Two Bottles Of Relish: The Little Tales Of Smethers And Other Stories by Lord Dunsany, Collins Crime Club

A new reissue of Lord Dunsany uniquely overrides this blog's usual concentrating on work from independents. When that reissue also features slight, blackly humorous detective tales of the 1930s' and 40s', being entirely new to me, Pan's investigation is warranted.

   Smethers is a travelling salesman for Numnumo - a relish for meats and savouries – with a self-confessed genius for 'pushing' it on the thresholds of most residences. Looking for a room in central London, close to the company's head office, he encounters Linley; a 'gent' already looking around the one Smethers has arrived at, who is interested but concerned at the high rent. Smethers offers to go halves with him and Linley agrees. Smethers then gives the first of nine criminal accounts based upon the chess-playing Linley's Holmesian ability to find the culprit based solely upon his unerring logic. Inevitably, there is also the Establishment figure already on the case; here, Inspector Ulton - of the Yard.

  In his first-person narrations, Smethers comes across as a slightly seedy chancer and spiv, not entirely honest, which begs the question how he could afford even half of the rent that got him into the property shared with 'posh' Linley in the first place. (Perhaps Linley was, himself, a 'chip off the old block'?) Then, such unanswered questions are all part of the intriguing mythologies spawned by necessarily brief, swiftly penned, commercial genre fiction.

   The history of the first of Dunsany's Smethers tales is at least thumbnailed in an Ellery Queen intro from 1948. Editor Lady Rhondda printed 'Two Bottles Of Relish' in Time and Tide magazine, November 12-19, 1932. "Lord Dunsany has always thought that Lady Rhondda, a militant feminist, published the story as an example of sheer realism, saying to herself, 'That is just how men do treat women.' Gradually, the widespread nausea (to use Lord Dunsany's own phrase) seems to have worn off..." The tale itself concerns the mysterious disappearance of Nancy Elth, and her £200, who lived with known criminal Steeger. (The Yard's nemesis, who reappears in the following tale).

   The remainder of the tales, in content, are lightly engaging and relatively conventional, lacking the promised 'fantasy' element referred to on the back cover. The major exception is the last; 'The Shield Of Athene.' I'd be unwise to describe a tale, the denouement of which is – if you'll pardon the pun – reflected in the title. It is, however, enjoyably Machen-like, with perhaps a flourish of MP Shiel.

   Unless Dunsany scholars know better – and why wouldn't they? - the remaining tales appear to have had their first publication in this collection. Certainly, his stature by the Forties wouldn't necessarily have required prior publicity for the rest elsewhere. Mention must also be made of the cover for this reissue; a beautiful painting of one standing, and one horizontal, Numnumo bottles, the red relish dribbling from each like newly-spilled blood, with the shadow of the one standing ominous and man-like. The Thirties feel, including the choice of font, is well considered and brilliantly evoked by Mike Topping.

 

 

ALBERTINE'S WOOERS
 

Rebecca Lloyd's latest is a novel, OOTHANGBART, which she describes as a "subversive fable for adults and bears," http://www.beccalloyd.org/oothangbart-subversive-fable-adults-bears/ Over at Egaeus, Mark Beech is about to release A MIDWINTER ENTERTAINMENT, the highlights of which include a new Connoisseur tale by Valentine and Howard, a first English translation (by the excellent George Berguno) of an Anatole Le Braz tale, and the same tasteful mix of old and new, utilised in last year's SOLILOQUY FOR PAN. http://www.egaeuspress.com/News_-_Egaeus_Press.html Finally, both UNCERTAINTIES I and UNCERTAINTIES II are now available from Swan River Press. http://swanriverpress.ie/title_uncertainties1.html Included is a new tale from Lynda E. Rucker whose own latest collection, YOU'LL KNOW WHEN YOU GET THERE, is also available from SRP.

The Emperor’s Crystal (Lost Tales Vol. 2) by Lord Dunsany, Pegana Press

Mike and Rita Tortorello's first of their Dunsany Lost Tales chapbooks concentrated upon the early fables of London and faery of less fixed abode. This second veers more toward Orientalism and artistic adoration. As will be the case with the third – out now – each feature elaborate prose of no elaboration; Dunsany's signature style.

  While the majority of Lost Tales Vol. 1 were gleaned from the pages of London's straight and worthy 'Saturday Review,' Vol. 2 takes those from Dunsany's immediately subsequent commissions in the more sceptically leftist, transatlantic 'Smart Set.' Under the new joint-editorship of its young literary intellectuals, George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken. the magazine gained renewed cache, and star-making of its new overseers, if not actual stemming of falling sales. Still, with a roster of first-timers of the same post-Edwardian generation who'd go on to become household names, it afforded Dunsany a major fillip for further networking.

  To the half-initiated, like myself, he presents himself a simple, objective storyteller, only one bearing a visionary soul. As an instinctive Leftist, that Dunsany was a baronet with all the contacts and privilege one of his class had to hand, I'll admit to the harboured baggage of personal prejudice this ignited. I also observe the work that followed, which he, at least unwittingly, influenced. Of Tanith Lee and Ursula Le Guin I've earlier referred.

  The Chinese folk tales here, summoned in 'The House of the Idol Carvers' and 'Cheng Hi and the Window Framer,' also surely resonated with the young Mervyn Peake, whose Bright Carvers and Glassblowers would find their own sub-cultural home with what might otherwise have been a dumbfounded British readership, had they not already coveted the Eastern sojourns of Dunsany himself, Ernest Bramah, or those more seemingly authentic by the Japanese scholar, Lafcadio Hearn.

  His Protestantism is tactfully portrayed as faery fable, where portrayed at all. ('The Loyalist' and 'Researches Into Irish History'). Although, admittedly, it may have touched greater sensitivities in their day. It is not an issue he ever impresses upon the reader, however; being only more concerned – and adept – at the sheer joy of creation.

