Somnopolis

This is an unusually long clip to post I realize, however Cast a Deadly Spell mixes the detective novels of Raymond Chandler with the weird excesses of H. P. Lovecraft, an idea that I have always enjoyed. Sadly no concise trailers for the HBO film were available on youtube. While this might sound unusual, the detective genre owes quite a lot to the supernatural.

For one there is Arthur Conan Doyle’s own fascination with things that go bump in the night. It’s an often observed irony that while the myth-making Lovecraft was an arch materialist who insisted upon his own status as an amateur enthusiast of fantasy, the creator of Holmes with his promotion of deductive reasoning was a little too fond of fairies and ghosts.

The ‘occult detective’, sub-genre is now associated with the work of Jim Butcher. His Harry Dresden novels ape the style of Sam Spade hi-jinks, with a wizard taking the place of the traditional shamus. However, I see Harry as just another in a long list of paranormal investigators.

William Hope Hodgson’s creation Thomas Carnacki is less well-known, but was a fictional contemporary of Holmes’, tortured by his desire to learn more about the supernatural. His adventures are recorded at strained meetings with ‘friends’, who come and go at his invitation. More often than not Carnacki exposes evil plots to take advantage of gullible supernaturalists, but he also is privy to arcane knowledge sets him apart from normal society. Under Hodgson’s pen these serialised encounters become increasingly fraught. Holmes’ methods might be unusual – particularly his attraction to dressing in women’s clothing – but he still has the respect of polite society. Carnacki is doomed to be half-believed even by his closest friends, which lends Hodgson’s stories a certain tragic tone.

Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood also explored these ideas, playing off the public’s enthusiasm for the supernatural (not to mention the increasing awareness of Hermetic orders such as the Golden Dawn, or indeed the Masons). The latter’s John Silence is yet another uncanny detective, still of the Holmesian school, but also mentioned approvingly by Lovecraft in his article on horror fantasy. I feel British writers have maintained this sub-genre’s consistency more successfully than Americans. As I have said before, it would appear Stephen King with his ordinary heroes has redirected the tropes that Lovecraft sought to promote. Harry Dresden has more of King about him than Doyle. He’s a normal guy who just happens to have magical powers. He takes the time to observe his romantic interest’s ass in a pant-suit, behaves like a bit of a slob and falls into adventures rather than pursuing cases out of a professional interest.

Whereas when Alan Moore introduced the comic world to John Constantine in the pages of Swamp Thing, it was clear that a new synthesis of the occult detective had occured. Constantine is amoral, smug, calculating and in possession of a wicked sense of humour. He’s also dangerous to know, with friends and family dying as collateral damage. Like Carnacki he is ultimately alone, the last defence in unknowable conflicts that occur on this plane of existence.

He, however, has dropped the pretence of detective. In effect his real drive is that he has to know. He’s the man with the knowledge, his defining vanity and greatest weapon. It consumes him this desire to see the full picture and gives him no pleasure, or comfort of belief in an afterlife. JC is a fascinating character and in addition to a movie adap, has attracted the attention of Ian Rankin, author of the Edinburgh-based detective Rebus. He  recently wrote a graphic novel pitting Constantine against demonic reality television producers.

Mike Carey, a former Hellblazer writer (the comic featuring John’s escapades) is the author of a series of novels featuring his own occult detective, Felix Castor. Set in a Britain where ghosts and zombies are everyday post-Millenium realities, I find his world-weary exorcist superior to Laurell K. Hamilton’s necrophiliac heroine, or Jim Butcher’s lovable schlub.

My only caveat to this UK vs. US back and forth would be Joe Pitt, the irascible vampire detective created by Charlie Huston. In a sense he is evidence that someone was listening when Raymond Chandler defined Philip Marlowe as the would-be ‘knight in armour’, who does what’s right even when it’s wrong, who is set apart from the world, not just ‘one of the guys’.