untitled
I've never heard of DF Lewis
NEMONYMOUS
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THE NEMONICON (WEIRDMONGER)
THE WEIRDMONGER WHEEL
THE ANGEL MEGAZANTHUS
This review website says:
"...such greats as Lovecraft, Aickman, Matheson and D.F. Lewis."
Ligotti website:
"TL has mentioned D.F. Lewis as being among the best contemporary writers of horror fiction." (2005)
JOBS IN HELL 1999.
From interview with Jeffrey Thomas here:
"Who are some of the British writers you admire?
M.R. James and E.F. Benson, notably for their classic horror tales. Of contemporary writers, A.S. Byatt and D.F. Lewis - I guess if they use two initials to begin their name, they're okay in my book. Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, China Miéville, Patrick McGrath, Dickens, Orwell, Anthony Burgess. My favourite British author is Thomas Hardy..."
From Paul Dracon's message board:
“I just got back into D.F. Lewis's online works, following several weeks away from it. So I figured I'd post my thoughts on it. It'll be a nice break from the usual mundanities.
If a kid walked up to me and told me "I wanna be a writer!" and begged me to make a list of authors who MUST be read, I think I'd list Ray Bradbury first, and D.F. Lewis last. Not because I think that Ray Bradbury is necessarily a better writer than D.F. Lewis (I don't), but because Ray Bradbury is the ideal author for a reader to use as an embarking point for a lifetime of quality reading. He's simple, he's exciting, and he's good. Ray Bradbury should be every reader's first writer. Similarly, D.F. Lewis should be every reader's LAST writer.
Why?
Because where Ray Bradbury is simple, D.F. Lewis is sophisticated. More than any other writer I've ever come across, D.F. Lewis panders to the intelligent. He refuses to appeal to the lowest common denominator, like 95% of the authors out there. Hell-- he doesn't even know that the lowest common denominator exists. Des puts considerable demands on his readers. That isn't because his fiction is illogical-- it isn't. But you need a brain to read D.F. Lewis stories. You need an appreciation for subtlety. And you need a sense of dedication. It isn't easy to navigate the thematic mazes which he lays out.
His stories ARE logical, and original, and poetic. In fact, his work often has more in common with poetry than prose.
So, kid, start early with Bradbury, and read everything he ever read by the time you're twelve. But read D.F. Lewis and everything he ever wrote before you die.
You might want to wait until you're 40 to start, though. Meanwhile read scores of other authors. While you're at it, read Poe, Shakespeare, Blake.
Just make sure that in the end, you get to D.F. Lewis. And read every damned thing he ever wrote BEFORE you die.” 8 May 05 entry
AMAZON REVIEW 2005:
"this book is a modern dark fantasy classic, and a must-read...one of the most underrated writers in the history of the horror genre, and an absolute master of the short story..."
26 April 2008: HERE: "in the vast (and often vastly misunderstood) realm(s) of speculative fiction, there occasionally appear writers gifted with such monumental talent and difference of vision that the word genius can honestly be applied with glee. it is my opinion that d.f. lewis is one of these people. his unique aesthetics combine with a monumentally bleak vision, that exists somewhere sideways of actual nihilism, and what may be one of the driest humours I’ve seen to create a body of work that stands truly outside of most attempts to define it. it also consists of somewhere close to two-thousand works in the short form, long form, points in between, and a staggering array of collaborative works."
April 2008: On a golf club website HERE: "...was disc golfing down in Roanoke with a friend I hadn't seen in over a couple years... And he told me that the writer DF Lewis (over in England) had put the cover of our premier issue of Gothic Light up on a website. Jeff & I published a magazine in the early 90s, with the premier issue coming out ... (1991). So that was really strange to come up all of the sudden. But not just that, DF Lewis has had thousands of stories published. He's got a huge cult following on both sides of the ocean. He's one of my favorite writers. As good as HP Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and Tolkien (and I've read most everything by and about Tolkien). I should add that DF Lewis is also better than Stephen King or Clive Barker, in my opinion. Both of who I like, especially Clive Barker's Books Of Blood, Imagica, The Thief Of Always, etc.. (This is just to give a frame of reference for DF Lewis' work.)"
August 2008: Top of my list would be Ramsey Campbell (do I detect a pattern here - his name seems to have been mentioned more than most so far?), followed closely by DF Lewis (sorry to embarrass you again, Des!)
