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Chasm
The estate is called Windcote, its very name a masquerade, and its master, the odious Raoul Meridian, has invited a group of guests to spend a weekend, during the course of which they will find themselves driven by obsessions and confusions unlike any they ve experienced before. Among them is Albert, a disowned scion searching for an identity, and his too-beautiful companion Nadine, who is irresistibly drawn to the desert and the inscrutable vortex of Windcote. Living deep within this world of fevers and failures is the indomitable child Destina, who will lead them into the heart of a mysterious canyon, where desire and cruelty forge an implacable truth.
Dorothea Tanning, whose surrealist vision has been acclaimed worldwide as one of our era's most bold and acute, brings her formidable imagination and exquisite prose style to bear on a novel of incantatory power. As perceptively inventive as Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and as disquieting as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Chasm is a novel that will linger in the memories of readers long after they turn its last page.
It seems hardly fair that Dorothea Tanning, in a long, passionately inventive career as a painter, should have acquired as well the other harmony of prose, and that her passionate inventions as a writer should be so lovingly, so wisely resolved. Richard Howard
Dorothea Tanning, whose surrealist vision has been acclaimed worldwide as one of our era's most bold and acute, brings her formidable imagination and exquisite prose style to bear on a novel of incantatory power. As perceptively inventive as Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and as disquieting as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Chasm is a novel that will linger in the memories of readers long after they turn its last page.
It seems hardly fair that Dorothea Tanning, in a long, passionately inventive career as a painter, should have acquired as well the other harmony of prose, and that her passionate inventions as a writer should be so lovingly, so wisely resolved. Richard Howard
176 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
12 people are currently reading
755 people want to read
About the author
Dorothea Tanning
30 books44 followersDorothea Tanning was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. She has also designed sets and costumes for ballet and theatre.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
September 14, 2022
I read this book in one day which is not something I can say I've done any time in recent (admittedly fading) reading memory. It's not very long and that did help, but mostly it was because I felt a very strong compulsion to keep turning the pages. It felt tailormade to fit with many of my strongest predilections in fiction. Genre tropes fully exploited in service to some greater mysterious purpose: check. Improbable yet intriguing setting: check. Preternatural child: check. At least one vagulous character plagued by a touch of ennui: check. At least one menacing character with blurry, possibly interesting motivations: check. Unseen machinations threatening an already unstable reality: check. Text wide open to interpretation if one so chooses: check. Bonus: title that is both metaphorical and literal. Double bonus: not only is the title both metaphorical and literal but the metaphorical chasm and the literal chasm entwine in the fates of the two characters experiencing them. Triple bonus: written by a nonagenarian. Thank you, Dorothea Tanning.
Women artists. There is no such thing—or person. It’s just as much a contradiction in terms as “man artist” or “elephant artist.” You may be a woman and you may be an artist; but the one is a given and the other is you.—Dorothea Tanning
February 4, 2016
So I have a specific interest in surrealist lady novelists, apparently. There weren't a lot of them, but to current favorites Leonora Carrington and Ithell Colquhoun (and Anna Kavan, unofficially, in a pinch), add Dorothea Tanning, who had to go and tantalize me further by not only writing a novel, but by writing some kind of gothic horror novel about an ill-fated dinner party at a desert mansion. Or maybe two novels: though Chasm was published in 2004 when Tanning was 96*, it had an apparent predecessor in her long-forgotten mid-40s work Abyss. Hard to judge if this was just a new publication, a reworking, or a variation, as next-to-no information seems to be around on the older verison, but the fact that Chasm is set in 1965 suggests that it can't be entirely the same story. In any event, probably only I care about these questions, but either way, this book exists and it's good.
(The Witch, 1950)
Plotwise genre tropes abound: the house, the party guests, the hints and rumors, the foreboding is all the stuff of classic hollywood hauntings, and though the 40s original would have pre-dated the examples that spring most readily to mind, I can't help but picture the weird host as Vincent Price, emblem of that era that he is. Of course, this isn't actually pulp, and the guiding forces are much more mysterious than this all suggests, which gives the story the roving, oblique allure that never quite reaches satisfaction (and is all the stronger for it). More than anything, this seems to be a certain collapse or dissolving of identity that guides the action to its bloody conclusions.
Incidentally, my copy arrived with an invitation to the 2004 book release party tucked into the pages, and the title page is inscribed, in cursive black ink: "for dear Mary Power with a million memories + hugs. Dorothea"
(or maybe it's "Mary Rowen". Who was she? Who would get rid of this?!)
*Surrealism is good for longevity. Tanning passed away earlier this year, sadly, but was 101. Carrington was, I think, 96 at her death last year.
