The Serpent

by Jane Gaskell

In the lost world of prehistory, a girl is born. Is she a goddess? Cija herself believes that she is. For seventeen years her mother, the Dictatress, has kept her imprisoned in an isolated tower. When she is released, it is with a mission: to seduce Zerd, the snake-scaled general of an occupying army--and stab him to death. This fantastic story of love, jealousy and sudden death is unlike anything you have ever read. It grips the imagination from start to finish.

The Serpent was first published in 1963. It is the first part of the Atlan series, a set of four (or five*) fantasy novels set in prehistoric times. The following novels are Atlan , The City and Some Summer Lands . The stories are set in Atlantis and South America.

* The Serpent was also published split into two books, titled The Serpent and The Dragon , hence the confusion over the numbering of the volumes.

Genres: Fantasy

476 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Gaskell was born Jane Gaskell Denvil on 7 July 1941, in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, England (previously in the county of Lancashire). She is the great grandniece of the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Her first novel, Strange Evil, was written when she was 14-years-old (published two years later, in 1957). In 1963 Gaskell married truck driver Gerald Lynch; and in 1965 their daughter, Lucy Emma, was born. (Their marriage ended in divorce in 1968.)

In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet, Sweet Summer.

China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction.

Wikipedia®

Reviews

[Jean Triceratops · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve spent the two days since I finished The Serpent trying to figure out how I can possibly describe this unusual book. The best I can come up with is that it ought to be a book you’re assigned to read in college, but because you’re busy and just not really into it, you squeak by without doing the reading. As years pass, people reference it often enough that when you accidentally stumble across it in a long-forgotten box, you decide to read it, and then you find yourself lying awake at night kicking yourself for not doing the reading when you actually had a platform in which to discuss the nuance of this fascinating and devastating novel.

There are some takeaways I hope you pick up on from this intro:

The Serpent isn’t easy. Sentences can be ponderous and confusing; it’s the sort of novel where I’d find myself reading the words without actually stringing them together into a coherent sentence. When I put my mind to the words, though, they were beautiful and descriptive. Given that The Serpent is told in the form of a girl’s diary, it makes sense that there are going to be some idiosyncrasies in the writing. I grew to love how I could determine the mood of the protagonist based on how her writing flowed.

The Serpent isn’t fun. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true, but at the same time I’ll stand by it. I’m glad I read The Serpent. At times it’s hilarious. Other times it’s joyful. The trajectory of the story, however, isn’t fun. Hell, the back copy mentions that Cija, our protagonist, is raped multiple times, and that’s the part of a book that’s supposed to make us want to read it. Just imagine the brutality that we actually witness.

This seems like a great time to say that if you’re sensitive to depictions of violence, rape, coercive/abusive relationships, systemic violence against women/girls, or similar heavy topics, The Serpent might not be a great book for you. The best part about this is that Jane Gaskell covers these topics honestly. None of it is titillating or sexy, and even though I don’t love reading about super real problems like these, there was an authenticity to her writing that made me feel better.

I know that sounds bizarre.

The best comparison I can come up with is finding out that that one guy who acts inappropriately toward you also acts inappropriately toward a friend. It’s not a good thing, but it also makes you feel better because you know for a fact you’re not making shit up, and you suddenly have a sense of solidarity over this horrible thing in your life.

In that way, the brutality of The Serpent almost felt healing. On the other hand, my one dog who we jokingly refer to as our empath-dog because she knows when you’re upset and will try to make you feel better, well, she was in a constant state of panic while I read The Serpent because apparently my body language or pheromones or some shit was sending out panic-level vibes.

Okay, with two heads-up and a straight up warning out of the way, it’s time to dig in.

Cija (pronounced KEE-YAH) is the daughter of a dictatress. Raised in isolation and taught that she’s a goddess, the beginning of the book is filled with banal teenaged-girl level tension. She wishes she were tan, she hates to do chores, and when she’s bored she sometimes lashes out at her caretakers. She’s a bit bratty, but (in my opinion) likable. This low-stakes life changes quickly when she’s sent on a quest: she must seduce an enemy general and murder him.

Just like that, she’s thrown into a world where women are only valued so far as they are useful to men.

This is central to one of the biggest themes in the book: a woman’s sexuality is both a liability and an asset.

In a land where women have literally no agency—they’re considered property, nothing more—it makes sense that Cija would wield her sexuality like a weapon. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes it works until the man gets frustrated and lashes out. Sometimes, it doesn’t work at all, and she finds herself reduced for the unwanted interest of an abusive man. And, well, sometimes the man just isn’t interested, and she has to seek some other position from which to exert influence.

