The Aphorisms of Kherishdar by M.C.A. Hogarth

The conceit at the heart of M.C.A. Hogarth’s The Aphorisms of Kherishdar is, you have to concede, both brave and intriguing. The aim is to take a series of flash fiction pieces (nicely referred to here as “incense stories, short but lingering”) and create a guide to the laws, ethics, and customs of an alien race—the Ai-Naidari, who control the world-spanning Kherishdar empire. Twenty-five stories follow—none more than a thousand words long. They are all told from the point of view of the Calligrapher—a trusted servant of the Ai-Naidari aristocracy. Each story is preceded by the definition of some Ai-Naidari custom or moral imperative which is then illustrated by the action that follows.

The first, “Ishan,” sets the tone and template for all that follow. Ishan is defined as an:

“appreciation of the fullness of a thing’s span, from its inception to its ending; implies that it is worthy at every moment of it is existence, and acknowledges that it is different in the beginning from how it is at its end, and that these too are part of its worth.”

The story that follows sees the Calligrapher seeking inspiration in the books of the library, but through the Librarian’s wisdom finding it in the dancing and joy of children at a religious festival. The Calligrapher returns home and begins to draw the aphorism: “Wisdom begins in full living.”

The second story, “Esar,” illustrates the “quality that makes one a superb leader” and sees the Calligrapher deliver judgment on an arrogant young aristocrat who is heir to the leadership of Wakedzen. Seeking something unique and new to match his previously unmatched qualities, the Calligrapher instead delivers the young man the aphorism: “That which is old has been tried by time and found good,” and the Wakedzen people look elsewhere for their leader.

“Menuredi” is a “loyal servant [with] connotations of fidelity and intimacy,” and the story reveals a servant with a great talent who gives up her ability to continue to serve her liegelady. “There is no higher calling than to serve,” the aphorism has it, and around about this point the problems with The Aphorisms of Kherishdar start to manifest themselves.

While Hogarth prefaces all these stories with the note that the Calligrapher is seeking to answer the commonly asked question: “How is it that your empire works so well for you, when it would work so poorly for us [humans]?” the obsequious and unquestioning tone of the Calligrapher quickly starts to grate. More crucially, it starts to become clear that there is to be no critical analysis of this world; the Calligrapher is happy with his place and believes that all others should be content too. He seems to have no conception of how things might be different. Any analysis is, therefore, likely to be shallow indeed.

The next story hints that there is at least some conflict within this society. “Geles” is a “contrasting note, that which … offers a distinct counter without which one would lose the appreciation of that which one is experiencing.” And in the marketplace, the Calligrapher comes across a priest being humiliated in public for using public funds for his own aggrandizement. The Calligrapher feels pity for the thief and cannot bring himself to take part in the public censure but hopes that by showing some mercy he may have helped.

“Isaludar” is the vast body of knowledge “which can only be accessed through other people,” and the story sees the Calligrapher visited by his master’s son—who is seeking advice on how he might fulfill his role as the “first helpmeet” of the heir to his father’s position. The Calligrapher tells the boy he should be what his cousin, the heir, needs, the aphorism being “When you do not know the answer, ask.”

“Aunera” is both a colour and the word for anything or anyone alien “from people and worlds to emotions and thoughts,” and the Calligrapher finds himself ministering to one of his kind who has spent a year amongst aliens and returned stripped of his social graces and control. To aid him retain his sense of position (almost literally to put him back in his place), the Calligrapher provides the traveller with the entire hierarchy of Kherishdar society—from godlike emperor at the top to the “umudked caste-rank created so that no one need be born at the bottom of the tree” and the dozens of castes and ranks in between. “Treat gently with each and every Ai-Naidari, for ever there is one born below you…and one above”—or know your place.

“Emethil” is a “biological concept, of self as part of a long, unbroken line of blood family, from ancestors to children.” The Calligrapher is called to minister to a silversmith who is suffering extreme grief having discovered that he cannot father children and so is the last of his family and outside the “emethil.” His grief at being placed outside the flow of family and society drives him to the priesthood.

“Nesthae” is “not quite alien, but contra-societal” with unsavoury connotations. The Calligrapher is visited by “the Exception,” the one Ai-Naidari in every generation whose soul has no caste-rank, “Who floated always beyond society, able to criticize it…and never to know its comforts.” “To be parted from society is to suffer” is the aphorism the Calligrapher pens for this sad, isolated soul. It might have been nice if Hogarth had used this opportunity to address some of the potential for critiquing the society she has created, but this moment is allowed to slip away.

