Bran McIsaac's Revelation

***Bran McIsaac’s Revelation*** is an essay by American writer Peter Stein. In it, the fictional literary critic Georg Abderhalden analyzes the poem "The Tumbling Tower" by the also-fictional Bran McIsaac, both of whom are characters in Stein's second world Aomion.

## The Poem

**"The Tumbling Tower"**

The burnt Tower’s door has been built

Of iron, silver, stone.

The ruins sprawl across the floor,

Where the Stag, two-headed and rainbow beast,

Buckles and turns bone.

## Analysis

### ***Onset***

These immortal words of Bran McIsaac define the Iydernia poetic tradition. No anthology on literature from the Jade Land would be complete without him. Born into poverty in the small, marshy village of Manderly, the young McIsaac absorbed the rich local oral tradition, which spans a millennium and then some. The complex image of the Stag, both multi-colored and twin-headed, embodies the character of Iydernia: full of life and deeply mystical. Not one patch of woods goes without some myth and ancient name. This reverence for life, abundant life, has spawned a unique poetry, one that communes with nature as equals or even subject to Her power. Stories keep Iydernia alive. As long as the land is remembered with tales, it will thrive.

### ***Nucleus***

**“The burnt Tower’s door has been built”**

Here, the Tower, capitalized, is materialized imagination, lifeblood for McIsaac and his fellow aesthetes and countrymen. Reaching into the firmament above all living things, this is the only method humans can have dominion over Nature. If the human mind and psyche must become material, an ancient tower and keep is the only option, for it is purely anachronistic and therefore guiltless.

The Tower has long been burnt down, since all connection to real nature, the one of Pelagius’s God, has been severed. Fire can mean cleansing and rebirth, as in the Xanderian Cult of ancient Tyrrhia. McIsaac invokes no god but rather highlights humankind’s pathetic attempts to rekindle the right fire and rebuild the tower properly. The blundering humans start with the door, the pathway into the Tower’s interior. Humans will always take the easier route, and this attempt at a shortcut is laughable.

**“Of iron, silver, stone.”**

To push the irony further, the lost humans have fashioned doors of both precious and common materials haphazardly. The iron is warlike, the silver regal, and the stone artisan. All have tried, none have succeeded.

**“The ruins sprawl across the floor,”**

The Tower has tumbled, but not onto the ground of reeds or moss or hills. No, the floor of the Tower remains. The base mocks. It has collapsed in on itself, as far from Heaven as can be. Nature strikes back at the humans for destroying Her by casting down their Tower, Babelesque. Their names are lost and the people are scattered. All that remains is Nature, licking Her wounds in the human-free Earth.

McIsaac’s perception of the relationship between humans and nature is complex, understandably so. But it seems that by treating Nature rightly, humans can enjoy Her bounty, allowing them the freedom of imagination, which is the necessary illusion of supplanting Nature. But once crossed or snubbed, Nature tilts the balance back to order. Hubris is the timeless culprit.

**“Where the Stag, two-headed and rainbow beast,”**

Enter the Stag. Western Aomion abounds in Old-Era animal symbols: the Ram, the Crab, the Pelican. And for the Iydrnian people, the Stag. Majestic, lore-rich, and even prickly, they guard their rolling moors flanked by towering fyne trees and diminutive hazelshrubs. Rainbows, the *eidolon* for life itself, overflowing, is apt for the proud yet playful deer. Now the two heads. Four antlers seems excessive, but consider the tides of invaders upon their borders: the Palafex, the Hedeben raiders, the Numoir. Such conquests were pyrrhic and ultimately short-lived, blessing the Iydernians with a consistent lineage of culture and language dating back to The Crossing, many millennia ago. Vigilance is the key, a lesson ingrained. Ironic that the cultural parasites are themselves, as McIsaac indicts.

**“Buckles and turns bone.”**

The final line is bone-chilling. The Stag collapses under the weight of loss, prowling the remnants of a once-great cultural consciousness. What has fallen is the very cosmology of the Iyderians, and the poem therefore becomes apocalyptic beyond scope. And the speed of collapse, the pace the Stag becomes merely bones, is breakneck. Instantaneous, like a digital fate.

### ***Coda***

Although the poem mourns, it mocks even more. Before the post-digital age, where any form of technological “progress” is harshly stamped out, people hoped for liberation from their digital chains. In a low-tech world, humans would revert to our intended, natural ways. Harmony and fairness and art would flourish. But Bran McIsaac, living in both eras, saw how little had changed from destroying the digital apparatus. A bonfire of the vanities, of black mirrors and rectangular icons, did not restore humanity’s health in the way most people anticipated. The problem was, humans were still humans. Our hearts never left. What does a change in scenery do? Humans will find a way to adapt to destroy themselves. The post-digital age failed.

Now, looking back at the long-gone age of Bran McIsaac, we can examine his words and world more impartially and admire and use the *gnosis* he uncovered.