(The Witch, 1950)
Plotwise genre tropes abound: the house, the party guests, the hints and rumors, the foreboding is all the stuff of classic hollywood hauntings, and though the 40s original would have pre-dated the examples that spring most readily to mind, I can't help but picture the weird host as Vincent Price, emblem of that era that he is. Of course, this isn't actually pulp, and the guiding forces are much more mysterious than this all suggests, which gives the story the roving, oblique allure that never quite reaches satisfaction (and is all the stronger for it). More than anything, this seems to be a certain collapse or dissolving of identity that guides the action to its bloody conclusions.
Incidentally, my copy arrived with an invitation to the 2004 book release party tucked into the pages, and the title page is inscribed, in cursive black ink: "for dear Mary Power with a million memories + hugs. Dorothea"
(or maybe it's "Mary Rowen". Who was she? Who would get rid of this?!)
"The desert is full to bursting. The sand talks to you but its words don’t rhyme, the stones shed and, I promise you, the commonest glass turns to amethyst. So tell me, what is the past? I’ll tell you. It’s a tide of ice that came and went, and little toads that still live buried in deathless breathing. They wait, yes, and their memories keep roaring of light and liquid air. […] You can smile, go on, smile! But men forget their names in the crevices of the desert wind; they crumple like burning paper with frozen throats and eyes that roll in the sun. Their bones turn to chalk, but they still come to lie down and feel the hot breath on their faces and stars fall on their mouths. […] Stub your toe on a stumbling stone and cry. There’s no harm done. Shake the sand from your hair and pick the cactus spine from your shirt. Laugh and say it isn’t true. But in the red rock chasm, you’ll not have time to cry out. Your words will be heard only in the world you are coming to, wrapped in the dust of this one."
*Surrealism is good for longevity. Tanning passed away earlier this year, sadly, but was 101. Carrington was, I think, 96 at her death last year.
October 8, 2014
Like any effective ritual, reading of repeated ice pick stabbing, clawed eyeballs, body impaled on a thick branch intestine trailing out behind, etc., released something within me, unblocked an old pipe's soapy hair knot, a kind of psychic blockage or imaginal miasma, and a light wind passed over me, lifting my chin so I could see the sky again, a fresh sky cleansed by bloodshed, but with new blood still pressing up from the horizon.
This is very much standard gothic fare, though its desert setting sets it somewhat apart, raw nature mixing with the phantasms; and the trance-like writing, imagination dictating from the nether margins of consciousness, though polished by a sure hand, a hand surely trembling with wise old age. And its concentrated brevity, the merest stroke of a trope sufficient to create a character or a setting, bears a resemblance to great B-movie horror fare, complete with washed-up Hollywoodians, erotic machinery, hair fetishes, and an oracular granny.
Oh these nonagenarian Surrealist women! They're in possession of some kind of secret... witches all!
This is very much standard gothic fare, though its desert setting sets it somewhat apart, raw nature mixing with the phantasms; and the trance-like writing, imagination dictating from the nether margins of consciousness, though polished by a sure hand, a hand surely trembling with wise old age. And its concentrated brevity, the merest stroke of a trope sufficient to create a character or a setting, bears a resemblance to great B-movie horror fare, complete with washed-up Hollywoodians, erotic machinery, hair fetishes, and an oracular granny.
Oh these nonagenarian Surrealist women! They're in possession of some kind of secret... witches all!
September 10, 2020
I was expecting something more overtly wacky, along the lines of Carrington or Colquhoun's novels perhaps. This is more like a southern Californian desert gothic, with the main story unfolding at a leisurely pace, the characters adjusting to their troublesome relationships, and us adjusting to the shifting focus. Until the concentrated little stabs of violence near the end, which I didn't expect. I enjoyed Tanning's light touch and quiet prose; at the end:
She began the descent to her tethered mare. Untying the bridle, she paused for a moment, her gaze on the rolling dunes beyond. Clearly now, there was no reason to tell anything. There was nothing left to tell.
April 21, 2022
Very much the textual equivalent of Tanning's paintings: bizarre, gory, amoral (pos.), obliquely erotic, suffused with luminous, sickly beauty. Sometimes a bit like wading through molasses-- surprising, in such a short novel-- but hypnotic.
July 19, 2012
Something that struck me while reading this book was that it was absolutely feminine in its choices. In a broad sense, it’s really a neo-Gothic novel, with frightful mansions and mysterious figures, all sorts of archetypal imagery. I think that, judging by the templates laid in the past, we could create what this would be like as a man’s work. I think Meridian would be an anti-hero, and he would have a romance with Nadine. His end would be tragic. The novel would probably be written in his voice. Albert would probably end up with the youngest Destina, and most likely this would be seen as very progressive. Or, at least, these are my speculations based on the way the genre often goes. This is not the novel Dorothea Tanning wrote, however.
