The Runes Have Been Cast - Robert Irwin

I hadn't heard the term campus novel until on the same day I started reading The Runes Have Been Cast by coincidence I also read a review that used the term in respect of RF Kuang’s latest book Katabasis - but coincidences seem to abound when you enter the mysterious worlds of Robert Irwin. The Oxford academic setting and the search to understand the workings and secrets of the world here also reminds me of Javier Marías’ Tu rostro mañana trilogy, which also has an old master with a history in the war who pulls strings, but although Le Carré is also referenced here as with Marías, it's more JRR Tolkien and runes that hint at more esoteric knowledge in The Runes Have Been Cast. It's fascinating to see the differing approaches that these two writers take, showing that there is much to be explored in this subject.

There are also two ways of acquiring knowledge and absorbing it in Robert Irwin's book, leading to two different fates. Set in the late 1950s/early 60s, friends Lancelyn and Bernard are at Oxford reading literature and specialising in ghost stories with a particular interest in MR James. Both are highly intelligent young men even though they come from different backgrounds. Bernard has a grammar school background, while Lancelyn studied at Eton as his absent wealthy parents travelled the world. Lancelyn is aware of his limited experience of the world and has misgivings about the future and the modern world, unsure about how he will cope with life and work outside of academia. An encounter with Molly, from a neighbouring girls college, causes him further anxieties, becoming an influential (or destructive) figure in both men's lives.

After both young men ace their final exams, Lancelyn's former tutor Raven recommends that he apply for a post that has become vacant in St Andrews as a lecturer in 17th century literature. The appointment to the sleepy village and old traditional ways "living like a monk" seems to suit him and allay his concerns for a while, at least until he can bluff his way through an off-the-cuff thesis he has proposed on Thomas Browne that was part of the conditions on him being given the post. He's not sure he can manage this, despite using the immersive technique of entering the world of writers works that he has learned  from Raven. While settling in he discovers that the lecturer who previously occupied his post committed suicide after making strange pronouncements about witches and the afterlife.

The title of Irwin's book references the ghost story 'Casting the Runes' by M R James, in which a man called Karswell plots revenge on an academic who rejected his manuscript by writing death-dealing runes on a sheet of paper, with a twist that the paper is surreptitiously returned to him. For Lancelyn, an encounter with a strange and eccentric character called Iron Foot Jack in a Soho coffee shop with a taste in morbid decoration called Le Macabre, serves a similar purpose as the encounter blends into his unconscious mind along with the story of M R James.

To say that The Runes Have Been Cast is curious and operates on several levels is to state the obvious when you are talking about Robert Irwin. Stories, fantasies and flights of imagination all combine, not to mention some potentially supernatural occurrences - or perhaps the latter is more something hoped for rather than actually experienced. On the one hand there is the 'straightforward’ story of an academic trying to resist the pull of the real world, or not so much resist as ignore it. Lancelyn's academic studies are his way of exploring the world and put a different perspective on his experiences, the young academic preferring the neatness of plots and wishing there was a taxonomy where such complications can be resolved, where characters are rendered less threatening and less hard to work out than real people. The stories colour his view of the world to a whole other level however as he employs the ‘Ignatian method’ of immersion. The familiar theme of 'Life as a novel and novels as life' comes into play as it always does in Irwin's writing.

There is a lot of humour here as well, poking some mild fun at academia and the academic rivalry of young men taking themselves and their studies in esoteric subjects seriously. Seeking messages in supernatural alphabet spaghetti, looking for cryptic anagram messages and exploring the underlying intent of ghost stories, Lancelyn in particular is just trying to bring a sense of order and meaning to a world and “a narrative unity it did not possess” to his own life. Faced with a future that is changing and unknown, there is a desire to believe that there is always another level of understanding to be gained, that there is something greater out there beyond.

In the context of Irwin’s work, The Runes Have Been Cast comes closest to Satan Wants Me in more of a campus novel setting. The only mind altering substances driving Lancelyn’s descent into fantastical ideas of demons and curses however are the esoteric volumes of mysticism he seeks out in dusty corners of second hand book stores clashing with the popular work of M R James and Dennis Wheatley that Lancelyn is convinced hold deeper knowledge and meaning. The Runes Have Been Cast, as you might expect then, also spirals off into madness or perhaps just into fictional madness - the two things are never quite as distinct as they might be in Robert Irwin novels. There could have been a curse in the runes, or it could just be that Lancelyn believes there is. The follow-up to this book Tom's Version, which I believe from the synopsis has connections with this book, suggest that there might be more to this story to come.

Reading notes. The Runes Have Been Cast by Robert Irwin was first published in 2021 by Dedalus. I read a second hand Dedalus original paperback withdrawn from Doncaster Library with two dates marked and in nearly new condition, probably never having been actually read by anyone. I am a big fan of Robert Irwin and have read all his fiction ever since becoming entranced by The Arabian Nightmare and recognising in it an original voice in fantastical writing. I can't explain why it has taken this long, but I am only now catching up with his two most recent books. The last Irwin I read was My Life is Like a Fairy Tale in 2020 and I was surprised but pleased to see part of my review for that, originally published in The Digital Fix, is quoted at the back of this book.

Since writing the above, I've learned that Robert Irwin died last year at the age of 77, which I personally think is tragic. I see that his last unfinished book, Rapture of the Deep, has been completed by Andrew Crumey and is being published in November. I can't imagine anyone following in Irwin's footsteps, but Crumey seems to be a kindred spirit as well as fellow author at Dedalus, so I will be looking out for his work as well.