This bigger theme is teased apart into bite-sized pieces that I kept choking on. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching is the quintessential Nice Guy Smahil. He’s a classic abuser: charismatic and seemingly-caring and cruel and selfish. He’s the sort to light a woman’s house on fire just so he can guilt her into caring for him because he helped put it out.

Of all the hard things to read about The Serpent, I think Smahil's wanton realism is the hardest. I’ve known Smahil, and clearly Jane Gaskell has as well. He has the nuance, the personality, and the delicate touches that make him more than archetypal: he could walk out of The Serpent and replace the Smahil in my life, and I’m not sure I’d know the difference.

I urge both men and those women amongst us lucky enough to have lived without a Smahil in their lives to recognize him as a reality, because he is. I fear it's too easy to chalk him up to a trumped-up villain, a gross over-exaggeration, and dismiss him out of hand. Dear cod I wish that were true, but it’s not. Smahil is real and, worse than that, he’s actually pretty common.

Contrasting this intimate look at violence against women is a broad-spectrum overview of the world’s violence against women. Women are property. Women are constantly in danger of sexualized violence from passing armies, cruel leaders, tyrannical politicians. Women die and are killed and Cija can’t let it get to her—lest she lose herself to rage and despair—but at the same time she can’t look away.

It might be tempting to think that women spared from the direct perpetration of violence don’t suffer from it, but that’s not true. I remember the first time I learned about ‘bride kidnapping’—the hideously established tradition of kidnapping a woman or, most-often, a girl, and forcing her into ‘marriage.’ I was 9 when I first learned of this custom. I also learned that girls as young as 11 might be kidnapped, and that even if the girl escapes, sometimes her family will force her to go back to her kidnapper.

I remember lying in bed, being a normal nine-year-old. I was slightly afraid of the dark, of the closet, of the weird shadows coming in through my bedroom window. And then I remember thinking about how if I had been born elsewhere, my current fear would have been vague and ridiculous: I’d have had good reason to lie awake at night staring in horror at the window.

Simply understanding that my gender could be so maligned, so inconsequential, so powerless … the fact that I didn’t experience this hateful derision firsthand didn’t make me feel safe. It made me feel like my relative power and autonomy was tenuous, an accident, and that at any time men could start coming through American girls’ windows, forcing them into a life of rape and degradation.

I almost didn’t realize how much my childhood understanding of how much the world hates women affected me until I watched Cija—16 years old and perceptive as fuck—internalize the same sort of messages. For her there’s no vague feeling of defeat and powerlessness. For her there’s rage and sorrow paired with a powerful resolve to never feel less-than.

Which segues into a complaint I’ve often read about The Serpent: that it’s anti-women. I can kind of see why people take this stance: women are constantly tearing each other down and there are multiple scenes were women fight over the same shitty guy.

At the same time, though, I don’t view this as anti-women—I view this as realistic. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Gate of Ivory’s loving depiction of sisterhood, but The Serpent is too steeped in realism to offer up such an idea and have it read as true. In a world where women have no power, there are two options for them to raise their value in the eyes of men:

1) Band together
2) Knock each other down

Admittedly the former would have the biggest payoff, but it’s also much harder and requires everyone to work together and trust each other.

If Cija fell viciously and unrepentantly into the foray of tearing other women down, then I’d chalk The Serpent up as anti-women, but she doesn’t. She does hate a few women along the way, but it’s never to gain the favor of a man. As a girl raised in a country that is ruled by women, too, Cija has a certain amount of outside perspective that these women raised in a society that actively oppresses women lack. I almost got the feeling that Cija is so reviled by most girls/women because she—unlike them—doesn’t believe that she’s inferior.

Even with all of this realism, The Serpent would have left a bad taste in my mouth had all of Cija’s relationship with women been awful. Thankfully, they aren’t. She respects, and is seemingly respected by, the general’s mistress. She is mothered by a kindly villager, and reciprocates that kindness. She takes a young slave under her wing, and regularly remarks about her with genuine fondness.

Perhaps most unexpectedly, considering The Serpent was published in 1966, she also befriends a trans woman. Lel is misgendered and berated by her brother and her village for any signs of traditional femininity. Cija has no such qualms, and their friendship is a safe place for Lel to live authentically.

