BOOK: William Beckford, "Vathek"

William Beckford: Vathek. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Roger Lonsdale. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press, 1998. 0192836560. xliii + 170 pp.

The eighteenth century was the time when Westerners began taking a really keen interest in Middle Eastern stories. Galland's translation of the Arabian Nights at the beginning of that century was probably the catalyst for this; many other translations followed, both of the Arabian Nights and other similar works; soon, European writers were inspired to try writing ‘Oriental tales’ of their own, and so a new genre was born.

For some, the Middle Eastern setting presented an opportunity to discuss philosophical, political or social questions and sometimes to say things which it might be politically incorrect for them to say openly about their own society; but for some, it was first and foremost a licence to indulge in wild, unabashed exoticism. The only other 18th-century Oriental tale I've read before was Dr. Johnson's Rasselas, was more of the former type; but it's been such a long time since I've read it that I remember pretty much nothing about it.

Well, the subject of the present post, William Beckford's Vathek, falls squarely into the second camp. It is a delightful, decadent little hothouse plant of a novel, set in a lurid, fantastical Middle East where despotism and slavery are the only forms of social organization, where magic and blasphemy rub shoulders with religious zealotry, where mortals traffic easily with demons, and where the plot is little more than an excuse for the writer to throw a steady stream or surprising and turbulent scenes into the reader's face. I loved every minute of it.

The book begins with an informative introduction by the editor, Roger Lonsdale, which I found very interesting because I had known nothing about Beckford until then. He inherited great wealth from his father (p. vii), and was marked by “escapist longings for the exotic and beautiful” (p. viii) from an early age. He was inspired to write Vathek — at the age of just twenty-one — by a particularly memorable three-day-long house-party (“these days and nights of exquisite refinements”, p. xi). Much of his later work was published only long after his death, if at all.

He spent much time on the Continent, and actually wrote Vathek in French (p. xiii). It was translated into English by Samuel Henley, a clergyman with a “scholarly interest in oriental literature” (p. xiv), who also equipped the translation with a ponderous mass of learned notes. Henley was supposed to wait for Beckford to publish the French original first, but then he published his translation anyway, with a preface that suggested he had translated it from Arabic and gave no credit to Beckford as the author at all! (Pp. xv–xvii.) In any case, Beckford did publish the French text subsequently, and revised it several times in later editions; he also pruned away at least half of Henley's notes when he reprinted his translation some thirty years later. This version is what we get in the present book as well, but I couldn't help feeling some regret that we do not get to see Henley's original notes in all their bloated, overgrown glory.

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I was surprised to learn that a caliph named Vathek really existed, was the grandson of the famous Haroun al-Rashid, and had a Greek mother named Carathis. But that, I guess, is where the similarities with Beckford's protagonist end. His Vathek lives in great splendour, has five palaces — one for each of the five senses — and a burning thirst for knowledge, even of the occult sciences. One day a mysterious Giaour shows up in Samarah, Vathek's capital, exhibiting strange mechanical items: sabres that strike by themselves and the like (p. 5), decorated with inscriptions that change every day (p. 11). When Vathek falls ill, the Giaour cures him with a potion, but refuses to explain what was in it; a bizarre episode follows: Vathek falls into a rage, starts kicking the Giaour, the whole population of the city feels an irresistible urge to join in and the Giaour rolls around like a giant football, eventually disappearing into a precipice outside the city (pp. 18–20).

The Giaour's voice is eventually heard from the chasm; he is evidently a demon of some sort, and offers Vathek great rewards if he abandons islam. Vathek, motivated as much by a thirst for knowledge than as for material rewards, is quick to agree, and seals the deal by sacrificing fifty children of his advisors to the Giaour (pp. 24–7). But then the chasm just closes and Vathek gets nothing. His mother, Carathis, is even more evil than Vathek, she approves of his deal with the Giaour and realizes that certain additional rituals will be necessary (p. 30), which involves burning a number of citizens on a sacrificial pyre (p. 34). A message from the Giaour then arrives, expressing his approval and bidding Vathek travel to the city of Istakhar or Persepolis to receive his rewards (p. 36).

Vathek departs, though not before indulging in some further blasphemies (such as profaning a sacred broom brought by a recent embassy from Mecca, causing the pious ambassadors to die of shock; pp. 40–1). He travels in great state, with his harem and slaves and everything, but they make slow and difficult progress. Eventually they meet two dwarfs, who say they have been sent by the Emir Fakreddin to help Vathek (p. 51). The pious Fakreddin, who does not yet realize what a monster Vathek has become, invites him to rest for a while at his palace. Vathek takes an interest in Fakreddin's beautiful daughter, Nouronihar; she is already in love with her cousin Gulchenrouz (pp. 64–5), but then one night she has a vision of the subterranean riches that are to be hers when she marries Vathek (p. 70–1), and she seems to be intrigued by the prospect.

Fakreddin tries to protect her and Gulchenrouz by having them drugged into a deep coma and pretending that they have died (pp. 74–6), hoping that Vathek would then soon continue on his journey. Meanwhile the young couple are kept in a remote location which they are led to believe is actually some kind of purgatory! (Pp. 78–80.) Vathek feels guilty and keeps visiting her grave; eventually he finds Nouronihar walking around and they realize that Fakreddin tricked them (p. 84). Nouronihar decides to elope with Vathek, preferring him to Gulchenrouz who is just a boy and frankly more girlish than herself (p. 85).

