A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

[koilungfish]

Title - A Night In The Lonesome October
Author - Roger Zelazny
ISBN - 1-85723-217-8

"We took a walk last night, acquiring mandrake root in a field far from here at the place of a killing by somebody else. The master wrapped it in silk and took it to his work space direct. I could hear him engage in good-natured banter with the Thing in the Circle. Jack has a long list of ingredients, and things must be done properly on schedule."

A Night In The Lonesome October is a book that is not on speaking terms with the concept of genre restrictions. One would be hard pressed to call it anything broad, such as fantasy or horror, let alone anything more specific, such as rural Victorian dark fantasy over which a bucket of references to everything from Sherlock Holmes to HP Lovecraft to Hammer Horror to everything else Mr Zelazny thanks on the front page.

A Night In The Lonesome October is written in the format of a diary, or at least a day-to-day sequence, from the point of view of Snuff, a watchdog ... or something that looks, acts and barks like a watchdog, anyhow ... owned by a fellow called Jack who may or may not be Jack the Ripper along with several other people. They are engaged in a mysterious Game, set to climax on Halloween when the moon is full, and there is an absolute shower of enigmatic, weird, murderous, I-watch-you-watching-me business going on between the half dozen characters. However, as said, the main character is not Jack but his dog, Snuff, and Snuff mostly interacts with the animal companions of the various players - Graymalk the cat, Nightwind the owl, Quicklime the snake and so on. Despite the primary cast being slightly supernatural talking animals, this is not talking animal fantasy. This is not Lord of the Rings in a fur coat, neither is it cute stuff for the younger end of the young adult market. This is Mr Zelazny pouring all his favourite things in a stewpot, boiling it in a dog's brain and serving it as a diary.

The prose, as one might expect from a dog, is not the most elegant or flourish-ridden of things. Snuff keeps to simple diction, occasionally wandering into the mildly poetic whilst describing falling leaves or suchlike, but mostly keeping to a direct, this-is-what-is-happening chain of events. This fits, oddly enough, with the sense of labyrinthine complexity that surrounds the Game. Weird rules and stipulations fall all over the plot, giving a sense of size and age to the whole business. And then Sherlock Holmes turns up dressed as a woman. Such is A Night In The Lonesome October, which can leap from moments of odd comic relief - and it's very much relief in the bas-relief sense rather than in the relief from tension sense - to scenes of live vivisection, from eldritch monstrosities on the loose to a quiet sherry in the parlour. All of the players roll with the weirdness, giving a strong sense that they are used to such things, that it is part of their lives, which strongly reinforces the universe. Indeed, Snuff's tendency not to describe what's going on helps with that - he's so familiar with the process that it's all natural to him by now.

A Night In The Lonesome October is full of fun hints and surprises: hints as to what Snuff might once have been, such as his "reflection" at the ceremony; plot turns like the Count and his ... well, about three different things ... or the identity of the stranger wolf, "carpe baculum", the Good Doctor's alignment, Quickstrike and the plums ... the list goes on.

There are only a few flaws in this book: the version I have is illustrated and a couple of the drawings don't make anatomical sense, which is about the smallest flaw I've ever found in a book. There is a minor point of confusion towards the end as to the status and position of Morris and MacCab, which reads like an editing mistake but may actually be part of the chaos of the climax. It's hard to say.

This book is good, solid fun reading: not challenging, but definitely a really good way to spend an afternoon. And probably several afternoons, because A Night In The Lonesome October is a book I love re-reading.

This book is:
* - a fine balance of cheerful, light hearted magical fantasy and blood-rite horror
* - written from the point of view of a dog
* - one of my favourites

This book is not:
* - going to explain most of what's happening
* - serious business
* - going to give up all its references in a single reading