I've just allowed anonymous comments on this blog once more. I've never been quite happy with disallowing them, even though I find myself more troubled by trolls than I should be. However, I thought I would re-allow anonymous comments specifically in order to ask a question that, if it is to be answered honestly, some people may wish to answer anonymously.
Should Rule Dementia!, my third collection of short fiction, ever be re-printed? This is a question I am genuinely struggling with myself, and I am interested in the candid thoughts of any who have actually read it (I can't say I'm especially interested in the 'thoughts' of those who take this an an opportunity to be abusive without having read the book).
It seems unlikely that in 2012 any major new work from me will be released (as in, there might be stuff in anthologies, etc., but no standalone work). On the one hand I feel impatient to get back in print, but on the other, I feel I have always been too impatient in the past, and I'm not convinced of the quality of any of my previous work. I don't want to reprint anything just for the sake of it. It has to be good enough. But I do allow for the possibility that I'm not the best judge of my work – or else I would not be asking this question at all.
I'm still, supposedly, working on the revision of The Hideous Child, which I'm guessing will be the next major thing from me to be published, if it ever is. But it's slow and gruelling. I'm being more exacting and less forgiving with this revision than I ever have been before, and I don't think it will be finished this year, especially as I am so busy with other projects (and so the end of the world might mean THC never sees the light of day).
Beyond that I have 'entertained' – if that is the appropriate word – doubts about my writing vocation as a whole, and as to whether I should continue with it. The doubts are not new, but the ever-turning wheel seems to have sunk lower (become wider in diameter?) than ever before. This is my own doubt to answer or not, of course. I'm not an authority on or of anything, and my writing has only ever had value – if any – in an imaginative sense. Curiously, I find that we're living in times where people seem less and less able to grasp that imagining something, rather than knowing something, might have value, and for one thing, I have been infected with their dull doubts. For another thing… well, there are too many other things. I suspect I shall continue for as long as possible, feeling simultaneously impelled, and yet as if I have to drag my feet in leaden boots every unrewarded step of the way. My destination? In this world, I rather fear there is only darkness ahead, a Dark Age unlit by letters…
I haven’t read Rule Dementia! so I don’t have any opinions about it. I do hope you decide to reprint it, though; I would certainly buy a copy. Is a reprint of Morbid Tales still forthcoming from Tartarus? I can’t tell from their website, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place.Whether the future will be a Dark Age unlit by letters I don’t know. I don’t think I have a good grasp of even the present, much less what is likely to happen in the future. I draw the circle more narrowly because I can’t really do otherwise. I just try to focus on what I’m most interested in, and let the rest go. I don’t intend for my future, however long it may be, to be unlit by letters, no matter what happens in the wider world. (And, of course, if something becomes rare, that doesn’t necessarily make it less valuable.) I may end up as an old man living in the past; if that happens, so be it. Hell, I may already be an old man living in the past. All of which is to say that, in the absence of other opportunities, I like the idea of being a stubborn, preoccupied old monomaniac so much that it gets me out of bed every day and gives me things to do, in solitude. I like it better than adapting, anyway, not that adapting was ever in the cards for me.Now tell me that isn’t the most inspiring thing you’ve ever read!
That quite possibly is the most inspiring thing I have ever read. I certainly can’t recall anything more inspiring at present.Incidentally, Campari have just released (as far as I can make out) a calendar for the last year of human civilisation, in which Milla Jovovich personifies various apocalyptic scenarios, such as flood, comet, the fundamental atomic disintegration of matter, etc:http://www.campari.com/int/en/calendar/2012/Regarding the Morbid Tales question, as far as I know, the final proofs have been sent to the printer, so there should be an announcement on the Tartarus website some time soon.There were one or two typos in the original that I was hoping to correct personally, but the proofs didn’t come to me this time. I believe that the text was proofread afresh, however, so hopefully those things have now been rectified. They include an instance of the word ‘interred’ misspelt as ‘interned’, inconsistent spelling of the name ‘Steven’ and the naming of Persephone in an allusion to the myth of Orpheus in the Underworld, when I should have written ‘Eurydice’.I haven’t actually read any of Morbid Tales for a very long time, and I hardly dare to. I hope that it’s okay. Presumably the faith that Tartarus have put in it counts for something.Anyway, one point towards the reprinting of Rule Dementia! – I’ll make a note.
