Pan Review Of The Arts - No. 8

Editorial: More by default than contrivance, PROTA 8 is strictly bookish. Our latest guest contributor is author, bookseller and long-term JG Ballard aficianado, STEPHEN E. ANDREWS. Here, he convincingly argues for greater, deeper coverage of literature and its creators across the media, where too often it is the poorest relation amongst popular culture. He ends with a related anecdote, both witty and telling. New releases from Tartarus and Egaeus Press get the regular 'Pan' dissection and we end with the all-too-occasional round-up under Albertine's Wooers. Enjoy...

Empire of the Scum:

J.G. Ballard meets the Pond Life Literati

By Stephen E. Andrews

There are more books in the world than there any other type of product. I don’t mean copies of books, but titles as in discrete and specific works. I’m also referring particularly to professionally published texts printed in codex form and deliberately excluding self-published and e-books. This has been the case for many, many decades. In any given year in the UK alone, around 100,000 new titles are issued, a similar number go out of print and there are usually around 600,000 different volumes available to order at any given moment. Globally, these numbers expand into millions. You might think there must be another consumer durable that is created and manufactured in greater numbers and diversity, but you’d be wrong. More than anything, printed books still define human civilisation.

   Despite this fecundity, books are invisible to many: in its fixation on sport as the opium of the people, the mass media’s coverage of literature is neglectful, tantamount to deliberate starvation. The paucity of book programmes on television and radio –those that do exist always focus on authors already famous or whatever the major publishers are currently hyping – is an international disgrace. Consequently, those of us who work in the book trade (whether writers, publishers or booksellers) are like the fish in M. C Escher’s print Three Worlds, barely visible beneath the surface of a murky pond, hardly ever breaking the meniscus above us into the oxygen of public awareness above.

   In the hierarchy of literary Pond Life, booksellers like me are the lowest of the low. Inhabitants of the Empire of the Scum, we can’t ever float like duckweed on the surface as authors who have ‘made it’ do. We speak to more readers than any editor or author ever does every single day. We are quietly influential, but in reality never actually make any work into a bestseller, except maybe in the town our bookshop resides in. There’s a rumour that a bookseller did this with John William’s Stoner, (an almost singular example of a novel becoming a bestseller some forty odd years after initial publication) but the fact is that this is a myth. NYRB Classics reissued Stoner over a decade ago before rights were claimed by Vintage in the UK some years later, but it was one of that imprint’s own surface floaters (the default English ‘literary zeitgeist’ novelist Ian McEwan) talking about the book on national radio that really got copies of Stoner selling en masse.

   Some writers recognise that the committed bookseller is more than an anonymous piece of software in the mainframe of literature. Instead, they treat us with respect as collaborators in bringing something special to individual readers for no more reward than a minimalist wage packet and the joy of sharing the revelation of neglected but striking art. For career booksellers, the most important perk of all is meeting one’s idols and enthusiastically evangelising their works.

   One of my favourite authors is J.G. Ballard. Despite early critical acclaim, Ballard didn’t cross over into mainstream acceptance from the ghetto of SF until his autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984. Having entered the book trade in the autumn this event occurred, I can confidently state that if this shortlisting (and the press reviews that accompanied it) had not occurred, Ballard would have remained underwater for most readers for far longer, possibly eternally. After all, Steven Spielberg would never have filmed Crash, would he? Like most commentators and interpreters working above the surface, Spielberg doesn’t really engage with the obscure: all of his literary adaptations are of tomes that were already bestsellers.

   This is where my workmates and I come in. As a rare example of that mutant amphibian known as the Writer-Bookseller, I shamelessly promote work I find stimulating to like-minded readers both in person from behind a counter and in print. My work on guides such as 100 Must Read Books For Men bought me brief notoriety via Radio 4’s Open Book programme while my Amazon bestseller 100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels led tangentially to my becoming a contributor to Deep Ends: The J.G. Ballard Anthology, an (almost) annual collection of prose and visual works in honour of my icon published by Terminal Press.

