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Mercurius: Or, the Marriage of Heaven & Earth
"Know I, Mercurius, have set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar; unless your heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God's laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faintheartedness, read no further lest I prove fatal to you. 'Mercurius is a book written at least as much to elucidate as to entertain. It is probably the most explicit account of the alchemical art ever published - it presents a strong argument for the perfectibility of man and against the species of bloodless asceticism which drives a wedge between spiritual and corporeal love.' THE LITERARY REVIEW 'Each of its 479 mystical pages needs to be closely read, for the dramatic turns in this extraordinary alchemical novel are so well hidden that one dare not skip a single sentence for fear of missing an essential key to the developing mystery. It is rare to find an author who can expound with such authority on a subject whose very existence is only to a few initiates. This book is uniquely useful. There is no rival to it.' FORTEAN TIMES.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
8 people are currently reading
467 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Harpur
12 books115 followersPatrick Harpur is an acclaimed author, best known for his philosophical works, which include
The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History Of The Imagination
and
Mercurius: The Marriage Of Heaven and Earth
, the latter of which, after being out of print for several years (and fetching a small fortune on auction sites like eBay) has finally been re-released in a paperback edition.
Other works include Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld and The Serpent's Circle .
He currently has a couple of new projects in the pipeline, including The Stormy Petrel, a fictional biography of Søren Kirkegaard, and The Savoy Truffle, a witty, dramatic novel about life in Britain's richest, wildest Surrey suburb in the early 1960s.
Patrick Harpur lives near Dorchester in Dorset.
Other works include Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld and The Serpent's Circle .
He currently has a couple of new projects in the pipeline, including The Stormy Petrel, a fictional biography of Søren Kirkegaard, and The Savoy Truffle, a witty, dramatic novel about life in Britain's richest, wildest Surrey suburb in the early 1960s.
Patrick Harpur lives near Dorchester in Dorset.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 4, 2011
(Probably 4.5 stars, but certainly the best work of fiction about alchemy that I’ve read thus far.)
In general I don’t have much patience for novels with complex backstories, their authors refusing to take responsibility for the works created and instead ascribing them to mysterious, equally fictional characters or circumstances. It’s sort of like including an explanation for the meaning of a poem — a real nose-wrinkler. In this case, Patrick Harpur claims to have received the contents of Mercurius from an ex-girlfriend, Eileen. He has presented her commentary alongside its inspiration, the (ca. early 1950s) laboratory notes of John Smith, a man who used to live in the vicarage she, for a time, rented. Harpur’s voice ostensibly comes to us only in the form of brief clarifications within the text and longer footnotes at the end.
The thing is, anyone remotely familiar with alchemy — and I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t deeply interested in the subject slogging through this very dense novel — will appreciate the conceit. The Great Work varies widely from one manuscript to the next, but unverifiable provenance in the form of, say, a conveniently deceased teacher is perhaps the philosophers’ stone’s favorite mode of transmission. “To study alchemy”, Harpur rightly asserts, “is to travel in time” (261).
He deserves praise not merely for this sly nod to history. Harpur obviously did a tremendous amount of research, getting caught up (or so I imagine) like Eileen in the labyrinth of alchemical language, the weighty realization that, whatever we may think of them today, alchemists were onto something. From Maria Prophetissa to Fulcanelli, he compiles compelling anecdotes in a clear, accessible, respectful way, providing context for his very realistic fictional account of alchemy.
Smith is carefully crafted, focused, flawed and all too fallible — nevertheless, we root for him, for his success, for the happiness of some parishioners and the failed schemes of others. His mental acuity is matched by his efforts in the vicarage cellar-cum-laboratory; appropriately, his own inner state mirrors the physical transformations as they take place. Eileen, by contrast, initially comes across as a creature of the mind. She analyzes Smith’s efforts from a Jungian perspective, bringing structural anthropology and her own disastrous relationship with P. (our author, naturally) into the mix. At times I struggled to maintain the level of attention that her portion of the text required, probably because I’m far more interested in the reality of alchemy and its practitioners than retrospective attempts to map it onto theoretical systems that do not quite fit. Still, she acknowledges such difficulties and her comments are insightful.
Together these two characters form the heart (the backbone, the Spirit, even) of Mercurius, but the supporting cast lends a richness to the story that I hadn’t expected as connections between the dual narratives emerge, because of course the alchemical process is steeped in relationships and the changes they endure. Perhaps the most beautiful moments in the book mark one character’s recognition of another, not the imagined other but the truth:
And another, even lovelier in its brevity:
Plenty of snap judgments rendered empty, expectations thwarted, learning more about ourselves and others through the course of our interactions, all this mirrored in the laboratory, which needn't be seen simply as a symbol or metaphor. I loved it.
This book deserves a far more extensive review than I have the time to write, but at the very least I can recommend it highly to folks interested in alchemy. I preferred this to Lindsay Clarke’s worthy Whitbread Prize-winning alchemical novel The Chymical Wedding, which came out a year earlier — more convincing, compelling and, I'll wager, though time will tell more surely, memorable.
