secret wheel 18

secret wheel 13

The Walking Mat (1993)

This is one of the longer stories in this book, but, unlike many of the previous long ones, it is not a quilted story. It seems organic. A definite ‘genius loci’. It seems to summarise some of the leit-motifs still homing in. It is a man’s return to the half-sunken novelty hotel where his wife died at his hand on honeymoon. It is about the nature of a gratuitous act. It is of a dual symbiosis where one of the participants dies in the process. It is of the evolution of selves. Tripartite wars. The optimum-last-thought-at-the-point-of-one’s-own-death. It is of interaction and dialogue reminiscent of ‘Effervescent’, ‘The Chaise Longue’, ‘The Scar Museum’... It is of many other things I can no longer grasp.

I have been developing a huge amount of self-doubt as I progress through this experimental (‘intentional fallacy’-inspired) real-time review of ostensibly my own book. But one needs to factor in randomness and synchronicity, truth and fiction. Yet it remains essentially pretentious, and if I believe that an author is just as able (or unable) to critique his own book as other so-called independent reviewers – why have I seen fit to interpolate personal anecdotes throughout, i.e. anecdotes about the writing of some of the stories? Perhaps the answer is in the end of ‘The Walking Mat’: an ending of re-enactment and role-playing. If that is a story-spoiler, I apologise, but it is necessary for me to make this ‘self’-important observation in the context of what is fast becoming an important event in my writing life (i.e. this review). An importance I did not predict when embarking a week or so ago upon doing this (on the face of it, crass) experiment. I suppose it is significant that at the outset I speculated upon this review taking months or even years. And here I am, today, nearly finished!

“The hotel was expensive. Not so much a sea-view as the fish-eye itself.”  (4 June 09)

CONTINUED FROM HERE


Salustrade (1993)

Hmmm – actually, this over-long story is better than I remember it ... just! Perhaps Karl Edward Wagner did have a point after all when he chose it for ‘Year’s Best Horror Stories’. I have great respect for him and his fiction and his editorial work. Therefore, I shall hold fire on this story. Make your own mind up. I’ll just itemise the high points (for me) then: an assisted suicide beneath a pyramid of second-hand books, some apocalyptic visions and the language used to describe them, a strange relationship between a pair of twins (perhaps, paradoxically, the ultimate tripartite war!), Salustrade as the highly-strung, imp-like ‘gladiator’, the steampunk SF scenario under a gothic city and the Padgett Weggs finale.

It’s perhaps that some of these high-points don’t make the grade as amenable jigsaw pieces! This story crams in so many DFL emblems it makes the task of this real-time review discovering the book’s audit trail of leit-motifs (leading to an eventual gestalt) either too difficult or too easy. Never in between.

“The books around her were nothing but memories, too – mere pages of live thoughts that were all but dead. How could the bone of one finger split into a ‘V’? For a book to live, though, must it not in fact become such a ‘V’?”  (27 May 09 - 2 hours later)

Scaredy and Whitemouth (1994)

This one seemed far better than I remembered. I remembered it as a pedestrian story of a blind girl called Aspen – and her two cats – and someone called David whom she visualised. It is about those things. But the ending came as a complete surprise and the innuendo of some people ‘seeing’ more things by feeling their way reminded me of various processes I’ve experienced when doing these real-time reviews. But that’s not the real reason. This was a story that genuinely touched me as if I’d never written it. The Narrator this time was not on a dimmer-switch, but I, imputed author become the unconnected reader, was dimming and brightening in a slow-motion strobe as if in some process that could only be envisioned by a real blind person. I almost could answer the question: who empathised with whom? Almost. 

[Perhaps one needs two people to try empathising mutually so as to allow a missing missing-wall to be found by a third party as a chink of light through which he or she can ‘read’ both parties far more clearly than they could even ‘read’ each other and themselves. A three-cornered dance ... or a tripartite war’s surrender or peace conference.]

“Aspen had dreams in her sleep. Blindness couldn’t prevent that. She saw the places she visited during the day in precise detail, down to the assistant at the underwear shop with pitted face, toothbrush moustache and tape measure round his shoulders.” (27 May 09 - another 4 hours later)

The Scar Museum (1996)

A somehow logical treatment of a protagonist who runs a Scar Museum and stays in hotels in Spa towns so as to cull as many potential exhibits as possible from the inhabitants – paralleled by a metaphor of life’s scars extending to real scars on the mind’s surface, a mind that can also be culled. It tells of his well-narrated encounter with two women and with a pig-like dog called Tussle. And there is a guest appearance by Padgett Weggs in his dosser role. It all makes eminent sense. And fits into a growing hypothesis that this collection is really a novel...

Read as a separate story, it works, too.

It makes unbelievability the new believability.

Some strange expressions like ‘unworld-famous museum’ and ‘undesigner-rip in the jeans’ take this concept of against-the-grain truth into a realm of even weaker tissues of lie. (28 May 09)

Season of Lost Will (1991)

“Freda often thought out loud after her memory started to go. If she could but know where it was going, that might have helped.”

This story has become devastating. When I first wrote it I was around 20 years younger than I am now, and it wasn’t quite so devastating to me then. It is a story of misunderstandings and memories as one grows older as a married couple. It cleverly centres round a mysterious Christmas Card that arrives every year. Time attenuates into a scar of its former condition. Which is best - to lose something or never to know you had it? Then slowly and unenthusiastically queuing behind crazy people for the emergency exit from life’s auditorium.

“The great miracle about it all, he thought, was that people lived as if they were immortal, but knowing at the back of their mind all the time that one day, one unexpected day, they would pass on. That was God’s con trick. What made it more absurd God would never put in an appearance to have the last laugh.” (28 May 09 - 4 hours later)

Second Best (1993)

A densely word-packed flash fiction about Simple Simon and the Pieman and Jack the Giantkiller in a tripartite dream. A ‘bony-meat haven’ or a ‘slight ghost in the night hutch’ or ‘wishbone substance of shadow’?

