Recently read, there is little I can add to 50 Watts’
enthusiasm (here) for Goose of
Hermogenes, one of those discards found
in the dollar bin of my local bookstore, landing there because the casual
browser failed to see its worth, a diamond in the dung. Steeped in surreal and
occult imagery which seems to have come to Colquhoun as easily as breathing, it
is a deceptively short text which calls for re-readings, a characteristic it
shares with Gracq’s Chateau d’Argol and
Kubin’s The Other Side (another work
by a predominantly visual artist).
This is the relation of a young woman's trip to a dreamy and forbidding
coastal island, a transitional space between the worlds, ruled by the
narrator’s uncle. The uncle being an elusive but omniscient presence, an occult
Prospero, the narrator is left to explore the secluded mansion and its
environs. There is a true sense of
isolation and menace, broken by visions (a sea-Amazon arising, with an ancient underwater
kingdom, from the waves; an arboreal bordello where her enslaved sisters
service spirits of the netherworld), a tableaux of Tarot imagery, wherein her
uncle has collected the symbols of the minor arcana, the “Museum of the
Mosaico-Hermetic Science of Things Above and Things Below”, and the occasional
presence of a mysterious anchorite who acts as her keeper and protector.
If your tastes run to the occult or surreal, watch the
dollar bins for this little masterpiece, or order your own from a semi-reputable
dealer.
Recently Read:
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel
Paul Schreber. A 1903 first person
account of schizophrenia by a institutionalized German jurist, fascinating (if
tiresomely repetitive) in its description of paranoia and hallucinatory
obsession as Schreber describes the psychic assaults of supernatural beings
that are transforming him into a woman. The oppression by both his imaginings
and the asylum staff are palpable, giving a certain poignancy to the
writing. This memoir was influential on
Freud’s thinking, misguided as it was (Freud never bothered to meet with the
author in person, although such a meeting would not likely have been too
difficult to arrange). The New York Review Books edition includes
introductions, appendices and notes relating to Schreber’s case.
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. A
volume in the Millenium/Gollancz “Fantasy Masterworks” series, a novel of
Faerie written in 1926 the protagonist of which, Nathaniel Chanticleer, may
well put you in mind of another who puts comfort aside for the necessity of
adventure, Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End. One may also be put in mind of John
Crowley’s enchanting 1981 iteration of the theme, Little, Big.
Currently on the
Nightstand: The Seven Who Fled
by Frederic Prokosch
