Michael Bible's "The Ancient Hours": The American Landscape as the Unconscious of Its Inhabitants

Pic by @caratteriombra

On December 15, 2020, The Ancient Hours by Michael Bible was published by Melville House and almost immediately, the novel carved out its place among contemporary American works. At a time when American literature boasts numerous titles that fully express the ideologies, issues, doubts, and triumphs of the United States, and readers believe they’ve seen it all, Michael Bible shatters this certainty. He delivers a novel that gathers the primal fears of a young country wrestling with its origins, shaping the unruly relationships that define its characters.

Everything Happens in Harmony, a Southern Town Where Perspectives Collide

Bible hands us a magnifying glass to better scrutinize what he writes, only to ask us to toss it out the window of a vintage car speeding along American roads under the night sky.

The Ancient Hours spans multiple timelines, covering the years 2018, 2006, 2005, and 2019. The narrative pivots around an event that forever altered the destiny of Harmony, a forgotten town in the southern United States. The townsfolk live in a sort of loop—working, praying, and dwelling on a tragedy that occurred years earlier, when Iggy set fire to the local church, killing twenty-five worshippers.

The novel unfolds through shifting perspectives. It begins with an omniscient narrator:

---

"We were innocent. Convinced we were special. Drunk every weekend at the mall. The world was in our hands. We didn’t care about time. Love was taken for granted. Death was afraid of us. Now we have gray in our beards. The sky is a bruised purple. The mall is dead. We’re the old people we swore we’d never become."

---

Later, the story is told through the eyes of Iggy, Farber, and Nuvola. What connects these differing perspectives and the memories tied to the tragedy?

The Ancient Hourse and “The Constant” of Our Existence

Time emerges as the central protagonist. Moving back and forth through the folds of life and events, it becomes a burdensome presence that weighs on every character, particularly Iggy. Condemned to death, Iggy recounts his life in prison, reflecting on his mistakes and fleeting joys, and attempts to explain why he burned an entire church.

The concept of "the end" holds immense significance in the story, with all its complexities and implications. For Iggy, endings pervade his life—not just the literal one awaiting his body but the countless interruptions in life’s rhythm, those stubborn moments of oppressive restlessness. Together with Cleo, he names this feeling “The Constant."

---

She told me it was a strange but familiar feeling. “It’s something between a constant ache and sudden terror,” she said. “Like a rainy afternoon with the sun shining or the eerie hum of a deserted road at night.” She called it The Constant.

---

The Constant is that bittersweet sentiment experienced by anyone who feels out of place, a misfit struggling to fit into the world’s dynamics. It’s the yearning to change the world, all while knowing improvement is beyond reach. A melancholy that spares no one, it claws its way into the hearts of those longing for another life, for escape, for a sense of belonging they can never quite grasp.

---

Nothing ever happened. Nothing ever changed. What I thought was a problem at the time was simply life. Neither good nor bad.

---

For Iggy, The Constant becomes an overwhelming weight, shaping his worldview. Disoriented and disillusioned by a life that continually knocks him down, Iggy’s inner turmoil manifests outwardly. It begins subtly: he watches violent videos, becoming desensitized to brutality, which mirrors his internal chaos. Eventually, violence becomes tangible, culminating in the fire that shakes the reality Iggy so desperately wanted to change. Yet, his greatest regret is that nothing truly changes.

A Meditation on Transience in Life’s Static and Dynamic Nature

A recurring theme in The Ancient Hours is the transience of life—the notion that everything is dynamic yet simultaneously static. This theme resonates deeply in contemporary times.

---

At its core was The Constant. Time and time’s best friend, transience. The beauty and tragedy of a dogwood flower falling—it was something like that. I’ve decided my final words will be along those lines. About how, in the end, life betrays us all.

---

Iggy’s suffering and losses stem from a mindset struggling to comprehend the world as a place of clashing ideologies, cultures, and emotions. Though he initially believes this phenomenon is unique to Harmony, he eventually realizes it’s life itself—a sea of contradictions and pain. At times, those tides are too strong, shaking both body and mind, and the idea of happiness begins to fade.

---

It was something wild, cosmic, and strange. I was starting my long descent into a dark place that kept growing darker. Cleo kept me from the edge. Sex was a weapon we used against The Constant. A barricade against eternal fear. I felt The Constant too. I knew things would never get better. Adults always told us we were too young to understand. They said we should be happy. I never understood happiness. The very idea seemed obscene.

---

The American Landscape as a Mirror of the Subconscious

The Ancient Hours examines the American landscape as a projection of its inhabitants’ deepest unconscious. It doesn’t just explore the toxic relationship with life but also with death, investigating how it’s perceived both by those who face it and those who witness it.

Violence, God, and Faith

Central to the novel is the interplay between violence, God, and the faithful. As a country originally founded on religion, this theme often forms the backbone of significant works in American literature. Bible frequently references sermons and biblical passages, delving into the relationship between God and humanity. What lengths will people go to in the name of God’s love, His temples, and His parables?

Violence is examined from multiple perspectives: self-sabotage, the pain one inflicts upon themselves, and the harm done to others. Underlying it all is a profound dissatisfaction with life. The characters—feeling alienated and abstracted from a reality that is too vivid, too painful, too tangible—are in constant conflict with an unconscious that rebels, kicks, and screams to be heard. Yet, almost none of Bible’s characters listen or find someone who will. They survive by stumbling through life, repeatedly falling into phases of profound darkness.

The infernal loop of existing in a world yet feeling disconnected from it never ends.