A question of philosophical identity. And just another piece to fit into the jiggery-pokery that is this book.

“‘The only giants left to kill are ourselves.’ – Rachel Mildeyes.” (29 May 09)

'WEIRMONGER' REAL-TIME REVIEW CONTINUED HERE.

CONTINUED FROM HERE.

At this point, we are about halfway through this book. 

A Selfish Strain (1998)

A ‘dream of real air’ from a world under water?  Well sort of. It’s a chunky prose piece “using words less understandable than the alien dialect once crated to Earth in the beaks of insane, if articulate, chickens”. It is about the cynical narrator’s son bringing home a girl friend (who is a bit like one of those Haw Haw creatures in ‘Caretaker’?) – with‘coral seas beyond the stocking-tops’. 

DFL stories are often frightening – not so much because they are always Horror stories – but because it’s frightening to think anyone could have written them!  Or even wanted to.

"High-faluting college talk, I called it. He needed his brains flushing out.” (29 May 09 - 2 hours later)

 

 

 

 

The Sun Setting (2003)

This is one of the few works that was first published in the ‘Weirdmonger’ book.  Strangely, it is the only story that is out of alphabetical order (as you will see).  Perhaps a red-herring in a ‘whodunnit’ or ‘isitreallyanovel?’ novel. It is also, I believe, the shortest piece in the book. About a lake (the lake in 'Egnis'?) A genuine prose poem, as opposed to a story. I shall break some more reviewing ground by making my review of this piece the whole piece itself from beginning to end:

“THE SUN SETTING

The lake was darker than the deepest sleep.  I could still sense the horizon, though, while I or someone like me stood on the water’s edge: sensing that the tideless ripples were louder because it was night and there were less distractions.  There were several others, awake or asleep, I wasn’t sure, who stood ranked along the edge: as if waiting for the glorious moment of waking or sunrise whichever came first.  A sense of awe.  A greater sense of suspense.  A sense of sense.  It was difficult to express even the simplest sense of all.  Meanings lost touch with reality.  Whilst thoughts regained reality piecemeal, during the process: a rim of screaming orange slowly worming across the already known horizon of utter darkness.  Then the sun ineluctably inched upward, a slowworm, an inchworm, a wormhole of blinding iritis of the eye: sloe gin, searing cocktail of the senses, gingerly ratcheting into focus: half up now, almost three-quarters: as the lake became a sheen of fire; I or someone like me, almost fully awake, turned to see the other watchers of the lake, standing to attention, saluting the sun or, rather, shading their eyes from the sun with their hands: they could almost see the veins under the flesh by looking at the sun through themselves: I recognised one or two of the watchers: friends, relations, enemies even. There was not a single stranger.  We were all bleary eyed, squinting, shambling, shuffling, a slow-motion locomotion nearer the lake’s edge, as if in some wildly lethargic attempt to summon the sun to ourselves, gathering it to our bosom.  I or someone like me closed one eye.  It was like winking.  Acknowledging the presence of a life-giving force: after all, the sun gave us life, and we needed to return the favour.  Exchange blessings with the most sacred powerhouse of God and Mystery.  If God it were.  Only representatives knew whom they represented.  And the sun could not speak, could not be killed for the message it brought, could not accept blame or praise.  Slowly now, far more slowly than we could imagine by wading through the margins of water with which the lake ruffled our bare feet towards its blistering furnace, the sun appeared to engorge as the horizon finally released its lower arc of corona.  And nigh filled the sky.  I or someone like me held hands with my neighbour, and he or someone like him took hold of his neighbour and she or someone like her took hold of her neighbour … as we walked deeper into the lake.  And slowly, so very slowly, watched ourselves as our lives passed before our eyes as if we had actually lived such events in the course of some unspoken reality.  The worm drowned.  As heads inched beneath the silken smoothness of sparkling fire, it was as if each head was its own sun setting.  Some of us or some people like us decided to linger to see the real thing.” (29 May 09 - another 30 minutes later)

 

 

 

Shades of Emptiness (2003)

First published in this book, this is a Joycean you-monologue (you being me) that ranges in quick-fire fashion between ‘identities’, historicities, house parties, slimefests, emptinesses... There are many strong visions and images and spectacular usages of language in this very long ‘story’. But do they cohere? Not to the present reader.  This is the ugly face of ‘Weirdmonger’ – perhaps paralleling or symbolising the wider frustrations and eventual failure of those audit-trailers out there or of any seekers of leit-motif from within the whole book to make a gestalt.

“So, you determined to gate-crash and then gate-crash again. If a party was worth a party, it took you ten thousand years to reach its inner sanctum, where the action actually was.” (29 May 09 - another 90 minutes later)

.

The Shiftlings (1991)

It is a story rather than a prose poem, but I surprisingly find it is shorter than ‘The Sun Setting’! It is a conversation of dreams and the reaching through hair towards the head itself. A wispy ghost story. We are all ghosts, perhaps.

“But you must learn to sort out the straight bits first, or the middle will never come.” (29 May 09 - another 2 hours later)

Small Fry (2003)

First published in this book, this is my favourite DFL story ... where all the various DFLeries and DFLisms come together.  It tells of an extended family in Wales, their associates in the TV world of the Sixties, the near-physical ghosts, the charade party games, the obliquities that (here at least) mean far more than any linear or straightforward devices can manage, the poignancies often touching upon absurdity or grotesqueness, the tripartite war of unsexual love, sexual love and irregular lust - all conveyed by a language that here works perfectly as a blend of dense texture and clarity, of poetry and prose.

