THE DEEP ONES: "The Story of a Panic" by E. M. Forster

"The Story of a Panic" by E. M. Forster

Discussion begins on October 13, 2021.

Written in 1904. First published in The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories (1911).



BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?79721

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

H. P. Lovecraft Selects: Classic Horror Stories
The Mandrake Root
Outsiders: Children of Wonder

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34089/34089-h/34089-h.htm
http://www.online-literature.com/forster/celestial-omnibus/1/

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/02/julian-barnes-i-was-wrong-about-em...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster
https://lithub.com/how-e-m-forsters-only-foray-into-sci-fi-predicted-social-dist...
https://tinyurl.com/b9wtnkyb

A happy occasion for dipping into my extremely foxed hardbound edition from Sidgwick & Johnston. It's a tattier version of the image posted above.

It is interesting that the key event of the story occurs perhaps a quarter of the way in. Not unheard of, but typically in our stories the plot tends to lead to the key event, whereas here the plot follows the repercussions of it.

But not only that. Throughout there is a sense that most characters (excepting only Eustace and Gennaro, and perhaps the old woman to whom Eustace gives a posie) have missed the significance or even a clear impression of something important. In this respect, the story is not even most concerned with the repercussions of the key event, as it centers on the fact that this event points to a lack in the lives of its characters.

This is true of the other stories in the collection, but since we're discussing here just the one story, I'll simply link to my review of the collection for thoughts on that aspect.

This was more to my taste than "The Curate's Friend", but still not really up my alley. I guess I lack sympathy with Forster's truth, as elenchus put it in his review.

I found the comments on the steeper and more openly acknowledged social hierarchy in Italy as compared to England interesting, though.

"Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

***

I like apiary imagery, but I think Lewis Carroll significantly improved on this one with "How Doth the Little Crocodile" in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"my poor wife" was a refrain that grew irritating in this story.

I laughed at: "It is mere waste of time to reply to such remarks, especially when they come from an unsuccessful artist, suffering from a damaged finger." Digital integrity is important to every conversationalist.

It seems that Gennaro had undergone an ordeal similar to Eustace's transformation, and had returned to his ordinary impoverished awareness. But there doesn't seem to be much clue in the story as to what became of Eustace in the eight years after he escaped, shouting and laughing, towards the sea.

>6 paradoxosalpha: what became of Eustace

It's true, we get the fact that it's been eight years, as you observed, and that he's had a career since then, "if career it can be called." Later in the story we get this comment: "I have often seen that peculiar smile since, both on the possessor's face and on the photographs of him that are beginning to get into the illustrated papers." So it would appear Eustace has made a public impression, perhaps in the arts but in any case, significant enough to be mentioned in the periodicals of the day.

I've long admired the trope of the reader knowing more than the characters in a story, especially when the reader gets all the facts from a first-person narrator. Forster does very well with it here, it's clear the narrator is clueless yet very good at relaying important facts to us. That he considers Eustace's career to be no achievement is a forceful statement that the truth is quite the opposite. (There's also his name.)

Gennaro ... returned to his ordinary impoverished awareness
Assuming Eustace made something of himself after all, I'd argue that Gennaro played a maieutic role in making that possible. So while Gennaro's awareness seems impoverished compared to what he experienced "when the first night came", he didn't lose it completely afterwards.

//

I laughed aloud at the same point you mention.

I liked this story and its intimations that a new/old faith has entered the world. We are not really told what Eustace's new career is. Perhaps singing. Or, perhaps, he is a modern prophet, a lecturer, or spiritual guru.

The reversal of Sandbach's story about Pan being declared dead when Christ was dead was well done with Gennaro being likened to Judas, and Eustace's stating anything is better than Sandbach, symbol of the current but soon to be old faith, watching over him.

I'm assuming Forester's narrator is generally the author's satirical take on a certain class of Edwardian businessman.

It's interesting that Leyland is sort of on the border with his reactions to Eustace. He reviles the corruption of the modern world with his remark on deforestation, but he admits he's been corrupted by modernity too. Thus, he is both fascinated and repelled by Eustace's speech.

>8 RandyStafford:

I hadn't noticed the parallels between Gennaro and Judas, and the echo of Sandbach's story of the sailors hearing "Pan is Dead!" when the Christ child is born.

I first heard that story of sailors hearing voices upon the birth of Christ in a Waterboys (Mike Scott) lyric: "The Return of Pan". Is that a common myth? I'd wondered if Scott was alluding to this story specifically, or if it's a wider-held myth. I'm familiar with the idea of voices at sea often attributed to sirens, but I've not come across the specific story of voices stating Pan is dead.

>9 elenchus: Is that a common myth?

It's historical reportage from Plutarch, with the Christian rationale from Eusebius: Wikipedia summary

The Waterboys song is terrific, a long-time favorite of mine. That Dream Harder album on which it appears was evidently written under the influence of the work of Dion Fortune, for whom the preeminent deities are Pan and Isis.

>10 paradoxosalpha:

That's one long-held mystery revealed to me! Much obliged for the background and links.

Mike Scott has been a bit hit-or-miss for me in the past decade, but I still love many of his seminal work, even across his varied styles and preoccupations. I didn't catch the Dion Fortune influence (I've yet to read my first book despite at least one waiting on my shelves), but have always appreciated Scott's reverence for Pan.

