posted on 04 Apr 2022

The Cave by Richard Church

Richard Church (1893 – 1972) was a prolific British author who published The Cave in 1951, an adventure story for what would now be called the young adult reader. It was released in paperback by Puffin in 1966 with a cover design by David Knight (and internal illustrations by  Geoffrey Whitham) and had good contemporary reviews from the likes of Kirkus in the USA (where the book was known as Five Boys In A Cave):

“A British import rammed with highly effective suspense adventure. When Jim found an inviting underground tunnel near his aunt and uncle's summer home, it followed of course that investigation was in order. Jim and his four companions, after careful two day preparation, begin the perilous descent into the deep caverns. This is no picnic romp, for in the dank, river-made labyrinth the boys escape death by inches several times. Adult thrills and chills with some psychological upsets as the boys change leaders. The supposition here that a group must have a strong leader -- is perhaps somewhat too military, but this is superior suspense.”

I have to say that they must have been reading a different book  from me. While the details of the plot are, of course, perfectly correct I simply can’t go along with the idea that this is a book full of thrills and chills. For me the prose was stiff and unconvincing and quite remarkably one-paced while the characterisation of the boys ( and their adult overseers) is wooden and two-dimensional.

So what kept me reading this? Well, to be honest, it’s the same thing that made me pick the book up in the first place – author, Richard Church’s interesting biography. Church features in Colin Wilson’s Supernatural: Your Guide through the Unexplained, the Unearthly and the Unknown because he claimed to have had a mystical revelation. This is usefully explained on the author’s Wiki page in this way:

“Looking out of some French windows, Church saw a gardener chopping down a dead tree. What struck Church after a while was that the sight of the axe hitting the tree and the sound of the axe hitting the tree were not synchronised. The sound was delayed. At first he did not believe his own powers of perception, but after concentrating his vision and hearing, he came to the conclusion that he was experiencing an error in the laws of physics. He came to the conclusion – which would remain with him for the rest of his life – that "time and space are not absolute. Their power was not law." He experienced an incredible freedom in this epiphany. "(...) I was free. Since time and space were deceivers, openly contradicting each other, and at best offering a compromise in place of law" 

After this epiphany another soon followed. From where he stood he sensed that "(...) my limbs and trunk were lighter than they seemed, and that I had only to reduce them by an act of will, perhaps by a mere change of physical mechanics, to command them off the ground, out of the tyranny of gravitation". He then left the ground and glided "about the room" some twelve or eighteen inches above the floor. He returned to the ground only to take off once more.”

But, sadly, that’s about as interesting as it gets and The Cave really doesn’t take us into any of this interesting philosophical stuff – quite the opposite in fact. This is a very ‘scout troop’ experience of young boys acting like grown-ups in waiting and even the frisson of two boys jostling for a leadership role doesn’t go anywhere near Lord of the Flies territory – everything remains frightfully gentlemanly.

Ultimately what makes this book such an unappetising pudding is the total lack of jeopardy – the boys should be in terrible danger but we simply never believe they are.

If you want a copy of this Puffin, it’s not expensive or hard to find despite being currently out of print.

 

Terry Potter

April 2022