“The magic times always seemed to be saved for a Sunday, when Father took us for views. His old jalopy took the steep winding roads in its stride. Up a Welsh hill, with our breaths snatched away, we gazed awestruck at the way God was able to make things so really big and high, as if He were showing off for the benefit of us small fry.”

‘Small Fry’ makes me want to question the word ‘weirdmonger’ that one of my children invented for me in the eighties.  There is something constructively ambivalent about the word.  As in this very story.   Not destructive as it is in the actual story entitled ‘Weirdmonger’ later in this book.  There is a difference between the Weirdmonger who writes these stories and the character who stole the name from the writer and used it as its name when the writer wasn’t looking and took it on and spoilt it and gave it a spurious ‘truth’.  And, damn me, then I actually found it became the overall title of the whole book! (29 May 09 - another 2 hours later)

.

Small Talk (1994)

“...filled with sinister back-to-back churches and tenebrous terraced steeples. Things with souls seemed to be loitering on the pavements like coffins of flesh, whose talk was so small, silent it was.”

This is a long story of a day trip by car from Croydon to Leeds and back again. It is based on the exact details of the real trip in 1988 to a SF Convention with another writer (called Gary in the story but not a Gary in real life) who was of course then much younger and unfamous. Interpolated between the outward trip and the return trip are a series of discrete (?) short stories that the driver (based on me) fictitiously told the passenger en route.  Do these stories cohere and/or stand up as stories or act as reasonless ‘small talk’?  Some of them concern car travel: full of every-day and grotesque and absurd images / visions (much like ‘Shades of Emptiness’ but here, I feel the format works better).  It is a sort of mini ‘leit-motif to gestalt’ within a larger ‘leit-motif to gestalt’ of the ‘Weirdmonger’ book itself.  Dolls within dolls.  We nearly had a fatal accident on that real trip, I recall.  Would the world have been a better place had that happened – to the two dolls rattled around inside like dice?

“‘Don’t turn left on Sydenham Road!’ he insisted, upon giving me directions back to Croydon. If he said it once, he said it a hundred times.” (30 May 09)

 

THE 'WEIRDMONGER' REAL-TIME REVIEW CONTINUED HERE

www.nemonymous.com

See Wikipedia site if you haven't the time to read the whole of this page!

New Visual Wikipedia!! 

IN 2001, NEMONYMOUS WAS THE WORLD'S FIRST UNCREDITED ANTHOLOGY OF FICTION STORIES.

NEMONYMOUS PRICES: HERE

NEMONYMOUS SUBMISSION GUIDELINES WILL BE SHOWN ON THIS SITE DURING ANY PARTICULAR READING PERIOD.  CURRENTLY CLOSED (from 1 April 2009) UNTIL COMPLETION OF 'CERN ZOO' (NEMONYMOUS NINE).

THE CERN ZOO PAGE: HERE

                        

 

Link: ZENCORE! - iconic BOOK (Nemonymous Seven) - 2007. 

'Zencore' Nemonymous: "a work that is staggeringly important"

"I LOVED IT!!" 8 Feb o9: http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/9475

 

 

Link:  CONE ZERO (Nemonymous 8) - 2008

'Cone Zero':  "Well, I'm usually wary of saying things like this, but I expect to see Cone Zero on the lists of this year's best anthologies."

Cone Zero (2008): 'a flawless anthology' 

 

 

Some interviews that deal at least in part with 'Nemonymous':

Sein Und Werden

LOST PAGES

Metastatic Whatnot

Fantastic Metropolis 

Znine

Pantechnicon

TLO

 

 

For NEMO'S ARK concept: HERE. 

Nemonymous MySpace: HERE SHOWING THE VARIOUS NEMONYMOUS COVER IMAGES.

Nemonymous discussion: HERE.

Nemonymous announcements: VEILS & PIQUES.

Please write to dflewis48@hotmail.com for information about easily receiving the ironically famous NEMONYMOUS. The past issues of Nemonymous are intrinsically valuable and should continue to increase in value. All of the first five printed issues of Nemo were produced by the traditional method of a one-off finite print-run, i.e 500 of each issue in total. The seventh issue has been exploring new avenues. The eighth issue is about to explore even newer avenues! Please see Nemo's Ark to read what Nemo writers have said about it and all the independent reviews linked from below.

In addition to the quotes and reviews below there are some even more amazing ones linked from HERE! And Reviews of ZENCORE! HERE

"One of the most interesting experiments in fiction in recent years."
-- from TIME OUT 2003

Contains original work from A.D.Harvey, Tamar Yellin, Lavie Tidhar, Jeff VanderMeer, Simon Clark, Iain Rowan, Anonymous, Mike O'Driscoll, Rhys Hughes, D Harlan Wilson, Margaret B Simon, Joel Lane, Scott Edelman, Joe Murphy, Reggie Oliver, Ursula Pflug, S.D. Tullis, Tim Nickels, Nick Jackson, John Grant, Neil James Hudson, Kek-W, Dominy Clements and many others even more famous.

"A first class collection." -- INTERZONE 201 re Nemonymous Five

"Nemonymous: It’s been a hell of a ride, and the world has been made a better place because of it." - John Llewellyn Probert (2005)

"We should all thank Mr. Lewis for taking a risk and thinking outside the box. Nemonymous 3 is a testament to pure creativity." -- Carmela Rebe (2005)

Latest Nemonymous Five reviews here and here (& see cover) and here and here and here.
With its cover, Nemo 5 would make the ideal surprise gift!

More details and reviews under the large red NEMONYMOUS title below.

Nemonymous has published 114 original stories: paying writers a flat rate of £25 per story in anthologies 1 (2001), 2 (2002) & 3 (2003) and £45 per story in anthologies 4 (2004) & 5 (2005). Stories in anthology 7 (Zencore 2007) were paid £50 each. Stories in anthology 8 (Cone Zero 2008) were paid £65 each.

'Nemonymous' was a word invented by DFL in 2001, with no hits on Google at that time. It was the name of the world's very first multi-authored anthology of anonymous stories.



 

"Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue."
Henry James from 'The Art of Fiction' 1888


NEMONYMOUS
 

The Megazanthus

An anthology of parthenogenetic fiction and late-labelling

ORDERS: GB Pounds: inclusive of UK postage or Surface Mail: 

(A) CONE ZERO = £10

(B) ZENCORE = £8 

(C) CONE ZERO plus ZENCORE = £16  

(D) A, B or C above plus one or more of the previous ‘Nemonymous’ anthologies (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) will be an additional cost of £3 for each anthology. (£5 per anthology if not part of A, B or C.)

Multiply any total amount above by 1.3 for Air Mail instead of Surface Mail.

UK orders of £18 or more will also receive a free ONLY CONNECT paperback.

Payment by Paypal to DF Lewis at bfitzworth@yahoo.co.uk

=========================

All available finance is ploughed into Nemonymous itself: exquisitely produced, and with the first five anthologies having been published in the traditional one-off print-run. Their quality of presentation/contents, finite quantity of copies and ground-breaking features should ensure their future value as a collectable. They have received much acclaim plus honours for many of its authors.

Nemo has given writers the rare ability to have a story initially printed anonymously - an experience many considered enlightening and, later, name-enhancing.


Nemonymous is a legend. Probably because many have queried how hard it is to obtain it!

If you have any queries regarding purchases or anything else, please email dflewis48@hotmail.com.

'Nemonymous' 1 to 5 have been printed traditionally and there is a stock of truly beautiful anthologies waiting to be sold at reasonable prices. Five different anthologies. Please see HERE for lists of their featured authors.

Nemonymous Five was published in 2005.
Many have said the cover itself is an amazing work of art, e.g:

"Nemo 5 has that Phil Dickian quality, an object that is not what it seems. It reminds me of my most memorable moment as a science fiction reader when in "Time Out of Joint" the soft drinks stand dissolves and Ragle Gumm is left with a card bearing the words 'SOFT DRINKS STAND'."

and

"Outstanding, Des. This is pop art. This is like Claus Oldenberg and his big soft electrical plugs. I shall try it in different positions all over the house. I'm now *very* pleased that I restrained myself from reading other folks' cover comments until I'd seen this beauty. It's left me with a deep and delighted smile."

WITH THIS COVER, IT WOULD MAKE A PERFECT SURPRISE GIFT FOR SOMEONE!

The first story in NEMONYMOUS FIVE starts: Sit down and shut up!
Indeed, it is advised that the reader consumes the whole book silently in one sitting, in the order printed -- not worrying too much if any particular story doesn’t, at first, truly cling. This will ensure the whole reading experience will be devastatingly memorable for the rest of your life.

NEMONYMOUS SIX in 2006 was something else!*

Nemonymous One became, in 2001, the world's very first self-contained volume of anonymous stories (written independently by different authors) and collected as such. In 2002, Nemonymous Two published the world's first blank short story in print (as far as it is known), together with the acclaimed 'Vanishing Life and Films Of Emmanuel Escobada' which is to be anonymous forever & the classic story 'The Assistant to Dr Jacob' which was reprinted in 'Year's Best Fantasy & Horror'. Nemonymous Three received an amazing nine 'honourable mentions' from YBF&H and Nemonymous Four is a sleekly white Stealth fighter-plane that missed nearly every radar! More 'Honourable Mentions' for stories in Nemonymous Five, Zencore! (Nemo 7) & Cone Zero (Nemo 8), including Zencore's 'England & Nowhere' being reprinted in 'Year's Best Fantasy & Horror'.

Nemo #4 review says: "It is absurd there are so few publications in the small press produced to such a professional standard. Nemonymous, for its production values alone, should be a benchmark."

On 9 December 2004, Keith Brooke (aka Nick Gifford) gave a lecture at Essex University for the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies' weekly talk series. His title was "Names, Pseudonyms and Nemonyms" (about labelling in fiction), and featured ideas created by Nemonymous and a reading from it.

"One of the most interesting experiments in fiction in recent years."
-- from TIME OUT 2003

"...switching between the Pan Book of Horror Stories and one of HP Lovecraft's wordier collections."
-- TIME OUT review of Nemonymous Five (2005)

"Utterly unique...this compact little book offers immense pleasure."
-- from ASIMOV'S 2005

A Nemo#4 author says: "What has attracted me the most to Nemonymous is that through its anonymity (a primary facet of the unknown, of the weird) it's becoming, I think, a focal point for modern fantasy, a gathering, if you will, for a new school of weird."

Rick Kleffel's article HERE says: "This is a brilliant and exciting idea, and who else would come up with it but DFL, who has been pushing the boundaries of fiction for more than 20 years."

This site says: "So very rarely does something truly innovative survive marriage to altruism in the harsh day to day reality of the business of literature. Check out DFL's Nemonymous, be part of something great."

NEMONYMOUS DISCUSSION FORUM: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nemonymous/

Stories for Nemonymous Four and Five were considered and finally accepted/rejected by the editor with the authors still anonymous.


Simply brilliant original poems by various poets all entitled Nemonymity.


A Nemonymous-type book has appeared in 2005: THE SECRET SOCIETY OF DEMOLITION WRITERS

"Long before The Secret Society of Demolition Writers, DFL, one of the finest literary terrorists we have, created Nemonymous, a literary anthology dedicated to an anonymous reading experience."
--Rick Kleffel.

The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada



Click for: DFL BIOGRAPHY
.

NEMONYMOUS is an acclaimed megazanthus of short speculative fiction -- a Small Press publication conceived, edited, published and distributed by DFL as a labour of unrequited love.

REVIEW OF FIRST FIVE ISSUES OF NEMONYMOUS
I love Nemonymous. The idea, the execution, its weird size and shape, the stories. It has the feel of something bold and forbidden. Stories with no bylines? It’s a brilliant way of putting the fiction up front and center. No browsing the contents list to see who wrote what, no going to the familiar names first, and no scanning of the writer’s bio to read the accomplishments of the unfamiliar before giving their stories a read, and no skipping the authors who didn’t light your fire in the past. No, Nemonymous is all about fiction divorced from any context but temporary anonymity. And though the experiment is now on hiatus with issue five, Des Lewis has devised the “megazanthus” in such a way that each and every issue of Nemonymous can still be enjoyed the way it was meant to be if the reader so chooses … it just takes a bit more willpower for those who weren’t onboard the first time.

The magazine’s central conceit of temporarily anonymous stories is nicely preserved in its format, even after subsequent issues are available and the authors are revealed. A new reader has the option of approaching the stories with their anonymity intact, unless, of course, a story is so powerful the reader just has to know who wrote it. I admit there were times I wished I could grab the next issue and find out who wrote a particular story. I can’t say what I would have done had I the option to know who wrote what. Some stories begged for unmasking early and if given the opportunity of having issue two at hand while reading issue one, I probably would have skipped ahead to see who wrote something that really wowed me like, say, With Arms Outstretched.

While I liked every issue, Nemonymous two and three impressed me like no other, perhaps because I found their ideas so thought-provoking. Loss of memory, identity, emotion, relationships, and self are the sort of thematic concerns that enthrall me. In fact, two and three feel like one giant issue that needed to be divided, such was the importance of its thematic concerns. Never mind the submissions process was many months apart, these two issues feel like a unified whole with stories that could have fit comfortably in one issue or the other. While it was the premise of the magazine that drew me in, it was the execution and quality of the stories that validated my high expectations. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a bad issue of Nemonymous, it’s just these two are such stellar achievements you wonder why the future of Nemonymous wasn’t ensured from the start of its five issue run (one can hope there will be future volumes).

What follows is a review of sorts, but I’m only going to hit on a few stories and not even all those that resonated with me or else I’d spend too much time gushing about, say, Shark in a Foggy Sea (Issue three) or The Assistant to Dr. Jacob (Issue two) at the expense of gems like Buffet Freud (Two) or The Place Where Lost Things Go (three) because I’ve only so much time.

I’ll start with the second issue’s Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World. I want to single it out because it’s the perfect example of what Nemonymous can do for the reader and the author. I won’t mention the author’s name because I’m writing this to entice new readers and if nemonymity is still intact, it’s still possible to enjoy these issues the way they were meant to be, sans byline. I was semi-familiar with this writer’s work before reading the story. Maybe, had I known the author’s name, I would have saved this story for last or, worse, not gotten around to reading it, which isn’t to slight the author’s skill because he’s very deft with the written word and in crafting a story. No, it’s more of a thing where I was biased because the previous works I’d read hadn’t quite grabbed me. I didn’t know who he was and in this case I was blind not only to the author, but to the genre. This last is very important because it highlights the second thing Nemonymous does well; it temporarily strips a story of genre and believe me, there are plenty of genres represented within Nemo’s pages so you never know what you’re going to read next. So it was with great excitement that I started reading the first story of Nemonymous 2 and it soon became clear it wasn’t going to be the type of story that reveals itself perfectly by the last word. However, it was the language and the feel and the mood that made me appreciate what I’d read even when I didn’t completely understand it by story’s end. Sometimes it isn’t about “getting it” as much as it is “feeling it” and Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World is the equivalent of watching a film that makes you think as much as feel. In the beginning, I didn’t understand it (sometimes I’m just dense), but upon a second and third read the idea reveals itself in the pieces of symbolism the author chose…or maybe I’m totally on the wrong track, the fun is using your mind in a way you don’t with many other stories. Nemonymous made me reevaluate what I knew - or thought I knew - about this author. I won’t be putting off his stories in the future.

Issue Two’s second story, Mighty Fine Days, particularly resonated. The protagonist’s plight is a chilling one where newspapers and signs have all become blank as if the details are lost before imprinting themselves in his mind. So, too, does his mind begin to unravel as his memories depart and, perhaps most eerily of all, no one seems to notice his plight, nor does he feel any profound sense of loss as he goes through the motions of life. Yeah, I probably revealed too much here, but the brilliance of this Mighty Fine Days is in its execution. I absolutely love this story to death and a lengthy plot summary cannot ruin the power of this story.

The Drowned, also issue two, is the best kind of character study, one that doesn’t feel faux or forced and doesn’t use a terminal illness in a clichéd attempt to make the reader feel something the writer doesn’t have the ability to pull off otherwise. The narrator and Kevin are alive and their experiences are perfectly suited to the titular metaphor. The second paragraph’s “The only time we went away together was pretty much a disaster. It taught us something about ourselves, but it wasn’t knowledge we could use,” is an amazing, thoughtful statement. Issue three’s Chemo is another excellent tale about a terminal illness and its effect on the stricken couple where the handling of the subject isn’t what you’d expect.

Issue three’s Genie was an excellent tale of love and loss. Some days it is my favorite story of the issue, sort of like when you get a new CD and different songs strike your fancy at different times. I absolutely love the way the story unfolds and the way the author doesn’t let the premise down by story’s end. It’s fabulous and the fact that so many other stories in the issue are just as good is a testament to Nemonymous' consistently high quality.

