A bizarre collection. The author's prose is dense, arch, and thickly stylized, brimming with intense detail, amusing alliterations, tortured syntax, dA bizarre collection. The author's prose is dense, arch, and thickly stylized, brimming with intense detail, amusing alliterations, tortured syntax, didactic repetitions, and the frequent use of archaic words. A lugubrious tone is deployed in all three of these glacially-paced pieces, despite the occasional flashes of grim or sardonic humor. Albert Power is a highly original and challenging writer. These novellas felt like they were written by Charon, or the librarian in charge of antiquities deep in Hades' library. I'm unsure if I've read the likes of this before. Not for amateurs!
"Matinee in Baku"
Elderly retired actress-turned-civil servant Marinitsa Yurebian is interviewed by an Irish monk sent to investigate the life of a former colleague - once a Catholic priest, next taking on the identity of a slain Azeri soldier, then a Soviet liaison, now missing. As the novella travels back in time to recount a key incident from Marinitsa's childhood, the story moves from her perspective to the perspective of a theater producer to her actress mother to the loathsome former priest - a handsome serial molester and occasional gangrapist scheming to add the child to his list of accomplishments. This is an often horrifying, always fascinating tale involving atrocities in the former Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the production of Horace Walpole's obscure play "The Mysterious Mother" (a gothic tragedy involving incest, priestly evil, and hidden identities), a strange occurrence during a matinee performance, and what appears to be divine intervention and a grim supernatural justice. I loved it all, from the prose that requires time and patience to understand, to the onion-like layers of the plot, to the rich and realistic characterization, to the outré denouement.
"The Pit-Crypts of Kish"
Despite a title that appears to promise charnel terrors familiar to readers of Weird Fiction and straightforward horror alike, this novella is neither horror nor especially weird. Well, life in paranoid 1969 Azerbaijan while under the thumb of Soviet diktats does sound both horrible and weird. "Pit-Crypts" is about a middle-aged schoolteacher's ill-fated attachment to an archeological dig, where she hopes to find proof of a prior Christian regime preceding the worship of Islam, which itself has been supplanted by atheist, anti-religious Soviet rule. The story is a melancholy one, as Anush contemplates God, worship, and Christianity itself, her relationship with an abusive partner who found himself at the wrong end of Soviet rifles, and her feeling that her life has been a wasted one. Into this mournful narrative come a repulsive apparatchik intent on ravishment, a young and sympathetic student, and a pit located at an abandoned Christian church - a pit which will be the final resting place for one of these three characters. This was a thoughtful, depressing, and very immersive experience.
"The Sanatorium at Chakhirshirincelo"
Lovely young pharmaceutical assistant Tahira Karayeva is being held in the titular institute following a mysterious episode touring the tunnels beneath a nearby mountain. The passive, fearful, and perhaps deranged Tahira casts a strange spell of attraction: on the beastly laborer who stalks her lunch breaks back at the pharmacy, on an elegant lesbian interrogator, on the portly and middle-aged director of the sanitorium itself. But what happened to that small party touring those tunnels? Five went in, three came out: one killed herself, another - the laborer - was found dead, a third fell deeply in love with Tahira, and Tahira herself resurfaced with a bloodied mouth, as if caught mid-mastication, of a dish served very rare. The fifth has promised the tunnels as a getaway from Soviet Azerbaijan for the sanitorium director and his beloved Tahira, who has a secret love of her own, that only she can see. There are legends about those tunnels: terrible sacrifices once made, grisly meals enjoyed. Perhaps a shadow from that distant past has been cast on the present, on Tahira herself? The reader is given no answers, but much to consider....more
surprisingly, this collection is superior to its predecessor Nasty Stories, which was often fun and well-written but also kinda dull. there's only so surprisingly, this collection is superior to its predecessor Nasty Stories, which was often fun and well-written but also kinda dull. there's only so much sniggering nastiness a person can take, well at least this person. the stories in Even More display much more creativity: McNaughton jumps into so many different genres and throws so many unusual ideas around; the stories here felt like he was testing himself creatively, not just trying to build nasty little traps for his characters. there were a number of duds as well, but no need to get into them and I haven't even summarized them below.
