Stones Beneath a White Star

 

Stones Beneath a White Star by Martin Locker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was speaking with someone recently about teaching young children complex concepts. This friend is a teacher of very young children (three- to five-year olds) and is tasked with teaching them some advanced concepts. She was concerned that these kids were never going to remember these principles, though they might integrate them subconsciously, the same way that back in our secondary-school grade introduction to trigonometry and pre-calculus, we all said "we're never going to use this stuff". That turned out to be true for most of us, though our brains were permanently rewired, ever so slightly, to form thoughts in a new and different way than we had done before. All of this aside, we agreed that while these young kids probably won't remember a thing about what was said to them, they absolutely will remember the way they felt when they were being taught. I can attest to this. I remember my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Wells, not because of the things I learned, but because of her kindness and patience and her great sense of humor. I remember her reading us the Winnie the Pooh stories and her spot-on voices (with the Disney movies as her template). And I remember her encouraging my reading, even recommending me to what they called the "talented and gifted" readers program for reading and writing. I didn't even fully comprehend what that meant, but I remember the way she made me feel: special, recognized, an individual. I'll never forget her. I can't even name my second or fourth grade teachers, but Mrs. Wells; she was an icon.

I share this because of the way Martin's book Stones Beneath a White Star made me feel. If someone asked me what the book was "about," I would stumble and mumble my way through an answer. Something about friends and loss and mysticism and mountains and reconnecting with the past . . . mumble mumble mumble . . .

It's tough to pin it down. But I know how the book made me feel.

Excuse me while I get a little personal. I'm hardly on social media these days (intentionally), so I don't spill my guts like some people do regularly. So, humor me. I'll try not to be boring. And maybe this indulgence will say a bit about the book. One caveat: I am a pen pal with the author. We write each other, pen and paper, yes, the old-fashioned way, irregularly. As a result I've gotten to know Martin a little. I apologize if you think this shades the review in any way, but hey, it can't be helped now, can it?

What I didn't say about my experience with Mrs. Wells above is that I was living in Italy at the time. My dad was military - I was what is colloquially called a "Military Brat" (hey, if the shoe fits . . .) - so I lived in a lot of different places through my life. I sometimes wonder if Air's song "Universal Traveller" wasn't written for me (did I mention the word "brat"?). I've been around . . .

One problem with having been around is that some of the places I lived, I can never visit again. The Air Force base I was born at in Germany is now a US Army base, the base where we lived in Italy, San Vito, is abandoned and off-limits, the base in England where I spent most of high school is now a British spy base (though I can, and did go on a tour of some of the base a few years back, "my" house is strictly off-limits), and the house I lived in when we were in The Philippines was buried under volcanic ash and the base abandoned by the US military. In essence, a lot of my childhood stomping grounds are either inaccessible to me or just plain don't exist anymore, though I have written a bit about my dream-life in one of those places.

This makes me a little melancholy. While many people can just drive (or even walk) to their childhood home, I just can't. I can get bits and pieces and visit places near some of those places, but time and circumstance have effectively banished me from my own childhood. It's a little more than mere nostalgia. I am haunted by the ghosts of the places of my past.

And here we have a segue into why I feel the way I feel about this book. Stones Beneath a White Star is the most profound work of Psychogeography I have ever read. It is about the spirit of a place, in this case, the Pyrenees Mountains (where, incidentally, my ancestors on my father's side hail from, generally - though they lived in the Basque regions, while this work takes place largely in and around Andorra). The religio-mystical history of the region is dealt with in encyclopedic depth. The book as historical treatise on the area is exhaustive, thick with referents and nuances that I admittedly know little or nothing about. But this didn't affect my reading, outside of wanting to know more about the people, events, and places portrayed.

The real rub of the book is the intimate connection of a few close friends and fellow-believers to the land itself. Their connections to each other (and some of those who have passed on before them) provide the engine for the story (such as it is). These relationships, between people, the land, and the history of the land, is absolutely immersive. I cannot say what the book is "about," nor do I care. This is the kind of book you just live in, for the moment, a meditation on friendship, loss, and retrieval, of the fluctuating bonds of love despite the catastrophes and disappointments of living life on this planet. It is a novel about the resilience of friends finding peace in a broken world.

You can probably see where this is heading . . . I live in a world of broken memories, unretrievable. I'd like to think this isn't just a function of mawkish nostalgia. I literally can't go back. But the memories still haunt me. Needless to say, this book affected me . . . deeply.

Thank goodness that while much of my past is bricked off (or behind barbed wire), one thing persists, despite location, and that is meaningful friendships. I've made and lost many friends throughout the years (as I get older, I lose more and more), but as I retain some ties over the decades and form new friendships with people I've not known before, whether intentionally or through pure happenstance, there is connection. And this connection is something to be nurtured, something sacred.

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The Slithering Shadow

 Pardon my indulgence while I wax autobiographical. But I think I've puzzled out something about myself that was hidden under the skin for many, many decades. In childhood, one tries to figure out who they are. Later in life, middle age, to be specific, one starts to ask: Well, how did I get here? And since I'm re-analoging my life, I have more time and headspace to think about such things. 

As I've stated many times before, I lived a part of my childhood in Brindisi, Italy. I lived there from 1976 to 1979. It was there that my passion for fantasy and science fiction was born. My father read a lot of science fiction and introduced me to many authors whose work I learned to love. But as far as fantasy, that was mostly something I discovered myself . . . on the magazine shelf of the Stars and Stripes Bookstore at San Vito AFB. 

It will strike the canny reader that it is extremely odd that a child of my age at that time was exposed to something as salacious as The Savage Sword of Conan. Those who are familiar with military life, though, will not be surprised when I say that I first discovered the magazine in a pile of comics at the base childcare facility one night when my parents left me there so they could go on a date to see Superman. 

As a child, I was an avid comic book reader. From Thor to Metal Men to Archie and Richie Rich, but Savage Sword of Conan was a shock to the system, a revelation. I won't go over what that magazine did to stir my young soul, but in hindsight, with many decades between then and now, I think I've finally discovered exactly why this horrifying, over-eroticized, violent "comic" resonated with me to the point that it set me on a wholly-new intellectual track that led to a lifelong obsession with roleplaying games, fantasy fiction, writing, visual art, and heavy metal, among other things. These obsessions are the reason this blog exists, after all.

The area I lived in while living in Italy is known for its aridity. It's basically an extension of the north African clime, separated from Algeria, Libya, et al, by a mere 87 miles at their closest points (Southern Sicily to Tunisia). Here the days are hot and dry and prickly pear cactus can easily be found along roads both in and out of the city. Near the apartments where we lived, a fig tree spontaneously grew in a ditch, and olive trees were everywhere. The area is known for its olive oil, in fact. There are also artichoke fields like corn fields in the US, spreading through vast expanses. I recall wandering through these fields and stumbling on small, stunted remains of Roman pillars - the artichoke farmers simply worked around them, the fields conforming to the contours of imperial architecture, an unavoidable echo from the time when Cesars ruled the land. 

