SWEET MELANCHOLY

"TELL ME ALL THAT YOU MAY KNOW"

I danced myself out of the womb;

I lay on the bed,

Looked up at the ceiling,

Say again this place?

I ran my tin-cup heart along the prison of her ribs

I don't want to fall in love.

I've seen this room and I've walked this floor,

I’ve gone down the river of sadness. 

I don't want to go back to the old house.

Nothing reanimates the old times.

She lives with a broken man -

She ain't got nothing at all.

He beat her with a belt once 'cos she cried;

It's truly, truly a sin.

But if you close the door the night could last forever.

The first time ever I saw your face

I thought the sun rose in your eyes

And the moon and the stars

Were the gifts you gave

To the dark and the endless skies;

I'm always crashing in the same car.

I danced.myself into the tomb

Here I am, little lamb

Everything is quiet now

Am I going to die?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIUInuoQDJqStIv4Vs6SZp7CcYKviaWDq

THE TROUBLE WITH ROBERT AICKMAN

Although acknowledged as an influential stylist of contemporary 'highbrow' horror, there is something not quite right about the work Robert Aickman. After listening to an audio reading of 'The Hospice' on the BBC a short while ago I was reminded very strongly of this. Indeed, given the ongoing '#MeToo' awareness campaign, it now feels more than appropriate to address this concern, which broadly summarised is this: Robert Aickman took a sadistic and indefensible pleasure in depicting sexual violence against women.

The contribution that Mr Aickman has made to contemporary 'strange' fiction has been quietly immense - at least among some male writers. Aickman's intellectual capabilities qualified him to compose prose tales of a high and culturally-informed quality which stand comparison with the best that contemporary mainstream literature had to offer e.g. William Golding, Peter Ackroyd et al. Furthermore, Aickman was an accomplished stylist, a writer who created a new domain for himself within the genre of psycho-supernatural horror. In particular, he dispensed with the formal ghost-story tradition of ending a story neatly - or indeed, of even bothering to construct a story which followed an established conventional format in its middle section. Beneath very serious and articulate prose he often painted eerie and disturbing images, murky and suggestive dream-like pictures which stood at one subliminal remove from the meticulously-crafted words on the page. To read one of his stories is to be dizzily conveyed into a disorientating world of murky psychological nightmare.

Robert Aickman is very much like M.R. James with regard to method - both writers lure the reader into their imaginary trap with an initial creation of an ordinary prosaic world before an uncanny sense of creeping dread begins to descend - but in terms of sheer atmospheric description, he is perhaps more like Franz Kafka or Angela Carter, what with the blurring into surreal nightmare which then ensues. Quite how Roman Polanki or David Lynch have resisted filming his work still eludes me.

Yet despite this dazzling stylistic brilliance there is still something about his work which does not rest entirely comfortably on the conscience. Barry Humphries referenced Aickman's "sly, morbid eroticism" in the introduction to the posthumous collection 'Night Voices', and he was perfectly right to do so. Indeed, I think that Mr Humphries' comment was very knowing, and that he was being diplomatically generous, because for me this eroticism goes way beyond that; for me it treads with deliberate sinister guile into the realm of sexual violence, and in doing so, seeks to depict disturbing incident with oblique, voyeuristic relish.

Is this acceptable? I personally think not. We permit such gratuity in the work of Hubert Selby Jnr ('Last Exit To Brooklyn') only because of the all-important context. In contrast, Robert Aickman does not contextualise his sexual violence, he merely describes it in an oblique, teasing manner.