This is kind of a trend of Cija’s: she befriends those of the least stature. Not from any sort of savior complex or egotism—it feels like she can’t deal with the political and societal posturing of the middle and upper classes and is most comfortable surrounded by those with a similarly pragmatic outlook on life.

This, paired with the fact that she takes her fall from grace with surprising aplomb, makes this goddess-princess surprisingly sympathetic and relatable. If she has to plow fields to survive—well, there are others who have it worse.

This book is real, y’all, and sugarcoating this fact would be lame. But, as real as it is, it’s also delightful at unexpected intervals. Her time in the tower was comedic gold. The tone and the writing was so fresh and clean and unexpected I’d have never, ever, ever guessed it were written in the 1960s, and even when Cija’s world gets bleak, little moments shined in such a way that I’d have to take a moment for the beauty of them.

Honestly, if I had read this review, I’d have never picked up The Serpent. There’s no way to make The Serpent not sound like too much. And yet I’m extremely glad I did read it—much like The Seven Citadels series, it’s the sort of novel you find yourself chewing on long after you finish it. And then, again, you find yourself wishing you could have discussed The Serpent with your English Lit class.

Warning: Apparently The Serpent was split into two books at some point, with the first book still being called The Serpent and the second book being called The Dragon. The full-length Serpent is something like 460 pages long, so keep an eye out when shopping, lest you reach the end of the book without having reached the end of the story.

[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com]

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea what to expect from this, and even a third of the way in I hadn't quite pegged it, primarily because it doesn't fit into our neat little genre boxes.

I thought it was quite Diana Wynne Jonesian to begin: a feisty heroine, saddled by elders with an impossible task, prone to grumbling, and a wonderful, light, contemporary way with dialogue (it's amazing to me to read various writings from the past, whether 50 years ago or hundreds, and see how leaden and unreadable some prose is, and how alive and contemporary other prose managed to be).

This quickly changed, as very unpleasant events occurred which DWJ would scarcely have hinted at in middle-grade fiction. My best box for this book would be it's a Fantasy version (and barely fantasy, more like alternate history--there aren't wizards casting spells and such) of the Sexy Historical Lady subgenre (e.g. Angelique, or Forever Amber). I don't know if that's an actual subgenre, but it may as well be.

Gaskell has imagined a world which presumably never existed--a South America not remotely like the one we have together, with extant dinosaurs and other strange beasts, a nearby Atlantis just offshore, and has given us a travelogue from the perspective of her heroine, who starts young and innocent, but grows up quickly due to trials and tribulations.

(If you're ever stuck for an idea for a fantasy novel, really, just grab some other genre and think of a fantasy equivalent: Harry Potter is the fantasy boarding school book, Thraxas is the fantasy detective story, etc. ) So this is fantasy sexy historical lady, and it's terrific.

Note: as some have pointed out, this book--the original book, published oh so long ago in 63, I think--was later split into two copies. If you have this one, you needn't get the second bit, the Dragon--I misunderstood and ordered it through Abe, and it was the second half of this one.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!

[Jed Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

More pulp madness from the irrepressible Gaskell, this would be a great read if at least 100 pages were cut. It seems a crime that no sensitive editor ever helped to shape this potentially delightful but deeply flawed novel. The gender politics are about as fascinating as anything I've ever encountered in SF, and the way Gaskell turns fantasy and SF conventions on their head has earned my unending admiration. If all were as good as the first and last 100 pages, this would easily warrant four or five stars.

[Strix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Content warnings: Rape, emotional abuse, abuse, violence, etc.

This is a feminist novel par excellence: the Serpent is a novel exploring the growth of a girl into a woman in a land that views women as possessions. It attempts to sell itself as a vivid adventure story, and it is that, but it's more - Cija's biography, and her long journey to attempt to find a home, stability and safety.

The book takes place in the first person POV, and it presents itself as the written diary of the protagonist. This is a delightful conceit, as while it's not precisely the most natural diary, it lends a personal flourish to Cija. The way she writes out her encounters, and the detail she gives them (less or more) lends insight into who she is.

The plot: Cija has been raised in a tower for seventeen years and taught that she's a Goddess, and that men are extinct. Almost immediately in the novel this is revealed to be false: she's traded to a foreign General as a hostage (surprise, it's a dude!) and so she's thrust into society in a strange, precarious social situation. She's ordered by her mother to seduce and murder this General, and this drives the plot for at least half of the novel - Cija's attempts to seduce him (boy, is she naive about it) and her back and forth over if she can kill him.