When I opened the pages of The Slithering Shadow, I was immediately struck by the visuals of the desert. Conan and a buxom woman (they were always buxom, though I had no idea what that word meant at the time) are stranded in the desert and have just run out of water. They set out across the desert looking for water and stumble upon a seemingly-abandoned city.

One of the more commendable cultural norms in Italy is the siesta. Everyone, and I mean almost everyone, sits down and takes a nap in the afternoon. I learned this the hard way when I went across the street to buy candy (a cadbury chocolate egg with a metal soldier inside the egg) one hot afternoon. I approached the shop and saw the proprietor, an ancient lich of a lady, sitting in a wooden chair, back to the wall of the establishement, just to the left of the door. She was sound asleep. So, being young and reckless, I started to walk in, but then her arm shot out like a bolt of lightning, blocking the way. I was stunned, paralyzed, really. I looked at her and she opened one bloodshot eye to look at me and said, simply, but very firmly "NO!". What could I do but back down? I was defeated, and retreated. When I returned, about an hour later, she was quite nice and pleased to sell me a couple of those eggs. But I learned that Italians take their siestas very seriously! If you ever want to rob a bank in Italy, just do it during the siesta, and no one will stop you, I swear.

Given this history, when I progressed through The Slithering Shadow, what did I encounter, but an entire ancient city full of sleepers? 

I will forego spoiling the plot for you from that point. I outlined the plot in more detail in my review of the collected Savage Sword of Conan Volume 2, if you're interested. But I would suggest just getting yourself a copy and reading it yourself. 

These elements alone gave me very personal reasons to be drawn into the story. Again, I didn't realize the causal connections until very recently. I can link the reading of this magazine to the subsequent buying of more Savage Swords, to my later fascination with Dungeons and Dragons, Heavy Metal Magazine (along with the movie and the music), and Epic Illustrated. 

Also, with hindsight, I look back on that more-or-less innocent child and am grateful for who he was, as well as who he became. Like Conan in the story, I've come up battered and bruised by life, but I've replaced that innocence with stubbornness in hope. 

As Conan states: "You can't fight a devil out of hell . . . and come off with a whole skin . . .!"

But you keep on keeping on. Thanks, Conan!

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Daughters of Apostasy

 

Daughters of Apostasy by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't think of myself as a fan of Damian's work, so much as a devotee. There is something of the sublime that frequently speaks to me from the pages penned by him. Reading Damian's work is not so much a "mystical" experience as a "preparatory" experience, a view of an initiation from afar, full of anticipation. I often ask myself when I read his work "when am I going to become a part of the story, or when is the story going to become a part of me".

Revelatory experiences aside, one must (absolutely must) admire the craft of his work. There is an obvious love of the subject matter, setting, characters, and strange circumstances that the characters often find themselves in. One can almost feel the author feeling his own way through the labyrinthine maze hidden carefully away in his citadel of thoughts. But, reader beware, you are walking alongside a trickster and a thief whose sleight of hand can leave you dazzled by illusion or, even worse, your own delusions.

But you need not fear demons (outside of your inner fiends). You are safe, as you read, even as his characters sometimes are not. You have the luxury, particularly in the present volume, of simple elegance to see you through. I'm referring, of course, to the restrained (yet seemingly decadent, especially for such an inexpensive hardcover limited-edition) eloquence of presentation that Snuggly Books seems particularly skilled at. A salmon-colored cover (at least I believe so - I have hue blindness to some extent, so maybe I'm just seeing it as such) with a simple illustration of three women (two nude, one a spectral figure) on the front by none other than Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec seems hauntingly appropriate for the stories in Daughters of Apostasy, whose main protagonists are women. And what a variety of characters!

As usual, Murphy's vision here is a series of inner visions of cosmic consequence. Trespass becomes initiation into an imaginary city hidden in the bones of the physical world in "The Scourge and the Sanctuary". Christopher Wren collides with Huysman's, but Murphy's work is all and none of these. The key is in the story itself:

The fictions we partake of, as with the fictions we create, bear consequences for each of us that lie beyond the understanding and control even of their authors.

An ever-changing labyrinth of a hotel, spurred in its metamorphoses by seekers of gnosis, is both setting and character in "Permutations of the Citadel". It's a lavish tale full of mystery and misdirection, a lair for tricksters, initiates, and those seeking the other side of the mirror. Add a little playful devilishness and you have what Wes Anderson might be if he was to ever take his subject matter seriously.

"The Salamander Angel" is a journey of several pilgrims into and out of regions beyond the veil of this world. There's a kind of Hegelian dialectic of the divine and the blasphemous, a looping together of heaven and hell through the travels, intentional and accidental, of oneironauts, occultists, and tricksters. The (anti?)heroes charge and stumble their way through "above" and "below" in their epic quests. This is an extremely powerful tale. Handle with care.

"The Book of Alabaster" is a somewhat surprisingly-emotive story that starts by pulling the nostalgia strings (at least for this teen of the '80s) before winding its way into an enfolded reality of simulation. What is reality and, as important, when? Most important of all: the mystery of The Programmers remains, or, as one of my favorite obscure songs from the '80s asks "Who are the unwatched men"?

Oftentimes, the "previously unpublished" story in a collection is the weakest. This is clearly not the case here. If you desire to sup at the table of "The Music of Exile," you'll need to pay for entry; make a sacrifice. The price is well worth it, that I can guarantee. But be prepared to discover what is hidden and then to hide what is discovered. This the initiated know.

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The Mill: A Cosmos

 

The Mill: A Cosmos by Bess Brenck Kalischer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I believe this is the lowest rating I've given to a Wakefield Press title yet. It makes me sad, because I love what Wakefield does: bring fantastic obscure works in translation to light in the English-reading world. They've done some fantastic work in the past (including the amazing work of Marcel Schwob, Marcel Bealu, Otto Julius Bierbaum, and, most remarkably, Jean Ray). So, you'll excuse me if my expectations are sky high . . . but they are.

My unrealistic expectations were met with the introduction to this volume. As with every other Wakefield Press book I've read, the translator's introduction, this time by W.C. Bamberg, is worth the ticket price alone. It's an extremely evocative piece about this essentially unknown author: well-researched (with a hint of the historiography involved, even), captivating, sympathetic, and enlightening. This is the fine scholarship I've come to (unfairly?) expect from Wakefield. At times, the writing in the introduction out-paced the writing in the actual story.

It didn't take long after reading the introduction to become somewhat disenchanted. What seemed to start out as a staccato poesis descended into pure Dada. I understand that makes the work "of its time," but that doesn't excuse near-incoherence. Yes, the story is about a woman holed up in a sanitorium, but the experimental form . . . well, the experiment just didn't work for me.

The section "The Island of Destiny, or Encounter with the Caliph" was the first truly coherent narrative of this work. It started on page 25 and sustained through page 32, but I have to admit that making it to this section was a feat in and of itself. I've read plenty of stories with insane (or at least highly neurotic) and unreliable narrators, plowed my way through some notoriously difficult prose (Proust, Joyce, and Beckett, I'm looking at you), and read more than my share of stories about madness. But the first 25 pages of Kalischer's work here had me nearly leming the book, but I decided to press ahead. It is a short work, after all, and I'd bested tougher (though better-written) material.

