Catherynne Valente is a phenomenally talented author: her writing overflows with creativity, new ways to describe everything from a person to a settinCatherynne Valente is a phenomenally talented author: her writing overflows with creativity, new ways to describe everything from a person to a setting to an emotion, new ways to approach storytelling itself. Her style combines both postmodernism and New Weird techniques, and the lushness of her prose is reminiscent of Angela Carter and Tanith Lee (two of my favorite authors). I loved her novels In the Night Garden and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland.
Unfortunately, this collection was hit or miss for me. There were some wonderful stories (bolded below) but there were also some that I found to be completely unreadable. I'm always down for a challenge, but if things get too silly, too disgusting, and/or too shouty, I find that it's easier to just quit engaging rather than sticking it out and getting increasingly annoyed. Who has the time for that? I do that for people, may as well apply that philosophy to stories too.
All that said, for the most part the stories were perfectly fine. Each one was creative and unique, in their own way. And those stories that I loved - well, I really really loved them. At her best, she's one of the finest and most original of modern genre writers. She has a unique vision and she always goes her own way. An admirable writer.
You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase
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You will now read my story. My story will help you and guide you into Cairo. Every time you read my pages, with every word and every phrase, you will enter a still deeper layer, open and relaxed and receptive. I shall now count from one to ten. On the count of ten, you will be in Cairo. I say: ONE As you focus your attention entirely on my tale, you will slowly begin to relax. TWO As you consider your role in this tale, your identity as a spy, your body and your mind become warmer, sleepier. THREE The sleepiness becomes a dreaminess. The dreaminess becomes a dream. The dream becomes a story. The story becomes many stories. Are you in these stories? Are you the protagonist? Who is the storyteller? FOUR Who are the characters in this story? Are they spies like you? Are they friends and lovers, are they enemies and conspirators? Their identities are beginning to blur. My stories are beginning to blur. FIVE The blurriness is spreading to the whole of your body, your memories, your reality. What is the waking world and what is the dreaming world? What is this place called Cairo? What is there? On the count of six, I want you to go deeper. I say: SIX You are bleeding now, from your face, from your mind. This is the sleeping sickness, the Arabian Nightmare. Your body is beginning to sink. SEVEN You go deeper and deeper and deeper, you sink into this dream within dreams. Are you lost in this story? EIGHT I am the storyteller and I am dead. Who is telling this story? Perhaps you are now the storyteller. Who are these characters around you? Perhaps they are projections of your own self, splintered and separated. What is this sick dreaming, this dreaming sickness? Perhaps the dream is your reality. With every breath you take, you go deeper into this dream reality, into your sickness. NINE You are dreaming you are awake. You are bleeding your self. You go deeper into these stories, into the Arabian Nightmare. On the mental count of ten, you will be in Cairo. Be there at ten. I say: TEN
Lando brings a precise attention to detail in this collection of mainly wordless mind-stretchers. the black & white art is strange, spidery, delicate,Lando brings a precise attention to detail in this collection of mainly wordless mind-stretchers. the black & white art is strange, spidery, delicate, and distinctive; the perspective on life is bleak and nihilistic. although Lando employs surrealism in both style and (anti-)narrative, the overarching purpose of all of these stories is clear: humans and the way they go about their lives suck. capitalism, competition, warfare, lack of caring for our surroundings, and why we follow orders all come under severe scrutiny. this is not my kind of political art by any means - too dour and hopeless - but I can admire a stringently critical point of view that remains consistent from beginning to end. it is ironic that these stories first appeared in a publication called "Decadence Comics" because these stark, scouringly moralistic allegories are quite the opposite of decadent.
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the above pages are from the story "Pyramid Scheme" which is about what the title says it is about....more
weird and dreamy Tanith Lee writes her version of a young adult novel; results are weird and dreamy.
synopsis: weird and dreamy Hesta Web (and her "hotweird and dreamy Tanith Lee writes her version of a young adult novel; results are weird and dreamy.
synopsis: weird and dreamy Hesta Web (and her "hot red hair") runs away from her despicable mother to a weird and dreamy seaside town, abandoned by tourists during this off-season. strange things occur and Hesta eventually finds her destiny in this cold and timeless place.
the novel is layered and does surprising things, much like the seaside village and its inhabitants, much like Hesta herself. terrible things happen, but with a certain nonchalance: villagers slaughter an arrogant visitor in the pub, and nothing much is made of it; an apparition drops her crying baby out of a window, and it turns out to be a mercy killing. Hesta's mother, mom's equally loathsome lover, and a sad detective they've hired enter the village to find the girl; one shall be sacrificed, another shall meet a more welcoming death, and the third shall revert to childhood. Hesta herself is welcomed by the village, as a priestess come to minister her flock. a secretive agency keeps careful watch on it all, as this is a place where odd powers manifest, where the different come to visit and find themselves staying on.
Hesta is asexual, perhaps the first such heroine I've ever read about. there is a character who is revealed as trans and that reveal made this already intriguing person all the more so. there is an older gay man; Hesta comes to live in his house as his ally and equal. this is a queer kind of book.
When the Lights Go Out is a slippery thing, hard to grasp at times. it was a sometimes frustrating experience - I would have preferred it concentrate more on Hesta. the inclusion of other perspectives, including her pursuers, made the book feel unfocused. but that was clearly the intent: to have a certain lack of focus, a blurry narrative, prose like watercolours, ambiguous characters, things barely spelled out. in the end, Hesta having embraced her fate has come to understand the logic of this weird, dreamy place that she now calls home, in a way that the reader and all other such interlopers never can....more
The man is a construct of materials and memories, his physical signifiers and the intangibles that are signified; what shall happen if thos
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The man is a construct of materials and memories, his physical signifiers and the intangibles that are signified; what shall happen if those mundane wonders, those conceptual signs... slowly... disappear?
The man is materials and memories, signifiers and signified; what if those mundane signs disappear?