Clark Ashton Smith receives a double homage with the baroque fantasy "Benevolent Emperor" and the amusing but ultimately deflating "Return of the Colossus" - the latter a sequel to CAS' classic "The Colossus of Ylourgne." the ideas of H.P. Lovecraft are front and center in the dizzying "Beyond the Wall of Time," plus a fun reference to wonderful character actor Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame. that subset of Lovecraftian mythos featuring the Deep Ones, Dagon, and other watery horrors are the subject of the collection's strongest and nastiest piece "The Doom that Came to Innsmouth." Doom was delightful, although keep in mind I'm calling a story that features a ritualistic torture-rape-murder 'delightful' (I'm problematic). And McNaughton revisits the rules for ghouls of his own classic Throne of Bones in the typically grim but still droll "Ghoulmaster," set in and under that quaint university town that huddles on the shores of the Miskatonic River.
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"The Doom that Came to Innsmouth" - a child of Innsmouth is tricked back to his home, a town devastated by government pogrom; fortunately, the canny and murderous lad finds that supportive relatives and ancient rituals may save the day.
"Getting Around" - an invalid's quantum hand unfortunately does not save the day.
"Marticora" - a father rescues his child from a cult that believes in certain fantasies; but what exactly has he saved?
"Fragment of a Diary" - the castaways must draw lots and so choose whose bodies will provide sustenance; but what's dead does not stay dead, and may instead join in the feast.
"Malpractice" - a boy's crush on a strange neighbor is complicated by her father, a mad scientist with certain plans for them both.
"Ghoulmaster" - an uppity author of a book on ghouls battles some equally uppity ghouls.
"A Donation to the Homeless" - never give your coat to a satanist with a personal grudge: he may help himself to even more of you.
"Impatience" - the world just moves too slowly for some torture-murderers.
"The Flight of the LZD1" - an English spy finds himself aboard an German zeppelin; but does a zeppelin have eight wings, a gaping maw, and one terrible eye?
"The Benevolent Emperor" - a kindly ruler discovers an enemy; a curse of black dust has infiltrated his kingdom, killing his subjects then reviving them into beings both unkillable and entirely apathetic.
"Beyond the Wall of Time" - various personalities come together; an unusual author's origin story is recounted.
"Self-Restraint" - back from the Amazonian jungle and into the urban jungle, Timothy learns the power of the hypnotic phrase Simon sent me...
"The Return of the Colossus" - in the French province of Averoigne, English soldiers find a unique weapon to fight the enemy Germans: a giant made of corpses....more
Compulsory Games collects all of the remaining Aickman stories not included in Faber's 4-volume set issued in 2014, including 3 previously uncollectedCompulsory Games collects all of the remaining Aickman stories not included in Faber's 4-volume set issued in 2014, including 3 previously uncollected stories. the majority are drawn from his outstanding collection Intrusions and the less successful Tales of Love and Death, and a couple from the excellent Night Voices. sadly, Compulsory Games does not include the strongest stories from each of those collections ("The Stains" & "The Fetch" & "Growing Boys"); it does include at least four stories that near greatness: "No Time Is Passing", "The Strangers", "Just a Song at Twilight", and "Residents Only"
the originals in the collection are not really worth the price of admission; this is a book for Aickman completists only. although the introduction by Victoria Nelson is certainly well done. better to purchase the three collections noted above.
the uncollected:
"The Coffin House" - disappointingly minor tale of two young women meeting their doom in a strange house. the writing is perfectly fine and technically accomplished; it's the story itself that is skeletal in ideas. quite abrupt as well, in a cheap way. I can understand why this wasn't collected previously - it feels like Aickman gave up on it, with an eyeroll. perhaps the weakest story I've read by the author.