After that the narrative gets wobbly, teetering on the edge of coherence, threatening to fall into Dada at any moment. It's sometimes difficult to discern between playful intellectual brilliance and an utter collapse of reason. It's almost as if Kalischer weaves in and out of each, with no warning about what direction she is turning; blind curves ahead. Sure, the narrator is struggling with mental illness, but a reader needs some kind of compass, even a weak one. Still, I pressed on.

Lest you think this ship has utterly sunk, that all was lost, that's not true. Later, near the end, I uncovered "On Sirius". It is by far the best section of the book. It's a gentle, smoothly flowing prose poem, not entirely lacking disjuncture, but not as chaotic as some earlier sections of the book. It is a piece that is of a piece, well-put-together, but not stodgy. I can (and have) wrap(ped) myself up in it. It is comfortable, but not so cosy as to be uninteresting. If the entire book was written this way, it would be at least a four-star book for me. Alas, that can't be. The neurotic narrator, like most humans, had a long string of near-coherence which, of course, wouldn't last.

However, I didn't mind the ending being disjointed. In fact, I think it worked quite well, given that we had a comfortable baseline in "On Sirius" from which we could jump off. The tragedy of this last section felt real and poignant. A good ending, given what came immediately before it. But the first part of the story started off in such a stark, jarring manner that I just couldn't make the connection with the narrator until halfway through the book. In fact, I wonder what the book would have read like had it begun with "On Sirius" and the erstwhile early material was tagged on to the back of the story (after the sanitorium episodes)? Possibly a stronger narrative? Unfortunately, Kalischer isn't around to ask for a rewrite.

Still, kudos yet again to Wakefield for presenting a work obscured by history and doing so with all the reverence and academic rigor it deserves. Yes, it fell short for me, but that's not stopping me from continuing to dip in the stream of Wakefield works. In fact, there's another waiting on my shelf right now that I am eager to read. I'm still on the Wakefield train and won't be getting off any time soon!



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Goodreads Sucks More? Again?

 Well, Goodreads has done it again. And by "it" I don't mean anything good. Exhibit A:

I have a long history with Goodreads, and I've got the receipts to prove it. I tried Booklikes, but, well, I didn't like it. Why? I can't even remember, that was so long ago. Suffice it to say that I stuck with Goodreads and for a time considered it my only social media.

Given the message above, that is coming to an end. I did send a "WTF?" message to Goodreads. I don't expect a response, but you never know. They've surprised me before by actually responding to my questions about a previous move they had made. But, I admit, my email back then was much more restrained and well-thought-out than my kneejerk reaction tonight. 

I posted a message there asking anyone who wants to keep contact to message me ASAP and I would exchange emails with them. 

As with other changes, I suspect that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot fathom the reasoning behind this, as it is one of the things that keeps Goodreads members connected. The conspiracy theory side of me wonders if other social media applied pressure to make Goodreads less of a social media and more of a commercial enterprise. Or maybe Goodreads just did that themselves. What? Following the almighty dollar at the expense of actual human interaction? That's never happened before, has it? 

Ugh.

My selfish fear (outside of losing direct contact with many people whose opinions I greatly appreciate) is that Goodreads is up to something even bigger. You'll note that many of my blog entries/reviews use the HTML template that Goodreads provides. So, there is a possibility that I will need to (somehow) transfer essentially all of my book reviews from Goodreads to my blog which, frankly, sounds like the height of tedium. 

I can't shake the feeling that this will lead to me being online even less (and I've already taken many steps out of the virtual world and back into the analog world).

Well, let's see what happens. Will this finally be the death knell for Goodreads as a viable venue for enjoying books with other book lovers in a meaningful, personal way? Maybe. As with all things, time will tell.

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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In my quest to "use what I have," a subset of "minimalism," I'm digging back into books that I have read before, but not yet reviewed. I believe I picked up this (now very beat up) copy of Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy as an undergraduate at BYU. I don't exactly remember why I chose this book. I think I just spotted it on a bookshelf in a used bookstore near campus, read the back copy, and decided to give it a try. I was a humanities major as an undergrad, so it behooved me to read "classics," and this was one classic that I had never heard of until that point. I was young and dumb then and didn't have the toolkit to really analyze literature quite yet. I was building that toolkit.

Turns out, for this novel, I didn't need a toolkit.

Because Tristram Shandy defies analysis.

Plot? You've got to be kidding. The main character isn't born until page 170.

Setting? The vast majority of the story takes place on the grounds and house of the Shandy estate, though several pithy journeys wind their way into the narrative. There is a section on France (largely dismissive and with much of the "action" taking place at night, unseen by Tristram himself).

Speaking of which: Action: If you're looking for acts of heroism, you'll hear some referred to, mostly by Corporal Trim, the (extremely lovable and innocent) servant of Tristram's Uncle Toby. These are viewed with a simplistic eye and lack any of the bombast of most modern thrillers. Teh highest levels of excitement are reserved for 1) references to battles in which characters (most notably, Uncle Toby) have been wounded, 2) arguments between servants and, sometimes, their masters, 3) arguments about the birth of the boy and his naming, and 4) philosophical arguments.

Philosophy? The novel is lousy with it, but philosophers are often misquoted (whether intentionally or not is difficult to tell), misidentified, and their words maladjusted to whatever argument is being presented at the time (which is coming from Tristram's father most of the time).

Culture? Here we are hitting something important and, ostensibly analyzable. But who has time to learn all the mannerisms of mid-18th century England? Thankfully, the novel is also lousy with endnotes (and I don't mean "bad" when I say "lousy," I mean "infested, as with lice"). It's a whimsical window to the England of the 1700s. America didn't even know what it was missing.

Structure? Ah, mmm, about that . . . the only structure here is digression. It reminds me of the time as a grad student I had to learn to read French, after having studied German for four years and Swahili for two. French . . . has no structure. Everything is an exception. This drove me absolutely batty. In fact, "French for Reading Knowledge" is the only class I ever failed in college. It doesn't help that the teacher had us construct sentences from scratch for the final, something we were never taught and never instructed to study. We were taught to read, which I could do pretty well. But then the final came and we were supposed to construct a bunch of sentences from nothing in French. I'm still pissed about that one. Anyway, after studying the firm rules of German and Swahili grammar, with a couple of idioms sprinkled here and there (and easily recognizable, for the most part, from context), I was thrust into the spaghetti code of French "grammar", where, I will repeat, everything is an exception, with very few rules that I could fathom.

But as much as I hate(d) French, I love the digressions of Tristram Shandy. And this lack of structure, this worship of the digression, is by design. To quote Sterne:

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; - they are the life, the soul of reading; - - - take them out of this book for instance, - - you might as well take the book along with them; - one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; - - - - - he steps forth like a bridegroom, - bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

The heart and soul of the book, then, is The Digression. Not just those used by the author in creating the "story," but also by each individual character in telling tales of yore, quoting philosophers (poorly), and even in the manner in which they read certain treatises and tell certain tales, themselves full of digressions.

