Encountering Northwest Smith: Nymph of Darkness
Background
"Nymph of Darkness" is the first of the Northwest Smith stories to be written in collaboration with another author and it’s an interesting choice for a number of reasons. That’s because Catherine Lucille Moore's collaborator on this piece was none other than an 18 year-old science fiction fan named Forrest Ackerman.
Forry, as his friends called him, died on 12/4/2008 at the age of 92. At some point, perhaps on the anniversary of his death, I will spend some time examining Forry's contributions to Sci-Fi. One of the significant positive contributions was his creation of the term Sci-Fi itself. This term tends to be used unabashedly by those fans who care more about entertainment than present day literary acknowledgement. In fact, this is the kind of fan that I strongly claim to be. When I read Sci-Fi, my primary goal is to be entertained. Make no mistake, I enjoy literary Science Fiction. I just happen to enjoy my Sci-Fi as well, and make no bones about it. I also tend to have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when people dismiss Sci-Fi as “mere” skiffy.
While Ackerman made many positive contributions to the genre, he was a controversial and problematic figure and was so even in the early days of the genre. In 1933, at the age of 16 years old Ackerman got into a long argument with the Lovecraftian circle in the pages of Charles Hornig’s The Fantasy Fan. The argument began after Hornig published an article entitled “A Quarrel with Clark Ashton Smith” in issue #1 of The Fantasy Fan in September of 1933 and the argument continued for quite some time.
I plan on doing a deeper discussion of the argument between Ackerman and the Lovecraftian circle on a future date, in a future article where I discuss how toxic fandom is nothing new. Today, I will merely provide a small excerpt from Ackerman’s piece.
I have this to say: it seems to me that Wonder Stories is going far afield when it takes such a horror story as Mr. Smith's "Dweller in Martian Depths" and, because it is laid on the Red Planet, prints it in a magazine of scientific fiction. Frankly, I could not find one redeeming feature about the story…
I fail to find anything worth-while in an endless procession of ethereal lites, phantastic visions, ultra-mundane life, exotic paradises, airy vegetation, whispering flutes, ghastly plants, and dirge-like horrors. May the ink dry up in the pen from which they flow! Or, at least, Mr. Smith, direct those tales elsewhere—NOT to a stf publication…
Needless to say, this opening salvo provoked the ire of the Lovcraftian Circle and demonstrated to me that Ackerman was not quite the “defender of the merely entertaining” he often purported to be.
The first version of Nymph of Darkness I read was in Forrest Ackerman's Ackermanthology compilation and the story was originally published in the April 1935 issue of Julius Schwartz’s (yes the DC Comics Julius Schwartz) fanzine Fantasy Magazine. That April issue was a Weird Tales themed issue where Schwartz was able to convince a number of Weird Tales writers to contribute to his fanzine. The fact that Schwartz and Hornig were able to get seminal pulp authors to contribute to their amateur zines is mind boggling to me. It also boggles me that even as Ackerman had only recently engaged in active debate, often heated, with the Lovcraftian Circle that C.L. Moore was willing to collaborate with him on this tale. She was, after all, in the middle of a collaboration with Lovecraft and Howard.
According to Forrest Ackerman’s recollections in the January/February 1948 issue of the LASFS fanzine Shangri-LA, there were two version of the story published. The version that appeared in the April 1935 edition of Fantasy Magazine was a "spicier" version of the story while a much "expurgated" version of the story was published in the December 1939 issue of Weird Tales. While he discusses the partnership in Ackermanthology!, he shares a semi-complete version of the letter exchange that resulted in the story in the Shangri-LA issue so I recommend reading that one. Comparing versions I was able to see that the version in Paizo’s Northwest Smith anthology Northwest of Earth has the "real thing" and not the "expurgated" story. Since I have a copy of the Weird Tales issue as well, I might do a follow up examining that version, but that discussion will have to wait until I’ve finished writing about all the stories in Northwest of Earth.
The Mystery of Nyusa
"Nymph of Darkness" begins very similarly to "Black Thirst." In both tales, Northwest Smith is wandering the waterfront of the Venusian city of Ednes. The danger of the waterfront is emphasized in both stories, as is the darkness of the Venusian sky. The darkness of the sky is an even more important plot point in this story than it was in "Black Thirst." In "Nymph of Darkness," Smith once again finds himself in the path of a woman who may be in need of his aide, but something is different this time.
By the end of the tale quite a few things end up being different from past stories, but the initial difference is a difference in Smith himself. In earlier Smith stories, Northwest has almost leapt to the aide of damsels in distress. He typically seems overly eager to jump into danger. In this story, he is far more cautious. Given Smith's caution, this is definitely a story that I would place events of "Shambleau." After leaping to the aid of the maiden in Shambleau, even the most foolhardy of heroes would think twice before rushing to aid the mysterious.
Moore describes Smith’s mood as follows, "He wanted no sound to indicate his own presence to the terror from which the woman fled. Ten years before he might have dashed out to her -- but ten years along the spaceways teaches a man prudence. Gallantry can be foolhardy sometimes, particularly along the waterfront, where any score of things might be in close pursuit."
Before we continue, I'd like to state that of the Moore stories in the Smith series, this tale starts the most awkwardly. Having read the letters between Ackerman and Moore, I think that the lack of craft in the opening paragraph is due in part to the collaboration with a young fan, but I think it also points to the lack of the strong hand of an editor. While Julius Schwartz would go one to be a major figure in comic books and science fiction, he was only twenty at the time that he published Moore and Ackerman’s tale. I imagine he published it “as is,” excited to have it at all. I’ll reassess this if/when I read the Weird Tales version of the story.
