Ô mon amour - Georges Schehadé

Ô mon amour...

Ô mon amour il n’est rien que nous aimons
Qui ne fuie comme l’ombre
Comme ces terres lointaines où l’on perd son nom
Il n’est rien qui nous retienne
Comme cette pente de cyprès où sommeillent
Des enfants de fer bleus et morts.

Oh my love...

Oh my love there is nothing we love
That does not flee like a shadow
Like those distant lands where we lose our name
There is nothing we retain
Like this slope of cypress where slumber
The children of iron blue and dead.

Georges Schehadé
(Born Alexandria 1905; lived in Beirut; died Paris 1989)

Wraiths and What Became of Dr Ludovicus

Zagava have announced a second edition of my book Wraiths and What Became of Dr Ludovicus. Some copies of the first edition were lost, so that (rather too appropriately) the book has become almost a phantom itself. I am delighted to see it become available again in a newly designed, slightly revised edition.

The design of the book includes exotic illustrations by Ronald Balfour, in the mode of Aubrey Beardsley. This new edition is limited to 50 hand-numbered paperback copies only, in a dustjacket made from hand-made Italian paper, produced with 100% cotton, handmade laid and watermarked. Advance orders are now available, for shipping in about 2 weeks.

Wraiths

The quintessential creation of the fin-de-siècle was a slim volume of decadent verse. The attraction of the Eighteen Nineties to many aesthetes and bibliophiles is the appearance of a few exquisitely-produced books of poems in severely limited editions of a few hundred or less. But what of those whose work was even more elusive and ethereal – the poets whose verses have not survived at all? This essay evokes the memory of five strange and tragic Eighteen Nineties figures whose work seems utterly lost, the poets of volumes so slim as not to exist at all.

What Became of Dr Ludovicus

Continuing the theme of lost works, this essay discusses a macabre thriller written by Nineties poet Ernest Dowson in collaboration with an Oxford friend, Arthur Moore. It was completed, but never published, and the whereabouts of any manuscript are now unknown. This study reconstructs the theme and plot of The Passion of Dr Ludovicus, drawing upon the ebullient letters between the two authors. The lost shocker emerges as a rival to Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the essay is the first discussion of this tantalising mystery.

Kings and Basilisks

Wormwood 25 carries our authoritative review columns devoted to contemporary publications. In ‘Under Review’, Reggie Oliver considers new editions of Irish fantasist Mervyn Wall’s Fursey books (Swan River Press):

“The Fursey books are essentially freewheeling fantasy with satirical undertones. While ill, Wall had been given to read a book about medieval superstitions and demonology. He found it very diverting, and the two Fursey books are the product of that fascination. They are set in our Anglo-Saxon period when Ireland, like Britain, was divided into petty warring kingdoms, but they do not strive for accuracy in any sense. What Wall does with great success is create a world populated by monks and demons, witches and warlocks, kings and basilisks. It is a world in which, as one of the characters says, 'anything may happen to anyone anywhere and at any time and…usually does.'"

He also reviews Raven by Robert Scoble (Strange Attractor Press), a new biography of Baron Corvo from the perspective of his associates, and asks to what extent Corvo was a decadent writer.

John Howard’s Camera Obscura column, covering recent small press publications, offers notices of, variously, “a major event in Lovecraft studies”, “a book-length rap”, “an unsettling short story”, “a black comedy of manners” and “an intense portrayal of an entire nation”. To find out more, head for Wormwood 25.

A Devil's Cauldron

Which Edwardian work was described by the Sunday Times as “a veritable tour de force, a devil’s cauldron of the imagination, a piece of writing which threatens to out-Poe Poe”?

It was not a book by Arthur Machen, M P Shiel or William Hope Hodgson, the most obvious heirs to Poe at the time. Nor was it one of the wilder fantasies of the period, such as Guy Thorne’s When It Was Dark or R H Benson’s Lord of the World.

In Wormwood 25, author and antiquarian bookseller Robert Eldridge reveals the book was considered alternatively as a clinical account of an episode of madness, an account of astral travel, or a weird novel of the occult:

“Most people yearn at times to be caught up in a grand passion. Whether its framework is a love affair, a political or religious cause, the creation of a family or a work of art, its force is something that will take us out of ourselves and make us feel part of something bigger. Whatever it is, that something has common traits: a compelling narrative, vivid atmosphere and characters, a sense of importance -- and a heroic role for ourselves. These are the qualities that make life seem romantic at times. For five weeks [the author] lived like a character in such a book -- a terribly exciting book whose author happened to be a maniac. When she emerged from that madhouse her literary skill enabled her to turn the nightmare inside out and change a twisted accident into a cornucopia of artistic thrills.”

But, he argues, the book also has a wider significance. It should really be seen as a product of Romanticism, in the tradition of Coleridge and De Quincey:

“ it does seem that one can hear in the book the echoes of a larger agony -- an ocean in a seashell perhaps, but a convincing one nonetheless. In the author’s voice we can hear one of the central themes of Romanticism, namely the dangerous power of the human mind when it is disconnected from any restraining forces. It takes this theme to one of its logical extremes: the elimination of all competing realities other than one’s own perception.

You can read the full story of the book and its author, and its literary context, for the first time, in Wormwood 25. To enquire about Robert Eldridge's excellent catalogues of antiquarian books in the field of the fantastic, write to: rfx51[at]charter[dot]net.

A Shaman in Paris

Alexei Remizov was a Russian writer in exile in Paris: but not only a writer, an artist, a craftsman, a storyteller, a fabulist, a shaman. His work has only been tantalisingly translated into English: enough to see that here is an original visionary.

In Wormwood 25, Avalon Brantley, author of Descended Suns Resuscitate and Aornos, celebrates this neglected figure with a fervent evocation of his life and work, starting with a recreation of his rooms:

“In his study one sees more than one small candlelit ikon, snake skins and bits of bone, a shred of rope strung with strange little amulets and charms, unsettling arrangements of twine and twigs. Mysterious dolls—zoomorphic poppets composed of suede, cloth, even scrap metal—gaze from cluttery shelves or from corners near the ceiling. These latter are his ongons, representations of ‘spirit helpers’, after ancient Siberian tradition. Remizov once remarked to a friend that these are ‘toys which have a heart, and they breathe’”

She also suggests that though Remizov drew on ancient sources for his art and fiction he was also working as a modernist:

“Remizov’s tragedy is a Modernist’s. He worked alone, his own way, rather than as part of any wider literary movement, so that those literati with the cultural background to possibly appreciate the depths of his talent chose in large measure instead to ignore it, whilst the general reading public, lacking the intelligentsia’s resources for comprehending much of what the Modernist school was doing, quickly dismissed him as incomprehensible before seeking other, easier trends of literary diversion”

This is one of the first studies of Remizov in English and it is characterised by Avalon’s sympathetic understanding of what he was trying to do. It is sure to direct new attention to this remarkable figure.

More Than A Werewolf

The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore is often regarded as the definitive werewolf novel, the lupine equivalent of Dracula for the vampire. It was an instant best-seller in its time and has been popular ever since.

Yet how many readers could name another book by Endore, or know anything about his life? In Wormwood 25, Australian author Chris Mikul recounts Endore’s extraordinary career and examines his other writings:

“In person, Endore was a mass of contradictions. Slightly built and mild of manner, his demeanour was in such contrast to the violence of works like The Werewolf of Paris that his friend Alexander Woollcott, the famous critic for the New Yorker, dubbed him ‘the Weremouse’. He had been a vegetarian since his student days, was a keen practitioner of yoga, and always looked years younger than his age. Every morning he sprang out of bed and stood on his head for half an hour, and repeated the exercise later in the day. Although Jewish, he kept a Bible by his bed and often read from it, and had a lifelong interest in mysticism, especially Theosophy. Yet, while such enthusiasms sometimes made his fellow communists suspicious, he was a confirmed Stalinist for most of the years he was a member of the party.”

And Endore’s other fiction proves to be just as strange as his famous werewolf novel, lurid, brutal, fast-paced, yet also with genuinely thoughtful themes and original ideas, a bizarre hybrid of pulp prose and radical philosophy. It’s as if Freud and Marx had joined in a danse macabre with figures from the bestiary of the uncanny.

Chris Mikul’s essay reintroduces us to an author whose classic book has obscured his other work and the hectic story of his life and thought.

The Universal Witch

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay exerts a powerful effect on its readers. This extraordinary metaphysical fantasy is often seen as the peak of his visionary and literary achievement, even though it was his first book.

His other novels also have their admirers but it has been difficult for them to be read outside of the context of that volcanic work. In some, Lindsay tried (not, thankfully, very successfully) to compromise with the commercial fiction of the day.

But in Wormwood 25 Doug Anderson explains that Lindsay’s last work, The Witch, ought to be regarded as another vast achievement. It has so far been published in an incomplete version. When the full text finally appears, it will be understood as a fitting conclusion to Lindsay’s work:

“the fact that nearly forty years later the full surviving text of The Witch remains unpublished is frustrating to Lindsay readers and scholars. For it is a unique and remarkable book, though it is at the same time flawed and unfinished. It is a masterpiece in conception and partially so in execution.”

The book contains some of Lindsay’s most abstruse but also beautiful prose as he strives to convey spiritual realities through the creaking medium of language, focused on the figure of Urda Noett, a witch whose work is with the universe.

Doug’s regular Late Reviews column in Wormwood is a treasury of information and commentary on some of the rarest, most obscure and strangest books in our field. It is infused by Doug’s shrewd and unflinching assessments; bad books are named as such, overlooked achievements are justly celebrated.

And in this issue he offers us a special edition looking at unpublished books by authors linked together in friendship and affinity – Lindsay, E.H. Visiak, and Colin Wilson.

The Nazi Doll Maker

The Sound of His Horn by ‘Sarban’ is a classic of the ‘if the Nazis had won’ theme. Its vision of a forest in which cat women and other human-animal hybrids are hunted for game by bland fascist gauleiters has rightly earned it a strong reputation. It is both a powerful work of the imagination and a profound study of evil.

But what about Sarban’s other major novel, The Doll Maker? Set in an English country house boarding school, where a young woman befriends an enigmatic neighbour who makes marionettes, it may seem a quieter achievement.

Not so, suggests Rebekah Memel Brown in her essay in Wormwood 25. This story is just as chilling a meditation on the Nazi mentality, she argues:

“…the novel marries a study of character with three key philosophic ideas summoned up by reflections on the life and death of Hitler’s Third Reich: the voluntary surrender of a person’s will to another person, the attempt to create an amoral artistic aesthetic, and the destructive effect such an aesthetic has on the creator.”

We should understand better what Sarban achieved:

“Within the context of a fairly straightforward supernatural novel, it examines broad philosophical issues of the nature of evil and of human ethics. It deserves to be much more widely known and widely read.”

To read in full this fresh insight into Sarban’s fiction, order Wormwood 25 today.

Want to know more about Sarban? Try the biography, Time, A Falconer.