In general I don’t have much patience for novels with complex backstories, their authors refusing to take responsibility for the works created and instead ascribing them to mysterious, equally fictional characters or circumstances. It’s sort of like including an explanation for the meaning of a poem — a real nose-wrinkler. In this case, Patrick Harpur claims to have received the contents of Mercurius from an ex-girlfriend, Eileen. He has presented her commentary alongside its inspiration, the (ca. early 1950s) laboratory notes of John Smith, a man who used to live in the vicarage she, for a time, rented. Harpur’s voice ostensibly comes to us only in the form of brief clarifications within the text and longer footnotes at the end.
The thing is, anyone remotely familiar with alchemy — and I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t deeply interested in the subject slogging through this very dense novel — will appreciate the conceit. The Great Work varies widely from one manuscript to the next, but unverifiable provenance in the form of, say, a conveniently deceased teacher is perhaps the philosophers’ stone’s favorite mode of transmission. “To study alchemy”, Harpur rightly asserts, “is to travel in time” (261).
He deserves praise not merely for this sly nod to history. Harpur obviously did a tremendous amount of research, getting caught up (or so I imagine) like Eileen in the labyrinth of alchemical language, the weighty realization that, whatever we may think of them today, alchemists were onto something. From Maria Prophetissa to Fulcanelli, he compiles compelling anecdotes in a clear, accessible, respectful way, providing context for his very realistic fictional account of alchemy.
Smith is carefully crafted, focused, flawed and all too fallible — nevertheless, we root for him, for his success, for the happiness of some parishioners and the failed schemes of others. His mental acuity is matched by his efforts in the vicarage cellar-cum-laboratory; appropriately, his own inner state mirrors the physical transformations as they take place. Eileen, by contrast, initially comes across as a creature of the mind. She analyzes Smith’s efforts from a Jungian perspective, bringing structural anthropology and her own disastrous relationship with P. (our author, naturally) into the mix. At times I struggled to maintain the level of attention that her portion of the text required, probably because I’m far more interested in the reality of alchemy and its practitioners than retrospective attempts to map it onto theoretical systems that do not quite fit. Still, she acknowledges such difficulties and her comments are insightful.
Together these two characters form the heart (the backbone, the Spirit, even) of Mercurius, but the supporting cast lends a richness to the story that I hadn’t expected as connections between the dual narratives emerge, because of course the alchemical process is steeped in relationships and the changes they endure. Perhaps the most beautiful moments in the book mark one character’s recognition of another, not the imagined other but the truth:
"Her pale eyelashes give her a myopic look; but her eyes, as I realise for the first time, are sharp. We watch her husband and sister perform their mincing curtseying little mating-dance around Caldwell who expands fatly, his self-congratulatory gestures fanning outwards like a peacock's tail. She sees me thinking that the two of them are more like a married couple than she and Simmons; she sees that I am sorry for her just as I see that she is sorry for me, having to put a good face on the snubs I receive. I touch her shoulder lightly to distract her from a sight that is painful to both of us, and I feel bone not flesh. She also understands from my touch that she has no need to feel sorry for me; that I have other resources (as perhaps she has) which disqualify me as an object of pity. We humans are so wonderful — so complex and quick that all this, and more, can pass between two of them in a flash, so subtle that it passes undetected by anyone else." (164)
And another, even lovelier in its brevity:
“Her hand in mine was perfectly still. We sat on, silent, cramped on the narrow stair as the house grew dark. I thought of all that had happened. Feeling her hand, I thought how different Nora was from the one I believed I knew. How much more mysterious, unpredictable, wonderful, the real Nora was.” (329)
Plenty of snap judgments rendered empty, expectations thwarted, learning more about ourselves and others through the course of our interactions, all this mirrored in the laboratory, which needn't be seen simply as a symbol or metaphor. I loved it.
This book deserves a far more extensive review than I have the time to write, but at the very least I can recommend it highly to folks interested in alchemy. I preferred this to Lindsay Clarke’s worthy Whitbread Prize-winning alchemical novel The Chymical Wedding, which came out a year earlier — more convincing, compelling and, I'll wager, though time will tell more surely, memorable.
June 19, 2015
I would call this book a magnificent failure and yet it has many fine qualities, not least genuine learning and some exceptional novelistic writing. So why is it a failure?
Harpur (as perhaps only those who read to the very end, and I mean to the very end but no cheating please or there really is no point in starting the book) has a little bit of the Loki in him.
That trickster element is, I think, the thing that redeems the work. He certainly 'seems' (who knows) to want to engage the reader with alchemical thought and its Jungian analogue as sincere attempts at self-individuation.
Failing to resolve the issues raised by analogical thinking in any way, perhaps because he does not want to and perhaps because he cannot, he then falls into the double trap of obscurity and didacticism in style.
That seems harsh but a full half of the book, perhaps more, is made up of material about alchemical theory and practice that you would expect to find on the non-fiction shelves - with foot notes.
In producing this material in this way and then offsetting it against not merely one narrative but two, with layers of narrative within the narrative in the 'best' tradition of the 'modern' novel, he creates something that will certainly appeal to some.
I find it overly manipulative for my taste. There is something deeply conservative and priestly, almost obscurantist about the tone of this book.
