Smut Recommendation

A couple of weeks ago, in a thread at the mothership, Smut Clyde had this to say about Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness:

The way BBBB feels about “Face in the Frost” is how I feel about Fritz Leiber’s “Our Lady of Darkness”, his homage to CAS.

With a recommendation like that (I've lauded The Face in the Frost more times than I can remember at this point), I figured I'd have to revisit the novella, because it had been ages since I'd read it. I'm most familiar with Leiber's Nehwon stories, featuring his swashbuckling duo Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and lately I'd read his tributes to H.P. Lovecraft (with whome Leiber corresponded), such as The Terror from the Depths and the touching To Arkham and the Stars- the latter story subverts the whole "cosmic evil" theme of Lovecraft's mythos and ends on a sentimental, optimistic note.

Anyway, it had been a while since I'd read any of Fritz Leiber's contemporary urban dark fantasy, so I got my hands on Our Lady of Darkness. The novella is Fritz Leiber's "love letter" to the City of San Francisco and to the "Weird Tale" author Clark Ashton Smith. The protagonist is an author who is just getting over a long bout of alcoholism after the death of his wife. During his "hazy" days, he acquired two extremely rare volumes from a used bookstore- the first being a journal which may belong to Smith, the second being Megapolisomancy, an exceedingly rare book (the reason for its rarity is explained in the narrative) that posits an occult "science" of urban development:


He handed her the one that had been open, saying, "That's just about the most fascinating book of pseudoscience I've ever seen—it has some genuine insights mixed with the hokum. No date, but printed about 1900, I'd judge."

"'Megapolisomancy,'" she pronounced carefully. "Now what would that be? Telling the future from . . . from cities?"

"From big cities," he said, nodding.

"Oh, yes, the mega."

He went on. "Telling the future and all other sorts of things. And apparently making magic, too, from that knowledge. Though de Castries calls it a 'new science,' as if he were a second Galileo. Anyhow, this de Castries is very much concerned about the 'vast amounts' of steel and paper that are being accumulated in big cities. And coal oil (kerosene) and natural gas. And electricity, too, if you can believe it—he carefully figures out just how much electricity is in how many thousands of miles of wire, how many tons of illuminating gas in tanks, how much steel in the new skyscrapers, how much paper for government records and yellow journalism, and so on."

"My-oh-my," Cal commented. "I wonder what he'd think if he were alive today."

"His direst predictions vindicated, no doubt. He did speculate about the growing menace of automobiles and gasoline, but especially electric cars carrying buckets of direct electricity around in batteries. He came so close to anticipating our modern concern about pollution—he even talks of 'the vast congeries of gigantic fuming vats' of sulphuric acid needed to manufacture steel. But what he was most agitated about was the psychological or spiritual (he calls them 'paramental') effects of all that stuff accumulating in big cities, its sheer liquid and solid mass."

"A real proto-hippie," Cal put it. "What sort of man was he? Where did he live? What else did he do?"

"There's absolutely no indication in the book of any of those things," Franz told her, "and I've never turned up another reference to him. In his book he refers to New England and eastern Canada quite a bit, and New York City, but only in a general way. He also mentioned Paris (he had it in for the Eiffel Tower) and France a few times. And Egypt."


In the course of the novella, the protagonist becomes obsessed with observing the Sutro Tower and Corona Heights, where he spies a mysterious brown-clad figure which he originally takes to be a "robed hierophant"- stoned priest of a modern sun god dancing around an accidental high-set Stonehenge.

As the plot moves forward, he becomes more obsessed with the brown-clad figure on Corona Heights and makes a trek to the crown of the hill to find the "priest", a course of action which ends on a surprising note for the protagonist. He also attempts to verify the provenance of the journal he attributes to CAS, paying a call on a burnt-out counterculture figure who is able to fill him in on some of the details of the life of the author of Megapolisomancy, and his relation to Clark Ashton Smith.

The narrative builds to a climax as the protagonist runs afoul of the "paramental" forces conjured up by the urban landscape, in conjunction with his own mind. As things come to head, his "salvation" hinges on verifying whether his home is the building alluded to in the journal, and determining if he can use this knowledge to ward off the paramentals.

The novella is, like everything I've read by Leiber, great fun. It conjured up other works in my head, which is always a good thing, as I love to spot allusions. The protagonist's fascination with the heights across the city from his apartment evoked H.P. Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark. The "paramentals" of the tale reminded me of Clark Ashton Smith's Genius Loci and Leiber's own Smoke Ghost. The whole "megapolisomancy" angle reminded me of the game played by Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, in which they posit that the great towers built throughout history were designed to track "telluric currents"- I wonder if Eco was inspired by Our Lady of Darkness. The search for the McGuffin which can help the protagonist lay to rest the paramentals besieging him reminded me of John Bellairs' wonderfully eerie The House with a Clock in Its Walls, while the final paramental manifestation was reminiscent of M.R. James' Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad, though with a somewhat comic twist.

Our Lady of Darkness works on a bunch of levels- it works as a supernatural thriller, it works as a loving tribute to the city in which it is set, it works as an homage to a favored author, it works as a part of a greater "weird" literary tradition, it even works as a comedy, on some levels. One way in which I knew that I was hooked from the get-go is that the novella sent me rushing off to look up the Sutro Tower and Corona Heights. For me, that's a sure sign that I care enough to put the book into a greater context.

Thanks, Smut! Now, regarding the post title, did you dirty little lambies think that this would be a pr0n review?