And just when you think you’ve got Nemonymous figured out a tale like The Rest of Larry smacks you upside the head and you realize you really, really, never know what you’re going to get next. Another point about the bylineless format should be mentioned here. Because you don’t know the authors, you’re less likely to skip around—at least I am. Nemonymous is an anthology that should be read in the order the stories are presented. The Rest of Larry is…well, I can’t say anymore, but trust me; if you read the stories in order this one will surprise you. Trust the editor, he knows what he’s doing. The Rest of Larry is a great read and hilarious and unexpected read.

I’ll end with thoughts on the “denemonization” process itself. Nemonymous’ after-the-fact bylines gives authors a chance to reflect on the feedback their stories have garnered in the months since first publication. Instead of a simple statement of author identity and a short, generic bio, you often get to read thoughts tailored to the story or to the experience of being temporarily anonymous. Issues two and three have superb author notes, worth the original wait and still interesting for late-comers who have yet to experience Nemonymous and wonder what it was like for the authors to sit in silence all those months. These bios feel interactive. It’s a nice touch you don’t often get with fiction’s traditional modes of presentation where the bylines say “this is who I am; this is what I’ve done.” No, most of the Nemonymous bylines are an attraction in and of themselves and I don’t recall them getting their proper due. I like reading what was going through an author’s mind when he or she wrote something, or what the author felt when reading a particular review of the story, or how the author felt about anonymity. Plus, I was totally, utterly astounded by what the author revealed about issue one’s With Arms Outstretched when it was denemonised in issue two, just a little factoid about its history had his author bio been printed in any outlet other than Nemonymous. Like the gold coin on Issue three’s cover, the idea, the execution, and the result of Nemonymous is priceless. Highly recommended and readily available.

This review © Brent Zirnheld (December 2005)


======================
*You could say that Nemo 6 was the blank edition. It just had to happen. After the blank story and the blank cover and...
I'll get my coat!
DFL Obituary: HERE.

=================================

SIDESHOW: Silly Idea - The Baser Pulps - Nemonymous - The Weirdmonger Wheel - Themed Quotations from DFL - Weirdmonger (Prime Book 2003) - DFL's review of 'Teatro Grottesco' - The Pit and the Pessimum 

Real-Time Reviews as invented by DF Lewis

There may be unavoidable spoilers in all my reviews (although I do try to avoid them). 

An author's blog HERE. "Had an interesting experience this week of watching an “as live” review of The Ephemera taking shape as it was being read."

 

Another author's blog here about the DFL review of his book: HERE. "So here’s a sincere thanks to Des for his perceptive and insightful reading of my work."

 

A review of DFL's review of Ligotti's book below: HERE. "If you're looking for a brief romp through weird literature and the banker Meltdown, or have wondered what one weirdmonger on the fringe thinks of another wordsmith of the high weird, then you have found your destination."

 

HERE: "Des you make me want to buy books. My dream is to have you one day do one of these enlightening reviews about a collection of my stories. Brilliant stuff!"

 

Paul Meloy: HERE: "Des, this has been an absolute pleasure! Delightful, unique, touching...an honour. I predict these stream-of-consciousness reviews will become the essential thing to have and be in great demand! Thanks for taking the time to do this, Des!"

 

EDIT (22 APR 09): These reviews have developed into what I now call Real-Time Reviews of Books. The more recently dated ones below show this development more markedly.

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

May 2007: DFL's review ('On The Hoof') of Thomas Ligotti's 'Conspiracy Against The Human Race': HERE

with TL's reply.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Nov 08 - Jan 09:

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/glyphotech_by_mark_samuels.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/beneath_the_surface_by_simon_strantzas.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/omens_by_richard_gavin.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/divinations_of_the_deep_by_matt_cardin.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/rain_dogs_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/teatro_grottesco_by_thomas_ligotti.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/how_to_make_monsters_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

(3 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/tamar_yellin.htm - Tales of The Ten Lost Tribes

 

 

(17 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_reach_of_children__by_tim_lebbon.htm

 

(21 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_impelled__other_headtrips_by_gary_fry.htm 

(7 Mar 09): World Wide Web And Other Lovecraftian Upgrades - by Gary Fry

(11 Mar 09): Beneath The Ground - edited by Joel Lane

(15 Mar 09): UNBECOMING And Other Tales Of Horror - by Mike O'Driscoll

(20 Mar 09): The Ephemera - by Neil Williamson

(25 Mar 09): Somnambulists - by Allen Ashley

(29 Mar 09): The Villa Désirée and Other Uncanny Stories - by May Sinclair

(11 Apr 09): Sanity and Other Delusions - by Gary Fry

(12 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/sleepwalkers__marion_arnott.htm

(15 Apr 09): ISLINGTON CROCODILES by Paul Meloy

(20 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/mindful_of_phantoms.htm by Gary Fry.

(6 May 09): The English Soil Society - by Tim Nickels 

(6 May 09): The Cusp of Something - by Jai Clare

 

 

 

 

Still in reading/reviewing:

"Real-Time Review of 'Weirdmonger' by DF Lewis" by DF Lewis 

Visits To The Flea Circus - by Nick Jackson

 

============================================================

PS:

Review of a long on-line novel:

http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html - a novel by PF Jeffery 

 

 

Mark Samuels' WHITE HANDS: http://nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/8/752.html?1227381699 (June 2003)

 

Real-time notes on Robert Aickman: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/robert_aickman.htm

 

 

.

holding

 

 

My Readings aloud: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/df_lewis_reading_aloud.htm

 

 

My reviews: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/recent_reviews_of_books_by_dfl.htm

 

 

Cone Zero: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/cone_zero_under_way.htm

 

Meeting of Minds

Meeting of Minds

The huge digital clock clacked loudly like an old-fashioned cricket scoreboard where a run was scored every second. The double clack each ten seconds relieved to some extent the otherwise hypnotic rhythm. He was waiting for a late night train. Nobody else was on the platform, but he did spot a foetus-like rodent scampering along one of the rails. For one moment, he thought it was the live rail, but following the creature’s disappearance behind a wooden plank, he assumed he must have been mistaken. The clouds had disappeared too, leaving the stars untangled, the moon uncluttered - except for two dark shapes approaching each other which were none of these things. Not aeroplanes with silent flashing lights, more like ill-defined ink-blots each about the size of an age-grimed pre-decimal penny upon the scale of his eye to the sky. Then the two shapes merged like cells under a microscope and suddenly shone as a silver half-crown. He wondered if he was the only one to notice these happenings in the sky, just before he felt the fatal electric shock in the ground as the Earth shorted at approximately 23:57:33.