The man is memories signified; what if those signs disappear?
"...the Old Testament gives us many instances of Yahweh addressing his people through the prophets. This fountain of revelation dried up, finally. God no longer speaks to man. It is called 'the long silence.' It has lasted two thousand years."
"Jung speaks... of a person, a normal person, into whose mind one day a certain idea comes, and that idea never goes away. Moreover, Jung says, upon the entering of that idea into the person's mind, nothing new ever happens to that mind or in that mind; time stops for that mind and it is dead. The mind, as a living, growing entity has died. And yet the person, in a sense, continues on.
If it arises as a problem, your mind will fight it off, because no one really wants or enjoys problems; but if it arises as a solution, a spurious solution, of course, then you will not fight it off because it has a high utility value; it is something you need and you have conjured it up to fill this need."
Once upon a time there was a Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, a man who made mistakes but tried to do the right thing, a man whose son killed himself, a man who went on a spiritual journey after that death, a man who then also died tragically. This was a real bishop and his name was James Pike. One upon a time there was a book about the Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, and all the rest of it, the sadness and the tragedy and the death and the seeking and the death, the death. This is Philip K. Dick's bishop and his name was Timothy Archer.
Once upon a time there was a character named Angel, the protagonist in a book about a bishop and a death, and another death, and finally, another death. She was a good protagonist and a flawed one, she tried to do the right thing, she tried and she failed. But is it even failure if you are living in a flawed world, a vastly imperfect creation, one where the Creator has walked away, or flown away or floated away or transubstantiated away or or or, who cares, they left, He left, bored and uninterested in providing even the smallest sign of His caring, let alone His love. You can't blame an angel for failing in a world that sees both success and failure as equally meaningless. At least Angel tried.
Once upon a time there was an Angel who tried, who tried to not let the idea get in her head, that there was something more, some meaning to it all, a God who created order and meaning, that life and death both had meaning, she tried not to believe in all of that. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least save one person, she wasn't able to save the others but surely she could at least save this Bishop, the most helpless and yet the strongest of them all. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least help herself, she could try to achieve some sort of understanding, or at least a kind of equanimity with what had happened in her life, she could at least try to make sure she was more than a hollow where a person once was, a life that once had people in it, all of them gone now. She--
"I turned to my own menu, and saw there what I wanted. What I wanted was immediate, fixed, real, tangible; it lay in this world and it could be touched and grasped; it had to do with my house and my job, and it had to do with banishing ideas finally from my mind, ideas about other ideas, an infinite regress of them, spiraling off forever."
Once upon a time there was Angel, and she succeeded, in that one small thing, in that decision to keep trying, she'd leave the world of ideas behind and focus on the material world, hope wasn't lost yet, she would save this fourth person and so would be saving herself, and she--
Once upon a time there was a Bishop who transmigrated, he had left the world and then he came back into it, into the body of another, yet another person who needed saving. The Bishop had searched and he had failed and he had died and he had came back and he--
Once upon a time there was an author named Philip K. Dick who tried, who really tried, to understand God and the world and all of the ideas in his head, so many of them, he tried to organize his thoughts and create a kind of narrative out of them, he tried to understand death and reality and his place in it all, he succeeded and he failed and he--...more
spoilers follow. but what is a spoiler? a component revealed. is that component reflective of the whole? is that component the heart of the book or isspoilers follow. but what is a spoiler? a component revealed. is that component reflective of the whole? is that component the heart of the book or is it just another part of its body? is it a totem that represents the book's secret meaning?
the boy goes back in time to visit the girl. into the garden he goes, the changing garden. he feels safe and free in this garden. "there is a safe house at every dream level, which gets populated with the innermost thoughts and secrets of the Subject." he meets the girl in the garden. the girl shows him the clock. the girl will wind the clock. the old woman has wound the clock. "Totems are objects used by the characters to test if they were in the real world or a dream, and they all had specially modified qualities which made them very personal." the old woman dreams. the boy dreams. the brother dreams. they all dream together. you dream, I dream, we all dream together. "...a.k.a. unconstructed dream space existing within untouched subconscious..." the clock strikes the hour. the boy hears the clock and goes through the door, into the midnight garden. there he will meet the girl, again and again. the boy moves forward in time to finally meet the girl, at long last, as they have met many times before. "Inception is the act of inserting an idea in a person's mind which will bloom in a way making the Subject think it was their idea." the girl is an old woman; the boy is a boy. they hug, for the first time, their dreams a reality. a happy ending and beginning are achieved.
the word "story" is too small to describe what can encapsulate a person's whole life. lives are not stories and yet the stories of Intrusions describethe word "story" is too small to describe what can encapsulate a person's whole life. lives are not stories and yet the stories of Intrusions describe and encapsulate entire lives, in moments small and large and metaphorical and phantasmagorical and eerily, uncomfortably ordinary. Aickman, as ever, resists the urge to turn a life into a pat story, a series of events and decisions into a reliable narrative, an individual person into something that can be understood in 50 pages or less. his ambiguity is both a disturbance and an homage to the slippery spaces, the liminal, the movements so slow or so fast that they barely register as change, all the things that make a person's life so indescribable that in the end, words can but fail to be of use when portraying that life. ah, the eerie ordinariness of our prosaic lives, the shallows that contain secret depths. these lives, our lives, like intricately constructed but poorly running clockwork never showing the right time, or a play whose central player has forgotten their lines but the show must go ever on, or a happy empty house disturbed by the intruders that have entered it, insisting that they live there, that they know each other, that they even know themselves.
"Hand in Glove" - how does one deal with the death of love? is it a death due to a lover that infantilizes, a bullying boy to your adult woman? must the lover, or the loved one, die - to confirm if it was ever love at all?
"No Time is Passing" - how does one know a happy life is happy? is it not your beautiful house, is this not your beautiful wife? what if there is a dirty, dreamy place beyond that will neither confirm nor deny that happy life, but will make you wonder - how did you get there after all?
