Status Updates From Prisms of the Oneiroi

Three stories left but I don't want the book to end. "In Search of the Wild Staircase" chilled me to my bones.

Totally loved the first story, "The Dreaming Plateau," which I read in the Onyx Book of Occult Fiction (Snuggly) so I bought this book via help from the author (thank you!) After that one comes "Corfdrager," which centers around Bruegel's painting The Beekeepers and the Birdnester. If the remainder of the stories in this book even come close to the excellence of that story, I am in for reading bliss.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know.

I'll be referencing my Cotswolds trip in this review! Also referencing Grasscut's

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt.

Locker, you clever, clever man. "The Jasmine Tear" is a story worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a short story. The koummya, the djinn, the deal with a demon, and the treasures of the Maghreb - this is worthy of Musiqa al-Ala; a masterstroke of storytelling that will stick in my mind until the Last Day (or fifty years, whichever comes first)!

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" is an epistolary story in the vein of Harper's magazine travelogues from the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, albeit with a folk horror twist. That twist is set on its head, though, as it is implied, at least that The Church is the source of the frisson. The story ended a bit too hurried for me, but it's still a very solid work. I'll never look at Liechtenstein the same again.

Locker displays his acumen for ethnography and mythic studies in "Sea Salt and Asphodel," a story of dreams, prophecy, and the cycle of life and death. The depth of immersion here just has to be experienced - I can't describe it. Suffice it to say that this tale is told in such a way that one feels at one with the others presented in the story. The reader feels a part of the tale, such is the attention to detail.

"The Secrets of Saxon Stone" was a delight to read, and I am not being facetious. Daimons abound, the the psychogeography of the region portrayed is reflective of the spirits that not only dwell there, but are interwoven into its very fabric. This is like Dunsaney, but without the pedantics that sometimes overween his work. This is mythical and approachable, lending familiarity to the representation of the divine.

While reading Prisms of the Oneiroi, I am using a Winterthur Poison Book Project bookmark. The irony of reading "The Temple Consumes the Rose," which features a green book by Sar Peladan, is not lost on me. I might also be tempted to consume such a book, if I was to be rewarded the visions of Latoure, even if it cost me my life. Such is the price of true art. A moving occult tale.

"Corfdrager" examines one of my favorite enigmatic pieces of art, Bruegel's "The Beekeepers and the Birdnester" as a catalyst for the narrator's encounter with his family's past and his own inheritance via a seemingly academic investigation. One wonders, by the end, if the academics aren't the most horrific aspect of the story. The dive into apiary lore is more sinister and more irresistible than one might imagine.

Ligotti has nothing on Locker when it comes to existential dread on a cosmic scale. This was the sort of suffocating fear of the universe that Lovecraft strove for, but Locker has found. "The Dreaming Plateau" is horror of a different order of magnitude, made all the more impactful by the elision of the most purple prose. The poetic heart is intact, but without un-necessary frills, with terrifying clarity.

I've been waiting to read this one for a while. So glad that Martin signed this copy for me!

The Parish Coda, the closing story, is not a proper story per se but rather a compendium describing folklore of the Vagabond Society (the society of wanderers which is the main focus of the Boughs and Byways novel). It includes a rather mediocre introduction concerning the youth of the one who discovered the coda. The compendium itself is excellent.

A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish is of a different tone to the previous stories, bringing to mind the Boughs and Byways... and also middle period Machen. A boy is lost in the woods surrounding his house and meets some interesting entities.

The Jasmine Tear was a story dealing with the desert mountains of Morocco and a rusalka-like creature. It was rather too short, though the ending was a bit unexpected.

"In search of the wild staircase" was a great occult story in epistolary form, dealing with the remnants of a folk cult in Lichtenstein.

"Sea salt and asphodel" was a simple yet effective take on Gizburg's Night Battles legend, even though the story's 2 themes (the perfume and the Mazerru) weren't seamlessly intertwined.

The third story, The Temple consumes the Rose, was a bit too decadent and symbolic for my tastes, although less hazy than most of its ilk (which I fervently dislike).

The second story, Corfrdager, was also a first person narrative. This had a really strong rural atmosphere and the sense of numinous permeating it, really good.

Great Lovecraftian start with the Dreaming Plateau and a good example of how to craft a story out of an existing myth.