The Catacombs

by William Demby, Nathan A. Scott (Contributor)

Book by Demby, William

Genres: Fiction, African American, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

African American novelist William Demby was born on December 25, 1922 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1950 Demby published his first novel, Beetlecreek, which he situated in West Virginia. Fifteen years later he published his second novel, The Catacombs. His novels carry themes of race and national identity, and although he spent much of his life into Italy, his novels were focused on American experiences.

Reviews

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine if The Sun Also Rises was written by an expatriate experimental African American author in the 1960's, set (mostly) in Italy, and - as opposed to being littered with casual racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism - demonstrated a deep concern with, and understanding of, modern social issues facing both women and African Americans, and you're getting close to The Catacombs. To that, add the backdrop of the Cuban Missle Crisis and the haunting and crushing certainty that the bombs will rain down at any moment, the Selma march in Birmingham, the fever pitch of racial tensions building in America, and an almost constant deluge of deaths, threats of death, and suicides, and you’ll find you’re getting even closer.

But, what you really get when you read The Catacombs is an excellent book of (semi) experimental fiction.

When I began this novel, I secretly decided that, though I would exercise a strict selection of the facts to write down, be they "fictional" facts or "true" facts taken from newspapers or directly observed events from my own life, once I had written something down I would neither edit nor censor it (myself). The novel must be like a plum cake: while baking a plum cake or after it is baked one does not remove a raisin or a nut just because one doesn't approve of the way it has occupied a choice site or moved to close to another raisin or nut" (p. 93)

At the center of the novel is William Demby himself, living in Rome, writing a novel about Doris, who is the mistress of a Italian Count (and of Demby himself). And, as noted in the quote above, the novel is mish-mash of “fictional” facts and “true” facts. William Demby – in the novel – reads numerous daily periodicals every day, and the novel is peppered with headlines and quotes from – what I can only assume are – actual papers from the time. At time the quotes and background noise overwhelm the text itself, as the ongoing worldwide crises encroach and overpower the simple story that Demby is attempting to tell.

"...I tell P. that I am writing a novel and that we are discussing how the novel should end, and that this conversation about how the novel shall end is a central theme of the third chapter" (p. 39, third chapter, after a discussion about how the novel should end)

The novel is also interested in the act of writing the novel itself, and considerable time is devoted to discussing the composition of the novel, as well as the influence of the act of writing on relationships when the “subject” is aware of the ongoing writing - William is compared to both a vampire and an undertaker by Doris, and each comparison has its own weight and validity. At times the “real world” and the “novel world” overlap – as when William realizes that he has based the character of Doris (who, as far as I can tell, was an actual person) on another woman that he knew (Laura) – so not only does the real inform and encroach on the fictional, but the real encroaches on the real itself and the overlap feeds the fiction.

Demby also likes to play around with time, or, as he puts it:

...the theory of cubistic time I am so recklessly fooling around with" (p. 40)

where the past and the present (and the future) all swim and wash together and recollections intermingle with present action, and yet, they are at the same time informed – and acknowledged – by “present-day” William Demby who is writing the novel from his position of future omniscience.

The writing here is all crisp and precise, the characters are vibrant, and the constant feedback noise of the real world – and the discussions of pop culture that verge into the process of mythification – all add together to make a compelling read, of a book that has been sadly forgotten, and deserves renewed attention.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book I felt Demby was keenly aware that old modes of experience—and the old literary forms of Hemingway and Dos Passos and Ellison—were breaking under the weight of something revolutionary and anti-colonial but also computerized and hyper-mediated, something he sensed but in 1964 did not yet have the stock language to articulate, and that his struggle to process the mundane (reading fifteen newspapers in Rome one morning) and the world-historical (attending the March on Washington the next morning) through some weird Transnational Bourgeois Black Radical Post-McLuhan horizon is what gives The Catacombs the "ahead-of-its-time" vibe noted by other readers. That stuff was pretty cool, but the story was kind of boring.

[Joshlynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique and completely forgotten novel by a unique and completely forgotten writer.

[Oscreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This writer was ahead of his time. Brilliant work.

[Skyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Then it was that a terrible doubt began to creep into my mind: Is this Event taking place because of the television cameras, or are the television cameras here because of the event? This, I suppose, is only a contemporary version of that most ancient of theatrical riddles: What is true and what is illusion? But if history now is to become televised theater, where are we the intellectuals to stand? In the audience? On the stage? Or in the prompters cramped and dusty pit?"

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to reread this obscure masterwork of experimental African-American fiction and was impressed all over again by its subtlety and intricacy.

It's meta and multilayered, starting from the point of view of author and expatriate William Demby, living in Rome and reading newspapers about worldwide unrest. His own social circle experiences unrest in the form of suicides and infidelities, and the arrival of a beautiful African-American actress named Doris only intensifies the agitation. The imperial history and artistic legacy of Rome mirror the scientific and economic might of the USA; the patriotic hubris of modern America ignores the internal and external tensions that ended the Roman empire. There are references to thermodynamics, theology, art and poetry that all contribute to the theme of common history and a shared potential for the unknown future.

Underneath it all are the catacombs, the labyrinthine burial ground that seems to be a Freudian unconscious as well as a quantum reality where conventional laws don't apply. It's a thrilling literary feat and a gripping read.

[Sonora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Neither liked it nor found what I was looking for.. One hell of a failure.

[Sonora · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the second time, not better, not at all helpful..