Pan Review Of The Arts - No. 6

Welcome back to all Pan's readers from me and a very grateful goat-foot god Himself, who's only just emerged, belatedly, from hibernation. The arts combo here touches upon both painting and - as ever and always - books. While this blog has long been an admittedly self-centered indulgence, (as is His wont), we are always open to new ideas; these, with regard to what aspects of the arts you'd like to see that have yet to be covered. What will be a constant will be the preference for short tale collections over novels, though, as with author HELEN GRANT, those known for both would never be ignored. First up is New Zealand artist VIKY GARDEN, whose uncanny depictions of the self through the years has, I'm pleased to say, quite some way to go. The sole collection from a future BBC scripter in children's fantasy ends this entry. Enjoy...

art.

You've written on your site that you're 'still painting that very first self-referencing painting – and I can’t or won’t finish doing so until I feel I’ve got it - which will probably never happen.' Reflecting on this, what do you feel might be the obstacles to achieving finality?

Viky Garden: I think it’s my way of saying I never want to finish – or that I’m aware there really is no end until the big sleep. All of these paintings are a continuing conversation I’m having with myself and deep down in my marrow it’s not something I want to stop. Each time I start a new work I’m giving myself total freedom but at the same time I’m literally looking to myself for answers as to how this latest relationship – mere pigment scraped on canvas, will resolve – what question will it ask?

Do you vary the ways you work – and / or the materials used - when you begin your latest self-portrait, or is there always a set routine?

VG: Until a month ago, my studio used to be a room in the house – so it was very easy for me to nip in and out at any time and within seconds, be working. Now I’ve got a separate studio out in the yard and it requires dedicated time. I make a point of getting all the admin/chores sorted in the morning and that gives me the afternoons to spend in the studio.

  For the first 25 years I painted with oils because I had this insane bias against acrylic paint. Something along the lines of ‘good artists use oils’ – an embarrassing prejudice based solely on the idea that one learned technique has more value than another. But I found that I was using smaller and smaller brushes and working with my nose to the canvas – I was slowly suffocating. I felt the need to challenge my approach but wasn't sure how to go about it. So I stopped painting.

  This is a financially suicidal thing to do and I don’t recommend it. But for two months at the end of 2015, that’s exactly what I did. With time, I slowly began to give myself permission to think in broader terms until I got to a point where nothing was standing in my way (it never had been of course, I was the sole obstacle). In those two months over summer, I played a lot of backgammon. I’m certain it helped in a contemplative way because in February 2016 I went back into the studio, put away the oils and paintbrushes and began painting with liquid acrylic and using bits of cardboard. I didn’t want anything to remind me of the practice of oil painting – no paint in tubes and no brushes. It was an enormous risk because I had no idea how to paint with acrylics or even what it was I was hoping to achieve.

  If there’s a set routine, it’s a loose one with a much more random approach to what’s going to appear on the canvas and why. Working with abstraction has given me much more opportunity to discover ‘happy accidents’, those wonderful moments of time where a splash or smear of paint can determine or reveal an aspect of light or form that conscious thought and practice often stifles.

Have there been occasions when your art and the music of your husband Steve, of Rattle Records, have come together in multimedia projects?

VG: We tend to stay in our own paddock with our work. The only time there’s been any overlapping is when my photography has been used for Rattle cover artwork and my choosing Rattle music for two of my Youtube clips. We both work from home so we’re together all the time and often Steve’s work can be intense (he not only runs Rattle but he engineers and produces most of the music). To be honest, I’ve never thought about the possibility of doing any kind of project together because there never seems to be enough time in the day. That’s not to say that if something presented itself we wouldn’t consider it.

From your website, I see you have also sculpted variations of the female torso. Are you also the model for these and do they represent, as much as the paintings, this same ongoing search?

VG: In the summer of 2013 I produced about a dozen small sculptures. At the time it was as much about giving myself a break from painting as it was the desire to learn a new process. The great thing about the torsos was that for the most part, I was able to think less and simply produce. There’s something to be said for the physical process of producing work in this manner – making moulds and casting pieces (each torso is in a limited edition of 5) and finally, sanding for hours on end. I was curious and keen to teach myself how to make sculpture. Apart from a couple of works, they are mostly female torsos – it wasn’t a conscious decision to base these on me, but the tendency for me is always to do what I know. These are like talisman pieces, they each fit in the palm of my hand and are beautiful forms to hold. I’ve since had one of the pieces printed larger (using 3D technology) so that in the future I can made an edition of it.