Before going into the work itself, it’s important to note that Tanning was a surrealist artist. I would highly suggest looking up her work, as I think it's important for those wishing to understand her writing. She was deeply involved in the art world. In fact, she married part of it. But, much attention has been paid to her status as wife and little to her status as autonomous person, so I’ll leave that information to her biographers. The important part is to note the background this gives her work, in particular the emphasis on Jungian archetype and the unconscious. The characters are less fully-human and more the impressions of portions of humanity, in ways barely communicable outside of the realms of the fantastic. Destina herself is Destiny, from a long line of women named Destina. These women did meet with the destinies allotted to many women throughout the ages: witch hunts, marriages of convenience, and various forms of abuse. Yet, they are also loved and adored, the way little Destina’s presence proves overpowering for Albert.
The novel also focuses on society, and one may take a very ecological view of how this works. The characters are living at odds with themselves and with each other, and must spend a weekend in this monstrous house that itself is at odds with its surroundings. In the end, everyone is at odds with the desert, except Destina and the old woman, also Destina. Nadine wants to have a union with some ideal, romantic notion of “nature” and “the wilds”, although she really has no experience with nature or wilderness at all. Meridian, as he is at odds with human feeling and at odds with womankind, is at odds with the desert. His presence contradicts it, and one can only assume that he must be destroyed by such a great force. For, while Destina is a destiny, and a power-point for the story, the most active player is the desert. It is a character in itself, wild, mysterious, mystical, and passing indiscriminate judgment on those who wish to be near it. Meridian is afraid to be too much in it. The older Destina prophesies from it. Albert wishes to be enlightened by it. Nadine wants to be a part of it. And the youngest Destina is friends with it, in the form of a magical lion, which brings her eyes.
The eyes are another important element for understanding the story. The characters are blinded by different aspects of their lives, by situation, like the orphaned housemaid. They are blinded by presumption (Nadine), a life of apathy (Albert), grotesque desires (Meridian), by looks, fame, and quests for power, as all the guests fail to truly see. They are twice blinded, by their belief in Meridian’s genius and by their own costumes, which only fool themselves. Only Destina, with her gift of eyes, may see the world with any measure of openness. She doesn’t have a particular philosophy to guide her –she’s only seven, after all. But, she is open; she is able to look and desires to know. The older Destina, too can see, with her connection to the desert. In the end, everyone is united to the desert in some way, through life or death.
The female surrealists are not as well known as their flamboyant male counterparts, and were not always over-loved by the male-dominant art world. This is terribly unfortunate, because not only is her visual work sensitive, mysterious, and extremely well executed, but her writing is clear, intriguing, and delves into themes from her unique perspective as a woman artist in the surrealist school. Her views of power, sexuality, impotence, desire, beauty, honor, and destiny are exquisitely defamiliarized, reducing expectations to the question of Why? This, then, challenges us, as readers, each with our own moral spheres, to ask ourselves why we hold certain ideas and expectations. Who gave us these expectations, and what does it say about us as individuals and as a society?
Before going into the work itself, it’s important to note that Tanning was a surrealist artist. I would highly suggest looking up her work, as I think it's important for those wishing to understand her writing. She was deeply involved in the art world. In fact, she married part of it. But, much attention has been paid to her status as wife and little to her status as autonomous person, so I’ll leave that information to her biographers. The important part is to note the background this gives her work, in particular the emphasis on Jungian archetype and the unconscious. The characters are less fully-human and more the impressions of portions of humanity, in ways barely communicable outside of the realms of the fantastic. Destina herself is Destiny, from a long line of women named Destina. These women did meet with the destinies allotted to many women throughout the ages: witch hunts, marriages of convenience, and various forms of abuse. Yet, they are also loved and adored, the way little Destina’s presence proves overpowering for Albert.
The novel also focuses on society, and one may take a very ecological view of how this works. The characters are living at odds with themselves and with each other, and must spend a weekend in this monstrous house that itself is at odds with its surroundings. In the end, everyone is at odds with the desert, except Destina and the old woman, also Destina. Nadine wants to have a union with some ideal, romantic notion of “nature” and “the wilds”, although she really has no experience with nature or wilderness at all. Meridian, as he is at odds with human feeling and at odds with womankind, is at odds with the desert. His presence contradicts it, and one can only assume that he must be destroyed by such a great force. For, while Destina is a destiny, and a power-point for the story, the most active player is the desert. It is a character in itself, wild, mysterious, mystical, and passing indiscriminate judgment on those who wish to be near it. Meridian is afraid to be too much in it. The older Destina prophesies from it. Albert wishes to be enlightened by it. Nadine wants to be a part of it. And the youngest Destina is friends with it, in the form of a magical lion, which brings her eyes.
The eyes are another important element for understanding the story. The characters are blinded by different aspects of their lives, by situation, like the orphaned housemaid. They are blinded by presumption (Nadine), a life of apathy (Albert), grotesque desires (Meridian), by looks, fame, and quests for power, as all the guests fail to truly see. They are twice blinded, by their belief in Meridian’s genius and by their own costumes, which only fool themselves. Only Destina, with her gift of eyes, may see the world with any measure of openness. She doesn’t have a particular philosophy to guide her –she’s only seven, after all. But, she is open; she is able to look and desires to know. The older Destina, too can see, with her connection to the desert. In the end, everyone is united to the desert in some way, through life or death.