I have quite mixed feelings on this story.

I always find it rather challenging when a writer creates an unlikeable narrator. Perhaps that's a flaw in my intellectual make-up.

I have to admit that I've read several of Forster's novels and I simply don't like him. So I came to this prepared to find myself unimpressed; but I was actually quite absorbed in it. But then, I was carried along by the story, only to find myself feeling rather left hanging by the ending.

Several things are puzzling me:

I don't know what Forster intends us to make of Rose's role.

On the subject of exactly why Eustace is '... beginning to get into the illustrated papers ...', does Forster want us to see Gennaro and Eustace as some sort of parallel to John the Baptist and Christ? Actually, I've got confused—it was John the Apostle who was the fisherman. I think I still feel the question, though.

I have a tendency to see the story as actually about the narrator rather than the supernatural element and Eustace. Is that what Forster intends—the story all a satire on English attitudes and prejudices? No, I don't think that can be quite right ...

Anyway, I'm left a little puzzled and unsatisfied by it. And, truth be told, not very inclined to read the rest of the stories in the collection (I've just read this on Gutenberg).

I haven't read any of Forster's novels (although I have them on a shelf, waiting to be read). I did read his science fiction story "The Machine Stops" a long time ago. And of course he's not a forgotten figure thanks to the Merchant-Ivory film adaptations which have given an idea of his main subjects and concerns.

The notion of freedom for the individual - from stultifying boorish society, "free thinking" in a literal sense, a touch of mysticism (more than a touch here) are all present in this story.

I enjoyed the humour of the story (I didn't expect there to be any), and the skill by which Forster let his narrator reveal his small-mindedness and pettiness without ever (I thought) overdoing the comedy or dropping out of character.

Events do take a dark turn though. And I would guess a characteristically Forsterian one, in that it's not the inferred encounter with Pan but the attempt to deny and suppress it, that brings a real threat of death.

As to what happened to Eustace, possibly his appearance "in the illustrated papers" indicates a career in the arts, or as a Wildean tastemaker, maybe a New Age guru? But I noticed that the narrator has "often seen that peculiar smile since...on the possessor's face". Why would the narrator see Eustace in flesh at all, let alone "often"? One possiblity occurred to me, that at the time the narrator is setting down this story, Eustace and Rose are married.

Which would mean, of course, that this hidebound, worse-than-Pooterish narrator is writing about a (presumably hated) son-in-law!

I sort of asusmed the narrator had seen the smile in photos in the newspapers.

I sort of like your take though!

>13 housefulofpaper: - Which would mean ... a (presumably hated) son-in-law!

Oh, I absolutely love that take!

>12 alaudacorax: - ... all a satire ...

I have to put in a caveat on my above posts. I've been absolutely saturating myself in Saki lately—since the 'The Music on the Hill' thread—and I'm not sure I'm not looking for and seeing Saki's waspishness where it's not there (I mean on the part of Forster, not the narrator).

>13 housefulofpaper:

I like that take of the son-in-law, too -- very Forsterian, at least from what I gather from these stories, not having read any of his novels.

I'm familiar with the Merchant-Ivory films, and an abiding question I have is whether there is a vein of mysticism in the novels that I didn't pick up on in the films. Not a high priority but something I hope to discover for myself at some point.

I the opening paragraphs, Benson says that the locals will tell you Frank Halton's ghost walks through the woods. Sufficient justification for calling this a ghost story? Or maybe Pan is a spirit of sorts that only manifests physically on rare occasions?

I did think that Darcy took a long while to come up with his counter-argument, but to be fair to the character, and to Benson, I've heard it made many times in recent decades by the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins in a particular socio-political setting. Benson's would have been different (aware of the implications of scientific discoveries such as deep time and evolution by natural selection, but not engaged in any sort of organised counter-movement, maybe rather complacent?).

The way I read the story was quite revealing: I thought it was a bit verbose, a bit slow, was picking it up and putting it down...I finished it in a sitting when I temporarily lost my internet access. Mental note to make allowances for stories written over a century ago...

>18 housefulofpaper:

I think you meant to post that in the “The Man Who Went Too Far” thread?

>19 AndreasJ:

Yes I did. Apologies all.

In issue #104 of Current World Archaeology, there is an article on the death of Pan with the falling quote from Plutarch:

"The father of Aemilliamus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time, in making a voyage to Italy, he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly, from the island of Paxi, was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, 'When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead.' On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astonished and reasoned among themselves whether it was better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances, Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea about the place he would announce what he had heard. So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: 'Great Pan is dead.' Even before he had finished, there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement. As many persons were on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberus became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan"

The article goes on to note that Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea "interpreted the death of Pan as the death of all pagan gods at the hands of Chirst"

>21 RandyStafford:

Thanks for posting that, RandyStafford -- I find quite interesting this additional background on the "Pan is Dead" theme over history, as I first learned about in >10 paradoxosalpha:. There's a bit more detail in the quote you mention than was provided in the Wikipedia summary linked above, but it does appear to come from the same source in Plutarch. Curious now of the significance of Thamus's resolution to speak only if the wind & waves were calm, that strikes me as another symbolic message.