In "Ringing The Changes" for example, the ageing Gerald Banstead takes his considerably younger new wife Phrynne to a remote seaside town to consumate their relationship. This honeymoon coupling is however quickly ruined by constant demonic ringing of church bells which slowly drives all of the characters into a state of delirious terror before quite literally climaxing with the resurrection of a terrifying mob of dead sailors from the sea, stinking of saltwater and and covered in seaweed (and what bodily secretion might reek of salty seaweed?) These rapacious marauders abduct Phrynne and drag her off screaming into the night while her husband whimpers impotently in their hotel bedroom, too ineffectual to intercede himself. The narrative then abruptly cuts to the calm of the following morning where everything appears to have returned to normal - apart from a very primal change in Phrynne, for she now glows with new secret knowledge, calm and satiated, a carnal smile painted upon her glowing red lips. The implication is less than subtle: Gerald's young wife has been gang-raped by an army of dead seamen - and judging from Aickman's authorial perspective, she seems to have very much enjoyed the experience.

In 'The Hospice', a lost motorist runs out of fuel and then seeks shelter in a strange residential home where he is alarmed to find that some of the weird inmates are kept chained by their ankles to a dining table. After then meeting an older sexually alluring woman in the lounge, she gives him her room number, suggesting he pay her a nocturnal visit. The married protagonist does not quite know what to make of this. An orderly ushers the woman away and so he turns in for bed himself, disconcerted to learn that he will have to share a room with one of the strange male residents. A sharp series of traumatised female screams abruptly wake him in the middle of the night; naturally he is terrified but he does not actually bother to investigate the matter (more symbolic ineffectual masculinity here). When the screams finally abate, his absent room-mate sneaks back into their shared bedroom reeking of the woman's perfume, with another one of those satiated smiles plastered across his face. In the morning as the protagonist attempts to leave the strange hospice he is informed that a guest died during the night, and he then sees evidence of the body being transported from the premises. We can only assume that the implied 'off-camera' molestation of the woman resulted in her death. Aickman has cast both the lost stranded driver and his unwitting reader as collective voyeurs in this erotic sex-murder.

In 'The Swords' (which is perhaps Aickman's darkest tale) a sexually-naive young salesman randomly chances across a weird circus type-show on the wasteland fringes of a Midlands city. He pays to enter a grubby tent where he finds a small crowd of seedy middle-aged men taking turns to plunge swords into a scantily-clad sexualised young woman who appears to take submissive orgasmic pleasure from the cruel violence inflicted upon her. The metaphor for prostitution is obvious, as is the imagery of sadistic & masochistic sexuality. The protagonist is both aroused and repulsed by what he witnesses. When he returns to the tent at a later date - pretending to himself that he is motivated simply by curiosity rather than burning lust - the woman's manager aka pimp arranges for her to visit him privately in his lodgings, where the young man then has a very tawdry and dispiriting sexual experience. Again, Aickman plays both voyeur and creator, conjuring up the powerful dark sexual imagery that deliberately seeks to titillate both protagonist and reader. To one degree he strives to be an impartial observer but given the fact that he created the seedy and twisted set-pieces himself, we are entitled to read more into the scenarios portrayed.

I could go on - and I possibly would if someone was paying me to write this - but I feel these three examples are sufficient to prove the point. Robert Aickman seems to have taken some not-so-secret pleasure in inflicting sexual violence upon his female characters while ensuring that his impotent protagonists invariably fail to intervene to save them in a timely fashion. Women are regularly sexualised in his tales before being raped and often murdered; indeed, some of those who escape death seem to enjoy the sexual molestation. Arguably Aickman even views himself as the tortured victim, for he can only ever be a frustrated voyeur narrating erotic fantasies from one remove via his prose. I was once told by someone who knew him that he wrote in a half-drunk, half-dreaming state, lucidly committing his subconsciously-inspired dark fantasies to paper, and I can well believe it. However, the weird and disturbing thread of gender-specific sexual violence which exists in much of Aickman's fiction is the one aspect of his work that leaves a sour taste in my own reader's conscience.

'Ringing The Changes' [from 'Dark Entries', 1964]
'The Hospice' [from 'Cold Hand In Mine', 1975]
'The Swords' [from 'Cold Hand In Mine', 1975]

Work In Progress

And I will Show you Fear
In a Handfulle of Mud

+ Urgently Wanted + Modified Hearse Or Clown Car +

My favourite boots are 35cm from heel to toe which means I have to sit sideways on in the car to maintain satisfactory pedal coverage. If you know of a vehicle that has been modified to allow for insanely long winklepickers - perhaps a hearse or a clown mobile - then please do drop me a line. No ridiculous offer refused.

