At
66, Charles Wilkinson is one of the strange tale's old school, making
him contemporaneous with the likes of Reggie Oliver and Steve Rasnic
Tem and a name that's been gradually garnering quiet fame in the
autumn of his years. Yet, so far, you'd be easily forgiven if, like
me, you'd never heard of him.
According
to his publisher biog., the Birmingham-born writer attended school in
a small town on the Welsh Marches, later studying at the University
of Lancaster, the University of East Anglia and Trinity College,
Dublin. His publications so far include The Snowman and Other
Poems (Iron Press, 1987) and The Pain Tree and Other Stories
(London Magazine Editions, 2000). A Border Poet member, Ag &
Au, a pamphlet of poems, appeared from Flarestack Poets in 2013.
Today, he lives in Powys, Wales, "where he is heavily
outnumbered by members of the ovine community." A line from
the text of one of these tales, the cliff-top wildernesses of his
home country featuring heavily.
The
feted Mark Samuels has written the Introduction. Wilkinson shows
himself a less pessimistic writer than Samuels - his dystopian
settings occasionally have utopian overtones - while sharing his
claustrophobic embrace by the weird.
This
title's collective strength is in the genuine unpredictability of
its 'twists.' Most are excellent and few disappoint. 'In His
Grandmother's Coat,' relates the weird legacy of an unknown curse
left by the narrator's grandmother, who bred mink for unspecified
cross-breeding. 'Night in the Pink House' – by far the most
sinister tale – relates a mutual pleasure of sadism, between a
cold, professional state torturer and his equally enthusiastic,
wheelchair-bound patient, sharing their interests like a pair of anal
collectors from the latter's small, cliff-side haven; one that seems
to hide still greater past atrocities. The aloof tone of the
torturer's narration is compelling as is the ambiguous nature of his
ward.
'An
Invitation to Worship' starts out as deliverence of sanctuary for a
wife from a seemingly domineering husband, gradually revealing
intimations of a place less of refuge than of cult-influenced
capture. 'The Investigation of Innocence' is the sole SF entry where
replicant humans' now exist to supply the bees as a means to
propagate a new Eden. A very clever concept.
Then
there's 'A Lesson from the Undergrowth.' After burying his father,
Neil returns to the isolated home of his young adulthood. It seems
still inhabited, almost, if in a state of untended entropy. Memories
of events past and present seem to merge into some eternal purgatory
from a particular incident revealed only in the final lines. Like the
previously quoted titles, the concept only truly reveals itself on
reflection, such is the subtlety of the writing.
Being
a collection of above average length (sixteen tales in all) it's
perhaps not surprising that only once does it miss a beat; in 'The
World Without Watercress,' where-in the conceit of who is the haunter
and who the haunted is purposely ambiguous, but doesn't quite
convince in connecting with this reader, feeling rather unfinished.
'Hands,' the final tale, is a – literally – touching ghost story
of a widower who finds comfort from a spirit able to act out in death
their apparent gift in life.
Impressive
conceptually then, the best tales mature and gain increased effect
days, even weeks, after their reading. We need not only idiosyncratic
voices in fantasy lands of topsy-turvy – there are plenty of those
– but voices such as Wilkinson's, taking credible topics and
characters and running with them to the furthermost reaches.
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