"The Next Glade" - how does one imagine a different husband, a different home, a different life altogether? is it just a step or a death away? will financial ruin confirm that dreams must stay dreams while life goes on after all?
"The Fetch" - This story about a wraith whose appearance presages the death of one of the narrator's loved ones is only the second traditional tale of the supernatural that I've read by Aickman. As with the first - the sublime vampire story "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" - the fact that the author could have written perfectly accomplished and straightforward albeit old-fashioned horror fiction is fully illustrated. Although I saw few layers here, except perhaps autobiographical ones that contemplate Aickman's own relationships with women, that doesn't take away in the least from the strange, dislocating mood created and the sense of a man adrift in life, only anchored by the women whom he will eventually lose. The story is flawless.
"The Breakthrough" - how does one guard their inner self? is it by hiding the past, hiding from the past, compartmentalizing ourselves, creating new versions of ourselves, erasing our secrets so that our new selves can achieve a certain calm? what shall happen when our pasts and our inner selves break through, haunting us, showing themselves as quite alive after all?
"Letters to the Postman" - how does one recognize true love? is it what you have built in the mind or is it what you will make in the moment? when dreams come true and you learn that reality is not a dream, what will you do with that truth - one that confirms that even love is transactional after all?
"The Strangers" - how does one truly connect with another? is it by hook or by crook, by chance or misadventure, on the bed or in the heart or in an indescribable feeling for which words seem too small, words like love or friendship or connection? is our destiny to always be as dreams or as strangers to each other after all?
These are 7 fascinating, allegorical stories; 6 are gems and 1 imperfect. That less than pleasing story is "Hand in Glove" - the lessons learned felt unearned, showing a strangely petty side to Aickman, who is not an author I expected to deliver a grim twist simply to deliver a grim twist.
But the 6 that follow are so much better. Fulfilling yet still tantalizing after their finish. They were built for rereading. "No Time Is Passing" and "The Next Glade" bend both space and time in their portrait of unknowable places that exist in the woody park across the street and in the backyard past the creek, spaces that represent our dreams and fears, time that is passing too quickly to realize those dreams have gone and only fears remain. "The Strangers" and "The Breakthrough" feature hauntings: in the first, our drab lad is haunted by those he should know and love best; in the second, our urbane gent is haunted by manifestations that exist to upend the carefully predictable lives that he and his neighbors have so carefully constructed. "Letters to the Postman" portrays a wistful fantasy of love crushed by prosaic reality - one so unlike the fantasy that it achieves its own unreality in our naïve hero's mind, incapable of understanding what is obvious to all around him. My favorite of all, and somehow the most straightforward: "The Fetch" - which ends in media res. Which, in a way, makes it the most Aickman-esque of all these tales, as perhaps all of the stories that Aickman told are ones that describe just that state: "in the midst of things."
What a pleasure to return to one of my favorite authors, Algernon Blackwood. It has been a while since "A man of power is among us! A man of God!"
What a pleasure to return to one of my favorite authors, Algernon Blackwood. It has been a while since I've read more than one story by him in a row. I love his prose, formal but never stodgy, always serious, with the occasional stylized flourish when depicting hysteria. I love his rich imagery. His interests in spiritualism and naturalism are given free reign in these stories and novellas featuring the psychic investigator, Dr. John Silence. This thoughtful, pipe-smoking physician is not just an accomplished telepath, empath, clairvoyant, astral projector, animal-lover, gun-hater, and filled with touchy-feely kindness (John Silence is very much a hands-on, close-talking kind of fellow), he also apparently radiates a psychic field of manly wholesomeness that dominates everyone around him with the power of his overwhelming goodness. Quite a character!
As always, Blackwood is more interested in unveiling the strange dimensions that coexist beside humanity, rather than creating moments of horror (although those do appear, frequently). He's all about the 'awe' in awesome, the old definition of that word. These may be tales of ghosts, witches, Satanists, elementals, werewolves, and mummies, but they are far from monster stories. The author's focus is always on the higher planes of existence, and the dangers and wonders of those places.
"A Psychical Invasion" - 4 stars. A writer of comedies suddenly loses his sense of humor. Although perhaps not the most compelling of set-ups, what follows is a very absorbing and lengthy scene of psychic investigator versus evil spirits in a cottage. The story amused in its depiction of marijuana as a gateway drug for psychical experiences (although the strain used is indica; one would think sativa to be more effective for such activities). That said, what made this tale idiosyncratic, surprisingly high-stakes, and eventually very satisfying was Dr. Silence's deployment of two assistants: his cat and his dog! The scene of his loyal, evil-hating dog losing a battle with malevolent spirits was heartrending (*spoiler alert* the dog lives) while the image of his, let's say, more chaotic-neutrally inclined cat prancing about enjoying the company of these dead decadents was both eerie and, to a cat aficionado like myself, fully expected. Fortunately, cat comes to its senses and attempts to rescue best friend dog, and Dr. Silence eventually rescues both. Whew!
"Ancient Sorceries" - 5 stars. One of the more famous Blackwood stories, this one only slightly involving the good doctor investigating mysteries. Instead, the reader is immersed in the perspective of one Arthur Vezin, strangely compelled to stop and then stay on in a remote provincial French village. This story depicts the behaviors of cats and witches, first one then the other, almost like two layers beneath an idyllic surface. The first layer, cats, is wonderfully bizarre as Vezin describes being in an ostensibly pleasant town where all of its residents act like, well, cats. This cat-like behavior is even stranger than it sounds, with townsfolk busy pretending to do things while keeping careful track of his movements, suddenly disappearing and reappearing, looking idle and only vaguely interested while still giving the vague impression that they are just about to pounce and toy with their human plaything. The second layer, witches, goes in a surprisingly trippy direction, with a love story, reincarnations, shapeshifting, dreamscapes, and witchy revels in service of His Satanic Majesty all mixed in an almost psychedelic stew. I always knew the French were both cats and witches!
