Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name - Edward M. Erdelac

The Mensch With No Name is the second volume of the collected tales of the Jewish gunslinger and mystic known as the Merkabah Rider by Edward M. Erdelac. It contains episodes 5 - 8 and is a continuation of the story of Tales of the High Planes Drifter, which I read earlier this year. Looking at those titles, Erdelac also has an appreciation for the Western genre in cinema as well as in literature. Erdelac's brand of Western doesn't just include the standard ingredients of hard men, dusty towns, hostile natives and bandits,  he also includes a lot of religious and supernatural elements. In the first volume these are mostly drawn from Jewish mysticism but in this volume ranges more widely.

In the final episode of Tales of the High Planes Drifter, Rider uncovers information that makes his quest to find his former master and the man who is responsible for the destruction of the religious order they were once part of, all the more urgent. Adon's plans shake the very foundations of Rider's beliefs and threaten the nature of existence. As Rider's search intensifies, he meets with more and more resistance both in the real word as well as in the Yenne Velt. Slowly his defences are broken down by this relentless assault, but help arrives from unexpected quarters.

The title of the novel prompted another look at the Yiddish language for me. The word 'Mensch' is derived from German (and until we changed the spelling to 'mens' in the 1950s, it existed in Dutch as well). In both German and Dutch is means 'human being' or 'man' (as in the species). English doesn't really have a single word translation for it that is an exact fit.In Yiddish it seems to have acquired an additional meaning. A good person, a person of honour and integrity. It's interesting to see how such meanings drift. This volume again contains quite a lot of words in various languages. I may be a bit odd in that respect but the appendix is definitely an interesting read (although it would be nice if the notes had included what language the phrases were coming from a bit more consistently).

As I mentioned in this introduction, the religious themes in the stories range a bit more widely than just Jewish mysticism. There are references to Aztec and Hindu mythology for instance but also quite a few to H.P. Lovercraft's Chtulu mythos and a depiction of Lucifer who has apparently read John Milton, all hinting at a reality much more complex than the world view Rider has believed in thus far. It forces him to re-examine his beliefs and introduces an interesting bit of tension into the story. On the one hand, a fellow Jewish mystic reminds him of how unorthodox some of his own practices are. On the other, he is forced to acknowledge that his views on creation may not be complete.

Erdelac also includes a number of historical titbits into the novel, so many in fact that I probably missed most of them. It is easy to focus on the adventure side of the story but for the real fan of the western genre there is a lot more to uncover than just that. The most notable historical reference is probably the appearance of gambler, gunman and dentist Doc Holliday when Rider arrives in the town of Las Vegas in episode six: The Damned Dingus. For the linguists among us, dingus is actually derived from the Dutch word 'ding', meaning thing. It appears our influence on the English language extends beyond nautical terms and that dreadful word apartheid. What did make me blink in historical terms was the appearance of a bunch of Apache warriors on horseback in episode seven: The Outlaw Gods.

In the review of the previous volume I said that Rider would probably benefit from a full novel treatment. Although this volume, and I assume this goes for the third one as well, follows the same format as the previous one, each collecting four novella length pieces, I feel that is has become a lot harder to see them as individual novellas. Many references to events in previous adventures pop up in these stories. Erdelac does some repeating on occasion but I very much doubt the reader will get the full picture from that if one of these episodes were to be read as a standalone.

Although I must say that I'm not sure the episodic nature of the narrative does the story any favours in terms of pacing in particular, the second volume of Merkabah Rider adventures is again a very entertaining read. Erdelac combines his knowledge of the Old West in literature and cinema as well as in history with a variety of religious themes that give the work more depth than one would expect of a classic western. The Mensch With No Name is a solid continuation of the first four episodes, expanding Erdelac's vision of the Old West in surprising ways.  I guess there is a reason they invented the label Weird West for such novels. Looking forward to the third volume, Have Glyphs Will Travel.