Quentin, I am an enormous fan of everything I’ve read of yours: One-Ball, Angels Beware collection and Tzimzum(?) story.I haven’t read the collection in question. I find it highly unlikely that I shall not love it. I demand you get it published somewhere. :)des
Anonymous writes:Oh, if you’re republishing, my red penned corrections throughout might be useful!
Robin Davies writes:The more of your work that is in print the better, and Rule Dementia is a fine collection. I’ve read Morbid Tales, Rule Dementia! and All Gods Angels, Beware! twice and they all repay re-reading. I’m sure those who’ve read your other collections but missed out on this one will enjoy it.”Doubts” about your writing vocation? Of course if you get no satisfaction from it then your readers can’t really ask you to continue. But viewed logically (er, I’ve just been re-viewing some old Star Trek episodes…) you clearly have a rare talent so it makes sense to use it.
Anonymous writes:Likewise. This work MUST be republished! The world is worse off without it being available.
Hmm. Well, I know who one of the anonymouses (anonymice?) is, but not the other. Originally posted by Nemonymous:Quentin, I am an enormous fan of everything I’ve read of yours: One-Ball, Angels Beware collection and Tzimzum(?) story.I haven’t read the collection in question. I find it highly unlikely that I shall not love it. I demand you get it published somewhere.Thanks, Des. ‘Tzimtzum’. I think.Incidentally, it’s been suggested to me that that story could be used as a replacement of one of the weaker stories in Rule Dementia!.Originally posted by anonymous:Oh, if you’re republishing, my red penned corrections throughout might be useful!If it comes to it, I’ll probably take you up on that.Originally posted by anonymous:Robin Davies writes:The more of your work that is in print the better, and Rule Dementia is a fine collection. I’ve read Morbid Tales, Rule Dementia! and All Gods Angels, Beware! twice and they all repay re-reading. I’m sure those who’ve read your other collections but missed out on this one will enjoy it.Thanks. My current thinking is that, if it’s reprinted, I’ll actually want to replace ‘The Waiting’ with something else (previously unpublished). There’s a section in it that’s too similar to a section in ‘Unimaginable Joys’, and I think the latter is the better of the two stories. Also, ‘The Waiting’ was basically a Lovecraft tribute, and I’m sceptical of the value of such works.Originally posted by anonymous:”Doubts” about your writing vocation? Of course if you get no satisfaction from it then your readers can’t really ask you to continue. But viewed logically (er, I’ve just been re-viewing some old Star Trek episodes…) you clearly have a rare talent so it makes sense to use it. If what Alan Moore says in this interview is true then I’m doing better than Cherie Blair in terms of readership (just), though naturally not in terms of cash:http://www.honestpublishing.com/news/honest-alan-moore-interview-part-1-publishing-and-kindle/I have not found anything else in life (and I have to assume I’m past halfway) that means to me what writing does. For whatever reason, I have known myself to be a writer from an early age (at least as far back as secondary school, if not farther). So, I also think it would be a waste if I don’t pursue it. I think my basic (insoluble?) problem must come down to this: I have found that I’m not one of these writers who can hold down a full time job and also write. In this interview:http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1962/the-art-of-fiction-no-132-mark-helprinMark Helprin says:I have always had another profession. Only of late, in the last hundred years or so, has the world economy become rich enough to support a specialized caste of writers. Most writers have always had other things to do and done them well. I noticed a long time ago that writers who did nothing but write were generally a sorry lot of self-pitying neurotics, and that by contrast, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Chekhov, Yeats, although they may have had their troubles, usually had another iron in the fire. I believe it was Flaubert who said something like “live like a bourgeois, so you can write like a wild man.” I see the opposite of that these days, and also that passion is reserved for politics and reason for literature, when it should be the reverse.The statement about specialist writers being “a sorry lot of self-pitying neurotics” has some justice… if I take myself as the reference point at least. I’m not convinced that writing has only recently been a profession that people could expect to live by, though. There are at least two things to consider against this assertion, one is that bygone societies did, apparently, support the existence of specialised storytellers or scribes in one way or another if you go back far enough, and the other is that when you come forward again, the kind of writers he’s talking about were generally independently wealthy, anyway, so they could afford to write without being sorry, self-pitying neurotics. …Even Lovecraft had a meagre inheritance.I didn’t intend to make such a meal of that. There are actually other factors in the ‘doubt’, but perhaps I shouldn’t go into them.Originally posted by anonymous:Likewise. This work MUST be republished! The world is worse off without it being available. I’m taking the comments by anonymous posters, positive or negative, especially seriously. I hope that’s the right thing to do.