"The Nemesis of Fire - 4 stars. Although confined to a single place - an English manor and its surrounding property - this novella is almost a tour of haunted settings. First, the manor itself, dark and gloomy and unaccountably, uncomfortably warm. Then an equally haunted forest, too close-by, then a stone Roman "laundry" and finally a claustrophobic tunnel leading to a makeshift Egyptian tomb. Likewise, the threat itself changes shape as understanding dawns on Dr. Silence, his assistant Hubbard, and the old Colonel who has brought them to investigate certain disturbing occurrences involving fire and burning. From an eerie presence that announces itself with lightning streaks of energy, to a raging fire elemental, to an ancient sorcerer now mummified, to a mummy's curse claiming a sadly sympathetic victim. It all flowed seamlessly from one point to the next, dread escalating at each turn, reaching its most bizarre point with a séance and possession. The only cacophonous note in this smooth display of Blackwood's storytelling powers is the narrator, Hubbard. The guy just goes on and on about Dr. Silence! Drool much, Hubbard? The reader has certainly come to realize that John Silence is a spiritual hunk of the highest order, no need to remind us every other paragraph of how lost you get in those dazzling astral eyes of his. Back off Hubbard, he's mine.
"Secret Worship" - 5 stars. Dr. Silence to the rescue again! But not until we are fully acquainted with Harris the silk merchant and his particular problem: nostalgia. This man of silk takes a sentimental voyage to his old school, a monastery in the German hills; en route, the reader journeys with him into his past life as he fondly recalls his austere lifestyle with his fellow students, the stoic Brothers who ordered their lives, the lovely natural surroundings. Harris feels so fondly about his past life because his prosaic adult life of buying & selling lacks any vestige of spirituality, and way back when, spirituality was all his young soul was concerned with contemplating. Unlike Harris, the reader senses his sentiments are rather misplaced, as this past life does not come across as the most healthy of experiences. The full depth of the monastery's lack of health is eventually made apparent during his actual visit to his old stomping grounds - much to his dismay, much to his danger. I loved Blackwood's perspective on the blinding quality of nostalgia and the near-inchoate yearning for something higher. Blackwood understands while he cautions. The story also features a fascinating portrait of a very mournful but still very diabolical Asmodeus. Fortunately, ghosts of the past and even Asmodeus himself are no match for that gentle-eyed man of tweed and servant of God, Dr. John Silence!
"The Camp of the Dog" - 4 stars. Blackwood is at his most evocative when writing about his one true love: Nature. In this novella, a small party of campers travels to the islands of the Baltic Sea for a two-month summer retreat. The descriptions of this wilderness are so vivid and expressive, so immersive. The author's intense love for such settings is profound. It instantly made me want to go camping, of course. His descriptive powers are just as skillful when describing the changes that the campers go through when in touch with their non-city selves; in particular, one young man eventually connects with and lets loose his inner savage. This is a story about lycanthropy as a kind of astral projection made physical; the Double that embodies emotions becomes a hunter seeking its deepest connection. And so it is also a love story. The girl finds something deeply disturbing even 'creepy' about the boy that distances her from him, during the day. The boy grows strangely more attractive, more virile, the more his secret self frees itself to roam at night. Fascinating stuff! And it was nice to see Dr. Silence become a kind of spiritual matchmaker. And also interesting to read his perspective on the Scandinavian islands: they are soulless to him, outcroppings of rock from sea, devoid of humanity and so can only encourage the descent of interlopers into a more primal state. The only thing I could have done without were the ongoing references to "Red Indians" as noble savages; that said, Blackwood is always culturally sensitive, and those moments annoyed rather than offended.
"A Victim of Higher Space" - 4 stars. Slight but very engaging. The good doctor's patient is prone to traveling into the 4th dimension and beyond, quite against his will. The story includes a brief dive into tesseracts and the mathematical study of overlapping dimensions. We also spend time in the doctor's "green study" which comes complete with peephole to contemplate his patients unobserved, a chair nailed in place to reduce his patient's fidgeting, and several discreet buttons that allow the doctor to introduce a calming narcotic into the air. And we meet a new servant, whom Dr. Silence is training to only think positive, affectionate thoughts when welcoming his psychically fragile patients into his study. Like, say, a man winking in & out of existence. It was all so enjoyable. Especially when doctor and patient start finishing each other's sentences because to these two uplifted souls, linear time is meaningless and matter is but a trapping, a projection even, of our fuller selves. I'm so glad these two met - I can tell you from experience, it's often lonely being a trans-dimensional, psychically empathetic supernumerary!
4.5 stars for the collection, rounded up to a higher plane....more
award-winning genius China Miéville takes a deep stab at writing comics by rebooting Dial H for Hero, and he really gets the knife right in there, wigaward-winning genius China Miéville takes a deep stab at writing comics by rebooting Dial H for Hero, and he really gets the knife right in there, wiggling it around, taking it out again to look at the results, then stabbing it back in, again and again. his attack on traditional comics is ingenius. unfortunately, the ingenuity on display did little to relieve the sense of irritation I had at trying to make some kind of sense of this cacophonous mess. this was a draining experience. a real-life stabbing done in slow motion would no doubt be equally draining.
random notes for a random book:
- the author's well-established love of language and word play definitely take center stage in this story. I'm reminded again of the similarities between Miéville and Lewis Carroll.
- funny to realize that not only do Miéville and Grant Morrison look rather alike, they share the same interest in anarchic narratives that twist and loop into themselves and subvert the very idea of a linear narrative. twinsies!
- bonus points for having the two protagonists be an obese middle-aged man and a bookish elderly woman. unfortunately, the art consistently makes sure to make the former look as grotesque as possible whenever he appears. which is all the time.
