Cathode Love

 

Cathode Love by Matthew Brendan Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Matthew Brendan Clark is an alchemist of decadence, mixing a strong literary and analytical brew to create something more powerful than the sum of its parts. Lead to gold? No. More like silver to gold, but the mix and presentation add significant value to each piece, giving a cumulative effect from beginning to end. One is reminded of the boundaried eclecticism of Strange Attractor and the wonderful Sacrum Regnum I and Sacrum Regnum II.

After an excellent introduction, the post-introduction introduction, "Now Departing . . . Reality," is a careful examination of the impossibility of communicating, something I've addressed myself at length. But Clark does so in a more careful way, I think, exploring to the very dusty corners the limitations we have as humans.

But in doing so, he opens doors, much like a Oulipo philosopher, showing that acknowledging the severe limitations of human ability to share perception actually cracks open the wall to one's own imagination. In our vain attempts to communicate, we give each other seeds that take root in our minds and our imaginations are opened to new vistas that are ours alone.

The first piece of writing not penned by Clark is Michel Leiris' "The Heiroglyphic Monad". It's is a brief philosophical treatise, told by a surrealist, outlining some of the ideas found in the writings of John Dee. A heady mixture in and of itself, which gives hints to the overall thematic content of Cathode Love.

I'm not sure if Marina Warner's essay "The Writing of Stones" constitutes an apologia for metaphor or science, both or neither. In the end, Warner finds a Hegelian dialectic moment in the stones collected by Roger Caillois, erstwhile surrealist. Here "material mysticism" and "convulsive beauty" are brought into contentious focus with one another over the subject of of, of all things, Mexican jumping beans. There is a lot to digest here, and it's a topic I've thought about extensively, so much so that I twirl around, infinitely, like an astronaut orbiting a black hole. The divergent threads might never merge in my mind, at least not as smoothly as Warner presents, so I have to be content to be on the edge, forever circling, until something breaks in my mind one way or the other. Perhaps this is why I like writing so much - the Apollonian side of me is gratified by the order of grammar and syntax, while the Dionysian side of me enjoys wrestling that same syntax into disorder (sometimes slight, sometimes more radical) in order to wedge open cracks in the armor of logic.

I was very glad to see Remy de Gourmont's "Introduction to the First Book of Masks," the symbolism manifesto, in many ways, contained in Cathode Love. This piece actually inspired me to compile and edit Text:Ur, The New Book of Masks many years ago, so, for me, it's seminal. I'm sure it was for many others, as well. The symbolism movement, while still a little obscured by time, spawned much of the early modernist movement. And I have to admit here that the Symbolist art movement (which featured two of my favorite artists: Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon) is, by far, my favorite artistic era. So between the visual art and the written word, I enjoy a sort of artistic-synesthesia, if you will.

In his essay "Prison Food," Clark muses on poetry's ability to blossom from the depths of suffering. Or, in his words, we can benefit our lives by "assuming that poetry operates as an escape from hell". Though I don't think that poetry, whether we are writing it or reading it, can fully alleviate our internal suffering, it can provide some reprieve from the pangs of sorrow.

Antonin Artaud pushes for a mystification of what was becoming, in his day, utilitarian theater, in his essay "Metaphysics and the Mise En Scene". He creates a sort of artistic synesthesia (do you sense a theme here?) in his rolling commentary on visual art (featuring Van Leyden's painting The Daughters of Lot), poetry, and, most of all, theater, pointing out the metaphysical nature of Leyden's piece and Balinese shadow puppetry.

Artaud's "The Theater of Cruelty" is a Dionysian manifesto for the stage, criteria for a ritual more than a play, or the reuniting of the play with ritual. I see now exactly where Hermann Nitsch drew his inspiration for "The Fall of Jerusalem". Here, Artaud is as concerned with occult matters as dramatic matters. His focus on hieroglyphs and holy places betrays a neo-platonic reach to connect with the beyond.

I am not fond of werewolf stories or their ilk, as I find them hackneyed and largely predictable. But Count Stenbock's "The Other Side," of which I've heard rumors for years, has such a beautiful poetic resonance, that it's impossible for me not to love it, just like it was impossible for Gabriel not to love the woman with piercing blue eyes and golden hair, even though he condemned her (and himself) in the process.

