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Oak-Mot
SIGNED by Glover (signature only). Shows minor shelf wear, otherwise an unblemished copy!
44 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1991
234 people want to read
About the author
Crispin Hellion Glover
11 books110 followersCrispin Hellion Glover is primarily known as a film actor, but is also a painter, filmmaker, author, musician, and collector and archivist of esoterica. Glover is known for portraying eccentric people on screen, such as George McFly in Back to the Future, Layne in River's Edge, the "Creepy Thin Man" in the big screen adaptation of Charlie's Angels and Willard Stiles in Willard. In the early 2000s, Glover started his own production company, Volcanic Eruptions.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 15, 2009
this is probably my favorite of all my crispin glover books. it is not a book i can effectively review, i dont think, but i like a challenge and my class doesnt start for another 40 minutes, so i suppose i have some time to give it a try. its. its what you might expect if you know anything about crispin glover. if you have the cd, if you have seen the movies (not back to the future or even fast sofa -im talking about the snail movie... you know)its a riot of images and words... and scrawl. and fantastic madness. come to think of it, since it is on my mind, it might be what euchrid eucrow (from the first nick cave novel) might write were he to try his hand at fiction. it is wonderful. and hearing it being read aloud by crispin glover is also wonderful. (its on the cd - buy it - and when he tours with the movies, he will read some to you.)yeah, no my first impulse was right - i cant review this. but im not going to delete it because maybe someone else will review it now, just to prove it can be done.
June 7, 2019
A funky, imaginative little mixed media project in which an old book is altered to create a new story.
I was confused by the last section, which occurs years after the rest and involves Hitler.
I was confused by the last section, which occurs years after the rest and involves Hitler.
Read
March 30, 2012review of
Crispin Hellion Glover's Oak Mot
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 30, 2012
Warning to the reader of this review: all 3 of my reviews of Glover's bks begin w/ approximately the same contextualization. Otherwise, they aren't the same review.
I'm not very familiar w/ Crispin Hellion Glover's work. I've heard that he has a bit of a 'cult' following, I've heard that he was in some, by my standards, big budget films as an actor. I've seen a few of them: Back to the Future, River's Edge, The People vs Larry Flynt, & Alice in Wonderland - all of wch I've liked.
Then he was coming to one of the places where I work to perform & show his own films & I was to be the projectionist. I wondered: 'Will this guy be an arrogant megalomaniac asshole who's difficult to deal w/?' I read his rider. It wasn't too demanding, it was reasonable & professional. Still, it was either the 1st or one of the few riders I'd ever read for work & I started dreading the job. More stress that I don't need.
Then I met Glover & he was very friendly & likable. I watched him rehearse a bit w/ his Slide Show made from his bks. When we had a chance to talk, I mentioned Tom Philips' wonderful A Humament bk b/c of its similar techniques to Glover's own. & we talked a bit about Max Ernst's collage novels made from Victorian-era bk illustrations. Oddly, I didn't mention my own "Play Out Regress" in wch I extremely meticulously & methodically white-out the page of my high-school yrbk on wch my 16-yr-old encrypted self-description appeared. This piece, having been done in 1979, predates both Glover's work & Philips' 1980 publication date but doesn't work from Victorian novels & is far more conceptual & literary than it is aesthetic (as I wd argue both Philips' & Glover's work is).
Glover immediately offered me free copies of all the bks he had w/ him for sale. This astounded me b/c it was unexpectedly generous. It was then that I was sure that Glover's basic spirit is close to mine & that he isn't, indeed, 'Only In It for the Money'.
I phoned my girlfriend at home, knowing that she was coming to the show that nite, & asked her to gather materials that I cd give Glover in trade since I decided that his generosity shd be reciprocated in kind.
He performed his Big Slide Show wch consists of his standing audience-left to a projection of images from 8 or so of his bks. A sharp red spot is focused in such a way that his head & one gesturing arm are seen illuminated. Glover's delivery of the selected text is dramatic. This was an interesting way to experience the bks.
I decided to read Glover's bks in chronological order. That made Oak Mot 2nd. All of them remind me of Edward Gorey as far as their visual presentation goes & this one once again reminds me of Gorey as far as its morbidity goes - although Gorey is probably more morbid. The aforementioned Tom Philips is also important to mention again b/c Philips' A Humament is a thorough masterpiece of "treating" (as Philips puts it) a Victorian-era novel by painting over its pages to provide a very revised visual environment & a selective choice of text-left-revealed.
Oak Mot, like Rat Catching, however, is also quite different from Gorey & A Humament. While, like A Humament, it's a 'treatment' of a previously existing bk, it seems to me that the images culled for its collaged interior are often, if not entirely, of origin external to the bk that the text came from. The original, by the by, was called Oak-Mot & was written by Rev William Mumford Baker (1825-1883).
