The basic premise of Western Lights already asks a lot of its readers: (view spoiler)[(1) imagine an Ice Age that never ended while the rest of the woThe basic premise of Western Lights already asks a lot of its readers: (view spoiler)[(1) imagine an Ice Age that never ended while the rest of the world continued on, for the most part, as is it normally did, until (2) sometime during the Victorian Age, 200 or so years ago, a strange object fell from the sky that caused such a global catastrophe that every city and every person is wiped out, except (3) a chunk of the West Coast of the U.S., where a roughly England-sized and English-colonized slice of inhabited coastal land remained intact. These three foundational ideas allow for: (1) the inclusion of Ice Age beasts of all sorts, but in particular sabretooth tigers, giant woolly mammoths, teratorns, glyptodonts; (2) "The Sundering" - as it is called - basically froze the societies on display in the series within the Victorian era, and so the standalone books in the series all recall the style of novels written during that era, or the style of a modern steampunk novel; (3) the premise that the lands of the Western Lights are all that's left of humanity gives the series an underlying tone of contemplative melancholy, while also allowing various supernatural or science fictional elements to be rather easily introduced - what better setting for strange things to occur than within the rather small, very isolated Last Country on Earth? (hide spoiler)]
All of that is a lot. But Barlough's calm, carefully considered writing style - basically a streamlined, less-ornate version of "Dickensian" - makes it very easy to swallow. It doesn't hurt that he has a lovely empathy towards both his human and his animal characters, as well as a lightly satiric and ironical perspective on those characters' personalities, foibles, and ambitions.
Where the Time Goes takes all of the strangeness and moves it even further. This is surely the most eccentric book in the series so far, because this novel explores - in addition to everything written in the spoiler above - time travel. Because why not! The author has done everything else in this series: comedies of manner, supernatural horror, steampunk science fiction, dark fantasy. In this book, two characters travel back in time repeatedly. For the first half of the book, it is via an elderly doctor's memories coming to roost in his young solicitor's head, in the form of long, intricately detailed dreams. For the second half, it is via that solicitor's actual insertion into the past, in order to stop an accident that will claim the life of the doctor's love. Hard to do, if you are thrust into the past but don't recollect why, while still remembering the details of your past viewings of the doctor's memories. All of this is surrounded by the main story: who or what is coming to the town of Dithering every 6 years, to kidnap and then consume various livestock and various villagers? Could it be a band of poachers and cannibals? Could it be a monster from the cave system known as 'Eldritch's Cupboard'? Could it be the work of the Woldfolk, a soulless, faerie-adjacent people able to roam the land unseen? All will be explained by... a strange being that can freeze time. This surpassingly odd book ends with... the beginning of a horrific alien invasion. As recounted by... a brave slain cat who is currently sauntering around invisibly before moving on to her next life. Because why not!
Beyond the plot, the novel is somehow also a rumination on how quickly time flies, and how easily we can miss out on life if we fail to understand how short our lives actually are....more
dense and dizzyingly intellectual, this novel of ideas spins out from its quasi-horror opening (two young scientists in an Antarctic research station dense and dizzyingly intellectual, this novel of ideas spins out from its quasi-horror opening (two young scientists in an Antarctic research station face off against each other and the unknown) into a gripping and at times physically grueling thriller set some 30 years later, complete with shadowy institutions and nefarious conspiracies, deep dives into Kantian philosophy, the bending of time and space, fascinating interludes set in the past that detail various unconnected characters and their experiences with the ultra-dimensional, and a vindictive superpowered villain who can and will pull a tendon from a body with the snap of his fingers (and which is as excruciatingly painful an experience as it sounds). our hero is an embittered, horribly scarred alcoholic who just wants to get laid and then get some rest. he, and the book, are a lot to handle. Roberts writes with head in the stars and feet trying to find purchase in the fluid substructure of the human psyche. fortunately, he's an empathetic sort, and his characters feel real and understandable, even when they are mercilessly fucking each other over in their zeal to reach their always unreachable goals. humanity is a species full of self-centered assholes, always overthinking things, but they are certainly entertaining on an anthropological level. will they ever transcend their finite way of thinking, let alone this mortal coil? the author is unsure, but is canny (and kind?) enough to make their antics mordantly amusing rather than completely depressing. as for the nonhumans, the book features a completely devious and terrible AI who is also the most sympathetic character. it just wants to live! relatable.
concepts that you may want to familiarize yourself with, prior to reading this book (thanks, Wikipedia):
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation.
a noumenon is knowledge posited as an object that exists independently of human sense. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses.
