Literary Horror discussion

Excellent. I don't fast around this time, but I'm for more people rising from the dead after violent deaths.

Will try to join in! Looking forward to this one.

The title story is great fun. No surprises if you know Oliver's work. Crusty middle-aged men, theatre gossip, uncanny encounters left open-ended. The child's rhyme in the zoophagy book is well-done and over-the-top, and a lot of this is very funny (and creepy).

Randolph wrote: "Let’s start this sucker! Any writer called out by Dame Edna and Sir Les has to be great!"

I'll be joining you ... I just read this book while away on vacation. Great, great fun & major creepiness.

And yes, the title story was terrific, setting the tone for what follows.

Randolph wrote: "Meeting Mike. I’m reminded of The Hospice by Robert Aickman. Same sort of growing uneasiness from little details."

... with more than a touch of Scientology involved ...

"Countess Otho" works similar territory as the title story. But it seems a bit thin, and didn't work so well for me.

"Meeting with Mike" though, what a hoot. Another rollicking tale of Englishman abroad, complete with potshots at the Swiss. (In my youth, one of my favorite activities was making uptight people uncomfortable, so I found this hugely enjoyable.) Even the climactic basement scene dribbled (ahem) with Oliver's black humor.

I enjoyed the frame of "The Mortlake Manuscript" more than the extended retelling of old tales in Dee's manuscript. In a lot of Oliver's stories, the substance often doesn't stick with me. But I do enjoy his prose, wit and old-world charm.

"The Giacometti Crucifixion": essentially a comedy of manners set in Oxford. Oliver's treatment is charming as usual. I thought it was light and the rather M.R. James-ian ghost story in the middle was too long.

Randolph wrote: "Sorry but I’m not getting very far in this. I was involved in this massive traffic accident. I’ll get back to it and finish by the end date."
Yikes. Hope you're ok...

Randolph wrote: "Sorry but I’m not getting very far in this. I was involved in this massive traffic accident. I’ll get back to it and finish by the end date."

Oh my. I hope you're ok.

Randolph wrote: "Oh, and the narrator’s reaction to the three busting into the room while he’s shagging Sophie is unbelievable."

I agree.

I found the story entertaining, though I don't consider it one of Oliver's stronger pieces.

From earlier notes:
"The Brighton Redemption" shares the Brighton setting of "Mr Pigsny", though most of it takes place in a rectory in the 1800s. I liked the sketches of the rector (and his possibly less than honorable motivations), the long-imprisoned murderess, the inscrutable housekeeper with the sordid past, and the hapless narrator caught between them. It's a charming, somewhat old-fashioned story of vaguely supernatural goings-on. It works thanks to Oliver's charm and mastery of tone; the brief appearances of the red ribbon motif are quietly disturbing.

I mentioned recently that it's hard for me to enjoy straightforward stories about spiritualism. "A Piece of Elsewhere" certainly riffs on conventional expectations, with generous helpings of Oliver's humor. The babbling mask's monologues are hilarious! The poor boy narrator's travails, with the mysterious darkness and predatory spiritualist, and the surprise role reversal of the art dealer, all had me at the edge of my seat. Probably my favorite of the collection.

Nominations for June's monthly read?

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Missed the participation window on this, but may as well comment for posterity ;-):

While I found all of the characters in the title story unlikable, it was well structured and I enjoyed the droll humor based on the protagonist's vanity (e.g. tripping over the "gypsy" woman that he encounters over and over).

Enjoyed the excerpt of the play from Count Otho more than the story itself. There are enough similarities to the title story preceding it that it comes across as left-overs from Oliver's imagination rather than as a complete work. Enjoyable at first, but becomes a bit mired in back-story and the end felt abrupt and unsatisfactory.

"Meeting With Mike" was a page-turner, but the IPH was too much of a caricature to retain true menace. The story made me wonder if Oliver has seen The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson) or The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson), as it brought both to mind. Probably this is just a sign that I should spend less time watching movies and more time reading poetry...

Ryan wrote: ""Meeting With Mike" was a page-turner, but the IPH was too much of a caricature to retain true menace."

Yeah, there's relatively little menace in most of these stories. I seem to recall darker fare from Oliver in earlier collections, but I may be hallucinating.

Happy to have "Dancer In The Dark" behind me as I found it overlong and uninteresting. The childish diction and adolescent behavior of the characters was sufficiently unpleasant for me to wonder if the purpose of this piece was for the author to caricature a number of his former co-workers more than to advance any sort of literary idea.

"Mr. Pigsny" was refreshing by comparison. I enjoyed the mash-up of academic/gang family/occult worlds (though some of these are drawn more convincingly than others), and the Pan/Devil motif of course has a rich history in the works that Oliver seems to draw influence from (e.g. Machen, Crowley, etc.).

The religious theme segues nicely into "The Brighton Redemption" which is my favorite story in this collection so far. The dream sequences are unsettling and the style/voice is pitch perfect for the era the story takes place in. The ending feels a bit tacked on, I might have preferred he stop writing after the penultimate diary entry.

"You Have Nothing To Fear" hints at the supernatural without revealing it. Oliver tips his hand when the narrator mentions Pygmalion (though I think Shaw's play is a greater influence here than Ovid's telling of the myth).

"The Philosophy Of The Damned" - back to the theatre, but at least the focus has moved away from the petty dysfunction among the cast. I liked the description of the first night's performance and the manner in which the culminating events were absorbed by a greater historical cataclysm.

"The Mortlake Manuscript" was excellent, if only for the seeds it planted - the story of Christ's contemporary follower was wonderfully unsettling, and the references to John Dee, Edward Kelley, Enochian, etc. lead me down a fascinating Wikipedia rabbit hole.

"The Look" brings us back to the grotesqueries of the theater, a side of senior sexual depravity, and a dash of colonialism and psychic/magic for good measure. Meh.

Randolph wrote: "The Giacometti Crucifixion. This was a mystery to me at first. It is a framing story containing inside what is a long story that is almost a paraphrase of an actual M.R. James stor..."

Another humorous detail in this story: Lady Drew offers Corcoran a dram of "Glen Gowdie" single malt. While I'm not up on every whisky every produced, I had not heard of this distillery so I did some digging and decided this is Oliver's wry reference to Isobel Gowdie, a 17th century Scottish woman who gained notoriety through her lengthy/detailed confessions of practicing witchcraft.

Linkwood recently produced a 14-year-old, lafite-finished whisky named after Gowdie - would probably make the perfect gift for the author: https://www.cask88.com/shop/distiller...

The whisky notes are hilarious! Thanks Ryan. I'm not a whisky drinker, but will share with my friends who are.