As w/ Rat Catching, Glover's main hand-touch seems to've been pen & ink borders & squiggly decoration w/ the same types of lines & blots used to black out unwanted words from the original but his technique has developed & I found his drawings & his added fotos & the way his handwritten text was incorporated into the original to be a bit more effective in skewing the original narrative along the lines of what're apparently his personal obsessions.
What are those obsessions? Those who've seen the 2 films he directed, will find that people congenital health problems such as Downs Syndrome & Cerebral Palsy. He also uses nazi & racist imagery. It's my understanding that he's neither a nazi or a racist. These images seem more to be aesthetic fixations.
One of the main characters of the original Oak-Mot novel seems to be a fellow who's physically & mentally weak - perhaps w/ difficulties in walking & talking. Perhaps this is the main reason why Glover picked the novel for his reworking - other than the obvious absence of copyright. Perhaps the original novel, written by a Presbyterian minister, had a moral regarding this character.
In Glover's treatment, sd character, "Adry", becomes more or less central. Whether that was the case in the original I can't say. Adry is apparently tormented by his fellow family members & eventually shot.
Before the title page, there's an illustration of an elephant, presumably done by Glover, that has the hand-written caption: "Before the book began, the New Uncle took care of this Elephant Somewhere else. (Please note the swastika, an ancient symbol of good luck.)" &, yes, there's a small swastika there. Now most readers of this bk will associate the swastika w/ nazism & Glover seems to be presenting himself as being in the camp of what one might call "swastika-reclaimers" - ie: people trying to re-establish the symbol's pre-nazi meaning. However, later, he throws Hitler into the story - hence supporting, for me at least, that it's actually the swastika as a nazi symbol that's more the aesthetic obsession. Strictly speaking, what Americans call the swastika is known to Germans as the "hackencross".
Glover's Oak-Mot also has branding "niggers" in it - this latter word handwritten in by him. Such content doesn't appear to've been in the original bk. Again, this seems somewhat gratuitous & obsessive & seems to support Glover's aesthetic rather than to make any point.
On page '65' (the numbers are from the original rather than being reflective of Glover's version) there's a section from the original re the 'need' for leaders. Ho hum. Whether Glover left this in to presage the appearance of Hitler later I can only speculate. "Rarely a body, however small, but there is born king among them. God has so ordained it, because the world would go to pieces without". Harumph.
Near the end, Glover seems to completely sidetrack the novel onto his own path. A foto-collage appears w/ Hitler on the right. Hitler's arm, perhaps originally in a nazi salute, has been cut-off midway in the collage & a meaty center has been drawn-in. The hand-written caption reads: "Much later in Life Virgin Prosy transcontinents to a different place (the DEUTCHLAND, the year 1926)".
All in all, Glover's reworking seems fluid & playful rather than something made in pursuit of a rigorous intellectual end. However, Glover might see it otherwise. During his Q&A after his performances & screenings, he was prolific in his statements of purpose. I wasn't always convinced. What I was convinced of was that he was a nice guy.
Earlier in the day of his 2nd night of presentation, someone rammed my car as it sat parked in front of my house. Given that I live very close to the bone, this caused my stress to skyrocket. As such, I was a nervous wreck by that night. Glover's general niceness went a long way toward rectifying that.
Good luck to ya meatey!
Crispin Hellion Glover's Oak Mot
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 30, 2012
Warning to the reader of this review: all 3 of my reviews of Glover's bks begin w/ approximately the same contextualization. Otherwise, they aren't the same review.
I'm not very familiar w/ Crispin Hellion Glover's work. I've heard that he has a bit of a 'cult' following, I've heard that he was in some, by my standards, big budget films as an actor. I've seen a few of them: Back to the Future, River's Edge, The People vs Larry Flynt, & Alice in Wonderland - all of wch I've liked.
Then he was coming to one of the places where I work to perform & show his own films & I was to be the projectionist. I wondered: 'Will this guy be an arrogant megalomaniac asshole who's difficult to deal w/?' I read his rider. It wasn't too demanding, it was reasonable & professional. Still, it was either the 1st or one of the few riders I'd ever read for work & I started dreading the job. More stress that I don't need.
Then I met Glover & he was very friendly & likable. I watched him rehearse a bit w/ his Slide Show made from his bks. When we had a chance to talk, I mentioned Tom Philips' wonderful A Humament bk b/c of its similar techniques to Glover's own. & we talked a bit about Max Ernst's collage novels made from Victorian-era bk illustrations. Oddly, I didn't mention my own "Play Out Regress" in wch I extremely meticulously & methodically white-out the page of my high-school yrbk on wch my 16-yr-old encrypted self-description appeared. This piece, having been done in 1979, predates both Glover's work & Philips' 1980 publication date but doesn't work from Victorian novels & is far more conceptual & literary than it is aesthetic (as I wd argue both Philips' & Glover's work is).