   My first piece for this handsome full-colour illustrated trade paperback anthology was for the 2016 edition, a lengthy anecdotal essay on what it’s been like seeing Ballard break through the surface tension from my perspective as a thirty-year bookseller who had encounters with the great man himself. Deep Ends: A Ballardian Anthology 2018 was published very recently and features much enlightening and entertaining material by the likes of Paul Di Fillipo, Maxim Jakubowski, David Pringle (major veteran genre mavens all) and newer arrivals such as myself and James Reich (a nascent generation working at shaking up SF and slipstream writing). Although some of my magnificent peers have contributed startling short stories that homage Ballard in Deep Ends: A Ballardian Anthology 2018, I’ve aimed to mesh travel writing with literary history in a Ballardian context in a piece entitled 'Me: Capri: Brigitte Bardot,' this heading reflecting JGB’s condensed novel 'You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe.'

   To give you an idea what my writing – and a bookseller’s life – is like, here’s an anecdote. Some decades ago, Ballard was doing a signing at a large Hampstead bookshop. Twenty minutes into his stint, no-one had turned up to get a copy of his new novel inscribed. Ever amiable and avuncular, Ballard suggested to the bookshop manager that he’d just be off, as the event clearly wasn’t a happening deal. Two minutes after the author had departed, a gleaming black sports car darted up to the pavement outside the shop. Out of the car stepped Bryan Ferry bearing a pile of Ballard first editions for signing; Crash almost met 'Re-Make: Re-Model.' Ferry had tried but, like the rest of us, he could not find a way.

Deep Ends: A Ballardian Anthology 2018 is published by Terminal Press.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stephen-E.-Andrews/e/B002BM37L4

Tree Spirit & Other Strange Tales by Michael Eisele, Tartarus Press

Committed readers of indie press may be surprised to learn that Michael Eisele's latest short tale collection is only his second. You could be forgiven for assuming otherwise since another mature author by this name had previously self-published four collections and one novel. (Between 2005 – 2008). Another reason for forgiving such an assumption is the sheer assured accomplishment of ours. Add the fact he's made his three-quarter century having previously supported himself across a wealth of trades and temporary manual jobs that took in the America of his birth, Germany, Hungary, ending up in the Brecon Beacons, then such life experience has clearly stood our Michael Eisele in good stead.

   Tree Spirit is only Eisele's second collection - after The Girl With The Peacock Harp (Tartarus, 2016) - where even the 'lesser' tales harbour greatness. Again, we are in the folk-horror territory of fantasy, melding Hoffmann, Carter and Pullman. The opener, 'Mouse,' is a pleasingly fictitious account of the struggling, foundling years of Schalken the painter and the supernatural little familiar destined to immortalise his very soul. 'Sacrifice' drops us into the middle of one dark seeker's ongoing search for the Tablet of Suliman; one needful of a companion who must pay for its purchase with her life. The companion he so casually chooses he soon underestimates.

   'Come Not High' is a sole example of SF where an alien race parallel a Biblical rebirth upon another world. If hardly original in concept, its presence here is a not unwelcome surprise. The title tale, however, may become a classic. Aeons ago, a tribe's woodcarver receives a vision of a tree spirit. She commands him to use his skill to fashion, and so release, her here in the material world, from 'the great spirit tree of the forest,' so she may find renewed life upon the waters of the Great River. Ignorant of the fate such an 'honour' might bestow, his own, as a consequence, becomes all too clear. The tale's strength is its quiet sensuality, as the female spirit gradually draws out the simple woodcarver's love of his craft to ultimately command his fate.

   'The Wife' – along with 'Leshi,' where a wayward son is summoned back to take over his late father's mountain-top pile – is the entry most adhering to the Hoffmannesque Gothic; especially in the nature of the beast to whom she finds herself married. A welcome lightening of mood climaxes the book in a connected trio of gently humorous folk tales; 'Brown Jenkins,' 'The Gardinel' and 'The Black Man.' This three-tale arc is narrated by the semi-literate familiar of a rookie witch who encounters a house, home to one she is feted to replace. These are both amusing and needful of further sequels' should Eisele ever have the yen. 'The Nun's Tale,' ending the collection, focuses on the topic of transfiguration as an elderly Catholic priest recalls his time as a novice, sent to the Amazon rainforest to seek out a missionary priestess lost to civilisation. What he found intimates madness – but in who?

