Chapter Twelve
“‘“...then regain it.”’”
Nick’s reacquiring the book, after trading it to the late Mr. Frankis for a ride to his family’s new home, from Frankis’s wrecked truck is now recorded in One Summer Day. This passage confirms the book’s updating ability as Nick notices that it was not there before when Helen, his mother, read about the Graham family back in chapter seven.
“‘“...grey and very old...”’”
What is contained in this particular passage about an elderly Horace and the details that follow is the most vivid, and only, account of an event which will not be realized in Nick and the Glimmung, neither will it be seen in Galactic Pot-Healer.
For context let’s consider the history of the cat’s life. In chapter one it is specified that Horace has been with the Graham family for “two months” and in chapter two it is indicated that he has been alive for a least a year.1 The fact that the cat can still run as was demonstrated in chapter six would suggest that he is still fairly young.2
To speculate how many years in the future the passage described takes place, one should consider the lifespan of a cat. According to Catster.com the average is “14 years, with a range of 10 to 15 years.”3 Of course there have been cats that have lived longer than that. The current record holder for the longest living cat at the time of writing this is Creme Puff, who lived to her 38th birthday.4 With these facts in mind, this projected event may be as far as three decades ahead in time from the end of Nick in the Glimmung.
“‘“...into the great fish the creature will go.”’”
This great fish, or any fish for that matter, does not appear in Nick and the Glimmung. Looking to Galactic Pot-Healer, it is confirmed there that Plowman’s Planet does have an ocean, named Mare Nostrum.5 Mare Nostrum is quite central to the novel’s plot and is explored, giving details of what it contains. It is shown that many types of fish dwell within. Along with these fish is the previously mentioned doppelganger of Glimmung’s, identified as a Black Glimmung.
Glimmung’s ability to change his form, mentioned in the notes for chapter seven, is also shared with his double. When Fernwright first encounters this Glimmung while diving in Mare Nostrum it appears as a skeleton.6 But in two different points in time in the history of Glimmung’s residing on Plowman’s Planet, the first occurring before Galactic Pot-Healer (and even before Nick and the Glimmung), the second during Galactic Pot-Healer, the Black Glimmung took on the form of a large fish.7
On top of that, during Fernwright’s underwater expedition, he discovers a pot on the ocean’s floor. Upon the pot are a series of panels, which he believes to be a depiction, as well as a foretelling/prediction, of his adventures on Plowman’s Planet. The final panel shows a fatal encounter with an enormous black fish. In the passage describing these panels the word “great” is applied to the black fish three times.8
Is the great fish that will one day take Horace away and the fish form of the Black Glimmung one in the same?
“‘“...the chant of sorrowful people.”’”
With this concluding sentence it is implied that this encounter with the great fish results in Horace’s death.
It is odd that none of the Graham family is directly mentioned among the “‘“sorrowful people”’” mourning the loss of the cat. If one also refers to the quote from One Summer Day back in chapter seven about Horace misleading the Graham family until too late and that they “‘“are undone by their love”’” it takes on quite a different, unnerving in fact, tone if it is interpreted as a long run prediction and not just as a literal summation of the Graham family’s initial difficulty in getting to their new home.
One thing to add is that the Graham family never appears, nor is referred to, in Galactic Pot-Healer.
If Horace’s death is significant enough for people to mourn him it may possibly be because he will be the last surviving member of the Graham family by then. As to why the Grahams will be of significance by then will be shown in chapter fifteen.
Another detail to take notice of is the parallel between the dread the werjes and spiddles have of Horace, being described as smelling of the ocean, and the deathlike state of what Glimmung calls the “‘“Aquatic Sub-World”’” of Mare Nostrum in Galactic Pot-Healer, which not only features Glimmung’s shadow duplicate and the predicting pot but also the decayed, living-dead visage of a double of Fernwright himself.9 This last detail will be giving a closer look in the outro.
“...would not change, as did the book itself.”
The problem of Nick’s plan to copy One Summer Day is very much the problem that a single edition of The Book of the Kalends has in Galactic Pot-Healer; a copy would remain fixed at whatever information it had at the time and remain unchanged.
The outro speculations of this blog will attempt to theorize a connection between these two books.
“...remain his forever.”
With Horace kidnapped by the trobes back in chapter ten, One Summer Day gives Nick the knowledge that the cat will break free and be re-united with him. It is possibly this reassuring information that changes Nick’s mind from his initial reluctance towards the book in chapter seven. This realization to the book's capabilities may now be too tempting to for him to give up.
Could this have been the very same way Glimmung felt when the book was first in his possession? If the saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is true then absolute knowledge, or near-absolute knowledge in this case, may be just as destructive to anyone.
Chapter Thirteen
“...a wild, unnatural serpent.”
This description of the materiel of the book’s cover is a subtle hint to the idea of the limitless knowledge of One Summer Day as an ultimately corrupting temptation, paralleling the Book of Genesis where a serpent encourages humanity to take a bite from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, resulting in their being cast out of paradise and condemned to pain, illness, and mortality.
1) Nick and the Glimmung (Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1988) pgs. 7 and 18
2) Ibid, pg. 52
3) https://www.catster.com/cat-health-care/how-long-do-cats-live/ (Retrieved on December 26, 2025)
4)https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/oldest-cat-ever (Retrieved on February 20, 2026)
5) Galactic Pot-Healer (Vintage Books, 1994), pg. 70
6) Ibid. pgs. 112-113
7) Ibid, pgs. 129-131
8) Ibid, pgs. 120-123
9) Ibid, pgs. 100-101, 112-113, and 120
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