Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.
This is from Chesterton, again. He also says:
The greatest of poems is an inventory.
I just want to pause on that quote before continuing.
Using Robinson Crusoe for the purposes of analogy, he goes on to write:
Every kitchen tool becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the sea.
Sometimes I have this feeling very strongly about things. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to pick up for myself a copy of Dr. Black and the Guerrillia by Brendan Connell. Chomu Press have been donated copies of the book for purposes that will become clear at FantasyCon this year. Anyway, I was in the Chomu Press office, and in a little cardboard box were a number of the books, one of which was destined for me.
I was noticing the poetry of things a great deal yesterday. Offices, for instance, of the right kind, are really very poetic places. There's something inexpressibly autumnal about knocking off work at the end of a day, at the time when others are doing so, too, and walking through the streets to see the flower seller shutting up her stall, and so on.
On the train back, despite all the other reading I have to do at present, I could not help dipping into my new acquisition. It's a wonderful, hardback book from Grafitisk, with a yellow dustjacket, and illustrations throughout by John Connell.
I noticed this:
Circulation: 300 copies
Of course, it would be wonderful if BC's work were more widely available (some of it is), but in the particular mood I was in this seemed to me very much the kind of poetry that Chesterton was talking about. 300 copies saved from oblivion.
And when I am beginning to despair about the world of writing, publishing and so on, a book like this falls into my hands to restore my faith. It is like finding one's way to an island haven to be able to read something like this. We have escaped a shipwreck, again, for a while.
I have only read the first three chapters so far, but that is enough to confirm me in my view that Brendan Connell is a remarkable writer, one of the few living writers I know of who really understands style. Within the first paragraph, I was entirely present in the story. Unfortunately, I don't think I have time or energy now to go into details, but the economy and originality of BC's writing make it stand out for me, quite significantly. I'll give one small example before I go:
… he heard the sucking sound of an airplane, a jet in the distance…
I don't believe I've ever heard the sound of a plane described as a "sucking sound" but it works perfectly. It's one of those phrases that with inventive simplicity renews a familiar experience.
Well, that's all for now…
i guess you can demonstrate what you mean by “I was entirely present in the story.”, but you don’t have to. an example is here where you described getting off work at the usual time and moseyed past the flower shop closing up. i experienced exactly what i think you mean. i went there. and it was a poetic impression.isn’t it all about stimulating the reader’s imagination?300 copies is a lot in my mind.
I have heard that most books published don’t sell over 100 copies, so in that sense 300 is a lot. On the other hand, if you read a lot about writer’s lives and literary history, they will often mention 500 as a ‘small print run’. Sorry my posts are a bit skimpy recently. I’ve just been working morning till night, seven days a week, and things like my blog I pretty much do on tea-breaks. My brain is pretty exhausted these days.The opening of Dr Black and the Guerrillia has Dr. Black arriving in San Corrados, which I’m assuming is somewhere in Central America. He’s in a train, passing over high bridges, etc. I’ve never been to Central or South America, but the whole thing came across to me vividly as if it were my own experience within two sentences.It’s funny how words can do this sometimes. Other times they don’t, of course, and it really seems an art, rather than a science, as to how this happens: some writers can do it, and others can’t.
I really enjoyed reading this post and the comment right above.
Thank you.