The female surrealists are not as well known as their flamboyant male counterparts, and were not always over-loved by the male-dominant art world. This is terribly unfortunate, because not only is her visual work sensitive, mysterious, and extremely well executed, but her writing is clear, intriguing, and delves into themes from her unique perspective as a woman artist in the surrealist school. Her views of power, sexuality, impotence, desire, beauty, honor, and destiny are exquisitely defamiliarized, reducing expectations to the question of Why? This, then, challenges us, as readers, each with our own moral spheres, to ask ourselves why we hold certain ideas and expectations. Who gave us these expectations, and what does it say about us as individuals and as a society?
January 18, 2025
Imagine writing your debut novel at 94!!! What a legend.
February 17, 2021
It may be worth mentioning that this novel is a life-long work of Dorothea Tanning. It began as a shorter work titled "Abyss", first published in 1949 in Zero: A Quarterly Review of Literature and Art. The story was expanded for publication in 1977, and expanded again in 2004 as this novel, Chasm: A Weekend. When it appeared in its final form, Tanning was 94 years old --compare to 39 years old when first published in the Review.
April 22, 2019
Elegant prose thats draws an intricated and baffling story based on a mysterious maternal lineage that persists beyond time and place, across the centuries. Heritage, family and inevitably their many untold stories and hidden truths, are in this book expressed in many forms and shapes. From characters that seem to express archetypes of a very special deck of playing cards (the femme fatale, the dandy and playboy, the mad and the servant), Tanning composes this "chasm" through which both the main character and the reader will need to cross so to accomplish their 'destiny' - the understanding of each part in the whole picture.
I guess as it goes with psychoanalysis, this self-looking- glass-kind-of-device so dear to Surrealism, the beauty is that the more we look into it, the more layers are to be discovered. As like in one of Tanning's paintings.
I guess as it goes with psychoanalysis, this self-looking- glass-kind-of-device so dear to Surrealism, the beauty is that the more we look into it, the more layers are to be discovered. As like in one of Tanning's paintings.
September 29, 2020
De kloof is een surrealistische roman die je meeneemt naar de uiteindelijke bestemming van de personages. De lezer krijgt voor in het boek een duidelijk overzicht van de afstamming van Destina (afgeleid van destination = bestemming).
Met dit in het achterhoofd, leest het verhaal alsof alles wat gebeurt altijd al de bedoeling was en dat de personages, hoe vreemd ze ook zijn, ongewild samenwerken om tot een bepaald doel te komen.
De barones houdt zich op de achtergrond, maar is een belangrijk onderdeel in dit verhaal. Zij heeft de regie, zo lijkt het.
‘De kloof’ is een verhaal over familie, erfenis en de nooit vertelde verhalen in deze familie. De vrouwelijk lijn is de enige belangrijke lijn, dat is duidelijk.
Lees hier de rest van mijn recensie: https://graaggelezen.blogspot.com/202...
Met dit in het achterhoofd, leest het verhaal alsof alles wat gebeurt altijd al de bedoeling was en dat de personages, hoe vreemd ze ook zijn, ongewild samenwerken om tot een bepaald doel te komen.
De barones houdt zich op de achtergrond, maar is een belangrijk onderdeel in dit verhaal. Zij heeft de regie, zo lijkt het.
‘De kloof’ is een verhaal over familie, erfenis en de nooit vertelde verhalen in deze familie. De vrouwelijk lijn is de enige belangrijke lijn, dat is duidelijk.
Lees hier de rest van mijn recensie: https://graaggelezen.blogspot.com/202...
May 30, 2025
I think… i think its good we stuck mainly to painting not writing…
Like literally none of the characters were developed at all? Especially albert and nelly? And there was a whole dinner party group who just… were completely irrelevant and just left? And apart from nelly doing a bit of murder no one actually really did anything bad? Albert just fell whoopsie and nadine just panicked and walked into a spiky rock? and the whole ‘nadine was so pretty everyone looked at her and thought oh shes so pretty and she looked in the mirror and thought im so pretty’ and then almost immediately ritters ‘he was so pretty everytime he got dresser he thought im so pretty wow so so pretty’… girl ok i get it
Like literally none of the characters were developed at all? Especially albert and nelly? And there was a whole dinner party group who just… were completely irrelevant and just left? And apart from nelly doing a bit of murder no one actually really did anything bad? Albert just fell whoopsie and nadine just panicked and walked into a spiky rock? and the whole ‘nadine was so pretty everyone looked at her and thought oh shes so pretty and she looked in the mirror and thought im so pretty’ and then almost immediately ritters ‘he was so pretty everytime he got dresser he thought im so pretty wow so so pretty’… girl ok i get it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 16, 2022
Tanning does a great job of creating a cloying atmosphere and a sense of inevitable tragedy. It certainly kept me intrigued, and I found a few scenes strangely compelling, but it was all just a little too thematically vague and lacking cohesion for me. Narrative tangents and moments of flowery language bogged it down, and sadly I was left underwhelmed.