August 2008: Ligotti aside, what are some of your other favorite authors in this genre? -- Without hesitation, Fritz Leiber and H. P. Lovecraft. Other writers I greatly enjoy are Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, and some guy named D. F. Lewis.
September 2008: INTERVIEW HERE: Q: And which stories most influenced you? At a young age (dependent on your answer to question two), and as your tastes changed with age?
A: [...] Later: Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson, Oke of Okehurst by Vernon Lee, countless stories by D. F. Lewis, The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith,
Podolo by L. P. Hartley, Wood by Robert Aickman...
September 2008: INTERVIEW HERE: I would glance at my bookshelf and list Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood, Ramsey Campbell, Lord Dunsany, D.F. Lewis, Arthur Machen, H.P. Lovecraft and last but not least, Edgar Allan Poe.
October 2008: The nearest writing I can compare it to (and now I know I'm going to embarrass someone who is definitely on this board!) is DF Lewis. I honestly didn't think anyone else could write like you, Des - but this guy can!
***
Some quotes about DF Lewis in eighties and nineties:
# DF Lewis is God ... DF Lewis manages to crank out story after story, and each one reads better than the last, like a sprawling and surreal novel-in-progress ... In one short page, Lewis manages to unsettle in a way that a ream of small press magazines could never do in a lifetime of trying—STYGIAN ARTICLES
# As for DF Lewis, my view is that he is a national treasure. He writes in a genre of one. His writing is very disciplined, with not a word out of place, and there's such joyful play in the language... —Graham Joyce
# If he’s such a genius, why is he sometimes mocked? Because his work is an acquired taste, like celery or Guinness (Rhys Hughes); The man is a phenomenon (Allen Ashley); Des Lewis, master wordsmith (Paul Pinn); Few can doubt his mastery of words; none can question his genius (Tim Lebbon); “THERE IS ONLY ONE DES LEWIS!” (Simon Clark)—from the intros in AGRA ASKA.
# DF Lewis? When he's bad, he's awful, but when he's good there's no-one can touch him—Rhys Hughes
# Every mag I ever read has a DF Lewis story in it, and none of them are ever any good! ... I thought the small press was all about introducing new talent, and not perpetuating mediocrity!—James Miller in SIERRA HEAVEN #2
# That master of weird dream-like fiction, D.F.Lewis—Simon Clark in THE DERELICT OF DEATH
# At 1.20 or so the rumour went around: The Master had entered the building - the half-century man/the 1000th story man, our very own dear old Des Lewis. Yep, we were all there for a surprise 50th birthday bash. DesCon1 was up and running!—from Allen Ashley's report in BFS NEWSLETTER (May/June 1998)
# The connoisseur of horror will find more sustenance here than in many a bestseller
—Ramsey Campbell's Intro in “BEST OF DF LEWIS”
# I have been reading horror and supernatural fiction for 25 years. What leaves me wide-eyed is the actual ability of this writer to still surprise, even chill, a heart grown used to the second guess. Lewis captures the secret language of commonplace thoughts, as transforms the mundane into the arcane. He is a verbal swordsman. And he knows just how, and where, to strike—from "DF LEWIS: THE WIZARD OF ODD"
#...like jerking off harder and harder, but never quite coming; not until the creature in the corner suddenly lurches out and sucks your brains through your ears—BROKEN PENCIL (Canada) re At'mõs faer
# To many writers, editors and people involved in Horror, DF Lewis is one of the most important writers in the field today—"Getting To Know Des" in BLOODSONGS (Australia)
# He has been cited as one of the acclaimed 'Gothic Light' journal's four favourite fantasy authors—along with Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury and Lewis Carroll ... He is, of course, Des Lewis—TOUCH WOOD (Little, Brown book)
# features an amazing literary talent from England, Mr DF Lewis—BLOODLINES (Hawaii)
#'The Silver Tealeaf', is very short, but delivered with all the power of an expensive perfume. And it opens with one of the best lines I've ever read. Mr Lewis has a true command of the language—DEATHREALM
