"...all the complexities and contradictions of human existence suddenly resolved in a simple vision of wholeness."
Colin Wilson lets his Unsolved M
"...all the complexities and contradictions of human existence suddenly resolved in a simple vision of wholeness."
Colin Wilson lets his Unsolved Mysteries - Ancient Astronauts freak flag fly and it's all so fascinating and fun, albeit occasionally eyerolling. Besides his many works of true crime, mystery, horror, and science fiction, he was apparently also known to the British public as an amateur archeologist of the strange and the unknown, appearing on and hosting many a BBC documentary with subjects mainly having to do with the diverse mysteries that continue to live on in our world. This is a book of adventure, often of the body, traveling to various exotic locales, but mainly of the mind, exploring new ways of looking at history and the ways of the world. And he delivers all of these adventures and musings and often bizarre conclusions in a straightforward, conversational, very earnest way - rather different from the voice he used in his fiction, but sharing the same seriousness and the same unashamedly intellectual bent. Enjoyable stuff!
Could it be that...
◎ Atlantean refugees settled throughout the world, forming some of our more advanced societies?
Δ Vibrating sand can reveal ancient Eyptian religious symbols?
☢ Yull Brown created a gas that can vaporize metals and absorb radiation cleanly?
☂ There were actually three Great Floods, one of them caused by a meteor shower?
☥ Egyptian iconography can be found in Peru?
☄ The Ancient Mayans understood much of what we now know about astronomy?
☤ DNA looks like the drawings of intertwined snakes found across many archaic civilizations?
♛ The modern Freemasons can trace their history right back to the Templar Knights?
✞ Jesus & Mary Magdalene moved to France, had a child, and died there?
۞ Isotopes were described by occultists before they were discovered by scientists?
Ω Neanderthal science and shamanic culture may have existed before the Ice Age?
I didn't know any of this! Is any of it true? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"It occurred to me that I knew everything."
-Robert Graves, recalling a sudden vision that came to him as a boy, and that just as suddenly left him. Alas for lost visions!
it is so interesting to me that a Colin Wilson novel can still be interesting as a "Colin Wilson novel" while also being thoroughly uninteresting. reait is so interesting to me that a Colin Wilson novel can still be interesting as a "Colin Wilson novel" while also being thoroughly uninteresting. reading this book reminded me of doing a deep dive into the films of an auteur from classic Hollywood: you will come across a lot of dross made for money, but you will still see the hand of the director, their abiding interests and their individual styles displayed throughout all of their works. and so it is with this dull boy.
the story is neither as salacious as its title suggests nor does it involve a schoolgirl. I was happily surprised by that. but I shouldn't have been surprised; I know this author. more often than not, he churned out potboilers for money, but he is not the sort to write salacious trash. (view spoiler)[not that I am against salacious trash, of course! (hide spoiler)] Wilson always has his points to make.
this is an account of how Chief Superintendent Gregory Saltfleet of the Scotland Yard solves a perplexing double murder in a small number of days. we see the interior of Saltfleet and there is not a lot to remark on: he's a calm, decent, tolerant man. a basically uninteresting protagonist but also perfectly pleasant. the story includes many of Wilson's fascinations: people living outside the mainstream norm, magic of the Aleister Crowley variety, violent and sexual obsessions, the workings of an aberrant mind.
the style is dry but relaxed, the story told with a minimum of drama and fuss. there is a casualness to the storytelling in how it accounts for nearly every part of our protagonist's working life, including - annoyingly - cases that having nothing to do with this one. various lagers and liquors are imbibed throughout the day in an equally casual way - that was fun to read, and I have to admit that it sounds rather nice being on the English police force in 1974 - and various witnesses and suspects are just as casually given intimate details of the case and even taken along on interviews, and in one eyebrow-raising scene, an autopsy. it is indeed all so casual. stakes appear not-so-high because nearly every single character goes about reacting to this double murder with only the slightest of interest. including the villain, who we quickly realize is the attractive and completely annoying young artist who condescendingly upbraids our polite superintendent on his supposed complacency - a rudeness that is clearly the mark of a smug psychopath! only Saltfleet himself seems interested in helping people not go astray into lives of horror and who is willing to see the human under the sometimes unpleasant identity they wear. as one of his colleagues comments, the man should have been a priest.
the book, boring as it may be, is interesting to contemplate as a reaction from Wilson against those individuals and that certain fabric of society who share his interests, but only in the most offensively shallow and obtuse of ways. Wilson doesn't view fakers kindly.
my favorite bit:
Aspinal, who was fitting a blade into the scalpel, said, "Would you like to watch, or would you prefer to go?"
She glanced at Saltfleet.
"Will it be all right if I stay?"
"Of course. If Dr. Aspinal doesn't mind."
She gave a short laugh. "It's not every day you see your boss cut up."