And what of the characters? Here is where Sterne hits his highest notes, particularly in the characters of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, two grizzled veterans, stout of heart and dedicated wholeheartedly to their "hobby horse" of large-scale reproductions of military campaigns in which they participated. I really fell in love with these two warm-hearted characters and their banter, which, of course, spilled into, yes, even more digressions.

Speaking of the "hobby horse," here Sterne, though a pastor, is far from innocent in his insinuations. This novel is bawdy. Thoroughly so. To the point that I am shocked that Sterne didn't lose his clerical office. As any shrewd Englishman would, however, he hid the bawdiness in euphemism, some of the most clever euphemisms I have ever heard (and I was raised around soldiers who would make you question the physical ability of one to stick one's body parts into the suggested receptacle - the physics are staggering).

So, I say pishposh to all the deep post-modern analysis of the academy. This is a novel that is meant to be read and enjoyed, not dissected and analyzed. It's a morass of facades, innuendo, and false leads, baroque in its segues and sidestreets, and all the more beautiful for its chaotic complexity.

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Des Lewis' Brainwright and My Writing

 Here, a very brief post, a mere link, really, to Des Lewis' Forrest Aguirre and the Brainwright for my old age. As some of you know, Des is a master of reviewing works of fiction in such a way as to re-present the work to new audiences by offering a detailed analysis that is less explanatory and more exploratory, not ingesting and regurgitating the material, but painting a picture of a painting with other eyes. His reviews are a kaleidoscope, zooming in and out, lensing, coloring, sometimes distorting to catch images out of the corner of the intellectual eye that one would otherwise miss. As I said, they re-present the work in fully self-sufficient strokes.

Now Des has examined his reviews through the lens of what I will call a Deep-Observational Engine, which takes the whole of his output (which has a vast and riddling complexity) and twists the kaleidoscope on the reviews themselves. For my own work, this is fascinating to me. I have no argument with the conclusions, but note that many of the threads presented here were not anything intentional on my part. Some were, of course, but some are just organic threads that emerge through my writing process from somewhere deep inside. When I read the review, it gives me reason to reflect not only on my work, but on myself. I think back to "where I was" in life at the time I wrote each of those stories, and I can see windows back into my own experience (the experience of living, not writing) two steps removed from my own biased analysis of myself. It's a refreshing view and lends perspective that I otherwise wouldn't have.

As always, Des: fantastic. You are a modern Wizard.

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Now It's Dark

 

Now It's Dark by Lynda E. Rucker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first encountered Lynda E. Rucker's work in such magazines (remember those?) as The Third Alternative , Shadows and Tall Trees , and Nightmare Magazine . I've always admired her work, but I've read it intermittently, in sparse doses. The wonder about short story collections is that a reader can encounter stories by the same author, one after another. Sometimes this is disconcerting - quality is varied, voices change so dramatically as to be jarring, the same themes are done to death - but the best collections show just enough of the author's range of voices and themes, all at high quality, to introduce the reader not just to a new world, but to new worlds.

The worlds that Rucker takes us to in Now It's Dark are, well, dark. Not gory, not reliant on jump-scares, but more than just weird. At times, her work is creepy, emotionally gut-wrenching, or shocking, and sometimes (as in the last story of this volume) all three at once. Let's explore each story, in turn.

"The Dying Season" is composed (with a deft authorial hand) of a series of mis-steps by a fragile, emotionally-shaky woman who is on a supposed vacation in an off-season resort. This is not a fairytale but a tale of dark fairy that leaves one befuddled and even less sure of one's place in the world, like a psychogeographic black blot on the map, where being found is being lost. An unsettling tale.

"The Seance" was first published in Uncertainties, volume 1 and I can . . . certainly . . . see why. It's the vagaries peeking around corners, not the jump scare or obvious gore, where the real terror lies. Or does it? Just when you think you know something or, worse yet, someone, another angle reveals a hint of things you really don't want to see clearly. But you're the curious type, aren't you? Careful! You don't want to peek! But Rucker forces the issue and you are helpless and wide-eyed.

Rucker captures liminality in a bottle in "The Other Side". It's not a horrific tale, far from it, though the weird element might be considered horrific by some. Dark? Yes. But this was a somber contemplative piece drenched in sadness. Reflective and vaguely hopeful at the same time. Not only is liminality the subject of the story, but Rucker has captured the feel and mood of the liminal. Outstanding!

Egaeus Press's anthology A Soliloquy for Pan recently went through it's second printing and, once again, I missed my chance to get a copy. If Rucker's "The Secret Woods" is representative of the quality of the other stories in that volume, I have lost out on a treasure. It evoked in me both a deep emotional response and intellectual resonance. It's a gem in Rucker's crown.

I needed to sit with "Knots" for a while. It's a story about control and abuse, but there's a supernatural thread passing throughout that takes it firmly into the territory of the weird. It's heartbreaking, though, to think of those in abusive relationships that can't or won't get out. What are the knots that tie them to the situation? Mental illness? Emotional immaturity? Or something much more sinister than that? If you like to feel helpless, this is the story for you. And therein lies the horror: the horror of co-dependence.

Another story in the register of Aickman, "The Vestige" tracks a hapless traveler who has lost his passport, phone, and money. A traveling worst nightmare scenario. I've been in a similar situation when I last travelled to the UK and, on my way back, was detained in Heathrow Airport and had to give up my passport to authorities for reasons that were not clear to me then, but are now. I'll spare you the details of what is a very long story, but suffice it to say that I (and several others) were on Homeland Security's list for extra vetting and the first thing they did was confiscate our passports. Of course, that is a terrifying thing, but it's not the terror of the loss or fear of being a stranger in a strange land that affect the reader. These are sharp elements in the story, but it's the mystery of a past that might not have been and a present that also might not be that create the most emotional dissonance in this tale.

The next story was written for the anthology Gothic Lovecraft . There's just enough Lovecraft in "The Unknown Chambers" to call the story Lovecraftian. "Deep Ones" are mentioned once, as is Lovecraft himself. If you're familiar with the mythos, you'll figure out what's happening or going to happen early on. If not, then this might be a good introduction to Lovecraftiana not from the man himself. Disconcerting and stultifying, it's a good mythos tale, but not spectacular.

I suspected the final conceit of "So Much Wine" about three-quarters of the way through. The obtuse narrative could only lead to one conclusion, in the end. I was right. But I still love this story, not because of the way it concludes, but because the writing throughout devoured my attention, pulling it away from the fact that I already knew what was coming. The journey is more important than the destination.

"An Element of Blank" presents a coming-of-age story of three girls, now women, who experienced something - though it's never quite clear how fully - which may have been a demonic possession, those many years ago. Now, the possessor is back and the girls are wiser and braver than . . . what, exactly? Memory is a fickle mistress and cannot be trusted. And, yet, it must. But trauma, while it cannot erase the past, can redact it.

"The Seventh Wave" finishes this volume with, dare I say it? A splash. At turns, deeply sad, empathetic, and desperate, this story ends on a high note of pure terror. Possibly the most effective story in the volume, the voice of the narrator is strong, not in intensity, but in its depth. And the story will push and pull at your heartstrings until they're about to break until the inevitable, yet shocking end. I cannot recommend this story strongly enough.