However, that 'spiritual' position is constantly being subverted by the evident lies, half-truths and delusions peppered through the fictional element and, as I will argue, nothing can be taken at face value when it comes to the values expressed in the work.
Is it all one fiction masquerading as truth, a game worthy of Calvino (who we do not admire)? After all, Calvino famously used the Tarot to similar effect. As a literary game, it is a remarkable achievement.
But as a trick played on the lonely reader, it may be cruel. The alchemical element is not merely obscure but holds out the promise of some hidden meaning of spiritual value that cannot be honoured.
This is dangled like a fishermen dangles his bait on a rod, only to make spirituality, actually obscurantism, the cloak for a degree of literary manipulation that may help no one.
So let us move on to the fiction which is tricksy and a suitable offset to the two embedded interpretations of the alchemical - the traditional and the psychological.
The difference is that we expect manipulation in fiction so we can be far more relaxed when it is out in the open by being hidden in a story.
Harpur is extremely good at creating credible characters in the Reverend Smith and Eileen, from different generations but interlinked by their role in other unreliable narratives, most notably that of Bradley and Nora.
Forget the detail (read the book). He draws us persuasive pictures of two types of over-intellualised, sexually repressed and confused English - the mid-century middle class male and the rising bluestocking of the generation that followed.
They are, in fact, archetypes. You would not imediately think so from this tale told of English country life but this is a mildly decadent Ambridge riddled with symbolism, sinking into the water table, with pagan fertility stones on the high hills and sacred woods that aren't.
The novel refers back to the long tradition of literary intellectuals observing the ways of the country folk and that contains Hardy and folk horror within it.
At times, I was reminded of John Cowper Powys, another writer who mixes magical thinking with close attention to character detail. There is even the violent country mob which so terrifies the urban bourgeoisie and is found as a recurrent image in the horror genre.
It is true that when he has his two main characters speak in their non-fiction voice, he manages to de-nature them and nearly turn them into one and the same authorial voice with different angles on alchemy but when they are back 'in the world', the world that they live in appears very real and finely observed indeed.
There are significant minor characters - a suicidal artist, a catholic woman of passion trapped in a loveless marriage, Eileen's father who clearly has secret sexual vice and an inability to analyse his own condition.
Whether these are avatars of the author I do not know but he builds up a set of archetypes of traditional English twentieth century culture which slyly gives us a full picture of sexual repression, well meaning self-destructive stupidity and finely tuned cultural evasion.
The intellectual engagements of the neurotic Smith and Eileen provide a clever (though is it wholly intended?) dissection of a race of people forced to dance in a conformist socially directed ballet that is just 'not enough' for them at heart.
Perhaps all peoples in all cultures find in their souls that what is before them is not enough but the literary English middle classes are peculiarly adept at a sort of spiritual mending and making do expressed in their country Anglicanism and Oxbridge academicism.
I take the book as an attempt to unpack this culture and this class and its search for meaning (and its lack of courage to be direct about that search, seeking it in acceptable analogical thinking) that may or may not be an unfolding in the author himself - who can possibly know except the author!
The book is a significant achievement in destabilising the assumptions of a whole culture and it does so in ways that are not cruel at all unless you take content at face value. If you do, it is cruel.
The fictional persons are considered with compassion and there is a desire to love within this book that rises above the trickery. There does not appear to be the cynicism that purely formal literary writers tend to offer us.
I will not go much further because this is a book that has to be judged through reading rather than through the sort of intellectualism that acts as a carapace for Eileen who may or may not be as nutty as a fruit cake.
Any cruelty only lies in the unfulfilled expectation for the spiritual searcher who expects omething consoling in this novel, the sort of vulnerable searcher to be found in every nook and cranny of the educated middle classes.
I think such people need a bit more brutal honesty in their lives and to be shaken out of their cocoon. What they do not need is to be is to be led into a maze. This book and its literary brothers and sisters tend to discomfit a little but leave people in their hole.
Perhaps losing yourself in analogical speculation and theory - whether alchemical or Jungian - might get you out of that spiritual hole but I don't think so.
In the end, it just gives you a better 'ole. Still a better 'ole may be all that you really want, like moving up the spiritual property ladder.
The book's message (for me) is that, in fact, such thinking is likely to be merely palliative, an evasion as likely to end in madness, failure and fantasy as it is to find a workable way to some sort of wholeness by removing the detritus of what our history and culture has left us with. It is a way of coping, not overcoming.
Still, it is a stimulating and valuable book, frustrating perhaps because you really do not know what the author intends but perhaps that is the point. You should not really expect any writer of texts to solve your problems for you.
August 19, 2017
This is not a novel. Or, this is not just a novel. It is a fictional account of an alchemist and his quest and someone who discovers his writings in the future. But the story of the characters is interlaced with analysis of different aspects of the alchemical works, the Opus, and descriptions of the work itself.
This book has to be read in a certain state of mind, and it is no light read. I had to pay a lot of attention to try to grasp the multiple levels of meaning of this book- a task that will take me, i think, several rereadings.
This book has to be read in a certain state of mind, and it is no light read. I had to pay a lot of attention to try to grasp the multiple levels of meaning of this book- a task that will take me, i think, several rereadings.
