Lamekis
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284 Women who got drunk to make the dead laugh. Only nobles were granted this honor.
285 That of dying a violent death among the Abdallese. They said it was proof that the sun needed them and had chosen them to accompany its course.
286 Archers or guards who arrested and watched over criminals. They were allowed to have only one eye and hung the other around their neck: that was the mark of their office. When they arrested someone, they slapped him and said, “Long live liberty.” When it comes to informing a curious reader, we can never be too explicit.
287 “Hold on.” Almost all the scholars acknowledge the author’s accuracy and mildness in interpreting this word. However, one respected scholar today explains it very differently. He says that tok means tuna and brifs fresh and therefore this means “fresh tuna,” which does not seem likely. The scholar apparently loves this fish and wants to bring it up whenever he has the opportunity.
288 The first lady-in-waiting to whom you had to give a present to get an audience with the Queen. The present was important and could be only one of three things: a soft-roed herring, a tin comb or a pair of pewter earrings. The hunter gave her a tin comb.
289 A way of expressing satisfaction.
290 The original says “Fla-ri-crok-dol-ki-kan-gran-douil-guerlache,” which literally means “each let their tongue fall out.” In fact, that is the real sense of it because the note says that when they wanted to pay very close attention, they let their tongues fall out to show they were listening carefully and well-raised people took great care to hold their hand under it to catch the drool. Noble women had the right to play around with the tip of their tongue like the Gauls do with their fans.
291 The sign of violent anger was to drink and it was from these people’s customs that we got the polite way of talking by inviting a guest to drink: Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle, etc., let’s swallow our pain; I forgive you; let’s go, I swallow my pain. Grotius, however, who loved dinner parties, never spoke like this any more than Cicero, Aristotle, Virgil, Tacitus, etc., which becomes very awkward.
292 Sorcerer.
293 Devil.
294 The little eaglet. After printing this book the author got some news of this amiable animal from the Intelligence to whom we owe this wonderful story. It will be communicated to the public later, only after a second appearance of the spirit. While waiting we can tell the reader that the eaglet did not die as was reported. The translator, who resorted to the erudition of a critic for this passage, misconstrued it, causing this gross error. We will strive to amend it later.
295 It consisted of swallowing your guts while still alive.
296 The superintendant of all illness in the kingdom. One of his primary responsibilities, because it’s what he wore, was to be in charge of the hair of everyone who died, which produced enormous revenues. Strabo very rightly pointed out the significant blunder of Aristotle in his On Hair, Ch. 2, page 357, where he says that “houil-choul” means hairless and adds that “graf-jak” signifies head, meaning hairless head, which the Egyptian author never claimed and never said that in the kingdom of the Abdalles the superintendants were bald. Aristotle held this opinion against all other scholars.
* [The Lapland Princess] published in 1738 by Louise Cavelier Lévesque.
297 This appears to be a consistent and inexplicable error of Fitting’s, found both in this extract from his book and in his earlier, slightly more substantial 1993 essay, “Imagination, Textual Play, and the Fantastic in Mouhy's Lamékis,” in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 5: Iss. 4, (http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/vol5/iss4/1). Prince Motacoa of the Abdalles was married to Princess Nasilaë of the Amphicleocles. Princess Nasildaë, Motacoa’s mother (also known as Queen Hildaë), died soon after their marriage in the Inner Earth. After Motacoa saved Lamekis from the sinking boat/raft, he spent the next 10 years of his life with Motacoa and Nasilaë. Since he was ten years old when his father was banished and put out to sea, Motacoa and Nasilaë were more surrogate parents than friends. Motacoa himself places his rescue of Lamekis in chronological succession following his marriage to Nasilaë and the death of his mother, Nasildaë (cf. p 253). Fitting’s work on Lamekis must be used with caution. Until such time as further research is generated or existing sources translated, Fitting’s remains the only commentary on Lamekis available in English. Readers may also wish to consult F.C. Green’s two articles on Mouhy—far more positive than Fitting allows in his reading of them: “The Chevalier de Mouhy, an Eighteenth-Century French Novelist” in Modern Philology, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Feb., 1925), pp. 225-237, which is a general outline of Mouhy’s life, and “A Forgotten Novel of Manners of the Eighteenth Century: La Paysanne Parvenue by Le Chevalier de Mouhy” in The Modern Language Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1923), pp. 309-316, a positive reading of Mouhy’s most successful novel. And whilst Mouhy’s Lamekis receives only a brief but positive notation, Edward D. Seeber’s “Sylphs and Other Elemental Beings in French Literature since Le Comte de Gabalis (1670)” in PMLA, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Mar., 1944), pp. 71-83, is a fascinating piece of work. (Ed.)
298 The correct name is “Bil-gou-ta-ber-ker.” “Bil-gou-router” is defined in the text as the actual playing of the game, not the name of the game. (Ed.)
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
Didier de Chousy. Ignis
C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
J.-C. Dunyach. The Night Orchid; The Thieves of Silence
Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
Michel Jeury. Chronolysis
Octave Joncquel & Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic
Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
André Laurie. Spiridon
Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
Jules Lermina. Mysteryville; Panic in Paris; The Secret of Zippelius
José Moselli. Illa’s End
John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril; Doctor Lerne; The Doctored Man; A Man Among the Microbes; The Master of Light
Jean Richepin. The Wing
Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries; Chalet in the Sky
J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River; The Givreuse Enigma; The Mysterious Force; The Navigators of Space; Vamireh; The World of the Variants; The Young Vampire
Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
Han Ryner. The Superhumans
Brian Stableford (anthologist) The Germans on Venus; News from the Moon; The Supreme Progress; The World Above the World; Nemoville
Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
Kurt Steiner. Ortog
Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion
Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
Acknowledgements: I should like to thank Paul Wessels for his generous and extensive help in the final preparation of this text and Suzanna Tamminen and Patrick Cline at the Wesleyan University Press.
English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2011 by Michael Shreve.
Afterword excerpted from Peter Fitting's Subterranean Worlds - A Critical Anthology (entry on Lamekis), Wesleyan University Press, Copyright 2004 (reprinted by permission).
Cover illustration Copyright 2011 by Ladrönn.
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ISBN 978-1-61227-003-6. First Printing. May 2011. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this novel are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.