Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizatio (29 page)
Authors: David Standish
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BOOK: Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizatio
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While it strives for a certain high-mindedness,
The Goddess of Atvatabar
is shot through with elements of Gilbert and Sullivan–style comic opera. The
Polar King’
s first encounter with the people down here comes when the crew sees several flying soldiers, hovering above the ship like large bumblebees, wearing strange uniforms and flapping mechanical wings. Flathootley, the resident buffoon, makes a leap at one, who flits out of the way, leaving Flathootley to plop into the ocean, from which he is rescued by one of the flying soldiers, who deposits him back on deck—and is promptly captured as a reward for his kindness. Examining the captive’s wings, they discover that a small “dynamo” powers them, consisting “of a central wheel made to revolve by the attraction of a vast occult force evolved from the contact of two metals … a colossal current of mysterious magnetism made the wheel revolve.” Here again electromagnetism appears as the occult force that propels all sorts of ingenious gadgets down here in Plutusia, as the realm is known.
The Goddess of Atvatabar
is shot through with elements of Gilbert and Sullivan–style comic opera. The
Polar King’
s first encounter with the people down here comes when the crew sees several flying soldiers, hovering above the ship like large bumblebees, wearing strange uniforms and flapping mechanical wings. Flathootley, the resident buffoon, makes a leap at one, who flits out of the way, leaving Flathootley to plop into the ocean, from which he is rescued by one of the flying soldiers, who deposits him back on deck—and is promptly captured as a reward for his kindness. Examining the captive’s wings, they discover that a small “dynamo” powers them, consisting “of a central wheel made to revolve by the attraction of a vast occult force evolved from the contact of two metals … a colossal current of mysterious magnetism made the wheel revolve.” Here again electromagnetism appears as the occult force that propels all sorts of ingenious gadgets down here in Plutusia, as the realm is known.
Lyone, the goddess of Atvatabar, in all her over-the-top splendor.
They learn Atvatabarese from the two flying soldiers, who direct the
Polar King
to Atvatabar’s principal port and fill them in on the basics of the geography and social structure. The layout of the interior world is analogous to the known surface world—its map is reproduced here on page 186. The government is an elective monarchy, with a king and nobles elected for life. “The largest building in Calnogor was the Bormidophia, or pantheon, where the worship of the gods was held. The only living object of worship was the Lady Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar. There were different kinds of golden gods worshipped, or symbols that represented the inventive forces, art, and spiritual power.” The summary continues: “The Atvatabarese were very wealthy, gold being as common as iron in the outer world.” As always, luxury beyond imagination is the rule down here. Things are really up-to-date in Atvatabar:
Polar King
to Atvatabar’s principal port and fill them in on the basics of the geography and social structure. The layout of the interior world is analogous to the known surface world—its map is reproduced here on page 186. The government is an elective monarchy, with a king and nobles elected for life. “The largest building in Calnogor was the Bormidophia, or pantheon, where the worship of the gods was held. The only living object of worship was the Lady Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar. There were different kinds of golden gods worshipped, or symbols that represented the inventive forces, art, and spiritual power.” The summary continues: “The Atvatabarese were very wealthy, gold being as common as iron in the outer world.” As always, luxury beyond imagination is the rule down here. Things are really up-to-date in Atvatabar:
There were plenty of newspapers, and the most wonderful inventions had been in use for ages. Railroads, pneumatic tubes, telegraphs, telephones, phonographs, electric lights, rain makers, seaboots, marine railroads, flying machines, megaphones, velocipedes without wheels, aërophers, etc., were quite common, not to speak of such inventions as sowing, reaping, sewing, bootblacking and knitting machines. Of course printing, weaving, and such like machines had been in use since the dawn of history. Strange to say they had no steam engines, and terrorite and gunpowder were unknown. Their great source of power was magnicity, generated by the two powerful metals terrelium and aquelium, and compressed air their explosive force.
The bockhockids, shown here towering above the crowd, are “immense walking machines” reminiscent of ostriches. These are the ungainly mounts of the Atvatabarese cavalry and police force.
The lillipoutum, shown here, “was another wonderful creature, half-plant, half-bird.”
“They were a peaceful people, and Atvatabar being itself an immense island continent, lying far from any other land, there had been no wars with any external nation, nor even civil war, for over a hundred years.” As soon as virile Commander White lays eyes on Lyone, not only fetching but a goddess to boot, Atvatabar’s comfortable tranquillity is doomed.
The
Polar King
pulls up to the wharf—constructed of white marble—to a huge festive greeting by the governor and welcoming throngs that include regiments of cavalry mounted on mechanical ostriches. “They were forty feet in height from toe to head … The iron muscles of legs and body, moved by a powerful magnic motor inside the body of the monster, acted on bones of hollow steel.” As the sailors scurry up the legs to mount them, “a military band composed of fifty musicians, each mounted on a bockhockid, played the March of Atvatabar in soul-stirring strains … A brigade of five thousand bockhockids fell into line as an escort of honor,” and it’s off in procession through the beautiful all-marble city. These ungainly, not to say wildly unlikely, bockhockids would suggest this is satire, but given all the other oddball stuff in the book, I’d have to say it’s not. Rather it seems to be evidence that Bradshaw was letting his imagination sprout any strange fruit it might—and may have had a little help from his chemical friends as well. There’s a distinctly
druggy
cast to the whole business. Another such example from a little farther on is a little botanical garden containing specimens merging the plant and animal kingdoms, flowers blooming kitten heads, flitting birds trailing aerial roots. A spoof on Darwin? Or just trippy flashes? My vote goes to the latter. There’s a hypersensuous quality, a reveling in minute physical detail and description practically for its own sake—along with these stoner ideas—that suggests Bradshaw may have been indulging in some writer’s little helpers.