   Amidst the human protaganists, I applaud Eisele for joining Carter and Pullman in updating the classic fairy tale characters of dwarf, giant and werewolf while firmly adhering to the tradition. With no appended credits page, this appears to be first publication for all fifteen tales. The broad use of the genre unified in the quality of feeling and mood. You could do no better than prioritising this title as your main summer read.

A Book Of The Sea, Edited by Mark Beech, Egaeus Press

The resulting submissions that cohere from disparate collection prompted by Mark Beech's call - enjoy two sets of linking themes. The first can be defined as the evocation and re-creation of lost art; lost for the personal spiritual 'benefit' and self-justification of the tales' protagonists. Good examples abound here from names both new (to me) and established.

   Stephen J. Clark's 'The Figurehead of the Cailleach' is Buchanesque folk horror seen through the filter of his artist's eye. As with the best tales here, it is served by an atmospheric prose that doesn't try too hard, but rather insinuates with a pace both encroaching and ominous. In Karim Ghahwagi's intriguing 'Sorrow of Satan's Book,' the Scandi-sea is haunting atmospheric background to a tale of an art-obsessed film scholar. He is en route to a pre-arranged meeting with a screenwriter to discuss the production of a screenplay for silent film director, Carl Dreyer; only to find, upon arrival, the police cordon of a crime scene. A metaphysical mystery, it hints upon the madness that can be borne of inspiration. Colin Insole's 'Dancing Boy' is a small dilapidated boat, the restoration of which becomes a labour of love for its new owner, ignorant of the curse of its dark past. Jonathan Woods' 'From Whence It Came' concerns an artist's growing obsession with elemental nature, the tides, and his attempts to find the secret, and match, his late feted artist uncle's 'perfection' in paint from the site where he'd once lived.

   The second linking theme utilises the more traditional angle of the protagonist-in-danger spawned by the sea itself. Rosalie Parker's 'Waiting' concerns a young woman – dockside in 18^th century England - finding betrayal from the very love that had for too long sustained her. With no overt horror, the ending intimates another sense of loss in just how fickle can be an emotion so powerful. A more overt expression of intense emotion can be read in Tom Johnstone's full-blooded Lovecraftian 'In The Hold It Waits.' A crate harbouring an unknown terror, again in the inevitable century, feted to curse its possessor through events already dire, is edge-of-the-seat stuff. The tension-steeped prose never falters. Familiar territory, yes, but graphically rendered. A rare, very welcome treat is a new tale from George Berguno. (Lauded previously in these pages). The understated 'Woman From Malta' finds a visiting protagonist received with suspicion as a series of actions – in the stead of an unpopular seer - may be more than mere history repeating. It is, perhaps, the collection's most subtle and sophisticated entry.

   The high quality of the majority of submissions left an inevitable few that didn't quite match. The baroque prose-style of one – while committed and contemporaneous – also acted as an occasional obstacle to this more general reader's concentration. A second, interesting in its narrative perspective, lacked the standard of prose attained elsewhere. This may be Mark Beech's most consistently successful collection so far. As ever, the use of well chosen stock period paintings and engravings enhance, rather than overpower or submerge, the texts. The number of featured authors high on my unofficial list of current favourites, is also great.

Albertine's Wooers

Joyce Carol-Oates' Night-Gaunts & Other Tales of Suspense (Head Of Zeus) should harbour the uncanny. Snuggly Books have a whole raft of intriguing new releases, including Colin Insole's Valerie & Other Stories, a very long-awaited, first-time p/b reissue for Count Stenbock's Studies Of Death and new collections by contemporary Decadent-era authors, Renee Vivien and Jane de la Vaudere; Lilith's Legacy: Prose Poems & Short Stories and The Double Star & Other Occult Fantasies, respectively. Finally, for those with more traditional tastes, we have Black Shuck Books A Suggestion Of Ghosts: Supernatural Fiction By Women, 1854-1900; Victorian-era tales collected for the very first time, edited by J.A. Mains with an intro by Lynda E. Rucker.