# Highly sophisticated and wonderfully nightmarish imagination, an expertly controlled and sardonic vision that reminds me as much of avant-gardists like William Burroughs as it does the best traditions of horror literature—Thomas Ligotti in DAGON DFL SPECIAL
# DF Lewis is DF Lewis and there will never be another like him ... Everyone I know is in awe and a fan of his talent—GATHERING DARKNESS
# I’m very sure that medical science will want to examine his brain—Editor in TERROR TALES
# After Derleth rejected two of Lewis' stories in 1968 as being 'pretty much pure grue', Lewis dropped out of sight for twenty years. Hey, we all get rejection slips—Karl Edward Wagner in YEAR'S BEST HORROR
# My first ever taste of the small press was a ‘chance’ discovery of a publication called Dagon. That particular issue contained a single fiction entry, a beautifully sinister tale which haunts me even today, its author was (you guessed it) Des Lewis. So nine years on you can imagine how surprised and delighted I was when, out-of-the-blue, I just happened to find one of his concoctions festering in the post—THE ASPHALT JUNGLE #1
# Whether his prolific output has served, in the long term, to spread his reputation or to dilute it remains to be seen. But for now, his status is unassailable—both as a figurehead of horror fiction’s avant garde and as a dedicated excavator of its traditions—Joel Lane
# As I’ve remarked before, Des Lewis is a true original—Stephen Jones in BEST NEW HORROR
# I saw Elvis at the mall last night. He was eating pizza with DF Lewis. Can't think why they'd ordered anchovies—Karl Edward Wagner
# To properly read a DF Lewis story, one must allow oneself to simply flow along on a tide of words, through whatever twists and turns his strange mind takes you, to a destination you may never actually figure out. But his images linger stubbornly. You know you've been assaulted by a master story-teller—TRANSVERSIONS (Canada)
# With Lewis, it is not essential to understand in order to enjoy ... as funny and as quotable as Pratchett or Adams, without resembling either in the least ...—Paul Beardsley's INTERZONE review of WEIRDMONGER'S TALES
# Terse and vaguely erotic stories where anything can, and does, happen. He takes a variety of viewpoints, and part of the horror lies in the matter-of-fact telling of macabre events. ...teasing stories which pull away into different meanings just when you think you've understood—prose conundrums, but far from humdrum. The prose style is curiously decorated and gothic yet tremendously concise. My favourite story is 'Beyond the Park', full of sinister magic and half-comprehended male power —ORE poetry magazine (UK) re BEST OF DF LEWIS
# This is typical of Lewis' work, concerned with a fellow bedeviled by the story's title character who lurks in the neighbourhood, weirding out the narrator, and all of us - much like Mr Lewis himself—DEATHREALM review of DEAD OF NIGHT MAGAZINE
# If you really need us to tell you who Des is, and what he's accomplished - then, we can only assume that you have only just learnt to read!—PREMONITIONS (UK)
# For my money, DF Lewis is the leading figure in the 'New Lovecraft' circle ... However, just because there is a curse involved, this shouldn't frighten any critics—SF EYE #13
# It’s a great thrill for me to be printing DF Lewis ... I’m a big fan of his work. When I first started reading small press publications, the first ten magazines possessed a story by this man—THE DARKLANDS PROJECT
# I found 'The Weirdmonger' [by DFL] amongst the best stories I've read recently—Mike Ashley in BBR#12
# thought the DF Lewis piece at least semi-autobiographical as he seems in increasing danger of disappearing up his own arse and yet... the day can't be far off when someone writes a story in which the only literature in a post-holocaust society is the collected Des Lewis—J.C. Hartley in letter column of PREMONITIONS #3
# ...he adopted a deliberately obscure style in order to con the reader into assuming that his work contained 'hidden meanings': it didn't - his writing was crap— Philip J. Backers re DFL in AUGURIES #11
# THE WEIRDMONGER'S TALES (art by Camille Gabrielle) "'The British Harlequin of Horror', Lewis is an extraordinary literary genius who is currently dazzling this genre with his verve, nerve and craftmanship. He is certainly one of the most loved and most admired horror/macabre/surreal writers on the contemporary scene. ...this very special tribute to DF Lewis ... shows the master at his best."
