.
“a veritable living, breathing map of the fantastic fiction that is emerging into the world in these troubled times. Venture deeper, and you will find more than a decade of reviews and ruminations, all writ in an erudite, enjoyable, idiosyncratic style; a treasure that I suspect will become, (and already is), one of the most important and essential chronicles” – Karim Ghahwagi
Back in July 2016, I posted this gestalt real-time review of a book entitled THE AGE OF LOVECRAFT: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/the-age-of-lovecraft/
I need to know – was this before Scott Nicolay’s famous throwaway line or not? The line that has contributed – rightly or wrongly – to the disruption of the planning at the imminent NecronomiCon in Providence.
My view is that HPL needs pissing on and adoring in equal measure, for obvious separate respective reasons. Long live the tenets of Nemonymity and Wimsatt’s Intentional Fallacy! I hope the Con will thus revert to its planned equilibrium and deserved success.
It’s just that I can visualise all the people in the world, like you and me, with our hobbies, ambitions, passions, hopes, futures…
All potentially brought to an abortive halt by the the cheap words of a business big head called Trump.
Here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/salty-kiss-island-rhys-hughes/#comment-10376
2. THE TOES OF THE SUN
“…his need to prove he was not the the centre of attention. He did this with the most forceful expression of unobtrusiveness he could devise and the the effort of this emotional paradox occupied all his concentration. But slowly he relaxed enough to genuinely absorb the creativity which he sought out.”
I heard no serenades from my last balcony, and Don Entrerrosca’s transformation in this story, a transformation from an active troubadour of creativity to just a part of the audience, is a parallel parable to my own withdrawal from being a writer to that of gestalt real-time reviewer, to my new job of hawling the sun from others, dreamcatching their smiles. Or is that blind wishful thinking?
The tale here of sunset’s unset, a jeered encore, a grey cloak of nemonymity, all very telling, until the moment his ‘futile lute’ becomes a ‘giant lute’ that tickles a beautiful woman’s toes. And much more.
If I follow all the labyrinths of comparison here with my own case, it would send me mad. It is a parable to die for. A story gem, even in isolation from any such personal interpretations.
(And I note the third part is ‘The Promised Labyrinth’, as yet unread.)
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Here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/under-the-skin-michel-faber/#comment-10383
8.
“Hands and feet spasmed at random, as if a co-ordinated response was struggling vainly to emerge from a befuddled collective organism. Their fat little heads were identical, swaying in a cluster like polyps of an anemone, blinking stupidly in the sudden light. You would never guess they’d have the cunning to run if released.”
I would never have guessed I would reach this far and the whole world I am reading about transformed but not really transformed at all. Perhaps that’s because I am more in the know than the author himself. About the earth’s core and what I have hawled there. The gestalt of humanity. The disguise of humanity. Gelding is only half the story. And the above quote does not give any real clue as to the rest of it.
“They couldn’t siuwil,…”
But I can. Like Esswis.
The scene Isserley endures with the latest hitcher in this chapter, is just as frightening and loathsome, even more so, in fact, than the thoughts I have been having, the dreams, too, as a result of reading this book. I dare not impart much of it, and that’s not just because of the plot spoilers I always try to avoid when hawling or dreamcatching books. But this time, I am trying to avoid actual READER spoilers, a phenomenon that reviewers rarely encounter, if at all.
Mercy.
PHANTASM / CHIMERA
An anthology of strange and troubling dreams.
Edited by Scott Dwyer
Plutonian Press 2017
When I review these stories, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…
The Wind, The Dust – Adam Golaski
Provisions for a Journey – Matthew M. Bartlett
The Bruised Veil – Christopher Slatsky
The Last of Liquid Sleep – Thana Niveau
The Hole – Brian Evenson
The Hotel Pelagornis, 1899 – Livia Llewellyn
Binding – Mike Allen
The Great, Grey Bulk – Jon Padgett
Chrysalis – John Claude Smith
Fiending Apophenia – Clint Smith
The Last American Lion Pelt – Jason A. Wyckoff
WORMING THE HARPY AND OTHER BITTER PILLS 1995
THE SMELL OF TELESCOPES MM
STORIES FROM A LOST ANTHOLOGY MMII
My previous reviews of Rhys Hughes HERE
My previous reviews of Tartarus Press HERE
When I finally dreamcatch these books via a re-reading of them, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…
SMALL BEER PRESS 2017
My previous review of a Sofia Samatar story.
When I review this book, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…