And I cannot recommend this collection strongly enough. The physical object, as with all Swan River titles, is crisp and engaging. It might sound silly, but I love their size, the way they feel in the hand. The cover art for this volume is a painting by the amazing

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Disruptions

 

Disruptions by Steven Millhauser
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been a champion of Millhauser's work for a long time now, ever since I was introduced to his work through one of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's fabulous Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. I was rather excited when I heard that Millhauser had released another collection of shorts that I had somehow missed - I blame post-covid . . . well, everything.

I've always admired Millhauser's clean aesthetic and straightforward storytelling, always with a hint of something more lurking behind the scenes. After reading many more authors since my earlier Millhauserian days, I now recognize, in this collection, echoes of some of my favorite authors: Calvino, Borges, and Kafka, for instance. But I sometimes wondered as I read if these echoes were too loud, that Millhauser was dipping into these classic literary heroes of mine and regurgitating what he found there. Oh, I don't think it's anything intentional, and it probably says more about my reading journey than about his writing journey, but I couldn't help but want to compare the stories in this collection to these three authors. I showed great restraint in not doing so for almost every single story. There were times where I just couldn't help myself. The resemblance was too strong. Sadly, this made me, well, sad. My love affair with Millhauser may be coming to an end.

"One Summer Night" reminded me of the elements I love in Millhauser's fiction: the crystal clear, yet evocative prose, a sense that people are much more or less than they seem, and a liminal state of mind where a certain sinister or magical something is just around the corner, in the shadows, out of reach and that, depending on which side of the razor's edge you fall off of, you might find heaven or hell.

No, "After the Beheading" is not some kind of literary click bait. It is one of Millhauser's most morbid tales to date. But the shock doesn't come from the act of the beheading itself. It comes in the slow cessation of outrage and spectacle. The true horror here - and it is truly horrific - arises quietly, long after the execution. It is the slow swelling and expansion of indifferent acceptance, another common theme in his work.

Having taken a couple of guided tours in Europe last month, Millhauser's "Guided Tour," about a highly accurate historical tour of the town of Hamelin hit close to home. To quote from this macabre tale, "Stories have teeth . . .", and this one will take a chunk out of you. Fabulous, frightening stuff. Here Millhauser leaps from the merely strange into the truly horrific.

"Late" is what you'd expect from a story that appeared in Harpers magzine: Highly neurotic entitled city dweller obsesses about the arrival of his date to the point of insanity. Not my favorite Millhauser piece. Clever, but more than a little tedious.

Millhauser's best stories are often about community and it's complications. In "The Little People," a series of vignettes and encyclopedic entries about Greenhaven, a city within "our city" whose inhabitants are an average two inches tall, he addresses the joys and challenges, the loves and the prejudicial hates that arise between "our" culture and those of Greenhaven's residents. Though the community trope feels a little stretched at times, it's a fascinating reflection on human nature within a society.

In "Theater of Shadows," we continue with the theme of community, but this time, a community that embraces darkness and find themselves, purely by their desires and choices, in a liminal state somewhere between shadow and light. We refer to this state (though Millhauser does not) as a "Twilight Zone," and for good reason. This story is reflective (pardon the pun) of the best of Rod Serling's masterpieces. There was a sliver of a hint of folk horror in this story, as well, and it stuck in my brain long after I finished reading; always the sign of a solid story.

"The Fight" reminds us that coming of age stories can be fraught with fear and testosterone, when the fight or flight response is being honed in at such a visceral level that we don't even realize what is happening and the line between fact and fantasy blurs both for our relationships with others and for our image of our selves. Moving into proto-adulthood is no easy transition.

"A Haunted House Story" channels Robert Aickman in all the right ways. haunters and the haunted are indistinguishable, and a view of utter happiness brings on a dark gloom of despair. This story will affect you, deeply, and you will not even understand quite why. But it burrows into you. And it stays. It's terrifying by not being terrifying at all . . . until it's over.

One thing Millhauser does well is magic realism. "The Summer of Ladders" is a great example of this. The population of a town become obsessed with climbing ladders, with results that affect all the inhabitants, directly or indirectly. And an apotheosis might have happened. Maybe, just maybe. Or a disappearing act? As with most magic realism, it's so hard to tell. And in that ambiguity lies the magic. But, as I outlined in the beginning, a magic of mimesis.

"The Circle of Punishment" begs comparison to the short fiction of Borges, Kafka, and Calvino. But Millhauser here turns "kafkaism" inside out while pushing "kafkaism" even deeper into the soul in such a way that the reader is unsure whether to be relieved or even more disturbed. I've coming away thinking far too much about the interiority of social prisons, punishment we impose on ourselves, deserved or not. Again, though, I felt like this story was not "his own". Ridiculous, I know, but it was a distraction from the fiction itself, like focusing on the girders of a roller coaster rather than enjoying the ride.

The communal theme continues (yet again) with "Green" where changing fashions in landscaping (or the destruction thereof) swing wildly, with neighbors making bizarre changes to "keep up with the Jones's" in a strange display of conspicuous consumption. If you love to look good to everyone around you by following the latest trends, regardless of their utility or even sanity, well, this story is for you. And if you're an HOA board member, you're going to absolutely love this one. I was not very impressed, as the subtlety was completely worn off by the fine this tale made it to the printer.

Phone-tree hell is portrayed quite vividly in "Thank You For Your Patience". The person listening to the annoying repeated messages while waiting to speak to a human being shows her patience, even gives a practical sermon on her experiences with patience, revealing secrets to an uncaring machine. It's a sick twist on the tale of the suburban housewife, sick because it reveals just how pathetic some peoples' lives are.

The residents of a small town all fall asleep for three days in "A Tired Town". The narrator struggles to stay awake and, in so doing, experiences a silent moment on the cusp of something indescribable, but then succumbs to slumber. He awakens to the "cleanup" afterword with a sense that he somehow missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but he's not sure what it was. Serves as a reflection on busy-ness and calm. This one was a little too "on the nose" in its criticism of modern American society.

"Kafka in High School, 1959" gives us snippets of Kafka (yes, that Kafka) as an awkward nerd going through the clumsy growing pains of a teenager. It's all too normal of an alternate history, bland, with sideways glimpses of how this teenager could turn into the author we know. One can see how the awkwardness could be magnified into the bleak work we already know. And in the end, things do go strangely.

Millhauser embraces outright surrealism in his story "A Common Predicament," which is anything but common. The narrator's strange relationship with a woman whom he loves (and who loves him), though never faces him. Ever. The speculations as to why she exhibits this behavior haunt him, but he accommodates this strange quirk for the sake of their love. Definitely a story worthy of the label "disruption".

