One of the book series that I was obsessed with when I was in my teens was the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (1995-2000). This trilogy told a sweeping tale spanning universes centred on a mysterious material referred to as “Dust.” Dust is a powerful, mysterious thing, and plays a central role in the epic journey of the protagonist across multiple worlds. The idea of “Dust” felt fascinating to me. Pullman has described it as “an analogy of consciousness, and consciousness is this extraordinary property we have as human beings.” It also held theological significance, with the Church of the book linking it with the idea of “original sin.”
I was once again reminded of this ineffable, powerful material when I read about “Greot” in Jeff Noon’s Moon over Brendle. Greot, like the Dust of Pullman’s work, is a mysterious substance which permeates the world. However, unlike the cosmically significant Dust, the role of Greot is much smaller in scale. It is an object of wonder and creativity for the protagonist, Joe Sutter, who calls it Koag, a coining he shares only with his best friend. Over the events of the book—which describes Joe’s coming of age and his initiation into the world of writing and creativity—Joe goes from calling the mysterious dust Koag to using its proper name, Greot, to calling it Koag again. “Koag” after all, might be a child’s word, but it is also a signifier of wonder and imagination.
The story begins in 1968, when Joe is a secondary school student who, along with his best friend Denny, enjoys superhero comics. Joe also happens to be a witness, which means he is one of the few people who can see Greot. His grandmother, on the other hand, is a beholder, which means that she can not only that she can see the dust, but also “see through the eyes of Greot, and share the vision.” The book contains several intricate descriptions of the dust like this one:
The dust had stirred into life. Koag was rising, rising from the body. It floated in clusters, and now I saw its varied colours more clearly, ruby red, acid yellow, deep salmon blush, mottled tan and burnt orange. So many strands. Each grouping was separate, but they all flew off in the same general direction, high into the sky and drifting away towards the mill towers to the east. All except for one particular strand–rose-pink tinged with silver–which crept along low to the ground, vanishing into a patch of brier bush tangling the yard’s fence.
Greot is the main speculative element in this book, which is largely a coming-of-age story. Aside from “Koag,” there is not much that marks the world of the book as different from ours. We find out about witnesses and beholders and the scientist Robert Helme, who had supposedly had an altercation with Newton about the nature of the dust. Greot is seamlessly incorporated into the worldbuilding of the book, with most characters taking it for granted as part of their world.
There is also the fact that Joe’s life changes when he meets G.K Holbrook, a man whose primary interest can be found in a description of his bookshelf:
My eyes darted here and there. Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, John Wyndham, and so many others. There were a lot of books by someone called Robert A. Heinlein: Have Space Suit, Will Travel; The Puppet Masters; Starship Troopers; Stranger in a Strange Land. Next to Heinlein was Frank Herbert, with fewer books on offer: Destination Void; Dune; The Green Brain. And next to Herbert on the shelf … G.K Holbrook.
In Noon’s novel, Holbrook plays a well-trodden role in fantasy literature—that of the elderly mentor. However, this mentor initiates Joe not into the world of magic, but that of writing. He gives Joe several exercises to do as he learns to be a writer. He is asked to “build an anti-boredom machine,” to “write a short story,” and to “cast a magic spell.” And, as Joe learns to perform these tasks, he also familiarizes himself more and more with “Koag.”
Much of this book wavers between reality, metaphor, and fantasy. Holbrook brings up the mysterious county of “Brendleshire,” which cannot be visited, only written about. He describes “Brendle” as a place where “all the ages coexist, sharing their stories back and forth,” and where “the history of the country folds upon itself.” Holbrook makes the link between fiction and reality, dust and fiction, clear: “‘Imagine Koag as the ink that writes the stories on the pages of the land,’ Holbrook said, elucidating the connection between the dust, creativity, and imagination.”
Moon over Brendle is overall a really cozy reading experience, with its contained setting, low-stakes drama, and emphasis on character growth and a coming-of-age narrative. The number of characters in the book are limited: there is Joe, Denny, another friend called Eileen; Holbrook, his assistant Margery, and Joe’s family. The relationships in the book form a realistic, interesting narrative. At the same time, I expected that Denny would play more of a role in Joe’s creative journey, since he was initially mentioned as the more creative of the two in making up stories and games to play. The narrative seems to link the ability to see Greot with creative capability, so it would have been interesting to see how someone without the ability also manages to be creative.
Moon over Brendle has been described as a memoir, and even a faux-autobiography. It is indeed presented as the account of a science fiction writer looking back at his childhood, and indeed there are similarities between Joe Sutter and Jeff Noon. Like Joe, Noon was eleven in 1968, and he is from the same part of England. Noon is also, of course, a science fiction writer, something Joe Sutter eventually comes to be. It is interesting to ponder on how much of this work is autobiographical, though I don’t suppose Noon has the ability to see mysterious particles that permeate the world. I haven’t read any of his previous work, including his acclaimed Vurt (1993), but I’m now intrigued. Perhaps I’ll revisit Moon over Brendle after I read some of his other work, and see if it gives me, too, new powers of perception.