# CORSET DIGEST will be rare inasmuch as it is the only small press publication I have read in three years that lacks a story by DF Lewis. Go after them, Des—Karl Edward Wagner
# ...a hit and run ending that numbs the senses for minutes after you read it. It’s one of Lewis’ onion skin poems—the outer layer slowly peeling back to reveal a hardened core impossible to chew in one only sitting. Not unusual for this Brit, but terribly stylish just the same—Richard Levesque (CONVOLUTED INCISIONS in Scavenger’s #156)
# ...lightweight and clumsily written, and like most of the author's work I've seen, in need of editorial guidance—Kev McVeigh in BBR #19 re 'Madge' by DF Lewis. [But: 'Madge' later chosen for BEST NEW HORROR 2]
# Reaction to his work tends to be extreme, whether it's praise or condemnation; curiously it is often possible to agree with both points of view—from Paul Beardsley's 'Introduction to DF Lewis' in SUBSTANCE #1
# 'Priscilla' [by DFL] went down like a lead balloon, with a hole in it ... One bloke even went so far as pointing out the spelling mistake in the first line... 'This story's a rap' should have read 'This story's Crap!'—INVASION OF THE SAD MAN-EATING MUSHROOMS.
# You know all those boxes of Cheerios that were recalled a while back for having been tainted with some insecticide? Don't believe it: DF Lewis had a story on the back of the box—DEATHREALM
# Okay, let's get straight to it. This collection of short stories is unbelievable. No, really, it's that unique. I'm pretty certain that never before have so many non-sequiturs, cliches, bathetic howlers and just plain inept grand guignols been gathered together in the one place. It is astonishing. Pages of incomprehensible prose studded with ridiculous imagery and buffoonesque phrasing. Just awesome—SCIENCE FICTION EYE on BEST OF DFL chapbook. [But: DFL is terribly underappreciated—MAGIC REALISM + All in all, a well-spent half a hundred pages—LOCUS = just 2 of many good reviews of BEST OF DFL]
# I have a paranoid sensation that I'm always being followed by DF Lewis ... he's always there to torment me ... I can't get away from him even if I switch genres... Is he for real or did somebody invent him purely to annoy me?—Problem page of OVERSPACE #13.
# ...the Picasso of the small press. This is an author whose bravery (in non-committance to normalcy) and brevity transcends any genre—Re DF Lewis in NEOPHYTE #13
# He's unique all right, but the same way the Elephant Man was, a freak who becomes a fad —Darrell Schweitzer re DFL in CRYPT OF CTHULHU
# The highlight of the issue was undeniably Des Lewis' beautiful little story, 'The Tallest King'. A wonderful faerie-tale told in perfectly child-like manner, and singing with the glory of descriptive prose. Really delightful. What a talent this fellow is—Mark Samuels in CEREBRETRON #7
# But possibly the best fiction is contributed by British stylist DF Lewis. His 'Entries' is subtle dynamite, gross and disturbing. A real source of quality shivers!—Review in SCAVENGERS NEWSLETTER #95
# In the same way as Lovecraft, Lewis is creating his very own mythos; a large and chaotic land where normal, run-of-the-mill events are underlined with that feeling that something horribly evil is sleeping nearby...—Dave W Hughes in article in REM #1
#[DFL] is undoubtedly one of the finest horror writers in this, or any other country, and we're lucky to have him for this issue —BONE MARROW REVIEW
# Lewis is either a genius graced with madness, a madman cursed with genius, both, or neither ... But there is more to Lewis than that. Believe you me, my pretties. Oh yes, much more. Because every so often you catch sight of something stirring beneath the frosted surfaces of his dreamy prose, something brilliant yet dark and brooding, something revelatory, something true, something that were you to see it all in a single glance would burn you to a cinder; but you still want to see; it speaks to you. In sibilant whispers. It tells you something you've been waiting to hear—SAMHAIN review of BEST OF DF LEWIS
# Then I turned over the page and AAARGH! DF f**king Lewis again!—from THE SCANNER #11
# Some of his shortest stories are as clear as dense woodland. At night. In thick fog. But many shine like polished gems. In some his style and world are reminiscent of Lovecraft, in others he spins off into a universe that is pure DF Lewis. My own favourite was 'Tom Rose' in Alan Ross's 'Signals' anthology to mark 30 years of 'London Magazine'. And at seven pages that was practically a novella—Nicholas Royle
# ...the ever-imaginative DF Lewis (the Lovecraft of our time) — NIGHTSIDE vol.2 Issue 5
#His column is always the first thing I read in any new issue of DEATHREALM. He introduced me to Napalm Death. Gotta love that guy!—Gabriele A Rollé to FRISSON