"The Fully-Conducted Tour" - a husband abroad with a sickly wife finds himself on a tour of a mysterious villa, where the geriatrics in the group with him meet their ambiguous fate. another well-written story that suffers from thinness. fortunately not as abrupt as the prior tale, and the idea does have flesh on it. it's just not a very interesting idea! rather obvious, which is rarely an Aickman trait.
"A Disciple of Plato" - a 'philosopher' in a malarial 18th-century Rome meets an entrancingly intellectual woman who is set for convent life. a deep connection between their two minds is established within their first conversation; our courtly cocksman tries and fails repeatedly to change the woman's decision to leave all worldly affairs behind. there is an annoyingly shallow and un-Aickmanesque gotcha ending in which the so-called philosopher's identity is revealed. still, this story was enjoyable and certainly worth reading, if only for the unusually florid quality of the prose - the author is not typically so extravagant in his style....more
synopsis: due to a certain experience in his childhood, a young man becomes obsessed by satyrs; this obsession causes him to engage in a lot of researsynopsis: due to a certain experience in his childhood, a young man becomes obsessed by satyrs; this obsession causes him to engage in a lot of research, which leads to several strange experiences.
"delicious" is such an effete, decadent adjective to use for a book... I guess I'm an effete decadent, because this book was savory, rich, delicious. but tastes differ, so I imagine it wouldn't be as enjoyable a meal for many. there is such an insular quality to it, as if it were written for a select audience and, perhaps, mainly for the author himself. the novel was Weighell's last and it felt both very niche and very personal: the obscure subject matter; the diffident tone and slow pace and the formal, decidedly old-fashioned prose; the smorgasbord of characters inspired by real authors, mystics, artists, musicians; the episodic quality of the narrative and the perhaps autobiographical elements of the protagonist's personality and journey; the bookishness of it all.
although this is squarely within the 'weird fiction' genre, where ambiguity reigns supreme, there are still several sequences that were overtly Horror or even Thriller: a bundle of rags in the corner of an abandoned basement suddenly taking a sinister shape; a hunt on a mansion's grounds with human prey; a conversation in a rest home with an evil old wizard that ends in an unpleasant curse being directed at the protagonist. all of that and much more was delightful. I really love the rather starchy yet sometimes arch way that Weighell writes. it was also very interesting to read about the different permutations of "satyr": archaic nature and fertility figures in the myths and legends of many cultures, artisans and architects credited as Etruscans in history books, Satanic figures, members of chthonic cults, tempters who will lead the unwary astray, guides who will lead the curious to new paths and old dimensions....more
Andres Fager reinvents the Lovecraft mythos (and in one story, the King in Yellow). the prose is telegrammatic. the perspective is first-person. the rAndres Fager reinvents the Lovecraft mythos (and in one story, the King in Yellow). the prose is telegrammatic. the perspective is first-person. the results are mixed. the first story, girls gone wild, is ingenious. the second story, two inhuman boys abroad, is brilliant. the third story, war's victims, is beautifully written and also a pointless exercise in nihilism. the fourth story, a body swap, is fine. the last story, an artist run amuck, is pretentious, self-indulgent drivel.
the collection includes four story fragments. of particular note is Fragment 2, which details a ship running into something not so nice. tense, well-executed, perfect length. the remaining fragments intrigue but do little else.
the author is certainly one to watch. full of talent. a distinctive voice. idiosyncratic, to say the least. and also, as the kids say, problematic. but that's not an actual problem, right?