Here With The Shadows by Steve Rasnic Tem, Swan River Press

Following his thirty-year retrospective,(Chomu Press's 'Onion Songs'), reviewed last month in these pages, comes Rasnic Tem's latest. A subtle shift in mood and colour immediately becomes apparent. Where certain tales in the former voluminous selection revealed a broad pallet of symbolism and metaphor, the best remained the maturer, quieter tales of love lost and tragedies unresolved. Nowhere is this more apparent than in one of Rasnic Tem's, so far, greatest examples; 'Wheatfield With Crows.' (Ironic, considering it's named after a Van Gogh; an artist known for the broadest of strokes). Debuting in last year's Dark World (Tartarus Press) its place at the end of that collection - as here - is appropriate. An amateur artist and his mother return to the scene of what they believe a very personal crime - the unsolved childhood murder of his absconded sister - her daughter - fifteen years earlier. The jaded, half-articulated pain felt by both is beautifully rendered and as hidden as the overgrown stalks of wheat that may harbour their darling forever. 'The Cabinet Child' sees a husband try salving his hidden guilt over his wife's years of disappointment, to whom he'd refused a child, by purchasing a surrogate gift whose true nature remains as closed. Coming over as a conspiracy between both the James's, the ambi- guity of Henry leads to the startling denouement of M.R. Three tales here are new; 'A House by the Ocean,' 'The Still, Cold Air' and 'G is for Ghost.' The first sees a sister, wilfully estranged, then reunited, but at what cost? The second involves a ghostly parental legacy that seemingly returns the contempt their son had held them in, in life. The third concerns a young murder victim who won't stay dead. Interesting then that each of these tales are so connected; by the unrequited echoes harboured in a dilapidated house and its varying forms of familial revenge. The evocation of empty hope, amidst the cold and the damp, is chillingly, cloyingly wrought. It might be argued that no new ground is broken here. Yet when that ground can break the heart by such half-glimpsed evocations of familial loss, the writer's job is surely achieved. Swan River's first, appropriately monochrome, cover is just as effective as its more colour-dominant predecessors. A young tree's awakening as a woman in a snowstormed forest reflects the isolating chill beneath the covers. Another effective collaboration from Meggan Kehrli and Jason Zerrillo.

The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler & Other Strange Stories by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press

First published in hardback in 2005, this boldly-titled collection is now re-released with detailed illustrations by the author himself.
  The prose throughout reads as conventional first-person reportage, Oliver's (MR) James-ian knowledge reflected in several ecclesiastical settings.  What elevates it above most such referential nods are the ironic, post-colon reflections of cynical wit informing how seriously - or otherwise - a tale should be taken.
  For a single collection, this is quite a hefty tome; sixteen tales running to 338 pages. Oliver's fascination with all aspects of English history are here; from present-day researching of late 17th century correspondence ('The Sermons of Doctor Hodnet') to that of a contemporary play-script ('The Constant Rake') to an 'am dram' company in an indeterminate period post-War. ('The Skins').
  The title tale concerns the narrator claiming to have found a CD box-set bearing this name in a Magnum record store, its possibly credible contents, and the ubiquitous figure subsequently stalking him, who'll go to suicidal lengths to get it returned.  The tale is surreal and quietly mad, to say the least, positing questions it has no intentions of answering.
  The narrative voice is akin to wry, articulate bar-room anecdotage.  Occasionally, its very matter-of-factness can - where a climactic murder takes place - rob a tale of rising tension. Where it occurs out-of-the-blue, it's with little pre-emptive build that something extraordinary is about to occur.  'A Nightmare Sang' - a black comedy-horror reminiscent of an installment from those overwrought budget filmed anthologies of the 60s' and 70s' - suffers this, and is, consequently, the least successful entry.
  Oliver's strength are those tales in which such killings do not play out.  On the ending that is simply downbeat he is very good. 'The Skins,' 'Difficult People' and 'The Babe of the Abyss' each culminate in a sombre twist, which satisfyingly belies expectation.
  The best tales in this regard are hard to fault and deserving of future anthology.  'The Garden of Strangers' features the aged reflection of a once ambitious American journalist in the Paris of 1900, arrived to interview the ailing Oscar Wilde.  It is one of two meditations on the nature of suicide ('A Christmas Card' being the second) and, perhaps, the most life-affirming as Oliver's Wilde recalls the spirit-visitants he encountered whose respective fate helped inform his own decision.
  'Difficult People' is set in the late Sixties, appearing as a comment on the period and the shallowness of a generation who, through their own belief-system, could so easily be led to a self-destructive fate. Disguising this is a tale of possession by a work of art with a life of its own.
   The Aickman-esque 'Bloody Bill' works superbly as each anecdote presented harbours a mystery that demands, but barely obtains, resolution.  William Hexham - a former Eton housemaster and the 'Bill' of the title - is painted by the younger fellows as a figure to be feared, even hated, for his once physical prowess and quick, overbearing temper.  But is he the man he once was? Has age withered him?  Oliver is cunning in never actually showing what formed this reputation, suggesting Hexham is something other, while intimating what he truly is may be merely dormant - or a harboured sadness of non-achievement.  But the real achievement is in Oliver making us - the reader - fear him.
  The broad sweep of English social history alone, displayed here, should galvanise those new to this author into seeking out his other collections.
 