“Lizjan” is a mask, and the Calligrapher meets a mask-maker—a job that is looked down upon in Ai-Naidari society even though the masks themselves are much prized in important festivals such as the Tryst, where the Ai-Naidari put aside their rigid caste structure and indulge in some anonymous hanky-panky. The Calligrapher offers aid and assistance to the mask-maker and recognises the treatment of his class is hypocritical—”All that is unjust changes in its time” he concludes, but clearly no effort is to be made to speed the end of that injustice, which must meanwhile be suffered without respite.

“Kherishdar” is a compound formed of the roots “qerish” (all that is worth knowing) and “udar” (society), and the name of the Ai-Naidari empire. This story sees the empire visited by an alien who visits the wealthily appointed religious shrines. The Calligrapher chats to a guard who makes it clear that the empire could and would punish any alien who might become “covetous” at the sight of the wealth of the Kherishdar empire. “Behind a long-lived prosperity there waits a never-sleeping sword.” This was not a decadent society and not all empires die, the Calligrapher assures us. And presumably the same threat of force helps prevent anyone from questioning their place too vigourously.

“Kherishdar” is the tenth story, and the pattern of the Aphorisms has become firmly entrenched, and the shape of the society, as presented to us by the Calligrapher, appears clear. This is a society ruled by a tiny and all-powerful aristocracy where everyone knows their place and where any challenge to the “natural order” is met with the full force of state power and social opprobrium. The Calligrapher is a highly prized and particularly honoured servant and is clearly content with his place. But his contentment is built upon a social structure which is, by human standards, an appallingly oppressive regime. Government, religion, and society combine to condemn the majority to eternal servitude and relegate women to subservient roles while imposing religious uniformity and treating the general population like children or chattel. Unable to make choices for themselves, their whole lives are at the whim of their masters.

Of course the unpalatable elements of Ai-Naidari society—the caste system, the religious intolerance, the constraints on personal freedom—are all evident in various human societies, and the reader might begin to hope that there was perhaps some satirical intent in these stories or perhaps a broader political point being made. But sadly, such thoughts seem utterly absent from Hogarth’s mind. This is an exercise in moral relativism; these people are different and so we should accept their differences and, under no circumstances, should we dare to pass judgment. We are being instructed, not invited to comment.

The next four stories demonstrate the way in which the Ai-Naidari are subject to the whim of their masters but accept their fates without question: in “Ishas,” the Calligrapher is pathetically grateful to have his years of service rewarded by more years of service; in “Aisim,” a family of merchants are pathetically grateful when generations of service are rewarded with the commission of a copy of the Book of Precedents (a religious tome reminding them of their place in society) by their master; in “Pauser,” the Calligrapher is made melancholy to discover that his only daughter has been selected to be a fathriked a “decoration…a dancer…bed-warmer” for the upper classes, but not at her fate (as effectively a prostitute) but because her new social position will separate them; and “Rakadhas”—in which the Calligrapher’s master decides that a merchant should no longer be a merchant but an Observer and loans him out to another lord on a different planet, and everyone is happy.

The one-note nature of the Calligrapher’s response to his society—a kind of awestruck wonder at how perfect everything around him is—may, by now, have some readers desperate for a character, any character, to show some backbone when faced with one of the Calligrapher’s sanctimonious aphorisms about how their suffering and misfortune reflects their right and just place in the universe. But it is all too clear that such readers are going to go on being disappointed.

In “Tsekil,” the Calligrapher undertakes an enormous artistic labour to soothe the troubled brow of his lord, and in “Revasil,” the Calligrapher becomes the instrument of correction for an aristocratic woman who used her noble place to take sexual advantage of a merchant—painting her shame across her body.

“Nalureth” takes a brief turn away from the abasement of the general Ai-Naidari population to follow the Calligrapher’s “love life” at the Winter Trysts; in “Sasrith” we see the Calligrapher able to redeem a token of debt with one lord to the advantage of his friend, the physician; and in “Diqedi,” the Calligrapher gives advice and aid to a soldier who has been seriously injured and is to become a trainer of other guardians. These stories reflect the strong social element of the Ai-Naidari society; the emphasis on community and on giving help to others. Yet even here, rather than giving a sense of social cohesion, the emphasis on caste and on all the characters being forced to act within narrow social guidelines makes it difficult to view this sharing as true generosity; even here, the weight of social expectation seems to drive the actions of each character.