# DF LEWIS: THE WEIRDMONGER'S TALES. Does Des deserve name-above-title status? U betcha! This all new coll adds 10 more pieces to daydream believer's oeuvre + illos by Camille Gabrielle. Master of extraneous quip DFL is ambiguous 2 a fault; a genre-literate soothsayer, the sphinx of syntax & bingo brainstorms of corkscrew candour & lottery logic. Des is a demon spin-bowler of laser-guided precision, bull-in-china-shop charging in for legbreak attack on sticky wicket of conventional storytelling. Critics R stumped out 4 a duck; all card-carry'g tarot turncoats a la mort. Ya can't read small press & avoid ubiq DFL...—DRAGON'S BREATH
# “At the risk of being labeled a jealous, illiterate, drooling cretin, may I ask whether the sole reason you ran this boring blather was because it was submitted by the the ubiquitous DF Lewis & Co? ... I think Quentin [of Reservoir Dogs] would like my work—if only DF Lewis, et al, would get out of the way!”—from Pat Victor’s letter to SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #151 the editor of which replied therein: “... I suspect DF Lewis’ day is also made now that you have proclaimed him a “name” writer. Des Lewis has earned every appearance in every magazine by writing and submitting work. Go thou and do likewise.” Then: “The very worst Lewis piece is always crammed with imagery, creepy and well plotted. I, for one, have enjoyed at least 99% of his work. I only wish I had half his talent”—Karen Blicker to SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #152. Then: “His (DFL’s) work is imaginative, original and beautifully written; so good that the editors dare to be different by printing it. DFL has invigorated the genre, and he does not deserve to be attacked by embittered writers”—Milton E Wheeler jr to SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #155. Then: “I even beat out DF Lewis. This was to me high praise ... in trashing DF lewis and others, you lose sight of something important. They’re getting published and you’re not”—Brian Keene in SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #158. Then: “I don’t understand this DF Lewis business anyway. If you don’t like someone’s work, don’t read it or waste time fussing about it. Some of his stories haven’t been clear to me, but I did read a wonderful piece he wrote on Dickens and another on religion.”—Lida Broadhurst in SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #161. Then: “Thank you for forwarding the letter from Mr Lewis - it actually was quite a nice letter, considering how uncomplimentary I was of his writing. It didn’t change my opinion about his writing, but my opinion about him as a person is now quite high.”—Pat Victor in SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER #164.
# At first I was unsettled, unsure and unsatisfied. I read it three more times and with each successive passage it bloomed. It’s like that song that won’t leave your head...—DEATHREALM
# From out the realms of darkness ... The Master of the Literary Nightmare Story —BUTTERFLY & BLOOMER!
# Quite simply, one of the premier writers of contemporary short fiction—CHRONICLES OF DISORDER
# I found this piece to be thoroughly compelling, even by your reliably high standards. This intriguing tale oozed psychological turmoil and tragedy, and literally demanded the reader's attention. The descriptive imagery throughout verges on perfection - vividly, unnervingly, provokingly written. ...remained with me long after I'd read and re-read it. ...it truly affected me. I like it, can you tell?—SACKCLOTH & ASHES
# ...the ridiculously prolific DF Lewis—Paul McDonald in ZENE
# When The Dream Zone arrived I had just finished reading Des Lewis' weird and wonderful novella Agra Aska but I wasn't too overfed on his style to enjoy the bizarre word-play in Alternate Worlds, the first Padgett Weggs story of his I have read. I still need to be assured of Mr Lewis' complete sanity...—Dave Price in THE DREAM REVIEW
# There wasn't one story in it that I really disliked, but my favourite was the incredibly funny Alternate Worlds by DF Lewis. I just find the characters and Des' use of the old fashioned language hilarious, I hope he does more stories in this mode!—John B Ford in THE DREAM REVIEW
# High points include ... DF Lewis' time release capsule of concentrated eeriness, Mort Au Monde—Edward Bryant's review in LOCUS of BEST NEW HORROR anthology
# ...the disconnected, rambling, plotless, pointless, babbling monologues of free association and non sequiturs that DF Lewis blasphemously calls fiction—Charles S Fallis in SCAVENGER’S NEWSLETTER
# ...everyone cannot help but love and admire the chap, and I understand he is one of the most pleasant and friendly blokes one could know—from Letter to PEEPING TOM #30 re DFL
# DF Lewis is a legend. As simple as that.—SIMON CLARK
***
Some bits and pieces:
Cocteau on seeing Proust's corpse, with the manuscript of In Search Of Lost Time piled on the mantlepiece:
That pile of paper on his left was still alive, like watches ticking on the wrists of dead soldiers.