Josep S. writes:I’m one of your readers in Spain, and a devoted follower of your blog. I would comment more often, but my chronic English prevents me from doing so. So far, I’ve only read two of your most easily available books: “One-Ball” and “Shrike”. I’m also awaiting to seeing the other ones reprinted as soon as possible. (I was about to commit the folly of paying 140 $ for “Morbid Tales”, but I managed to refrain myself…)I’m always on the watch for writers of “a rare talent”. Many years ago I “discovered” M. John Harrison. I must say you’ve been added to this list. I liked “One-Ball” enormously, and I was greatly impressed and moved by “Shrike”. (I even notice a certain parallelism in the themes of “Shrike” and the ones in “The Course of the Heart”.)Let me finish with a quote by the great Czech Surrealist filmmaker Jan Svankmajer:”Imagination is subversive, because it puts the possible against the real. That’s why you should always use your wildest imagination. Imagination is the biggest gift humanity has received. Imagination makes people human, not work. Imagination, imagination, imagination”.These are the words from a man who never, ever doubted of his talent. They could be the motto of a hypothetical society of artists devoted to the mutual moral support. (Creativity Watchers?)Please Mr Crisp: Keep wrting!!
Josep S. writes:I found this nice picture of the shrike or “pájaro verdugo”: executioner bird.http://dcvb.iecat.net/PopUpImage.asp?img=Imagefiles/b2fp632.gif
Hello Josep.Thank you.I know I have (or have had) readers in:Denmark, Mexico, France, Belgium, Austria… one or two other places. You are the first I have heard from in Spain. It’s always nice to learn of readers in new locations around the world.Thank you for the picture of the shrike. In fact, before the publication of the book, I came across an old Japanese painting of a shrike that I thought would have been perfect for the front cover. Sadly, I didn’t make a note of the artist’s name at the time, and was completely unable to track the painting down again when I tried. Well, that was some years ago. I’ve done a Google search again just now, and the painting in question (I believe it’s the same one) was ridiculously easy. Here it is:http://www.japanese-arts.net/painting/images/musashi-shrike.jpgBut I have some doubts, actually. Elsewhere, it’s stated this is a kingfisher. Perhaps the painting I saw years ago was this one:http://jyuluck-do.com/sp401103-japanese-old-painting.jpgOr perhaps it’s neither.Thank you, also, for putting me in the company of M. John Harrison. Originally posted by anonymous:Let me finish with a quote by the great Czech Surrealist filmmaker Jan Svankmajer:”Imagination is subversive, because it puts the possible against the real. That’s why you should always use your wildest imagination. Imagination is the biggest gift humanity has received. Imagination makes people human, not work. Imagination, imagination, imagination”.Strangely, the day I wrote this blog entry, I came across this quote from Einstein:http://thinkexist.com/quotation/imagination_is_more_important_than_knowledge-for/260230.htmlI can’t remember now where I came across it. In the comments section of some article on something or other, I think.Well, I’d better get back to work.
Josep S. writes:You’re welcome.I know for a fact that you have a lot of readers in Spain.Really beautiful, these two Japanese paintings. But I also like the final front cover of the book. This Einstein quote is very well-known. Sometimes it’s stimulating to see these coincidences between Science and the Arts.
Robin Davies writes:If you’re going to reprint Rule Dementia I think you should leave it unchanged (apart from correcting printing errors of course). Replacing one story with another will just annoy completist collectors and reduce the stock of stories for your next collection by one.Apocalypse Now is better than Apocalypse Now Redux!