This lack of strong hand is evident in the stylistic choices early in the story. Where prior Smith tales set the narrative tone effectively without repetitive paragraphs, this tale wanders a little before it gets going. In the first paragraph we are told twice that the Patrol is too afraid of the waterfront to police it effectively, an unnecessary redundancy. The second paragraph of the story begins with this clumsy sentence, "Through the breathless blackness, along a street beneath which the breathing waters whispered, Northwest Smith strolled slowly." If this sentence were written today, I might think it was generated by AI. It’s attempting some poetry, but needs a red pen and discussion to get it where it’s clearly going symbolically.
The use of alliteration in the sentence might be appreciated if executed properly, "breathless blackness," "waters whispered," and "strolled slowly" all sound great when read aloud. Sadly, the eloquence of these phrases is muted by the repeated of the use of "breath." One likes "breathless blackness," but is pulled out of the narrative by "breathing waters" so close after the other construction. I like what Moore is attempting here, but I would have liked another editorial pass through these paragraphs. That said, the rest of the story moves a quite a clip and the awkwardness of the first two paragraphs hints more at Moore's mind groping for some construction that will get the story moving. Eventually she does, and later examples of alliteration pull the reader in effectively.
Ackerman supplied the original outline for the story, and invented the name of the nymph of the tale, Nyusa. In Ackermanthology! and Shangri-LA, Ackerman assures us that Nyusa was the result of experimenting with sounds rather than being made up from the initials of the major metropolis N.Y., U.S.A. One thinks Ackerman might be protesting too much here and, given Moore's later honesty in her creation of names in the exchange, one wishes he would be a little less cute in his admission. After all, if Moore can admit that the city’s name (Ednes) comes from the middle of the word Wednesday, then Ackerman can easily make a similar admission.
Despite Smith's caution, he still ends up running into the girl and aiding her against her pursuer. This pursuer is a shambling humanoid creature named Dolf, who pursues Nyusa wielding some sort of greenish light. The purpose of this light is revealed shortly. Smith has run into the nymph, but neither he nor the girl have seen each other. They have been relying on sound and touch due to the deep darkness of the Venusian night. As I mentioned earlier, the darkness of the sky is a key plot point here.
Nyusa eventually guides Smith into a building and she asks him to lift her and to turn on a light. When he does, he notices that while he is holding the weight of a woman in his arms -- he cannot see the body. Nyusa is completely invisible, except when certain wavelengths of light interact with her own natural skin color. At these times she becomes a semi-translucent and mist-like figure. The shambling Dolf's greenish light is constructed to reveal Nyusa's presence.
Moore's inspiration for the cause of invisibility, as she makes clear in her letters to Ackerman, is Ambrose Bierce's tale "That Damned Thing." As I wrote in September of last year, Bierce's tale was the inspiration for a couple of H. P. Lovecraft stories as well ("The Colour Out of Space" and "Dunwich Horror").
The source of Nyusa's invisibility is also the source of both sides of the narrative tension in the story. Nyusa is the daughter of some god of Darkness, which seems to hint at "Dunwich Horror" to me, and that god's worshipers use Nyusa by having her dance under an eerie green illumination as a part of their prayer rituals. These rituals are devoted to her father. She is portrayed as an unwilling participant in the rituals of these creatures, known as the Nov, the reader (and Smith) likely assume that her resistance to participating in the rituals stems from some rejection of Darkness. We are, after all, used to our damsels in distress being the victim in a standard tale.
But Moore will have none of this. The Nov, who are white amorphous slug like creatures, may have a mystical hold on Nyusa forcing her to perform rituals praising her father, but her desire to leave has nothing to do with revulsion of things man is better for not knowing. No, her desire to be free stems from a desire to fully explore the Darkness within herself. She wants to be free and to have the power of her Darkness grow, not to have it restrained by the ceremonies of the wretched Nov who use her, but do not praise her properly. She seeks to become the Darkness and not to be a mere vehicle for the worship of another Darkness.
Smith doesn't know this as he watches the dance ritual. He only sees the revolting visages of the Nov, and hears the approach of Dolf. Smith slays Dolf, and one of the high priests of the Nov. This frees Nyusa from the hold the Nov had upon her and Smith witnesses her partial apotheosis into a being of Darkness. For his "gallantry," Smith is rewarded with a kiss. The kiss is both cold and filled with love, a combination of human warmth and unimaginable Darkness. In the act of thanking him, she gives him a sense of the terror he may have unleashed on the universe.
Once more, Moore has played with the damsel in distress story and added her typical spin. Nyusa's sensuality is a thing of danger, where non-sexual love would have been something safe. Smith begins the tale wary of attempting to rescue a girl because he is afraid of what her pursuers might be capable of doing. He finishes the tale wary of that which he has helped to liberate. To be fair, Nyusa would likely have been free soon enough without Smith's aid, but Smith was there to witness her apotheosis and helped to hasten it.
One thinks that maybe Smith should have trusted his cautious instincts a little bit more than he did.
Who knows what long term ramifications this will have upon the fate of the universe?
Past Encounters with Northwest Smith
Here is a list of all Northwest Smith articles to date:
