Song of Kali (Gateway Essentials)

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And this is the point of the book - it is not pure psychological horror nor is it the horror of monsters and demons but it is something different again, a novel of cultural horror of its own time and place with elements of both. I do not recall the phrase Kali Yuga being used but that is what it is about - a deeply conservative sense that the Age of Kali was upon us.

We begin following the protagonist, Robert Luczak's, journey to Calcutta in India to obtain a manuscript and get to the bottom of a mystery concerning Bengali Poet M. Das. Rumoured to be dead for just over a decade, he has recently resurfaced with a new body of work. And the magazine that Luczak works for is just dying to get the inside scoop. What could possibly go wrong? Abe, it's all set," I said. "We're leaving next week." I hesitated a moment. "They're paying very well and covering all expenses," I added.

I nodded. The heat had caused a headache to start throbbing behind my eyes. "Abe, you've just spent time in the wrong cities," I said lightly. "Try spending a summer in North Philadelphia or on the Southside of Chicago where I grew up. That'll make Calcutta look like Fun City." A poisonous atmosphere," I said. It nettled me to be quizzed. "As from a swamp. Or any noxious influence. Probably comes from the Greek miainein, meaning ‘to pollute.'" Robert Luczak is sent by the American literary magazine Other Voices, where he works as an editor, to Calcutta to locate poetry alleged to have been recently authored by a legendary poet, M. Das. The literary world considers this development newsworthy because Das disappeared and is presumed to have died eight years ago. Robert's Indian wife, Amrita, and their infant child, Victoria, accompany him on his assignment. Para iniciar he de decir que me encanta el estilo de Simmons, amé Hyperion, sin embargo, la trama de ésta novela deja mucho que desear.

No, Sanskrit and Bengali, mostly. Here's the English translation." I handed over the other photocopy. Song of Kali took me by surprise. And it shouldn't as I know how talented an author Dan Simmons is. This is old school horror written by an author with real literary talent. What a debut!

After a couple of days of dead-end leads, an Indian couple is caught at the airport trying to take someone resembling Victoria out of the country. Robert and Amrita go to identify their child, but find that she is already dead. Song of Kali" was a very interesting book. Set in the late 1970s Calcutta, it is a horror story centered around the Hindu goddess Kali. And I wish that westerners would do a little homework. Nobody spells their name Jayaprakesh. Jayaprakash, sure. Jaiprakash, even. Not Jayaprakesh. Thanks very much kindly. For all the play Simmons makes of Indians mangling English he certainly doesn't hesitate to mangle Indian names. It's not "scary" as in "boo" but it is horrific in it's stark depiction of the horror lurking in the human soul. What makes this an interesting story is that, even after reading it, I am not sure if the events were supernatural or a culmination of events that made it seem so. The rather nebulous ending didn't really do it for me.

Everyone he encounters behaves strangely, and the closer he gets to the truth the darker and stranger things become. The fact that he decided to bring his wife and six month-old child in tow certainly doesn't help matters. Dark forces appear to be at play and Robert and his family are set for a hellish time in the days to come as events begin to spiral out of control. I'll take away one star because of Simmon's rather unbalanced portrayal of Hindu culture, which is of course a rich and varied culture with many aspects to it, some of them wonderful and positive, as opposed to the negative aspects highlighted in this novel. We're going," I said. "The reservations have been made. We've had our shots. The only question now is whether you want to see Das's stuff if it is Das and if I can secure publication rights. What do you say, Abe?" Similarly, the war on terror is scary but the opponents are gangsters not the corporatised mass murdering bureaucrats of competing ideologies. Gangsters, despite Simmons' hero's experience, are very bad but not capable (or are they?) of destroying the world. Maybe that is the one doubt that nags at us tweenty five or so years on - that maybe gangsters, terrorists and insurgents can bring the Kali Yuga to pass. Are we all illusions? Brief shadows thrown on a white wall for the shallow amusement of bored gods? Is this all?"

Abe was in his cluttered office, alone, working on the autumn issue of Voices. The windows were open, but the air in the room was as stale and moist as the dead cigar that Abe was chewing on. "Don't go to Calcutta, Bobby," Abe said again. "Let someone else do it."