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Post by Calenture on Dec 8, 2007 17:29:39 GMT
Cover by Gary Nurrish Published by Prime Books (Canton, Ohio); printed by Lightning Source, 2003. A preamble: or how Weirdmonger saved me from planning murder.You know that old curse about living in interesting times. Yesterday was interesting; I attended a disciplinary hearing at Cornwall College. The disciplinary hearing was their response to my most recent crack up, but never mind that. I kept my temper for about half an hour listening to lies and more damned lies. I passed the time wondering what stone they’d looked under to find this pair of idiots conducting the ‘hearing’. Finally I stood up and had the brief satisfaction of seeing them both jump back in their chairs in alarm. I told them that I thought I’d been extremely patient with them so far but now I was going. When I got home I paced up and down trembling for a while. Then there was a rattle and a thump from the letterbox. The book: A parcel from D F Lewis, the Weirdmonger himself, and the book was... Weirdmonger. The book that I think he's described as the most definitive or representative of his writing. It’s a hefty volume. And at that time and in that mood, I didn’t think I’d be up to glancing over more than a few pages. Surprisingly enough, I read a number of its short stories straight away, and as I read, it was a bit like relaxing in a warm bath and the frustrations of the day seemed to melt away. And of course, you know Des Lewis's writing, sometimes exasperating, often brilliant, always weird. It’s going to be impractical or impossible to mention every story here - there are 65 of them in the book - but here's a taster. Always in Dim Shadow paints a haunting miniature of childhood loneliness, sexual abuse and parental incomprehension in the (astonishing) space of a page. Apple Turnover – which I mustn’t attempt to synopsise, it would spoil things – might be a simmering romantic reworking of a Biblical tale in the style of Cider With Rosie. In this one, consciously or not, Des has touched on one of the more curious aspects of vampirism as sexual symbolism in dream imagery, touched on by Tom Chetwynd in his brilliant Dictionary for Dreamers, namely the idea of double-penetration: that as the vampire’s teeth enter the victim’s skin, the victim’s flesh is entering the body of the attacker. Back Doubles is a slightly longer story, about 8 pages: Kit is obsessed with St Paul’s Cathedral. Representations of its dome are shown in wallpaper decorating his bedroom walls. He collects colour supplements, second hand books, prints and old maps dealing with the history of the cathedral. But until today, he has never actually seen the place with his own eyes. Today will be the day that he finally realises his dream. Clutching some guidebooks and a packed lunch, he boards a bus and sets off on a journey enlivened at first by the cute bum of the bus driver's groupie. But as he reaches the second stage of his journey, a ride on the underground, things start to fall apart; his travelling companions become more decrepit and sinister, the underground platforms are lit by candles and thronged with shadowy figures, and we wonder if there is truth in the old myths of passengers long lost to daylight in collapsing tunnels and trapped carriages. Escaping the train, he becomes lost above ground, and entering an alley finds himself in a quite different place – a woodland lost in the heart of the city, and in the wood, another cathedral. But there is something very wrong about this cathedral. Something dreadfully wrong about the crucifix in its shadowed interior. This story begins in whimsical fashion, becomes a little grotesque, then as it brings to mind memories of films like Death Line and Quatermass and the Pit, actually gave me some very real chills. I’ve dealt with this story in some detail here because the ideas and imagery are quite intensely packed and as I’m writing, I can see there’s more to find in it yet. What I’ve read so far suggests that Weirdmonger is a pick-and-mix goodie bag of the strange, the disturbing and the really quite nasty best of D F Lewis. More to come. Weirdmonger on Amazon
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Post by redbrain on Dec 8, 2007 20:13:52 GMT
The Weirdmonger is the largest and fairly definitely the best selection of Des' stories so far assembled.
It has the oddity, though, that the stories are in alphabetic order - which is not necessarily the best order in which to read them. Worse perhaps, the systematic approach the arrangement implies is at odds with the nature of the writer.
That said, any collection that includes Welsh Pepper is to be forgiven an entire hatful of idiosyncrasies. Anyone who hasn't yet got a copy, should remedy that as soon as possible.
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Post by David A. Riley on Dec 8, 2007 22:21:31 GMT
On Abebooks.com there are currently 15 copies for sale, ranging from £9.25 to £38.50.
And nearly 400 pages long! A hefty volume indeed.
David
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Post by Calenture on Dec 9, 2007 17:02:54 GMT
I decided to edit my post above as I think my comments on misspelled notices and notes from tutors should not have gone in the same post as my comments about people who believe illness is a reason for "discipline". I spent five very rewarding years teaching adults to read and write. My students were often intelligent people who might have been unable to read a teacher's blackboard in childhood because no one had realised that they needed glasses. Whether teachers and admin staff at a college should know how to spell, is probably a matter of opinion. -------------------- I've read a post at the Thomas Ligotti site where Des says some personal issues are making demands on his time. I hope things will sort themselves out soon.
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Post by weirdmonger on Dec 9, 2007 18:53:47 GMT
Thanks, thanks, Rog, for setting up this thread - and you plus David and Red for your comments. I myself chose which stories to appear back in 2002 and to put them in alphabetical order! (I would have chosen quite a different selection from here if asked to do it today, I'm sure!). As to Red's comment, I agree, but I did ensure that there was at least one glitch in the order to make it only 99% alphabetical! And the turquoise cover that Amazon wrongly shows for the paperback is in fact the hardback cover! Glad I stopped you planning murder, Rog. Hope things pan out for you. Things do go up and own when one's very nearly 60 (as I am), and thanks for your thoughts. PS: The person behind Red commented on my stories during much of the eighties and nineties in regular handwritten letters. The stories probably wouldn't have existed without his support. But I don't absolve myself of the blame for them, though! :-)
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Post by redbrain on Dec 9, 2007 19:22:56 GMT
PS: The person behind Red commented on my stories during much of the eighties and nineties in regular handwritten letters. The stories probably wouldn't have existed without his support. But I don't absolve myself of the blame for them, though! :-) And I don't take the blame (or as it may be credit).