Aspinal said, with grave courtesy, "It must be a liberating experience." Without further ado, he sliced into the skin below the adam's apple...
also, what is up with the bizarrely illiterate synopsis of this book? that Kirkus reviewer must have had a few too many lagers and liquors when writing it....more
Spider World, yahoo! this is so much better than the series' title sounds. in the transparency of its prose and the richness of its ideas, i was reminSpider World, yahoo! this is so much better than the series' title sounds. in the transparency of its prose and the richness of its ideas, i was reminded of a darker, not-quite-post-apocalyptic version of Le Guin's Earthsea. there are certainly equivalent amounts of those intangible things "depth" and "resonance". the series is action-packed yet moodily contemplative and at times uncompromisingly stark. the protagonist moves through eerie adventure, frightening bondage, and strange journeys of discovery... all leading to surprisingly thoughtful meditations on the human condition. as the series unfolds, the mysteries of humankind are solved and yet made all the more mysterious. where will man go and where has he been? what is our life for and what does it all mean? and of course the classic Colin Wilson conundrum: What Is Human Consciousness? 4 stars for the entire series!
also, a special award for Best Realization of How Giant Futuristic Spiders Actually Think
in a box there lives a snake. it eats, it sleeps, it sheds its skin, it is let out from time to time and then put back in. the walls of its box are main a box there lives a snake. it eats, it sleeps, it sheds its skin, it is let out from time to time and then put back in. the walls of its box are made of glass; perhaps it can fool itself into thinking it does not live its life in a cage. so it is with the snake and so it is with its owner, the killer of the novel, a man who lives in his own kind of glass cage.
or so it is according to Colin Wilson. as an author, he had one overriding concern: the exploration of human consciousness and human potential, and the way the boundaries of society and self put fetters on that consciousness and potential. Wilson wrote in many different genres, science fiction and horror and young adult and biography and personal narrative, but no matter what the genre, Wilson's gotta be Wilson. his themes are his passions; artists will always revisit and reshape their passions throughout their careers. he's one of my favorite authors.
The Glass Cage is a curious sort of thriller. for one, it is not remotely thrilling. Wilson is an intensely cerebral writer and so he crafts very intellectual entertainments. the appeal of The Glass Cage - and I found it to be very appealing - is in the small and the large things going on, rather than in the narrative itself. the small: understatement, nonchalance, quiet, thoughtfulness, carefully chosen details that make the story feel entirely real despite the basic oddness of what is going on. the large: Wilson advances his theme of how humans are caged in traps of their own making through his depiction of the unusual killer and the even more unusual protagonist. the narrative: a serial killer is carving people up and leaving quotations by Blake at the scenes of his crimes... our hero is England's foremost expert on Blake; he decides to figure out not just who the killer is, but why this obviously intelligent man even deigns to engage in something as base and unsavory as serial killing. after all, the killer reads Blake - surely he must be a man of some depth and refinement? at least per our hero's world view.
Wilson's refusal to engage in what he probably considered to be trite emotionalism and dramatics means that the story holds things at a certain distance. sexuality in particular, race to a lesser extent. our hero Damon Reade is a 35-year old virgin living in self-imposed exile in the country, and little is made of that. Wilson writes Damon - who gets frequently depressed at the slightest hint of pettiness or banality, including mean looks from people annoyed by him - as if he were a perfectly regular guy. Damon suddenly gets engaged to a 15-year old schoolgirl who he's been an uncle to since she was 10, and little is of made of that. Damon goes to stay in London with his extremely horny composer friend, and little is made of the revolving cast of women in the composer's life. little is made of the sex workers who live on the composer's first floor, or of Damon's first time with a girl, or of a visit to a gay club by Damon and his widening circle of amateur sleuths. little is made of the fact that the killer butchers his victims! Damon figures out who the serial killer is and meets with him several times; he ends up being intrigued and then, finally, rather bored and annoyed by him. the serial killer is just too clingy and fake for Damon. the lack of drama in what would usually be a very dramatic tale made reading this book a striking experience. I also often saw a lot of myself in Damon's weary irritation after spending too much time with his fellow humans... which was a bit disturbing to realize.
there was one place that the lack of emotion really bothered me, and that was in the offhand way Damon's 15-year old paramour's home life is described. she's regularly subjected to repulsively handsy behavior from her repulsive uncle; at one point he casually flips up her skirt to show off her new underwear to Damon. Damon rationalizes away the implications of what this could mean about the young lady's life, and Wilson is likewise coolly distant. this whole sequence was revoltingly creepy and, worst of all, entirely unnecessary.
but I wouldn't change the low-key distance of the narrator or the writing because it made for a fascinatingly idiosyncratic book. and it pays off richly in the end, when...
SPOILER ALERT! but really, are you even going to read this?