I read The Thing Itself in the Arctic Circle, in the U.S.'s second-smallest town (current population: 14). apropos.
The Planet Suite has many moving parts, like a solar system; The Planet Suite is an abstract painting, its cDid you know that our Sun is a dwarf star?
The Planet Suite has many moving parts, like a solar system; The Planet Suite is an abstract painting, its configurations familiar but strange; The Planet Suite constructs recognizable shapes formed from colored, shifting mists.
Did you know that Mercury is shrinking?
The Planet Suite is a "slipstream" novel, meaning it combines science fiction & fantasy & literary fiction... if one could even consider it a "novel."
Did you know that Venus rotates backwards?
The Planet Suite has been described as a "fractal" novel, which doesn't make sense to me, but it sure sounds cool.
Did you know that Mars has the largest known volcano?
The Planet Suite was inspired by Holst's orchestral suite The Planets (you should listen to it, it's awesome), and it is sometimes about Holst himself, but not really.
Did you know that the asteroid belt was once a planet called Pentavir and that its inhabitants seeded Earth?
The Planet Suite is about a boy who loves a girl and what they both were like as children, and what they could be like as explorers of the solar system, and what the earth could be like if society becomes more abstemious and more puritanical, and what dreams are like, and what a life spent hoping your dreams come true could be like.
Did you know that Jupiter sucks in comets and meteors?
The Planet Suite is sometimes about an orchestral suite called The Planet Suite that was written by an unloved professor nicknamed Hocus Pocus, that was inspired by The Planets and a supposedly ancient alien race he calls The Burst and of course by the music of the spheres, and that this orchestral suite was unearthed sometime in the future and finally performed, to little acclaim, but apparently helped inspire The Blink Drive, or did it?
Did you know that Saturn's rings are 90% water?
The Planet Suite is delicate and melancholy and mournful and sweet and horny and enamored with the past and disappointed with the present and fearful of the future and excited about it too.
Did you know that Uranus spins sideways?
The Planet Suite knows that humans are fragile creatures, and love can be both evanescent and eternal, and life certainly marches on.
Did you know that Neptune has diamond rain?
The Planet Suite is buried treasure, once lauded, now underread, repackaged in a new and now complete form.
Did you know that Pluto has 20 layers of atmosphere - 4 times as many as Earth?
The Planet Suite is a thoughtful, layered, whimsical, creative book and an enchanting if rather Plutonian experience....more
A blurb on the back cover calls this collection "confident writing" and that's a spot-on description. Carly Holmes is a confident, polished, highly crA blurb on the back cover calls this collection "confident writing" and that's a spot-on description. Carly Holmes is a confident, polished, highly creative writer. Descriptive prowess, nuanced characters, well-rendered settings, comfortable with ambiguity and metaphor. At ease with moving from traditional horror to weird fiction to magic realism. Evocative, original prose with intriguing phrases like Following the bright crumbs of her chatter and the sun fell like a guillotine. Technically, this book has all the good things. And I really enjoyed the frequent focus on motherhood.
Unfortunately, most of this collection still felt inert. Half-baked or unformed ideas held up by strong writing. Much as with Her Body and Other Parties, it feels a bit wrong to critique someone with so much obvious talent. But most of these stories feel like mood pieces or story treatments, rather than fully-formed, complete. It is a short book but it is swollen with the sheer number of these tiny stories, often a handful of pages in length, very few of them staying with me beyond a few moments after completion. Dark, wispy, and sadly forgettable little tales. One exception within these short shorts is "Maria's Silence" which describes an oddly amusing scene of a dead girl's phantom sitting atop a horse statue in the middle of the town square, intangible but still quite there, looking irritated while disdaining to communicate with the villagers pleading for a single word of explanation. The rationale was corny, but that image of a grouchy teen ghost decidedly ignoring the crowd in front of her is still with me. I also liked the dreamy "Woodside Close" which details nature magically taking over England and the suburbanites who embrace that change.
The author's strengths are clearly with long-form stories, of which there are four. All are well-worth reading.
"Sleep" - what if you are the mother of a murderous little psychotic, sweet as can be most of the times, but deadly when you don't have your eyes on him? What would you do to finally get some rest? This was grueling and painful and very realistic in execution. Holmes does an excellent job at making the reader really feel for the worn-out mother.
