Rachel Pollack, Continued

Imagining fictional worlds . . .

First—a somber welcome to new readers. This week on EP is devoted to the remarkable career of Rachel Pollack, who is not only a Tarot luminary, but an admired creator in several other realms. You can see the beginning of the series here.

Today’s note focuses on Rachel’s accomplishments as a novelist and writer of short fiction. Our starting place is The Tarot of Perfection, her 2008 collection of very different but equally inventive stories . . . .

This particular book is long out of print, so if you don’t already have a copy, you may not be able to acquire one easily. But here’s a list of the eight stories it contains:

And here is an extended excerpt from the Introduction, in which Rachel shares some information about how the stories came to be:

I will mix the cards and choose a small number at random, then turn them over to see what plot or characters they suggest. Most often I will ignore the cards’ usual meanings and qualities and instead let the pictures work on me as if I have never seen them before and know nothing about them (this alone is an interesting exercise to try). The story "The Souls In The Trees” began with a handful of cards from a deck called The Golden Tarot of the Renaissance, whose medieval images include a picture of a headless woman, and another of a group of women looking cruelly at a young man suffering on his knees. The story developed far beyond these original images and the moments they suggested. At various times I drew more cards to help at transitions or difficult moments.

Other tales began with various inspirations but then the cards (various decks were used, such as The Tarot of Prague, and of course The Fairytale Tarot) helped to elaborate where the story might go. The idea for the final story, "Master Matyas,” originally came to me after looking at an inscription on an antique fountain pen. Possibly because of such a tenuous beginning, or maybe because I wanted it to bring together the themes and images of the previous stories, it was very difficult to write. I found myself turning to the cards several times, not to develop new ideas, but almost the opposite, to simplify an over-burdened plot. Just as we might ask in a reading “What is the person’s core truth in this situation?" so we can choose cards to look at the essential qualities of a story or character.

I’m fascinated by this description, which captures the experience not only of being a writer, but also of reading Tarot. She continues this way:

The Tarot has often seemed to me like a living being. The cards themselves are just cardboard and colored ink, but a kind of spirit inhabits them. It gave me pleasure to weave them into the stories.

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I have to confess that I almost never read fiction—so I can’t speak from personal experience about Rachel’s other, more well-known works of fiction. I’ll have to fall back on facts, and expert opinions.

• Unquenchable Fire won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award in 1989. So far I’ve learned enough to realize there’s no way of summarizing the complex reality Rachel invented. Over the weekend I hope to say more about the themes that run through her work—already visible in this extraordinary early novel.

• Temporary Agency followed in 1994. It’s set in the same world—an alternate America where storytellers are revered and magic is an ordinary part of everyone’s life. “Brilliantly original, funny, and fascinating,” according to Kirkus Reviews, Temporary Agency was nominated for both the Nebula and Mythopoeic awards.

• In 1997, Godmother Night won the World Fantasy Award, and was praised this way by Publisher’s Weekly: “Pollack's fairy-tale plot is resourceful and original, but here, as in her earlier fiction, the emphasis is on character as she portrays women's intimate relationships with one another with resonance and realism. This is another fine outing by one of the most gifted and sensitive fantasists working today.”

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Tomorrow’s post will include Rachel’s 2019 collection The Beatrix Gates, which crosses almost every boundary you can think of. But the focus will be on her pathbreaking place in the world of DC Comics.

Friday’s post will talk about Rachel’s role as a teacher and mentor—not only in the Tarot world, but as a long-time faculty member in Goddard College's MFA writing program. And look for something about her poetry over the weekend.

C