So far, what have your self-portraits helped you learn about yourself since the age of fifteen?

VG: It’s so tempting to say ‘everything and nothing’. Everything in the sense that they are a visual record of my life for the past 30 years. While I haven’t been too obvious with my narratives, I clearly recall what was happening at the time when I look back at the majority of my work. If I was to say nothing, it’s because ‘needing to know’ keeps me standing in front of that easel. In all this time, nothing about ‘our’ language – the language that exists between me and her – has changed. I’ve learned that what feels personal, even intimate, is really universal – aspects of love and loss, the transitory nature of everything, change and impermanence. Collectors aren’t buying ‘a portrait of Viky Garden’, they’re seeing something that resonates their own life experience.

Do you think you'd still have wanted to be a painter if consistently using yourself as the subject hadn't originally occurred?

VG: Life is serendipitous; opportunities arise and if we have the talent, time, and understanding, we make of it what we will. I didn’t get the chance to go to art school, however at eighteen I met Steve and for as long as we’ve been able to, we’ve given ourselves the freedom to make our own path and trust our own vision. In a parallel life I could very well have gone to art school, applied myself and perhaps found influence in a different discipline or practice. I’ve often wondered, if I wasn’t painting at all and could choose a different interest, it would probably be based around some sort of archaeology. I can think of nothing more meditative than carefully revealing and discovering aspects of our past, what makes us who we are now. In many ways, I find its very much the same purpose painting serves.

A big thank you to Viky for her time and contribution.

You can find Viky's official website here: https://www.vikygarden.com/

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vikygardenartist/

books.

I first heard about HELEN GRANT from her 2013 Swan River Press collection, The Sea Change & Other Stories. Known mainly as a popular novelist for the Young Adult range, her latest - Ghost (Fledgling Press) - cleverly defies reader expectation, with its young protagonist of the title and the resonant echoes of a historical past. 

What inspired the plot and choice of setting for Ghost?

Helen Grant: I've always found real life locations a great source of inspiration; all my novels and most of my short stories are set in real places that I have visited. I think an atmospheric location is not only a rich backdrop to a story, it can also suggest elements of the plot. For me, an interesting setting is like an empty stage set, waiting for the characters to appear, and the details of the stage scenery suggest to me what kind of action might take place.

  Ghost is set in Perthshire, Scotland, where we have lived since 2011. One aspect of living here that I've always found fascinating is being able to see the traces of the past in the landscape. I'm fascinated by the vanished country houses of Scotland – many of them built in the 1800s and then abandoned in the mid twentieth century when they became impractical to maintain. Langlands House, the setting for the book, is not a real place, but it is inspired by some of the derelict houses I've visited. Most of them are ruinous because when they were abandoned they were unroofed, and the weather has got in. I thought: supposing there was a house like this, but someone had just locked the door and walked away, leaving all the contents inside? Who would be living in a place like that, and why? And that is where the story of Ghost came from.

  Innerpeffray Library, an antiquarian library near Crieff, was also a source of inspiration for the fictional library at Langlands House. I liked the idea of a library that has so many interesting and beautiful books on such a wide range of topics, but all of them outdated. My heroine does her best to interpret the world around her with nothing to rely on but that.

Without wishing to give away any plot elements, did you decide at the outset of Ghost's writing that the old adage of what-goes-around-comes-around would be a key part of the climax?

HG: I knew from the outset what the ending of the book would be. The final scenes were very clear in my mind even before I started writing. But I don't really see the ending as being all about what-goes-around-comes-around. I think it's more about the difficulty of escaping who we are, and the history that has shaped us. It's very hard to say any more about this topic without offering any massive spoilers!

A real strength of the novel's first half are the tropes of supernatural fiction being at first suggested, then changed. Was this always your intention, during the drafting, or did you change your mind and decide to defy the reader's expectations?

HG: This was one hundred per cent intentional. I wanted the reader to ask themselves what was really happening, and perhaps to make some assumptions before more of the truth of the situation was revealed. Ghost was a very difficult book to write, and I did more rewriting and editing on it than I have done on any of my other novels. But the rewriting was largely about the characterisation and some plot details. I was very clear about the supernatural tropes and their role in the novel throughout the writing process.

