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Post by humgoo on Oct 29, 2020 17:43:54 GMT
Robert Irwin – Satan Wants Me (Dedalus, 2019 [1999]) "The Master has commanded me to keep a diary. It's part of my apprenticeship in the way of the sorcerer. Yesterday evening I was accepted as a probationer for Adepthood and the Master inscribed a cabalistic-looking sigil on my diary-writing hand. Today I went and scored this notebook in W.H. Smith's in High Holborn. […] Then went over to the LSE, but still a sit-in, so library closed. […] Saw from the news-stand Brian Jones was busted. The other Stones are being tried at Chichester." So goes Peter's first diary entry, dated May 12, 1967, written after him joining the Black Book Lodge (motto: "Love is the Law, Love under the Will"). Peter, studying for a Ph.D. in sociology, has a secret fear of aging. Joining an occult group may help, and there's so many of them to choose from: "I have plenty of other things to try – like the Process, or Divine Light, or Ouspenskyism, or that witches' coven in Islington, or Scientology, or Esalen. I'm easy – except that, if I am going to stick with the Black Book Lodge, I would definitely like to see some demons. I have noticed that lots of young men go into occult groups in the hope of meeting and pulling birds, but with me it's demons I am hoping to encounter." His girlfriend Sally (who makes Peter promise her that "if I die before you, you will screw me when I'm dead") is cute, and his mate Mr Cosmic, who wants to set up a "League of Men with Small Penises" due to his own condition and has also joined the Lodge, is always in the know ("The Grey Ones, dummy. They killed McCartney, just like they arranged Buddy Holly's plane crash"). It's great fun when the three are together, chatting while chewing over qat and other stuff ("the general rule of thumb is that legal highs are always downers").
Anyway, the Black Book Lodge is grooming Peter for something. Peter's occult mentor Dr. Felton, who is a snob ("If you want a Black Mass, you must turn to the pages of Dennis Wheatley's novels, for I suspect that the Black Mass has only ever existed in the pages of pulp fiction") and used to be a disciple of Crowley, gives Peter 100 quid every week, just in exchange for Peter handing him his diary for inspection (mostly just for picking holes in the grammar). He also gives Peter "occult kissing" lessons, but that's not part of the bargain. [TBC]
Other pop culture references in the first 72 pages: Middle Earth (club), Gandalf's Garden, Elvira Madigan, The Devil Rides out ("which was playing at the Electric in Portobello Road"), and so bloody many songs ...
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 29, 2020 18:51:15 GMT
It turns out that is indeed the Robert Irwin, the ARABIAN NIGHTS expert.
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Post by humgoo on Nov 25, 2020 15:37:40 GMT
Thanks for this interesting quote, Cheong! The novel sounds like a lot of fun. I think you'd enjoy the book more than I did, as you'd get the music references. Pop songs are a real cultural barrier. There was a time when I listened to The Doors and The Velvet Underground a lot (when I was trying to "learn" English music), but those songs are not really an essential part of my background knowledge. As said above, there's so bloody many songs in the novel, and a dedicated reader can produce a soundtrack for the book. I suspect it's the author speaking when Peter writes in his diary,
Anyway, the novel takes a new turn in the final third (the whole book is 320 pages), and becomes totally psychedelic. Peter and Sally flee London, not just on foot but also "on speed" (as in methedrine). There's hallucination after hallucination. The only sane thing that happens in the final third of the novel is that, facing the Dark Forces, Peter writes to Dennis Wheatley (because who else? It's not for nothing that, in Devil Worship in Britain, Wheatley is deemed a "serious authority" on witchcraft) asking for help. Wheatley, being a great guy, naturally writes back, and even has the grace not to tell on Peter,
Other pop culture references: Hell's Angels, who "Sally thought were just like the Nazguls in The Lord of the Rings", a black leather cat-suit, "just like the one Diana Rigg wears in The Avengers" etc etc ... |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 25, 2020 17:59:38 GMT
I just picked this one up in the popular "ebook" format! It claims to be 100 pages long, but surely that cannot be right?
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Post by andydecker on Nov 25, 2020 18:02:42 GMT
Other pop culture references: Hell's Angels, who "Sally thought were just like the Nazguls in The Lord of the Rings", a black leather cat-suit, "just like the one Diana Rigg wears in The Avengers" etc etc ... As if old Dennis was on Facebook. Self advertising is good. (Shudder). |
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