A disruption of a far more disturbing kind takes place in "The Change," a modern re-telling of the myth of Daphne, the nymph who turns into a tree to avoid the unwanted sexual advances of Apollo. But this is no myth, it's a frankly horrifying story of what it means to be a young woman in a world of hyper-charged sexuality and the rule of testosterone that mirrors the rule of the jungle. This needs a trigger warning! It's no wonder that this, unlike most of the stories here, was original to this collection - no one in their right legal mind would want to publish it in their respected literary magazine. Too chancy!

Millhauser's experimental piece, "He Takes, She Takes" jockeys back and forth using the simple phrase: "He takes the (insert thing here, she takes the (insert other thing here)". It is tediously repetitive, but between this iterative bouncing back-and-forth, a story actually seems to emerge, though it is up to the reader whether this is a story of two individuals or the story of all couples.

And we end the collection with, guess what? Yes! Another story about a strange community, "The Column Dwellers in our Town". I rather liked this slightly-surreal take on a town where some inhabitants choose to live a solitary life atop a high rock or cement column (not to exceed 140', per code). It does cause one to think hard about asceticism and social pressure in new ways. Though the subject matter was bizarre, the reflections on people's reactions to the town's setup was more subtle and believable than the other community stories in this volume. I quite liked this strange "story".

But did I like the whole collection? Sure. I guess. But not nearly as much as Millhauser's earlier work. Maybe it's him, maybe it's me, but I was longing for something with the power to immerse me in one of his little worlds, something like Enchanted Night (which I strongly recommend). Sadly, my intense love affair with Millhauser's writing may have run its course. Am I tired of it? Not entirely. But, like the inhabitants of "A Tired Town," I feel a dolor coming on. Maybe it's time to rest on Millhauser for a while?

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The Jade Cabinet

The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Rikki. I've helped publish her work a couple of times and have an irregular correspondence with her. Just sent her a letter (handwritten, of course) a few weeks ago, in fact.

Knowing Rikki and reading The Jade Cabinet again after having been away from it for so many years, I am struck, most of all, by the sheer restraint she shows in presenting this devastating, yet beautiful novel. It's a clear case of the power of editing and craftsmanship at work. Her pen is under strict control here, concentrating the power of whimsey and, indeed, some degree of madness into a self-restrained, almost ethereal (pardon the pun - one of the main characters is named "Etheria") critical examination of male dominance, the Victorian social paradigm, and the favoritism of technic over magic.

This is a character-driven novel, first and foremost. What I love about Rikki's work here is that none of the characters are presented as "either/or". Radulph Tubbs, a notably brutal man with few redeeming qualities, almost none, in fact, becomes, in his older years, a bit sympathetic. But not too sympathetic. More just plain pathetic. But the narrator (who, in a surprising twist, ultimately . . . well, I don't want to give away the surprise) feels a pity that borders on admiration for Tubbs' inner world, even though his actions in the physical world are violently misogynistic and crassly materialistic. Baconfield, the architect, who is hired by Tubbs, is a staunch industrialist, bent on bringing sterile order to everything, but later, through a series of misfortunes, becomes a mad mystic. Angus Sphery, father to both Memory (the narrator) and her sister Etheria, is a loving, whimsical father and a friend of Charles Dodgson (yes, that Charles Dodgson) who also abandoned his first daughter and ultimately ended up in Bedlam asylum. Sphery's wife, Margaret, likewise, lost her sanity, but for altogether different reasons.

Yes, it's that sort of novel. Full of frivolity, madness, and (mostly) tragedy.

And at the center of it all is Etheria, the mute daughter of Angus Sphery, who is essentially sold off to Radulph Tubbs for the price of The Jade Cabinet, a Wunderkammer, of sorts, filled exclusively with figurines carved from jade. One of these figures, which I will not reveal here, becomes the pivotal tool (I use that word reluctantly, but it works on several levels), the wrench in the works, as they say, that leads to the vanishment of the lovely, innocent Etheria and the subsequent emergence of the one true monster of the novel, the Hungerkünstler. No, not that Hungerkünstler, but one of the same mien.

Unlike many character-driven novels, however, The Jade Cabinet is fully-engaging throughout, with something for everyone (or "something for everyone to hate" as my friend Stepan Chapman used to say). The magic realism borders, at times, on that ill-defined subgenre known as "The Weird". The writing itself has a strong focus on not only the language itself, but the role of language as it affects the inner worlds of each character. Ultimately, I suppose, the work is about language and memory, though it never beats the reader over the head with a philosophical stick. It is subtle. And this is really the greatest compliment I can give to it: it breathes softly, with occasional rushes of wind, but it's underpinnings are mere whispers that overwhelm, if one is paying attention. It demands such attention, but not in a bombastic way; rather, it engages like a soft mountain breeze through the trees, simultaneously caressing the ears and overwhelming them. It is an elemental force: the force of the air.

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To Those Gods Beyond

 

To Those Gods Beyond by Giorgio Manganelli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have yet to read an Atlas Press title that hasn't surprised me and delighted me. Giorgio Manganelli's To Those Gods Beyond is no exception. Again, Atlas captures and presents the work of a heretofore-unknown-to-me master of literary expression with near perfection. I'll explain the "near" at the end. Even with that forthcoming caveat, this is an outstanding work that should be read more widely. I absolutely see why Italo Calvino praised Manganelli's work and why Atlas published this book. The first 50-ish pages alone are worth the price of entry. Far more, if you ask me. The book is divided into seven sections, which I've outlined below. Calvino remarked on the coherence of the work, which is seemingly all over the place. I agree, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly how it coheres. This bears more examination and thought.

Manganelli's essay "Literature as Deception" flatters the writer's vanity, crowning him buffoon, but in the sense of The Fool in the tarot. The foolishness is freedom and the buffoonery wisdom. The writer is, in essence, the trickster god of words and semantics. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. At least I flatter myself thusly. Call me a vain fool.

"A King" may be an existentialist shudder from the whispering of death or it may be a eulogy to solipsism itself. But why not both? In any case it is as bold and majestic as the title.

"Simulations" takes the narrator from kingship to poverty to being a renegade and, finally, to nothing but a "child's hallucination". Manganelli, like Beckett in his famous trilogy, breaks down the character to the point of less than nothing, a mere figment of imagination. The last paragraph is a masterful paradigm shift from the observer to the observed; an existentialist epiphany.

"A Few Hypotheses Concerning My Previous Reincarnations" is exactly what it purports to be, which is a baffling thing for any reader. Suffice it to say that the "S" word (-uicide) figures prominently in the narrative as the author tries to piece together his past life. It's a whimsical and tragic examination of identity and the twisted roads one can go down when reflecting on the self.

"Ignominy" sees the (yet another) dead protagonist slowly reason themself into the state defined by the title. The self-awareness of The Dead leads them to disappear in the ever-diminishing (or, rather, spreading thin to near-infinity) of the self. Ignoring, it seems, is both ubiquitous and inevitable for those without a body and, hence without a firm place in space and time. All dissolves into near-nothing.

In hindsight, it's plain to see that the title of the book: To Those Gods Beyond derives, in tone and principal, at least, from the story "An Impossible Love". Here, Hamlet (deceased) finds means to communicate with the Princess of The Princess of Cleve (also deceased) by means of a verbal catapult that launches missives across realities. But what is between and behind those realities? The answer is rather distressing.