The feel of the novel reminded me of Nina Bawden's Carrie's War. The house, the lone girl protagonist, the family feud and consequence for which she feels profound guilt, etc. Were such novels for older children, and / or their TV adaptations, a major influence on your writing?

HG: No. I recall Carrie's War being on television when I was a child but I have never read it, and I can't think of any other novel for older children which was an influence here. I would say that a big influence was Gothic literature, which also favours tropes such as the isolated heroine and the intriguingly dilapidated ruin, and often has a supernatural element. I've always loved classic Gothic fiction, ever since I was a teenager myself, devouring The Mysteries of Udolpho and Dracula. Combining my Gothic tastes with my environment of rural Scotland was what produced Ghost.

While the novel form has long been considered – by agents and publishers - as more commercial than collections of short tales, still might we hope for a follow-up to The Sea Change (Swan River Press (2013)) in the future?

HG: Yes, definitely. I have now written more than enough new stories to create a new collection, and I really hope to see one come out in future. However, a few readers did comment after reading The Sea Change, that they would like to have seen some completely new fiction in it. It would be ideal if a future collection included some totally unseen work - and I haven't had time to sit down and write anything!

  I agree that collections of short stories are seen as a harder sell than a novel. All the same, ghost stories remain perennially popular. Personally, I love writing them. A novel of 120,000 words is a big undertaking, whereas a story of 5,000 words gives a sense of satisfaction and completion but takes a comparatively short amount of time to write. I think also that as a novelist there is always this pressure to produce something similar to the thing you wrote last time, probably because it's confusing for the readership if you write a crime thriller and then follow it up with a Gothic romance. But there isn't the same pressure with short stories. You can experiment a bit more. I sometimes write ghost stories with quite traditional settings but just recently I've been experimenting with more existential stuff and I really enjoy doing that.

For me, the traditional ghost-in-a-haunted-house type tale is way past its use-by date. What is your own view of the ghost in modern literature?

HG: This is an interesting question. My daughter, who loves classic ghost stories, admits that some of the traditional tropes are now clichés but says that to a certain extent she reads the stories for those clichés. And I think that the traditional setting of the decaying old house or dank mossy churchyard is used for a reason: those places genuinely are creepy. I should know – I spend my spare time exploring places like that! In the hands of a really good writer, I think they can still come to full and creepy life. An excellent example in my mind is Neil Gaiman's short story October in the Chair, which features both haunted house and graveyard. It's a story which fills me with tension and dread – and also sadness - every single time I read it.

  I think though that when we say "traditional ghost…" we are thinking of a very specific type of ghost: the lingering spirit of the recently dead. For me, a ghost can be very different from that. In a recent interview, I was asked (as I often am) whether I believe in ghosts myself, to which I answered: Yes. I don't believe in things in white sheets and chains hanging around a graveyard going "Wooooo….!" But I think it's possible to be haunted. I've occasionally seen someone in a crowd and thought that it was someone I know to be dead, and I've dreamed very vividly about people who have died. Now, I know that I am not really seeing a ghost when I "see" people in this way, but I think these experiences are a kind of haunting, because they show that the lost person is still very present in my mind. I think Ghost is a book in which the past very much haunts the present, and the dead reach out of their graves to exert their influence on the living. Isn't that the definition of a ghost story?

Huge thanks to Helen for her contribution.

Helen's official website is at: http://www.helengrantbooks.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/helengrantsays

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Helen-Grant-books-page-189182864425143/

The Other Passenger by John Keir Cross, Valancourt Books

The arrival of John Keir Cross (1914-67) spearheaded the post-war second wave of BBC script writers for radio and TV. He was mainly known for his children's fiction under the pen-name, Stephen Macfarlane. The Other Passenger (1944) was his only collection for adults; issued under his own.

  Of the Portraits, 'The Glass Eye,' 'Clair de Lune' and 'Miss Thing and the Surrealist' are the best. Of the Mysteries, 'Liebestraum' and 'Cyclamen Brown.' These avoid the usual overwrought reactionism, in most contemporary horror, where the reader is supposed to respond, with robotic obedience, to the author's most lurid descriptions, leaving little room for imagination. These five – though featuring horrific elements – are as much reliant upon strangeness and, yes, the uncanny.

