B-Movie: Serial of Seven Stars by Andrew Duncan, published recently, is a booklet text sequence inspired by Bram Stoker’s novel of Egyptian magic, The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), or more exactly by a B-movie version of it. The poet explains: 'B- Movie: Serial of Seven Stars is an attempt to recapture the feverish and irrational mythology of the B-movie, initially based on the classic Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb . . .’
In the narrative, he goes on, ‘a cast of methodologically suspect occult scholars pursue seven figurines, the polychrome minstrels, said to contain matter which had leaked through from another universe, detected by subtle and eerie distortions of geology and building fabrics. This quest re-enacts the Storage Wars series, in which junk dealers bid on sealed, abandoned storage lockers.’
Some section titles of the sequence will give a flavour of its themes: ‘Lud’s Gateway’; ‘Pharaoah, Your kindgom will be shook down’; ‘Demon Beast Invasion’; ‘Shape Memory Terror’; ‘Act for the Dissolution of Monsters’.
I greatly enjoyed this rich, allusive and strange text, which has affinities to the literary form and style of T.S. Eliot, David Jones and Iain Sinclair, uniting high modernism with demotic and pulp elements, as well as to the occult thrillers of Charles Williams, Mary Butts and others. It is the sort of work where the cavalcade of images offers new resonances on each reading, and the approach is both stimulating and adventurous.
When I last looked, I couldn’t see the title listed at the website of the publisher, Equipage, but orders for similar booklets are typically £4.50 post free in the UK, and are to be sent to menghamr (at) gmail.com or c/o Rod Mengham, Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL, U.K. Payment is by cheque made payable to Rod Mengham. It would probably be best to ask about any overseas orders.
(Mark Valentine)
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