Book Details
Title: Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name
Author: Edward M. Erdelac
Publisher: Damnation Books
Pages: 294
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61572-189-4
First published: 2010

Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter - Edward M. Erdelac

My father has an interest in the Old West and Native American cultures in particular. As a result our house was well stocked with books on that topic when I was young. All manner of non-fiction of course, including whole stacks of the tiny anthropological magazine De Kiva. But there was lots of fiction too. I read widely, from Arendsoog to Conny Coll and from Karl May to Dee Brown. It is certainly a period that inspired a lot of literature, from the wildly inaccurate or downright racist to well researched and tragically realistic. I haven't read a lot of westerns in the classic sense of the word recently but the genre does pop up once in a a while in unexpected guises. There is Dan Simmons' western/ghost story Black Hills, China Mieville's socialist wild west story Iron Council, Cherie Priest' steampunk westerns in the Clockwork Century and course Gemma Files' hexslingers in A Book of Tongues. I guess one way or another, I keep coming back to it.

Edward M. Erdelac adds to this stack of unusual westerns with Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter. It's a collection of four novella length pieces of fiction, following the adventures of The Rider, in true western style, a lonely traveller with a troubled past, eternally searching for the one who wronged him. What sets him apart from your average gunslinger is that he doesn't hunt bandits but demons. The Rider is a Jewish mystic, armed to deal with the most severe threats the supernatural world offers, among them his former master.

The novellas are set in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The Rider visits a number of isolated, dusty town, where life is hard and often short, the law has a tenuous hold on the community at best and fear of Apache raiders is still epidemic. Although he faces a different supernatural challenge in each of the novellas, the search for his former master is binding element in all of them. Each of the novellas begins with a scene that places the reader firmly in the western setting, sometimes even existing towns, before moving into what for most readers will be the less familiar terrain of Jewish mysticism.

While the setting is familiar, The Rider's peculiarities are not. He abides by Hasidic law and goes through a lot of trouble to make sure he eats kosher foods, something that in a region where Jewish communities are few and far between, can't be easy. There are lots of references to Jewish customs and text is riddled with Jewish concepts, often referred to by Yiddish or Hebrew words. The author has thoughtfully added an appendix explaining some of them and I must admit that although some of the concepts were not unfamiliar to me, I needed to consult it once in a while. Some readers may feel it complicates the text but personally I found it fascinating reading.The index even led me to read up on the influence of Yiddish on the Dutch language for a bit.

The Rider's beliefs are tied to the harsh god many readers will be familiar with from the Old Testament. A wide variety angels and demons show up in the stories and Erdelac chooses to portray them every bit as cruel and ugly as the more traditional sources describe them. Readers of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels, an author who draws partially from the same sources, will scarcely recognize the gentle version of Eisheth in the cruel creature The Rider meets in the final tale of this collection, The Nightjar Women. Where it is popular at the moment to try and fit these myths into a (sexually ) more liberal framework, such freedom is not an option for The Rider.

This last tale in the collection is definitely the one that made the biggest impact on me. It deals with lust obviously, a topic that is something of a minefield in both Christian and it appears, Jewish religious teaching. The Rider has been taught to view it as a sin and he is sorely tempted in this story. Erdelac walks a fine line in this story between lust as a sin and genuine human need for companionship. We know that The Rider's actions are partially lead by a demonic presence but he still challenges some of the more strict rules that govern his dealings with women. Whether or not you agree with The Rider's beliefs, the way he keeps his balance in what is a very difficult situation is a nice bit of writing.

The stories also gradually reveal more about The Rider's background and his motivations. Although the first two stories are well written, the collection does not really get going until the ties between these episodes and the main character's past become apparent. I think development of the Rider's story might benefit from a novel length approach at some point, if only to cut out the inevitable repetitions that crop up in the short stories. That being said, I enjoyed the four stories Erdelac presents in this volume a lot. There are a lots of interesting details in these books to be found for those familiar with the western genre (and, I suspect, fans of the the works of Robert E. Howard). The Rider's unusual perspective on the world around him prevents the stories from slipping into cliché. Erdelac has found a surprising combination, one I must admit I wasn't sure would work when I started this collection, but he pulls if off admirably. The author ends the final story in the collection with some information that makes The Rider's quest even more urgent. I can't wait to find out how this will play out in the second volume, Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name. For fans of a western with a twist, this book is recommended reading.

Book Details
Title: Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter
Author: Edward M. Erdelac
Publisher: Damnation Books
Pages: 294
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61572-061-3
First published: 2009