Des says: Things that I love: my family, friends, 'classical' music (Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, Ligeti, Penderecki, Havergal Brian, Philip Glass...), pub quizzes, reading fiction (Proust, Lovecraft, Paul Auster, AS Byatt, Robert Aickman, Elizabeth Bowen, Dickens, Stephen King, WG Sebald...), Coronation Street, the sea, nemonymity...
“We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.”
---H.P. Lovecraft
”Hanging in the Dutch museums are works by a minor master who may be as deserving of literary renown as Vermeer. Saenredam painted neither faces nor objects, but chiefly vacant church interiors, reduced the the beige and innocuous unction of butterscotch ice cream. These churches, where there is nothing to be seen but expanses of wood and white-washed plaster, are irremediably unpeopled, and this negation goes much further than the destruction of idols. Never has nothingness been so confident.”
From 'The World as Object' Roland Barthes.
”So, to that question: 'Who has ever fathomed the depths of the abyss?' two men, among all men, have the right to reply: Captain Nemo and I.”
--- Jules Verne
“To set one's name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best of men have gone without a trace.”
-- W.G.Sebald
“A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver?”
from Paul Auster's 'Portrait of an Invisible Man.'
Des says:
The Two Ways of Anonymity
(one) The most common way - to say something you don't want to be known as saying, i.e. for *devious* purposes (which could be spite, nepotism, insult, cruelty, dubious joke etc etc.) -- or publishing pornography, or issuing a Valentine's card, or hiding one's identity to avoid reputation depletion etc.
(two) A way that is hardly ever used - to make an artistic statement (within the philosophy of Aesthetics), such as Nemonymity,
(i) whereby the fiction author wants some objective view of his work to be made without his name getting in the way -- and I, as an editor, equally don't want it to get in the way when I consider his submission for publication and
(ii) as an experiment in fiction anthology presentation as a new gestalt reading experience (i.e. stories written independently and remaining separate yet somehow more 'together') and
(iii) leading to a brainstorming approach to reviews and critical appreciation and
(iv) bringing fiction nearer to the artist-naming (late-labelling) approach of other arts such as fine arts, architecture, music etc. (instead of having the name on the spine, on the title page and, often, on the top of each alternate page throughout the book) and
(v) trying to bring fiction more easily to an interstitial or
between/cross-genre optimum.
I think it true to say that (one) above brings anonymity into disrepute, a cross which Nemonymous has to bear.
Des says:
Ranging from Bach's cello suites, via, Beethoven's Late Quartets, to the muscular dincopations (my word) of 20th century classical music (with many byways between), I feel that 'classical' music is like fiction injected straight into the vein.
My own definition of classical music is shown below(music being something about which I am more passionate than writing editing reading...), though I am musically illiterate as far as its technicalities are concerned:-
A formless area (defaulting towards an aspirationally cultural & predominantly exact art form) within the universal, uncompartmentalised, wholly accessible language of sound commonly known as music: encouraging spirituality and/or various permutations of all human emotions -- centring on and radiating from the serious deployment of an ostensibly organised pattern of acoustic sounds as produced by orchestral instruments and voices (performed normally by established or qualified interpreters/musicians, from one to very many). The question of taste and the unknowable relativities of disharmony and harmony are no part of this description, because such affective considerations differ from individual to individual. I shall tailgate any preconceptions...
****
Little yellow patch on the wall
please see 2nd entry on 2nd March 2003: here:
****
denemonisations, mnemonics, anemones, Bournemouth, nemoralis, Mnemosyne...
Chasing the noumenon... any more?
***********
The crowd were silent
Reading the poems of Baudelaire.
Suddenly, completely unpremeditated,
They lurch forward, in unison,
And sing the National Anthem.