In Every Parting The Shadow Of Death

The sentiment expressed in the following poem has become one of the many underlying themes featured in my in-progress novel, 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes'. The poem featured on a CD published by Klanggalerie last year with an ambient soundtrack by Attrition. The poem is something of an homage to Walter de la Mare. I gave a reading of it at Waterstones in Nottingham last autumn.

IN EVERY PARTING, THE SHADOW OF DEATH

“In every parting, the shadow of death….”

murmured the old man with filmy blue eyes

as I sat picking out stars

in the swooning purple skies

Glancing back from my lonely glass window

I shot him a polite, quizzical glance

Inviting further comment

- though he was plainly entranced -

for sat on his lap

all broguey and tweed

was an inanimate stuffed cat

of indeterminate breed

which he stroked and he petted

with more than gentle need.

His eyes glittered bright with a dream-haunted tear

so I offered myself up to listen regardless of fear

to that which he most wanted me to hear.

It suddenly struck me - ridiculously perverse! -

that he spoke of his cat - but quite the reverse! -

for I suddenly realised that it was ‘merely’ a soft toy

all matted and lumpy from when he was a boy!

[How many times had that been carelessly abused?

I reflected ignorantly, stupidly amused.]

I struggled respectfully to stifle a chortle and glanced instead downwards

at boots which were once ‘all the rage’

but clearly had since been cruelly beaten by age.

The moon glittered coldly from way up on high

swooning through stars in the velvety sky

whilst the cradling rock of the carriage on the track

sent electric-shock tingles thrilling across my back.

Then I recalled a tumble dryer from when I was a child

for there beneath a worktop I often did hide

nuzzling down deep into laundry-fresh sheets

to escape from the belt with which I was often beat

as the comforting shiver of the spinning electric machine

lulled me into a contented sleep happy dream.

“In every parting, the shadow of death,”

repeated my new friend, remembering sad times,

when it suddenly struck me that the toy was not his

but rather the plaything of someone painfully missed!

As the train trundled into Crewe and my friend rose to depart

In another seven words he pierced straight through my heart;

for as our eyes met we became joined at the head

and he spoke the words “Really, what more needs ever be said?”

Copyright Christopher Richard Barker 2016.

+ TENEBROUS TALES IN PAPERBACK +

A mere seven years after its original publication by Ex Occidente Press, my collection TENEBROUS TALES is finally available as a paperback.

[Coughs awkwardly. I've been rather busy.]

The book opens with the 50 page novella 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes' which is heavily drawn from the life, music & tragic early death of the brilliant Nick Drake. This is the story I have been expanding into a three-volume novel. It is for all intents and purposes finished but at 1,500 pages long requires very careful editing before I dare start inflicting it upon agents or publishers. Furthermore, the novel features a new poetry collection by a fictitious poet together with lyrics for a couple of imaginary concept albums, all of which are central to the plot of the book.

I am probably deluding myself but I think that this project will be something very special indeed, even if it does fly in the face of  the current vogue for short novels. In bygone years I often had to grind prose out at a tortured pace but ever since my liberating life-saving organ transplant in 2011 I have been able to write at a phenomenal rate. Any voice, any style, any format - bang, I just need to sit down at a computer and let fly, and out it pours. What's more, it has been a very pleasant surprise that I have been able to maintain the same brisk narrational pace in a 500,00 word novel that I strive for in a short story.

['Yes, Doctor, I haven't forgotten to take my pills. And no, I haven't been chewing the padding in my cell, that was my invisible musician friend, Nick. He keeps picking at the walls with his long dirty fingernails and scowling darkly at me from the shadows. He's very angry, you see, because I won't go with him - not yet at least. It's in his eyes, a filthy dark mordant smoulder.']