Norwegian reader writes:Of course you should keep all of your work in print! Simple as that. As everyone else I have stories I like more than others, but what I like the least from your pen is far, far better than almost anything I read. With Ligotti, Kiernan, and Dowling, you are what making me take an interest in modern weird fiction.As for Morbid Tales it is simply one of the best short story collections ever published. No discussion.I’m being one of the apparently few that is so lucky to have Rule Dementia, but what has escaped me is The Nightmare Exhibition, which I haven’t found a single copy of online for the 5 years I’ve been searching for it. So, for me, a re-print of that would be even more welcome. Any chance? Please, please, please.
Along the same lines as Robin Davies’ Jan. 4 post . . . There were a few stories (can’t remember how many) that were dropped from All God’s Angels, Beware! and that were to have been published in a chapbook by E.O. Since the chapbook isn’t going to happen, perhaps putting “Tzimtzum” together with those stories would be enough for a new collection? Or perhaps nearly enough, with a few newer (or older) additions?
E.S. writes:Allo Quentin, We have not chatted in a time, but I am resplendent and you are gaining speed. Anyway, I look forward to _The Hideous Child_ whenever it does appear — I have long been enchanted by the title alone. In regard to _Rule Dementia!_: I think it an important transitional collection for you with a few stories that rank amongst your best (failing that, I really like them). Rather than replace any stories, you could produce a combined _The Nightmare Exhibition_/_Rule Dementia!_ volume that features revised, rather than replaced, stories. _The Nightmare Exhibition_ is the only title of yours that I do not have and have not read, but I have read three stories from it and thought them worth preserving. “Decay” and “The Psychopomps” are powerful and if I recall correctly you did engage in some revision of your early stories. I think that many collectors would welcome the appearance of those titles.
Anonymous writes:UK reader writes: Yes, I too would welcome a combined The Nightmare Exhibition/Rule Dementia! volume, or perhaps two volumes released separately with extra material. You should definitely leave the tables of contents as they are and only revise the stories for errors etc. Releasing the above-mentioned chapbook material would also be nice.
Originally posted by anonymous:I know for a fact that you have a lot of readers in Spain.I must visit some day – I’d like to, anyway.Originally posted by anonymous:If you’re going to reprint Rule Dementia I think you should leave it unchanged (apart from correcting printing errors of course). Replacing one story with another will just annoy completist collectors and reduce the stock of stories for your next collection by one.Apocalypse Now is better than Apocalypse Now Redux!This may be true. I’ll give this some thought.Originally posted by anonymous:As everyone else I have stories I like more than others, but what I like the least from your pen is far, far better than almost anything I read. With Ligotti, Kiernan, and Dowling, you are what making me take an interest in modern weird fiction.As for Morbid Tales it is simply one of the best short story collections ever published. Thank you. These quotes may come in handy in persuading one or two of my friends to read my work. Having said that, it’s nice to know that if I want to talk about my friends behind their backs, I can always put them, slightly disguised, in a story, confident they will never read it.Originally posted by anonymous:I’m being one of the apparently few that is so lucky to have Rule Dementia, but what has escaped me is The Nightmare Exhibition, which I haven’t found a single copy of online for the 5 years I’ve been searching for it. So, for me, a re-print of that would be even more welcome. Any chance?Ah… The Nightmare Exhibition is a collection about which I feel quite actively embarrassed, so the chances of a reprint are not high. If a publisher were proactively interested enough to counter my embarrassment, and if someone wrote a foreward saying that the work contained in the volume was… not especially representative, or something like that, I think I wouldn’t say no. But I would be quite happy to die without ever seeing a reprint of TNE. I don’t hate it, but I think I was published too early. I have been a very, very slow developer. Sorry. Please be reassured that you’re not missing much. Originally posted by gveranon:Along the same lines as Robin Davies’ Jan. 4 post . . . There were a few stories (can’t remember how many) that were dropped from All God’s Angels, Beware! and that were to have been published in a chapbook by E.O. Since the chapbook isn’t going to happen, perhaps putting “Tzimtzum” together with those stories would be enough for a new collection? Or perhaps nearly enough, with a few newer (or older) additions?This gives me a chance to outline the current publishing prospect for my work, or as much of it as I can divulge. I do have enough miscellaneous short fiction for another collection. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this online before or not, but I’ve actually been hawking around a collection that includes material from the aborted chapbook under the self-fulfilling-prophecy title of Defeated Dogs. The hawking started somewhat over a year ago, I think, and has not yet produced result.I know that I am now affiliated with Chomu, and that some people might say (and have said to me privately), “Why not just…?” (Hint hint, nudge nudge.) But it doesn’t work like that. And for me – though I do intend to prove my open-mindedness on this topic, experimentally, in some ways – ebooks are basically still anathema. I’ve got into this discussion before, and despite strong and almost universal opposition to my views, I still find that ebooks seem to me very much like the final proof that this world is governed by the forces of evil. But that’s a tangent…Chomu are (I can reveal) possibly interested in a reprint of RD (hence my question), and there is also the possibility of The Hideous Child coming out through Chomu, if ever that work is finished. But certainly for now, regarding my other work, I must look for publishers elsewhere.Originally posted by anonymous:Allo Quentin, We have not chatted in a time, but I am resplendent and you are gaining speed. Yes, and I hope so.Originally posted by anonymous:Rather than replace any stories, you could produce a combined _The Nightmare Exhibition_/_Rule Dementia!_ volume that features revised, rather than replaced, stories. _The Nightmare Exhibition_ is the only title of yours that I do not have and have not read, but I have read three stories from it and thought them worth preserving. “Decay” and “The Psychopomps” are powerful and if I recall correctly you did engage in some revision of your early stories. I think that many collectors would welcome the appearance of those titles.I’ve thought about a combined-work kind of title, but haven’t really come up with any combination that I’d be happy with, and, needless to say, any prospective publisher would also have to be happy with it. My reluctance to reprint any of TNE also figures here. Actually, I wish I had the flexibility of opportunity to play around with some of these ideas, but as yet there are many limiting factors other than artistic preference, which, of course, in an ideal world, would be the only limiting factor.Originally posted by anonymous:Yes, I too would welcome a combined The Nightmare Exhibition/Rule Dementia! volume, or perhaps two volumes released separately with extra material. You should definitely leave the tables of contents as they are and only revise the stories for errors etc. Releasing the above-mentioned chapbook material would also be nice.Hmmm. All these mentions of The Nightmare Exhibition would be quite persuasive, but I’m not sure I could even bear to re-read the stories now for the sake of proofreading and revision. Still, it is nice to know that there is even interest in that pulpy porcine runt of my… literary litter?Sorry.Maybe in a few years…
Corman writes:I haven’t read it, but I’d be eager to read your other stories. The only collection I’ve been able to find so far is “All God’s Angels, Beware!”
You’ve done well to get hold of a copy of AGAB. Naturally, I hope it was worth it.If there’s any news on the RD front, I’ll post it here first.
Corman writes:Thanks! AGAB was one the first thing I ordered from Ex Occidente, back when I had regular employment (and I’m still waiting on a book from them that was supposedly “shipped”…). I’m actually still working my way through it because I tend to read multiple short story collections at once.Did you see Charlie Brooker’s series Black Mirror? The second episode reminded me of Karakasa: A future where talent shows and iPad touchscreens are smashed against a human face forever.
I haven’t had a TV for a while, and my internet connection is not the best, so I haven’t seen Black Mirror, but it sounds good. Last night I was actually getting obsessed with an analogy of describing my feelings regarding e-books in terms of robot cats so that people who currently seem uncomprehending might understand me. I mention this because of the phrase “iPad touchscreens are smashed against a human face forver”.Anyway, my analogy goes like this (I’ll try and be brief). A cat lover (or perhaps even another kind of person), might understand my antipathy towards e-books by my saying that e-books are like robot cats. There’s nothing wrong with robot cats in theory. If you encountered a robot cat in isolation you might think nothing more than, “A robot cat – how interesting!” However, when robot cats become fashionable and you start to hear people exclaim with glee, “Soon there’ll be more robot cats than real cats! It’s a wonderful, brave new world!” you begin to suspect that people who like robot cats have some kind of incomprehensible, twisted agenda against real cats. So you speak in defense of real cats, but the robot cat lobby is like a smug tsunami: “Ha ha! How hopelessly old-fashioned and romantic! You still like real cats! Well, your kind will be wiped from the face of the Earth soon, along with those disgusting elitist animals that you love.” Etc.I really do get tired of this planet, frequently.
MadsPLP writes:I have read ‘Rule Dementia!’. I am a great admirer of your work in general (I haven’t read ‘The Nightmare Exhibition’ though, but have read everything else that has been published), and am extremely taken (and, sometimes, intensely moved) by it. However, I must admit that ‘Rule Dementia!’ never did much for me, and I consider it the weaker of your books. I spent a few years hunting for it, so I may have had too high expectations when I finally got a copy.While your undeniable talent shines through the stories, and while I found most of the stories to be a lot more interesting that a lot of what is else being published, the stories in it somehow gave me the impression of not having been edited enough. They seemed too long for their own good, and sometimes the edges could hve been sharpened significantly. It’s been some years since I read that collection, so I don’t know how it would work for me now. But back then, it didn’t. I’m glad I’ve read it though.On the other hand, I think a revised edition would be a nice thing now, and I think a reprint could be a good idea, given its scarcity and the (probably) ridiculous sum of money being asked, supposing anyone could find a copy.
Hello Mads.Thank you.My general feeling is that All God’s Angels, Beware! is my best collection so far. I don’t think any of them are without weaknesses, but, with the distance of time (which also means I haven’t re-read it for a while), I think that Rule Dementia! may indeed, as you say, be weaker.This is turning out to be a difficult question.In the meantime, some news:http://tartaruspress.com/morbidtales.htm
MadsPLP writes:The news regarding ‘Morbid Tales’ are very good news indeed. I believe I will buy the paperback in spite of owning the hardback already.I agree that ‘All God’s Angels, Beware!’ is your best collection so far. Followed by, ‘Morbid Tales’, which I also rate as a landmark collection. I rate both ‘Shrike’ and ‘One-Ball’ as well, ‘Shrike’ being one of the most emotionally resonating novellas I’ve ever read.It should be noted that ‘Rule Dementia!’ is a few years away in time for me as well.
Walter writes:Reprint! Reprint! Reprint! Reprint!Pleeeeeeease!
Originally posted by anonymous:he news regarding ‘Morbid Tales’ are very good news indeed. I believe I will buy the paperback in spite of owning the hardback already.I agree that ‘All God’s Angels, Beware!’ is your best collection so far. Followed by, ‘Morbid Tales’, which I also rate as a landmark collection. I rate both ‘Shrike’ and ‘One-Ball’ as well, ‘Shrike’ being one of the most emotionally resonating novellas I’ve ever read.It should be noted that ‘Rule Dementia!’ is a few years away in time for me as well.Thank you. Glad that you enjoyed Shrike. Originally posted by anonymous:Reprint! Reprint! Reprint! Reprint!Pleeeeeeease!Assuming we all live long enough, I think it will happen. I’ll do my best to make sure it’s not too far in the future.
Joseph Dawson writes:I first read your work – Cousin X and The Fairy Killer in the Strange Tales collections – perhaps two years gone now. Mr. Crisp, I am an avid reader. My walls are books and my han tends to fumble with the air when I am not clutching one. Outside of painting, reading is all I am really good for. To be frank, You are one of my favourite authors and when I am asked by others concerning my taste in literature, (and yours is just that, with a capital L) your name unfailingly comes up. Your work, in my humble and not all too learned opinion is so (insert praise filled adjectives here)that I was shocked to discover in my researches that you were actually still alive! I earnestly pray that whatever difficulties you have in your life as an author that they do not become so extreme as to weigh you down beneath any false estimation of your ability. I could go on but I won’t. It would be needless to do so and perhaps a little self indulgent. Thank you for putting pen to paper
Hello Joseph.Thank you for writing.Originally posted by anonymous:my han tends to fumble with the air when I am not clutching one. I suffer from a similar condition.Originally posted by anonymous:I was shocked to discover in my researches that you were actually still alive! To be fair, there is some question on this point. As per ‘Troubled Joe’, a ghost often finds it impossible – I believe – to pass on to the next world until his story is entirely told.I do think I am capable of much better work than that which has so far been published. In fact, I believe my unpublished novels Domesday Afternoon and Susuki, to be my best work so far, but it’s not easy to get the work out there, I’m afraid. I am doing my best, recently newly determined to try and publish the work of which I believe myself capable, but I am also quite aware that death or catastrophe may at any moment make this forever impossible. I should have some publishing news before too long, however. There are one or two ships discernible in the misty offing.
