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The room eventually becomes a doorway for Chalmers, a place where he can go
back in time and also a place where he can be hunted through time. The
transformation of the room through the application of plaster of Paris was an
intersting one I felt as it appeared to directly contradict many other SF
strories where the door to parallel universes, dimensions and time is often
spherical in shape. Chalmers believes that making his room devoid of any sharp
angles and strange curves that he will escape the Hounds, that in making his
room spherical in shape he will avoid detection and the scenting of the Hounds.
In the end this obviously does not work as Chalmers ends up dead, however the
question to ask would be whether or not the Hounds found him simply because the
plaster fell off the walls and they were able to come through the angles between
the walls, floor and ceiling, or was it because the room was now spherical
thanks to the the plaster. I would answer with the former given his statement to
Frank about the foul and the pure. “The foul expresses itself through angles;
the pure through curves.” The language Long uses in his story is very
descriptive, enabling the reader to visualise quite vividly the scenes that take
place in the room. Through the narrator’s eyes we see clearly the changes that
occur in the main character Chalmers as the drug takes effect and transports him
through time in the various different periods of history. It is a very rapid
journey yet the author has managed with minimal amounts of words to convey
exactly where Chalmers went and what he witnessed from the acting of a
Shakespearian play in an Elizabethan theatre to him being a priest of Ancient
Egypt where even Pharaohs bow before him. Long employs a minimalist language
approach that is very efficient in it’s description. As in a substantial amount
of SF, Long’s story contains quite strong overtones of religion. With what
Chalmers experiences under the influence of the drug he is able to go back
through time in a fashion similar to many well known time travel SF stories. He
sees and experiences all the events in history that have been written about and
recorded. He goes back to the Prehistoric age and then beyond that to
unicellular organisms existing in a world of water. Going back still further he
encounters the Hounds of Tindalos. These are entities that he proceeds to
identify in relation to biblical accounts. The Fall is what I assumed to be the
fall of the angel Lucifer who is thrown out of heaven along with two thirds of
the angels of heaven. Chalmers also mentions the Tree, the snake and the apple.
All biblical references to the creation of mankind. The “deed” is also
repeatedly said by Chalmers and I am making the leap here of assuming the deed
is the eating of the fruit of the tree by Adam and Eve. He states that in
mankind there was a part of us that did not agree with and participate in the
eating of the fruit which we knew to be sin, and it is this cleanliness in
humans that the Hounds hunger and thirst for.
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