Thu 16 Jun 2011
A Review by Dan Stumpf: A. MERRITT: Seven Footprints to Satan.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[19] Comments
A. MERRITT – Seven Footprints to Satan. Boni & Liveright, US, hardcover, 1928. Richards, UK, hardcover, 1928. First serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly, June-July 1927. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and soft. Film: First National, 1929
Speaking of scary books, I recently picked up a copy of A. Merritt’s Seven Footprints to Satan. Seems to me like Merritt divided his time between creepy contemporary chillers like Burn Witch Burn and ancient-empire fantasies like Dwellers in the Mirage.
Footprints is somewhere in the middle, a fast-moving adventure with a modern (1920s) hero pitted against a criminal mastermind who styles himself as Satan, ensconced in a labyrinthine palace of preposterous proportions, staffed with mindless slaves, distressed damsels and assorted thralls.
It’s all fast-moving and purple, with chases, fights, torture… everything you pick up a thriller for. Not believable for a moment, but I didn’t put it down, either.
June 16th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Back in the late 50s and throughout the 1960s, I was still learning which mystery writers and which SF writers were worth reading.
Back then you could often go by the imprint. Dell paperbacks were always worth reading, as long as the story was a mystery, science fiction or a western. Gold Medal the same way.
Avon books, though, were a mixed bag. They did The Saint books, for example, but a lot of other books that were only fiction (but of a lurid kind) or cross-genre books such as those by Merritt, like this one.
I guess you can see why a 15-year-old boy might be attracted to the covers, but when I tried to read it? No headway at all, absolutely none. Nor did any of the other Merritt titles fare any better — with me that is. Talbot Mundy was the same way. Too literary? Maybe. Too old-fashioned? Maybe that too. I don’t know.
Nor have I read anything by Merritt even today. I read reviews like this one by Dan, and I wonder what am missing, or is there something missing in me?
June 16th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Steve,
I haven’t read much Merritt over the years but the two I think are tops in Fantasy fiction would be “The Face In the Abyss”
and “Dwellers In the Mirage”. Try either of these first. I’ll give you a money back guarantee if you don’t like either one.
Or I’ll buy you lunch at Pulpfest!
June 16th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
I’ve tried both, Paul, with no success, several times. Do I have to try again, or can I get that Free Lunch without?
And if I do, do you trust me? With a Free Lunch on the line? Are you sure?
If it makes any difference, I’ve had no luck with THE LORD OF THE RINGS either, or any of Lin Carter’s “Adult Fantasy” novels for Ballantine.
But Edgar Rice Burroughs? There’s my man.
June 17th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Yes, that old style of writing in Merritt and Mundy can turn their works into a tough slog, Steve. Edgar Rice Burroughs, who started writing before Merritt and Mundy, managed to deliver a more lively writing style.
June 17th, 2011 at 11:32 am
I certainly don’t begrudge anyone else’s enjoyment of Merritt and Mundy, George, and maybe it is time to try them again. But so far, “tough slog,” while not a phrase one hears in English class, has summed up their work for me. Emphasis on “so far.” I read a lot of fiction now that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing 50 years ago.
June 17th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Heck, I’m 40-years-old and like that second cover.
June 17th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Gerard
It’s an eye-catcher, all right. And it’s certainly not one that you’d see on the book if it were published in mass-market form today. We’ve lost some of our cultural heritage, all right, and in this case maybe it’s for the better, but…
June 17th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
I don’t remember exactly why, but my 7th-grade science teacher handed me a copy of DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE something like 46 years ago and said I might like it; boy, was he right. It is probably the least dated of Merritt’s works, with THE FACE IN THE ABYSS a close second. But Merritt is, alas, an acquired taste–as is Mundy (I loved his three–or six, depending on how the publisher divided the first–TROS OF SAMOTHRACE books when I read them many years ago, but I don’t know if I could re-read them now). William Hope Hodgson (THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, THE NIGHT LAND, and others) can be a pretty tough slog, too; I suspect it’s best to read such things young, before one’s critical and stylistic barriers get too firmly set. I might’ve really liked Thomas Wolfe (LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, etc.) had I read him when I was 18; but I tried him in my 30s and just could not plow through all the verbiage…
June 17th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
In a way this sort of ties in with the recent review of REAR WINDOW. Dan published my review of FOOTPRINTS a few years earlier in his HOUND OF DR. JOHNSON zine. I mentioned in my review that the first chapter has a minor character named Lars Thorwaldsen in it and that Lars Thorwald was the murderer in REAR WINDOW. This led to speculation that Woolrich, during his brief stint as a screenwriter in Hollywood, might have worked on the silent film based on this book.
