Flesh (28 page)

Graves dissected European mythology in his work
The White Goddess
and expounded upon his Triple Goddess theory. In
The Greek Myths
, he retold the myths of Greece in clear, accessible language and then in footnotes and annotations, using an exercise we now call literary archeology, he discussed the historical and religious truths behind each myth, using his theories about the matriarchal religion as the basis for interpretation. Graves also used his theories about the Triple Goddess as the basis for his historical novel
Hercules, My Shipmate
, which retold the epic tale of the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece.

Graves’
White Goddess, The Greek Myths
, and possibly
Hercules, My Shipmate
were undoubtedly influential on Farmer in his creation of the religion of Deecee, especially in terms of the Triple Goddess, the use of totemic cults, and the idea of a patriarchal society vying against a matriarchal one. One of Graves’ lesser known works,
Seven Days in New Crete
(also known as
Watch the North Wind Rise),
also seems to have been quite influential.

This novel was Graves’ foray into fantasy. In it a man from 1949 is transported hundreds or perhaps thousands of years into the future to a society ruled by women and where the main religion is the worship of the Triple Goddess.
Seven Days in New Crete
is in many regards a tradition of utopian novels in that the protagonist examines the society to which he has been abruptly exposed. Despite both being matriarchies ruled by priestesses of the Triple Goddess, the societies depicted in
Flesh
and
Seven Days in New Crete
could not be more different. New Crete is far more utopian in that it has eliminated war, crime, poverty, and for the most part, disease. It also has a barter-based economy that eliminated the need for money. However, it also has a caste-based social system in which societal roles and duties are strictly defined. One of the few crimes for which someone may be executed in New Crete is to defy their caste.

Despite the differences between
Flesh
and
Seven Days in New Crete
, there are some interesting parallels between the two novels. In both novels the protagonists are men from the past suddenly thrust into a bizarre future world. Graves used the fantastical convention of a magic spell to bring Venn-Thomas into the future, whereas Farmer used the more realistic science fiction convention of interstellar explorers returning to Earth after hundred of years due to the relativistic consequences of traveling near light speed.

Edward Venn-Thomas was intrigued, enchanted, bemused, and nearly seduced by the society of New Crete. Like the characters in
Flesh
, he was so overwhelmed by complexities, and from his own viewpoint, the absurdities, of this society, that he failed to realize at his core, until irrefutably shown, that these people fervently believed in their theocratic society.

In both novels, the matriarchal society was formed after a devastation with oddly similar descriptions. In
Seven Days in New Crete
, the Earth was subjected to a weapon described as a bright AIRAR from Heaven. Venn-Thomas believes this was some form of artificially induced radioactive rain but that is just a supposition. A third of the Earth was devastated. In
Flesh,
the Desolation was caused by a flash of light that caused the Earth to shrivel up. Calthorp speculates that a process to broadcast power somehow ignited the ozone layer. The devastation in
Flesh
was much greater than it was in
Seven Days in New Crete
, for the New Cretans had historical accounts, if, to Venn-Thomas’s amusement, erroneously jumbled accounts, whereas Deecee only had fragmented legends as their history.

As part of this jumbled history, the histories of New Crete sometimes conflated historical personages. For example, Cleopatra was considered one of the founders of New Crete who had lived at the end of the industrial age. Robin Hood was believed to have been the English Homer and most of the early ballads of the time were attributed to him. This concept may have inspired Farmer to do a similar thing in
Flesh,
wherein he made George Washington into Wazhtin, the literal Father of his Country, and made Columbia, the female personification of America, into
Flesh’s
version of the Great Goddess.

Two other ideas that both
Seven Days in New Crete
and
Flesh
share are ritual warfare and baseball.

The society of New Crete is a very peaceful one and the New Cretans are convinced it is because of how they alleviate their violent impulses. When disagreements arose between communities, they had councils to decide whether or not to go to war. If war was declared, the war was held on Tuesday. The ritual warfare of New Crete did not involve actual battle but was more along the lines of a large game of capture the flag, with all the men of the two combating villages engaging in wrestling and quarterstaff matches as they vied to capture the other village’s totem.