October 28, 2020
Fraaie surrealistische roman, deed me qua stijl denken aan de verhalen van Leonora Carrington.
September 26, 2023
3.75 stars ✨
May 11, 2014
It was one of the first surrealist novels I had read. I can understand why Max Ernst married this woman.
June 9, 2014
Beautiful eeriness and stark violence. I wanted to see a little more behind the closed doors, which is also how I react to Tanning's paintings.
May 4, 2016
Review coming. busy
August 11, 2020
Het surrealisme in de schilderkunst, das echt mijn ding. Maar ook literaire surrealistische werken behoren tot mijn favoriete leesvoer. De sfeer, het ongewone, de verrassende combinatie van elementen en gebeurtenissen. Ook dit boek is er eentje om van te smullen. wat een sfeer !
Kunstenares Dorothea Tanning schreef deze roman (haar enige) op 94 jarige leeftijd. Een groot deel van haar leven deelde ze met de Duitse kunstenaar Max Ernst met wie ze een huis aan de rand van de woestijn in Arizona bewoonde. Haar kunstenaarschap bestond uit het maken van surrealistische schilderijen, beeldhouwen en het schrijven van gedichten. Hans den Hartog Jager geeft in de inleiding een heldere uiteenzetting over de kunstenares, deels over haar werk als schilderes, waarbij vooral de stijl – waarmee ze zich onderscheidde van de mainstream – tot de verbeelding spreekt. Een aantal autobiografische elementen is terug te vinden in het boek, met zo’n inleiding kun je niet wachten met lezen! De titel is duidelijk een verwijzing naar de canyon, het absolute hoogtepunt uit de roman. De ondertitel ‘een weekend’ geeft de tijdsspanne aan waarbinnen het verhaal zich afspeelt.
Voor het echte verhaal begint is het nodig de beknopte voorgeschiedenis te lezen van het meisje dat in de roman zo’n belangrijke rol zal spelen. Haar naam is Destina, een naam die teruggaat naar het jaar 1682 en doorgegeven zal worden van moeder op dochter. Vele Destina’s passeren de revue. Destina uit De kloof is een zevenjarig excentriek meisje.
Raoul Meridian is heer en meester over het immense landgoed Windcote dat hij bewoont met Destina en Nelly. Zijn verleden is schimmig en Destina is niet zijn echte dochter. Huishoudster Nelly wordt voor het gemak gouvernante genoemd, maar heeft daarnaast nog een functie. Allen hebben hun eigen agenda, zo heeft Raoul buitengewoon veel macht; wie eenmaal onder zijn invloed is komt niet makkelijk vrij. Het grote huis staat aan de rand van de woestijn. Vlak in de buurt is er een canyon die zeer tot de verbeelding spreekt van Destina, hier ontmoet ze ‘s nachts haar vriend, die geen menselijk wezen is en hiermee het verhaal een heerlijke, geheimzinnige spanning geeft. Net als in haar schilderijen weet de auteur het surrealistische bijzonder goed te verbeelden.
Het boek is een aaneenschakeling van merkwaardige gebeurtenissen. Meridian lokt zijn met zorg geselecteerde vrouwen in zijn laboratorium alwaar hij zich uitleeft in zijn fantasieën. De “paringsdans” bestaat uit het betoveren van het slachtoffer met woord en daad, hij kapselt haar in en isoleert haar zo van haar omgeving, net als een spin die zijn web spint. Het beïnvloeden gaat gepaard met bizarre rituelen, zo haalt hij de vrouw over haar haren af te laten knippen en met kleding is ook iets bijzonders gaande. Het verhaal trekt op meerdere manieren de aandacht. Allereerst de uitzonderlijke beschrijvingen van uiterlijke kenmerken waardoor schilderijbeelden opgeroepen worden. Wanneer je de schilderijen van Tanning bekijkt passen die wonderwel bij de beelden die ze schrijft.
Afwijkende kleding en de combinatie natuur en mens scheppen hallucinante beelden. Geschreven tekst leent zich wellicht eenvoudiger voor het weergeven van psychische vervreemding dan schilderijen, in elk geval is er in de roman veel ruimte voor die vervreemding. De auteur maakt gebruik van interne monologen om duidelijk te maken welke transformaties de personages doormaken. Niet alleen bij zichzelf, maar ook in hun relatie tot anderen. Zo is Meridian compleet vertwijfeld wanneer hij de controle kwijtgeraakt is over zijn prooi:
De oude dame, een barones die apart van Windcote woont, is niet constant aanwezig, maar laat op cruciale momenten van zich horen, zij is de lijn naar het verleden en laat zich niet opzijzetten.