Carathis, learning of Vathek's intentions to renounce his quest, hurries to find him and stiffen his resolve; he refuses to abandon Nouronihar, but agrees to continue on the journey to the Giaour's city (pp. 90–4). Carathis even tries to murder Gulchenrouz and sacrifice his heart to the Giaour, but he is rescued in time by a good spirit (p. 97). She returns to the capital while Vathek continues his journey, committing further blasphemies along the way (pp. 101–2). At one point, he is almost induced by a well-meaning spirit to feel remorse for his actions, but then his pride prevails again (pp. 104–5).

The Giaour receives them in a vast subterranean palace and takes them to his master, Eblis (who is basically the islamic equivalent of Satan). The latter welcomes them into the ranks of his worshippers and gives them full access to the palace with its riches and occult items (p. 111). The only odd thing is that the other such worshippers seem to be wandering about the place in a curiously distraught state, clutching their hearts constantly; and sure enough, as the Giaour explains before disappearing, the hearts of Eblis's votaries are constantly on fire, a fate which is to befall Vathek and Nouronihar as well in a few days (p. 114). They spend this time talking to a handful of other princes who happen to be there, awaiting the same fate; and Vathek maliciously sends for Carathis to join them, without of course telling her about the heart-burning thing (p. 115). The novel ends with a very conventional-seeming moral lesson as their hearts burst into flame and they gaze at each other in agony and despair (pp. 119–20).

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Vathek's countless crimes and blasphemies are presented in such a breezy, light-hearted fashion that it's hard to take them quite as seriously as they in principle deserve, and as a result it's also hard to take the moral lesson in which the novel ends very seriously. It's hard to think of it as anything more than a mere fig leaf which was not meant to be any more serious than anything else in the novel.

It is likewise hard to feel much in the way of sympathy for Vathek's countless victims, as we rarely get to know them well enough for that. If the novel introduced you to one child and then had Vathek kick him into the chasm, you could feel sorry for it; but when Vathek kicks 50 anonymous children into the chasm without us getting to know them first (p. 27), they are a mere abstract statistic whose death passes unremarked and unlamented by the reader.

The closest we get to a sympathetic victim of Vathek is probably with Gulchenrouz, but he is so bland, weak and bloodless that it's hard to resist feeling more contempt than pity for him. As for Norounihar, she can't quite count as a victim since she becomes a willing and enthusiastic participant in Vathek's project. I think it's pretty clear that the author doesn't particularly want us to sympathize with Vathek's victims. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that he wants us to think of Vathek as a sympathetic figure either; more likely, the novel is simply a-moral, its purpose being simply to exercise the author's imagination and paint lurid scenes from the exotic East. In this purpose it succeeds admirably well, and makes for a tasty if not very filling read.

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A funny passage from one of Henley's notes: referring to two Hindu deities, he says that “The traditions of their votaries are, probably, allegorical; but without a key to disclose their mystic import, they are little better than senseless jargon; and, with the key, downright nonsense.” (P. 145.) :))

ToRead:

A number of other potentially interesting works in the ‘Oriental tale’ genre, as well as early travel books, are mentioned in the introduction and notes. Perhaps I'll get around to reading some of them some day:

• Tales, Translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi (by Alexander Dow). 2 vols., 1768. Mentioned here on pp. 123, 143.
• Henry Weber: Tales of the East: Comprising the Most Popular Romances of Oriental Origin, and the Best Imitations by European Authors. 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1812. Mentioned here on pp. 123, 126, 147.
• Anthony Hamilton: Fairy Tales and Romances. Trans. by M. Lewis, H. T. Ryde, and C. Kenney (1849). Mentioned here on pp. 123, 127. Hamilton was an ancestor of Beckford (p. xxvi) and, it seems, likewise wrote in French.
• M. P. Conant: The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1908). Mentioned here on p. 126.
• John Hawkesworth: Almoran and Hamet (1761). Mentioned here on p. 130.
• James Ridley: Tales of the Genii (1764). Mentioned here on p. 130.
• William Jones: Poems Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatic Languages (Oxford, 1772). Mentioned here on p. 132.
• Voltaire: Zadig and Other Tales, trans. by R. B. Boswell (1891). Mentioned here on pp. 133, 155, especially the tale “Travels of Scarmentado”.
• Richard Pococke: A Description of the East, and Some Other Countries (2 vols., 1743–5). Mentioned here on p. 131.
• John Cook: Voyages and Travels through the Russian Empire, Tartary, and Part of the Kingdom of Persia (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1770). Mentioned here on p. 136.
• Frederick Hasselquist: Voyages and Travels in the Levant (1776; trans. from the Swedish, Stockholm, 1757). Mentioned here on p. 142.
• Richard Owen Cambridge: The Fakeer: A Tale (1756). Mentioned here on p. 145.
• J. P. Bignon: Avantures d'Abdalla (1712; English trans. by W. Hatchett, 1729). Mentioned here on p. 155.
• Thomas Gueullette: Mogul Tales, or, The Dreams of Men Awake (2 vols., 1736). Translated from the French (1732). Mentioned here on p. 157.
• Near the end of the novel, Vathek meets other princes who are trapped in the palace of Eblis like himself, and listens to their tales. This could be the setting of stories nested within the main story, similar to how you find them in the Arabian Nights; but Beckford never quite got around to finishing these nested stories, or “Episodes” as he called them. Nevertheless they were eventually translated into English by Frank T. Marzials and published in 1912 (pp. xxii, 158).