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A review by joannaautumn
The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
4.0
The Course of the Heart - A Wonder of Strange Fiction
The Course of the Heart by John M. Harrison was unlike anything I have come across in fiction, in the sea of almost 1300 books this is a magnificent stand-alone.
The story revolves around three main characters who participated in a nondescript ritual during their college days and its consequences on their adult lives. Harrison pays little attention to the ritual itself, which is out of character for fiction writing that involves such a trope if you are hoping to find a new dark academic book like Tartt’s The Secret History and Rio’s If We Were Liars you will be disappointed. This book is devoid of academic pretense, privileged young intellectuals, and dark topics to which we are accustomed in the genre.
The deconstruction of Holy Grail stories, gnosticism, along with the history of medieval Europe go hand in hand with the exploration of human morality and the loss of the heart. The real question here is where is the heart now, and what is the heart? What is Pleroma? Is it worth the risk to even know the answer to such questions? The case of the characters of the novel provides a negative answer – all of them are haunted by literal demons that have come out of Pleroma. Pam is followed by a white entity resembling a floating couple entangled in eternal lovemaking with wide eyes staring at the observer, Lucas is followed by a wayward dwarvish creature, and the narrator is haunted by the vivid smell of roses, the smell of the Goddess of Pleroma.
Much of the joy of reading this book is in the participation in the Search for the lost heart. Lucas has made a story out of their unfortunate past in order to give sense to the pain they are facing in the present. Lucas and Pam believe in the story: „But he had begun to believe that the historical past of the Coeur was only a kind of involution of his own life, a way of twisting or folding the outside of his experience to imply an inside, a meaning.”
Harrison is bold enough to present us with an almost forgotten viewpoint on faith, humanity, morality, and life. Maybe our views often coming from a place of self-centeredness are limited, at times comical. Our tries to make sense of topics out of the scope of our understanding may only lead to madness. Wrapped up in masterful symbiosis of the poetic beauty of the language with the plain structure of the plot and complex topics discussed, Harrison has made one unique piece of fiction, one that evokes both pleasure and contemplation urging the reader to return to the novel and explore the mystery of Kenoma and Pleroma over again.
The Course of the Heart by John M. Harrison was unlike anything I have come across in fiction, in the sea of almost 1300 books this is a magnificent stand-alone.
The story revolves around three main characters who participated in a nondescript ritual during their college days and its consequences on their adult lives. Harrison pays little attention to the ritual itself, which is out of character for fiction writing that involves such a trope if you are hoping to find a new dark academic book like Tartt’s The Secret History and Rio’s If We Were Liars you will be disappointed. This book is devoid of academic pretense, privileged young intellectuals, and dark topics to which we are accustomed in the genre.
The deconstruction of Holy Grail stories, gnosticism, along with the history of medieval Europe go hand in hand with the exploration of human morality and the loss of the heart. The real question here is where is the heart now, and what is the heart? What is Pleroma? Is it worth the risk to even know the answer to such questions? The case of the characters of the novel provides a negative answer – all of them are haunted by literal demons that have come out of Pleroma. Pam is followed by a white entity resembling a floating couple entangled in eternal lovemaking with wide eyes staring at the observer, Lucas is followed by a wayward dwarvish creature, and the narrator is haunted by the vivid smell of roses, the smell of the Goddess of Pleroma.
Much of the joy of reading this book is in the participation in the Search for the lost heart. Lucas has made a story out of their unfortunate past in order to give sense to the pain they are facing in the present. Lucas and Pam believe in the story: „But he had begun to believe that the historical past of the Coeur was only a kind of involution of his own life, a way of twisting or folding the outside of his experience to imply an inside, a meaning.”
Harrison is bold enough to present us with an almost forgotten viewpoint on faith, humanity, morality, and life. Maybe our views often coming from a place of self-centeredness are limited, at times comical. Our tries to make sense of topics out of the scope of our understanding may only lead to madness. Wrapped up in masterful symbiosis of the poetic beauty of the language with the plain structure of the plot and complex topics discussed, Harrison has made one unique piece of fiction, one that evokes both pleasure and contemplation urging the reader to return to the novel and explore the mystery of Kenoma and Pleroma over again.
„I don’t think it was “wrong” or “evil”. Why should it have been? I think now it was one of those things that life offers you, from which you take the value you expect, or have been encouraged to expect, rather than some intrinsic goodness or badness.“