The New York Times Reviews The Moon Pool by A. Merritt
“Fantasy, romance, adventure; something of mystery, something of the supernatural; a weaving together of ancient legends, older by far than any historical records, with the scientific knowledge of the present day; and side by side with these, yet far above and mastering them, the power of human love and willing self-sacrifice, the whole held together by a shimmering, glistening web of imagination—such, insofar as words of ours can briefly describe it, is this fascinating romance of ‘The Moon Pool’. “ — The New York Times Book Review, November 23, 1919
What a difference a century makes, eh? A well-respected book reviewer for “The Newspaper of Record” published that glowing endorsement for the very first hardcover edition of A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the book itself was a “fix-up” novel merging Merritt’s original novelette of “The Moon Pool” with the novella/short novel, “The Conquest of the Moon Pool”. Let’s see what else the reviewer has to say…
“In certain ways, it is nearer akin to such tales as ‘She’ and ‘When the World Shook’ [both penned by H. Rider Haggard] than to say others of which we can think at the moment, but it is very far indeed from being a mere echo or imitation of Sir Rider Haggard.”
A comparison with Haggard’s She is only to be expected, since Merritt—an avowed HRH fan—provided both sides of the Ayesha-esque coin in the alluring persons of Lakla and Yolara. However, the mention of the (at the time) recently-published When the World Shook is most perceptive. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, there was a strange bit of synchronicity going on in 1918. Haggard’s When the World Shook, Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot and Merritt’s “The Conquest of the Moon Pool”—almost assuredly plotted and written before the HRH novel saw print—all three share numerous and surprising parallels with each other. Something was in the air…
“And if [The Moon Pool] is, indeed, as it would appear from the title page, a first novel, then it marks the debut of a writer possessed of a very unusual, perhaps one might call it extraordinary, richness of imagination.”
That is what has struck me perhaps more than anything else reading A. Merritt for the last decade or so: his “very unusual…extraordinary, richness of imagination.” The man was a powerhouse, a juggernaut, of imagination. He thought of things that nobody else had thought of before and he never repeated himself. I keep seeing various people out on social media saying crap like “Burroughs always used the same plots”—which is not entirely accurate, but is somewhat true. They say the same thing about Sabatini. Once again, somewhat true. Then they say that Lamb or Brackett never did that. Wrong. Sorry. They repeated themselves, plot-wise. Find another stick to beat Burroughs and Sabatini with.
Merritt never repeated himself. Let me repeat that for the riders on the short bus: A. Merritt NEVER repeated himself. The man was a true artist. He wrote when and what he wanted to and he rarely allowed an editor to publish one of his stories with even one word altered. The man is on record as hating sequels. Can that be said of Brackett or Lamb? Do I think all of that somehow makes Merritt better than Robert E. Howard or Clark Ashton Smith? No. However, I think it says something about Merritt’s character and something about his fiction, since the top pulp editors were certainly willing to play by his rules. Merritt always possessed the whip-hand when it came down to him and pulp editors. He wrote what the readers wanted to read and nobody else could deliver it. Leigh Brackett was a Merritt fan, by the way.
There’s more…
“{The Good Guys in the novel] went to the Moon Portal on Nan-Tauach, and having passed through learned another had preceded them—the German von Hertzdorf, man of science and of treachery, who later was to plan and scheme”to turn our world into an undreamed of hell” by use of the forces and weapons to be found there in Muria…”
This is an interesting literary artifact. Only in this first edition and in the previous pulp publication of “The Conquest of the Moon Pool” do we see von Hertzdorf. Subsequent editions would see Merritt—as I mentioned above, the revisions had to come from him—changing von Hertzdorf to the Russian, Marakinoff. * I have never read this edition. However, I have read the Altus Press reprinting of “The Conquest of the Moon Pool” and the Nebraska Press “Marakinoff” edition. Despite what some might try to tell us, all ethnicities are not exactly alike. The same words spoken by a German mad scientist don’t come off quite the same as they do from a Soviet scientist. The first “von Hertzdorf” editon has never been reprinted, which is a pity.
As I stated above, a mere one hundred years have wrought quite a change. You certainly couldn’t expect such a perceptive and positive review of a classic SFF novel today in the book review section of the NYT. Once again, I’ll say that the Altus Press edition of The Moon Pool is worth buying, as is the Nebraska Press edition, which includes the review quoted above and an excellent intro by Robert Silverberg.
*From all accounts, Merritt changed the ethnicity of the mad scientist because of the Armistice. Soviet Russians were the new enemy. I have to say that I find von Hertzdorf more believable. The Caroline Islands, of which Ponape is a part, were under German sovereignty during World War One, which is the temporal setting of the novel.
Previous DMR articles regarding The Moon Pool:
Merritt’s “The Moon Pool” Turns 100
“The Moon Pool” Re-Read: Part One
“The Moon Pool” Re-Read: Part Two