As in her films, the close observational detail, here of breaking relationships and family struggles with illness, opens up the profound. She writes wAs in her films, the close observational detail, here of breaking relationships and family struggles with illness, opens up the profound. She writes with a simple poetry, interleaving to collapse time and theme without formal affectation, in a way that would strike even to those unfamiliar with her filmmaking. And if you already love her other work, this becomes even more essential a window through and beyond. We miss you greatly Chantal....more
Relaxed-precision penciling and magic world-building. Not in a typical fantasy mode, though, more like being a bored smart tween in a myth. I liked VaRelaxed-precision penciling and magic world-building. Not in a typical fantasy mode, though, more like being a bored smart tween in a myth. I liked Van Gheluwe's Kus Mini a while back (Vlad the cat gets a nod), and this proves she's great in longer form too, slow-layering intrigue and menace and toying with its symbology in fun ways. Nice!...more
This, at long last, is an available reprint of the first of Schuiten & Peeters' first Cities of the Obscure story, "The Walls of Samaris". As a startiThis, at long last, is an available reprint of the first of Schuiten & Peeters' first Cities of the Obscure story, "The Walls of Samaris". As a starting point, there's some clumsiness: the art, despite a fantastic rigor for fantastical architectures, feels a little constrained in some way, perhaps because it subordinates design in a more traditional approach to its panels and character designs. And despite Peeters' already having published several novels by the time of his composing this, the narration has a utilitarian quality. Despite this, the concept here is brilliant, shades of Borges and Calvino's Invisible Cities (obviously an acknowledged reference point given the series title) distilled down to pure mystery and surprise at the peeling back of facades onto a cryptic glimpse of underlying reality.
The second half moves into a series of fragments or short stories drawn from a different concept/city, again playing with the layers of reality, again with a strong sense of architectural intrigue. As later work seemingly composed and revised over a much longer period, the writing and design here have more focus even as the story becomes more diffuse, and I perhaps prefer the clarity of line found in the black & white art.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm very happy to see that these are coming into print again, greatly look forward to further exploration of the unknown territories composing this series....more
While as stories these often feel ever so slight, barely more than historical sketches of lost times, peoples, and events in classical or medieval hisWhile as stories these often feel ever so slight, barely more than historical sketches of lost times, peoples, and events in classical or medieval history, Schwob was a master at reworking found tales and settings into incandescent imagery that push these into the hallucinatory and ineffaceable. A clear influence on Borges, even the simplest of these look onwards towards his early pseudo-biographies in A Universal History of Iniquity, while the more elaborate become tightly-arranged symbolist tableaux that point forward to B.'s even greater conceptual refinements (or his countrymen Paul Willem's ethereal architectures in The Cathedral of Mist). And lastly, a certain taste for tales of horror and the weird, much in fashion in the fin-de-siecle milieu, grants these a desire to startle, making even sketches surprisingly punchy. So, despite apparent slightness, these are rich and involving. Masks, lost cities, apocalypses (my favorite: "The Terrestrial Fire"), and dreamscapes....more
Delicate, somber, ruminative, ephemeral, with both the enigmatic compression of poetry and a total clarity of image and vision that makes reading thesDelicate, somber, ruminative, ephemeral, with both the enigmatic compression of poetry and a total clarity of image and vision that makes reading these a total pleasure. I'm experiencing these in parallel with stories of another Belgian playwright-turned-storyteller (Michel de Ghelderode's Spells, also recently issued by Wakefield), which brings out even moreso just how thematically and stylistically refined and singular these are. Willems has a special skill for distilling mythic moments from experience, and arranging them into fragile, perfect conceptual traceries, each humming with the metaphysical. This was later-career Willems, written in the 60s through 80s; what, I wonder, are his novels like? (answer: untranslated or prohibitively expensive)
The illustrations, also, are prefect: a finely ambiguous, almost abstract accompaniment and palette-cleanser....more
These stories of automatons, devils, and virulent gardens are well-steeped in the floridly decomposing language and paranoia of the decadent-weird traThese stories of automatons, devils, and virulent gardens are well-steeped in the floridly decomposing language and paranoia of the decadent-weird tradition, but having been penned in the immediate shadow of WWII, they seem oddly dated and out of time. And without the invention (and genuine weirdness) of someone like Robert Aickman. Instead these are stories of obsession and malaise, obsessively caught up in describing some fateful place or encounter, that seem oddly incapable of pushing through their concepts into real shock or horror. What remains is tonally suggestive and bordering on the sublime anticipatory at points, but ultimately oddly unimaginative and stunted.
