The Awful Destiny of Physalia Gorgon

Not just fantasy, but a unique blend of 'clear-minded surrealism' and mischievous earthy satire, directed to achieve a powerful end...

Philip Goddard wrote five novels from 1990 to 1993, and The Awful Destiny of Physalia Gorgon is the third of these. He was at that time gestating as a significant symphonic composer, and he approached his literary works as though they were music compositions, indeed all five novels and some of his short stories and poems actually being the literary equivalent of complex, organically structured symphonies, in which ideas, phrases and even individual words are treated like melodic motifs in such a symphony. At that time his particular model of symphonic organization and structuring was the late symphonies of Sibelius and especially the symphonies of the 20th Century Danish composer Vagn Holmboe - though Goddard's own musical symphonies, when they did come, were more diverse in approach.

Each of the novels defies standard (say, BISAC) categorization, overlapping equally with a number of categories - which means that labelling with any one of those categories would misrepresent the respective work. Here, then, is a nutshell description of this novel, the most light-hearted and strongly humorous of the five...

Out of the black of night in darkest Africa comes an urgent message. On no account must you shake hands ever again - with anyone at all. For a most unspeakable scourge is now spreading through the population. To be frank about it, people's genitals are disappearing. This dreadful affliction is being passed on by, of all things, the shaking of hands. May the Lord have mercy

But heed this warning. In the course of this apocalyptic narrative (or lot of old b*lls, depending on your viewpoint) you will encounter a freak with such hideous and dreadful pedigree that you may be turned to stone on the spot or have some other terrible effect or corruption visited upon you. In particular, whatever you do, do not attempt to picture the face of that fateful monster. You have been warned

This complex love-story-with-a-difference, satire upon Britain's discreetly camouflaged middle-class racism, and parable about nature's cycle of death and renewal, has many ramifications and sub-themes, and comes complete with porn film and baby-eating scenes, not to mention Longsquat nuclear disaster and pestilential scourge of Portuguese Man-of-war. Certain to ruffle the feathers of the squeamish and the uptight, it's as entertaining as it's serious, and as serious as it's absurd.