The world of
Flesh,
however, is as violent and deadly as our own, so the ritual warfare in this novel takes the form of the Treaty War where the various nations around Deecee signed a treaty to limit the number of incursions into one another’s territories. Ostensibly this was done to limit the number of casualties, since the human race was still at a fairly low population.

In
Seven Days in New Crete
, Graves mentions that baseball had become the most popular game in New Crete, yet does not go into any detail how that came about, or even show a baseball game. However, Farmer made baseball into part of the ritual combat of the world of
Flesh
and part of the Treaty War. This makes sense because at the time Farmer wrote
Flesh,
baseball was still considered the national pastime. Baseball was considered an important component of the Treaty War because every year the Great Series was held and participants from the various nations surrounding Deecee sent a team to play for the championship. Baseball in the era of
Flesh
was a bloody violent game using balls with metal spikes and metal shod bats. In this game, kill the umpire was taken literally.

In his depiction of baseball in
Flesh
, in the final game of the Great Series, which was between Deecee and the nearby Caseyland, and more specifically in Peter Stagg’s game of One against Five against a group of Caseylanders, Farmer was able to invoke and to pay a tongue in cheek homage to Casey at the Bat, the full title of which is “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888.”

One of the teams that played in the Great Series was from the nation of Pants-Elf. This nation bears mentioning not only because it plays a pivotal role in Stagg’s journey, but also because it demonstrates another similarity between
Seven Days in New Crete
and
Flesh.
Venn-Thomas is shocked to learn that one of the crimes for which someone can be executed in New Crete is being a homosexual. According to the beliefs of New Crete, by loving another man, the homosexual has rejected the Great Goddess.

Although it is not explicitly stated, Deecee probably had a similar policy. It seems likely that they originally may have exiled their homosexuals and in doing so they created an enemy on their borders. This may be why they instituted the death penalty instead of exile rule.

The nation of Pants-Elf, which is a corruption of Pennsylvania, appears to be an offshoot of Deecee, since it also pays homage to the Great Mother. However, the religious and social views of Pants-Elf are considered heretical by the Deecee. Despite worshiping Columbia, the Pants-Elf inhabitants thought women as inferior to men, and like some Muslim women, Pants-Elf women were veiled and covered in heavy robes. To further the Muslim analog, the Pants-Elf believed in polygamy and kept their women segregated. Men only had sex with wives for the purposes of procreation, for Pants-Elf was a society that practiced cultural homosexuality. The men were openly homosexual and the women were encouraged to become lesbians.

The modern reader might find the time that Stagg spent among the Pants-Elf a bit jarring since Farmer utilizes some stereotypical homosexual tropes to demonstrate how different Pants-Elf was from Deecee. For example, the Pants-Elf men appear to be divided into two distinct phenotypes, the short haired “butch” man and the long haired effeminate. All of the Pants-Elf men are flirty with Stagg and call each other by such terms as honey and dearie. Even the place names mentioned during this episode call out the homosexual theme. Stagg is taken to a town called High Queen and the inhabitants mention that he is to be taken to Pheelee, which Stagg points out is the city of brotherly love. Even the name of Pants-Elf could be a coy wink. Although the name is a corruption of Pennsylvania, when pronounced aloud, it is very phonetically similar to pansy. It is likely that Farmer was parodying the then-prevalent attitudes towards homosexuality, although the casual reader might believe he was pandering to them.

Another of the parallels between
Seven Days in New Crete
and
Flesh
is the sacrifice of the Sacred King. Here the similarities are not as different as might be expected. As in
Flesh
, the king is sacrificed; however, in
Seven Days in New Crete
the actual king is not sacrificed but a substitute is sacrificed in his place. It is not until near the end of
Seven Days in New Crete
that Venn-Thomas learns that the ritual sacrifice of the Sacred King is not ceremonial and that the Victim is actually killed and his flesh eaten by the Wild Women. This, more than anything, convinces him to return to his own time.