November 26, 2020
En realidad un 3.5, pero lo redondeo hacia arriba porque a pesar de los peros que pueda ponerle creo que probablemente gane en una segunda o incluso tercera relectura (cosa que, por otro lado y sin embargo, no preveo a corto ni a medio plazo).
Se podría decir que el libro no es una novela al uso, sino una mezcla de novela (con un toque misterioso), ensayo (y a la vez tratado) sobre la alquimia, y reflexiones sobre la misma ligándola a la filosofía junguiana. Al contrario de lo que tal mezcla podría parecer a simple vista, y a pesar de que está todo bastante entrelazado (alterna un párrafo de un tema con uno de otro, etc.), no es un caos desordenado, sino que la sensación es clara y limpia, de que todo va bien traído. El problema es que todo esto se hace muy denso, demasiadas reflexiones que hay que leer y releer para entender bien y que, aun así, probablemente escaparán a cualquiera que, al igual que yo, no esté bien versado en estos temas. Para que uno no se sienta tan perdido hay una buena cantidad de notas, todas ellas bien extensas, explicando tal o cual concepto o la vida de esta o aquella persona; pero esto es un arma de doble filo ya que si bien te pone al corriente de qué o quién se está hablando, entorpece aún más el avance por sus páginas.
Con todo y con eso, como decía, no se me ha hecho aburrido, y aunque al final ya había ganas de acabarlo me ha mantenido relativamente interesado en todo momento, y lo dejo con la sensación de que se puede exprimir mucho más de lo que he hecho yo que, de todos modos, me he llevado una buena introducción a un tema tan curioso.
Se podría decir que el libro no es una novela al uso, sino una mezcla de novela (con un toque misterioso), ensayo (y a la vez tratado) sobre la alquimia, y reflexiones sobre la misma ligándola a la filosofía junguiana. Al contrario de lo que tal mezcla podría parecer a simple vista, y a pesar de que está todo bastante entrelazado (alterna un párrafo de un tema con uno de otro, etc.), no es un caos desordenado, sino que la sensación es clara y limpia, de que todo va bien traído. El problema es que todo esto se hace muy denso, demasiadas reflexiones que hay que leer y releer para entender bien y que, aun así, probablemente escaparán a cualquiera que, al igual que yo, no esté bien versado en estos temas. Para que uno no se sienta tan perdido hay una buena cantidad de notas, todas ellas bien extensas, explicando tal o cual concepto o la vida de esta o aquella persona; pero esto es un arma de doble filo ya que si bien te pone al corriente de qué o quién se está hablando, entorpece aún más el avance por sus páginas.
Con todo y con eso, como decía, no se me ha hecho aburrido, y aunque al final ya había ganas de acabarlo me ha mantenido relativamente interesado en todo momento, y lo dejo con la sensación de que se puede exprimir mucho más de lo que he hecho yo que, de todos modos, me he llevado una buena introducción a un tema tan curioso.
August 6, 2013
A brilliantly written and masterful book dealing with complex and little known Alchemical processes and explaining them beautifully. Some of my letter to the author is below:
Hello Patrick
In my 60 years I have never written to an author before. I recently finished (if one could ever finish) Mercurius and I am spell bound by it. Apart from my dabblings with Crowley and the Thoth deck I knew little of Alchemy and I admit to still not having a total grasp on all that you wrote; however your characters became so real and the story so engaging that I was drawn to greedily devour every word, as I am sure I will do again and perhaps again.
When the Beatles suggested Paul was dead I never believed it; I am not drawn to conspiracy theories and only pretended to believe in the tooth fairy to get the shiny sixpences... (A)lthough this work is described as fiction I suspect that the soul of the book is based on actual events, perhaps embellished, perhaps not. The skilful and caring way in which the characters are drawn, your wonderful use of footnotes in which some of this suggestion of actuality takes place is breathtaking.
Congratulations on a wonderful book Patrick...
Sorry about the gushing,
Chris
Hello Patrick
In my 60 years I have never written to an author before. I recently finished (if one could ever finish) Mercurius and I am spell bound by it. Apart from my dabblings with Crowley and the Thoth deck I knew little of Alchemy and I admit to still not having a total grasp on all that you wrote; however your characters became so real and the story so engaging that I was drawn to greedily devour every word, as I am sure I will do again and perhaps again.
When the Beatles suggested Paul was dead I never believed it; I am not drawn to conspiracy theories and only pretended to believe in the tooth fairy to get the shiny sixpences... (A)lthough this work is described as fiction I suspect that the soul of the book is based on actual events, perhaps embellished, perhaps not. The skilful and caring way in which the characters are drawn, your wonderful use of footnotes in which some of this suggestion of actuality takes place is breathtaking.
Congratulations on a wonderful book Patrick...
Sorry about the gushing,
Chris
July 31, 2011
Absolutely stunning. If you have an interest in alchemy but don't quite get it, this is the book for you. Enlightening, informative, and a fantastically readable novel. How you turn such an esoteric subject into an intelligent page turner I don't know, but that's Patrick Harpur for you.
