Having enjoyed The Somnambulist's Dream and When all the days have gone, I was so much looking forward to Lars Boye Jerlach's third novel, The Poriferous Darkness. I wasn't disappointed. A highly inventive yarn about one Thaddeus C. Noble unceremoniously deposited on a deserted island with a black raven.
On such an island, in his isolation, how does Thaddeus spend his days? Why, a perfect outlet for one with a keen literary flare - penning a long series of letters, the prime subject being his current state of solitude and a string of freakish encounters. Equal parts magical realism, stark existentialism and tale of the fabulous, The Poriferous Darkness explodes with imagination, all expressed in creamy rich language. To provide a taste test of what I'm alluding to here, I'll link my comments to a batch of Poriferous direct quotes:
"In fact, the only sounds outside the confines of the hood, were those of his abductors' laboured breathing, the soft nickering of the waiting horses and the strangely reassuring plodding clop of the horses' hooves against the cobbles." ---------- Thaddeus has absolutely no idea who his abductors are or why he is being abducted. One is reminded of another protagonist who likewise finds himself in a completely different state with no explanation as to how or why he came to be that way: of course, from Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa waking up one morning to discover that he’s transformed into a giant insect.
On a profound level, isn’t this our common modern plight? Unlike humans in traditional cultures where social structures are tight-knit and reassuring answers are provided regarding three of the most pressing philosophic questions: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? - we in our modern world have much in common with Thaddeus and can therefore empathize and better appreciate his dilemma.
While reading, I kept reflecting on what it means to be isolated. Other than the raven and the occasional appearance of a remarkable creature, Thaddeus is indeed isolated. But does this isolation necessarily mean he is lonely? I found this one of the more provocative questions to ask as I turned the pages.
For me, loneliness is much different than solitude since loneliness suggests a feeling of sadness due to an absence of friendship, companionship, community. Solitude, on the other hand, denotes one is living in seclusion, remote from the society of others. However, in solitude one can feel great joy and intense bliss, an aliveness and depth of spirit unsurpassed in our usual societal arrangement.
Again, Thaddeus is isolated but is he lonely? And what can his isolation tell us about our own state of being in the world?
"Besides playing or drawing with chalky stones on the pavement right outside their doorstep, Thaddeus didn't often journey out into the neighborhood or chose to leave the house on his own." ---------- A tender part of the tale is Thaddeus’ backstory, his growing up and everyday life prior to his abduction. As one might expect, the lad was no stranger to solitude and the inner life of the imagination. Likewise, as an adult: "He was unmarried and lived in rented rooms just a few streets away from the offices of his employees, and the tiny apartment was altogether a flawless reflection of his reticent nature. There were no paintings, pictures or any other decorations on the colorless walls and the sparse furniture was basic and plain.”
"The bird, difficult to distinguish in the dark was a large raven. It sat perfectly still and its equally unmoving obsidian eye appeared to be observing Thaddeus through the bars as he took his time establishing what he was looking at." ---------- What a mate to have with you on a deserted island! Not surprisingly, we have the vivid association with Edgar Allan’s famous poem since, after all, Poe is the name of the raven. Perhaps the poem with its repeated refrain "Nevermore" prompts Thaddeus to pen this messages in a bottle: “Before I go Dear Reader, it is necessary to reveal that Poe, though he has never spoken directly to me, is capable of human speech and that he has communicated with quite a few other people who have visited the island. Despite the fact that I have confronted him with this knowledge, he completely refuses to speak to me. Why that is, is yet another enigma added to so many others, but fortunately not one that you need to be brooding over.”
"Occupying the center of the ring was what at first glance appeared to be a large mirror, but on closer inspection was a sheet of water that, like a giant obsidian eye, reflected the sky above in its perfectly motionless state." ---------- Ah, a pool appearing as, in turn, a mirror, an eye, a motionless state. As noted above, the novel’s language is creamy rich in imagery, one might even say the sentences bubbles up as a strings of pearls, opulent, plush, luxuriant, even gorgeous – and bursting with multiple associations, not the least of which are archetypal Jungian images. In this way, The Poriferous Darkness brings to mind Iranian author Sadegh Hedayat’s timeless classic, The Blind Owl, a work that has fascinated and haunted scholars, psychologists and scores of general readers for the past one hundred years.
But enough of my commentary. I’ll let Lars have the last words. Here as a fistful of quotes (the italics indicate the letters Thaddeus launches out to sea) that I hope prompt you to read this beguiling novel for yourself.
"Although he was conscious of the fact that the experience lay well outside the realm of reality, and that the woman was but a ludicrous figment of his imagination, the acute exaltation that enveloped him was as factual as anything he'd ever experienced."
"Thaddeus often felt haunted by the life he had never lived, not only because he'd always sensed that he had missed out on something greater, but because he was certain that a different life would have turned out to be more adventurous, mysterious and extraordinary than the one he had been living in the small familiar city, dividing his time between equally mundane chores."
"I imagine you standing on a deserted beach surreptitiously looking about you as if to find a reasonable explanation for the letter you've just carefully removed from the bottle that is now lying in the surf by your feet."
"The liquid is strangely impervious to the strong North Easternwind as it always lies completely flat like the surface of a grant mirror, even in the stormiest conditions. In addition to these inexplicable elements, I more than suspect that the content of the pool has the ability to read and possibly control parts of my mind and that it often attempts to communicate with me, although it does so in a language I do not understand."
"He softy moved his legs through the water whose insensate surface, despite his efforts to disrupt it, stayed implausibly still. He tore his eyes away from the water and instead looked somewhat befuddled at the small whale sticking its head out of the water at the end of the jetty not quite remembering what he was doing there, or whether or not he was expected to answer a question."
Lars Boye Jerlach now lives and works in Portland, Maine with his wife the British artist/ designer Helen Stringfellow and his three young daughters
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