June 17th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I’m with you, Steve. Most of this stuff is difficult or impossible for me to read. I read THE SHIP OF ISHTAR after Planet Stories re-published it a year or two ago and it was a struggle. I came away from it feeling like I’d been dunked in pond water, sort of a “Huh? I need a shower.” feeling.
As for Mundy, tried and gave up, but that was when I was a young teen. I had the paperback of TROS for years but finally gave it away.
June 17th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
In my misspent youth, had no patience with Merritt’s prose either, nor could I read Shakespeare (still can’t) or Faulkner. But somehow as I’ve grown older I’ve developed a tolerance for this sort of thing and I now sometimes read Henry James for pleasure and I even got through Melville’s BILLY BUDD–didn’t like it much, though; not enough car chases and explosions.
June 17th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Mundy’s prose doesn’t move with the greatest alacrity. Two Mundy bios were published in the 80’s, and another one came out a few years ago. His life seems to be more interesting than his novels.
June 17th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
I read BURN, WITCH, BURN with no trouble. THE FACE IN THE ABYSS is a whole other ball of wax. I liked the weirdness of it all but I drifted in and out and finally closed it unfinished. I’ve fared better with his crime and occult thrillers than with his fantasy adventures. You have to admire Merritt’s immense knowledge of esoteric mythology and legends and ancient civilizations. I’m extremely impressed with that and how he managed to incorporate it into all of his stories.
June 18th, 2011 at 11:50 am
I read all of Merritt as an adolescent, and in my first year in college I wrote an essay on “The Metal Monster” that rather took my English teacher by surprise. I recall quoting chunks of what I considered to be priceless descriptive passages that probably made her wonder about my literary taste. It helped, at the time, that I had copies of the pulp reprints (in Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels) of the Merritt fiction, and the Finlay illustrations greatly enhanced my admiration for Merritt’s prose.
I have all the fiction in first editions, acquired when they were plentiful and cheap, but I’ve not reread any of it in recent years. My feelings about the work are still intense, and I would like to think that, returning to “Dwellers in the Mirage” and “The Face in the Abyss,” I could recapture some of the sense of wonder that lingers so indelibly in my imagination.
June 18th, 2011 at 11:56 am
By the way, anyone interesrted in thefilm of BURN, WITCH, BURN might be interested to know that it was recently reviewed at the DVD TALK review site and is available through MGM.s manufactured on demand service.
June 18th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Thanks, Ray.
Here’s a direct link to the review:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/50450/burn-witch-burn-night-of-the-eagle/
BURN WITCH BURN has been out on VHS, but I think this is the first time it’s had a commercial release on DVD, which was just over a month ago.
It’s a long review, summed up, I think, by the following snippet: “…a superlative witchcraft shocker you need to see.”
Don’t order from Amazon just yet, though. There have been a lot of complaints, along the lines of:
“Apparently someone at MGM was asleep at the wheel when issuing this DVD-R, as it does NOT contain BURN, WITCH, BURN; although the label on the DVD is correct the movie is actually THE NUN AND THE SERGEANT.”
June 18th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Walter
Your input, as always, is invaluable. Reaction here in the comments has been mixed, to say the least, but based on yours and Paul’s, both positive, and Dan’s rather subtle encouragement in Comment #11, I will, I promise, give Merritt another try. Even without the car chases and explosions.
I don’t know which one. I have them all, I believe. It’s just a matter of which one comes to the surface next!
June 19th, 2011 at 9:30 am
I believe that the film version of Burn, Witch, Burn is called is called The Devil Dolls and stars Lionel Barrymore. The film mentioned above shares only the name, not the plot, author or creepiness.
June 19th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
You’re absolutely right. The 1962 film BURN WITCH BURN was based on CONJURE WIFE, a novel by well-known SF-Fantasy author Fritz Leiber. The screenwriting credentials are equally impeccable, shared by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson (and George Baxt, uncredited, so says IMDB). If I’d known this before, I’d totally forgotten, and I’ve even seen the movie, long long ago.
So I’d have to say the movie’s worth watching, but not for reasons related to Merritt. (Does that sound right?)