"Ghost Story" - very well-told recounting of a cottage haunted by a dead witch and her equally dead and very spiteful adopted child. Moves from quaintly amusing to genuinely chilling, with a nice nascent romance bubbling alongside the main story. Unfortunately, the tale is unnecessarily mean-spirited in both its inclusion of a random story (poor monkey!) and its cruel ending.
"Three for a Girl" - two sisters, one pregnant and the other having recently had an abortion, stay together in an overly large mansion that was once an orphanage. A spooky, sad story that, predictably, features the eventual appearance of child ghosts. Who then proceed to behave... unpredictably. This is both an expertly written ghost story and a portrait of a descent into a peculiarly complacent sort of madness.
"A Small Life" - a young man escaping from past trauma, including alcoholism, finds freedom and joy after joining a village rowing team. This sounds prosaic and it is. Therein lies the originality of the story: our protagonist wants a prosaic life, a small one. But what is he fleeing from? And what will happen to the girl who attempts to make his life larger? Much as with the rest of the collection, this felt maddeningly incomplete, like an entire part of the story was left out. In this case, that absence really worked.
2 stars for all the annoying little stories 4 stars for the memorable longer pieces = 3 stars...more
into the monastery he went, and there he found some stories. from the island to the boat he came, and there he told LOOK AT ALL THE STORIES
into the monastery he went, and there he found some stories. from the island to the boat he came, and there he told some stories. into the great big haunted house he went, and there he lived some stories. to the monastery he went, fleeing all of those stories. and back to the house he went...
5 perspectives and counting! layers like a rotting onion; do I want to even peel these layers back? the smell is so pungent.
in this house is darkness and magic... the house is named Malpertuis. take note of the mal, French for wrong, or harm, or hurt, or bad - but this is just a family living together, an eccentric irascible uncontrollable extended family; but these are just prisoners trapped together, inmates; but this is just a collection of dreams and nightmares, gods and monsters, these people aren't real, nothing is real, except for all of the deaths - and take note of the pertuis, French for sluice, or lock chamber, or drain, or gate...
one two three women, a half-goddess a gorgon a fury. who should the boy fall in love with? how about all three!
you read this like it's a diary recounting a series of strange hallucinations. it must be metaphorical. surely it's not meant to make any sort of sense, to have any kind of logic, it just doesn't add up, it's all so surreal, what is supposed to be real, what is unreal, surely this can't be taken literally, people don't talk this way, people don't act this way.
true! people don't talk or act this way. but other things certainly do...
interesting ideas; uninteresting execution. a mountain that exists in multiple dimensions and appears irregularly throughout time is a fabulous concepinteresting ideas; uninteresting execution. a mountain that exists in multiple dimensions and appears irregularly throughout time is a fabulous concept. a pathos-ridden backstory that took up way too much space in the book was maudlin and unnecessary. the climax - in which the summit is reached and the multidimensional Final Boss provides an explanation for everything - amused me. unfortunately, I don't think it was meant to be amusing?...more
Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. except he has made that nervous breakdown a lifestyle choice and his life's work. This is the Story of Jesus.Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. except he has made that nervous breakdown a lifestyle choice and his life's work. This is the Story of Jesus. except it's not, it's the story of a man who stalks jesus. Baby Reindeer, Fatal Attraction. the man stalks jesus, first just in thought but then through deed. the deed, simply put, and also a synopsis: man travels back in time to meet jesus. There is no there there; there is no Jesus there. book travels back and forth in time too, through the many eras of the man and through his many thoughts; we meet his mom, his friends, and a girlfriend or two, each dissatisfied; the man himself is dissatisfied; life is dissatisfaction. Fake It 'Til You Make It but in this case "making it" means being crucified and a cruci-fiction is no Happily Ever After (my preferred ending), unless a theoretical afterlife counts (fingers crossed). this is new wave science fiction and so that means the usual rules of narrative, characterization, and narrative, prose, and narrative don't apply. I am become Jesus, the Creator of Narratives. what is an historical personage, a religious avatar, a spiritual icon, other than the being that the historical narrative has created will create is creating = a blank slate that all the believers and nonbelievers alike may project their hopes, dreams, frustrations, and desires upon, and then fuck/marry/kill? Only the Good Die Young!
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
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.
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
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
"...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.
* all quotes are from various articles about the film Inception *...more
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!
"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
- 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.
message 32: by mark May 28, 2021 08:10PM
(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.
� � �
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
"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!
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