Re-read this in July 2011. Fascinating, mysterious. Again. There's so much in this novel. The material underlying this story is learned and complex, but delivered in a very accessible way. Worth several re-reads. As a writer I'm humbled by it.
Re-read this in July 2011. Fascinating, mysterious. Again. There's so much in this novel. The material underlying this story is learned and complex, but delivered in a very accessible way. Worth several re-reads. As a writer I'm humbled by it.
November 15, 2020
Better considered an introductory textbook on Jungian alchemy than a novel.
August 27, 2024
Another Patrick Harpur certified banger
April 21, 2024
⭐⭐⭐⭐ MERCURIUS O EL MATRIMONIO DE CIELO Y TIERRA, de Patrick Harpur
Una figura alta, delgada y de pelo rojizo, embutida en un largo abrigo negro, abandona un paquete en la puerta de P.. No hay testigos, pero una madre y un hijo aseguran haberse cruzado con ella en el pasillo. La madre afirma que era una mujer, el hijo asegura que era un hombre.
Es tan solo el primero de los múltiples dualismos, duplicidades, dimorfismos, hermafroditismos que pueblan esta novela.
La alquimia nunca fue un asunto sencillo.
NOVELA | ENSAYO: ENSAYO
Insertas en la doble narración están las disertaciones y divagaciones alquímicas de la doble voz narradora. La voz de Smith y la voz de Eileen. Ambos exponen profusamente – y con cambiante claridad - su respectivos avances en la consecución de la Obra.
Y uso “disertaciones y divagaciones” por no usar “monsergas” (def. 3 del diccionario RAE).
NOVELA | ENSAYO: NOVELA
¿Lastran estas “monsergas” el desarrollo de la novela? Mientras leía el libro pensaba que sí (estuve tentado de abandonar, lo reconozco). Pero ahora que me siento a escribir me viene a la mente Moby Dick y los tratados de cetología insertos por Melville.
NOVELA | ENSAYO: OBRA ALQUÍMICA
Quizás he descubierto que leer textos alquímicos lleva irremediablemente a la confusión. Que hay que asumirlo antes de iniciar la Magna Obra y el proceso de “Solve et Coagula”.
Puede que tengamos que morir como el lector que hemos sido hasta ahora (nigredo) para ver la luz y entender lo que hemos leído (albedo). Sólo de ese modo podremos estar en disposición de crecer espiritualmente y que así nazca el nuevo y hermafrodita lector que podemos ser (rubedo).
O quizás todo esto son monsergas.
UN APUNTE FINAL
El libro rezuma inglesidad: pubs y pintas, Cambridge y el universo universitario, una tetera al fuego, menhires rodeados de leyendas, vicarios anglicanos en iglesias medievales, biblioteca y chimenea, la parada de autobús, bosques de hayas y cementerios cubiertos de hierva, la lluvia y la niebla, las maneras y los ademanes, la contención y la explosión. El agua, el fuego, la tierra, el aire.
Este fragmento, localizado en la introducción, representa muy bien la naturaleza dual de este volumen:
“¿Logrará Robert, por ejemplo, elaborar el vidrio de Chartres? ¿Cómo se desfiguró Plutón? ¿Cuáles fueron las circunstancias del embarazo de Nora? ¿Cuál es la naturaleza de la visión de Tim en el cementerio… y de dónde saca sus vestidos? ¿Por qué Eileen teme el estudio de su padre? ¿La señora Zeterberg está loca o es sólo una satanista? ¿Quién fue el maestro alquímico de Smith? ¿Talarán el bosque de Nightingale? Y tantas otras. Cuando averigüé las respuestas, me llevé varias sorpresas.
Por último, hay algo inesperado que surge de estos escritos considerados como un todo: la sensación de que la alquimia es la expresión suprema de una visión del mundo superior en muchos aspectos a la nuestra, hacia cuya reconstrucción el libro da un gran paso. Más aún, estas páginas pueden ser vitas como un ruego o una advertencia para que no descuidemos nuestra herencia espiritual profunda. También es, en última instancia, una singular y enigmática historia psicológica”.
.
.
.
#PatrickHarpur #ed_atalanta #Mercurius
Una figura alta, delgada y de pelo rojizo, embutida en un largo abrigo negro, abandona un paquete en la puerta de P.. No hay testigos, pero una madre y un hijo aseguran haberse cruzado con ella en el pasillo. La madre afirma que era una mujer, el hijo asegura que era un hombre.
Es tan solo el primero de los múltiples dualismos, duplicidades, dimorfismos, hermafroditismos que pueblan esta novela.
La alquimia nunca fue un asunto sencillo.
NOVELA | ENSAYO: ENSAYO
Insertas en la doble narración están las disertaciones y divagaciones alquímicas de la doble voz narradora. La voz de Smith y la voz de Eileen. Ambos exponen profusamente – y con cambiante claridad - su respectivos avances en la consecución de la Obra.
Y uso “disertaciones y divagaciones” por no usar “monsergas” (def. 3 del diccionario RAE).
NOVELA | ENSAYO: NOVELA
¿Lastran estas “monsergas” el desarrollo de la novela? Mientras leía el libro pensaba que sí (estuve tentado de abandonar, lo reconozco). Pero ahora que me siento a escribir me viene a la mente Moby Dick y los tratados de cetología insertos por Melville.