- the art in general is a good match for the writing but not often a good match for my eyes. still, overall the art is memorably hallucinatory despite adding to the chaotic lack of logic on display. the last issue features 20 different artists, 1 per page. which is an impressive achievement! and also very fitting for a story about a magic dial that summons up radically different superheroes whenever it is dialed.
- this was a problem for the previous iterations of this comic (which I read as a kid, and loved): most of the superheroes created by the H-Dial are just so wearyingly stupid.
- the author does create two fantastic villains: a "nullomancer" for the first arc (power over nothingness!) and Centipede in the second arc. both are strikingly original creations that I would love to see return in other comics. especially Centipede, whose control over his own timeline's past selves - i.e. the self that walked to the door, the self that opened that door, the self that walked through the doorway, etc - was fascinating to see deployed and was really well-visualized by various artists. didn't love Centipede's goofy centipede-head mask though....more
The sad thing is that I finished reading the book almost two weeks ago, and I still don't know what to say. Not sure how I would describe the book, orThe sad thing is that I finished reading the book almost two weeks ago, and I still don't know what to say. Not sure how I would describe the book, or even my experience of the book. I dunno, it was a mainly pleasant experience and a mainly pleasant book? A mysterious book but I wasn't completely absorbed by its mysteries? Wintry and forbidding but in a fun, approachable way? Charming but forgettable like an amusing person at a party whose name I will be unable to recall 10 minutes after the conversation? The protagonist was fine, the supporting characters were fine, and I'm in favor of positive depictions of sex with extremely overweight people. Er, um, I dunno. I'd recommend it because it's a well-written and occasionally compelling diversion. Ok now I'm just stringing words together. The book is not bad. This is not a bad book. The book is not a bad one, as far as books go. Did Jääskeläinen write this as an enjoyable diversion, as something relaxing to do inbetween other more distinctive projects? He seems like a dry but kind and humane fellow who is quietly amused by us human beans.
Two things were pretty striking to me. The first, a strange book that infects other books, causing their narratives to be rewritten if it comes anywhere near them. Not a great book to have in a library. Cool idea! The second, a large gang of dogs that (view spoiler)[slaughter a malevolent spirit (hide spoiler)]. Didn't know dogs could do that. Good dogs!...more
the poor delicate soul, a lotus in the mud, reaching higher and always getting ground down, ever down, into the muck and grime of confined, earthly lithe poor delicate soul, a lotus in the mud, reaching higher and always getting ground down, ever down, into the muck and grime of confined, earthly living. the poor morbid soul, dreaming of the past and of escape, dreaming himself away and into strange places where he will be lord or victim, dreaming of bacchanalia and decadence, or of a more refined way of living, or of childhood and a place where he was comforted, given succour. the poor forlorn soul, his love has left him, that love that was his gateway to bliss and to dreaming, but no he doesn't care, he really doesn't, an outsider like himself doesn't need such earthly things as love, he is better on his own, he can focus on his dreams when he's alone, his dreams of death and madness, of places and times past, and of being alone, always alone.
(view spoiler)[I had to take a longish break from the book due to life/work and also, honestly, lack of interest. I've picked it back up tonight. I'm about two-thirds of the way through and hope to finish it soon.
Unlike most, I was completely enchanted by the first chapter. Reading the descriptions of nature on my back patio, looking at treetops and hearing birds around me, while mulling over the strange, almost hyper-real images described on the page... it was such a relaxing experience. I was quite ready to love this book the way I've loved similar pastoral/hallucinatory exercises written by Algernon Blackwood. I'm a big fan of the period voice of these writers.
But what followed was... not so great. The hallucinatory qualities certainly increased but in way that did not engage me, there was no bridge between reality and not-reality. Falling in love with Annie caused these strange flights, really? The descriptions of English country life could have been written by Dostoevsky or Bierce, they were so scabrous and full of too-pointed pitch-black humor and so incredibly one-sided to a degree that I was more annoyed than anything else. And the mortifications of the flesh by thorns - those images of him lying on his floor on a bed of brambles, reading by candlight - have to admit that I rolled my eyes when I should have been, what, aghast? I dunno. The strange mix of those elements should have sparked my interest, and as Dan mentioned, the writing is not bad. But it just didn't coalesce for me, it grated. And I really didn't need that self-indulgently long depiction of the puppy being tormented and murdered. Why exactly? To further prove that humans are gross barbarians? Sigh.
The move to London (and Lucian's surprising hand-wave aside at being deserted by Annie) sparked things a bit more for me. A bit. The descriptions of London were predictably morose but I found myself a bit interested in how much the book was turning into a treatise on style versus substance, or form over meaning. Or I guess form equaling meaning? I didn't expect such lengthy musings on the art of writing.
Anyway, I guess I'll see if the remaining third leaves me as unimpressed as most of the first two-thirds. (hide spoiler)]
One thing that did make me smile: letters from his nagging but well-intentioned cousin make Lucian imagine a happy, homey bourgeois existence with his relatives, which in turn becomes an inspiration to keep living his life his own miserable way, because he wants nothing to do with such bougie homeyness. LOL! Oh, Lucian.
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message 35: by mark May 29, 2021 12:23PM
(view spoiler)[Finished it last night. Not the most edifying way to spend a Friday night but at least I have the rest of the weekend.
There is a lot of brilliance in this book. So much going on! Machen is writing about being unstuck in life, an outsider along the lines of what Colin Wilson would write about decades later, dreaming of other places and other times. Those dreams and longings can be about fairly benign things, like natural landscapes or a well-used home... or more gothic, more dark and even violent things, like a sinister Roman fort or a decayed house or revels in the street... or things and ways of living that we can never have, because we weren't born hundreds or thousands of years ago and those things are probably more imagination than reality... or for things most people once had, like living in the happy memories of childhood when we perhaps felt most held and loved, except of course, as the saying goes, you can't go home again.