  In 'The Glass Eye,' the black humour is beautifully judged, triggered from a lovely fable of Eastern philosophy, worthy of M.P. Shiel or Vernon Lee. A woman in her late thirties, unlucky in love, falls for one she perceives as a handsome ventriloquist at a local theatre. She initiates an amorous correspondence. When – too late - she learns the secret behind the act's success, her bitter vengeance reflects the impotence at her heart – as well as his. This tale may have not only inspired the memorable 'Ventriloquist's Dummy' entry of the film Dead Of Night the following year; it might also have gained Keir Cross entry into screenwriting itself.

  'Clair de Lune' opens on an invitation by a platonic girlfriend to stay at a country retreat amongst a group of bohmeian highbrows, initiating a dark attachment eternally awaiting the spirit of a fearful young girl who appears in the garden for the protagonist alone. The title alludes to the beckoning tune played by ghostly hands upon a stationary lute in the house. A tale that succeeds, mainly, for its manifestation of the girl and the period descriptions of the guests. Intriguing, but not quite followed through, is the raison d'etre of the shadowy enemy that comes between them both.

  Of the sad-older-man-obsessed-with-pretty-young-girl entries, 'Liebestraum' possesses a subtlety and heart, harbouring a sympathy for both main characters, right up to the end. A sanitary inspector loses his wife. Neither husband nor wife loved each other – each knew it - and when the wife dies while having an affair, he, understandably, feels the need to break out and find a very different replacement of his own. Things go well enough, platonically, but something else is going on within him.

  'Miss Thing and the Surrealist' features an artist (of guess which former movement) and the disparate, disguised identity of his greatest work that somehow maintains a psychological hold on its creator and followers; a refreshingly odd diversion from the genre and its sub-genres depicted elsewhere. 'Cyclamen Brown' is the first-person narrative about a meeting with a commercial writer of popular song, who ducks and dives amid the 'racketeers, sharks and toughs' of Forties London. The character Eddie Wheeler is convincingly drawn. (Convincing in that he reminded me of someone I know); fast-talking, no-nonsense, with a depracating wit to his speech. The title alludes to his mysterious, torch-singing muse who wears a permanent mask on and off-stage. This is, in truth, her story.

  Subsequently, Keir Cross's most resonant contribution to the genre were, first, with the BBC, as radio script-adapter for anthology series The Man In Black (1949), (introduced by the sepulchral-voiced actor, Valentine Dyall), then, in the 50s' and 60s', a return to children's fantasy with entries for Children's Hour. He ended his career with a one-off production of The Box Of Delights for Saturday Night Theatre (1966).

  To J.F. Norris's credit – whose new introduction gives precious background on the career – he leaves the reader hungry to proceed. The remaining tales, however, don't truly deliver. The title tale, a doppelganger re-run, displays much stylish form for little real substance.

  Keir Cross's approach is hardly ahead of its time, being very much of it. Like his contemporaries, he has a particular disdain for the metropolitan lower middle-class. Men are henpecked, wig-wearing, denture-wearing impotents eager to cave-in their spouse's heads as a delusional shortcut to dominance. His women are ideal targets for that era's casual misogyny, depicted as 'little,' 'loathsome' or excessively fat; sex-jaded burdens on their long-suffering husbands. Next to Valancourt's exemplary reissues by Forrest Reid, Claude Houghton, Lord Dunsany and many others, The Other Passenger proves we'd been spoiled; but, the best of Keir Cross shows what might have been had he remained longer on the page.

Pan Review Of The Arts No.7 will appear in May.

Pan Review of the Arts - No. 5

Editorial: A new year spawns a renewed Pan and here He's very much on the fore-hoof. Former music journalist and weaver of supernatural tales NINA ANTONIA presents her debut novel, The Greenwood Faun (Egaeus Press), the first number of the first European fantasy magazine, The Orchid Garden (Zagava Press) is reissued in facsimile, and composer/musician ROGER ENO offers us a few words on his latest album, This Floating World. (Never off Pan's Sunday morning playlist). Enjoy.

books & art.

Did you come late to the supernatural as a writer, or had you been writing to the genre for years prior to publication?

