In a previous post I know that I mentioned that I was reading 'Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two' by Maggie Smith- Bendall for the sake of my gypsy interest but I want to review something else in this post.
I am quite the multi- tasker when it comes to reading books, my limit being reading five novels at one time (*brushes shoulder*).
While I am reading 'Rabbit Stew' I have been reading Lovecraft Unbound, a kind of well known short story collection inspired by the the works of H.P Lovecraft. Here is a review of two of the stories in the collection that are my favorites, "The Tenderness of Jackals" by Amanda Downum and "The Din of Celestial Birds" by Brian Evenson.
These stories aren't necessarily written with Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos in mind but each of the stories include themes that are famous in his stories and poems.
I'll start with The Tenderness of Jackals by Amanda Downum. This is brilliant. It is based around the psychological workings of a predator. I suppose the theme that Downum took from Lovecraft is the idea of forces that are outside of our understanding influencing us, unknowable things from outside time and space trying to gain their foothold in our reality.
The story begins in a train station as a man is scanning the people around him as he smokes a cigarette. As the narrative continues we learn that he is hearing things in his head, the barks of Jackals urging him to find some prey. To me the jackals that are put in the story are psychological, being representations of the inner urges of the man's mind. When he is fighting against the jackals that he can both see and hear, what he is really fighting against is himself... so... yeah. It gets into the mind of a man with the urge to do something bad... and when a young man comes into his life he is greatly tempted to act on his urges that that he has been trying to repress... the jackals that he hears and sees urging him onwards to unleash the monster within him. Greatedy Great!
The Din of Celestial Birds is by far my most favourite tale in the collection. It carries on the Lovecraft theme of mystreious, sinister forces in the universe acting on humanity in naughty ways...because the dark forces in our universe just do that.
The story is set in some poor Indian village. A man remembers running down a mountain where he remembers seeing a cage made of bones and feathers around it. As the story is told strange things begins to happen to the man. Holes begin to appear all around his body, he wakes up in a place without any idea how he got there. The local shaman type character keeps saying that the man is cursed and that "he is already dead..."
As things turn more crazy he becomes more alienated to the people around him. During the end scene he collapses and his body breaks apart into many beautiful birds that fly away into the sky.
The Din of Celestial Birds was written in the style of a written account, much like how M.R James might write one of his famous ghost stories.
I have never been attempted to write much fan fiction. I have always felt that I am trespassing onto an authors work. The only fan fiction that I have wanted to do was a tribute to True Blood (I have never read the books and have only seen up to series two of the t.v series...but I am intrigued in a world in which vampires have openly revealed their existence, you can only contemplate the endless tales that you can spin in a universe like that). The good thing about writing fan fiction in the dark world of Lovecraft is that you can go crazy. It is easy to write Lovecraftian fiction and when you write this type of fan fiction you don't feel at all guilty that you are corrupting another persons work in any way. I class Lovecraft Unbound not to be a book of fan fiction but a book of stories from authors who appreciate Lovecraft and his work, not by writing Mythos stories but by writing stories that have been inspired by his work, stories that were created when the creative cogs in the writers brains were set spinning with the help of H.P's weird tales.
You cannot be a fan of horror and the gothic without coming across Lovecraft sometime in your life.
Some of the stories I enjoyed throughly...some were ok...but none of them were bad.
Review over.
The book 'Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two' to be reviewed after this small announcement from our sponsor...
I'll write about 'Rabbit Stew' some time in the future.
Good old H.P.
Over and Out.
ED
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