NOVELA | ENSAYO: OBRA ALQUÍMICA
Quizás he descubierto que leer textos alquímicos lleva irremediablemente a la confusión. Que hay que asumirlo antes de iniciar la Magna Obra y el proceso de “Solve et Coagula”.
Puede que tengamos que morir como el lector que hemos sido hasta ahora (nigredo) para ver la luz y entender lo que hemos leído (albedo). Sólo de ese modo podremos estar en disposición de crecer espiritualmente y que así nazca el nuevo y hermafrodita lector que podemos ser (rubedo).
O quizás todo esto son monsergas.
UN APUNTE FINAL
El libro rezuma inglesidad: pubs y pintas, Cambridge y el universo universitario, una tetera al fuego, menhires rodeados de leyendas, vicarios anglicanos en iglesias medievales, biblioteca y chimenea, la parada de autobús, bosques de hayas y cementerios cubiertos de hierva, la lluvia y la niebla, las maneras y los ademanes, la contención y la explosión. El agua, el fuego, la tierra, el aire.
Este fragmento, localizado en la introducción, representa muy bien la naturaleza dual de este volumen:
“¿Logrará Robert, por ejemplo, elaborar el vidrio de Chartres? ¿Cómo se desfiguró Plutón? ¿Cuáles fueron las circunstancias del embarazo de Nora? ¿Cuál es la naturaleza de la visión de Tim en el cementerio… y de dónde saca sus vestidos? ¿Por qué Eileen teme el estudio de su padre? ¿La señora Zeterberg está loca o es sólo una satanista? ¿Quién fue el maestro alquímico de Smith? ¿Talarán el bosque de Nightingale? Y tantas otras. Cuando averigüé las respuestas, me llevé varias sorpresas.
Por último, hay algo inesperado que surge de estos escritos considerados como un todo: la sensación de que la alquimia es la expresión suprema de una visión del mundo superior en muchos aspectos a la nuestra, hacia cuya reconstrucción el libro da un gran paso. Más aún, estas páginas pueden ser vitas como un ruego o una advertencia para que no descuidemos nuestra herencia espiritual profunda. También es, en última instancia, una singular y enigmática historia psicológica”.
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#PatrickHarpur #ed_atalanta #Mercurius
July 16, 2023
‘One thing that dreams, myths and literature have in common is a disposition to evade the limitations of time, space and causality. They suggest that beneath the orderly constructs of culture there is another, highly coloured realm which, although it has laws of its own, does not obey the laws on which our scientific world-view depends. Occasionally we find the laws of this other realm disrupting the normal laws of our consensus-reality. For example, Carl Jung exercised himself mightily over one such disruption in the law of cause and effect on which so much of the scientific edifice - including the theory of Evolution - is built. He was referring to the phenomenon of meaningful coincidence.’
Do you believe in meaningful coincidences? The timely appearance of Mercurius has made me a sceptic.
About ten years ago, the novelist Ian McEwan wrote a middling novel called Sweet Tooth where the protagonist was an academic from the University of Sussex called Tom Healy, an expert in the poetry of Edmund Spencer and the Renaissance. A few weeks before the book was due to be published, the author received a call from one of his editors at Random House with a concern about libel. They had found an academic at the University of Sussex who was an expert in the poetry of Edmund Spencer and the Renaissance, his name was Tom Healy. McEwan decided to change the name to Tom Haley, in order to keep the typeface for the book’s printing and ensure a smooth publication of the book, free from accusations of slander.
A few weeks later, McEwan received an email from his alma mater, the University of Sussex, inviting him to a celebratory dinner where he would receive an award for his literary achievements. Of course, he bumped into Tom Healy, a man who had “just fallen out” of McEwan’s new novel, only to discover that the same man was presenting him the evening’s award. To receive congratulation from a fictional character of your own creation is surely more than any novelist can hope for.
I happen to be trying to write a novel at present. Anyone who has ever written fiction will often describe the process as more like discovering a story than making it up on a blank page. You are influenced by what you are thinking at the time, consciously and unconsciously, but more often than not, you become beholden to what a set of characters demand of you as their author. For the possibilities are not necessarily infinite once you get past the early stage of megalomania - if X happens then only Y or Z can come next, not A, B and C.
About half way in to my first draft, I realised that one of the characters that had just emerged in my story was almost certainly an alchemist and that this would work perfectly with an important early theme in the story. But I knew as little of alchemy as the next modern materialist. Then, about a week later, I received a late birthday present from an uncle; Mercurius: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, revered in the Literary Review as ‘The most explicit account of the alchemical art ever published.’
But the coincidence did not end there. Returning briefly to McEwan, I have always remembered a phrase he used in advising young aspiring writers, where he stated that if as a writer you don’t read, “you are liable to be hugely influenced by the writers you haven’t read”.
