Downward to the Earth

I read this book shortly after Dan Simmon's "classic" Hyperion which I found diverting, but unsatisfying: Downward to the Earth, however succeeds where Hyperion, well, didn’t fail as much as it became overwrought and lost my interest by degrees. The formula is the same: a quest based somewhat on a classic (Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which, to my shame, I’ve never read and only recognised via pop-culture references and Apocalypse Now); the aim of the quest is some kind of transcendental atonement; the journey and its recollections provide back story, colour and mystery.

Why then did I enjoy this book so much more? Perhaps I was better prepared for this book, having read Hyperion; appreciation by inoculation? I can only say that it must be a matter of style. The jungle world that the hero travels through is intoxicating, strange and sensual, and while everything that occurs on it is ludicrous and unbelievable, it all somehow works. I found myself drawn in by the dreamlike, druggy unreality of this book and, in that hazy context, could believe in the character’s compulsion to see the elephantine natives participate in their “rebirthing” ceremony, his fear to take part in it himself, his resolution to do so regardless. I wasn’t even put off by realising early on what the nature of this mystery was likely to be, as I’m sure that Silverberg expects us to guess what the hero is in for before the hero sees it himself. There is no anticlimax, only inevitability; we still share our man’s triumph when he completes his quest to become both a true expression of himself and something more than human.