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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