He writes all about that while also upbraiding both conventional life and the life of the outsider. He writes about all of that while also writing about writing itself, how to do it, how to make music with words, how to use words to sell your pieces, how to sell out, how to write things only for yourself. He writes about the loneliness of someone outside of the mainstream and the temptations and indulgences and hermetic self-flagellations that sort of person could fall victim to. He writes about love in the most exalted of ways and he writes about sensuality in the most decadent of ways.
There's just so much going on and it is all written in prose that was, for me at least, pretty amazing at times.
Unfortunately, all of those things that Machen writes on just ended up feeling like self-indulgent misery porn. There were a number of highlights but overall this was a pretty disagreeable experience for me. Tedious and pretentious and so navel-gazing it made me want to scream, many times.
Still, the prose was great, so much talent on display. And the ideas were absorbing. At least when I considered those ideas afterwards - not when actually reading them. (hide spoiler)]
All that said, I really enjoyed that one scene where a lesbionic orgy fails to get a reaction from an unimpressed young man. Totally been there....more
"Either, I thought, the one who'd carved it had been a primitive who, by sheer chance, had fashioned the sorrow in it, or a skilled craftsm
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"Either, I thought, the one who'd carved it had been a primitive who, by sheer chance, had fashioned the sorrow in it, or a skilled craftsman who, with a few simple strokes, evoked the hopelessness and anguish of an intellectual being facing the riddle of the universe and overwhelmed by it."
Riddle, indeed. Overwhelmed, indeed. Pity the poor sentient being, human or not, forced to confront the inescapably unknowable quality of this cluster of stars, scraps of debris, and grains of life tossed apparently at random into a great dark void... this question mark called the universe. Is it any wonder religion was created, and other comfort items?
Destiny Doll is an odd, often off-putting book. The plot appears easy to encapsulate: a small number of humans land on a remote planet, encountering strange traps and stranger aliens and dying or disapearing one by one - maybe. I was reminded at first of Lem's absorbing Eden, with its sinister mysteries and bleak perspective on human nature. But Destiny Doll's reach is wider: this is not an analogy for human history. And it is even stranger than that strange book. The writing is not pretty; the narrative is not straightforward; the characters are not friendly. This is Simak at his most stark and also at his most hallucinogenic.
The protagonist is carcinogenic. A tough character to spend time with, let alone see the other characters and this bizarre world through his disgusted, closed-minded, excruciatingly reactionary yet prosaic tunnel vision. A toxic fellow, to say the least. Nor does he live in what I'd call an "enjoyable" book. But it is one that is dense with meaning, hidden between lines and implicit within journeys. Implications of what "life" is can be inferred by the silent, furious alien that compels our characters out of one place, in the hostile alien tree that attempts to kill our characters and then reveals itself to be a host for two soon-to-die civilizations, in the lonely suicide of yet another alien, perhaps the last of his kind. And in the mounds of bones and in the silent white city and in the transporter to various hellscapes and in the beating of many wings heard flying far above our characters' heads, flying or fleeing, from whom and to where, sounds from another dimension.
What is this dimension they live in, humans and aliens alike? Better yet, what dimension have they made? Can another dimension be made, be lived in, that is not so toxic to life? One can only hope. And Simak being Simak, that hope is alive and well, if only in the last, most hallucinatory of its pages. But thank the sweet Lord for those pages, and for the possibility of another kind of life. 'Twas a comfort!
"The Scourge and the Sanctuary" - an occultist breaks into an empty penthouse and finds that it is not empty and that you cannot trespass i
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"The Scourge and the Sanctuary" - an occultist breaks into an empty penthouse and finds that it is not empty and that you cannot trespass into a place that is your own home. This luxurious little story served as a reminder to me of the themes that entrance the author (and that entranced me, especially The Academy Outside of Ingolstadt)... intensely personal exploration of mysteries and Mysteries, occult spirituality as both practice and perspective, the mortification of the flesh as gateway to moving beyond this mortal coil, maps and meanings hidden within landscapes and architecture. The story also functions as an introduction, of sorts, to the tenets of Gnosticism and a rejoinder to the idea that "apostasy" is actually, well, apostasy. All in all, a pleasingly light read, he said sardonically, made all the more pleasant by the stylish violet prose and stylized artificiality that I've come to expect and always appreciate when reading this talented author.
"Permutations of the Citadel" - a desk clerk at an opulent hotel explores the strange physical dimensions of his workplace, inbetween the occasional rendezvous with a much older woman; meanwhile, his friend constructs elaborate yet obscure jests to play upon the hotel guests and the hotel itself. This was a tantalizing story of searching beyond the mirror for an alternate place, an alternate path. Studying maps and musing over measurements, traveling through various doors and entranceways, ascending strange staircases and descending onto stranger balconies the curious fellow goes, not sure of what he is looking for but seeking it nonetheless. I was reminded of the author's glittering Abyssinia, which portrays a similarly shifting landscape. Murphy has a bit of a misstep when detailing the words of a priestess encountered on the other side - much too literal, too explicit. Fortunately, the rest of this absorbing vignette is steeped in the ambiguity that I crave from such journeys.
"The Salamander Angel" - how can you not love that title? This is the most structurally ambitious piece that I've read yet from the author. "Salamander" juggles multiple perspectives, letters & articles, and a wry narrator in its depiction of various characters engaging in various occult activities in an unknown city. It all leads to a phantasmagorical finale (if "finale" can even be used - perhaps "beginning" is more appropriate) in which a meteoric lodestone, the demon star Algol (a personal favorite), and a statue of the titular angel herald transformation within and without. Astral projection, statues coming to life, bizarre letters sent and burned, portals opening, arcane rituals enacted, synaesthesia and Stendahl syndrome all have a happy home in this uplifting tale of people getting what they want. Reading this novella made me look forward to efforts of similar narrative complexity put out by Murphy. However, those other efforts will hopefully be reviewed by a more attentive editor! There are a number of disappointments on a technical level in the writing - errors that could have easily been corrected by an editor who cared enough to point out the misuse of certain words and who had the courage to tell this splendid occultist that sometimes his prose veered regrettably towards the self-parodic. Still, all in all, this was a very enjoyable story. And the most openly witty yet by Murphy.