Polar King
pulls up to the wharf—constructed of white marble—to a huge festive greeting by the governor and welcoming throngs that include regiments of cavalry mounted on mechanical ostriches. “They were forty feet in height from toe to head … The iron muscles of legs and body, moved by a powerful magnic motor inside the body of the monster, acted on bones of hollow steel.” As the sailors scurry up the legs to mount them, “a military band composed of fifty musicians, each mounted on a bockhockid, played the March of Atvatabar in soul-stirring strains … A brigade of five thousand bockhockids fell into line as an escort of honor,” and it’s off in procession through the beautiful all-marble city. These ungainly, not to say wildly unlikely, bockhockids would suggest this is satire, but given all the other oddball stuff in the book, I’d have to say it’s not. Rather it seems to be evidence that Bradshaw was letting his imagination sprout any strange fruit it might—and may have had a little help from his chemical friends as well. There’s a distinctly
druggy
cast to the whole business. Another such example from a little farther on is a little botanical garden containing specimens merging the plant and animal kingdoms, flowers blooming kitten heads, flitting birds trailing aerial roots. A spoof on Darwin? Or just trippy flashes? My vote goes to the latter. There’s a hypersensuous quality, a reveling in minute physical detail and description practically for its own sake—along with these stoner ideas—that suggests Bradshaw may have been indulging in some writer’s little helpers.
Boarding the Sacred Locomotive, after appropriate preparatory prayers (“Glorious annihilator of time and space, lord of distance, imperial courier”), White and a few officers are whisked five hundred miles inland to Calnogor for a reception with the king and queen. Between heady glasses of squang, the king explains Atvatabar’s religion to White. “We worship the human soul,” he says, “under a thousand forms, arranged in three great circles of deities.” These are the gods of invention, the gods of art, and a third group containing “the spiritual gods of sorcery, magic and love.” Together “this universal human soul forms the one supreme god Harikar, whom we worship in the person of a living woman, the Supreme Goddess Lyone.”
(above) Lyone’s Aerial Yacht (left) and The Sacred Locomotive (right). Note too Atvatabar’s dramatic, picturesque landscape.
The king drones on, detailing the various religious divisions. After the obligatory tour of religious temples, they’re taken to meet the living goddess Lyone, who is lovely, with bright blue hair and “firm and splendid” breasts. “I was entranced with the appearance of the divine girl … All at once she gazed at me! I felt filled with a fever of delicious delight, of intoxicating adoration.”
“Our religion is a state of ecstatic joy,” Lyone says, “chiefly found in the cultured friendship of counterpart souls, who form complete circles with each other.” They are known as “twin-souls,” and there are twenty thousand in Egyplosis, where Lyone and these devotees live.
When Lyone is called to Egyplosis to oversee the installation of a twin-soul, White is invited to go along on her aerial yacht, another ornate contraption powered by magnicity. This seat of worship is a city consisting of a great temple carved from a single block of pale green marble, with “one hundred subterranean temples and labyrinths” beneath it, having “the enchanted charm of Hindoo and Greek architecture, together with the thrilling ecstasy of Gothic shrines.” Bradshaw can’t resist voluptuous descriptions that amount to aesthetic heavy breathing:
The chief temple at Egyplosis was interiorly of semi-circular shape, like a Greek theatre, five hundred feet in width. It was covered like the pantheon with a sculptured roof and dome of many-colored glass. The roof was one hundred and thirty feet above the lowest tier of seats beneath. The walls were laboriously sculptured dado and field and frieze, with bas-reliefs of the same character as the golden throne of the gods that stood at the centre of the semi-circle.The Living Battery consists of hundreds of twin-souls.The dado was thirty-two feet in height, on which were carved the emblems of every possible machine, implement or invention that conferred supremacy over nature in idealized grandeur. Battles of flying wayleals [soldiers] and races of bockhockids were carved in great confusion. It was a splendid reunion of science and art…Above all rose the dome whose lights were fadeless. The pavement of the temple had been chiselled in the form of a longitudinal hollow basin, containing a series of wide terraces of polished stone, whereon were placed divans of the richest upholstery. In each divan sat a winged twin-soul, priest and priestess, the devotees of hopeless love. On the throne itself sat Lyone, the supreme goddess, in the semi-nude splendor of the pantheon, arranged with tiara and jewelled belt and flowing skirt of sea-green aquelium lace. She made a picture divinely entrancing and noble. Supporting the throne was an immense pedestal of polished marble, fully one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet in height, which stood upon a wide and elevated pavement of solid silver, whereon the priests and priestesses officiated in the services to the goddess. On crimson couches sat their majesties the king and queen of Atvatabar, together with the great officers of the realm. Next to the royal group myself and the officers and seamen of the
Polar King
occupied seats of honor. Behind, around and above us, filling the immense temple, rose the concave mass of twin-souls numbering ten thousand individuals, each seated with a counterpart soul. The garments of both priests and priestesses were fashioned in a style somewhat resembling the decorative dresses seen on Greek and Japanese vases, yet wholly original in design. In many cases the priestesses were swathed in transparent tissues that revealed figures like pale olive gold within.
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