Glover immediately offered me free copies of all the bks he had w/ him for sale. This astounded me b/c it was unexpectedly generous. It was then that I was sure that Glover's basic spirit is close to mine & that he isn't, indeed, 'Only In It for the Money'.
I phoned my girlfriend at home, knowing that she was coming to the show that nite, & asked her to gather materials that I cd give Glover in trade since I decided that his generosity shd be reciprocated in kind.
He performed his Big Slide Show wch consists of his standing audience-left to a projection of images from 8 or so of his bks. A sharp red spot is focused in such a way that his head & one gesturing arm are seen illuminated. Glover's delivery of the selected text is dramatic. This was an interesting way to experience the bks.
I decided to read Glover's bks in chronological order. That made Oak Mot 2nd. All of them remind me of Edward Gorey as far as their visual presentation goes & this one once again reminds me of Gorey as far as its morbidity goes - although Gorey is probably more morbid. The aforementioned Tom Philips is also important to mention again b/c Philips' A Humament is a thorough masterpiece of "treating" (as Philips puts it) a Victorian-era novel by painting over its pages to provide a very revised visual environment & a selective choice of text-left-revealed.
Oak Mot, like Rat Catching, however, is also quite different from Gorey & A Humament. While, like A Humament, it's a 'treatment' of a previously existing bk, it seems to me that the images culled for its collaged interior are often, if not entirely, of origin external to the bk that the text came from. The original, by the by, was called Oak-Mot & was written by Rev William Mumford Baker (1825-1883).
As w/ Rat Catching, Glover's main hand-touch seems to've been pen & ink borders & squiggly decoration w/ the same types of lines & blots used to black out unwanted words from the original but his technique has developed & I found his drawings & his added fotos & the way his handwritten text was incorporated into the original to be a bit more effective in skewing the original narrative along the lines of what're apparently his personal obsessions.
What are those obsessions? Those who've seen the 2 films he directed, will find that people congenital health problems such as Downs Syndrome & Cerebral Palsy. He also uses nazi & racist imagery. It's my understanding that he's neither a nazi or a racist. These images seem more to be aesthetic fixations.
One of the main characters of the original Oak-Mot novel seems to be a fellow who's physically & mentally weak - perhaps w/ difficulties in walking & talking. Perhaps this is the main reason why Glover picked the novel for his reworking - other than the obvious absence of copyright. Perhaps the original novel, written by a Presbyterian minister, had a moral regarding this character.
In Glover's treatment, sd character, "Adry", becomes more or less central. Whether that was the case in the original I can't say. Adry is apparently tormented by his fellow family members & eventually shot.
Before the title page, there's an illustration of an elephant, presumably done by Glover, that has the hand-written caption: "Before the book began, the New Uncle took care of this Elephant Somewhere else. (Please note the swastika, an ancient symbol of good luck.)" &, yes, there's a small swastika there. Now most readers of this bk will associate the swastika w/ nazism & Glover seems to be presenting himself as being in the camp of what one might call "swastika-reclaimers" - ie: people trying to re-establish the symbol's pre-nazi meaning. However, later, he throws Hitler into the story - hence supporting, for me at least, that it's actually the swastika as a nazi symbol that's more the aesthetic obsession. Strictly speaking, what Americans call the swastika is known to Germans as the "hackencross".
Glover's Oak-Mot also has branding "niggers" in it - this latter word handwritten in by him. Such content doesn't appear to've been in the original bk. Again, this seems somewhat gratuitous & obsessive & seems to support Glover's aesthetic rather than to make any point.
On page '65' (the numbers are from the original rather than being reflective of Glover's version) there's a section from the original re the 'need' for leaders. Ho hum. Whether Glover left this in to presage the appearance of Hitler later I can only speculate. "Rarely a body, however small, but there is born king among them. God has so ordained it, because the world would go to pieces without". Harumph.
Near the end, Glover seems to completely sidetrack the novel onto his own path. A foto-collage appears w/ Hitler on the right. Hitler's arm, perhaps originally in a nazi salute, has been cut-off midway in the collage & a meaty center has been drawn-in. The hand-written caption reads: "Much later in Life Virgin Prosy transcontinents to a different place (the DEUTCHLAND, the year 1926)".
All in all, Glover's reworking seems fluid & playful rather than something made in pursuit of a rigorous intellectual end. However, Glover might see it otherwise. During his Q&A after his performances & screenings, he was prolific in his statements of purpose. I wasn't always convinced. What I was convinced of was that he was a nice guy.
Earlier in the day of his 2nd night of presentation, someone rammed my car as it sat parked in front of my house. Given that I live very close to the bone, this caused my stress to skyrocket. As such, I was a nervous wreck by that night. Glover's general niceness went a long way toward rectifying that.