"A Book of Alabaster" - an erudite loner plays a game that leads to strange places. Color me surprised to find a Damian Murphy story that is about a video game! I'm so used to more rarified settings from him, and would not have imagined that the interior of an outdated video game would prove to feature many of his hallmarks. I'm not remotely a gamer, so this story about an increasingly hallucinatory virtual adventure felt much more foreign to me than any baroque hotel could ever feel. Although a bit overwritten at times, the story effectively portrayed the protagonist's insular life, his questionable memories, and of course the landscape of the game itself. The imagery of a game avatar entering the body of a threatening, macroscopic angel that is all eyes and flame was wild. Despite retaining the motifs and themes of his other works, this is the most straightforward "tale of horror" that I've read so far from the author.
"The Music of Exile" - a poetess is instructed in the art of maintaining rather than traversing liminal space; a luminosity from within is displayed, feared, and at last understood; houses and altars are explored and evaluated; a radiant dawn is avoided and a radiant darkness is embraced.
At first I was discomfited to realize that I was actually reading a story about poetesses and their craft, with actual examples of their poems (never, ever my thing). But soon enough, I left that discomfort behind when in a flash I realized that this was the Damian Murphy who first enchanted me. Sadly, with that knowledge came an uncomfortable reevaluation of the prior stories. Alabaster's focus on the horror the horror, and its gotcha ending, suddenly felt rather cheap... Citadel's permutations and Sanctuary's scourges seemed like too-obvious warm-up exercises for superior works like Abyssinia and Ingolstadt and this story... Salamander's narrative complexity now seemed to be a path towards mainstream fiction (all that cross-cutting between various POVs!) that I am relieved Murphy chose not to take. Of course, I still enjoyed all of those tales, they all remain of value. Fun stuff.
But "Music of Exile" just feels so much more pure, so much more a distillation of what the author himself is all about. The oblique storytelling, the hypnotic cadence, the chilly characterization built from psychological ambiguity rather than from stylized caricature, the overtly formal dialogue, decadence and hallucinatory landscapes as givens rather than as goals, prose that is dreamily strange yet crystalline rather than lushly overripe and at times overly cooked, bizarre imagery that somehow feels bizarrely natural when placed within a tale that is less a narrative and more a spiritual journey, and above all, the calm even zen-like confidence on display. Although I'm a bit sad that this story revealed the preceding stories' flaws so clearly, I'm mainly delighted that the collection ended with such a masterful display of Murphy's skills. By the time I closed this book, my eyes were wide open again to his unique talents.
Piranesi looked into the house and so became... Piranesi!
Piranesi looked into the house and this is what he saw: great statues and greater floods, birPiranesi looked into the house and so became... Piranesi!
Piranesi looked into the house and this is what he saw: great statues and greater floods, birds and fish, clouds and bones, science and - from the start - magic.
Piranesi looked into the house and found a purpose, a home, and a way to live a life: as if everything is new and of value.
Piranesi looked into the house and discovered a friend, or so he imagined, and then he discovered many more. This place is full of friends and fun! thought Piranesi.
Piranesi looked into the house and wondered again at the beauty of it all, a child in a man's body, child-like but never child-ish. Curious Piranesi always had many questions.
Piranesi looked away from his house and quivered for the first time in fear, a man in a child's mind, lost but not forgotten. Poor Piranesi was provided many answers.
Piranesi looked away from his house and found an enemy, or so he imagined, and then he discovered another. That place is full of enemies and danger! thought Piranesi.
Piranesi looked away from his house and lost his sense of self, his home, his path in life: as if nothing could be truly seen or known.
Piranesi looked away from his house and this is what he saw: dark streets and darker motives, trash and debris, people and more people, mystery and - in the end - understanding.
Piranesi looked away from his house and so became himself, at last... alas?...more
synopsis: various Englishmen, an Englishwoman, and a lively Englishboy are embroiled in a murder mystery, a sort of treasure hunt, the nefarious goalssynopsis: various Englishmen, an Englishwoman, and a lively Englishboy are embroiled in a murder mystery, a sort of treasure hunt, the nefarious goals of various occultists, and a diverse array of paranormal happenings; unsurprisingly, they barely bother to acknowledge let alone comment on the spiritual and supernatural aspects intruding violently upon their lives, no doubt because they are English and such immoderate declarations of the obvious would certainly be considered a trifle unseemly.
I love how this offbeat novel espouses that there is a kind of mythic transcendentalism within the nature of Anglican Christianity - quite a new perspective to me. Never would I have imagined adding the Church of England to my list of Favorite Christian Faiths - but make room Quakers, Religious Scientists, and Swedenborgians! There's a new faith that will now be sharing your space in my head.
Charles Williams was of course one of the Inklings, that storied crew of literary enthusiasts and visionary Christians that included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I guess he was the odd one out, or - as I'd like to imagine - the eccentric brother who they had little in common with but still admired because of that eccentricity. Despite his idiosyncracies, Williams was no Iconoclast: the Christian vision within him was strong, and this story features one of the most important Christian icons of all: the Holy Grail. Indeed, it is the iconoclastic villains in this novel that seek to misuse or destroy this holy item.
One of the things I appreciated most about Williams' storytelling, and his take on the Anglican value system, is that he is not strident about his religion. The author does not make a big fuss about anything, including matters of faith. There may be a beautifully dreamlike and transcendent miracle that happens in a church at the climax, but the author is never pushy with his faith. The protagonists include a range of nice but uninteresting individuals with varying levels of spirituality, and there is no dull speechifying about what constitutes Right or Wrong Behavior. The evil villains are fascinatingly malicious and spiteful, urbane and erudite and amusing, callous and cruel just to be cruel, and they feature deadly magicians and a cynical, mean-spirited author... but their wickedness comes from who they actually are, their personalities and intentions, their outlook on life - and not from their specific ideology, or lack thereof. They are not villains because they move against Christianity, they are villains because they are heartless assholes. The rot came from within.