Nina Antonia: Although I was always an avid reader of the supernatural, it took me a long time to find the confidence to express myself as a writer of the genre. It might have had something to do with having been a published author in another realm, oddly. However, the artists that I covered as a rock journalist were never what you might call mainstream and I’ve always been interested in ‘outsider’ themes and more outré characters. Hence, when I had my first supernatural piece published, ‘South West 13’ for Egaeus Press, in their ‘Soliloquy for Pan’ anthology two years ago, it merged the two strands of fantasy and music, Pan meeting Marc Bolan on Barnes Common. It was the perfect configuration. I suppose Pan was the rock- star of his day, nymphs and satyrs his followers, dancing to his vivid tune. Pan opened the door for me. Unfortunately, the music industry has become terribly constricted, there is little freedom left. If you look at Glastonbury at its inception, where it would have been quite enchanting, especially in such a mythical setting, to the money making, corporate backed juggernaut it has now become, there’s little left for dreamers. I doubt that Pan would be playing the main stage, do you? Esoteric and supernatural themes have provided me with the latitude that music and its once wayward crew, used to. We all need a mystical moon to dance beneath.

How and when did you discover Arthur Machen?

NA: Everything goes full circle doesn’t it? I discovered Arthur Machen through musician and author, David Tibet, many years ago. Although David has a band, Current 93, he was also publishing hard to find supernatural/fantasy titles via Ghost Story Press, so there was a cross over between esoteric music and literature. In the misty in-between our path’s crossed and he gave me a copy of ‘The Hill of Dreams’ and I don’t think I’ve yet recovered. It was rather astute of David, when I think about it. How did he know that I’d be so enraptured? Perhaps there’s a little bit of Pan in every musician that hasn’t sold their soul. No other writer has had such an impact upon me as Arthur Machen. There is something very unsettling yet beautiful about his work, a greater knowledge of ancient things unseen but present, yet very accessible to read. Machen is a master of his craft, he transcends the page. For someone like me, who doesn’t believe that what is in front of us constitutes the entirety of existence and that there are mysteries, Machen is indispensable. He wakes you up to another reality. ‘The Greenwood Faun’ is a direct consequence of Tibet having introduced me to Machen all those years ago. The circle was completed when David agreed to write something to go on the cover of ‘The Greenwood Faun.’

How did you settle on the idea of a sequel to his 'Hill Of Dreams' for your first novel?

NA: The idea of ‘The Greenwood Faun’ as a sequel to ‘The Hill of Dreams’ seemed to come out of nowhere, it was an unplanned yet pressing need that was pleasant but insistent, like Pan’s pipes. However, I also believe that our inner life much like the life of dreams, formulates things before we become aware of them. ‘The Hill of Dreams’ is a fascinating work; it reveals new aspects of itself with each re-reading. Plus, I empathised with Machen’s struggling author, Lucian Taylor, who loses his way in life, as he is trying to commit his mystical vision to paper. A book is a composite of many things – for example Chatterton also appears as a reoccurring motif in ‘The Greenwood Faun’ based on the famous Pre-Raphaelite painting by Wallis. Like Lucian Taylor, he is another young author who sacrifices his life to his art. Late one winter’s afternoon, when the book was still a phantom, I was in the vicinity of Euston station. Twilight was ebbing into night and it was very cold. I looked up and became aware of a young man with hair the colour of an autumn sunset, that same burnished russet gold of the Wallis painting. The young man looked like an apparition of the painting. It was as if he’d just stepped out of the frame. As you would imagine, he was not in good shape sadly, far too thin, the face full of suffering, even at a distance. I felt stricken by his despair but then he literally wasn’t there anymore. It was extraordinary. Was he corporeal or a vision? Either way, I shan’t forget. London is full of ghosts.

Writing to – rather than about the supernatural – requires a subtle and poetic prose-style that intimates otherworldliness from often quite familiar settings or situations. After you've decided upon the plot and characters, do you find this easy to achieve or do you feel the need to keep re-drafting?

NA: Interesting question: Everyone has a different way of going about writing. It’s as individual as their fingerprint. However, there do seem to be formulas that people who have had the opportunity to study, might be inclined to follow. The main thing is to find what works for you. I always felt that writing was like having a palette of paints and finding the right words was more about discovering what gorgeous things you could do with the mixture of shades, it’s why the Pre-Raphaelites are so rich, how many shades of green are there in a Burne-Jones’ portrait? You build a mood like a colour wash- from emerald to peacock to jade. Gustave Moreau is another inspiring artist, he creates a bejewelled effect. It’s like the visual equivalent of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ which ravishes the mind’s eye. Wilde’s work is brilliantly ostentatious; Arthur Machen sculpts the intangible from nature and realistic improbability. Rather than redrafting, I tend to make layers of impressions.

