Flower Phantoms

Flower Phantoms by Ronald Fraser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the strong recommendation of a few people whose literary opinions I highly value, I took a chance with this unknown-to-me author. With an introduction by the highly-reputable scholar of obscure English works, Mark Valentine, I had at least some assurance that the book was likely not going to be awful.

The work starts out, blandly enough, as a sort of domestic story of class, family, and wooing one might expect from an interwar-era work. But a tiny sliver of decadence, a delicate kind of decadence, shows up about a quarter of the way in as Judy, the protagonist, is being, as is her wont, a touch aloof from her soon-to-be-betrothed Roland. Roland, poetic but not terribly sharp, looks into her eyes and states:

"My god, Judy, the human eye is a very terrifying thing. It's so inhuman. There's no soul in it. It's a machine. A lot of cloudy, spongy, extremely queer stuff with a sinister black hole. It's expressionless, when you look close. Laughter, kindness, everything that makes people human. seems to disappear. What a strange and terrible thing mind must be . . ."

Later, we find just what a strange and terrible thing mind is. At least strange and terrible to those who cannot see inside another's mind to understand its workings. This is especially so when that mind does not seem to function "correctly".

And Judy doesn't "function correctly". I like her chutzpah. She is a surprisingly complex figure for a female character written by a man in the 1920's. I had not expected this. In time, the complexity of Judy's malfunctioning thoughts becomes intriguing. I wondered if Judy's quirks were harmless or if there was something seriously deranged in her thinking. My greatest fear, though, was that Judy might become "domesticated" or portrayed as an indecisive ditz. I hoped neither of those things happen. I liked her too much as-is.

Not long ago, someone very, very close to me suffered a bout of temporary psychosis. It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life, to see this person that I know so well in a state of paranoia and mania. It broke my heart to see this. The person I knew was not the person ranting and raving during that spell. It was sad and terrifying to be a part of that suffering and to see it up close, first hand. I catch myself using the word "crazy" far too often, and I now know that this word has special, specific meaning, and that it has nothing to do with fun and frolic. It has become a slur and a word to be avoided. But years of habit are hard to break, and I still catch myself letting it slip. But I correct myself, out of the deepest respect I hold for this friend.

So, as Judy progresses (or falls?) into a state outside of reality, I asked myself what was happening, partially, I think, as an emotional protection to myself, given what I so recently witnessed. Was Judy suffering from insanity (and note that suffering is the precise word to use when describing what the insane are going through)? Pollen-induced hallucinations? Remote memories of a past life or a soul caught between states of existence? Whatever the source, it was beautiful, sad, and languid.

As the novella progresses, one sees Judy slip more and more away from "reality" to the point where the reader questions what is real and what is not. Despite the sensitivity of the subject matter, the "trippiness" of the second part of the story is a nice contrast to the bland domesticity of the first.

In summation, Flower Phantoms shows a most sympathetic view of madness. This is not what I expected from a piece of writing from this period and definitely not what I expected when I began reading. It is touching, but not maudlin, decadent in its subject matter but more practical in its portrayal, and seething with existentialism but not buried in fatalism. Judy is a complex, if sometimes confused, character: she is broken, but not weak. Confident, but fallible. All in all, a human being.

Each reader will pull something different from this novella, depending on one's experiences (and proximity in time and space to said experiences), but it may just shatter your expectations . . . subtly, without undue fanfare or heroics. An extremely interesting, surprising read.



View all my reviews

________________________

If you like my writing and want to help my creative endeavors, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!