  Latterly, I read how he also a campaigned for animal rights; about his opposition to the docking of dogs' tails, and subsequent presidency of the West Kent branch of the RSPCA. Thus, in the context of his time and popular adherences, can I at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

But, in the end, it is his aesthetic sense that prevails; his sense of wonder – by his own admission – and big-hearted idealism that broadens the appeal and elevates him over and above more reactionary voices of contemporaries.

ALBERTINE'S WOOERS

Out now – Swan River Press's Dreams of Shadow and Smoke: Stories of J.S. Le Fanu. Featuring new, and very good, tales by Mark Valentine, Angela Slatter, Derek John, Lynda E. Rucker, Gavin Selerie, Peter Bell and others. Currently awaiting this publisher's third release in as many months, Brian J. Showers appears to be on a roll...Also featuring a new Peter Bell tale is the upcoming issue (no. 28) of the tri-annual Supernatural Tales. See here: http://suptales.blogspot.co.uk/... Still available is Rebecca Lloyd's debut collection from Tartarus Press, Mercy, while Lloyd's 'Gone to the Deep' features in Tartarus's current Strange Tales anthology, Vol. IV.

Defeated Dogs by Quentin S. Crisp, Eibonvale Press / Lost Tales Vol. 1 by Lord Dunsany, Pegana Press

Four characteristic approaches to the tale emerge from a close reading of at least two of Quentin S. Crisp's original collections, of which this is the fifth. The first is the personal metaphysical travelogue, where the author is the roving outsider contemplating his disquieting responses to place and time with an ominous observation of minutiae most of us otherwise take for granted. (Here, in 'The Gay Wolf' and 'The Gwyllgi of the Lost Lanes').
  Next comes the fictional (though, one senses, not entirely fictitious) memoir, where elements of autobiography are re-evaluated and extrapolated to fantastical, yet still credible, conclusions spawned by long-held and internalised fears.  ('Sado-ga-shima,' 'The Broadsands Eyrie'). There is the Eastern epic myth, where Crisp's knowledge of Japanese history is drawn upon to portray beautifully circuitous plot-driven fables, quite on a par with the likes of his academic ancestor, Lafcadio Hearn. (As in 'The Temple'). 
  Finally, there are the straight horror and SF tales where Crisp, alone on such occasions, excuses himself to become the third-person or character narrator. (In 'The Fairy Killer,' 'Dreamspace,' 'Tzimtzum,' 'Lilo' and 'Non-Attachment').
  While I hope I'm open-minded enough to enjoy all four approaches, it is in this last (pardon me) 'category' where Crisp's literary discipline truly shines.  In the first three there is often the sense that he is trying too hard to involve the reader in the ongoing, as-yet-unresolved issues, tensions and hang-ups of his youth.  Whether there is a worthwhile resolution for himself in writing these out in this format only he, as author, can know. The reader can be left hanging, since the unresolved memories are, seemingly, real and not those of a completely fictitious character whose story arc can always be neatly concluded. Personally, I like this involved introspection although the uninitiated should be in sympathy with the darkly melancholic mood to so willingly follow.
  Alongside 'The Temple,' other favourites include the aforementioned 'The Fairy Killer,' where one man's smug, taunting assertions of unbelief reap a broad and terrible cost. A lighter fantasy with a darker underbelly is unlikely to be found.  While 'The Gwyllgi of the Lost Lanes' features one of the most credible evocations of a haunting I've read in some years; cool, journal-style observations adding greater chills than the usual overwrought descriptions.
  This is an equally diverse, but less wilfully idiosyncratic, collection than All God's Angels Beware!, and all the better for it. (Although 'Ynys-Y-Plag' from that release is - in this reviewer's eyes - fast becoming a classic).  Yet, I wonder if Crisp finds his more linear tales easier to write than the personal travelogues.  Then again, I also wonder if they afford him less closure.

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In Brendan O' Connell's enjoyable introduction to Defeated Dogs, he alludes to Crisp's "myth-forging fantasy haunted by more than the ghost of Lord Dunsany." The man himself has now reappeared in rare form - in both meanings of the term - in a hand-stitched, mauve-covered, limited edition chapbook of Lost Tales, in what Michael Swanwick describes as being sourced "from microfiche copies of the magazines they were published in for the first and only time." In this case, between May 1909 and March 1915.
  In the past I've made it clear that, in the field of fantasy, Dunsany's surface exotica has left me cold. His apparent influence, that spawned the sword n' sorcery epics of Le Guin, Tanith Lee, Tolkien, Moorcock, etc., ensured I'd be giving this particular sub-genre a wide berth.  His non-SNS work (such as The Blessing of Pan and The Charwoman's Shadow) being more welcome but all too rare.
  Lost Tales, however, is a revelation in the former field. Its beauty - swiftly apparent - is the distilled essence of what made his longer, more elaborate work charm so many for so long. Shorn of the interminable asides, musings and epic descriptions of sand-blown travel across vast oasis, what remains here is the poetry, wry wit and child-like wonder at their source.
  From when the 'diaphanous figure of 'Romance' enters with the night draughts of a darkened house lit by a solitary candle in the first tale, to a foreign agent's search for field gun metal from an unlikely source (in the pre-WW1 'The German Spy') to Man's ingratitude after a sardonic contest of wills between God and Satan in the last, ('The Eight Wishes'), this is a precious blueprint of the ambitious fables to come. It is also a laudable starting point from which the initiate Dunsany novice should depart.
  Mike & Rita Tortorello, Pegana's publishers who recovered and reprinted these century-old tales, state there will be a second volume  - entitled The Emperor's Crystal - very soon. This slender but vital collection of little gems would justify its purchase.