The Medusa Frequency is a 1987 novel by

Russell Hoban Russell Conwell Hoban (February 4, 1925 – December 13, 2011) was an American expatriate writer. His works span many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magical realism, poetry, and children's books. He lived in ...

. Written in a lyrical, often magic realist style, it crosses a number of genres including comedy and fantasy. It uses the story of Orpheus to "meditate on art and reality and love and fear and fidelity and betrayal".

Plot summary

Narrator Herman Orff is a

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based freelance writer of comics and an unsuccessful novelist. He is preoccupied by

Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

's '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'', an ex-girlfriend called Luise von Himmelbett, and characters from mythology including The Kraken. His own name is a reference to

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...

and

Orpheus Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jaso ...

. Lacking inspiration to write his third novel, he responds to a leaflet put through his letterbox advertising a treatment for blocked artists. The procedure turns out to be the invention of an old friend who was once also Luise's lover. Following the treatment, Orff periodically hallucinates, finding that spherical found objects (a stone on the banks of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

, a football, a cabbage) appear to him as the dismembered head of Orpheus. Through a series of surreal scenes, the head tells Orff its "story", namely how he started playing the lyre, met

Eurydice Eurydice (; Ancient Greek: Εὐρυδίκη 'wide justice') was a character in Greek mythology and the Auloniad wife of Orpheus, who tried to bring her back from the dead with his enchanting music. Etymology Several meanings for the name ...

and lost her. In Hoban's retelling, Eurydice was not bitten by a snake and did not descend to the

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

, but rather Orpheus was unfaithful to her and she left him for

Aristaeus A minor god in Greek mythology, attested mainly by Athenian writers, Aristaeus (; ''Aristaios'' (Aristaîos); lit. “Most Excellent, Most Useful”), was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; ...

. This reflects Orff's own experience of being unfaithful to Luise. The scenes retelling the Orpheus myth are interspersed with Orff's daily life as he finds a new girlfriend, is hospitalised after suffering an attack of angina, bumps repeatedly into a character referred to as "Gom Yawncher" who turns up in various guises throughout London, and travels to

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

to see the Vermeer painting in the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer ...

. When he gets to The Hague he finds the painting is on loan to the US, and meets a man in the gallery who claims to be another of Luise's ex-lovers. On returning to his hotel he unexpectedly bumps into Luise herself, who he finds is happily married. On Orff's return to London, his new girlfriend breaks up with him. Orff turns down lucrative offers of work adapting the Orpheus myth into a tacky cartoon strip and a pretentious film, and instead develops his own original science fiction comic strip. The Orpheus hallucinations come to an end and the slim memoir of this strange story effectively becomes the third novel he has been trying to write.

Interpretation

The novel's title is on one level a reference to Orff's preference for sitting up late at night listening to female classical singers on shortwave radio. During one of Orff's "conversations" with The Kraken, it tells him that

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...

is the only woman, or female archetype, to whom he can be truly faithful.

Reception

Although never a big seller, the book was well received critically, with The Listener commenting: "in the course of this tour through the imaginative outback of Mr. Hoban's mind, we are treated to brilliant flashes of mordant humour, not to mention splendidly baroque evocations of present day London" while

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

remarked "There's a sense of wonder in these passages...a love of fantasy and myth-making, an interest in language and puns, and a concern with philosophic speculation and the pyrotechnics of storytelling."

Dave Langford David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953) is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter ''Ansible'', and holds the all-time record for mos ...

reviewed ''The Medusa Frequency'' for ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

'' #99, and stated that "The book is souffle rather cornflakes: a light and tasty treatment of material which could be depressingly Heavy."

Crossovers

Most of Hoban's novels explore common themes and are set in the same area of west London. Characters from ''The Medusa Frequency'' made brief appearances in Hoban's later novels '' Fremder'' and ''

Linger Awhile ''Linger Awhile'' is the second studio album by American jazz singer Samara Joy, released on September 16, 2022, through Verve Records. It was produced by Matt Pierson. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and was responsible ...

''.

References

External links