...the killer is holed up in his home, surrounded by the police and then joined by our hero. as Damon calms said killer down, he considers the matter. oh the tiresome banality of the police, oh the idea of a life spent in tedious confinement! great minds are not meant for such things. Damon promptly comes up with a way for his pet serial killer to outwit the police and avoid blame and retribution for his crimes. Damon makes his choice, and chooses against "the system" and for the killer. I did not expect that. it was certainly an unusual sort of a happy ending....more
don't watch Lifeforce unless you're drunk. read the book instead. can a movie rape a book? yes it can.don't watch Lifeforce unless you're drunk. read the book instead. can a movie rape a book? yes it can....more
Colin Wilson uses the Lovecraft mythos as an entry point into his own interests and concerns. The author often writes of a world - our world - full ofColin Wilson uses the Lovecraft mythos as an entry point into his own interests and concerns. The author often writes of a world - our world - full of people willing to just let things happen, filled with members of a disappointing species that need to wake up if they ever want to evolve:
"It's strange, but all these people strike me as being asleep. They're all somnambulists."
Colin Wilson champions the mind. Even though the "villains" of the novel are its titular mind parasites that exist to create complacency and ignorance, the true villains and the true victims are one and the same: namely, those people who cannot explore within and who create their own boxes to live in, who chain themselves to farcical patterns of behavior and who lose their independence through their reliance on hierarchies. People who have no ability or interest in exploring the world of the imagination:
A man who can withdraw into himself on a long train journey has escaped time and space, while the man who stares out of the window and yawns with boredom has to live through every minute and every mile.
Colin Wilson is a dry and deliberate author, disinterested in providing cheap thrills or easy answers, quietly passionate about his ideas, a writer whose prose is calm, studied... polite. The book is an intellectual novel set in a sometimes prescient, sometimes absurdly unrealistic future. Its plot is basically about how a group of people become aware of a threat, begin to quickly evolve (which includes powers!), eventually travel through space, and in a fantastic scene, finally get around to eliminating that threat when the world is on the verge of total nuclear annihilation. It has a positive feeling to it because the author truly believed that humans can become better if they literally put their minds to it. But sometimes he does let his scabrous opinions on the current state of the un-evolved human race surface:
...the human beings who greeted us seemed alien and repulsive, little better than apes. It was suddenly incredible that these morons could inhabit this infinitely beautiful world and yet remain so blind and stupid.
Colin Wilson is one of my favorite authors! I really get him....more
Fascinating but grueling novel about the (fictional) life of the burglar Arthur Lingard, as recounted by an attending psychiatrist who forms a quick aFascinating but grueling novel about the (fictional) life of the burglar Arthur Lingard, as recounted by an attending psychiatrist who forms a quick affinity with his troubled patient - one who is cleverly concealing hidden depths beneath a veneer of mulish stupidity. Alas, those depths are far deeper than the good doctor ever imagined: Arthur is hiding a long career as a serial abuser, rapist, and killer.
Colin Wilson's distanced approach made this off-putting story interesting and often admirable. I love horror and mysteries, but I am not enchanted by tales done in the True Crime style nor do I enjoy overly graphic depictions of various abuses and depredations. Such activities are very explicitly detailed here. I'm more of an atmosphere and ambiguity kind of horror fan, and this novel has neither. There is mystery, but the mystery is just how evil is he? rather than the sort of mysteries I prefer. But Wilson's dry refusal to create a salacious experience lifted the material, turned it into something contemplative. Lingard is a rumination on motivation and how the imagination can become twisted, corrupted. Its protagonist desperately wants to believe that Arthur is redeemable, that something can come out of all that intelligence and creativity. This is a very Colin Wilson stance - he's an iconoclast who writes only about iconoclasts. The book functions as a puzzle for the author himself: what to think when his mind-expanding ideas come out of the mouth of a predatory psychopath? It is also a thematic follow-up to the superior Glass Cage.
At times, the author's nonchalant, undramatic style was itself hard to bear. A house crammed full of merrily incestuous kids is a lot, but a story that carefully describes the specific details of their exploits is a lot more. Same goes for a positively portrayed character whose "open-minded" perspective on sexual relations with uncle, brother, and cousins is given an Earth Mother sheen. That was hard for me to buy into or even accept as plausible, let alone healthy. Wilson's non-judgmental approach to sex is perhaps laudable, but that approach became rather a trial for me.
No trial at all were the awesome Lovecraftian flourishes in the first part of the book, which focuses on Arthur's delusions during an extended break from reality (one which brings the psychiatrist into his orbit). Fascinating, at times darkly humorous stuff. But then Arthur and the novel itself move back into grueling reality, which despite being its own kind of absorbing, is not really my cup of tea....more
Spider World, yahoo! this is so much better than the series' title sounds.
the author is one of a kind. he has been many things: surveyer of iconoclastSpider World, yahoo! this is so much better than the series' title sounds.
the author is one of a kind. he has been many things: surveyer of iconoclasts (The Outsider) and analyst of charisma gone astray (Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors); a chronicler of diseased mentalities and disturbing crimes (Schoolgirl Murder Case, Lingard); a philosopher grounded in both intellect and mysticism (The Philosopher's Stone); and a genre specialist transforming his visions of humanity and beyond into YA adventure novels (Spider World) and phantasmagoric horror sci-fi (The Mind Parasites, The Space Vampires). if there isn't a cult built around colin wilson, there really should be - he's a visionary....more
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