"The Furies from Borås" - girls at a dancehall, girls meeting a young man, girls taking him to the woods to make his fantasies come true, girls making his nightmares come true, girls dancing and fornicating and feasting in the moonlight, girls meeting their many-eyed Mistress, girls fleeing her tentacles. the moral of the tale: don't give viagra to Shub-Niggurath, she may freak out and slaughter everyone. ...more
"To Bite a Dog" - girl bites a dog and finds herself, finds that she can be larger than herself. in a world of predators and prey, why not be the one "To Bite a Dog" - girl bites a dog and finds herself, finds that she can be larger than herself. in a world of predators and prey, why not be the one who bites?
"Fogtown" - is it a ghost band or the fog of remembrance, the fog of nostalgia? if one wasn't there, can one at least dream of being there and maybe recreate what hasn't been experienced? perhaps only death can bring you there.
"The Time Remaining" - the plush toys are all infected and soon will die. the children weep but know what must be done to ease their little ones into the black kingdom: operations. but will death be the end for their little friends?
"Return to the Midnight School" - "A child shouldn't hear its own father's corpse roar in the night."
"In the Snow, Sleeping" - at the spa, things happen... a ruined room, new friends, coke in the bathroom, a corpse in the pool, bite marks, the death of a relationship, an engagement ring accepted...
"Multiplied by Zero" - a zero takes a trip to the black kingdom, to see the ancient ones, to be hunted in the night, to embrace the zero-ness of existence. surprise, surprise... on this vacation, true love is found! :)
"The Amber Complex" - take a sip of this complex drink and find yourself transported away. to a beach. into the water, into the wind. within a spider, burrowing through flesh. into the universe, into the minds of all of humanity. alas.
"Sky Filled with Crows" - a demon tries and tries and fails and fails. it's tough being assigned to a malcontent.
"Walks Among You" - a slice of life, a slice into the flesh. cultists walk among us, thirsting for blood and for love and for meaning in life. life can be a drag, even for the devout.
"The Black Maybe" - a trip to the country, to see what life is like there, to understand those country rituals that reap such fine rewards. squeeze for oil, oil the chains, snip the essence, feed the larvae, create the slaves. moral of the story: when someone offers to fuck you, let them.
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remarkable concepts, unremarkably executed. the Hungarian author Attila Veres has ice in his veins and a big mind full of interesting ideas. perhaps the problem is the translation? or perhaps the POV chosen - the disaffected narrators really created distance between me and the text. or perhaps the problem was an attempt to be like other authors, to recreate their stories' effects- Ligotti could be one such influence, Aickman perhaps another. I'm not sure what made this collection so uninteresting to me, but whatever the reason may be, despite my recognition that this is a very original mind at work, I was often bored and annoyed within a couple pages of nearly every story.
two exceptions: "Return to the Midnight School" and the title story. both feature nightmarish rural rituals in a couple very strange villages. strange to me the reader, not strange to the villagers or even the world those villages live in. here the nonchalance really worked. both of these tales were appalling, amusing, repulsively creative. glossy poisonous fruit. Midnight School in particular was jaw-dropping in its total weirdness, its immersive quality. kudos!...more
Adventure awaits! But a very special sort of adventure... one where your foolish superstitions are explained away, your credulity exposed, your fancifAdventure awaits! But a very special sort of adventure... one where your foolish superstitions are explained away, your credulity exposed, your fanciful multicolored bubbles burst! That's no monster, it's merely a strikingly large arachnid! Those aren't a cabal of underworld fiends, they are merely sweatshop enthusiasts! There's no magical magnetical fluid in your veins, fool, you're merely being mesmerized! Let's follow our guides, the pleasantly plump and certainly very friendly Hippolyte Sperling and his much, much better half, the very sensible, brave, and exquisitely beautiful Fabienne Sperling, as they shine out their scouring, scorching Light of Reason. Truth shall shine forth! These logical exemplars of the Enlightenment shall calm your fears as they expose fantasies of the night to the cold light of rational day.
But hark, bold duo and their adherents! The Enlightenment shall soon give way to the dark, ambiguous morbidity of Romanticism! Let's hope your marriage stays intact during the turbulent and very sexy times ahead...