"The problem of hollowness, then, of a-Voidance, is really one of secondary satisfactions, the attempt to find substitutes for a primary satisfaction of wholeness that somehow got lost leaving a large gap in its place. The British novelist John Fowles calls this emptiness the 'nemo' which he describes as an anti-ego, a state of being nobody. "Nobody wants to be a nobody," writes Fowles. "All our acts are partly devised to fill or to mark the emptiness we feel at the core.""
from COMING TO OUR SENSES by Morris Berman
"... there is a way of going about enterprise, particularly as it applies to creativity, in which the activity is preceded by wholeness, rather than being a frantic attempt to achieve it. This frantic approach to life is not inevitable; we really don't have to spend our lives chasing ecstasy in an effort to shut down the nemo [nemo: a feeling of hollowness, an anti-ego, a state of being nobody].”
from Coming To Our Senses : Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West -
Morris Berman (Unwin Hyman, 1990, page 316)
"Next to her hung a further small picture, showing a saint carrying his own skin.”
-- Robert Aickman (The Cicerones)
"Her pillow sounded hollow with notes and knockings, notes and knockings you hear in condemned rooms.”
--Elizabeth Bowen (No. 16)
""WHAT do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.
"Nemo, sir. Here it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight o`clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine.""
-- Charles Dickens (Bleak House)
Des once said:
In my fifties looking back at the fifties...
Excitedly waiting for the Beano comic to drop on my doormat every Thursday, the smell of its pages, the stationery smell of newsagents in those days, the smell of books in general, uniform fifties library books (which drabness seemed to accentuate the delights emerging from the print within), my Mum making me wear waterproof leggings when it rained, being able to scribble stories in pencil, using plasticene, throwing bean-bags about in PE, sitting on bristly PE mats, fuzzy grey pictures on the TV screen which, on some evenings, were indecipherable...
and arcade amusements on Walton-on-Naze Pier: hand-cranked cranes that could never quite grapple with the pack of cigs wrapped round with a brown ten bob note, pinballs without flippers, ghost house tableau where a coin would produce a skeleton out of the cupboard, silver balls spinning round vertically into the lose and win holes, the win giving you another turn, the lose losing you your coin. More lose holes than win. A lesson for life?
I'm now 60! (18/1/08)
***
Aren't shadows on the wall sometimes more revelatory than seeing the people that cast them? CHANCE is a novel by Joseph Conrad. Here, the characters and particularly the heroine are drained of any motive or sympathy because of the layering of narrative: we hear a spoken voice telling an inscrutable narrator of someone else’s view of someone else’s view of certain events, mix and match between. But it does not seem to lessen one’s interest in the book: it is character-driven and sympathy is allowed to take a backseat in preference to exploring one’s own motives for assigning certain motives to certain types of people just on the basis of hearsay and chance. Conrad writes in introduction to CHANCE: "And it is only for their intentions that men can be held responsible" and this novel seeks to show, I think, that any intentions are essentially unknowable. Perhaps even one's own intentions are unknowable: being shadows, too. The heart of darkness.
"Wrzesmian wasn't too popular. The works of this strange man, saturated with rampant fantasy and imbued with strong individualism, gave a most unfavourable impression by inverting accepted aesthetic-literary theories and by mocking established pseudo-truths. His output was eventually acknowledged as the product of a sick imagination, the bizarre work of an eccentric, maybe even a madman. Wrzesmian was an inconvenience for a variety of reasons and he disturbed unnecessarily, stirring peaceful waters. Thus his premature eclipse was received with a secret sigh of relief."
from 'The Area' by Stefan Grabinski..
"My pictures are visionary and symbolical, and, from first to last, have seemed to be painted by someone other than myself. [...] I am thus entirely self-taught, or taught by that other within me. I am aware that my pictures lack serious technique(if there is a technique that can be distinguished from inspiration and invention). I should have given up painting them some time ago, were it not that a certain number of people seemed to find something remarkable in them, and have thus identified me with them, and made me feel mildly important."
FROM "RAVISSANTE" BY ROBERT AICKMAN
"From the cosmic point of view, to have opinions or preferences at all is to be ill; for by harbouring them one dams up the flow of the ineluctable force which, like a river, bears us down to the ocean of everything's unknowing. Reality is a running noose, one is brought up short with a jerk by death. It would have been wiser to co-operate wih the inevitable and learn to profit by this unhappy state of things - by realising and accommodating death! But we don't, we allow the ego to foul its own nest. Therefore we have insecurity, stress, the midnight-fruit of insomnia, with a whole culture crying itself to sleep. How to repair this state of affairs except through art, through gifts which render to us language manumitted by emotion, poetry twisted into the service of direct insight?"
From 'The Avignon Quincunx' by Lawrence Durrell ('Constance' 1982)
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