“The Malleability of Myths”: A Review of More Argonauts: Another Argonautica by Nicholas Pendleton

 (Self-published, 2024). ISBN: 978-1-304-32531-0

Let me be up front. I am a longtime fan of this gifted writer and artist. His comic strip about two Moai on Easter Island, Monumental, is exclusive to my art and literary site, New Mystics. Pendleton illustrated the covers of two of my novels, as well as doing many additional illustrations for them. I am honored to have his art throughout my home.

A few decades ago, I was privileged to read some of his unpublished short stories, about false memories, among other provocative topics. One scene in particular, involving a man in a bar getting a full-body tattoo, has stayed with me as though I read it yesterday.

But I am not doing this review to talk in depth about any of those projects. The subject matter at hand is his long-awaited novel, More Argonauts: Another Argonautica. If you like Greek—and many other—myths, then this is a book for you. By way of warning (and no reader really should be warned, nor any writer have to suffer the indignity of having someone warn someone else about their work, but, nevertheless, here I go), Pendleton takes liberties with the myths. But, as he so rightly explains, myths are meant to be MALEABLE. A fixed myth is a dead and useless thing.

Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, my spiritual–philosophical–alchemical compasses in brutal seas, long lamented the fact that the post-Industrial, post-postmodern era has no myths to call its own. Some cultural commentators (cue the eyeroll) argue that AI and cyber-robotics encompass the modern myth, but the only myth that applies to the Silicon Valley man-boy crowd is that a super-fast processor and mega-database (filled with largely coopted, copyrighted works) do not constitute INTELLIGENCE. And a sexy metal body cannot compare for an instant to a human one… Especially with the lights out…

More Argonauts begins with a few definitions of the word anachronism. I will leave it to you to read them. We can take this as a warning, as I initially did, that the writer is taking liberties, but, as you will come to understand, both in the main body text and in some of the author’s interludes, anachronisms are the key that unlock the cell. Better yet—they are the lightning that powers the machine that brings these Franken-Gorgons to life.

Taking the really old (ancient, classical) and using modern language and culture to make it more sellable to modern audiences, making the writer seem hip and with it, rarely, if ever, works because it winds up being a mix-with-water “gee Ma, ain’t I clever” powder that fills the cracks in the wall of lacking story. Just the other day, in my role as story analyst and dramaturg for a Midwest theatre company, I gave a playwright low marks for introducing modern turns of phrase and vocabulary into a story about the biblical Esther. It simply did not work.

Here, in More Argonauts, it absolutely does, because the sensibilities, lessons, cautionary tales, and culture (these being myths), are timeless and only useful to our growth if we GET them. Think about it… these myths were told and written down in Greek. To translate them “faithfully” would probably be next to impossible. And we would not get the jokes, or the subtext. Forget the subtle nudge, nudge, wink, wink material completely. Which would be unfortunate, as it is some funny, funny stuff. Yet Pendleton gives them all to us in spades. (An expression that did not exist before the 1920s, referring as it does to Bridge)

As does any writer endeavoring to create gold from the raw material, the alchemical nigredo, of these well-known, oft-related myths of the Greeks (and other cultures) and their all-too-human pantheon of gods, humans, hybrids, and monsters, Pendleton needed to find a framework. Call it an entranceway, if you will—unique to him and his worldview (which I have always found to be both incredibly unique and educative, with a subtle hint of wry) that would allow him to have his way with these myths, and their dramatis personae of (in)famous gods, hybrids, and monsters. After all, we know plenty about Jason, Herakles (does anyone say Hercules anymore since Disney did their musical take?), Artemis, Zeus, Icarus, Athena, Perseus and Medusa (thank you, Clash of the Titans—the original, that is!), Ione, and the rest.

The framework wholly succeeds: I’ll leave it to one of Pendleton’s author interludes for the details of his own Odysseus-like journey to finding and implementing it, but the framework is essentially his serving as a vessel for his Muse. And, like many (most?) Muses, she is testy and a bit controlling. Plus, let’s face it—most of the myths of the Greek variety are about someone serving someone. Hearing Pendleton and his Muse duke it out in the footnotes is one of the highlights. Because, after all, all of us writers are struggling with form and content, audience and inspiration. Good writers—artists in general—don’t get their way all the time. Pirandello was the first to remind us that our characters are capable of making choices different from what we have planned for them. The more richly developed the characters, the more strongly they state their desires. Some of them scream, whine, and pout.

We are stupid if we don’t at least listen and consider carefully their position.

I don’t want to give you the impression that the book is naught but post-postmodern “meta” (a word I reject in its modern context). More Argonauts is brimming with adventure, sex, drunkenness, and violence; hell… it has Herakles in makeup). Why do I hate this word? Because the likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King have all written about writing in their fiction. Big deal. Write what you know—that’s what our teachers and critics tell us. At times, these three talented practitioners of the pen even write themselves into their stories, as Pendleton (sorta) has.

Truth is, we are all of our characters anyway, same as with our dreams. So we might as well be up front about it once in awhile, when it serves by enhancing the story.

So… how about the themes? Parental responsibility and child abandonment are prevalent, both of which are tied to expectations for the child: “My dad is a demi-God… Super, super cool. So how do I live up to that?”

Many of us (oldest children with their parent’s first and middle names, for instance) know well with what they are dealing. And my Dad was not a demi-God. Just a decorated, disabled (due to exposure to Agent Orange while attached to a Marine Expeditionary Force) Chief Petty Officer in the Naval Intelligence Group with a specialty in cryptography.

Pendleton’s scholarship is impressive. He speaks about it in some of his interludes. Definitely worth a read (and don’t just skim them, either…).

In closing—come for the myths, stay for the Pendleton. You, and the world, will be better for it—and maybe (just maybe or maybe probably) you’ll be inspired to revisit the source material, create some new takes of your own, and make a little gold. Should enough of us do it (a third as well as he has) maybe some brand new myths will emerge, saving us from the lies (which are not the same as myths) of AI, transhumanism, and other quantum stupidities.

We desperately, desperately need them for that and plenty more.