Or perhaps worse still, to write a story that has already been written. And lo and behold, there were a number of parallels in Mercurius and my own story. The novel begins with a discovery of a large amount of gold and a mysterious death that seems to be connected. The central character is country vicar in the late 40's (to Harpur’s early 50's) and the influence of metaphysical forces that are always shrouded from plain sight. Metaphors around lineal developments of character explored in a fairy tale with a white, red and black knight - all of which were written into my story well before I became aware of the colours’ symbolism and order within the alchemical process. An explicable enough series of coincidences perhaps, but combined with the first, something is nagging at the back of my mind.
Harpur clearly did a significant amount of research and deep thinking to inform his summation of the alchemical Art, as exemplified in the reams of dense footnotes that accompany references to treaties on the Art or the philosophers that practiced it throughout history. It is hard to read this compendium of essentially forgotten knowledge and not come to the conclusion that alchemists knew something that the modern world does not.
‘How are ‘heretics’ treated nowadays? How, for instance, does the average enlightened progressive scientific wholesome individual regard alchemy? He confidently asserts - purely on the basis of ignorance, prejudice and intellectual idleness - that alchemy was merely a superstitious myopic groping towards modern chemistry. An alchemist would not now be treated seriously enough to be persecuted, or even ridiculed. He’d be ignored. The Philosophers’ Stone - that winged platypus of the Art! - is dismissed as a myth, by which is meant the fantastic invention of childish minds. Well, bugger that.’
As for the literary merit of this book, I think Harpur is an exceptional writer. There are certain passages where the prose is rich but finely balanced, if not simply poetic. He delicately weaves insights into the alchemical Philosophy within a grand narrative that mirrors the process taking place within the two main characters and their struggle towards two different kinds of truth.
‘Our five senses seriously limit our perception of the world, but we tend to think that thereafter we are free to construct all manner of representations. We aren’t. The shockingly few primary elements impose definite limits on our on our power to represent the world. We are less free in our creative life than we think; and, since the primary elements are by definition common to everyone, we are also less individual, less ‘original’ than we think we are.
This doesn’t trouble artists of the first order, for whom true self-expression is also an expression of the universal. There is always something anonymous about great Art, as myths are anonymous. The alchemist worked directly with the primary elements - a few pairs of opposites, a few numbers and colours, a few symbols, a few rules of transformation such as inversion, reversal, alteration. He worked at the limits of imagination, as if the imagination, through him, were working on itself to create out of its own paradoxical nature some wholly new resolution.'
Coincidence? Or Mercurius?
Do you believe in meaningful coincidences? The timely appearance of Mercurius has made me a sceptic.
About ten years ago, the novelist Ian McEwan wrote a middling novel called Sweet Tooth where the protagonist was an academic from the University of Sussex called Tom Healy, an expert in the poetry of Edmund Spencer and the Renaissance. A few weeks before the book was due to be published, the author received a call from one of his editors at Random House with a concern about libel. They had found an academic at the University of Sussex who was an expert in the poetry of Edmund Spencer and the Renaissance, his name was Tom Healy. McEwan decided to change the name to Tom Haley, in order to keep the typeface for the book’s printing and ensure a smooth publication of the book, free from accusations of slander.
A few weeks later, McEwan received an email from his alma mater, the University of Sussex, inviting him to a celebratory dinner where he would receive an award for his literary achievements. Of course, he bumped into Tom Healy, a man who had “just fallen out” of McEwan’s new novel, only to discover that the same man was presenting him the evening’s award. To receive congratulation from a fictional character of your own creation is surely more than any novelist can hope for.
I happen to be trying to write a novel at present. Anyone who has ever written fiction will often describe the process as more like discovering a story than making it up on a blank page. You are influenced by what you are thinking at the time, consciously and unconsciously, but more often than not, you become beholden to what a set of characters demand of you as their author. For the possibilities are not necessarily infinite once you get past the early stage of megalomania - if X happens then only Y or Z can come next, not A, B and C.
About half way in to my first draft, I realised that one of the characters that had just emerged in my story was almost certainly an alchemist and that this would work perfectly with an important early theme in the story. But I knew as little of alchemy as the next modern materialist. Then, about a week later, I received a late birthday present from an uncle; Mercurius: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, revered in the Literary Review as ‘The most explicit account of the alchemical art ever published.’
But the coincidence did not end there. Returning briefly to McEwan, I have always remembered a phrase he used in advising young aspiring writers, where he stated that if as a writer you don’t read, “you are liable to be hugely influenced by the writers you haven’t read”.
Or perhaps worse still, to write a story that has already been written. And lo and behold, there were a number of parallels in Mercurius and my own story. The novel begins with a discovery of a large amount of gold and a mysterious death that seems to be connected. The central character is country vicar in the late 40's (to Harpur’s early 50's) and the influence of metaphysical forces that are always shrouded from plain sight. Metaphors around lineal developments of character explored in a fairy tale with a white, red and black knight - all of which were written into my story well before I became aware of the colours’ symbolism and order within the alchemical process. An explicable enough series of coincidences perhaps, but combined with the first, something is nagging at the back of my mind.
Harpur clearly did a significant amount of research and deep thinking to inform his summation of the alchemical Art, as exemplified in the reams of dense footnotes that accompany references to treaties on the Art or the philosophers that practiced it throughout history. It is hard to read this compendium of essentially forgotten knowledge and not come to the conclusion that alchemists knew something that the modern world does not.
