The Medusa Frequency
Encyclopedia
The Medusa Frequency is a 1987 novel by Russell Hoban
. Written in a lyrical, often magic realist
style, it crosses a number of genres including comedy
and fantasy
without fitting easily into any. Its themes include loss, fidelity
, mythology
, perception
and creativity
.
-based freelance writer of comics
and an unsuccessful novelist. He is preoccupied by Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring
, an ex-girlfriend called Luise von Himmelbett, and characters from mythology including The Kraken
. His own name is a reference to Hermes
and Orpheus
.
Lacking inspiration to write his third novel, he responds to a leaflet put through his letterbox one day advertising a treatment for blocked artists. The procedure turns out to be the invention of an old friend who was once also Luise's lover. Following the treatment, Orff periodically hallucinates, finding that spherical found objects (a stone on the banks of the River Thames
, a football, a cabbage) appear to him as the dismembered head of Orpheus. Through a series of surreal scenes, the head tells Orff its "story", namely how he started playing the lyre
, met Eurydice
and lost her. In Hoban's retelling, Eurydice was not bitten by a snake and did not descend to the Underworld
, but rather Orpheus was unfaithful to her and she left him for Aristaeus
. This reflects Orff's own experience of being unfaithful to Luise.
The scenes retelling the Orpheus myth are interspersed with Orff's daily life as he finds a new girlfriend, is hospitalised after suffering an attack of angina
and travels to The Hague
to see the Vermeer painting in the Mauritshuis
. When he gets there he finds the painting is on loan to the US, and bumps into a man claiming to be another of Luise's ex-lovers. On returning to his hotel he unexpectedly bumps into Luise herself, who he finds is happily married.
On Orff's return to London, his new girlfriend breaks up with him. Orff turns down lucrative offers of work adapting the Orpheus myth into a tacky cartoon strip and a pretentious film, and instead develops his own original science fiction
comic strip. The Orpheus hallucinations come to an end and the slim memoir of this strange period of his life effectively becomes the third novel he has been trying to write.
is the only woman, or female archetype
, to whom he can be truly faithful.
remarked "There's a sense of wonder in these passages...a love of fantasy and myth-making, an interest in language and puns, and a concern with philosophic speculation and the pyrotechnics of storytelling."
The Russell Hoban resource website The Head of Orpheus (named after the character in the book) comments, "for those of us who read a book not to get to the end of it, but rather to savor its humor, wisdom, eloquence and insight, The Medusa Frequency is a priceless treasure. The sort of book that may take a little concentration to get through the first time, but after that never manages to sit on your bookshelf long enough to acquire a respectable film of dust before you pull it down to re-read passages at random, or look up a particular line or incident that's stuck in your mind."
Russell Hoban
Russell Conwell Hoban is an American writer, now living in England, of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books-Biography:...
. Written in a lyrical, often magic realist
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
style, it crosses a number of genres including comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
without fitting easily into any. Its themes include loss, fidelity
Fidelity
"Fidelity" is the quality of being faithful or loyal. Its original meaning regarded duty to a lord or a king, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis, meaning "faithful or loyal"....
, mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
and creativity
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
.
Plot summary
Narrator Herman Orff is a LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based freelance writer of comics
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
and an unsuccessful novelist. He is preoccupied by Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a painting by Johannes Vermeer.Girl With a Pearl Earring may also refer to:* Girl with a Pearl Earring , by Tracy Chevalier* Girl with a Pearl Earring...
, an ex-girlfriend called Luise von Himmelbett, and characters from mythology including The Kraken
Kraken
Kraken are legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland.In modern German, Krake means octopus but can also refer to the legendary Kraken...
. His own name is a reference to Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
and Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
.
Lacking inspiration to write his third novel, he responds to a leaflet put through his letterbox one day advertising a treatment for blocked artists. The procedure turns out to be the invention of an old friend who was once also Luise's lover. Following the treatment, Orff periodically hallucinates, finding that spherical found objects (a stone on the banks of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
, a football, a cabbage) appear to him as the dismembered head of Orpheus. Through a series of surreal scenes, the head tells Orff its "story", namely how he started playing the lyre
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
, met Eurydice
Eurydice
Eurydice in Greek mythology, was an oak nymph or one of the daughters of Apollo . She was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a venomous snake,...
and lost her. In Hoban's retelling, Eurydice was not bitten by a snake and did not descend to the Underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
, but rather Orpheus was unfaithful to her and she left him for Aristaeus
Aristaeus
A minor god in Greek mythology, which we read largely through Athenian writers, Aristaeus or Aristaios , "ever close follower of the flocks", was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene...
. This reflects Orff's own experience of being unfaithful to Luise.
The scenes retelling the Orpheus myth are interspersed with Orff's daily life as he finds a new girlfriend, is hospitalised after suffering an attack of angina
Angina
Angina pectoris, commonly known as angina, is chest pain due to ischemia of the heart muscle, generally due to obstruction or spasm of the coronary arteries . Coronary artery disease, the main cause of angina, is due to atherosclerosis of the cardiac arteries...
and travels to The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
to see the Vermeer painting in the Mauritshuis
Mauritshuis
The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Previously the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau, it now has a large art collection, including paintings by Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, Paulus Potter and Frans...
. When he gets there he finds the painting is on loan to the US, and bumps into a man claiming to be another of Luise's ex-lovers. On returning to his hotel he unexpectedly bumps into Luise herself, who he finds is happily married.
On Orff's return to London, his new girlfriend breaks up with him. Orff turns down lucrative offers of work adapting the Orpheus myth into a tacky cartoon strip and a pretentious film, and instead develops his own original science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
comic strip. The Orpheus hallucinations come to an end and the slim memoir of this strange period of his life effectively becomes the third novel he has been trying to write.
Interpretation
The novel's title is on one level a reference to Orff's preference for sitting up late at night listening to female classical singers on shortwave radio. During one of Orff's "conversations" with The Kraken, it tells him that MedusaMedusa
In Greek mythology Medusa , " guardian, protectress") was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. The author Hyginus, interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone...
is the only woman, or female archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
, to whom he can be truly faithful.
Reception
Although never a big seller, the book was well received critically, with The Listener commenting: "in the course of this tour through the imaginative outback of Mr. Hoban's mind, we are treated to brilliant flashes of mordant humour, not to mention splendidly baroque evocations of present day London" while The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
remarked "There's a sense of wonder in these passages...a love of fantasy and myth-making, an interest in language and puns, and a concern with philosophic speculation and the pyrotechnics of storytelling."
The Russell Hoban resource website The Head of Orpheus (named after the character in the book) comments, "for those of us who read a book not to get to the end of it, but rather to savor its humor, wisdom, eloquence and insight, The Medusa Frequency is a priceless treasure. The sort of book that may take a little concentration to get through the first time, but after that never manages to sit on your bookshelf long enough to acquire a respectable film of dust before you pull it down to re-read passages at random, or look up a particular line or incident that's stuck in your mind."