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Post by Calenture on Dec 9, 2007 19:33:04 GMT
I've noted your comments on your online fiction and will be exploring the Wheel for pieces that look right for FC. Exactly what might be "right for FC" is an unknown quantity, as writings by Vault members and non-members is beginning to stretch the boundaries in quite exciting ways. I've seen the DTP files Steve has been working on and some of the writing entered has not been seen here or at the old workshop. I keep deleting personal asides as I write this because this post is all over the place... But I've just taken a look at MySpace and the creative anarchy there at the moment, with usernames changing rapidly, different media being used and no one quite sure who they're communicating with or why is brilliant! Now I'd better get on with some work, I suppose. *grumble*
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Post by weirdmonger on Dec 10, 2007 12:30:43 GMT
I've noted your comments on your online fiction and will be exploring the Wheel for pieces that look right for FC. Thanks, Rog. That's kind of you to look. I think that's what the editor of 'The Black Book of Horror' did when choosing two of my stories for it from the Wheel. His acceptances came out of the blue to me! Not many people have seen the back covers of the Weirdmonger Book: Paperback: Hardback: Reviews of this book listed here: members.fortunecity.com/elizabethbowen/including the order in which I suggest the stories should be read!!!!! des ==================
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Post by Calenture on Apr 27, 2008 16:47:47 GMT
I've been doing a lot of reading just lately, returning to a habit of years ago of reading novels at night and short stories with lunch. How did such a habit ever get broken? The Dead: “Giles stared at Marie. He had helped her expendable flesh into a brassiere earlier. He rather fancied skeleton girls, though. With feet that knuckled along rather than pounded. And puppet-strings so tenuous they made them appear wireless. Hand puppets tended to have too big holes.” Dear Mum: The astronaut, lost in space, spends his last days writing a message to his mother – now probably dead herself – but science is wonderful, so she might still be able to read it. There are enemies out there in the black depths, and he thinks he has seen the silvery flickering of a tail. It’s time to jettison Holmbee’s body, but what will those space dwellers do with it? Digory Smalls: “My father told me on the eve of my wedding: how the ordinary attic led up to other interlocking attics, yet I never explored until....” The house is like an English House of Usher (assuming of course that this is England in the story); it’s located at the edge of the eastern marshes, and its foundations are sinking into the mud. The child rejoicing in the name of Digory Smalls seems to be a relative of Henry Kuttner’s mutant hillbilly family, an excitable and cheerful infant with paddles instead of limbs. When the narrator decides to explore the upper reaches of the attic, he takes along Digory for company. And who knows what strange family members might be found up there. So begins an exploration which, at six pages, is a Lewisian epic and tour de force. Three good ones, and Digory's great.
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Post by weirdmonger on Apr 28, 2008 7:56:07 GMT
Thanks, Rog! Glad you're still enjoying it. Can I please quote your latest comments to the 'Weirdmonger' thread on TLO that you started?
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Post by Calenture on Apr 28, 2008 9:47:06 GMT
Now that I'm reminded, I've just posted it there, Des. I have a lot of reading to catch up with this year. I've actually read a fair bit more of Weirdmonger - and of previous Nemonymous volumes - and of other writings by Vault members, than I've posted on, so that all needs to be caught up with, too. This time for Weirdmonger, I decided to forget all advice on the more accessible or difficult stories, and just opened the book at random. That worked.
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Post by weirdmonger on Apr 28, 2008 10:54:59 GMT
This time for Weirdmonger, I decided to forget all advice on the more accessible or difficult stories, and just opened the book at random. That worked. Thanks for TLO. Also, your other bit sort of justifies me in my belief in 'The Intentional Fallacy'. des
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Post by weirdmonger on May 27, 2008 8:13:09 GMT
'The Workshop of Filthy Creations' - encountered by me (for the first conscious time) on the Vault website. I've not known this expression before nor known, until the last few weeks, that it is a quote from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It now makes me think of the context of the 'Weirdmonger' book. I find myself able to do this with a certain objectivity granted both by the passing of time and by my 'crazy' belief in Nemonymity (a mutant form of the high-faluting Aesthetic theory of the Intentional Fallacy)!
The book is ragbag of some of my mildly 'filthier' pieces as well as pieces I now actively detest (as well as some that remain good ones in my eyes!). It is almost as if it compiled itself. It has become a sort of Frankenstein monster. I never saw myself as Weirdmonger. This was surely a word for a fiction character. But I find myself being subsumed by it. It is a Horror film being played out on the internet, with a motley (often disinterested, sometimes engaged) audience *very sparsely* scattered in the cinema stalls.
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Post by carolinec on May 27, 2008 10:48:19 GMT
... as well as pieces I now actively detest (as well as some that remain good ones in my eyes!). It's all subjective though, isn't it? I'm sure there'll be some stories which you now class as poor ones which some people absolutely love, and some which you like which don't really do much for some readers. I'd love to know which are the ones you now detest (though I'm not going to press you to tell us!). I think I must be one of your motley audience, Des! ;D (I've just noticed - you've changed your name again!)
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Post by Calenture on May 27, 2008 11:05:29 GMT
The book is ragbag of some of my mildly 'filthier' pieces as well as pieces I now actively detest (as well as some that remain good ones in my eyes!). I started reading Dognahnyi from this collection recently. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading it while I was having lunch... Slightly deterred, I decided to try something quieter, more subtly written. So I picked up Eat Them Alive instead.
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