THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN 2020: THE NILOTIC

And therein lies the poetry of Sacrament's most abiding theme: in order to be who they truly are and who they can become, the characters must abandon the states and stories proscribed for them: they must become something other, which means transcending all they value and regard as sacred within their assumptions of self. 

THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN 2020: THE NILOTIC

Imagine, of you will, an angel, of no specific mythology or denomination; an abstract entity that manifests certain elements of the “Divine Androgyne” as it appears in art, philosophy and various occult mythologies. 

Now, imagine that a human sorcerer somehow manages to snare that entity and utilises his art to split the creature into two, making it alien to itself in an effort to control it; that these two halves manifest the archetypes of male and female as proscribed by human culture and tradition down the centuries. Imagine that the entity, in its divorced and unknowing state, learns what it means to be “male” and “female” by observing humanity, by absorbing the stories and ideologies of those archetypes, seeing how men and women behave with regards to one another, their children, the wider world. 

What kind of monster would the entity thus become? 

That's what Barker conjures and explores in his seminal novel Sacrament, the story of a young man whose path intersects with the two halves of The Nilotic throughout his life, and whose relationship therewith shapes every aspect and element of his sense of self. And vice versa. 

The “male” half of The Nilotic becomes a man that calls himself Jacob Steepe; a high-handed, paternal figure who is simultaneously a sage, a teacher, a mentor, but also a creature of unfathomable violence, infanticidal inclinations and an especial species of nihilism that informs his entire ideology. The female, meanwhile, becomes Rosa McGee; a fertile, sensual and maternal figure, given to strange fancies and moments of the most sublime hysteria, who is the very antithesis of all Jacob represents, but also his complement; a symbolic representation of a certain natural order that Will Rabjohns breaks not only by dint of his interference in their lives, but also because he is one of Barker's rare gay protagonists. 

As Steepe himself states at one point: had Will not turned out gay, then the tensions between them in the latter's adult life would not exist; he would have become consumed with the proscribed narratives of “manhood;” i.e. would likely have become a husband, a Father, and that would have somehow excluded him from seeking out The Nilotic once again. 

Instead, Will rediscovers the pair and embarks on a lethal, shamanistic journey in which he not only seeks to uncover their natures, but to perhaps heal what has rendered them so apart from one another and, ultimately, themselves. 

By his nature, Steepe is Barker's unflattering examination -and condemnation- of traditionally enshrined and proscribed assumptions of “masculinity;” that Steepe has learned his genocidal and murderous inclinations by observing how men act, how men are, throughout the long centuries of his existence, is a damning indictment of what tradition and history has taught men to be; calling into stark question the diseased meta-narratives that inform our assumptions of self, our perspectives, our behaviour. Through them, Steepe has defined himself as a murderous and misanthropic creature, whose only purpose is to see the world burn in a fire of his own making. Even his own children, that he sires with Rosa on a number of occasions, are treated as refuse; quietly murdered by Steepe after they are born, under the falsehood that they are somehow damaged or diseased. 

Steepe stands as one of Barker's quieter, less elaborate monsters, but also one of the most trenchant and effective: he is manhood and “masculinity” made manifest, and it is a highly unflattering portrait. 

Rosa, by contrast, is somewhat more sympathetic, though just as capricious and cruel in her own right, at times: a florid and fecund thing of appetites and fey whims, she treats the world more as a nursery or playground, indulging in Steepe's brooding obsessions and fascinations with “purpose” in the manner of a long-suffering wife or Mother, both of which are roles she occupies for him and others throughout the story. Whereas Steepe is egocentric, obsessed with notions of purpose and proscribed destiny, Rosa is playful, joyous and indulgent. She is the archetypal female balance to Steepe's learned and inherited proscriptions of masculinity, as dangerous in her own way in that regard, as she is also a creature that is lost and poisoned by the stories she has assimilated, rendered more or less insane by her severing from her essential self. 

In that, the Nilotic represents a particularly philosophical kind of horror; that which derives from being prey to the meta-narratives and traditions that are acting upon us before we are even born: in Barker's estimation, there is nothing to be derived from them but a form of self-enslavement and enshrined evil; through them, we come to accept the prisons we make for ourselves and that have been established for us, based on factors ranging from our biological sex to our social class. Will Rabjohns, by contrast, is the stone hurled through that particular stained glass window; the vandalistic element that dares to unsettle the machine. Steepe, being the arch-priest of that engine, cannot abide Will's disturbing quality, and therefore becomes murderous towards him, despite having been the abstract Father figure who has shaped so much of who Will assumes himself to be. 

And therein lies the poetry of Sacrament's most abiding theme: in order to be who they truly are and who they can become, the characters must abandon the states and stories proscribed for them: they must become something other, which means transcending all they value and regard as sacred within their assumptions of self. 

In that manner, Steepe and Rosa are ultimately healed, becoming one principle again; the angel that was rent apart and set separate from itself, and Will Rabjohns becomes something entirely other, beyond any easy classification. 

That is the state Barker would have us realise through his work; his various metamorphic monsters and transcendental visions of abomination: not the horror of those conditions, but the potential they imply, and nowhere is that more true than in The Nilotic. 

THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN 2020 PART TWO: THE LIX​
​THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN: THE BODY POLITIC
​ THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN: THE MAGDALENE (AKA “MAMMA PUS”)
THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN 2020: THE JAFFE