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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Dark Arts

 

Dark Arts by Eric Stener Carlson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me start by saying that I absolutely love Tartarus Press. In fact, I just had Mark Valentine's most recent collection from them show up in my mail this past week. My first Tartarus book was a copy of Meyrink's The Golem, which a good friend of mine gifted me many, many years ago. I think I own about twelve volumes from Tartarus, most of them hardcovers (though I'd have to verify that number). I've never been disappointed by a Tartarus publication. Unfortunately, that streak may have come to an end with the current volume. Carlson's Dark Arts isn't bad, it's just not up to par with the other Tartarus books I've read. I suppose not every volume can be outstanding. I also just encountered what I would consider Wakefield Press's weakest volume that I've read so far. Maybe it's a bad batch. Maybe it's just me, who knows? But I have to call them like I see them. And here is how I see each of the stories in this volume:

Can a story in which not one, but four deaths occur (one being an alleyway murder) be considered . . . comforting? Soft? Even loving? Carlson tells just such a tale in "Golden Book," in which an Ikiryo meets a young girl destined for her first encounter with death. This story is more of a blessing than a curse, as dark as it is.

"Coffee Shop" was ripe with dazzling poetics. Unfortunately, the incredible potential of the plot and language was unrealized. I wanted so much more than what the ending had to offer, but then again, that might have been the point of this story of trapped desperation?

I feel the same way about "Divining Rod" as I did about the last story. So much poetic potential, so little punch. This tale seemed to meander, directionless, like a series of disjunct writing exercises strung together on a frayed, insubstantial plot line. But again, maybe that was the point? I'll never know. Or maybe that is the point and I'm just too shallow of a reader to realize it?

I thought that maybe I would warm up to Carlson with the next tale. "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" is a touching (if tinged by horror) tale of a woman daring to become her childhood self, yet again. It's a bittersweet tale that doesn't telegraph the surprise ending, though one can likely figure out what's happening beforehand from the subtle cues left by the narrator. It's a Twilight-Zone-esque tale, which is one of the highest compliments I can give a story

Alas, the relative highs of "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" weren't reached again over the next few stories. "Corridor" is full of anticipatory horror past and present. Two journalists wait for the terrorists who are about to take them hostage. One has suffered throughout his life from an extreme neurosis about what will happen to him in the future. The other is terrified by the prospect of capture and death. But in this case, one's terrors can atone for the terror of another. A good (not great) tale of strange redemptions.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the thread of "Bradycardia". The heady mixture of dream and waking life, along with what might be psychosis, goaded along by a manipulative lover(?) gets almost too convoluted. There's a fine line between complex and incomprehensible, and I wavered over both sides of that line throughout.

The premise of "Stray," a story told by a dog about his many previous lives, was, to be honest, not to my liking. But Carlson handled that premise with tenderness and an ongoing emotional charge that won me over. I didn't like the idea, but the execution was handled by such a deft hand that I couldn't help but love the story.

Mood and atmosphere dominate "Strasse 60, Berlin". This story has a heightened sense of tension that gives it a higher ceiling of dread and eeriness than other stories thus far in the collection. The press of confusion is palpable. Chronology is shuffled and the narrator is misdirected by the phantoms of his own memories. A disconcerting, very effective story. This was more of what I had hoped for.

"Salt" is an excellent story of gaslighting by an authoritarian regime. It's a twisted narrative of unraveling untruth and an emotional gut punch to a narrator that may or may not be insane, but is absolutely in a lot of trouble.

Despite a baldly-telegraphed "twist" and some pushy histrionics, I rather liked "Monsieur Machine". Delivery aside, this was an excellent tale of love and ambition coming into stark contrast, then resolution of the dialectic. Given its mechanistic themes, there is an evocation of emotion that moves the reader while horrifying at the same time. Here love and loss combine to create awe and the awful.

I liked "I Loved You at Your Darkest," but didn't love it. Pardon the horrid attempt at a pun. Yes, the story twisted in an unexpected way, but resolved too quickly, in my mind, with the narrator able to make logical leaps using clues that shouldn't have evoked his conclusions. Another good, but not great tale, straining my belief a touch too much, which was the kiss of death (another horrible pun, given the plot).

I heard hinted echoes of Dhalgren in "The Atelier," a dystopian post-disaster (and pre-even-bigger-disaster) tale set in a fractured Europe held together by authoritarianism. But Delaney's novel was far superior to this tale, which is only a faint, thin shadow of the former. I found rays of hope in the hopelessness, but, again, this story just wasn't really "for" me.

Again, it's not a bad collection, just not up to my expectations of Tartarus' usual work. Do I regret buying it? No. I don't think I can ever regret buying a Tartarus title - they are, to me, the height of craftsmanship and elegant design. Would I buy it again, knowing what I know now? Also no. Like I said: maybe it's just me. High expectations + more experience over time = jadedness, I suppose. Then again, maybe it's not just me. You'll have to decide for yourself.

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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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Journey Across Breath/Tragitto Nel Respiro

 

Journey Across Breath/Tragitto Nel Respiro by Stephen Watts
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Watts prose-poem straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, much as the mountain environs that serve as both a setting and character are an interstitial zone, suspended between nations. Time is not only fluid here; it is a swirling, mangled time"line" tied up in itself at odd angles, where chronology is dictated by the mind of the observer. Here, one can see family members as they were long before the observer was born, or as they will become after the subject has died. It is a dance, not of Chronos, but of Kairos, with the participants and the music ever-changing, but all of a theme. This pseudo-memoir is the perfect coffee table book, if your coffee table is a half-rusted folding table next to a ratty wooden bar stool in a concrete building with a rough-hewn door and without glass in the window-panes in the Italian alps. But this little cottage must be warm with family and laughter and tears, all stirred together by Watt's exquisite penmanship.

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