The lengthy and exhaustive essay "Disquisition on the Difficulty of Communicating With the Dead" is precisely what the title promises. Where does one begin searching to find the dead, seeing that we have no way to measure those who have no body? Where are they hiding? And what language would we or should we use when communicating with them, once found? More importantly, do they even care? Or are they just stupid?

Now, on to my only complaint. I understand why Alastair Brotchie's afterword was, well, after the rest of the book. Here Brotchie tries to provide a framework for the volume as a whole, attributing all the references to death to an ongoing metaphor about writers and literary work. The evidence feels very thin, with Brotchie admitting as much, and I was absolutely unconvinced. Besides, the afterword saps the work of its mystery - the speculation, often with a darkly humorous twist, about what the state of the dead actually is. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't at the beginning, as the tenuous, yet overwrought analysis of Manganelli's work wouldn't have spoiled the joy of To Those Gods Beyond so much as polluted it utterly. I'd rather it just not have been a part of this volume.

So, excising the weak afterword, this is a strong collection of . . . well, it's not exactly easy to find an appropriate genre category for this work. It's its own thing. Unique. A bit of an enigma. And I love it for that.

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Rumbullion

 

Rumbullion by Molly Tanzer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I keep telling myself I don't like epistolary novels, which seems a bit odd, as I do truly love to handwrite letters to a select few friends, so it's obviously not the format itself. Perhaps it's that many novels of letters completely miss the "show, don't tell" bandwagon. So, I'm always a little leery when it comes to these kinds of novels.

My misgivings, in this case, were misplaced. I loved Rumbullion.

It started out slowly. Another Goodreads reviewer noted that it took them two months to read the slim volume, and I can see why. Though it's short, it's not a quick read, at least not at first. This probably has to do with the stodgy views of the narrator and his need to explain in great detail with several asides - much as you would expect from a novella that is, at its heart, poking fun at the societal mores, the "morals," and even the writing style of 18th-century England. Once one cottons on to what is being said (without being said), the story rolls out like a well-maintained red carpet, and off you go down the promenade.

I had caught whiffs of Tristram Shandy right from the beginning (a book that I need to re-read and review, truth be told - it's been far too long). About halfway through, the influences were clearly apparent, but not in a way that interfered with the reading. Cloudsley's letter had me laughing out loud, something I don't often do while reading. "I loved that horse," indeed! Tristram Shandy meets Bertie Wooster meets a Shakespearean comedy. The Bard (whoever he is) would be proud!

And to top it all off is another trope that I normally hate: Vampires. But here, one is never quite sure about whether the vampires are truly vampires (though I interpreted them that way), and the subtle allusions to the possibility of vampirism (and cannibalism) are in lock step with the conversational propriety of the times. "Necromantic diabolism" is the watchword of that day. There is a fair amount of diabolism, subtly introduced, to go around.

Now, to be fair, there is one trop that I do love that also figures prominently in the whole narrative(s), that of a Bacchanalia (I was going to say "Dionysian Bacchanalia," but that's kind of overkill, isn't it?). Yes, several characters may or may not have been possessed by Panic (in it's true, Greek sense) forces. Seemingly superhuman achievements of various, sometimes sordid sorts, are reached due to the fact that the characters might not all be . . . well, themselves.

If it sounds like a confusing riot, that's because it is a glorious mess, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.

This one's worth your time, slow start or not. You will, in time, be carried away.



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Greener Pastures

 

Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The blurbs that introduce this collection are a who's-who of writers whose work I greatly appreciate: Gemma Files, Steve Rasnic Tem, Brian Evenson, Nathan Ballingrud, and S.P. Miskowski, among others. So, I had high expectations going into this lauded collection.

Unfortunately, things started slowly.

"Beside Me Singing in the Wilderness" takes the old tropes of vampirism and twists it up a bit. It's good, smoothly written, but not extraordinary to me. Your mileage may vary.

"Onanon" was more the sort of thing I expected from all the blurbs and praise I've read. Cosmic horror of the natural world told in a sparse, unforgiving voice.

And from here on out, the stories were incredibly strong, outside of one dip, which I'll mention below.

The title story is strong. Very strong. Like "could have been an episode of Rod Serling's original Twilight Zone" strong. It's the power of the unspoken and the unseen between the words that is so unsettling. The words only mark the boundaries. It's the gaps in-between where the horror dwells. I have a few friends who are truckers that I'm going to recommend this story to. Or maybe I shouldn't . . .

"A Discreet Music" is subtle and strange, but mostly not horrific. And this is good. I actually like the calm weirdness of this transformation, of the shedding of an old life for the new. It's not without its painful moments. On the contrary, there is deep pain in Hiram, the protagonist. And there are jarring revelations about the self, as well. But the metamorphosis is profound and moving.

"The Devil Under the Maison Blue" is such a gently-delivered story that one embraces the horror as, well, just fine. A horror story needn't be stark or harsh or jarring in any way to elicit a powerful response. This is a clear case in point. Sometimes it's the devil you don't know that makes the biggest impression.

I, too, am a sucker for lost footage stories. "October Film Haunt: Under the House" is a melange of the weird and the eerie, full of things that ought not to be, but are, and empty of things that should be, but are not. The lines between fact and fiction and between observer and observed are smeared beyond recognition, resulting in a kaleidoscope of horror that will haunt the reader for a very, long time. And if you're wondering what the cover art is all about: this is it!

"Deducted From Your Share in Paradise" defies expectations in every way. It's a story of maintaining innocence while in a maelstrom of selfish choices, about endings and new beginnings, and possibly about heaven and hell. But it's not so cut and dried as these pairings. One must worm their way between these things and question the very meaning of their outmost bounds. Or maybe, boundaries need to be ignored.

"The Inconsolable" presses deep on the depression button, then asks "what is faith?" and "what is comfort?" It's a poignant tale about breakups and new beginnings, along with the caveats inherent in leaving a piece of one's old life, and a piece of one's own soul, behind.

"Dancers," while weird, was just too soft-spoken for my tastes. It might even be an (gasp) "ineffective" story, trying too hard to be too many things at once. This was the one gap in this collection. I guess every collection has to have one.

"A Thousand Hundred Years" pushes even further through the boundaries of Mark Fisher's "Eerie" and "Weird", namely "that which should be there, but is missing" and "that which is there, but should not be," to great emotional effect. The story is a strange admixture of tears and fears, of melancholy and hope, a tale of being pulled in multiple directions, some good, some bad, all at once. It is life and loss in all its complexity, and reveals the true, confusing horrors of the world. Like many of the stories in this collection, this injects a great deal of emotion, without becoming sickly sweet or cynical, into a tale that squeezes the breath out of you.

Oof (again). "Bookends" is a poetic, sublime, beautiful gut punch. Grief is at the heart of it all, grief and loss, both of which I've experienced in bucketloads over the course of the last few years. Do not read this if you are dealing with an open emotional wound, specifically the death of a close loved one. This story will absolutely wreck you. Then again, it might just open some doors. Approach with caution.

