The Fictional Works of David Myatt

Since I – along with may other people who have written about Myatt or who have studied his life and works – consider that “Anton Long” is one of Myatt’s many pseudonyms, I have commented on some short-stories written by one “Anton Long”.

I have also commented upon some recent stories, such as In The Sky of Dreaming, written by one “Algar Merridge” – which I, and some others, regard as another of Myatt’s pseudonyms.

In fairness to Myatt, it should be said that he has always denied using the pseudonym Anton Long.

In addition to the works mentioned here – which are mostly short-stories – it is my opinion that the novels of the so-called Deofel Quintet, originally published by the ONA, were written by Myatt, sometime between the 1970’s and the late 1980’s. These novels are, in no particular order,

Of these, my personal favorite is The Giving, with its description of ancient rural practices and of the somewhat seedy goings-on of two of the characters, Mallam and Maurice Rhiston.

Ultimately, however, the above mentioned novels are – in my personal opinion – somewhat mundane in style, and neither outstanding nor particularly memorable works of fiction, although they may indeed fulfill or have fulfilled at least something of their stated purpose, which was to be “entertaining instructional texts [for Occult Initiates], written in fictional form, designed to be read aloud…” Certainly, two of these novels – Falcifer, and Temple of Satan – deal in an overt way with Satanism, in a manner which some readers may find interesting.

A possible exception, to such mundanity, might be made for Breaking The Silence Down, which is most unusual in that it is written by a man, describing as it does Sapphic relationships, and the sensitivities of some women, rather well. That said, and to be fair, there are several sensitive, perceptive, and quite well-written, passages in some other of these works; consider, for instance, the following, from The Greyling Owl, which describes an entry that one of the characters, Alison, makes in her Diary:

“The corridor was dark – all the rooms were closed and I felt afraid. I could not bear a repeat of my last visit – the angry words, the tears, needs that were not fulfilled, things left unsaid. I remember I said: “It’s better if I never see you again’ – hoping he would plead with me to stay.

He said nothing. I couldn’t resist any more: ‘What shall I do?’ I cried, catching the lapels of his jacket, tears on them, my tears as I clung to him, trying to make a bridge.

Such a dark corridor, outside. Last time I just stood in the kitchen, kicking the door and shouting at it: ‘Why do you never understand me!’ Yet I was back again – I had no pride left. Was this need really love? What would I say this time? Could I find a way of letting him understand – of getting through?

I knocked on his door. ‘Come in’. The voice was subdued. He was sitting in his chair I remember as if it was a moment ago. Dispirited. ‘What is it?’ I wondered if all relationships were like this – so charged with emotion.

Then, sitting on his lap, my head against him, buried. Crying. ‘It’s alright.’ A soft voice, a soft touch on my face.

It did not last. ‘Are you pleased to see me?’ I asked.

‘About as pleased as a Mickleman can be.’

Then, the inevitable wandering hand. The moment gone, and never repeated.”

But, in my view at least, these memorial parts are rather let down by the stories themselves, for it does seem rather hard to care about any of the main characters, with the possible exception of Fenton and Alison in The Greyling Owl, and Diane and Leonie in Breaking The Silence Down.

The same general mundanity of style and content rather applies, in my view, to most of Myatt’s other older works and stories, such as the short science-fiction story, written under his own name, The Adventures of Hassan and Jorg, although that story is notable for its attempt to depict Jihadi Muslims, living on another planet, as “freedom fighters” battling an evil, and expanding, militaristic “world-empire”. Myatt’s other works – such as the short story, One Connexion ⁽¹⁾ – often seem somewhat self-indulgent, in an autobiographical kind of way, and yet again I, personally, find it difficult to empathize with, or indeed care about, any of the characters, although others may well have a different opinion.

It is only in much later, and recent, works – such as the somewhat chilling story Eulalia: Dark Daughter of Baphomet – that Myatt seems to have found a suitable, original, evocative, and rather sinister voice, and produced stories that are both interesting and intriguing, even though the writing style seems contrived and gauche at times.

In Eulalia⁽²⁾ – and the related three stories Jenyah, In The Sky of Dreaming, and Sabirah – Myatt (writing as either Anton Long or Algar Merridge) creates in effect a modern sinister mythos, for these are stories of powerful, dark, extra- dimensional and – interestingly – female sinister entities (or “demons” or Dark Gods), who often have assumed human form (or rather, occupied and taken over human bodies), and who require “the life-force” of human beings in order to sustain themselves in our world. This is a modern, if somewhat disturbing, update of the vampires of legend and conventional horror fiction, with Myatt suggesting not only that these sinister, long-lived female vampires, from the dimensions of the acausal universe, are living amongst us, actively searching for victims, and able to reward whomsoever they choose with the gift of eternal life, but also that it is possible for us to call such sinister entities forth into our own world to bring chaos and disruption and evil.

In one of these stories – In The Sky of Dreaming - Myatt plays games with time itself, suddenly shifting the time and place of the narration as if to suggest, in accord with his theory of causal and acausal and nexions, that certain “acausal entities” (that is, “demons” or Dark Gods) can alter time itself, or at least the time we, as human beings, are familiar, and comfortable, with.

It is these recent, above mentioned, sinister short-stories – and The Dark Trilogy ⁽³⁾– that stand out in the Occult sense, with Myatt using words, and phrases (sometimes repeated) to often successfully evoke a sinister scenario, and to, rather seductively it must be said, glamorize dark, satanic, deeds. Which is something of an achievement, in itself, given the lack of literary finesse evident in these stories.

(This is a revised version of my essay The Short-Stories, and Works of Fiction, of David Myatt, which itself was an enlarged version of some earlier short comments of mine about Myatt’s fiction, to which comments I gave the title Concerning David Myatt’s Short-Stories and Works of Fiction.)

(2) The Eulalia story is available in pdf format (c. 115 kB) here - Eulalia.pdf

(3) The Dark Trilogy is described as A Sinister Concerto in Three Movements, and contains three linked short stories, entitled Nythra, Kthunae, and Atazoth.