“Mesiln” is a potentially interesting story. Here we are introduced to “Bleak”—the brooding hall that serves as part temple, part prison:

the last place an Ai-Naidari can go in this life to atone for faults so egregious her only recourse is to be broken

and to a mysterious female character who has done some terrible wrong. Perhaps here was an opportunity to give an insight into the social strains that any society of individuals must possess. While it would be a late moment to introduce a genuine note of dissent against the overwhelming orthodoxy of what has gone before, it would, however, at least let us judge the Ai-Naidari as more than senseless drones. Sadly any such opportunity is allowed to pass. Whatever it was that this woman did remains unrevealed, and she has been thoroughly broken, seeking only to be reinstated into the mainstream of society. The Calligrapher’s response: “I sent her a wooden pendant with a single word: Submit.”

It it revealing or a coincidence that, apart from the priest in “Geles,” all the characters that transgress or stand outside Ai-Naidari law and suffer for it are women: “Mesiln,” “Nesthae,” and “Revasil”? It’s hard to tell, since we’re given so little to go on. Certainly given the existence of the fathriked and in the other insights we get into the Ai-Naidari world, women don’t seem to have a role outside the home and religious orders.

In “Nojzel,” the lord’s pleasure with the Calligrapher’s work is rewarded with an hour’s service from a fathriked, one of those “decorations, bed-warmers, soul-easers” that his daughter is destined to become—although that thought doesn’t appear to cross the Calligrapher’s mind; “Dare” sees the lord’s historian heartbroken by the loss of his lover but rescued from despair when put back to work; “Azjelin” hints that the caste structure might have certain flexibilities as the Calligrapher watches three “touch lovers”—a servant, a merchant, and a noble—relaxing beneath a tree; and in “Nalan,” the Calligrapher gives up a painting he has started for himself to his lord’s heir, concluding “An Ai-Naidari is only as important as what he shares with others” (although, of course, there is no sharing here, only a lord taking from a slave).

In the final story, “Thirukedi,” the Calligrapher is visited by the Emperor—the “god of Civilisation”—and he falls prostrate and trembling at his feet, unable to look at the Emperor even when encouraged. The Emperor has heard of the Calligrapher’s work and has come to promote the Calligrapher to osulkedi—the highest rank in the Public Servant caste who serve the Emperor directly but who help all regardless of rank:

“my work belongs to all Ai-Naidar… to Kherisdar itself. I could want nothing else. I could be no one else.”

Perhaps there are those who will find the stories here comforting—those who like the idea of belonging to a society where everyone knows their place and where difficult things (like making decisions) are removed by wise and caring leaders. If one of the roles of fantasy is to provide consolation, then it is easy to see how the idea of such a way of living—free from personal responsibility, enclosed in a warm, fuzzy blanket a social order that, while blocking freedom of thought, reinforces notions of belonging, security, and stability—would be appealing. And the sense that this is a fantasy is further emphasised by the (slightly amateurish) paintings scattered through the book (also by Hogarth) where here Ai-Naidari aliens look like nothing less than slightly furry elves.

But these stories are not presented as a fantasy; they are presented as science fiction, and that brings with it a quite different set of expectations. Science fiction should be more critical—willing and able to explore the meaning and the implications of a society like this for the people who live in it. Science fiction should also be more rigorous—here we have a society that it is claimed spans five worlds but where soldiers carry swords, paper is made with lye, and the most sophisticated communications technology appears to be servants bearing notes. And science fiction should be more engaged—there are no doubt plenty of people who would recoil at the idea that we should simply apply our own moral judgments to a society that is not our own (whether that is alien or Islamic or some other)—but, by the same token, bland acceptance based on a simple, all encompassing moral relativism is as indefensible as the crudest cultural imperialism.

Ultimately, while there’s much to like about The Aphorism’s of Kherisdar—including some nice writing and image construction by Hogarth, a brilliant central conceit, and the clever way she has used a community of fans to fund the production and publication of her work, the problems with the book as a whole are fundamental and go beyond its political naivety and philosophical conservatism. The voice of the Calligrapher very quickly stops seeming wise and warm and becomes smug and self-satisfied. The absence of any real sense of conflict—either within the Calligrapher’s life or the society upon which he is reporting—robs the collected stories of any sense of urgency or drama. And, read as a collection, too many of the stories repeat the same formula or cover the same ground for the book to be satisfactorily read as one longer piece.

Perhaps The Aphorisms of Kherisdar might work better as a book that the reader dipped into randomly and over a long period. That wouldn’t resolve the problem that the whole work lacks a critical faculty, but it might allow the reader to appreciate the qualities that the writing and some of the individual stories undoubtedly possess.

Publisher: CreateSpace (Mar. 2008)
Price: $20.00
Chapbook: 68 pages
ISBN: 978-1434891129