Of all the rock stars you've met and written about, who strikes you as closest to the model of the late-Victorian decadent?

NA: I always thought that Marc Bolan, Prince and Johnny Thunders were contemporary dandies. Very dainty creatures but they also strutted like royal peacocks. They are all very mythic and quite unreal and enchanting. The imagination is captured by people who have managed somehow to escape being merely flesh and blood and transcend earthly boundaries to become something we can dream about. You could include Adam Ant in that canon as well, as Prince Charming but they have to be at a step removed. Johnny Thunders was rare in that he could weave that magic even when the going was tough and there was holes in his shoes. That is the epitome of ‘casting a glamour.’ You can’t let reality seep in even if the rain does. Nico has always greatly appealed although I never met her but I have written about her, because she was like something from one of Poe’s stories, a European relative of the Usher family with an odd little harmonium on which to play eerie tunes.

Many thanks to Nina Antonia for her time. You can read about Nina and her work here: 

ninaantoniaauthor.com

You can purchase a copy of Nina's debut novel here: 

http://www.egaeuspress.com/The_Greenwood_Faun.html

Twitter:  @ninaantonia13

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Der Orchideengarten, Edited by Alf Von Czibulka, Zagava Press, (Newly-translated by Helen Grant)

"...The art of horror and the horrific dominate(d) the creative work of all peoples...before they discovered the beauty in them... That is the cruel truth of this book, but, at the same time, it is its triumphant testament. Pan lives." (Alf Von Czibulka, Editor, from Wilhelm Michel review, The Orchid Garden, Jan. 1919)

The year 1919 is, perhaps, best known to today's afficianados for the release of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Yet, the film was just one product of this last great generation of the literary and artistic movement that was Gothic German Romanticism. Since the foundations laid by the castle-led Gothic had long since passed, 'horror' had to become more psychologically ambiguous and, dare I say, refined. Freud's seminal study, 'The Uncanny' (Unheimlich), defining what John Mullan has precised as 'making strange what should be familiar,' also found release this year.

  Of course, it isn't possible to separate the political context of the material from the historical. Both editor Alfons Von Czibulka and publisher Karl Hans Strobl were burgeoning fascists' being, at this formative time, advocates of German nationalism.

  The fading cannon-smoke of loss pervades this debut issue of four short tales, two poems and a final page of new book reviews. Czibulka's debut editorial unflinchingly states his – and so the magazine's - nationalist perspective. "Wake Your Sleeping Talents!" he declaims in the heading. 'Imagine what the German people could achieve,' he adds, 'if every German were in their rightful place!' Almost a century on, this chilling call to arms also sounds an ironic resonance in pockets of inner-city England today. Unsurprisingly, not long after this, Czibulka himself would find his own 'rightful place' in the Nazi Party.

  In Rudolf Schneider's 'dream' of the title, the protaganist is invited by a well-dressed man to join in the shooting of innocents by bow and arrow as some macabre sport of no reason. An inevitable satire on the recently-ended '14-'18 War. '18. XII. 18' by Paul Frank, and a case of unwitting Eastern possession unfolds as a dropped diary page for this very day is pursued by a man who tries to find himself.

  'Master Jericho,' by Orchid Garden publisher Karl Hans Strobl, is the most traditional, Grand Guignol-type tale. An aged organ-player, based solely at a local chapel, attracts much attention from his music at once irresistible and cacophonous. It proves a source of vampirism. Appropriately, 'Bats' by Max Rohrer is a sonnet to the night creatures, purveyed in adjectives of Gothic garishness. Strobl would go on to specialise in literary horror.

  'The Way to the Scaffold' is the fourth and final tale, a reprint of a Victor Hugo, and – inevitably, but brilliantly - subjective perception from a prisoner en route to his execution. 'Nocturnal Visitor' by A.M. Frey is a superbly sensuous and chilling second poem on hiding from a night terror that itself crouches just out of sight.