What you quickly learn is that this isn't a typical novel, with a straightforward plot. Instead, it's a biography. It covers the slice of life of Cija's life, and the episodes of excitement. How she befriends and makes enemies of her fellow hostages, what she does later on when she's not with the army, etc. Things do not stay still for long at any given time - the army is moving, and when she's without it she's on the move.

Before I proceed, I need to emphasize: this is a feminist novel. Not merely because of its insightful look into a heroine, but because of how she does so dang much within the strictures of her life. Her life is constant social mobility through the grace of others, and so much of that is propelled by her manipulation (intended or not) of others. She moves from hostage to a lady's servant. She moves from servant to captive slave, from slave to wanderer, from wanderer to soup-cooker, and on and on. Her life is a whirlwind and it rarely feels like she's in control of it or where it's going - bad things happen to her, as do good things (but alas, not in equal measure for a long time.) A lot of the novel is her coping with this and learning to be better about controlling her destiny. (If I have to explain how this is feminist - society is not kind, and lord, if Cija had acted like a man - well. She learns how to do that, in part. But it's about learning when it's safe to do that, and when it's safe to be a woman.)

I need to make it clear how deeply unpleasant this book can be: Cija is raped multiple times throughout the book. Men treat her like a possession, and at times she wants it and other times she doesn't. She grows and learns how to handle this emotionally. The first rape is probably the worst, because it came from a man she thought was her friend - and she protects him, afterwards.

But to this book's credit, it always, always treats this subject maturely. It's never for the sake of shocking the reader, it's because - again, this reads like a biography. This is what happens to Cija, because her world is cruel and unfair and she does her best within it.

I spent a lot of this book in dread of reading on, because I knew it would be awful, when it came. But I plunged on, and between the tragedies good things happened, and when good things didn't happen insightful things happened, that made me think and feel. A collection: Cija rescues a priest from being sentenced to death, and in the process saves a bandit. Cija becomes soup-maker for the General's wife while she's pregnant, and learns the pulse of a city. Cija spends weeks in the wilderness alone but for her wild bird-mount, and the description of the wilds are vivid. There is a magical white puma, perhaps.

The birds, the birds in this book are great. They're based off of real dinosaur-esque birds that really existed! Like giant ostriches, but rideable and with great fluffy necks and curved beaks. Cija gets her own bird, and he's a major character for a lot of the novel. Ums is big and one-eyed and black feathered and violent and yet he loves Cija completely. Why yes, he's thematically appropriate.

Cija meets a transgender woman named Lel, who suffers because in her small farming community they of course don't accept this. Cija - unfortunately she never changes her pronouns in her diary concerning Lel, but she befriends and understands Lel quite well - it's honestly a touching and as accurate a portrayal of gender dysphoria you could get from someone writing in the 1960s.

Another note: Cija spends a lot of time at the bottom of society, befriending the poorest and weakest. She's kind, and naive, and she learns a lot from them and I love this - how she never becomes quite a wilting noblewoman. In the sequence where she literally is a wilting noblewoman in a Court, she befriends a prisoner. Even at the top she finds the bottom and has - empathy for whoever's down there.

A nasty note: there is a sequence that I hate. It's one of the lowest points in the book: Cija gets captured by someone she once trusted, and he treats her literally as a possession. He rapes her, owns her, and she's so depressed at this point that - I don't want to say she lets it happen. He's stronger than her, and things are very bad for her. You may see other reviewers misreading the book and claiming that he's her "lover" - no. It's an accurate portrayal of emotional abuse mixed with rape, and it sucks. It's very well-written. I promise she escapes him, and gets a chance to reject him once and for all later.

So, so so: the Serpent keeps twisting in my mind, because it's violent and awful but it's so vivid, with so many interesting encounters and developments. And it has a mostly happy ending, even!

I really don't know if I could recommend it, but... I don't know. I love it. I never want to read it again, and I don't know if I have the stomach for the sequels, what with Cija ending up in a good place and the sequels promising more wild adventures.

If you want to read vivid, pulpy fantasy set in a prehistoric world, this is your book. Read carefully, however!

[Friscomama · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't much to add on details that are not covered in other reviews. The book I read 50 years ago popped into my thinking this morning. Given the books I read in the intervening years, many I can't remember, I thought to recommend this.

(Just a guess on the edition. I saw the book [in English] in a bookstore in Frankfort, Germany in 1968. It would probably be the paperback because I was traveling.)