The Explosion of a Chandelier

 

The Explosion of a Chandelier by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like any good sleight-of-hand, even the publisher name, "Occult Books," is a deception, at least in the popular conception of what "Occult" means. Here, I think it's wise to refer to the original meaning of the word: hidden from view. You won't find wild sabbats, goat sacrifice (virgin or otherwise), or sulfur and brimstone here. No, this occultation of of a more refined sort. Something far more interesting (and sinister in the trickiest of ways).

What we have here is an exploration of the imagination and the manifestation of the imagination into the "real" world. This world is filled with subterfuge and the already-mentioned slight-of-hand. It is labyrinth whose walls shift. A game where the rules change in unexpected, winsome ways. But it's a make-believe which breaches the wall to that-which-is-hidden. These games and labyrinths create thin cracks in the zones that contain realities.

You'll recall this from your childhood, the imaginative playfulness and discovery of places undiscovered by most of society, the unveiling of the "truth" behind individual identities, the understanding of the true mechanism of seemingly ordinary objects that are much more than they seem on the surface.

Some of us are lucky enough to have survived into adulthood with those same revelatory faculties intact. But we have to work at it. It's a gift, to be sure, but a gift that has to be wrested, nay, stolen from the universe.

The Explosion of a Chandelier is a carefully-encrypted guidebook on how one might access such gifts, if one is bold enough to sieze them! But, like Damian's other works of a similar ilk (The Exalted and the Abased, The Academy Outside of Ingolstadt, and Abyssinia all jump to mind), those who are not accustomed to seeking for hidden things, who have forgotten the very real power of imagination, or who lack the courage to sieze the scepter that cracks the barriers between realities . . . well, they simply do not, cannot, and will not Know. On the surface, they will read a story about young men living in Spain during the age of anarchic revolution, a story about hotels and keys and bombs and chandeliers.

But, trust me, there's much more in there, SO much more! Hidden between the words, behind the pages, and most importantly, inside. Look inside! Don't let your reading eyes deceive you. Or, actually, please do!

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!