  Closing this debut issue are 'The Greenhouse – The Weird And Wonderful' by Dr. Max Kemmerich and 'Fantastic Books.' The former feature various anecdotes on 'mysterious music,' the use of face powder in the 18^th century and a mischievous use of the Christ appellation. The latter are hagiographic book reviews on new titles by contributors.

  The art throughout the magazine is spearheaded by Edwin Henel's striking black, red and yellow cover of a blood-engorged orchid breaking through the skylight of a greenhouse on a barren, reptilian plain. (Henel would go on to produce memorable commercial series of scenic and sporting posters). An image that, perhaps unwittingly, reverses Czibulka's pronouncement of there being beauty in horror. A misjudgement that forewarns on the wrongheadedness of fascism. Stark and striking monochrome work by Paul Neu, Franz Hecht and Wilhelm Heise also feature in this welcome reissue.

You can purchase a copy of Der Orchidengarteen here:

http://www.zagava.de/?post_type=books&p=487

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music.

This Floating World

by Roger Eno

'This Floating World' is a collection of short piano based pieces which is a distillation of a method of working and thinking about music I'd been pursuing for some time.
  Every morning I'd get up, go straight to The Clerestory (my studio) and improvise a piece. I'd then, if deemed necessary, change notes, get rid of elements and, more rarely, add to the thing. Thus, over months I collected fifty or so pieces (my memory is pretty shoddy), which I then left alone. After a while, usually whilst doing other things, I began to listen to them and select the ones that in some way stood out-this could be for a melodic idea,an harmonic sequence, the length of gaps in the piece, the 'colour' of a piece or any number of other passing considerations.

  I finally whittled them down to the length of a short album. I tend to like things that leave you wanting more rather than completely sating ones interest, which I then very conscientiously put into a running order. This is an element that I regard as extremely important in an overall work.
  I consider this one of my most personal recordings. 'This Floating World' is unashamedly 'domestic' in its creative base. The titles mention my eldest daughter, my wife and features the voice of my younger daughter on 'Empty Room.' The vinyl album comes with a booklet containing original stories pertinent to the feel of the music, plus a selection of photographs that I feel also lend themselves to the flavour of the disc. It also features, on the final track, my dear old upright piano, which has followed me around since I was fifteen-years-old. This instrument is a very close friend of mine. I love the openness, the spaces between notes and humility of the music; not a very humble thing to say, I'll grant you. I like that there is no real 'focal' point to the pieces, that they just appear live for a little while and disappear again.  
  It is this last element which lends the album its overall title, for there is nothing firm or concrete here; no stout foundations or secure bases. This album looks at the world as drift. Roger and out. (Roger Eno)

You can find out more about Roger and his work here:
rogereno.com/

This Floating World is available on the Recital label:
http://www.recitalprogram.com/this-floating-world/

Daughters Of Apostasy by Damian Murphy, Snuggly Books

'The fictions we partake of,' writes Seattle-based Damian Murphy, 'as with the fictions we create, bear consequences for each of us that lie beyond the understanding and control even of their authors.' (From 'The Scourge and the Sanctuary,' p.33).

  This is particularly the case with psychological studies of protagonists often labelled under 'uncanny.' As a writer, you can be writing about yourself without even realising it; or, if you do, your raison d'etre can be buried deep in your subconscious, manifesting phobias and hang-ups in dreamscapes that seem, intentionally, to distance the self.

  This title comprises three short tales – 'The Scourge and the Sanctuary,' 'Permutations of the Citadel' and 'A Book of Alabaster' - and two novellas – 'The Salamander Angel' and the first-time published 'The Music of Exile.'

  'The Scourge and the Sanctuary' is a a one-sided correspondence from Theodora at 'River Station South' to Sebastian; two 'river reporters.' interspersed with an objectively related scene where her interests are revealed as much astral as environmental. She relates following three people into a local building that has caught her interest and finds she has crossed a threshold into a metaphysical world that infiltrates her very soul, shifting her perception to a new form of reality; a plot device that links each of the following tales daughters - and sons - of apostasy.

  'Permutations of the Citadel' states how Martin 'had always felt that he might find the means by which to pass beyond the veil of appearance and into something altogether different.' In this case, "the cathedral of the senses, he was certain, concealed a hidden chancel." A quote that links the interests of all five tales main characters. Martin shares reception duties with astral master Algernon on the nightshift of a remote hotel. The job is a mere diversion for a pair with far greater, esoteric interests. For their own amusement, Algernon proposes re-organising the layout of the map that hangs beside the staircase. As Algernon commences with its re-drawing, Martin soon discovers his changes are already taking place upstairs... My favourite of the three short tales.

