Casey Neate > Recent Status Updates

It baffles me that - of the countless Poe-imitators whose works have provided easy space-filler for anthologies of late 19th & early 20th century macabre - Gilchrist, a writer wholly new to me, has apparently only now been “re-discovered”. So far been actually somewhat entranced reading this collection: dreamy tales of spiritual oblivion, wherein dread is laced tightly with fatal sensuality. Masterful stuff.

No matter the translation, what always comes across is Kawabata’s ambivalence for the pretensions of language. Marked by its preciseness and brevity, his prose achieves something close to poetry, and makes you feel infinitely jealous.