Another thing I appreciated: the inclusion of the legendary Prester John as an in-person deus ex machina. This Prester John, despite being a force for ultimate good is... scary. A smiling, ruthless, you simple-minded terrestrial villains are but interesting little insects to me, barely worth my time kind of scary. Yay for scary good guys! There's too few of them.
The book is dry, the humor so low-key it nears invisible, the pacing veers back and forth between being too quick and choppy to being too gently meandering, and it often doesn't bother explaining itself very clearly. It is a metaphysical book but the feel for the most part is mundane, corporeal, rooted in the day-to-day of office and family life, work conversations and polite, passive-aggressive banter. Open drama is kept to a mininum, as is the expression of blatant emotion. When the fantastic elements intrude and the mystical visions take over, it felt like I had turned the page and entered another book entirely, so based in reality is the majority of the story. This is a hard book to recommend. But I loved it, including all of its idiosyncracies; it is an excellent gateway into Charles Williams' unusual world view. I look forward to reading more of his strange adventures....more
the science is hard and persuasive; the microscopic beings are soft and even more persuasive. they find themselves born in a strange new universe: thethe science is hard and persuasive; the microscopic beings are soft and even more persuasive. they find themselves born in a strange new universe: the human body! and as many such beings do, they form themselves into groups and they build. they build and build and build and so create a civilization in their universe. a civilization in your body!
Greg Bear is a great writer. the science is carefully explained, understandable even to science-dummies like myself. and he is just as persuasive when it comes to the human condition, carefully grounding his characters within their own personal contexts, their flaws and virtues, their desire to connect and to love, their need to be individuals. stakes are created when human nature is sympathetically and accurately portrayed, and so stakes are high in this novel.
the book juggles many things: it is an alien invasion saga - but an invasion from within; it is a tale of horror - of bodies changing and melting and oozing into the floor and each other; it is a speculative tale of a future that may look and feel utterly alien - but is still a future of hope and an expansion of human consciousness. ultimately, it functions as both parallel and healing antibody to Arthur C. Clarke's depressing Childhood's End. I'm a glass half-full kind of guy, so I appreciated the potential for uplift and the hopeful message that this mind-expanding novel delivered. and personally, I don't mind melting into the floor and into my loved ones if it also means that I (and the rest of humanity) get to level up. maybe that's just me though....more
I may come back to this one day, if only to reread the parts that specifically describe the bizarre occurrences1 part fascinating, 9 parts unbearable.
I may come back to this one day, if only to reread the parts that specifically describe the bizarre occurrences in this house/labyrinth/abyss. I think those parts were pretty good? Maybe? Happy to skip revisiting the gimmicky (and often laughably written) footnotes/digressions/analyses, and especially to skip the trash story of maudlin Johnny Truant - the latter of which, sadly, is both the heart and much of the body of the novel. I guess I'm more into its mind. Really, fuck Johnny Truant! He brings out the worst in the author.
Fun with formatting didn't bother me and sometimes kept me awake. But mainly the book helped relieve insomnia.
The Divinity Student returns, worse for wear but still ambitious, still yearning, in his quiet and sepulchral way. From the grave to the po
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The Divinity Student returns, worse for wear but still ambitious, still yearning, in his quiet and sepulchral way. From the grave to the police station to the morgue to the laboratory he shall travel. He became Vampire in his last adventure; in this he has become Dr. Frankenstein. And so he shall create another him: The Golem. A mirror image, a twin, a part that represents the whole.
Pity the poor Golem, adrift from himself, of the Student but not the Student. Yet student still, always learning. He shall seek his lost love. But is it his love or the Student's? Is she lost... or is she hiding? Is she hiding... while hoping to be found? He shall travel underground to find her, traversing the anti-city, a place devoid of humanity, made of the stuff of dreams, and sighs, and groans. The Golem can bend reality, but what is "reality" in such a place? The Golem has the strength of many men, but what is "strength" in a world without mankind? He shall follow nonetheless, the fool, the tool, the sad and broken monster, yearning only for... what? Love? Redemption? But what could redeem a man made of pages and parts, books and bodies? The poor tattered puppet.
There shall be a meeting in the church, between Divinity and Golem and Woman, between Father and Son and Spirit. All the world will die yet all the dreams will come true. The universe expands, contracts, expands again. What is a mere Golem but the reflection of this universe? Perhaps both shall be born again, together. Ours is not to wonder why...
You fall asleep and so enter a strange dream. In this dream, you are a scholar of faith, of divinity. You have died and your body becomes transformed:You fall asleep and so enter a strange dream. In this dream, you are a scholar of faith, of divinity. You have died and your body becomes transformed: now made of the stuff of books, your insides stuffed like a bookcase. And so you are reborn, and sent on a secret mission: search for the secret words, in the secretive city of San Veneficio, words once discovered by certain deceased investigators. You will go to a job, and learn nothing; you will go to a church, and learn much. You will meet a girl and a butcher: together you will make your own special place, together you will find the bodies of those word surveyors and dig them up, break them free; you will distill and then drink their secret essence. You will find such knowledge... empowering. Your mind expands. You become transformed again, your powers increase as your connection to life decreases. Your mission is inconsequential now, forgotten; your former masters hold no sway. You are the Divinity Student: you will always study the empyrean domain above, unearthing those bodies below, prying out their secrets. You will die and live again. What does it all mean? you wonder. What do these secrets amount to, how can the ineffable, the divine, be contained within mere words? There is no need to wonder on such things, you realize. This is all merely a dream. Or maybe a nightmare? Perhaps you have become the nightmare.
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