Dirk Strasser’s ZENITH
Reviewed by Richard Harland
I’m glad to have the chance to review the new edition of this book, because I rate Zenith as one of the great forgotten books of Australian fantasy. On a Freecon panel in Sydney, a dozen years ago, I had to present my all-time worldwide Top Ten fantasy novels, and the two Australian novels on that list were Garth Nix’s Sabriel and Dirk Strasser’s Zenith. At the time, it seemed almost strange to put Australian fantasy writers on a par with the big names from America and Britain—not any more, goddess be praised! Although there have been other superb Australian fantasies since, those two books can still kick ass with the world’s best.
Why wasn’t Zenith a hit on first release? Maybe it came out too far ahead of the wave, three years before Sara Douglass published the first volume of her Axis trilogy and launched Australian fantasy on its journey into the big league. Also, Zenith doesn’t really belong in what was to become the mainstream of Australian fantasy. It’s a rather serious book, leaning to fable and fairytale, definitely short on swashbuckling action and hot romance.
The world of Zenith is the world of the Mountain, a world of small medieval-ish towns and smaller farming communities. In fact, the Mountain is the world, like Mount Meru in Buddhist and Hindu cosmology, the sacred mountain at the centre of the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. This Mountain is both alive and the source of all life, and the quest to reach its Summit is as much a metaphysical and spiritual quest as a physical one.
The novel’s protagonist, Atreu, is one of a pair of twins chosen to make ‘the Ascent’. This is a year-long ritual journey that can be undertaken only by twins, and only when they reach eighteen years of age. Atreu’s talisman is a Book that produces its own words (there’s a neat wrap-around effect in the closing pages), while his brother Teyth has a battleaxe for a talisman. By ritual tradition, they must make their Ascents quite independently.
Maybe I’m sounding too solemn here. The first thing to say about Zenith is that it does what all good quest novels do, and does it better than almost any of them—that is, it creates wonders. There are so many bits of brilliant invention. It reminds me more than anything else of Michael Ende’s Never-Ending Story, especially the second half. Not the Disney film, which trivialises the novel—wipe that out of your mind (and out of the universe, please!) Maybe the same German background is at work in both cases—that Teutonic fairytale sensibility that gives so many German writers a distinctive quality in fantasy fiction. (And isn’t it odd that the protagonist of Never-Ending Story has such a similar name: Atreyu?)
It would be unfair to present Zenith’s wonders in encapsulated form. I’ll just say that the beings and places encountered by Atreu are the first things you’ll fall in love with. But the novel isn’t such a simple string of adventures as it appears on first sight. Elements circle back around, re-entering with new impact and significance. T.S. Eliot said “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (thank you, Wikipedia!). In the end, that’s what Zenith and Atreu’s quest is all about. Atreu must climb physically—mostly upwards, with a few detours—but he must also raise his level of understanding. There are wise men to help him and sometimes mislead him; drugs to affect his mind; and dreams to guide or confuse him, more so as the novel approaches its climax. Atreu is as much an acolyte as a mountain-climber.
There’s also an overall situation in the novel as larger forces compete to control the Mountain and its Ascenders. Atreu is one of the Maelir, who fear and fight against another species called the Faemir. It would be too simple to reduce the species to a male principle and a female principle, but you get the idea: two opposing forces that actually need each other. The real enemy lies further back and deeper in, undermining the Mountain itself. The various spectacular types of geological instability that look like separate phenomena in Atreu’s quest are actually linked and explained by a final revelation.
Did I mention that the goal of the Ascenders’ quest is not only to reach the Summit but also, by reaching the Summit, to experience an overwhelming form of enlightenment by witnessing Zenith? Ditto for the reader. There’s much more at the top of the Mountain than anyone would have expected. But my lips are sealed …
Hopefully, the time is now ripe for Zenith to be recognised for its own special virtues. May this new edition gain the reputation that the book has always deserved!
Richard Harland is the author of Worldshaker, Liberator and Song of the Slums. Before becoming a full time writer, he lectured in the English Department of the University of Wollongong where he introduced courses on fantasy and speculative fiction.
This review appeared in Aurealis #66.
Download Zenith
Why wasn’t Zenith a hit on first release? Maybe it came out too far ahead of the wave, three years before Sara Douglass published the first volume of her Axis trilogy and launched Australian fantasy on its journey into the big league. Also, Zenith doesn’t really belong in what was to become the mainstream of Australian fantasy. It’s a rather serious book, leaning to fable and fairytale, definitely short on swashbuckling action and hot romance.
The world of Zenith is the world of the Mountain, a world of small medieval-ish towns and smaller farming communities. In fact, the Mountain is the world, like Mount Meru in Buddhist and Hindu cosmology, the sacred mountain at the centre of the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. This Mountain is both alive and the source of all life, and the quest to reach its Summit is as much a metaphysical and spiritual quest as a physical one.
The novel’s protagonist, Atreu, is one of a pair of twins chosen to make ‘the Ascent’. This is a year-long ritual journey that can be undertaken only by twins, and only when they reach eighteen years of age. Atreu’s talisman is a Book that produces its own words (there’s a neat wrap-around effect in the closing pages), while his brother Teyth has a battleaxe for a talisman. By ritual tradition, they must make their Ascents quite independently.
Maybe I’m sounding too solemn here. The first thing to say about Zenith is that it does what all good quest novels do, and does it better than almost any of them—that is, it creates wonders. There are so many bits of brilliant invention. It reminds me more than anything else of Michael Ende’s Never-Ending Story, especially the second half. Not the Disney film, which trivialises the novel—wipe that out of your mind (and out of the universe, please!) Maybe the same German background is at work in both cases—that Teutonic fairytale sensibility that gives so many German writers a distinctive quality in fantasy fiction. (And isn’t it odd that the protagonist of Never-Ending Story has such a similar name: Atreyu?)
It would be unfair to present Zenith’s wonders in encapsulated form. I’ll just say that the beings and places encountered by Atreu are the first things you’ll fall in love with. But the novel isn’t such a simple string of adventures as it appears on first sight. Elements circle back around, re-entering with new impact and significance. T.S. Eliot said “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (thank you, Wikipedia!). In the end, that’s what Zenith and Atreu’s quest is all about. Atreu must climb physically—mostly upwards, with a few detours—but he must also raise his level of understanding. There are wise men to help him and sometimes mislead him; drugs to affect his mind; and dreams to guide or confuse him, more so as the novel approaches its climax. Atreu is as much an acolyte as a mountain-climber.
There’s also an overall situation in the novel as larger forces compete to control the Mountain and its Ascenders. Atreu is one of the Maelir, who fear and fight against another species called the Faemir. It would be too simple to reduce the species to a male principle and a female principle, but you get the idea: two opposing forces that actually need each other. The real enemy lies further back and deeper in, undermining the Mountain itself. The various spectacular types of geological instability that look like separate phenomena in Atreu’s quest are actually linked and explained by a final revelation.
Did I mention that the goal of the Ascenders’ quest is not only to reach the Summit but also, by reaching the Summit, to experience an overwhelming form of enlightenment by witnessing Zenith? Ditto for the reader. There’s much more at the top of the Mountain than anyone would have expected. But my lips are sealed …
Hopefully, the time is now ripe for Zenith to be recognised for its own special virtues. May this new edition gain the reputation that the book has always deserved!
Richard Harland is the author of Worldshaker, Liberator and Song of the Slums. Before becoming a full time writer, he lectured in the English Department of the University of Wollongong where he introduced courses on fantasy and speculative fiction.
This review appeared in Aurealis #66.
Download Zenith