Strange Conflict

I just can’t quit Dennis Wheatley, even though every fiber of my being says I should really omit his books from my literary diet. The extremely British fish dinner interruptus of To the Devil a Daughter is objectively terrible story-telling, but I thrive on trash. Even the very dodgy shit—like casting the civil rights movement as the villain in Gateway to Hell—tends to be wrong in a delightful sort of way.

All that said: Strange Conflict [1941] tested even my capacity for out-of-date pulp occultism. The premise is deliciously dumb catnip: a voodoo priest is collaborating with the Nazis to steal secrets from the British military. A person who knows Fact One about either voodoo or Nazis can quickly spot the potential issues here. But the real problem is that the book relies heavily on astral projection as a narrative mechanism, which sucks much of the joy out of the proceedings. You know how your eyes glaze over as soon as a person starts describing their dream to you? Now imagine the person describing their dream to you is a middle-aged Englishman who’s entirely dedicated to a woefully outdated political status quo. A momentary chuckle can be had from the description of a British naval officer visiting a dream version of China for a bit of exotic nookie, but that sort of silliness is far too rare in a book that’s mostly about people going to sleep, sleeping, or attempting not to sleep.

But it’s the climactic battle that sticks in my mind, and presents the most jaw-droppingly dated plot twist I’ve seen in a long time. The Duke de Richleau, a recurring occult adventurer of Wheatley’s creation, is in a pitched astral-plane battle with a powerful voodoo priest who’s summoned the Great God Pan to smite dear ol’ DDR. DDR attempts to persuade Pan over to his side of things—after all, they’re both Europeans and share more in common than either of them do with the Black Haitian voodoo priest. Although it seems that DDR has failed to win Pan over, the tables are turned when Pan double-crosses the voodoo priest! Pan takes the time to explain to DDR that the Greeks and the Brits are part of the Allied forces in the world war and therefore must stick together… and also a Black voodoo priest has no business bossing him around anyway.

If you enjoy uncomfortable racial stereotypes and descriptions of people sleeping, then boy howdy is this ever your book! For most of you, be happy that you know about this plot twist without actually investing in the reading time. You are so welcome.