Wie houdt van de innige band tussen beeldende kunst en literatuur en kan genieten van surrealistische beelden is er slechts één advies: ga dit boek lezen en blijf verwonderd achter na het lezen over lot, lotsbestemming, transformatie, wraak en macht!
Kunstenares Dorothea Tanning schreef deze roman (haar enige) op 94 jarige leeftijd. Een groot deel van haar leven deelde ze met de Duitse kunstenaar Max Ernst met wie ze een huis aan de rand van de woestijn in Arizona bewoonde. Haar kunstenaarschap bestond uit het maken van surrealistische schilderijen, beeldhouwen en het schrijven van gedichten. Hans den Hartog Jager geeft in de inleiding een heldere uiteenzetting over de kunstenares, deels over haar werk als schilderes, waarbij vooral de stijl – waarmee ze zich onderscheidde van de mainstream – tot de verbeelding spreekt. Een aantal autobiografische elementen is terug te vinden in het boek, met zo’n inleiding kun je niet wachten met lezen! De titel is duidelijk een verwijzing naar de canyon, het absolute hoogtepunt uit de roman. De ondertitel ‘een weekend’ geeft de tijdsspanne aan waarbinnen het verhaal zich afspeelt.
Voor het echte verhaal begint is het nodig de beknopte voorgeschiedenis te lezen van het meisje dat in de roman zo’n belangrijke rol zal spelen. Haar naam is Destina, een naam die teruggaat naar het jaar 1682 en doorgegeven zal worden van moeder op dochter. Vele Destina’s passeren de revue. Destina uit De kloof is een zevenjarig excentriek meisje.
Raoul Meridian is heer en meester over het immense landgoed Windcote dat hij bewoont met Destina en Nelly. Zijn verleden is schimmig en Destina is niet zijn echte dochter. Huishoudster Nelly wordt voor het gemak gouvernante genoemd, maar heeft daarnaast nog een functie. Allen hebben hun eigen agenda, zo heeft Raoul buitengewoon veel macht; wie eenmaal onder zijn invloed is komt niet makkelijk vrij. Het grote huis staat aan de rand van de woestijn. Vlak in de buurt is er een canyon die zeer tot de verbeelding spreekt van Destina, hier ontmoet ze ‘s nachts haar vriend, die geen menselijk wezen is en hiermee het verhaal een heerlijke, geheimzinnige spanning geeft. Net als in haar schilderijen weet de auteur het surrealistische bijzonder goed te verbeelden.
Het boek is een aaneenschakeling van merkwaardige gebeurtenissen. Meridian lokt zijn met zorg geselecteerde vrouwen in zijn laboratorium alwaar hij zich uitleeft in zijn fantasieën. De “paringsdans” bestaat uit het betoveren van het slachtoffer met woord en daad, hij kapselt haar in en isoleert haar zo van haar omgeving, net als een spin die zijn web spint. Het beïnvloeden gaat gepaard met bizarre rituelen, zo haalt hij de vrouw over haar haren af te laten knippen en met kleding is ook iets bijzonders gaande. Het verhaal trekt op meerdere manieren de aandacht. Allereerst de uitzonderlijke beschrijvingen van uiterlijke kenmerken waardoor schilderijbeelden opgeroepen worden. Wanneer je de schilderijen van Tanning bekijkt passen die wonderwel bij de beelden die ze schrijft.
Afwijkende kleding en de combinatie natuur en mens scheppen hallucinante beelden. Geschreven tekst leent zich wellicht eenvoudiger voor het weergeven van psychische vervreemding dan schilderijen, in elk geval is er in de roman veel ruimte voor die vervreemding. De auteur maakt gebruik van interne monologen om duidelijk te maken welke transformaties de personages doormaken. Niet alleen bij zichzelf, maar ook in hun relatie tot anderen. Zo is Meridian compleet vertwijfeld wanneer hij de controle kwijtgeraakt is over zijn prooi:
De oude dame, een barones die apart van Windcote woont, is niet constant aanwezig, maar laat op cruciale momenten van zich horen, zij is de lijn naar het verleden en laat zich niet opzijzetten.
Wie houdt van de innige band tussen beeldende kunst en literatuur en kan genieten van surrealistische beelden is er slechts één advies: ga dit boek lezen en blijf verwonderd achter na het lezen over lot, lotsbestemming, transformatie, wraak en macht!
March 1, 2018
Tanning, who completed this book in her 80's, has written an odd, short (150 pages), novel. Tanning is better known as a painter, married to Max Ernst, and heavily influenced by surrealism. I had the feeling that someone could have looked at one of Tanning's paintings (take your pick, there are dozens on a website) and suggested that she write a prose equivalent of her visual effort.
The result could well have resembled CHASM with its strong visual contrasts. There is an huge old mansion, Windcote, set in the middle of a desert, as if civilization were surrounded by a vast hostile nature. But "civilization" should be qualified, as the mansion is owned by a rich and degenerate Raoul Meridian who has some peculiarly aberrant interests. He lives here with his young daughter, Destina, who descends from a long line of women, all named Destina, and a housekeeper, Nelly.