The blurbs are deserved. Minus one miss, this collection hits on all cylinders. I will be reading more of Wehunt's work, for sure. But that's for the future, after I've recovered from this one and the deep emotional grooves it cut in me start to smooth out. For now, I am left scarred, but better for it. Kind of like . . . life.

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A Token Derangement of the Senses

 

A Token Derangement of the Senses by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I never ceased to be amazed by the way I feel when I read Damian Murphy's writings. The settings change, the circumstances of exploration and discovery (always a theme) change, the characters change, yet there is always a specific feeling to a Damian Murphy story. That feeling is indescribable, incommunicable, if you will. And even if I could communicate it, I don't think I'd want to. It's a resonance that must be, by its nature, within me and no one else. But I hope that other readers can feel their own resonance with his work. I sense that many do.

A Token Derangement of the Senses, unlike just about everything I've read by Murphy, takes place in the midst of war, and is told by one of the soldiers. Yes, soldiers, or at least those who appear to have served in the military at one point or another, can be found in other works. But this is the first I've read that takes place on the field of battle . . . but it's a strange battle, one you would not expect, where the enemies are not so obvious (though they are caught in the throes of The Great War), and the front line is less a line and more of a liminal zone between ordered civilization and the chaos of destruction. It is a place of secrets and subliminal communications, where some spaces are permanently sealed off from the rest of the world and one is unable to enter by mundane means. Much is, in a word, Mystery. And it's weaving between these hidden places, these occulted structures, that I find that feeling described earlier. You must journey there yourself to find your feeling, your resonance.

This volume also contains "Wittgenstein," a short piece, also set in a time of war, penned by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel, the man and motor behind Raphus Press. It is of a more philosophical than magical bent, contrasting the high-mindedness of intellectual knowledge against the blood-and-mud reality of combat experience and its aftermath.

The book itself is, as with many Raphus Press books, dignified, with a whiff of fine art; solid, refined; correct to its contents, but elevated out of the trenches, despite its subject matter.

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The Complete Lyrics 1978-2022 by Nick Cave

 

The Complete Lyrics 1978–2022 by Nick Cave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never read Delueze's Difference and Repetition (though it is on my list), but I am aching with curiosity to see if he has anything to say about song lyrics. Because, by and large, song lyrics suck. There are notable exceptions, but they are notable because they are exceptional. I'll restrain myself from quoting any, because that's not the point of my banal and overly jejune "observation". But really, when you rip lyrics from the context of the music in which they are couched, they most often come across as just plain stupid. I think this has something to do with repetition. Songs don't have to be repetitive, but it helps, especially if you're a music producer whose goal is to shove some catchy bit into the craw of as many brains as you can. Repetition sells when it's associated with a catchy tune. You don't have to think about such music, which is part of the joy of it all, singing inane lyrics at the top of your lungs: The easier, the better.

But this isn't about joy. Well, maybe a little. But we're talking about Nick Cave here. Talk about a man who has suffered. I'll spare the details, but go read about his life some time. Ugh. Yes, he's had fame and fortune and flamboyance, but, ugh, the things he's gone through, especially the death of two of his children - no thank you. It's odd, then, that many of his most poignantly sad lyrics were written before these losses. Or maybe it's not odd at all. Maybe Nick Cave is just good at putting to paper (and music) the inevitability of pain.

Now, Nick Cave is not innocent when it comes to rote repetition in lyrics. This is especially true in his more punk phase while he was with The Birthday Party. Yes, the seeds (pun intended) of brilliance were there, but, really, they were just a pretty good punk band full of, you guessed it, repetitive lyrics. Cave's outrageous energy carried the band's music, and there's something to be said for that, but if you're looking for poetry in his early lyrics, you're going to have to squint.

Now, I can't speak to this musically, but lyrically, the album The Bad Seed (1983) seems to be a watershed moment in Cave's writing. I don't know what exactly triggered this, but here Cave's poetics enter a new phase. From this point on, things are different, and noticeably so. In the past, sheer brute power carried the day, but now you can see that the work has been crafted more carefully. Yes, there is repetition (it's inevitable in music, I know), but that repetition only serves as punctuation marks to the poetry throughout, like lyrical exclamation points or, more often, lyrical question marks.

Song lyrics, like poems, are easy to read but not easy to process, especially if you are reading them. Without voice inflections and different points of emphasis, one must supply these variations oneself, whether audibly or just in one's head. Of course this can make the songs "yours," but you are bound to have to reinterpret upon hearing the singer's expression. And really, the music is an integral part of the lyrics. So, in some ways, The Complete Lyrics didn't resonate with me (no pun intended there, believe it or not). Again, that pesky repetition, when devoid of emotional context, was just plain irritating, at points. Every exception to this, for me as a reader, came because I had a close knowledge of the songs in which the repetitive lyrics were ensconced. Context is everything, in this case, and when I knew the context well enough, my irritation wore off, soothed by the melody (even if it was a raucous one).

I suppose every Nick Cave fan has a favorite album. Mine is No More Shall We Part. It's agonizingly beautiful. Let Love In marches a close second behind as less somber (but still morose) and more animated, sometimes cartoonishly so. There are songs intermingled in all the other albums that I greatly enjoy ("From Her to Eternity" - my introduction to Nick Cave's music back in the '80s by way of Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin , and "The Carny" both jump to mind), but these two are albums which, from start to finish, I can long and languish in.

Cave, along with the Bad Seeds, has like any good artist, evolved over the years. From punk to strange calliope rhythms to the blues, his music is nothing if not twisting along a path that is unpredictable. If I ever suspected a Nick Cave album to have been written under the influence of an epic dose of LSD, it would have to be DIG, LAZARUS, DIG. It's "way out there," as they say. Definitely the most experimental (whatever that means) album, lyrically speaking. And now, since the publication of this book in it's most recent incarnation, it appears that Cave and company have taken another turn, towards the ethereal and, dare I say it? Religious?

Wherever he goes, I'm along for the ride. While I can't count myself as a member of his cult of personality, I will say that I continue to be interested, even touched deeply, from time to time, as I was when I first read the lyrics to "Nature Boy," which I'll end with here:

Nature Boy

I was just a boy when I sat down
To watch the news on TV
I saw some ordinary slaughter
I saw some routine atrocity
My father said, don't look away
You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now
He said that in the end is a beauty
That is going to save the world, now

And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?
My knees went weak, I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention

And she moves among the flowers
And she floats upon the smoke
She moves among the shadows
She moves me with just one little look

You took me back to your place
And dressed me up in a deep-sea diver's suit
You played the patriot, you raised the flag
And I stood at full salute
Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb
And made it impossible to speak
As you closed in, in slow motion
Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek

She moves among the shadows
She floats upon the breeze
She moves among the candles
And we moved through the days and through the years

Years passed by, we were walking by the sea
Half delirious
You smiled at me and said, babe
I think this thing is getting kind of serious
You pointed at something and said
Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing?
It was then that I broke down
It was then that you lifted me up again

She moves among the sparrows
And she walks across the sea
She moves among the flowers
And she moves something deep inside of me

She moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
And she moves right up close to me

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