[five] “A Descent into the Maelstrom” + “Death” of Scholes Destry-Scholes

 

Artist Harry Clarke's 1919 illustration for "A Descent into the Maelström"

In The Biographer’s Tale, references are made throughout the book of Norway’s Maelstrom. One of the most important literary works concerning the Maelstrom is Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “A Descent into the Maelstrom” published in 1841. In the story, an old man describes his harrowing journey into and eventual escape from, the Maelstrom. It becomes apparent that the Old Man is one of the few if not the only survivor of the Maelstrom when few people receive his harrowing tale as truth. At the end of the story, he describes his rescue after escaping the Maelstrom-

“A boat picked me up…Those who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions—but they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from the spirit-land. My hair had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They saw too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed.”

A.S. Byatt’s strong reference to the work of Edgar Allen Poe, including Descent into the Maelstrom, may hold the key to the true fate of Scholes Destry-Scholes. At the end of The Biographer’s Tale, Nanson sees a newspaper clipping that supposedly proclaims the death of Scholes Destry-Scholes in the Maelstrom. However, his body is never found and the picture attached to the article is merely a generic photograph of a small boat floating on dark water with several bird colonies on Mosken Island shown in the background. There is no picture of Scholes Destry-Scholes himself. So perhaps Scholes Destry-Scholes survived his fall into the Maelstrom but was so drastically changed—physically and emotionally—(like Poe’s “Old Man”), that no one recognized him. His “old/original self” died in the Maelstrom but he was now free to “reinvent himself” and become whomever he wanted.