  'The Salamander Angel' is the most evocative entry, but also the most traditional; invocations are summoned from the perspective of three sets of characters at a church; a set-up, at least, with more than a hint of Wheatley. The climactic scene of a horde of angels coming to life upon their pedestals, with calmly murderous intent, is memorable.

  I wonder if old computer games' simplicity, calling more on a gamer's imagination, was the inspiration for 'A Book of Alabaster.' Stefan lives alone in a lookout tower on top of a house. To re-engage with an interest from childhood, he purchases a secondhand computer game and console, primitive and long unavailable. When it seemingly becomes infected by a malevolent bug that lives within the program, his – and its – reality begin to merge into a frightening new game of cat-and-mouse.

  In 'The Music of Exile,' an opulent, snowbound poets' retreat draws would-be poet Karina there for the third time in as many years. Already there are three senior literati, including star poet Anna. Karina – modest about her own efforts – is set an esoteric task by her, with no clear goal, until the former develops a second-sight, which - on successful completion – may, or may not, afford Karina a measure of her mentor's genius. The impression left unspoken is whether or not this is more a trap to self-destruction by an ingenious rival.

  Decadent exotica and rites of passage initiations, the territory depicted here, too often succumb to prose far too purple. Murphy just manages its restraint, succeeding in a balance between taut, economic narrative and novel evocations that well maintain the concentration.

Albertine's Wooers

MOLLY TANZER's long-awaited third novel, Creatures of Will and Temper (HMH/JJA Books), described as a feminist take on 'The Picture Of Dorian Gray,' 'with sword-fighting and demons,' is available for pre-order for mid-December release.

R.B. RUSSELL's first novel She Sleeps (PS Publishing) is 'a murder mystery with a hint of the supernatural.'

From Undertow Publications comes CONRAD WILLIAMS' latest collection, I Will Surround You, described as exploring 'the tangled skein and woven bones of the human condition.' Also shipping are their latest Shadows & Tall Trees and Year's Best Weird Fiction anthologies, edited by HELEN MARSHALL and MICHAEL KELLY.

From Egaeus Press comes the third mini-book in their stylish Keynote Edition Series: The Echo Of The Sea & Other Strange War Stories by PAUL ST JOHN MACKINTOSH, 'featuring four masterfully wrought short stories / novellas...in which ghosts, Nordic folklore and ancient rituals encroach upon the very practical matters of WWII.'

BRIAN SHOWERS continues his honourable literary excavations with Old Hoggen and Other Adventures by BRAM STOKER (Swan River Press). As well as mystery and black humour, we are also promised 'the creeping intrusion of the supernatural.'

Speaking of the Irish supernatural, Tramp Press are reissuing DOROTHY MACARDLE’s The Unforeseen; first published in 1946, it is the follow-up to The Uninvited,.

Zagava Books latest is quite a bundle, featuring MARK SAMUELS' sixth collection, The Prozess Manifestations, THOMAS PHILLIPS' In This Glass House, ('a tense, aesthetic space between Shirley Jackson and Don DeLillo'), The Sketchbook of Stanislav Szukalski, and a facsimilie of the debut issue of the first fantasy magazine, Der Orchideengarten. (The Orchid Garden, with parallel English text).

Newly reissued by Wakefield Press comes OSCAR SCHMITZ's Hashish, charmingly described as 'a collection of decadent, interwoven tales of Satanism, eroticism, sadism, cannibalism, necrophilia and death,' first published in Germany in 1902.

From their website: 'Wick Press acquired the rights to publish a two-volume anthology of rare ghost stories originally published in 1700s' and 1800s' periodicals. Volume I of The Greatest Ghost Stories Ever Told will arrive in time for the Ghost Story for Christmas tradition practiced by master of the antiquated ghost story himself, M. R. JAMES.'

Finally, belated mention must be made – for the seventieth anniversary of his death - of The Ghost In The Corner & Other Stories by LORD DUNSANY (Hippocampus Press); the result of editors S.T. JOSHI and MARTIN ANDERSSON unearthing previously unpublished and uncollected works held by the Dunsany Estate. (The non-sword and sorcery tales being of personal interest).