The Malacia Tapestry - Brian Aldiss

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I know that dwndrgn has been reading this too, so it would be interesting to contrast both our views. In the meantime, here's my take on this book:

Brian Aldiss' The Malacia Tapestry is a baroque entertainment, a ribald picaresque. It's an admirable feat of world building, creating a city - Malacia - that exists in a bizarre yet familiar era that closely parallels 17th Century Italy. It's also a social commentary, a fact that might be lost on some, and underscored for others, by Aldiss' choice of protagonist.

Perian de Chirolo is a young, struggling actor seeking to ingratiate himself into a place in polite society, not to mention into the bed of every personable young woman he meets. As the story opens, he seems gloriously carefree and exuberant, notwithstanding his impoverished state. He trades witty epithets with his friends, enjoys an affair with an influential empressario's wife, the acress La Singla, and, apart from some concerns about the source of his next meal, seems quite content with his strivings.

Malacia is a city under a curse, or perhaps a blessing: it is fated never to change, never to progress. A shadowy, anonymous council ensures that all signs of dissidence and progress are brutally stamped out. But you can't keep progress down forever - can you? Otto Bengtsohm, an artisan from the North, has perfected a form of phtography, and is in the process of creating a new art form - Malacia's first photo-play - under the aegis of Andrus Hoytola, a man of prestige and power. De Chirolo is engaged to participate in this pioneering production. In the process, he meets Armida, Hoytola's daughter and pursues a torrid affair with her. They are betrothed in secret, and De Chirolo resolves to find some way to advance himself and be a suitable match for his high-born lover.

That doesn't stop either of them from dallying with any of the other willing partners available, in a situation that closely parallels the play De Chirolo and Armida are acting in - a melodramatic tale of betrayal and adultery. Only, De Chirolo finds himself starting to take things seriously - Armida's love, for instance. At the same time, he is exposed to seditious Progressivist talk from Bengtsohm and his working-class comrades.

As things build to a head, De Chirolo finds all his illusions stripped from him - his ambitions of social advancement, his increasingly idealised love for Armida, even his faith in his best friends. Supernatural visitations and gloomy prophecies by the soothsayers he frequents add to his sense of despair and disillusionment.

The story ends with De Chirolo heartroken and battered, being ministered to by his friend and sometime lover, La Singla. He has been asked to join the Progressivists, who plan a big push in the day ahead, but has not made a decision. We leave him in La Singla's arms as Aldiss draws the curtain on this vivid series of vignettes.

There are some amazing set pieces here - De Chirolo's flight in a balloon above the Turkish camp, his slaying of an ancestral beast, and several visits to brilliant, forgotten artists and scholars, including De Chirolo's own father, in their decaying homes. There's much rich description, sparkling banter and imagination at play in this book.

But what is it about? Does it have a point? I think it does. Not everyone gets involved in revolutions and protests through ideology or even for petty personal gain. Sometimes, the decision is a human one, sometimes you need to have your hearts broken in the most direct way possible before the scales fall from your eyes. We will never learn what De Chirolo's choice the next morning was - but I for one came away from this book with an appreciation for the human stories that underlie the larger current of history.

Parallels - there is something in the tone and flourish of this book that reminded me of M John Harrison's Viriconium Tales. The depiction of a chaotic, smelly city, and the undercurrent of social upheaval reminded me of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. I know that Mieville is an admirer of Harrison, but I wonder if some of the setting and theme of PSS is perhaps derived from The Malacia Tapestry.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I should add the book was first published in 1976.

Here's Aldiss' comment on The Malacia Tapestry: 'A picaresque novel which attempts to capture something of the mysterious world of G. B. Tiepolo's etchings. The down-at-heel actor, de Chirolo, sees everything in the embalmed city state of Malacia as art or artifice, until reality catches up with him.'

The book is actually illustrated with several of Tiepolo's etchings. However, this painting by Francois Boucher captures some of the spirit of the work for me, too:

 

[dwndrgn]

For the opposing position:

I disagree with knivesout for various reasons. I didn't find the parallel between the historical play and Perian and Armida's relationship to be in any way interesting as it was obvious that this was happening early on in the story, there was no tension.

knivesout says: Does it have a point? I think it does. Not everyone gets involved in revolutions and protests through ideology or even for petty personal gain. Sometimes, the decision is a human one, sometimes you need to have your hearts broken in the most direct way possible before the scales fall from your eyes. We will never learn what De Chirolo's choice the next morning was - but I for one came away from this book with an appreciation for the human stories that underlie the larger current of history.

The very fact that we don't know what Perian's decision is to be deflates the point. If he chooses not to join in the revolution, there is no 'decision' based on his broken heart, no 'eye-opening'. If he does choose to join, who's to say that he doesn't do it out of boredom since he doesn't have a job and has lost most of his bed partners? He may decide to join to get a new bed partner (Letitia). Since the story ends so abruptly, I was left with a feeling of incompleteness. Why, why, why? Where do all of his visions come in? Who was causing them? Did he imagine them all? Since none of these visions created new action, caused differing action or forced the protagonist to make a choice - they seem to be just useless background paintings that stay out of focus because nobody really looks at them.

The only redeeming portion of the story that I found, is the scene with Perian and the artist Nicholas Fatember and his rant against art, his 'patron' and how he lives his life not for, but because of his art.

I got the feeling that Aldiss was trying to get a point accross and never got there. Perhaps I just didn't read between the lines properly. Perhaps it just wasn't my kind of story.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Ah, I was hoping something like this would happen.

I don't think you've missed anything between the lines, dwndrgn - it is an ambiguous ending, bereft of resolution.

That's what I liked. Too much literature, fantasy or otherwise, posits an insiduously attractive moral bipolarity, particularly in the way storylines resolve in victory or defeat. By leaving the end open, by leaving all those doubts about De Chirolo's motives, whatever he decides, Aldiss leaves us to use our own moral compass, to figure out what we would like to have happened next, and why.

Of course, it is also a matter of taste. I am attracted to open-ended stories, and I am a sucker for lush prose and vivid, ornate imagery. Not to mention, weird beasties, like the ancestral animals here. I do tend to forgive a lot when I admire the sheer style of a writer's prose, and that is clouding my reaction here to an extent.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ah, JP - you post-Modernist!