Raoul has weekend parties to which he invites Hollywood types, including a feuding couple, Albert and Nadine. Albert forms an unlikely friendship with the little girl, Destina, who seems to be in tune with nature and has visions of a mountain lion which lives in the desert canyons.
What transpires on this weekend makes up the story, and it owes a good deal to a mixture of Jungian archetypes and Freudian eruptions of the unconscious. Albert takes Nadine, who has a shallow view of the forces of nature, to see one of the mountain lions, a representation of the violence in nature, and in Albert himself. The results are disastrous. Back in the mansion, the put-upon Nelly erupts with her own suppressed violent feelings against Raoul, her heretofore dominant master, and Destina discovers that she has emerging powers of primal witchcraft which help explain her affinity for stalking panthers who bring her gifts of detached eyes ("blindness" on the part of others?).
It's a fulsome brew of clashing forces, bizarrely interesting, and short enough not to belabor its approach. I'm not sorry that I read it, but I have no inclination to read much more of this kind of fiction. I'd prefer at least a nod to more realistic characterization. .
The result could well have resembled CHASM with its strong visual contrasts. There is an huge old mansion, Windcote, set in the middle of a desert, as if civilization were surrounded by a vast hostile nature. But "civilization" should be qualified, as the mansion is owned by a rich and degenerate Raoul Meridian who has some peculiarly aberrant interests. He lives here with his young daughter, Destina, who descends from a long line of women, all named Destina, and a housekeeper, Nelly.
Raoul has weekend parties to which he invites Hollywood types, including a feuding couple, Albert and Nadine. Albert forms an unlikely friendship with the little girl, Destina, who seems to be in tune with nature and has visions of a mountain lion which lives in the desert canyons.
What transpires on this weekend makes up the story, and it owes a good deal to a mixture of Jungian archetypes and Freudian eruptions of the unconscious. Albert takes Nadine, who has a shallow view of the forces of nature, to see one of the mountain lions, a representation of the violence in nature, and in Albert himself. The results are disastrous. Back in the mansion, the put-upon Nelly erupts with her own suppressed violent feelings against Raoul, her heretofore dominant master, and Destina discovers that she has emerging powers of primal witchcraft which help explain her affinity for stalking panthers who bring her gifts of detached eyes ("blindness" on the part of others?).
It's a fulsome brew of clashing forces, bizarrely interesting, and short enough not to belabor its approach. I'm not sorry that I read it, but I have no inclination to read much more of this kind of fiction. I'd prefer at least a nod to more realistic characterization. .
Read
September 18, 2024“I suppose I was looking for something to believe in
Worth living for and dying for
And I've come this far on my journey
Black Mesa…”
Chasm is the meeting of two different ages in the life of Dorothea Tanning, a versatile surrealist painter. This is her only novel, published when she was ninety-four. It tells the story of Destina. Burnt in Salem for sorcery, she seems to reincarnate in each of her descendants. But the malevolent will of the sinister Meridian captures her. She stands still and gets bogged down in a manor located at the heart of an American desert, where her master celebrates rites which look like the parody of a close, conceited society.
Not far from there, a mysterious feline lives in a black mesa. It sets a link with nature and savageness. This secretly allows the last-born of Destina’s lineage to turn away from Meridian’s materialistic mundanities. The woman-child is a well-known surrealistic fetish. Here, it arouses envy in the heart of some manor guests. They sense the possibility of giving a meaning to their washed-up lives, here in this desert where, disoriented, they fall prey to their vulture-like streams of consciousness.
At the heart of the mesa, a canyon opens. Destina and her pursuers are irresistibly drawn to it. This rift is rife with dangers, but it also promises deliverance.
This intoxicating novel doesn’t look and feel like anything I read before, not even Peake’s Gormenghast despite some similar themes.
The epigraph of this post is provided by the track Black Mesa by Biosphere, which itself samples the movie The petrified forest.
Worth living for and dying for
And I've come this far on my journey
Black Mesa…”
Chasm is the meeting of two different ages in the life of Dorothea Tanning, a versatile surrealist painter. This is her only novel, published when she was ninety-four. It tells the story of Destina. Burnt in Salem for sorcery, she seems to reincarnate in each of her descendants. But the malevolent will of the sinister Meridian captures her. She stands still and gets bogged down in a manor located at the heart of an American desert, where her master celebrates rites which look like the parody of a close, conceited society.
Not far from there, a mysterious feline lives in a black mesa. It sets a link with nature and savageness. This secretly allows the last-born of Destina’s lineage to turn away from Meridian’s materialistic mundanities. The woman-child is a well-known surrealistic fetish. Here, it arouses envy in the heart of some manor guests. They sense the possibility of giving a meaning to their washed-up lives, here in this desert where, disoriented, they fall prey to their vulture-like streams of consciousness.
