Flesh

by Philip José Farmer

  Pay attention to what Alba says about the Goddess always winning even when She loses! It will not matter if he rejects Virginia and chooses Mary. He is ours. Mother Earth goes with him to the stars.

  They talk of other things and make their plans. Then, though the thunder and lightning rage, and the rain falls, they leave the tavern. Now their faces are shadowed by hoods so no man will know who they are. They pause for a moment before the parting of the ways, one south, one north, one to remain halfway between them.

  The maiden says, When shall we three meet again?

  The matron replies, When man is born and dies and is born.

  The hag replies, When the battle is lost and won.

  AFTERWORD

  BY DENNIS E. POWER

  Flesh is an evocative title. Depending on the reader it can be either an innocuous title or a provocative one, bringing to mind images of perhaps raw meat, or of bare, naked flesh. For those of a more religious bent the title may bring to mind certain biblical passages such as Mark 14:38, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” or perhaps from John 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

  While both biblical passages are certainly applicable to the novel, the latter is perhaps most apt. John refers to the incarnation, of God as taking on flesh to become his own son, Jesus Christ. By doing so God created an integral part of the Trinity, which consists of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. The Trinity is of course one of the basic tenets of Christian faith.

  It may seem strange to start with a religious digression but although Flesh is a tale of a post-apocalyptic future, like Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, it is also a religious novel. Miller’s novel portrayed the Roman Catholic Church as an enduring institution that survives through post-apocalyptic barbarity to the dawn of a new nuclear age. Through civilization’s fall and rise the Catholic Church is cast as the guardian of knowledge for a human race that has yet to learn from its own stupidity.

  Although A Canticle for Leibowitz has a religious background it is not quite as religious as Flesh because there is an undercurrent of cynicism that runs through the book. The figure at the center of the novel, St. Leibowitz, was a Jewish atomic scientist who became a monk after the apocalypse in order to preserve his own life and also to help preserve scientific knowledge from neo-Luddites determined to eradicate the learning that they believe led to the destruction of civilization. As such, the religious theme takes on a tone of pragmatism that makes it seem weaker than the religious tone in Flesh.

  As you have seen in the novel, (that is unless you are reading the afterword first—if so, I strongly suggest you read the novel first) the reader is flung full on into the religious world of Flesh. Even before the main characters are introduced, we are allowed to partake, vicariously, in one of the important rites of this new world. In fact, when we are introduced to the main protagonist of the novel, he is simply portrayed as a participant in this rite, rather than as one of the novel’s central characters. We quickly learn within a few paragraphs that the ceremony takes place in Washington, D.C., that the religion worships a Great White Mother, that the rituals are violent and often fatal to the participants, that the society seems to be matriarchal, and that names and figures from American history and legend are symbolic to this new religion.

  In the first chapter, we have learned through inference rather than direct knowledge that the Sunhero, a man named Stagg, was part of a crew from a spaceship that landed in Deecee. The second chapter goes into more specifics about the ship and crew. The ship, Terra, was an interstellar exploration craft which had left the Earth eight hundred years prior to the start of the novel. The crew had been kept young through the combination of cryonics and relativistic travel. They returned to a devastated world where civilization was barely at an Iron Age level, where society was run by a matriarchy, and where the main religion was a fertility-based pantheon.

  The religion was a syncretic religion comprised of ancient elements combined with borrowing from a distantly remembered American culture. Because the religious rites were so alien to what the spacemen were used to, and because the religion contained elements that seemed, to them at least, ludicrous, they had a hard time taking the religion, and its adherents, seriously.

  The ancient part of the religion was based on worship of the Triple Goddess, a religion which some believe antedated patriarchal religions. In short, the supreme deity is the Earth mother, The Great White Goddess, a goddess of fertility who manifests in three physical incarnations representing her stages in life: the Nymph or Virgin, the Matron, and the Crone. They also represent the three stages of life: youth, maturity, and old age. The male aspects of these are incarnated in a singular individual, the Sunhero or Sacred King, who is both the son and husband of the Great Goddess.

  The Sunhero personally undergoes within a fixed time period, which varies from culture to culture, the aspects of youth, mature man, and elder. In the case of the religion of Flesh he is born at the Winter Solstice and dies at the Summer Solstice. As seen in the novel, his birth and descent into decrepitude are done in a combination of rite and medical procedure. During his rebirth he undergoes a ritual birth and has the Sunhero’s antler grafted onto his skull; during his last rite he is blinded, scalped, and castrated.

  Although I can not say with absolute certainty, since Mr. Farmer is unfortunately no longer with us to confirm my argument, it seems quite likely that Flesh’s Triple Goddess religion was inspired by the works of Sir James George Frazer, Robert Graves, and Joseph Campbell.

  Campbell’s contribution to Flesh was in how Farmer framed the plotline of his main protagonist, Peter Stagg, having him literally undergo what Campbell called the Road of Trials, in which the Hero must make a journey filled with perils in order to reap his rewards. Farmer ritualized this journey by making Deecee’s Sunhero travel the Great Route from Deecee to Albany which mythologically symbolized the journey from birth to death. Ordinarily the Sunhero merely traveled the route and participated in the planting rites of the various towns along the way; however, since Peter Stagg was the Hero of the novel, Farmer had to insert both internal and external conflicts to plague him along the way.

  Frazer’s The Golden Bough was the work that theorized about the mythic archetype of the Sacred King and discussed the importance of his role as both progenitor and regenerator. As the fleshly husband to the Sacred Goddess, he progenerated offspring and his sacrifice of blood and flesh was used to regenerate the earth; thus, he fertilized Mother Earth in death and in life.

  The Golden Bough inspired Robert Graves, who was a renowned classicist as well as a poet. Graves used both of these disciplines to expand on Frazer’s concepts and uncover what he perceived as the hidden truth behind myth. His researches culminated in his theory about a prehistoric religion based on the Triple Goddess which permeated throughout Europe. He theorized that eventually the kings balked at being sacrificed and began using substitutes to keep their lives and power. As the kings remained in power longer, they created dynastic reigns which led to the matriarchal religions being supplanted by patriarchal religions.

  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 kn
own 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 Opar1, 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.