These three novellas and their three adventures were delightful. Erudite (endnotes!) and clever and yet also... winsome? There's a sweet innocence here. Overall this is a minor work from this very talented author, and rather in the Scooby Doo vein. But I am in favor of charming larks that seek to only provide pleasure, and so this very friendly collection is happily recommended....more
the lonely boy made a friend: a thick and furry black cloak, dog-haired but human-shaped and human-sized, and deep as the abyss when looking inside. tthe lonely boy made a friend: a thick and furry black cloak, dog-haired but human-shaped and human-sized, and deep as the abyss when looking inside. the boy would wear his friend with a strange sort of pride, until it felt like the boy was not himself without the cloak; eventually the boy became indivisible from cloak, from his life companion. he felt like he could disappear into it, and he loved that feeling. where did the cloak start and where did the boy end? the boy's friend was once named Depression, but soon enough, it took on a new name: Muse.
this a hodgepodge collection of varying value, but with consistently high-quality writing. as has been noted before, Crisp is a painter with his prose. distance and a certain chill, a studied lack of passion, are also defining attributes. all combine into a thoughtful voice that is occasionally quite self-indulgent, but more often becomingly restrained. another virtue: even when exploring the darkest of emotional states, Crisp's ability to use words in eye-opening ways usually kept me charmed, or at least engaged. many times I paused just to repeat a phrase that described something in a way I'd never seen before, but somehow felt perfect in that moment. a lovely way with words. the author certainly has a talent for pretty nihilism.
3.5 stars. favorites in bold.
"The Fairy Killer" - it's fey child versus rationalist uncle in this story composed of floral notes, wintry atmosphere, mesmerizing displays of color, and mushroomy flights of fantasy. or are these actually fantasies? this is a delicate and satisfying tale that combines menace and wistfulness in equal measures. an author in full command of his effects.
"Dreamspace" - a father takes his daughter to an extremely hallucinatory bouncy castle. human warmth and hope are portrayed alongside irrational peril and death. I've never read a story like this one before. very impressive. sad as well, so I appreciated the small light at the end of this tunnel.
"Tzimtzum" - this angsty, jarring dream journey was unbearably pretentious and eventually unreadable. a real disappointment after the strength of the preceding stories.
"Sado-ga-shima" - Crisp recovers well in this autobiographical rumination on a visit to a lonely Japanese island. this was beautifully written and the details prosaic but still marvelously eerie. the perspective is an absorbing one: the author's view of this place seems to combine condescension, distaste, and eventually an almost inchoate longing for something he's not sure he even understands. the black dog certainly was a co-writer.
"The Gay Wolf" - the black dog of depression and alienation takes physical shape in this meta interrogation of the author's own unhappiness and lack of connection to the wider world, and to love. this was fascinating (and sad). felt like eavesdropping on a therapy session and so it provided me with a greater insight into this person Quentin S. Crisp. I was reminded of similar demonstrations of self-excoriation by Truman Capote, minus that author's egomania.
"The Temple" - slight but involving depiction of a jungle temple, its fearsome guardian, and the non-being that dwells there. felt rather like a prose poem at times. hopefully not a straight-up metaphor for Religion, because if so, then it is a rather heavy-handed one. but let's hope it's not!
"Lilo" - Glenn lives in peaceful bliss with his wife, in his ski chalet, near his two friends. it is a lovely existence, full of a gentle satisfaction with his body and mind, with the comforting coziness of his life, with his own immortality. but there are unsettling currents in this world that Glenn recognizes but is only barely able to understand. perhaps because Glenn is but a plastic doll, living in a virtual reality? this is a dreamy story with a bitter bite. I'm glad that Crisp minimized The Matrix elements and instead focused on Glenn's mental state in this virtual world, life as a perfect man in a place perfectly designed to enable that feeling of perfection, forever. Glenn is both victim and enabler.