At the heart of the mesa, a canyon opens. Destina and her pursuers are irresistibly drawn to it. This rift is rife with dangers, but it also promises deliverance.
This intoxicating novel doesn’t look and feel like anything I read before, not even Peake’s Gormenghast despite some similar themes.
The epigraph of this post is provided by the track Black Mesa by Biosphere, which itself samples the movie The petrified forest.
June 13, 2019
This is highly idiosyncratic surrealist tale in the line of Leonora Carrington (they share a connection with Max Ernst) and early Angela Carter. The surreal elements: A 7 year old girl called Destina who bears the past and future destinies of all her female forebears as charted in the “Chronology” the book starts with. Her mother, grandmother, etc.: they’re all called Destina. She is at once childlike and horridly mature; a monster, a femme fatale in full control, a sweet little girl. She has a collection of fresh animal eyes brought to her by her pal, a desert Lion she visits at night.
Her father is the sad, sadistic and ultimately powerless fetishist called Raoul Meridian. Her governess is all Id, subconscious desire and hatred without a trace of rationality or reflection, oblivious of the past though she does remember Raoul collecting her for her future job from a home for delinquent girls. Together they inhabit a gothic mansion in a vast American desert. Guests arrive for the weekend and playtime starts. The entire story plays out at a subliminal level. The prose is full of surprises. In the end I liked the slim book most for its being so highly unusual. I’d love to explore the Carrington and /Carter parallels one day.
Her father is the sad, sadistic and ultimately powerless fetishist called Raoul Meridian. Her governess is all Id, subconscious desire and hatred without a trace of rationality or reflection, oblivious of the past though she does remember Raoul collecting her for her future job from a home for delinquent girls. Together they inhabit a gothic mansion in a vast American desert. Guests arrive for the weekend and playtime starts. The entire story plays out at a subliminal level. The prose is full of surprises. In the end I liked the slim book most for its being so highly unusual. I’d love to explore the Carrington and /Carter parallels one day.
July 8, 2019
Very hallucinatory. I wouldn’t say that I liked it too much cuz it reminded me too much of the surrealist motifs of her painting. I would say that she wrote her novel with “wordified” images, as everything in the novel was exceptionally visualised. I can see Salvador Dali in her novel, both his figure and his works. Her way of writing would fit better for poetry (and she was, indeed, also a poet). Despite all that, Tanning is still the artist that I’d love to become - a polymath who explored various mediums to convey herself.
June 12, 2022
Absolutely loved this visually rich and tense book, in which a young couple go to stay at the architectural-mishmash house of a creepy old landowner in the middle of the desert. Gormenghast meets Courage the Cowardly Dog. It's gorgeous but I wish it was longer, as it ends very abruptly and key characters only have maybe one or two scenes of interaction. Tanning's wit and mastery of the surreal shine though in every scene.
June 1, 2025
2.5 stars
'Trancelike, his spirit possessed by an overwhelming torpor, he did her bidding like a dog.'
A intense, bizarre novella with bouts of vivid and hallucinatory imagery.
The gothic elements are very fun but the narrative does seem to jump around an skip ahead a little too much to be fully convincing.
'Trancelike, his spirit possessed by an overwhelming torpor, he did her bidding like a dog.'
A intense, bizarre novella with bouts of vivid and hallucinatory imagery.
The gothic elements are very fun but the narrative does seem to jump around an skip ahead a little too much to be fully convincing.
November 17, 2025
“It was, she knew, the end of something. A memory, even an unreliable one. Looking up, she saw it: a piece of dream broken off the rock of herself. There it was, one disappearing spark like a little diamond spun up into the profundities.”
5 little book, big punch stars
Wow wow wow. What a dark, magical little story this is. I cannot believe wrote this when she was 94! A new favorite.
5 little book, big punch stars
Wow wow wow. What a dark, magical little story this is. I cannot believe wrote this when she was 94! A new favorite.
September 2, 2019
I love Tanning's art, I really do, but she is not much of a writer. The will is there but the skill is lacking. However, as a fan of her paintings, it is nice to get to know her protagonist Destina as it gives somewhat of a backstory to the mysterious girl in her paintings.
August 28, 2023
Meer geïntrigeerd door het levensverhaal van de auteur dan door het boek. Geslaagd in het neerzetten van een bizarre sfeer, maar de personages mochten meer uitgediept. Begreep het geheel niet zo goed.
March 26, 2025
Awful. Surreal nonsense. Spooky big house mystery weirdness. No character building of any kind, didn’t care about any of them. I confess I am a hater of dream sequences in books and this was just like reading one long dream sequence. Terrible.
April 28, 2019
Weird book.
Disguised as poetics.
All characters are flawed and seemingly doomed in a house in the American desert.
Disguised as poetics.
All characters are flawed and seemingly doomed in a house in the American desert.
September 14, 2019
Weird, freaky, but overall really nice, very old timy gothic novel vibe.
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