Joseph Dawson writes:It might surprise you, it certainly surprised me when I read it but it turns out that Michaelangelo of Sistine Chapel and Last Judgement fame felt inadequate about a great deal of his work. One of his late poems sees the master crying out, asking God to remove the stumbling block that was preventing the fullness of his potential. It strikes me that every creative person worth their salt sees imperfectly through their labours the terrifyingly brilliant vista of its nascent potential and so come to view their lifes work as a kind of striving after. It is perhaps why those who are hardest on themselves, who doubt often, work hardest and often prove in their labours to be more determined, commited and are consequently, viewed by others who know them (but perhaps not well enough) as overly competative. Do let me know when new work is in the offing ( thrilled to see you using the word in its original nautical context) My life would been a far poorer thing without the work you have done and are no doubt doing. I have only read thus far All Gods Angels Beware and the two pieces in the Strange Tales Collection and really, wonderful. Snippits of the tales come back to me unbidden at the strangest momments. Regarding Troubled Joe, yes, we have tell out stories and they do need telling. Art for me has always been a dead end when the public is subtracted. A creative life is a life of service, something rendered with little enough gratitude but if done honestly or immeasurable worth. Regarding imagining and knowing. The very act of doing, which takes courage, brings what is imagined into the world of faded facts and known things. I suppose its something like the poet who authoring language offers it up to the librarian who keeping and cateloging it imagines their organisations (their formal system of knowing) to be the totality of things that can be known. (speculation makes allowances of course but they never go beyond that) but the poet sees further, the librarian – the territory marked out and the combinations that can be dreamed into and out of the great eddiface that the poet alone can expand. When I say poet, I suppose I’m thinking about an attitude rather than someone wraped up in tercets and quatrains – I’ll stop here. Sorry for the blather…Sometimes it just spills out and I forget to turn the faucet off – I was just thinking about what you had written at the top of this blog. DO let me know when you are publishing. I entertain no doubts about the inevitability of your work being so. Again, thank you for your books (and such lovely editions too!)Cheers
Originally posted by anonymous: Art for me has always been a dead end when the public is subtracted. A creative life is a life of service, something rendered with little enough gratitude but if done honestly or immeasurable worth. Regarding imagining and knowing. The very act of doing, which takes courage, brings what is imagined into the world of faded facts and known things. I suppose its something like the poet who authoring language offers it up to the librarian who keeping and cateloging it imagines their organisations (their formal system of knowing) to be the totality of things that can be known.I clicked the wrong button then – meant to answer this, too. What’s your medium, if I may ask?I think I have a particular horror of a world in which there is only knowledge – everything has been mapped and that’s all there is. There’s an aspect of this to the internet, where, these days, people half (or more than half) have the feeling that if something is not on the internet, then it doesn’t exist, or only as the most dubious of phantoms – but these dubious phantoms are actually our lives.
Originally posted by anonymous:It might surprise you, it certainly surprised me when I read it but it turns out that Michaelangelo of Sistine Chapel and Last Judgement fame felt inadequate about a great deal of his work. I believe that Edgar A Poe had the theory that the greater the artist, the more accurate their assessment of their own work must be (since the critical faculty is so essential to art). However, it seems there are problems with this theory.Originally posted by anonymous: Do let me know when new work is in the offing ( thrilled to see you using the word in its original nautical context) My life would been a far poorer thing without the work you have done and are no doubt doing. Thank you. For superstitious and other reasons, I don’t want to give away too much at present, but I have been ‘in talks’, as they say, with two non-Chomu publishers regarding two collections. No publication dates have yet been fixed.