Ghosts by R.B. Russell, Swan River Press

As we near year's end, I must declare an interest.  Ray Russell,
whose first collection this is in its second edition, has shown him-
self a great champion of other British and European writers of the
independent press.
  As co-proprietor at Tartarus, reviewed recently and soon again in
these pages, his name - along with that of Mark Valentine -
regularly percolates into other genre publications and related blogs.
They are signposts to a quality of work far above the derivative
dribblings of the fan fiction ponce, undeserving of his high profile
in the media spin-offs of TV and Radio.
  These independent writers, along with John Howard, Quentin S.
Crisp, Peter Bell, Carolyn Moncel, Sylvia Petter and others, represent
a 40+ generation who, I believe, are attaining a qualitatively high
benchmark in the independent field.  One I can only dream of
being a part, my own speciality - thankfully - elsewhere.
  'Ghosts' is the umbrella title consisting of that first collection -
'Putting the Pieces in Place' - and the award-winning novella
'Bloody Baudelaire.'  (Recently filmed in Hollywood as
'Backgammon').  The tone of the prose as a whole is patient,
unflappable and contemplative; not unlike the public persona of
Russell himself.  This serves to lull the reader into the necessarily
false sense of security.  In the first tale, a historian - apparently
jaded from a thirty-five-year-long obsession with a diseased
young violinist - sets-up the narrator to unwittingly play her part in
his long-harboured intent. The subplot, recounting his series of
Europe-trekking directives and the motives behind them, feels
surprisingly credible, sophisticated and worthy of a novella in itself.
  'There's Nothing I Wouldn't Do' opens with an admiring
narrator who is soon contradicted by the object of his tribute - an
architecture student called Nina Monkman - who reveals an
oddly blase lack of self-knowledge in her relationships that leads
to one particularly macabre consequence.
  'In Hiding' - as with all the tales here - is as much about
harboured pasts as physical escapees.  Quite who is real and who
are the ghosts we assume to know, at first, but then . . .
It is a tale of sun-drenched melancholy, madness and loss.
  'Eleanor' finds us at a science-fiction convention where the
narrator-host relates his pre-arranged meeting with one of its
guests; the aging author, David Planer, known solely - to fantasy
fans - as creator of a young Goth heroine they've taken on as
their own.  Only, the slightly decrepit Planer now believes she
has an immediate life far closer than anyone might've predicted.
  Jayne in 'Dispossessed' might almost be the obverse side of
Nina Monkman.  Where she seems unthinkingly reactive, Jayne
blithely accepts her blank page inner life and reacts accordingly;
as if ultimately soulless.  Consequently, she is the most unreliable
narrator in the collection if the denouement is anything to go by.
  Of these five tales, only 'Eleanor' rings slightly false.  The set-up
feeling a mite too contrived; the idea someone of Planer's dotage
could create a young character others' of her generation could
relate to and idolise - if not unlikely - at least questionable.
  Ending the book, 'Bloody Baudelaire' is an intense, fractious
human drama, fired by the transient passions of two (or is it
three?) left after a party of the night before.  The characters are
rich, spoilt, of indeterminate age, but at least one still reliant
upon the parental bank.  The great subtlety of the tale is its
non-depiction of its ghost; the uncertain fate of the driven-out
artist Gerald Kent and his bitter relationship with the woman
protaganist, Miranda Honeyman.
  The cover features a striking, soft focus, monochrome
image of Lidwine de Royer; a Paris-based vocalist-harpist
who sings with child-like Bjork-ish beauty on a free
accompanying cd of mainly acoustic compositions by Russell
himself.   This concludes an excellent introduction to this writer's
work, with his latest collection, 'Leave Your Sleep,' (PS Publishing)
also available now.

