Conjure Wife
By Fritz Leiber
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Few literary figures of the early 20th century led less predictable lives
than Fritz Leiber. He was a brilliant chess player, a preacher, a college
teacher, a champion fencer, a Shakespearian actor, and even appeared
on screen with Greta Garbo. But his biggest
pay day came from a game—when he licensed
the fruits of his fertile imagination to the
creators of the role-playing classic Dungeons
& Dragons. This game was so popular with
my freshman roommate in college that, when
he got phone calls or visitors while he was out,
we simply responded: “John’s in the dungeon.”
And, oh yes, there is the matter of Mr. Leiber’s
writing, which was hardly more conventional
than his CV. Leiber drew on his own odd
assortment of influences—H.P. Lovecraft,
Carl Jung, Robert Graves, Joseph Campbell—
in a literary career that crossed genres almost
as frequently as his adventure-seeking characters crossed swords. His
most famous fictional creations were Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser,
who for many readers still represent the gold standard in the sword-
and-sorcery genre. In time, Leiber established himself as a major
author of science fiction, horror and fantasy, and dabbled in other
genres too—pretty good for a latecomer who didn’t really focus on
writing until he was almost thirty.
Conjure Wife, Leiber’s debut novel from 1943, also ranks among his
most resilient works, with a modern day witchcraft storyline that has
been rediscovered in different formats by several generations of
admirers. Every couple decades, a new film version comes to the
screen. Conjure Wife has inspired three films already: Weird Woman
(1944), Burn Witch Burn (1961) and Witches Brew (1980). United
Artists has secured the rights to a fourth version, which is moving
ahead under the direction of Billy Ray.
The novel opens when John Saylor, a professor at a small New England
college, decides to pry into his wife’s dressing room. Here, among the
cosmetics, he finds, vials of graveyard dirt, packets of hair and
fingernail clippings from their acquaintance, incantations scrawled in
the margins of a book, horseshoe nails, unusual herbal substances . . .
and various other items not sold by Mary Kay. In short, Tansy Saylor
is a witch.
Saylor’s wife interrupts him in the midst of going through her magical
accessories. After a tense confrontation, she admits to her obsession
with charms and magic. The irony here is that her husband, a
committed rationalist and professor of sociology, has devoted his
career to debunking primitive superstitions. Now he learns that his
wife has taken advantage of his research and field trips to develop her
own arsenal of magical practices. Imagine Hermione Granger married
to A.J. Ayer, and you will get some idea of this odd husband-and-wife
team.
The juxtaposition of different versions of reality is one of the delights
of conceptual fiction, and Leiber makes the most of the conflicting
world views at play here. Superimposing the scientific method and
rampant sorcery in the same narrative makes the Darwin-versus-
Creationism debate look like a coffeehouse squabble by comparison.
Although pulp fiction maestros such as Leiber are supposed to be
obsessed with plot and not philosophical resonances, this author may
surprise readers by work by achieving both in a compact novel.
Under pressure from her husband, Tansy accepts that her behavior
has been pathological, and agrees to get rid of all her “stuff”—the
charms, the incantations, the herbs and other ingredients are
consigned to the flames. Bad decision! Almost immediately, terrible
things start happening to Professor Saylor. False charges are leveled
at him, new adversaries confront him, old secrets are dredged up from
their hiding places. Even worse, that most deadly game of all—faculty
politics—begins to turn against him.
Did he make a mistake in getting rid of those protective charms? Or
has his own pristine, rational mode of thinking been compromised by
her crazy convictions? He doesn’t want to raise the issue with his wife.
She seems happily adjusted to a life without magic, and just talking
about his troubles might send her back into her unhealthy obsessions.
But still. . . .
Leiber handles this story with skill, balancing the inherent drama of his
plot with his characteristic touches of humor and irony. Forty years
before Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick—which like Conjure Wife
has been frequently adapted to other genres—Leiber successfully
captured the piquant angles on a sorcery story translated to modern-
day New England. The popularity of these tales is hardly surprising.
The superstitious mind never really went away—a US Court declared
Wiccan was a religion at almost the same time as Updike’s book came
out—and certainly makes for a better story than other New Age
movements. I’ve read all of the Harry Potter books, but will pass on
the great Rolfing novel or the Primal Scream movie adaptation.
The recent reissue of this novel and the forthcoming movie adaptation
are encouraging signs that Fritz Leiber’s work may be slated for a
revival. Other stirrings of interest are evident—note that Michael
Chabon’s 2007 novel Gentlemen of the Road showed a clear debt to
the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. What’s next? Maybe colleges
will start teaching megapolisomancy to the next generation of urban
planners.
I’ve watched with interest—and, let’s be honest, quite a bit of
enthusiasm—as authors such as Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft have
risen from the dungeon of pulp fiction hacks to be enshrined as
important contributors to American fiction. Now that this path to
respectability has been forged, let’s use it to bring Mr. Leiber along
too. Indeed, his tales seem perfectly suited for the new millennium,
with their potential for adaptation to interactive media, their theme-
ride pacing, and overriding concerns. Next year will be the centenary
of his birth, and what could be a better time to bring this fervently
creative writer’s stories to the attention of today’s readers?
This article was originally published on www.blogcritics.org --
click here.