Joseph Dawson writes:I have a friend who insists that if you talk about what you are doing or plan to do, the project will likely never see the light of day having, as it were, found all its accomplishment in the nebulous realm of the mind. So, cool. Happy to wait.Critical thinking keeps one under the lash certainly. Initially I might agree with him but I don’t think genius improves perspective( I think that’s what critical thinking attempts). Vision certainly but perhaps because there are too many people on the outside looking in, it can be understood how an author (and artist) might view themselves as the only ones capable of accurately determining the works quality. The farther one is from commonplace vision the more (apparantly) glaring ones determinations must seem to oneself. Hmmmmm…I hope I’m not being too obtuse or obvious…I think the contents of the on line world are not unlike the traces one sees when examining those tiny, might be there signs of some sub atomic particle. All evidence indicates a tangible thing but so long as we look to the evidence alone the reality remains outside any proper apprehension. Those phantoms are probably the only things that truely are. You’re right to feel as you do. It is frightening to be in the firing line of inherited opinion (whatever form it may take).Oh yes…Oil. I studied life drawing at the Angel Academy (Florence) many years ago before going on to study the materials and techniques of the masters at the ARA (Academy of Realist Art) in Toronto many years later. Nothing of what I am presently doing is on line but it will be soon enough. I did do, some time ago a small work suggested to me by your story Yns Y Plag. I twisted sort of tree in silhouette. It’s all very verdacio. I was tempted to tie the lure to its branches but chose not to as it seemed to literal when set next to the suggestive nature of the text.It’s always a difficult thing that…selecting and trimming down. A muddle is an easy thing, a simple line well placed – far more difficult.Oh, yes, I’m writing to your from Spain (should you care to know it) having lived most of my life in Ireland. It’s very hot over here. On that note: Pease send rain!My apologies if a letter is missing from a word here or there. My keyboard is not what it used to be.
I did it again – clicked the wrong button.Originally posted by anonymous: I did do, some time ago a small work suggested to me by your story Yns Y Plag. I twisted sort of tree in silhouette. It’s all very verdacio. I was tempted to tie the lure to its branches but chose not to as it seemed to literal when set next to the suggestive nature of the text.It’s always a difficult thing that…selecting and trimming down.I’d be interested to see that. I did actually, as it were, study the Welsh landscape quite closely for the writing of that story, took photographs, and used them for my descriptions. Originally posted by anonymous:Oh, yes, I’m writing to your from Spain (should you care to know it) having lived most of my life in Ireland.It sounds like you’ve been in many attractive corners of the world. I tend to end up in rather scraggy places for some reason. I have never been to Ireland, Spain, Italy or Canada, but they are all places I’d like to see some day.
Originally posted by anonymous:I have a friend who insists that if you talk about what you are doing or plan to do, the project will likely never see the light of day having, as it were, found all its accomplishment in the nebulous realm of the mind.Yes… I’ve heard of this idea. I think it’s not necessarily true, though. Sometimes talking can help – it depends. Perhaps this plays some part in my not wanting to talk about things in advance, but I think it’s mainly just that I never feel very sure that it’s actually going to happen anyway.Originally posted by anonymous:Oh yes…Oil. I studied life drawing at the Angel Academy (Florence) many years ago before going on to study the materials and techniques of the masters at the ARA (Academy of Realist Art) in Toronto many years later. Nothing of what I am presently doing is on line but it will be soon enough.Florence! I am envious. This sounds like it must have been an opportunity to steep yourself in culture.
Joseph Dawson writes:That’s me above…sorry.
Anonymous writes:My apologies for not responding any sooner. Life got in the way. Oh, I’ve lived here and there. The experience of living in a place is markedly different to visiting. Survival puts a damper on the most beautiful of vistas.I’m afraid that what I’ve painted will be a far cry from your photographs and the mood of it is some time past that beautiful period of gloaming. I’d be happy to take a picture of it for you. I was really after the mood, something verging on the sinister as if the terrible thing had just occured polluting the environment with its passing. Ah, I’ll send it along with my apologies. However, as I am a stranger I can’t expect you to just hand me over an e-mail address so I shall give you mine and if you care to, you can respond at which point, I’ll send along the image. (Has yet to be varnished)[email protected] – There you are.I’ll say this for Canada – BIG and when you see its forests you can see why people might think to keep their eyes closed and their windows bared at night. All that nature growing heedlessly without our permission or care. Stratford Ontario is beautiful and very much a “dancing with the daffodils, lake side poet kind of place.” The theatre is, given the cultural sludge we are forced to wade through, rejuvenating.Well, back to the studio. I keep the fan not two feet away for fear I might disolve. (into what? – who knows.)Oh, don’t knock the scraggy places. Some of them are my favourite places to be.