The Skull of
Silence has the scholar
Kuthulos the slave broach a seeming paradox.
“Is not sound
the absence of silence, and silence the absence of sound? The absence of a
thing is not material substance. It is – no-thing.” (page 89)
But somewhere
exists “the soul of silence” that is absolute and takes material form.
Kull, in his kingly folly, encounters this entity and for the first time knows
blind, unreckoning brain-shattering fear.
But the mystic
demi-god Raama has left a riddle in the shape of a jade gong which Kull, in his
bubbling fear, reads as the ever-changing, ever-illusory but ever-sounding sea.
That’s the
essentials of the story, and one could also note that the sea is a feminine
element (of mystery). Silence in the story is the absence of the natural sounds
– of leaves rustling – even of grass growing in the wind – that are ever there.
In other words,
the physical reality of Earth as she whirls in the cosmos; the small harmonics
that are felt through sound. That’s almost like saying the sound of silence is
sound – the small things in the universe we seem to feel. So, when the sound of
silence disappears, then we face absolute silence – a material thing.
We live in a
world of words – which are sounds – but the unthinking cosmos of silence –
which is also sound – is almost obliterated.
In other words, the sound of the cosmos is obliterated by the sound of
words. So, then, are words silence? In Howard’s parlance, absolute silence
takes material form, so it is a thing.
We live in a
material world, and the words (of acolytes) are there to sell that material. Does
that material, though, cause to cease the sound of silence of the cosmos?
The sound of the
cosmos has a harmonic and a sort of naïve grandeur. If we live in a tautology
of words, we lose that poetry. The savage simplicity of things that is strong
and has use in the domain of action – Cobbles on the rutted roads of Khitai Hyborian Bridge 89
This is the
world that words may aptly describe; as opposed to the world of words (of
acolytes) that stills the silent harmonics that are small sounds of the cosmos.
The craggy
cliffs of Atlantis rose stark and gaunt; they were brutal and terrible with
youth, even as Kull himself. Age had not softened the knife-edge of their
strength; the naked stars impaled themselves upon their fang-like peaks.
But these
Zalgaran hills were older, rounded. They rose like kindly gods. Green groves
and great trees laughed upon their shoulders. (page 101)
What is this
description from Riders Beyond the Sunset but the harmonic universe – of
sight, sound, feel? The story may be minor but the feel is Homeric and
pure Howard.
The sound of
silence is a type of unthinking awareness of looseness; psychic calm; a
vibration that is more than the electro-impulses of the head.
Ancient voices
from the 60s SON OF JESUS
When that voice
is stilled, silence becomes a material thing. Material things are sold to
provide pleasure – so in that sense to take the place of reality. At the most
extreme, the pleasure is sexual (Hyborian Bridge 99.)
This type of
empty lust of the bacchantes from Black Abyss , a mad desire to
compensate for feelings of longueur (in a material existence of harmonic
nothingness). Materialism is the metallic and masculine; Howard’s descriptions
are frequently feminine and soft.
The feminine
aspect is crucial to heroic fantasy because it carries the darkness of
fertility that is blood.
BWS,
Season Passing
Diana bounds
through the hillside groves flattening anything that moves! Woman is feral and
savage and will kill to survive (Pictorial 89). Howard’s descriptions
are of the stars and the moon and not of the masculine sun. This is the land
where Diana roams; the land of savage fertility.
The masculine
cosmos is metal; materialism that kills the sound of silence. The feminine
cosmos is the sea; ever-sounding, ever-illusory; the jade emblem of harmony
(see Francis Stevens Claimed).
This is why I
say both these aspects are vital to Howard’s fantasy. The hero does not wear a
sword in a masculine kingdom, he wears it in a fairly feminine and illusory kingdom
(of dreams).
Only when both
are present – see also the artwork! – can there be a savage fertility that is
dark and has the dreams of ancient ages.
The sorcerers of
metal obliterate that which is feminine and illusory (the sea); the metal becomes
one with the head; steel becomes flesh (the riddle of steel) Pictorial 87
This is the
world of inductive sorcery, which stifles feminine intuitive awareness (psychic
calm, 60s songs). Is this world therefore the materialisation of silence? Is
materialism in effect a silence of the cosmos which requires compensation with
material goods ($)?
NEXT: “RED LACE”