"Non-Attachment" - Lec in Purgatory: he has resisted the lures of the Temptations, but will he be able to swallow his fears and allow the whirling blades of Non-Attachment to descend upon him? crystalline prose, an ambiguous setting, spiritual themes to contemplate... I loved this.
"The Broadsands Eyrie" - a memoir on the nature of life, loss, and lack of love. this was the third autobiographical non-story; I think it was a mistake to include it in the same collection as the first two. it felt self-indulgent, self-pitying, intolerably self-absorbed. or maybe I'm just tired of ruminations and therefore feeling not so generous. the writing itself is perfectly fine, often evocative.
"The Gwyllgi of the Lost Lanes" - the black dog takes (meta)physical form again, this time as a menacing harbinger of death. perhaps the most traditional story in the collection, which is no critique. shades of Aickman and M.R. James, with the former's focus on prosaic normality turning disquieting and abnormal, and the latter's fondness for exploring the inexplicable fates in store for those who look too long, or just long enough, in the wrong places....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."
"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.
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.
The Friendly Examiner returns! To shine the Age of Reason's bright light upon those who dwell in ignorant, superstitious darkness and those who moon aThe Friendly Examiner returns! To shine the Age of Reason's bright light upon those who dwell in ignorant, superstitious darkness and those who moon about in an unnecessarily melodramatic, melancholy fashion, reading (and writing!) maudlin "prose poems" and morbid "gothic romances" and the like. Our amiable, pleasantly plump hero and his dazzling better half Fabienne find themselves embroiled in another supposedly supernatural affair, this time involving kidnapping and enslaved writers and men dressed depressingly all in black without even their hair powdered. Egads!
I enjoyed the inclusion of real-life Heroes of Reason such as Diderot and Rousseau. Even monstrous real-life Villain of Reason, the infamous Robespierre appears, acting suitably dastardly. Or at least very close-minded and quite unfriendly. Unfortunately, their inclusion and the entire kidnapped-writer narrative made me at times feel as if this whole story was functioning purely on the level of metaphor, which does not equal pure pleasure to me.
Still, even though I enjoyed this a tad bit less than its predecessor, Marvick does deliver a wry, witty, engaging tale. He has the skills of a born writer and his playfulness always charms....more
'Tis the season for lonely men to grow lonelier, for lonely women to lie sleepless in their beds. 'Tis the season for cold woods to get lost in, for s'Tis the season for lonely men to grow lonelier, for lonely women to lie sleepless in their beds. 'Tis the season for cold woods to get lost in, for sad memories to get lost in, for watery graves and tragic houses, for secrets to be unveiled. 'Tis the season for dreams to come true, alas. 'Tis Robert Aickman season!
A collection of strange stories. Not one of my favorites by him, but impressive nonetheless. The dream logic, the disturbing ambiguity, the prosaic details, the chilly formality, the awful revelations, softly stated... all in place, per usual for the author, my favorite writer in this genre.
The sheer oddity of life seems to me of more and more importance, because more and more the pretense is that life is charted, predictable, and controllable. And for oddity, of course, one would well write mystery.
"Ravissante" - a lonely artist is at first dismayed, then turned on, then dismayed again by a vulgar display :/
"The Inner Room" - don't pity the dollhouse's lonely tenants: they have a secret place where they can truly be themselves :)
"Never Visit Venice" - lonely men should never try to make their dreams come true :(
"The Unsettled Dust" - a lonely mansion is full of unsettling dust and dusty dreams and secrets best left in the dust :|
"The Houses of the Russians" - on the lonely Finnish island are the empty houses, full of blood :X
"No Stronger Than a Flower" - better to be lonely and plain than married and beautiful... veiled and clawed :o
"The Cicerones" - no one is lonely in the Cathedral; there are many guides to keep you company ;)
"Into the Wood" - pity the lonely fates of the sleepless, woken from the slumber of life... terribly awake O_O
My favorite was easily "The Houses of the Russians" in which an old man recounts his strange trip to an island full of increasingly discomfiting houses, at first apparently empty but soon seen to be inhabited. There are parties, a little boy with a gift, houses with memories of slaughters that took place far away. Evocative, eerie, and very sad....more
synopsis: there's something's in the water at Arkham Occam, and it's not good for anyone. choose La Croix!