Peter Stagg, however, learns about halfway through
Flesh
that in his case there will be no substitute; when he reaches Albany he will be killed. The horns on his head have effectively shackled him to this fate since the hormones they pump into him compel him to seek out and mate with as many women as he can.

It is revealed at the end of both
Seven Days in New Crete
and in
Flesh
that the protagonists of both had been brought to their respective settings by the Goddess, or so at least the Priestesses of the Goddess believe. However, the purposes for which they were brought forth were drastically different. Venn-Thomas had been brought to New Crete so that he could be the harbinger of doom, warning the people of New Crete that their peaceful utopia was about to come to an end, for the Goddess was not always filled with love and kindness and it was time for her dark aspect to once again stride upon the earth.

Rather than foreshadowing destruction Peter Stagg’s arrival was one of true regeneration. Not only did he bring some needed genetic diversity to Deecee’s population in his role as the Sunhero, but by taking Virginia with him as he departed Earth, he spread the faith of the Goddess to the stars.

Graves’ theory about the Triple Goddess seems to have resonated with Farmer, for he also used it as the basis for the religion of Khokarsa. Graves’ theories about the patriarchal culture replacing the matriarchal culture formed the basis of one the major plotlines in his Khokarsa trilogy, which consists of
Hadon of Ancient Opar
¹
, Flight to Opar,
and
The Song of Kwasin.
²
Although the setting for this series is ancient Africa, one can see that Graves’
The Greek Myths
and perhaps
Hercules, My Shipmate
had some influence, since Hadon is a Jason/Theseus analog and Kwasin is an analog for Heracles.

It is perhaps appropriate that in a novel dealing with a Triple Goddess, Farmer used three plotlines to explore the religion and society of Deecee. These plotlines were based around Churchill, Nephi Sarvant, and Peter Stagg.

Once Stagg had begun his journey down the Great Route, his shipmates were released from captivity. They were told they had a month to start acclimating to Deecee society or be executed. Exile was not an option. The Asian and European members of the crew decided to try and escape to make their way to their homelands, even though they knew they were no longer remotely like the lands that they had left.

Churchill and Sarvant explored Deecee together and befriended the Whitrow family. After an evening together, the Whitrow family asked Churchill and Sarvant to be their guests. Res Whitrow was a wealthy man with powerful connections to Deecee society. His main wealth came from shipping, which greatly interested Rudyard Churchill, who immediately began thinking of somehow acquiring access to a ship from him. His task was made easy by Whitrow’s daughter, Robin, who found Churchill intriguing. Churchill played up this interest for his own purposes but quickly discovered that he also had romantic feelings for Robin.

The Whitrow family gives a slight peek at Deecee family life. It is a very earthy society with a lack of the social graces to which Churchill and Sarvant were accustomed. At their first dinner with a Deecee family, Churchill and Sarvant were exposed to open discussions of sexuality and proof that table manners were among the knowledge lost during the Desolation. The Frats, in addition to being religious cultic societies, also functioned as lodges or other fraternal organizations did at the time that Farmer wrote
Flesh
, that is to say they were social organizations used by men and women for entertainment, charitable causes, business, and social networking. It is no coincidence that Farmer indicated that the most powerful frats were the Lions, Elks, Eagles, and Moose, since these were also among the most prominent fraternal orders at the time he wrote
Flesh
.

One of the more interesting things about the Whitrow family, and it appears in Deecee society, is the role of the father. Although the Deecee society is matriarchal and Res Whitrow had acquired his wealth and social standing through his wife Angela’s family, Whitrow, like his father-in-law, was the breadwinner for the family, for he speaks of working for Angela’s father, not her mother. Res Whitrow also seems to be the dominant figure in the family unit; in fact, it is noted that although Angela talked a lot, she never interrupted her husband. Her role seems to be that of a housewife. This seems typical for Deecee society, for only those women who are dedicated to religious orders work outside of the home. This is not to say, however, that women did not participate in important decision making. In conjunction with her father, Robin Whitrow planned Rudyard Churchill’s career after their marriage without consulting her prospective groom.