Saturday, May 03, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature (7)

 

The Walter de la Mare Phenomenon

From the Hyper-Imaginative Literature facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

I read all Walter de la Mare’s stories in the last five years, and I consider him to be the potential acme of Hyper-Imaginative Literature. Read ABO as just one example. My reviews linked in alphabetical order: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2022/11/02/my-reviews-of-walter-de-la-mare-in-alphabetical-order/

But what was MORS etched on the gravestone that was lit up earlier? A foreshortened code or something cryptic that will nag at me now forever. If I ever solve it I will come back here and put the solution to you. (re BENIGHTED)

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Monday, April 21, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature (6)

 


Bowen and Aickman Phenomenon

From the Hyper-Imaginative Literature facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

Why did not ROBERT AICKMAN write stories about the English canals? Someone suggested that it was his day job, so he wanted to avoid it in his creative work.
If anyone is interested in an Aickmanesque story that features these canals, then they should read ELIZABETH BOWEN’s ‘Human Habitation’.
And I have found that many of Bowen’s stories are in significant synergy with Aickman’s. Incredibly so! I am convinced the influence, if any, was mutual, although by dint of age he was probably first influenced by her work, not vice versa. Another strong influence on him, to my mind, was Thomas Mann.
The recent R.B. Russell Biography of Aickman briefly makes it clear that Aickman and Bowen met in person at least once.
A list of Bowen’s most Aickmanesque stories (and for me most of her stories are Aickmanesque at least to some extent) are Mrs Moysey, Human Habitation, LOVE, The Inherited Clock, Mysterious KÔR, Her Table Spread, Green Holly and, even, perhaps Gone Away! I could extend that list almost indefinitely.
My reviews of Aickman: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/robert-aickman/
My reviews of Bowen: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/31260-2/

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Friday, April 04, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature 5

 

The Nicholas Royle Phenomenon

From the Hyper-Imaginative Literature facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

I feel that Nicholas Royle is possibly the single greatest living exponent of Hyper-Imaginative Literature (H-IL on the Upslope)! Just have a look at his CV by means of the links (here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/14748-2/ ) to my reviews of his own fiction as dislocatory doppels, to his editing of the Best British Short Stories paperback series plus other anthologies, to his publication of Nightjar Press fiction booklets, and to his quirky love of physical books in themselves as shown by, inter alia, his non-fiction.
And much else.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature 4

 

The David Mathew Phenomenon

From THE HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

When I first encountered the novel THE PARRY AND THE LUNGE by DAVID MATHEW, I knew this was it!
H-IL on the up-slope!
I later read his emerging fiction books thereafter: SICK DICE, DREADNOUGHT FLEX, PANIC SOUP, NOSTALGIA’S BOAT and ABANDONED DENTAL CLINICS. All my reviews of this fiction by Dr. David Mathew linked from here — https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/tag/david-mathew/
He also has academic books to his credit.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature 3

 

Hyper-Literature Group — The Eclectic Mainstream

From the HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/

I went through a period in 2021 when a stranger on Twitter (now X) recommended to me a small eclectic selection of books that I found revelatory in many quite different ways when reading them, and I conducted a gestalt real time review of each one. The essence, in hindsight, of what, for me, ‘hyper-imagination’ is all about when in perhaps a more popular mainstream way. The links to my review: 

THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY Charles Willeford: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/07/20/the-burnt-orange-heresy-charles-willeford/

TONY & SUSAN by Austin Wright: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/02/05/tony-susan-by-austin-wright/

DEATH’S DARK ABYSS by Massimo Carlotto: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/02/23/massimo-carlotto-deaths-dark-abyss/

THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X by Keigo Higashino: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/05/07/the-devotion-of-suspect-x-keigo-higashino/

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES by Eduardo Sacheri: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/03/27/the-secret-in-their-eyes-eduardo-sacheri/

THE MONSTER CALLS by Patrick Ness: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/05/29/a-monster-calls-patrick-ness/

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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Hyper-Imaginatice Literature Facebook Group 2

 

ELIZABETH BOWEN (1899-1973)


From the HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/

The photograph below is myself with my beloved grandmother in 1952.
My grandmother was born in 1899 as was Elizabeth Bowen — and she turned out in hindsight to look like her, too!
I think I was perhaps destined to love Elizabeth Bowen fiction, although my grandma was not at all ‘literary’! Bowen is the ultimate HYPER-IMAGINIST, I feel, judging by her stories and novels. A vast canon of work that seems to embrace high literature, ghost stories, horror stories, a Robert Aickman feel, deeply textured Romances, exercises in absurdism &c &c
My detailed reviews of all her fiction works in alphabetical order: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/31260-2/

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Sunday, March 23, 2025

Hyper-Imaginative Literature Group

 


Christopher Priest (1943-2024)

From the HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/


This is a SF Literary Fantasy writer whom I have long considered to be a supreme exponent of the hyper-imaginative — from ‘Inverted World’, ‘Dream of Wessex’ etc. through the Dream Archipelago books to his more recent novels. Along with one or two astonishingly powerful horror stories like ‘I, Haruspex.’
With each of my writer-highlighted posts on this Group, I have tried to think of at least one off-piste review item, and with, Priest, it is my theory in 2007 of TV’s ‘Life on Mars’ spinning-off of ‘The Affirmation’, as I adumbrated in note form. These notes can be found at one of the links here, where my reviews of some of Priest’s work are also listed: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/my-reviews-of-christopher-priest/

OO

OLIVER ONIONS (1873-1961)
My personal ‘reviews’ of many older GHOST STORY-type writers (including OO) are linked here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2022/12/24/links-to-some-of-my-recent-reviews-of-miscellaneous-and-older-ghost-or-horror-stories/
I have today chosen OO in particular as a suitable for the HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/
Just as one example, this is based on some words in my earlier review of his TRAGIC CASEMENTS story:-
This so-called ghost story — as a sort-of-Joycean prose, but somehow more absorbable than Joyce — is its own mentioned “decalcomania” upon the surface from where it is read. But when applied to the surface of the mind itself, the meaning is in-between, creating ‘ghosts’ more powerfully than a more normal linearity of prose that has carefully built-up characters and plot.

A new Robert Aickman topic

From the Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link — HYPER-IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

The first pick when hawling my ‘core backdrop’ link, is Robert AICKMAN. A writer combining ghost stories, horror, fantasy, seediness, Pinteresque absurdism, surrealism, disarming strangeness, TS Eliot’s correlative objectives, and pent up sexuality as sort of released in his story Marriage! Satire, too.
Any sign of SF in his work?

My past reviews of all his stories —

New ‘King in Yellow’ Topic

From the Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert W. ‘Lethal’ Chambers
Is for me the essence of the hawling hub.
One that becomes hyper-imaginative against its own naive intentions, as if taken over. A series of diverse stories that becomes a devastating gestalt.
My review in 2014 linked here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/the-king-in-yellow-a-real-time-review/, including added comments by the late and great Harold Billings.
The ‘theory’ expressed in my specific review — within the overall review — of the integral ‘Yellow Sign’ I recall very well when it happened to me.

New M.R. James Topic

From the Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/492148730623399/?ref=share_group_link

My second pick is shown below.
Please, meanwhile, post separately your own picks Mainstream, SF, Horror or Fantasy for this our Hawling Hub, whenever you like.

M.R. JAMES
There is so much more, I feel, to his ghost stories than whatever initially meets the eye.
For those interested, my reviews of many of his stories here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/my-ongoing-reviews-of-m-r-james-stories/
Meantime, you can see the bouncer of a local haunted Church, to supplement the verger and

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