Oh man I wanted this to be so much better thsynopsis: there's something's in the water at Arkham Occam, and it's not good for anyone. choose La Croix!
Oh man I wanted this to be so much better than it turned out to be. I really dug Thomas' story "Tempting Providence" in the first volume of Black Wings of Cthulhu, which was a deftly written, melancholy, layered surprise. Color Over Occam shows that Thomas is a talented author, but there is a feeling of spinning wheels and painting by numbers here. Things proceed mildly - so mildly that when Occam finally goes bonkers, it came out of left field. And the version of "bonkers" here was so mildly depicted that it was hard to be surprised or impressed. I should be surprised and impressed at a whole town of people frozen into place as they are slowly being transformed into whatever they are being transformed into! I don't mind a low-key writing style, but this a low-key bridge too far. Thomas' narrator speaks in a clipped, dispatches-from-the-frontlines style of delivery, including frequently dropped articles, and while this prose experiment should have compelled me, it only added to my lack of engagement. Most egregious was the drab characterization. Hard to be scared for people who may lose their lives if they haven't come alive in the first place. Also didn't help that the protagonist is certainly the shittiest friend around - I mean the guy doesn't even check on a baby while babysitting! Or help clean a place up for a friend who is completely traumatized and helpless. Was it an intentional decision to make our hero a mild sort of douchebag who isn't particularly offensive but isn't particularly helpful - or humane? Perhaps it was, but even if that were the case, it only further served to distance me from the entire story.
So that's a lot of complaining. I do want to end on a positive note because the book is not a waste of time - its execution and characterization just needed (a lot) of improvement. Thomas has a bunch of intriguing ideas and they were on display on here, sometimes surprising me, other times disturbing me, and at least one time genuinely scaring me....more
Karim Ghahwagi studies the students of God in this diptych. upon their surface, the two novellas appear to be straightforward enough: the first a taleKarim Ghahwagi studies the students of God in this diptych. upon their surface, the two novellas appear to be straightforward enough: the first a tale of possession in the archaic days of Malta under the Knights Hospitaller; the second a story concerning some ghostly appearances that leave those visited quite mad. but their goals are New Weird goals: not overly interested in creating shivers or shudders, rather more concerned with creating frisson and free association, in detailing travels beyond and within. pace is measured, imagery is often hallucinogenic, narrative is submerged, interiorized. all that said, shivers did indeed occur: in the titular tale, the description of the possessed's open mouth as a black hole issuing an inexplicable call to prayer was unnerving to say the least; in "A Haunting in Miniature", the tableau of an investigator gazing down upon a model of the house she's exploring and suddenly noticing the tiny miniature of a dead boy standing directly behind where she is standing, caused an unseemly gasp of horror.
the writing is cool and precise, creating a hypnotic effect. Ghahwagi is a fascinating and highly intellectual author with some very specific interests, faith and metaphysics among them. the two stories are apparently grounded in his own experiences in Malta, a crossroads country that I've always found intriguing (likewise the Knights of Malta). after these two pieces, and his excellent entry "The Sorrows of Satan's Book" in the uneven A Book of the Sea, I'm looking forward to reading more by him. he has a very individualistic voice.
These varied stories drawn from various themed collections and deploying a variety of styles also varied dramatically in quality.
I first became aware These varied stories drawn from various themed collections and deploying a variety of styles also varied dramatically in quality.