Published 'Crossings' 1993

od13

od 13

DFL’S COMMENTS ON ‘ODALISQUE’ BY PF JEFFERY

 

Chapter 13 – Sale

 

Here I learn about ‘vambraces’ and ‘synonyms’. Tuerqui writes about these but still evidently not a semi-colon girl:

A lash across my buttocks told me that our business in the tent was done, I hurried toward the exit – beyond Henrietta’s table – closely followed by Giggli.

Much talk of Tuerqui being sold as a slave (to Madame Scurf of the Laughin’ Phallus in Dorkin’ as it turns out), stitched by poignant memories of her daughter Tuerquelle and interaction with the revolving plot.

Snippets I particularly enjoyed (although I enjoy it all):

her name was Camellia[1][1] or something of the sort – sucking the blood from a young lady’s neck.  Thinking about it now, I realised with a touch of shock that it contained strong hints of Surrenity.

[1][1] The name should, presumably, be Carmilla – the eponymous lead character in a bogey tale surviving from the Old Time.

Above presumably a reference to Coleridge’s vampire poem.

..........................

For the first time in perhaps a dozen years, I felt the urge to pray.  Reaching under the groundsheet, I took a handful of sticky mud.  Carefully, I started to mould it into an image of the Great Mother. 

............................

Each of us made her own prayer of dedication.  Then we fell silent, feeling that another was joining our huddle under the tarpaulin – a silence broken only by the renewed drumming of the rain.  We breathed deep, sucking divinity within ourselves.  Then, as though upon a signal, each of us murmured a simultaneous prayer.

“Oh Great Mother,” I prayed, “although I was a wicked and irreligious person – and a better but still irreligious slave – I know that you always listen to a mother’s prayer.  Please look after Tuerquelle, and be to her the mother I am not allowed to be.  Protect her and guide her.  If it may be, let us meet in the world to come.”

 

.................................

 

Typo:

Unable follow this conversation very well

 

Queries (passages that didn’t seem quite right to me):

The goddess was not, of course, as well made as she in even the humblest shrine – but she was the best we could do.

 

but the bulk of their attention was directed toward we slaves.

=====================

Word docs of the actual chapters are freely available to readers of this blog.

 

 

 

The links to all Chapter comments by me are here: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html

 5 comments

Submitted by Pet at 7/24/2008 1:59:26 PM

Typo corrected -- thanks!

No -- the reference to the Old Time bogey tale is not to a poem by Coleridge, but to Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu. (A fine bogey tale, in my opinion.)

Of your queries, I don't see what is wrong with:"The goddess was not, of course, as well made as she in even the humblest shrine – but she was the best we could do.

"Perhaps you find jarring Tuerqui's reference to the image as "the goddess". This is a reflection of the strong association expressed repeatedly later in the book, between divinity and image. I suppose that, strictly speaking, images are the bodies of divinities. But we do not usually speak of people's bodies as being separate from people. Tuerqui, similarly, does not write of deities' bodies (= images) as being separate from the deities. A theologian might be more inclined to make the distinction -- but Tuerqui is no theologian.

If your query is other than this, perhaps you could elucidate.

The other query:"but the bulk of their attention was directed toward we slaves."is, I assume, a reprise of the "we slaves" debate.

Submitted by des at 7/24/2008 2:13:53 PM

Sorry, that was what I meant - Sheridan Le Fanu.And 'Christabel' by Coleridge: see above link if you click on 'des'.Agree with your 'reprise' point.

As to the other query, I was wondering whether it should be 'as well made as her' or 'as well made as the one'?

Submitted by des at 7/24/2008 2:25:08 PM

Further to the 'Christabel' point, there seems to be a very interesting article about it (by clicking on 'des' in this comment).

Submitted by Pet at 7/24/2008 2:44:49 PM

I read "Christabel" in the 1970s. Alison, my ex-, gave me a rather handsome copy of the poem (which I rather wish I still had -- I'm not sure what became of it). I hesitated to quote the title of the poem in my previous comment as I couldn't recall how "Christabel" was spelt.

My feeling in the 70s, and now, was and is that "Christabel" influenced Le Fanu. (And hence indirectly influenced the lesbian vampire film genre.)

I don't think that the name of Christabel has anything to do with the slave names in ending in -belle that are fairly common in "Odalisque". (But it's just occurred to me to make that link.)

I think that in saying "as well made as she" rather than "as well made as the one" Tuerqui is asserting a belief that the goddess is fully and truly present in the images in even the humblest shrines.

Submitted by Pet at 7/24/2008 2:53:36 PM

Thanks for the link to the article, Des. Curiously, the phrase "goes into his psychological makeup" has a link from the final word. Clicking on that link takes the reader into a page about make up in the sense of cosmetics.

I think that "Odalisque" deals in both psychological make up and cosmetic make up. The unexpected link seemed to hint at something oddly apt.

