The Living Writers Society

Some time back, I announced my intention of occasionally recommending and introducing pieces of short fiction on this blog. About a month and a half after announcing that intention, I actually managed to put up the first in the series of my recommendations, which was for Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's 'Rashomon'. Now, about two and a half months later again, I've decided to put up the second in this – clearly very occasional – series. And perhaps it is appropriate that the second story in the series should be by a fan of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, a contemporary writer who produces work under the name of Justin Isis.

I'd like to say a few words about how I discovered Justin Isis. Actually, he discovered me, and perhaps, if he reads this, he'll tell me again how he did that. I do believe it was partly to do with an online interview with me. Anyway, he wrote to me, and at some point let slip that he also wrote. I believe that I took it upon myself to ask him to send me some samples of his work. He did not volunteer to send them. Complying readily with my suggestion, however, he sent a story called 'The Plot' and another one, the name of which now escapes me, but which involved someone confronted by the face of a girl with whom he is obsessed, swollen to gigantic proportions, which he thens finds it necessary to section up with a blade of some kind. That was an interesting read, as was 'The Plot'. I won't tell you the plot of 'The Plot' for reasons that I'll explain in a minute. In fact, I had to re-read the stories, because I was having trouble believing just how good they were.

There's a moral to this story. Not all talented people are famous. I do believe that an attitude exists towards artists that goes something like, "If you were any good, you'd be famous, but I've never heard of you, so I'm not going to waste my time on you." This is an attitude I abhor, though I do at least find that I've been infected by it to the extent that – as I said – I found it hard to believe how good these stories were, from someone who had just written to me out of the blue. Why wasn't he famous?

Well, these things take time, and often they never happen. But the art of the famous is not the only art that we can enjoy and which can enrich our lives. We can even MAKE OUR OWN ART and enrich our lives thereby. Or we can be a huge fan of the miniatures of Mrs. Sneckersley who lives next door, and so on.

I do hope, however, that Justin Isis will be famous before too long, because he is, without qualification such as known or unknown, living or dead, contemporary or classic, one of my favourite writers. Perhaps he can correct me if this is wrong, but I believe that 'The Plot' will be the first work of his to see print. It is to be included in the Postscripts journal, number #17, under the name of Justin Cartaginese. If you like your writers famous, then you might be in luck here. You might even be able to say, "I read the work of Justin Isis before he was famous."

The story I would like to recommend here, and to which I would like to post a link, is 'I Attain to the Level of Fucking Your Basic Hairdresser, Etc.'. I first read this under the title of 'In the Realm of a Dying Sun'. It is a brief tale, with the impressive simplicity of fable. It also has the trick of being both inspiring and elegiac, in a Mishima kind of way, a lament for a beautiful state of pre-existence. I won't say more about it, as I would like you to discover it for yourself.

Just as I was surprised by the quality of Justin's stories when I first read them, I was surprised that he had put this one up on Chomu for anyone to read. Some time back, Justin suggested some titles of stories for me to write, one of which was something like, "Living? Our Servants Will Do That For Us, Etc.". I wrote a story under that title, but immediately decided it was one of the best things I'd ever written, changed the title to 'Italiannetto', and decided not to put it up on Chomu for free. This is something of a writer's dilemma, and a dilemma for Chomu. I no longer want to give work away if I can help it. I want to be paid, because I've worked at this harder than you realise. At the same time, I want to be – and I am – proud of Chomu. I suppose I have solved the dilemma for myself by putting up work on Chomu that I believe to be good, but which I know damned well is extremely uncommercial (even more so than my usual stuff). I was almost saddened, for Justin's sake, that he has put such a strong, accessible story on Chomu. Since it is there, I urge you to read it. Thank you.