I first became aware of the author via his story "Dancing Boy" in A Book of the Sea, which was the highlight of that collection. And so I thought I knew what I'd be getting into when I started this: it would be a collection of psychologically astute, empathetic tales of misunderstood people who are led astray by folklore, the elements, their own poorly understood motivations, other people, the world itself. The writing would be evocative, the themes subtly introduced, the prose precise.
The themes do remain intact; all artists will bring their personal perspectives to their works, and those perspectives are processed via the themes they choose, or that perhaps appear unconsciously. And so Valerie and Other Stories details the journeys of various outsiders, people misunderstood and who lack understanding of their identities. They are led astray or afar by many things: the moon and the woodlands, their emotions and lusts, their faith in other people, the lack of clarity in their own intentions. Fragile things, one and all.
What I didn't expect was how much of a chameleon Insole turned out to be! The man has a wide range of skills, no doubt. I think most of these stories were tailored to reflect the subjects of the collections where they first appeared. And so there are stories about stars and temples, faerie and films, philosophical ideas. The wide differences in both subject matter and story style can be jarring and a bit off-putting. At times, Insole overreaches, and sometimes overwrites.
The differences between three stories were particularly noticeable to me: "The Binding" and "A Blue Dish of Figs" and the title story are all about mortal incursions into strange otherworlds (and vice versa). I felt that the "The Binding" was the more traditional and unsurprising of the three but also the most resonantly mythic, and the most successful. This story of a changeling and her mother who seek to break a cycle of exploitation is perfectly told. "Blue Dish" is more challenging, more experimental in its style, and overall is an absorbing but flawed, at times frustrating piece; it is about a schoolteacher following her fey student into places unknown. And I often quite disliked the stilted, artificial "Valerie" which concerns itself with a haunting childhood friendship (although for some, other readers consider this to be one of the stronger stories). I also was not a fan of Insole's more explicitly referential stories: "The Slaves of Paradise" uses the marvelous film "Children of Paradise" as a starting point and "Salammbô and the Zaïmph" is obviously indebted to Flaubert; I thought both were beautifully written but strained, overdone, and rather pointless.
My favorites were the first and last pieces, "The Binding" noted above, and "Dance for a Winter Moon". "Dance" is a haunting depiction of the cruelty of fate and the perhaps inevitable destiny of those who become part of a culture but in the end, do not truly understand that culture. "The Abdication of the Serpent" channels the master Clark Ashton Smith in its gorgeous descriptions of a fascinating society, the romanticism of its elderly hero's quest, and its almost overripe, hallucinatory dreaminess. And the brilliant "The Hill of Cinders" - the star of the collection - is a novella both mysterious and mordant, perfectly paced, full of dire irony. It is, essentially, about the evils that men may accomplish if nihilism and self-interest are their guides, the cyclical quality of those evils as they reappear again and again throughout time, the lack of understanding within such men of why they do these things, and the ashes of failure that are the appropriate ending for such lives. Curiously enough, fellow readers saw a certain neutrality in this tale that I did not, as if the author perhaps sympathized with the repugnant protagonist and his battle against systems of power, against his home, country, the family of mankind. I did not see any such thing; to me, the moral stance on display was crystalline.
Insole's spiritual interests are decidedly pre-Christian, so I thought I'd amuse myself by using Biblical verses to synopsize each story:
"The Hill of Cinders" - Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
"The Binding" - You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.
"The Slaves of Paradise" - Good were it for that man if he had not been born.
"Dance for a Winter Moon" - The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes.
"A Blue Dish of Figs" - The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
"Salammbô and the Zaïmph of Tanit" - For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality...
"Dreams from the Apple Orchards" - Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors...
"Valerie" - Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me.
"The Abdication of the Serpent" - For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
A totally trifling thing I noticed: the author repeatedly uses the image of saliva running from mouth to pillow as a way to denote a debauched or deluded character. C'mon, Colin! Doesn't everybody drool in their sleep? At least a little bit?...more
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