And that same historical shadow that makes them feel especially dated also falls directly on Ghelderode, who seems to have welcomed fascism into Belgium. At last, with the final stories, one completed only later than the original version of this volume, and one omitted from later printings once the tides of history turned, he fully spills over into misogyny and then anti-semitism. As the translator is careful to note, there's a value in staring down the darkest impulses of the 20th-century, for here we have an erudite monster whose kind we must be able to spot in the future. But having weathered this volume, I'm released, relieved to consign Ghelderode to the historical grave that he so clearly dug for himself....more
The only other of Peeters and Schuiten's Obscure Cities I've read is the reissued Walls of Samaris, their first sustained narrative back in 1983. ThisThe only other of Peeters and Schuiten's Obscure Cities I've read is the reissued Walls of Samaris, their first sustained narrative back in 1983. This, the most recently completed, originally in 2006, maintains the special sense of oblique mysterious narrative and architectural invention of the early work (as well, their short pieces for Heavy Metal in the earlier 80s) while operating with vastly greater subtlety -- the interceding years offered much space for refinement. The artwork here is exacting and graceful, even as it captures the unexplainable, the characters as precisely drawn in line as in dialogue (and based on real people for an even greater fidelity -- filmmaker and Akerman-collaborator Eric de Kuyper is cast here charmingly alongside a returning lead from another of the cities) and the story gives and withholds in a nice balance. Much is left open, but enough it given to work with even as it is pointed out as unimportant (themes around over-focusing on symptoms over roots) and the whole manages to be gripping in a "weird stories" mode without succumbing to genre. It's more conceptual concerned with the terrors of the numerical realm (exponential growth) and legacies of colonialism in the Western art world....more
Despite the deceptively simple, sketchy line quality here, Schrauwen packs an incredible amount of visual and narrative sophistication into this. ConcDespite the deceptively simple, sketchy line quality here, Schrauwen packs an incredible amount of visual and narrative sophistication into this. Conceptual layouts, odd color interplays, shifting internal and external realities, and a complex system of recurring motifs, visual storytelling rules re-written and refurbished to suit various and ever-evolving cryptic purposes. There's very little like this out there right now....more
Extravagantly weird mid-century refitting of gothic dread around an eerie house and cast of odd characters vaguely competing for an inheritance. UnlikExtravagantly weird mid-century refitting of gothic dread around an eerie house and cast of odd characters vaguely competing for an inheritance. Unlike the somewhat messy film version, this succeeds in maintaining mood and intrigue, and gradually unspooling its sublimely unforeseeable plot (punctuated with audacious scenes of unexpected action) for the full length. Others have noted that it's basically a pulp story (a bit haunted house and a bit And Then There Were None), but again, a singularly weird one (and escapes from being anything really reducible to either of those archetypes), with scenes of unparalleled quasi-surrealist insanity. Really, this was perfect pre-Halloween reading. I was totally satisfied....more
The morbid obsession of an inconsolable bereavement, and the dual mapping of that loss onto city streets, fog-bound and empty, and onto a new living oThe morbid obsession of an inconsolable bereavement, and the dual mapping of that loss onto city streets, fog-bound and empty, and onto a new living object, innocent of the simulacrum she's been forced to become. Or the book doesn't really see her as innocent, casting her as a somewhat blandly archetypal manipulative harlot, but really who wouldn't fair poorly under the projected image of a lover who is unable to see her at all behind the other he has lost? Still, the streets of Bruges have a slow-burning mystery here, and a well-wrought background of fanatical Catholic disapproval that builds to fever in the culminating Holy Blood procession. Eerie and poetic, this was a key text of the Belgian Symbolists, admired by Huysmans and Mallarme with obvious cause.
Incidentally, this edition was published by Atlas Press, committed translators and reissuers of so many otherwise lost surrealist, symbolist, and dada texts. Their edition also reproduces Rodenbach's photos of Bruges, as they appeared in the original publication. Symbolist painter Fernand Knopff, also of Bruges, did the original frontispiece, and later did his own versions, ghostly and elegaic, of several of the photos:
Marcel Schwob was a turn-of-the-century Belgian symbolist and horror writer. Apparently a friend (or at least correspondent of Stevenson and inspiratiMarcel Schwob was a turn-of-the-century Belgian symbolist and horror writer. Apparently a friend (or at least correspondent of Stevenson and inspiration to Borges' A Universal History of Iniquity, but... I just wasn't that into this ever-so-brief set of monologues concerning the medieval Children's Crusade, wherein 7000 european kids believed themselves inspired by god to conquer Jerusalem, with little or no idea of where, or even what, Jerusalem was. It's a potentially fascinating historical incident, yes, but Schwob's treatment is pretty slight, and his apparently unique command of language and description is pretty reduced here by the monologue format and need to stick to spiritually addled archaic voices. I guess it would be interesting in a collection of Schwob's fiction, but less so as an entire stand-alone not-even-novella.
Part of my annoyance isn't Schwob's fault: I foolishly bought this in a totally generic print-on-demand amazon copy, which actually omitted a key page due to bad scanning and lack of proof-reading. Don't bother with it. Instead just read it online for free (with all pages intact, even!). Note to self: check for scans of old books like this one first -- if amazon has lame print-on-demand copies, the source is probably public domain now anyway....more