It's quite similar, from memory, to A Glastonbury Romance: in that Glastonbury Tor/Maiden Castle, at least half-alive, with attached myth, history and religion, overshadow the plot, which is otherwise about people’s sexual and psychological lives; and with a railroad of modernity cutting through.

I chose this as my next Powys with the idea Wizzie was an old circus clown. No, she’s a young girl acrobat and the novel is heavily about the two sexes. Which tires me in Powys, since I don’t believe what he believes. He sees the sexes as infinitely different – I mean, down to cell material. Women are always wiser and better. I don’t know how he knows this, but I want to pop up and tell him, ‘I’m not.’ Still, wasn’t D.H. Lawrence writing around this time? Him I cannot stand, and Powys I can stand.

Powys is very, very same-samey. Is this a bad thing, though? Maybe, if I read 6 of his books, I’ll understand his ideas. I don’t yet.

Again he has a corpse-god. In Porius it’s Merlin, here it’s Urien, who’s strongly redolent of Merlin (I didn’t mean to make a joke, but – they smell alike. They smell like corpse-gods).

Instead of guessing any further as to what this is about, I’m going to tell you a story. From 1936, by coincidence Maiden Castle's publication year. Henning Haslund tells of a Solon shaman:

"As his only son had been killed by a Japanese car, he decided on a last attempt to stop the development which was destroying his world. He thought that he would be able to achieve this by fighting one of the Japanese locomotives that had begun to push their way through the wilderness which had been a quiet refuge for him and the spirits. He prepared for the fight for many days, assisted by his fellow tribesmen. The blood from many sacrificial animals coloured the snow, night after night the forest echoed with the beating of drums and the piercing cries for help to the assistant spirits, and when Ba Shaman finally went off to his fight he was possessed as in the great days of his youth. But as the days and weeks passed without Ba Shaman returning and as the Japanese steam-engines continued to rush through the wilderness of the Solons, his people understood that the old spirits had had to give up in the face of the new stronger power."

Claudius the Communist worships aeroplanes, while Urien – an assumed name – who believes he has lived other lives as Urien back to Arthurian times, might be the type to battle trains, one on one. Powys has been called a shaman and I suppose it's why I read him, doggedly as I do. ( )

It's hard to know how to characterize this novel. It's a book about relationships (familial and surrogate familial, sexual, economic, uncategorizable), a novel of ideas (written during the mid 1930s and featuring conflicts among dangerous fascism, misguided bourgeois Communism, and politically reticent romantic animism), and a work that explores the continuing power of myth and folk history in the modern world. In some parts it's wonderfully life-affirming and comic, and in others deeply despairing and disturbing, which makes for a good mix from where I'm sitting.

This was my first book by Powys, and it was very enjoyable and thought-provoking. My star rating has to do with what I perceived as a clunkiness in the writing, for the power and depth of the characters are undeniable. Some massive tomes are perfect as they are; I venture to suggest that this one could have used an editor. Despite this, I'm sure I will revisit Powys in the future. ( )