BOOK REVIEWS
I have dispensed with my 'Books of the Year' postings which covered the years 2009 and 2010, and now attempt to review a selection of books that I have read both good and bad, in editions old and new. Much of what I buy is often based on suggestions by others, or some train of thought that makes me think "maybe I should try..." so they are not necessarily all strange/supernatural fiction.
With many small press books costing around £35-£40 each, and some seemingly worthy tomes changing hands on the second hand market for many times that, these reviews may also give the potential purchaser some indication of what they might receive for their money. Needless to say, my opinions should be be given any great value as I bring my own foibles to every review and these may change at any time.
Robert Aickman 'The Attempted Rescue'
(Tartarus Press 2001)
ISBN 1 87262161 - 223pp
ISBN 1 87262161 - 223pp
This is Robert Aickmans autobiography and covers the period from birth to approximately 1940. I imagine most reading this review will know of Aickman but, very briefly, he is best known in literary circles for his enigmatic 'strange' stories which really are very odd, in the best possible way, and well worth discovering.
On first reading one would think Aickman to have been an Edwardian child - he was in fact born 1914 - as his memoirs abound with anecdotes concerning aunts, uncles and family friends that might have walked from the pages any high Victorian novel, or perhaps more accurately, a story by Saki. And what anecdotes! Flip the pages at random and virtually every one will reveal some strange incident that might well, and at times no doubt did, find its way into Aickmans own stories. Page 59, and he hears his first radio play about the devil (on headphones, alone ) which terrifies him; p.67 an uncle drives his car deliberately into a steamroller because it was on the wrong side of the road; p.73 the clutter in his great uncles house was so great that he found it hard place anything of his own, "I also remember the smell of senile waterproof and long dead open air".
Looming throughout are his parents, Aickman describes his father as ....."the oddest man I have ever known", a gross understatement. They fought long and bitterly every evening, often over his fathers appalling timekeeping (a 'morning start' might not begin until late afternoon); but this was not until after he had crept into Aickmans room to silently stare at him (the detail of a woolly rabbit was placed in the door to prop it open, rendering the whole episode with a dual vividness and sinisterness). He also had rages four or five times a week in which he emit a continuous and rising "throaty gurgling scream of frustration" which would rise in intensity and volume until be heard in the street, a noise that was only stopped by the, eventual intervention of his mother or of Aickman himself, his father seemingly unable to do so.
And so it goes on. In this respect it is a thoroughly depressing read - Aickman was (unsurprisingly) miserable all his life, relieved (slightly) only towards the end when he discovers, through attendance at the operatic concerts and the ballet, women. As one might imagine, these relationships are also problematic.
The book was first published in 1966 (it is an enormous pity that the book stops just at the outbreak of WWII) and it is obvious that in the interim Aickman had some acquaintance with the psychoanalytic process. The prose is informed by this overtly and covertly, for example he describes his first love (a nursemaid), an affair over before he is two(!), and his precocious reading where he states he had great problems pronouncing the word 'because', "much could obviously be made of this significant block". In the chapter titled 'Relatives as Divinities. I. Their Domain ', I pondered the typo. Why the full stop after 'I'? It was a few pages later that I realized that the 'I' was meant to be read as the numeral 1. One suspects that this may have deliberate.
The book which is written in a beautiful style that is succinct, evocative and intensely of its time. Consider, for example phrases such as "at schools I also disliked the compulsory surface conformity with alien (often indeed evil) ideals"; or describing a teacher who "snorted about on a motorbike".
Though sadly out of print, I highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in autobiography, strange fiction or good writing generally.
On first reading one would think Aickman to have been an Edwardian child - he was in fact born 1914 - as his memoirs abound with anecdotes concerning aunts, uncles and family friends that might have walked from the pages any high Victorian novel, or perhaps more accurately, a story by Saki. And what anecdotes! Flip the pages at random and virtually every one will reveal some strange incident that might well, and at times no doubt did, find its way into Aickmans own stories. Page 59, and he hears his first radio play about the devil (on headphones, alone ) which terrifies him; p.67 an uncle drives his car deliberately into a steamroller because it was on the wrong side of the road; p.73 the clutter in his great uncles house was so great that he found it hard place anything of his own, "I also remember the smell of senile waterproof and long dead open air".
Looming throughout are his parents, Aickman describes his father as ....."the oddest man I have ever known", a gross understatement. They fought long and bitterly every evening, often over his fathers appalling timekeeping (a 'morning start' might not begin until late afternoon); but this was not until after he had crept into Aickmans room to silently stare at him (the detail of a woolly rabbit was placed in the door to prop it open, rendering the whole episode with a dual vividness and sinisterness). He also had rages four or five times a week in which he emit a continuous and rising "throaty gurgling scream of frustration" which would rise in intensity and volume until be heard in the street, a noise that was only stopped by the, eventual intervention of his mother or of Aickman himself, his father seemingly unable to do so.
And so it goes on. In this respect it is a thoroughly depressing read - Aickman was (unsurprisingly) miserable all his life, relieved (slightly) only towards the end when he discovers, through attendance at the operatic concerts and the ballet, women. As one might imagine, these relationships are also problematic.
The book was first published in 1966 (it is an enormous pity that the book stops just at the outbreak of WWII) and it is obvious that in the interim Aickman had some acquaintance with the psychoanalytic process. The prose is informed by this overtly and covertly, for example he describes his first love (a nursemaid), an affair over before he is two(!), and his precocious reading where he states he had great problems pronouncing the word 'because', "much could obviously be made of this significant block". In the chapter titled 'Relatives as Divinities. I. Their Domain ', I pondered the typo. Why the full stop after 'I'? It was a few pages later that I realized that the 'I' was meant to be read as the numeral 1. One suspects that this may have deliberate.
The book which is written in a beautiful style that is succinct, evocative and intensely of its time. Consider, for example phrases such as "at schools I also disliked the compulsory surface conformity with alien (often indeed evil) ideals"; or describing a teacher who "snorted about on a motorbike".
Though sadly out of print, I highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in autobiography, strange fiction or good writing generally.