Here's a bit of healing for your soul I discovered while perusing the next section of the book: Reading Baudelaire on the back porch on a cool summer evening with Dave Brubeck playing in the background. A sip from the balm of Gilead. A little moment of bliss. You're welcome. Now back to the book . . .

David Tibet's essay "Why I Looked to the Southside of the Door" is, as one would expect with his writing, elliptical, peeking around the corner, just out of sight, and absolutely enveloping in its charisma. From Coptic grammar to more nicknames than I can keep track of to, of course, Current 93 (don't all roads lead to Current 93 after all?), we journey with Tibet through vast halls of intellect, getting a glimpse of how the man sees the world.

In "A Dream Through Death," Matthew Brendan Clark gives a short, if thorough, retrospective on the films of French director Jean Rollin outlining his works, biography, and distinctive ouvre. Am I a huge fan of Rollin's films? No. Will I examine them in a different light and with a more careful eye, especially those films I have not yet seen? Absolutely, and directly as a result of this essay.

After a short eulogy to Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, eight of the drug-addled poet's works are presented in the original French and in translation. I've not read much of the former-surrealist's works, but after this introduction I will be reading much, much more. "Wind out of a space steeper than the edge of eternity" indeed!

"Clarimonde" is not my first encounter with Theophile Gautier, but it might be my most profound. This is the epitome of the gothic romance story, vampirism, and all. It's a crushingly beautiful work, giving full feeling to the experience shared by all humans of being violently-pulled between two natures, two entire beings, Manichean dualism of the heart (and in this case, the body and soul, as well). A profound work.

"An Interview with Catherine Ribeiro" is my introduction to the music of Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, a genre-melding psychedelic band redolent of early Pink Floyd, but unique. Since I make it a habit to listen to the Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" from time to time, this is a welcome introduction.

Jess Franco's "Lorna . . . The Exorcist" sounds like the sort of movie that would disgust even the 19th-century decadents. Not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the essay, which was informative and insightful, but I won't be watching the movie.

The inclusion of Remy de Gourmont's "Hell" seems appropriate in a book that flies to the heights and descends to the depths. But these are the heights of tortured bodies and the lows of forlorn hopes. Gourmont embraces them all!

"The Lock of Faith" is, by the author's own admission, a fragmentation recounting of a sexually-charged, yet terrifying dream. Unedited, it shows a raw, shattered reality that many will recognize from their own dreamtime forays. Edited, this could be a compelling tale, dark, sensual, and surprising. The germ is there, waiting to grow. Perhaps it's a bit indulgent for Clark to have included this in his own anthology, but it doesn't lessen the impact of the whole.

The short prose-poem "Chlorotic Ballad" by Joris-Karl Huysmans is an exquisite sliver of his larger works, concentrated beauty and grim dreadfulness all wrapped up in velvet and rubies. Each sentence seemed like a little explosion through which one could see the author's longer works, like the heretofore-unseen backdrop to a sky torn asunder, revealing the stunning reality beyond.

Saint-Pol-Roux takes the reader (and the "Yokels" of the story) from banal lust to an apotheosis of the sublime in "The Perceptible Soul". This vibrant account of an esoteric transformation, not only of the stage performer's persona, but of the very hearts and minds of the Yokels, is a wonder to read, a high point of aesthetic beauty and profound reverence, which ends on a suitably surreal note.

A mystical strain of Catholicism (or a catholic strain of mysticism) permeates Saint-Pol-Roux' next piece, "The Immemorial Calvary". At what point does the quest for hope destroy the vessel of hope, only to integrate into one's very soul? Saint-Pol-Roux explores that very question, and finds a bittersweet, if positive answer.

Clark's final essay, "For the Saints of Failure . . ." is a work of beauty and genius, a manifesto, if not for artists, then for those who appreciate art, especially in its strangest, most outre forms. It is a beautiful benediction to the works that appear before it in this volume, and to the volume itself. Finis opus coronat!

All-in-all, I strongly recommend buying a copy direct from the editor/author. It's an absolutely beautiful artifact, inside and out. It's obvious that Clark poured a lot of love and creative juices into this volume. I honestly wish there were more books like this in the world, where someone has taken great care to curate and present a cohesive group of fiction and non-fiction to form a sort of "world view" artifact. The anthologies I mentioned at the beginning of this review are exactly the sort of anthologies I mean. Anthologies, especially those that combine fiction and non-fiction, are becoming a rare sight these days. Clark, I think, recognizes this and has presented Cathode Love as a rare treasure, indeed.




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