By Fritz Leiber
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Few literary figures of the early 20th century led less predictable lives
than Fritz Leiber. He was a brilliant chess player, a preacher, a college
teacher, a champion fencer, a Shakespearian actor, and even appeared
on screen with Greta Garbo. But his biggest
pay day came from a game—when he licensed
the fruits of his fertile imagination to the
creators of the role-playing classic Dungeons
& Dragons. This game was so popular with
my freshman roommate in college that, when
he got phone calls or visitors while he was out,
we simply responded: “John’s in the dungeon.”
And, oh yes, there is the matter of Mr. Leiber’s
writing, which was hardly more conventional
than his CV. Leiber drew on his own odd
assortment of influences—H.P. Lovecraft,
Carl Jung, Robert Graves, Joseph Campbell—
in a literary career that crossed genres almost
as frequently as his adventure-seeking characters crossed swords. His
most famous fictional creations were Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser,
who for many readers still represent the gold standard in the sword-
and-sorcery genre. In time, Leiber established himself as a major
author of science fiction, horror and fantasy, and dabbled in other
genres too—pretty good for a latecomer who didn’t really focus on
writing until he was almost thirty.
Conjure Wife, Leiber’s debut novel from 1943, also ranks among his
most resilient works, with a modern day witchcraft storyline that has
been rediscovered in different formats by several generations of
admirers. Every couple decades, a new film version comes to the
screen. Conjure Wife has inspired three films already: Weird Woman
(1944), Burn Witch Burn (1961) and Witches Brew (1980). United
Artists has secured the rights to a fourth version, which is moving
ahead under the direction of Billy Ray.
The novel opens when John Saylor, a professor at a small New England
college, decides to pry into his wife’s dressing room. Here, among the
cosmetics, he finds, vials of graveyard dirt, packets of hair and
fingernail clippings from their acquaintance, incantations scrawled in
the margins of a book, horseshoe nails, unusual herbal substances . . .
and various other items not sold by Mary Kay. In short, Tansy Saylor
is a witch.
Saylor’s wife interrupts him in the midst of going through her magical
accessories. After a tense confrontation, she admits to her obsession
with charms and magic. The irony here is that her husband, a
committed rationalist and professor of sociology, has devoted his
career to debunking primitive superstitions. Now he learns that his
wife has taken advantage of his research and field trips to develop her
own arsenal of magical practices. Imagine Hermione Granger married
to A.J. Ayer, and you will get some idea of this odd husband-and-wife
team.
The juxtaposition of different versions of reality is one of the delights
of conceptual fiction, and Leiber makes the most of the conflicting
world views at play here. Superimposing the scientific method and
rampant sorcery in the same narrative makes the Darwin-versus-
Creationism debate look like a coffeehouse squabble by comparison.
Although pulp fiction maestros such as Leiber are supposed to be
obsessed with plot and not philosophical resonances, this author may
surprise readers by work by achieving both in a compact novel.
Under pressure from her husband, Tansy accepts that her behavior
has been pathological, and agrees to get rid of all her “stuff”—the
charms, the incantations, the herbs and other ingredients are
consigned to the flames. Bad decision! Almost immediately, terrible
things start happening to Professor Saylor. False charges are leveled
at him, new adversaries confront him, old secrets are dredged up from
their hiding places. Even worse, that most deadly game of all—faculty
politics—begins to turn against him.
Did he make a mistake in getting rid of those protective charms? Or
has his own pristine, rational mode of thinking been compromised by
her crazy convictions? He doesn’t want to raise the issue with his wife.
She seems happily adjusted to a life without magic, and just talking
about his troubles might send her back into her unhealthy obsessions.
But still. . . .
Leiber handles this story with skill, balancing the inherent drama of his
plot with his characteristic touches of humor and irony. Forty years
before Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick—which like Conjure Wife
has been frequently adapted to other genres—Leiber successfully
captured the piquant angles on a sorcery story translated to modern-
day New England. The popularity of these tales is hardly surprising.
The superstitious mind never really went away—a US Court declared
Wiccan was a religion at almost the same time as Updike’s book came
out—and certainly makes for a better story than other New Age
movements. I’ve read all of the Harry Potter books, but will pass on
the great Rolfing novel or the Primal Scream movie adaptation.
The recent reissue of this novel and the forthcoming movie adaptation
are encouraging signs that Fritz Leiber’s work may be slated for a
revival. Other stirrings of interest are evident—note that Michael
Chabon’s 2007 novel Gentlemen of the Road showed a clear debt to
the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. What’s next? Maybe colleges
will start teaching megapolisomancy to the next generation of urban
planners.
I’ve watched with interest—and, let’s be honest, quite a bit of
enthusiasm—as authors such as Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft have
risen from the dungeon of pulp fiction hacks to be enshrined as
important contributors to American fiction. Now that this path to
respectability has been forged, let’s use it to bring Mr. Leiber along
too. Indeed, his tales seem perfectly suited for the new millennium,
with their potential for adaptation to interactive media, their theme-
ride pacing, and overriding concerns. Next year will be the centenary
of his birth, and what could be a better time to bring this fervently
creative writer’s stories to the attention of today’s readers?
This article was originally published on www.blogcritics.org --
click here.
| conceptual fiction |
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.