Dion Fortune - Sea Priestess Ver. 2.pdf

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A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
In her Introduction, Dion Fortune remarks that "this book has not got the
imprint of any publishing house." This statement refers to the first edition of
The Sea Priestess which was published privately in England in 1938.
First published in 1978 by
Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Box 612
York Beach. Maine 03910
This printing, 1999
Library of Congress Card Number: 83-159136
ISBN 0-87728-424-5
MY
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
INTRODUCTION
IF one wishes to write a book that is not cut according to
any of the standard patterns, it appears to be necessary to be
one's own publisher; therefore this book has not got the imprint
of any publishing house to lend it dignity, but must stand upon
its own feet as a literary Mekhizedek.
I once had the entertaining experience of receiving one of
my own books for review, but if I were called upon to review
this one, I should find it difficult to know how to set about it.
It is a book with an undercurrent; upon the surface, a romance;
underneath, a thesis upon the theme: "All women are Isis,
and Isis is all women," or in the language of modern psychology,
the anima-animus principle.
Various criticisms have been levelled at it by those who
have read it in manuscript, and as they will probably be repeated
by those who read it in print, I may as well take the opportunity
of a preface to deal with them, especially as there is no
production-manager to say to me: "You must cut fifty pages
if we are to get it out at seven-and-six."
It was said by a reviewer of one of my previous books that it
is a pity I make my characters so unlikeable. This was a great
surprise to me, for it had never occurred to me that my characters
were unlikeable. What kind of barber's blocks are
required in order that readers may love them ? In real life no
one escapes the faults of their qualities, so why should they in
fiction ?
There are many drawbacks to my hero as a son, a brother, a
husband and a business partner, and he makes no attempt to
5
6 INTRODUCTION
minimise them; nevertheless I retain my affection for him,
though I am quite alive to the fact that he could not compete
with the creations of the late Samuel Smiles. But then I do not
know that I particularly want him to. It has often seemed to
me that as one cannot please everybody, one may as well please
oneself, especially as I have. God be thanked, no publisher to
consider, who would naturally expect my book to contribute
its quota towards his overhead expenses and errors of judgment.
It was said of this book by a publisher's reader, who ought
to know what he is talking about, that the style is uneven,
rising to heights of lyric beauty (his expression, not mine), and
on the same page descending to colloquialisms.
This raises a pretty point in technique. My story is written
in the first person; it is therefore a monologue, and the same
rule applies to it that applies to dialogue--that the speakers
must speak in character. As my hero's mood changes, his
narrative style therefore changes.
Any writer will agree that narrative in the first person is a
most difficult technique to handle. The method of presentation
is in actuality that of drama, though maintaining the
appearance of narrative; moreover everything has to be seen
not only through the eyes, but through the temperament of
the person who is telling the story. A restraint has to be
observed in the emotional passages lest the blight of self-pity
appear on the hero. He must, at all costs, keep the reader's
respect while evoking his sympathy, and this he cannot do if he
wallows in his emotions. Consequently in the most telling
scenes, where an author would normally pull out the tremolo
stop and tread on the loud pedal, only curt, brief Anglo-Saxon
may be used, for no one employs elaborate English when in
extremis. All effects have to be obtained by "noises off". Therefore
unless the reader has imagination and can read constructively,
the effects are lost.
INTRODUCTION 7
And this brings me to the question of constructive reading.
Everybody knows how much the audience contributes to the
performance of a play, but few people realise how much a
reader must contribute to the effect of a work of fiction. Perhaps
I ask too much of my readers: that is a point I am not
competent to judge, and can only say with Martin Luther:
"God help me, I can do no otherwise." After all, the style is
the man, and short of castration, cannot be altered. And who
wants to be a literary eunuch? Not me, anyway, which is
perhaps the reason why I have to do my own publishing.
People read fiction in order to supplement the diet life provides
for them. If life is full and varied, they like novels that
analyse and interpret it for them; if life is narrow and unsatisfying,
they supply themselves with mass production wish-
fulfilments from the lending libraries. I have managed to fit
my book in between these two stools so neatly that it is hardly
fair to say that it falls between them. It is a novel of interpretation
and a novel of wish-fulfilment at the same time.
Yet after all, why should not the two be combined? They
have to be in psycho-therapy, where I learnt my trade. The
frustration that afflicts my hero is the lot, in some degree at
any rate, of a very considerable proportion of human beings,
as my readers doubtless can confirm from their own experience.
It is too well known to need emphasis that readers, reading
for emotional compensation, identify themselves with the hero
or heroine as the case may be, and for this reason the writers
who cater for this class of taste invariably make the protagonist
of the opposite sex to themselves the oleographic representation
of a wish-fulfilment. The he-men who write for he-men invariably
provide as heroine either a glutinous, synthetic, saccharine
creature and call the result romance, or else combine all the
incompatibles in the human character and think they have
achieved realism.
8 INTRODUCTION
Equally the lady novelist will provide her readers with such
males as never stepped into a pair of trousers; on whom, in
fact, trousers would be wasted.
It is difficult for me to judge of my own characters; naturally
I think the world of them, but such partiality is probably no
more justified than that of any other doting parent. The late
Charles Garvice was convinced he wrote literature and was
bitterly jealous of Kipling.
How far my creations are wish-fulfilments is a matter on
which I am the last person to be able to express an impartial
opinion. It has often been said of me that I am no lady, and
I have myself had to tell the secretary of a well-known club
which craved my membership that I am no gentleman, so we
will leave the mystery of sex wrapped in decent obscurity, like
that of the parrot.
Nevertheless, I think that if readers in their reading will
identify themselves with one or another of the characters
according to taste, they will be led to a curious psychological
experience--the experience of the therapeutic use of phantasy,
an unappreciated aspect of psycho-therapy.
The psychological state of modern civilisation is on a par
with the sanitation of the medieval walled cities. Therefore
I lay my tribute at the feet of the great goddess Cloacina--
"In jesting guise, but ye are wise,
Ye know what the jest is worth."
dion fortune

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