The Old Knowledge by Rosalie Parker, The Swan River Press

A deceptive simplicity of language harbours the road to the unforeseeable twist in this reissue of Rosalie Parker's first collection, originally published by Swan River in 2010.  
  In 'The Rain,' we are with the seemingly innocent protaganist Geraldine all the way, as her city girl ways are frowned upon by rain-drenched, surly yokels of whom she asks assistance and gains little sympathy. Until an encroaching callousness on her part not only questions our allegiance to her but her own perception of what is real.
  In 'Spirit Solutions' ( a tale considered unique enough for immediate entry into Wordsworth Editions 'The Black Veil' anthology back in 2008) a daughter's journal records the last days at the family residence after the death of their father. Holed-up in their sold, snowbound home, with the food running out and computer sole link to the outside world, a website offers salvation from the poltergeist that's long plagued them. But is the true cause of its presence closer to home than any of them realise? Again, we have only the diarist's word as to the facts. This is an extraordinary tale, so ambiguous in protaganist motive that it bears several
re-readings.
  'In The Garden' begins as so innoucuous - a woman talking to someone of her love of gardening - that you doubt any eventual denouement at all, until the final paragraph reveals the very black object of her attention and intent. (Evoking those Amicus horror anthology films of the Seventies').
  Further intimations of madness arise by the end of 'Chanctonbury Ring' where a benign archeologist-cum-geologist has a ghostly encounter with one who reaches to him from the past, for a particular sanctuary he has little choice but provide.
  'The Supply Teacher' of the title has a dubious provenance, engaging her class - in her last lesson - in procuring what they know about the "circulatory system" and the life force that drives it. By class's end, we discover just who it is being supplied. A slight tale with a well-worn theme, but welcome for its wry humour for all that.
  The title tale returns us to the rural, folksy-type settings of 'The Rain' and 'Chanctonbury Ring' where a disturbance of the past (the levelling of a ceremonial burial mound in this case) is undermind by a protector with a particularly unforeseeable motive.
  'The Cook's Story' finds a young woman, (not unlike Geraldine of 'The Rain'), seeking solace after separation in a contrasting remote setting. In this case, a huge Tudor house run by a wealthy, slightly estranged, but kind married couple. An undercurrent of possible unconsumation is beautifully realised throughout with a last desparate action - intended or otherwise - that changes everything. A minor classic.
  Lastly, is 'The Picture'; a traditional-style horror, redolent of early Blackwood, Stoker et al, with a modern setting, as an antique collector buys a portrait of "a dark haired, curiously androgynous figure, half-draped in a voluminous white garment, gaz(ing) adoringly, imploringly, in profile at some unseen entity above." That the seller tells her he had sold it before, tells you he'll most likely be seeing it again as life threatens to imitate art.
  If not breaking new ground with every tale, what's striking in all eight is their perfect pitch. It is clear Parker already knows the rules of the uncanny (of what to hide, what to reveal, and when) and how, ideally, to express them. One of the sub-genre's hardest sleight-of-hands to achieve, but it is with these she reveals her strength.