‘How are ‘heretics’ treated nowadays? How, for instance, does the average enlightened progressive scientific wholesome individual regard alchemy? He confidently asserts - purely on the basis of ignorance, prejudice and intellectual idleness - that alchemy was merely a superstitious myopic groping towards modern chemistry. An alchemist would not now be treated seriously enough to be persecuted, or even ridiculed. He’d be ignored. The Philosophers’ Stone - that winged platypus of the Art! - is dismissed as a myth, by which is meant the fantastic invention of childish minds. Well, bugger that.’
As for the literary merit of this book, I think Harpur is an exceptional writer. There are certain passages where the prose is rich but finely balanced, if not simply poetic. He delicately weaves insights into the alchemical Philosophy within a grand narrative that mirrors the process taking place within the two main characters and their struggle towards two different kinds of truth.
‘Our five senses seriously limit our perception of the world, but we tend to think that thereafter we are free to construct all manner of representations. We aren’t. The shockingly few primary elements impose definite limits on our on our power to represent the world. We are less free in our creative life than we think; and, since the primary elements are by definition common to everyone, we are also less individual, less ‘original’ than we think we are.
This doesn’t trouble artists of the first order, for whom true self-expression is also an expression of the universal. There is always something anonymous about great Art, as myths are anonymous. The alchemist worked directly with the primary elements - a few pairs of opposites, a few numbers and colours, a few symbols, a few rules of transformation such as inversion, reversal, alteration. He worked at the limits of imagination, as if the imagination, through him, were working on itself to create out of its own paradoxical nature some wholly new resolution.'
Coincidence? Or Mercurius?
April 8, 2019
You just KNOW that anything as vehemently disgraced as "mere superstition" as the spiritual science of Alchemy is going to be good. Each historical incarnation of the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone is idiosyncratic, self-mythologizing, mostly lethal, and thickly marinated in cryptic verse - to protect "the secret" of the Art which converts base lead into contagious kernels of gold. Our sterilized modern world refuses mainstream admission to such fanciful notions, drumming up the fevered careers of alchemists through the ages to madness, tl;dr'ing their hermetic humping as mere allegory for an inner psychological transformation (as if there were ever anything "mere" to Jungian analysis!) So if it's all in their heads, why the murders and suicides which inevitably snap at the heels of the Work's final public demonstration?
Appropriate to the 'prima materia' of alchemy - which, whatever you deduce it to be, is certainly the effusive interchange and substitution of opposites mental & metallurgical - Mercurius is the union of opposites: a one-of-a-kind, thoroughly footnoted tour of historical texts presented to the reader through the eyes of its fiction, which is itself a duality of characters unhinged from time and temper. Warm, inventive, and by turns, downright psychedelic, a trusty text casting light on lost heritage.
Appropriate to the 'prima materia' of alchemy - which, whatever you deduce it to be, is certainly the effusive interchange and substitution of opposites mental & metallurgical - Mercurius is the union of opposites: a one-of-a-kind, thoroughly footnoted tour of historical texts presented to the reader through the eyes of its fiction, which is itself a duality of characters unhinged from time and temper. Warm, inventive, and by turns, downright psychedelic, a trusty text casting light on lost heritage.
December 29, 2019
Although I have given this book four stars, I would actually be quite critical of it in literary terms. For example, while different parts of the book are supposedly told from the viewpoint of different people, they are all written in exactly the same manner. It's as if a cockney haberdasher spoke in the same way as a right toff in a Dickens story. That criticism aside, I have to give Harpur full credit for using the framework of a novel to explore the ideas of alchemy. I learned more about alchemy than I'll probably ever need to know. This book is certainly different enough to other books to require a category all of its own. It's not quite the magical realism of Spanish America, nor is it skeptical, nor is it a boy's own adventure. It is different.
October 13, 2025
Un tanto aburrido, menos de lo que prometía. La parte de erudición alquímica está ahí y es lo más interesante, pero la historia —leyendo superficialmente— no aporta mucho y las interpretaciones sobre la alquimia repiten un tanto los lugares comunes —[[Carl Jung]], etc.—. Esto en lectura rápida a partir de la página 50.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 14, 2020
A metaphor on every page.
You'll need your full attention to read through to the end but well worth it. Magical and transformative - which is what true alchemy is, I suppose.
You'll need your full attention to read through to the end but well worth it. Magical and transformative - which is what true alchemy is, I suppose.
December 31, 2015
I really enjoyed this ambiguous tale of alchemy (or personal breakdown) told from 2 perspectives that of a vicar and a young woman who live in the same place separated by thirty years of so. There is a possible twist in the tale on the very last page and the history of western alchemy is worked seamlessly into the narrative. An interesting writer and a great read.
January 13, 2013
This isn't a flawless book, but it is great. The descriptions of Alchemy are balanced and grounded by the characters and their stories. The stories describe the process and the process describes the stories. Repetition, form, and story provide a way into understanding what cannot be described.
June 12, 2012
Am reading now. Most delightful thing I've picked up in quite a while!
February 24, 2014
A tour de force...
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews