McFarland & Company, Inc. 2022
Any comments I may have in due course on this book will appear in the comment stream below…
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Des Lewis - GESTALT REAL-TIME BOOK REVIEWS
A FEARLESS FAITH IN FICTION — THE PASSION OF THE READING MOMENT CRYSTALLISED — Empirical literary critiques from 2008 as based on purchased books.
There may be a delay in commencing this and other books in the wake of my Elizabeth Bowen and Robert Aickman projects…
1. As once publisher of this anthology and a compulsive music listener (ranging from all forms of modern classical music to The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Scriabin and Beethoven and Napalm Death and Black Sabbath &c.), I feel that this Willin book promises to be just up my street, judging by its already inspiring Preface. And I look forward to exploring its alphabetical Encyclopaedic references and Appendices and reporting back here about at least some of them…
2. I have now started exploring these entries as if reading a linear book, starting at A.
I intend to eke out into the future the undoubted fascination of this book, slowly savouring and recording my aberrant thoughts below intermittently.
For example, the entry on ABELL, with illuminating quotes, about the trance-like state of composing music etc. reminds me of my own faith in the preternatural powers of literature and fiction as part of a Jungian gestalt.
3. “The opening of Philip Glass’ film music Koyaanisqatsi was felt to be conducive to Samhain rituals…”
I have long been a fan of Philip Glass and saw AKHNATEN live in the early 1980s at the opera house in London. I was laughed at by my liking of such so-called Minimalist music in those early days. But it has become generally popular since, but still retains a preternatural power as backdrop for my delving into literature and my constructing devices to tap its intrinsic magic.
And some fascinating references regarding music and telepathy.
Just occurred to me that this book is serendipitously topical in my world, inasmuch as I recently discovered one of my two favourite writers — Robert Aickman — was an adept believer in the Paranormal, and was also fascinated by music … such as Delius (he helped form the Delius Society)…
One of my favourite Philip Glass works: the string quartet for ‘Dracula’
4. The tale of Cressing church and ‘weird symphonies’ intrigued me. Perhaps it was a rehearsal of the ‘Gothic’ by Havergal Brian?
And I was also grateful to learn about the Hellish music of Duke Amdusias….! [My review of the DEMONS OF KING SOLOMON: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/the-demons-of-king-solomon/ ]
See my review of SYMPHONY by Philip Fracassi in above DEMONS book.
5. Some fascinating entries read today, including Amityville, Amusia and Angels.
There seems to be much scholarship invested in this book, and the ‘bold’ cross-references between entries, the visual illustrations and other smaller-print substantiations are invaluable — although I am still eking out this book as a linear read from A to Z.
6. Particularly interested in three entries or articles, many of this book’s entries being articles rather than entries, i.e. ANIMALS, AUTISM and AUTOMATIC WRITING. The last one featuring a lot in my past gestalt real-time reviewing of literature. Regarding the first, and mention of whale noises, I was wondering whether the composer Alan Hovhaness should be mentioned in this context. Also, this composer is generally relevant, I feel, to the spiritual and the paranormal, but I have not checked to see if he is mentioned in this book. I want things to come at me fresh from my linear reading of this book, rather than getting ahead of myself like a hopping demon!
7. I have been particularly interested in the entry for Maurice BARING, an author whose work happened to be chosen by a favourite author of mine, Robert Aickman, for his important Fontana Ghost Story anthologies. A story I reviewed HERE, describing a dream about a land of gigantic mushrooms, broad-winged butterflies, big juicy fruit, giant caterpillars etc. emanating from a telephone box…
Here, in the entry, we hear about an experience of Baring and his friend hearing music that could not be explained, music “strange, alien, confused, tinkly …unreal with a kind of burr in it as if you were listening to voices on a telephone that is out of order. We walked through the singing and heard it behind…”, as described by Baring about this real life event.
8. Particularly interested in BEETHOVEN dictating part of his 10th symphony to John Lill!
And the BELLS entry made me think of Poe’s hallucinatory poem ‘The Bells’ and Rachmaninov’s version of it, and then I thought of the latter’s THE ISLE OF THE DEAD….
But that may be just hopping ahead again…!
9. The Hector BERLIOZ entry has halted me to dwell on my youthful favourite Symphonie Fantastique that is here linked with Melvyn Willin’s own scholarship concerning musical Ganzfield experiments in psychical research. All new to me.
The article on Rosemary BROWN is illuminating, as is the one on CHOPIN, just as two examples. A pianistic panoply of the paranormal and the ghostly.
I regard this book’s paranormal as the ‘science’ of the preternatural — and ghost stories and other literary or fictional inspirations as the gestalt of supernatural truths. Music and fiction as kindred sprits or ‘souls’. It is good to see this book is deploying the preternatural, and so we now need another scholar to do the same for the supernatural.
I shall now read this book in real-time on my own, without your company alongside, and I urge you to do the same. Only when alone can the above ‘inspirations’ truly work. Meanwhile, I am confident that this encyclopaedic dictionary will continue to demonstrate immaculate scholarship and bold interconnections between the entries and articles, as well as supporting references. It is no doubt ground-breaking in dealing with research in the preternatural of music and, thus, explaining at last how music has stirred me over seventy years to the point of obsession; it is miraculous, finally, to receive this book as key to such mysteries of what music actually is, without understanding its technical aspects, as I don’t and never shall. Just as I don’t understand the ghosts I ‘see’, on and off the page.
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