 

My Own Step-Father

       MY OWN STEP-FATHER   

(published 'Peeping Tom 1992) 

      

 

       But let me tell you, the backyard was a real eyesore. There were rusty tin baths stacked up against the disused outside jacksy, a moulderlng ladder with most crossbars completely stepped through, a long corroded apparently purposeless iron girder sticking through the lopsided gate into the public ginnel behind and, finally, the washing wringer, its heavy-duty roller-barrels grimed up with green fungus, its brown crank-handle pathetically poking out for use, its iron gridstand previously used on a treadle sewing-machine, by the look of it…

 

       It all brought back memories of my mother. I don’t know why exactly, except perhaps because she often used to be found in the steamy kitchen, a large apron hiding the huge shapelessness of her body, as she stirred a copper and wrung soggy clothes through a similar beast to that mangle which now stood in this particular backyard. It was all she ever seemed to do! But a child, as I was then, frequently sees reality differently from grown-ups. Though thinking about it, if only in that respect, I am still very much the child of dreams.

 

       The house I had recently bought was a run down terraced house in the rump end of town — you know the area, down by the Sludgy River, not very far from the Farmers’ Arms. I had decided, in view of my then financial state, it would be a good investment (as long as I did it up myself) but above all, a roof over my head, albeit as leaky as my mother’s favourite colander.

 

       If I had known what I know now, I would have steered right round the whole M25 ringway as a short cut to avoid that dammed house.

 

       But first, I better say a little more about my mother. As well as wringing clothes, she had a similar treatment for her various husbands. My real father ended up a squeezed out wreck in a madhouse, thus easing the divorce proceedings. The trail of other men who had shared her bed, well, I cannot think of an exception, they all committed suicide “by putting their blackened fingernails down their throats and sicking their hearts out,” as my mother always put it in her customary telling way. It is true, she often confided in me and some of her stories would “make all your hair fall out,” another strange expression of hers which was only to make sense in later life.

 

       That new house of mine was to be haunted by my mother. She had been dead ten years, since when no sign of hide nor hair of her. I can recall her telling me once of ghosts, how she believed in them and, if I should see wispy forms of my various stepfathers trooping down the steep-as-a-ladder stairs, I was to turn away. They would soon scram, if ignored. So with a reasonable amount of equanimity, I accepted the appearance (albeit belated) of my dead mother in the new house, wandering up and down the dark landing, down the staircase past the dinner gong, mumbling inanities to herself. Well, I guessed they were inanities as I could not make them out from where I had stationed my truckle bed in the furthest back room.

 

       One night, and it is not long ago when this happened, maybe even last week, I thought I actually heard the groaning of the ancient wringer outside in the yard like an animal in grievous bodily pain. I tried to suffocate my ears with the pillow but the noise ground on relentlessly.

 

       Of course, I knew it was my mother enjoying herself, having just discovered the clapped-out mangle outside. I wondered how long it would be before a stepghost…

 

       I did not even bother to question how she as a ghost could muster the embodied strength to turn the grinding rollers of a disused wringer. After all, I knew my mother…

 

       It’s all happening again tonight.

 

      

 

       Since hearing the groaning and squealing of the mangle in the backyard, I had never been out there to investigate. But, for whatever reason, today at first light I did. Curiosity got the better of me.

 

       The decrepit ladder was leaning against the side of my house — or was it vice versa?

 

       The apparently purposeless iron girder had gone through the wringer rollers and stretched out down the public ginnel, moving along the council gutter like rusty slime.

 

       My real father, whom I had not seen for donkey’s years, lolled in the open jacksy, drooling down the lavatory pan from the waist like so much melting human flesh. He mouthed something or other and pointed. I looked to the top of the ladder where my dead mother was attempting to mend the leaky roof with red glue ... to keep her dear son dry.

 

      

 

       I sold the house, of course, and sought lodgings to get rid of the dreams. But wherever one goes, they can but follow.

 

      

 

       Ms Ample Clavinty’s hallway was gloomy, even when the lamp was lit. The seeping light from the dingy street hardly managed to struggle through the highly-coloured roundel window in the front door.

 

       As I gingerly negotiated the stairs to avoid tripping over the loose rods, I always took the opportunity to admire my visage in the hall mirror which leant at an angle from the blistering wallpaper. Unlike the rest of the household trappings, it was a superior artefact; with equally spaced wooden human arms waving from around the circular frame, it looked like a Medusa’s head but, close up, the inner silver surface glowed so brightly, the intricate frame dissolved into the colour of darkness by comparison. I thought I looked more handsome in that mirror than in any other.

 

       I once asked Ms Clavinty where she had obtained it. She had stared back at me coldly — a severe woman at the best of times, with sculptured hair-bun, sharp-edged skirts and starched bottle-green stockings. She seemed even more formidable than when she sounded the gong at the foot of the stair-well, come evenings. The only hint of humour I had ever discerned in her demeanour came once when she was lugubriously dishing out from the vast chipped tureen, her speciality stew made from the melts, grits and lights of a goat’s innards. She unbuttoned the top of her high-collared cardigan twin-set and said that the room was becoming as hot and sweaty as a Cardinal’s blessing hand.

 

      

 

       One day the unusual happened. The dinner gong failed. So I was late coming down the stairs, my belly having finally told me that I was hungry. Ms Clavinty was more like a fixture in the hall than a moveable feast, her slight bosom and curvy behind being faintly silhouetted against the roundel window. She held the gong hammer over the mirror, the surface of which I could see even at this distance was covered with tiny continous cracks like scribbling hairs,

 

       Unaccountably, this reminded me of another recurring dream. In it, I felt my beard in-growing back into my cheeks and jowls, and swabbing like dirty pubes down my throat, then feeding piecemeal into my belly, finally poking out the anus like an animal’s tail.

 

       Ms Ample Clavinty suddenly turned towards me ... and sweetly smiled, her hand fiddling with her top button. I pinched myself to see if it was the same dream. For better or worse, it wasn’t.

 

       Heaving bouts of nausea fought for exits. I realised I could not escape her grinding buttock rollers.