ four companions is killed during a treacherous goblin attack. At the same moment part of the prince’s missing left half comes back. Amatas is deeply shocked by the implications of this event and worries his father and friends by becoming a moody and melancholy prince.
They all soon have worse things to worry about. A plague strikes the city, which only Amatas seems able to cure; a vampire has to be hunted down, and there are rumours that evil Waldo the Usurper has made an alliance with the Goblin Court and is planning an attack on Boniface’s kingdom. In a time of desperate danger, Amatas and some of his friends are forced to flee the city and join forces with a famous outlaw. After terrible losses, Amatas and Calliope must fight to regain their kingdoms. Can Amatas ever become a whole man and will it be worth the cost if he does?
One for the Morning Glory seems to have been partially inspired by the lyrics of a traditional Irish song but that doesn’t help us much. It remains a hard novel to classify. Dark Comic Fantasy meets a very gory version of Inside Out is the closest I can come. Some elements, such as the battles with cannibalistic goblins and the murders of royal children, are as brutal and shocking as anything in Game of Thrones and yet the narrative voice is largely humorous. The first time I read this book I remember being startled by the opening scene which involves the instant execution of two men and two women for what seems to be an accidental offence and yet is surprisingly funny as the Captain of the Guard ingeniously works out how to behead himself. I didn’t know quite what to make of it and I still don’t.
It is tempting to say that there is nothing else like One for the Morning Glory but that wouldn’t be quite true. I think I can detect the influence of James Thurber’s Classic Fantasy The Thirteen Clocks (1950) in which a wicked Duke tries to murder Time (see Fantasy Reads September 2012). Thurber’s novella also features enjoyably eccentric characters tangling with a truly dark-hearted villain. Like Thurber, Barnes enjoys playing with language, giving fresh meanings to obscure words. So, for example, taverns serve piecemeal boiled into simile and covered with margravine sauce, while in a fight Amatas wields his escree and the Twisted Man kills goblins by cocking the chutney of his pismire. These comical words help to distance the reader from a very brutal fight which might otherwise be too distressing to read about.
One for the Morning Glory is clearly also a successor to the school of Post-Modern Fantasy which developed in America in the 1960s and 70s and used distancing techniques (such as framing devices and deliberate anachronisms) to examine and play with traditional story-lines. The best known examples are probably Peter Beagle’s wonderful book The Last Unicorn (1968) and William Goldman’s metafictional novel The Princess Bride (1973, see Fantasy Reads October 2013), which differs in a number of ways from the much-loved film version. One for the Morning Glory isn’t as lyrical as The Last Unicorn or as funny as The Princess Bride but like them it explores role-playing and the narratives we tell ourselves and others.
The characters in One for the Morning Glory are aware that they are living in a story and must abide by its rules and play as cast. As in life though, they may not always understand what kind of narrative they are caught up in until it is over and more than one role may be possible. Teenage Amatas thinks he’s a rebel defying his father by partying with his disreputable friends, just like Prince Hal in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, but in fact these friends have been carefully vetted for loyalty to the crown by the wily Cedric. After the trauma of losing one of his companions, Amatas becomes a Hamlet-like figure who depresses the entire court until Calliope, who refuses to be stuck with the tragic girlfriend role, insists that he pull himself together. If Shakespeare’s Ophelia had been so forthright, Hamlet might have had a happy ending.
In One for the Morning Glory, tales such as the one about the girl abducted by goblins can have happened in the past but still be happening in the present because story-patterns perpetually repeat. Plain peasant-girl Sylvia initially seems a bit of a disappointment as a tragic heroine but her role isn’t simply to be rescued. A smart suggestion by Sylvia during a terrifying crisis is crucial to the plot and she is sensible enough to forgive the lover who originally failed to rescue her. As she says, how often do you actually need your husband to be a hero? There are other characters in the story who seem to defy their archetypes. The bold robber Deacon Dick Thunder (a nod I suspect to the Dread Pirate Roberts) turns out to have a rare talent for administration, a fat and lazy nobleman behaves with true heroism, and the nicest character in the entire book is the Riddling Beast, a sensitive soul who just wants a quiet place to live and some intelligent conversation.
The characters who cannot change their roles are the Prince’s four companions, although the significance of those roles only gradually become apparent in the course of the story. Each of them is fascinating character in their own right, especially the enigmatic witch Mortis and the bloodthirsty Twisted Man. The story has cast him as part of the forces of Good but he gleefully commits some of the most sadistic violence in the novel, which raises uncomfortable questions about what it takes to win a war. Be aware that this is a novel in which being innocent or nice won’t neccessarily save you from suffering or slaughter. The character of Prince Amatas is shaped by treachery and tragedy. Physically, Amatas may be only half a man (no two characters in the book agree about what they see when they look at him) but his mental and emotional states are presented in great detail.
There is a dramatic twist near the end of the story which suggests a whole new interpretation of the relationship between Amatas and his four companions. Suggests rather than explains. I am forced to admit that many readers finish One for the Morning Glory in a state of baffled rage because there seem to be so many unanswered questions. The first time I read this book (some years ago) I felt that there were as many gaps in the plot as in the body of Prince Amatas. Has Barnes played fair with his readers? On reflection, I think that he has. After a second reading, I did come up with a satisfying interpretation of One for the Morning Glory. To me, this is a novel about acknowledging and integrating all the aspects that make up a person, including the dark ones. Of course I could be entirely wrong so why don’t you read One for the Morning Glory yourself and make up your own mind? Until next month…
Geraldine