Good luck to ya meatey!
June 6, 2013
Crispin Hellion Glover is an anomaly. A brilliant, mad genius. He's books are all reclaimed vintage books in which he has altered the texts to tell new, beautifully strange stories. These are best received when viewed primarily with his slideshow, so we may hear and view this lovely and eerie imagery straight from his mind. I got this book signed when I bought it from him on a tour. He's and extremely sweet and sincere man. These books are each works of art and I can't wait for him to publish more of them.
July 16, 2008
The opening picture of this book made Sam Van Diliner scream.
December 27, 2024
- Incredibly unique and bizarre.
- Quite overwhelming - reading messy handwritten text, interpreting strange images, understanding broken sentences, etc.
- Dark surrealism.
“When a man is prepared to die, it hurts us more to see him die than it does him to do it.”
On the book:
“[Glover] photocopied the pages of an ancient tome, in this case a musty 1868 novel called OAK-MOT, and none-too-subtly reconfigured it by whiting or blacking out text and adding his own handwritten inserts.“
- Quite overwhelming - reading messy handwritten text, interpreting strange images, understanding broken sentences, etc.
- Dark surrealism.
“When a man is prepared to die, it hurts us more to see him die than it does him to do it.”
On the book:
“[Glover] photocopied the pages of an ancient tome, in this case a musty 1868 novel called OAK-MOT, and none-too-subtly reconfigured it by whiting or blacking out text and adding his own handwritten inserts.“
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 20, 2017
I'm not sure what just happened, but I think maybe that was the point. Oak Mot is not an ordinary piece of fiction. It is a small piece of strange art in a book. If you are interested in the strange and can manage to get your hands on this book, do it.
August 6, 2021
With my interest in surrealism, I am fascinated by Glover's approach with his books. It probably doesn't hurt that I am also fascinated by Crispin himself and get his aesthetic.
I pick up something new each time I go back to Oak Mott, and really that is the highest compliment.
I pick up something new each time I go back to Oak Mott, and really that is the highest compliment.
May 9, 2020
This was more of a multi media art piece than a novel, and I have no idea how to rate it.
Very interesting?
Very interesting?
May 18, 2020
Not for everyone, but well worth it if you appreciate CHG.
July 5, 2023
I bought it for the inscription:
For ShEan,
Thawk You
for
coming
to
What
Is it ?
From
Crispin
hellion
Glover
… and the rest is basically the same
For ShEan,
Thawk You
for
coming
to
What
Is it ?
From
Crispin
hellion
Glover
… and the rest is basically the same
November 4, 2025
Not sure I comprehend this, or that I should. Oak Mot certainly leaves you with a very strange, unsettling feeling. It’s a bit like coming out of a delirium dream and trying to make sense of it.
May 13, 2014
Had the CD on which there are excerpts of this since 2003. Always meant to read, and just got an autographed copy from the author himself.
Its reclaimed and retold versions of older stories with custom illustrations. It is strange. Im pretty sure the physically and mentally disabled main character in fantasizing and re-writing aspects of their life for much of it if not the entire thing. The creepy uncle serves as either the villain or something else recast as a villain in this perspective. Its great oveall but I cannot for the life of me figure out the purpose of the concluded segment in Weimer Germany.
Its reclaimed and retold versions of older stories with custom illustrations. It is strange. Im pretty sure the physically and mentally disabled main character in fantasizing and re-writing aspects of their life for much of it if not the entire thing. The creepy uncle serves as either the villain or something else recast as a villain in this perspective. Its great oveall but I cannot for the life of me figure out the purpose of the concluded segment in Weimer Germany.
February 9, 2010
Let me begin by saying that this book really does not have much of a plot or a message. It is mostly just loosely joined randomness that's designed to be weird and taboo. I gave the book 4 stars just because of how interesting and unique it is. Like a lot of Crispin Glover's work, this book has unnecessary racism laced into it. I find that kind of funny. :)
February 11, 2016
The delightfully obscure and hard-to-follow tale of a sickly child named Adrey. Faintly macabre, with twisted illustrations Edward Gorey would have admired. This story goes all over the place and ends up, um, nowhere. Classic Crispin.
June 7, 2007
Fun insane stuff. Makes your eyes dolt around in your head.
May 28, 2008
A review of this book is less appropriate than a review of Crispin Glover himself: What a magnificently fucked up weirdo. Do NOT pass up the chance to hear him do a "reading" live.
Read
June 20, 2009I'm very, very afraid.
Want to read
April 7, 2011Apparently this is one WEIRD book.
August 22, 2011
Strange. I'm not sure I understood it, yet mildly fascinating.
March 8, 2014
Sooo strange but I love it. I also got to new him when I got it so I have an nice autographed copy...... Sweet
March 8, 2015
I paid way too much for a copy of this. It is simply this: the defacement of another book.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews