Splendid in Ash

Splendid in Ash by Charles Wilkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charle Wilkinson's sophomore outing with the elegant and accomplished Egaeus Press is less of a novelty to me than his first Egaeus book, A Twist in the Eye. My earlier "discovery" of Wilkinson was startling and swept me off my feet. Now that I've become more familiar with his work, it feels more . . . well, familiar. And that's not a bad thing. The ebbs and flows of a reader with "his" author can become a sort of cat-and-mouse game, where some maneuvers lose their surprise and others add a whole new dimension to the readerly relationship that would otherwise not emerge. We grow, taste changes, the author's voice ages, and yet, there is, inevitably an element of wonder amidst the familiarity. Here is my "dance" with the text of Splendid In Ash:

The title of the first story in Wilkinson's second collection. "In the Frame," is a triple entendre: one for art, one for being set up, and one for ten pin bowling. The one that is most horrific is not the one you're thinking of! Deftly written, as usual, this story will send your expectations into a tailspin in a fit of readerly vertigo.

"The Ground of the Circuit" is a strange admixture of folk horror and technological terror. The ending reminds me of Aickman - one is left wondering what has already happened, while seeing clearly what is coming, and it's not going to turn out well for the man who was a husband. The disjointedness of rurality and modernity, combined with the short circuited thoughts of both pro- and antagonist, frame it all well.

Did I predict the ending of "Slimikins" well before it came? Sort of. The overall event on which it ended, I saw coming. But I did not see the exquisite detail forthcoming. Wilkinson has an eye for details and, in this case, that meant absolutely plunging the reader into the final moments of a story. Yes, it was inevitable. But by "shoving your face in it," so to speak, the story is raised to an unexpected pitch!

One part David Lynch, one part Robert Aickman, one part Brian Evenson
Limn rim with Charles Wilkinson bitter and salt
Stir quickly
Stir the other direction, quickly!
Shake vigorously
Voila! "Boxing the Breakable"

And though the influences are apparent, this drink is undiluted Wilkinson. Bitter, salty, with a lingering aftertaste, intriguing, and altogether unpleasant.

A marvelous weird cocktail. Bottoms up!

The elements of "The White Kisses" were just a touch too ephemeral for me. I like open-ended stories that don't have to explain themselves, but I prefer a story that is thematically tighter. Don't explain everything, but explain something, please. Anything. Or at least "hang" all the elements together. Sorry, but this one just dissipates into wisps for me. There's potential, but I felt this one too easily forgotten. One needs a few touchpoints, and "The White Kisses" didn't press hard enough for me.

"The Lengthsman" is a tale that bubbles with meaning underneath. You can sense the horror rising from below, surfacing as a bubble whose surface tension expands the dread. Wilkinson does well to let that tension grow, but leaves it to the reader's imagination to pop! The cultural underpinnings are also redolent with alienation and hints of barbarism. An outstanding tale that shimmers with an earthy darkness.

"Absolute Possession" does nothing to slake my thirst to revisit Wales. Quite the contrary. Again, Wilkinson subverts expectations by thrusting the reader even deeper into the weird than expected. Here, nature itself, the land itself, is the realm of the weird. The issues of ownership, free agency, and self are questioned here in the most fundamental of ways. Is it a marvelous escape, or a trap? Or both?

I might note there that a few other stories in the volume are set in Wales (unsurprisingly, given that this is where Wilkinson lives). When I visited the booktown of Hay-On-Wye in summer of 2019, I was a bit saddened that I didn't see Wilkinson's work in any of the bookstores there. Someone has to rectify this! Come to think of it, I had a hard time finding a Machen book there, which is downright criminal and unpatriotic, though I did eventually find a copy of The Hill of Dreams. Anyway, I digress. I'd like to digress permanently to Wales, but my wife won't have it. Oh well.

"Mr. Kitchell Says Thank You" is . . . scattered. Like it's trying to be too many things at once. There are intriguing elements - an occult master, motive for revenge, academic intrigues. And while there is a thematic continuity of . . . elephants . . . the theme isn't strong enough to tie it all together. It's a decent enough story, but I'm not nearly as compelled to love it as I was with other tales herein.

I found "Drawing Above the Breath" a fine story, but also uncompelling. There's a very slight twist on the vampire and fountain of youth myth, a fine point, if you will, on the canon. While the subtlety of the idea is interesting and the writing gorgeous, at times, I can't view the story as anything other than minor, given the context of a volume with so many excellent stories. And, truth be told, I'm just not a fan of vampire stories. Bauhaus did me in on that front. The Count is dead, long (un)live The Count.

"Aficionado of the Cold Places" is a thematically-solid tale whose banal title belies a deeply-fantastical weird, even borderline-surreal story of yearning and the haunting past. The understated use of the word "Aficionado" for such a life-preserving need gives this very serious tale a bitter (I use the word intentionally) twist. Stark beauty pervades the setting, the characters, and the mood. Wonderfully chilling.

Sometimes you pick the perfect soundtrack for reading. This was the case as I listened to Paysage d'Hiver while reading "Catapedamania," thus far, and by far, the most outright disturbing tale in this volume. Bizarre and forlorn with a touch of schizophrenia, just like the musical accompaniment.

In lesser, more rudimentary hands, I would call "The Solitary Truth" a clever story. But Wilkinson's facile handling of language and character make this story not just clever, but intelligent, even cunning. There is a certain dark manipulation happening here that sneaks up and taps you on the shoulder when you least expect it. It could be a sad story, or not, depending on whom you believe. The story is a kind of Rorschach Test with no pass or fail.

"His Theory of Fridays" is an ethereal, yet altogether satisfying story of four siblings, one of whom has a theory . . . of Fridays. The theory isn't mentioned and, in fact, cannot be, according to the narrator, as there are no words to form it. Yet it is a reality, unwritten, unspoken, possibly even unformed. A ghostly-wisp of a story, this is, in a way that "The White Kisses" was not, vanishing, yet fulsome.

"An Absent Member" is the most classically-surreal of the stories in this volume. Ribald, if a bit silly, I found the story enjoyable in its farce, especially in the way it never took itself seriously, even if the narrator did. A nice little change-of-pace story that would normally upset the "flow" of a collection, but seems to appear at just the right point here. I don't know if that was Wilkinson's choice or that of the editor, but it was well-played.

With a heavy does of Brian Evanson-esque matter-of-fact irreality, "Might be Mordiford" shows a glimpse of a bureaucratic hell that would torment even Franz Kafka. Stultifying consequence is not so easy to shake when even memory loss is no excuse for paying the price of one's misdeeds.

"Legs & Chair" (the ampersand is important!) is a science fiction story (so far as I can tell) in the mold of the New Wave (now old) of Science Fiction, tinged with an extra dose of Philip K. Dick. A good story, strange and heartfelt, and a different voice for Wilkinson. Not a fully dystopian vision of the future, but definitely a view of a dysfunctional future society.

The collection ends powerfully with "The Floaters," a post-apocalyptic tale of the erosion of the land and relationships and the crumbling of language itself. The tight narrative speaks volumes more than its word-count. And, in the end, it really is about words and how they are tied to our reality. When one disintegrates, so does the other. As above, so below, but only in a hopeless sense. Grim, grey, awe-inspiring. Reading this could be a way to ease in to Beckett's Molloy trilo- no, who am I kidding? Nothing can prepare you for that.

You will note that I drop the names of several authors throughout this review. While I disagree with at least one review that stops just short of calling Wilkinson's work a wholly derivative mishmash of weird fiction, the influences are apparent, at times. This happens with all writers. I've done my share of channeling other writers myself, even to the point where I have a 100K page manuscript of a science fiction novel that I will have to rewrite, oh, say 90K pages of to make it mine (I was channeling Alastair Reynolds, if you must know). So, maybe I'm remiss in looking past that to some extent. Wilkinson is his own man. And this is his own collection. But, if you like Aickman and Evenson as much as I do, you're going to want to get a copy of this and see what he brings to the table!



View all my reviews

________________________

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