Anyway, TENEBROUS TALES received excellent reviews when it was first published, and received the weird accolade of having the longest review for a work of fiction ever published by the British Fantasy Society. My Nick Drake story was short-listed for Best Short Story of the year at the time but I requested it be withdrawn from consideration for reasons lost in the shadowy mists of time. Ellen Datlow, in her review of that year's best speculative fiction, singled out four of the stories for 'Honorable Mentions'. The book also features an excellent introduction by the incomparably talented Reggie Oliver.

Anyway, here endeth the tedious soft sell. Now chop chop - go buy the book!

UPDATE: Humble and sincere apologies to anyone who bought a copy between 8th - 9th March. Some of these featured several dropped indents. This issue has since been resolved. The book has also been scaled down in size from 'coffee-table' format to merely large paperback size. If having bought this version you would like a refund then please contact me. To add value to the new paperback edition the price has been lowered and two new stories have been added e.g. 'The Mine Field' and 'The She Queen Of Sif'.

Turns round to clip Igor's ear.

Igor (voice of Claude Rains): "Sorry, Master, I will not fail you again."

Me: "No Igor, you will not. Look behind you. I have appointed a new man-servant."

Igor (sharp intake of breath): "Jean Shrimpton? But Master, what does Jean Shrimpton have that Igor does not?"

Evelyn Waugh on Modern Art

[The following manuscript fragment was recently found in Evelyn Waugh's papers, perhaps predicting the future of Modern Art. It is believed to be part of an unpublished sequel to 'Vile Bodies'.] 

The party ended abruptly when Agatha Runcible led a congo-dancing crocodile of inebriated revellers out of the front door and down to the Houses Of Parliament to demand greater funding for The Arts. Suddenly finding themselves alone in the Serpentine Gallery, and feeling somewhat mollified about the embarrassing incident involving Ginger's whiskers, Nina decided to set a good example by tidying up while Adam searched fruitlessly for the caretaker. Procuring an apron and a dust-pan and brush from a cupboard marked 'Private', she flitted about the room humming the same tune they had danced to at the Cafe Rouge several hours earlier.

"My god, Nina, what are you doing?" cried Adam when he returned to the room.

"Tidying-up. I've always wanted to. Do you like my apron?"

"No, it makes you look like a Bolshevik. But the point is, darling, that you've rather 'tidied up' all of the new exhibits." Adam marched across to the radiator, gesturing. "Don't you remember 'Tea Bags Drying'?" He pointed to a section of freshly-swept floor. "Or ''The Despondent Desolation Of A Scrunched Up Cigarette Box?'" Adam then walked across the room to a glass table now gleaming with polish. "And what about the 'Dust: I Was Here' exhibit? It was heralded as the dawning of a new epoch in modern realism by The Daily Beast and now you've swept it up."

Nina blushed. "Oh dear, I don't suppose that's a terribly good thing, is it? In fact, I suppose, if anything, it might even be a rather bad thing...."

A flash of inspiration suddenly glittered in Adam's eyes. He snapped his fingers. "I know, we can make some new ones. Where did you put the rubbish?"

As Adam busied himself creating a pyramid of cigarette ash surmounted by a spire of twisted cigarette stubs on the glass table, Nina draped some soiled handkerchiefs over the back of a Bauhaus chair which she had procured from another room.

Unfortunately it had proved completely impossible to retrieve the tea-bags for they had burst open into a squelchy mulch at the bottom of the litter bin. In their place on the radiator she spelled out the word 'Anomaly' with broken match-sticks.

"Why 'anomaly'?" asked Adam.

"Because I didn't have enough matches to spell 'anonymous'."

Ten minutes later Adam was gazing back into the room surveying their handiwork, his hand poised over the light switch. "I do hope we won't get into trouble," he said. "Artists spend several years learning how to become artists. I can't help but feel slightly guilty."

"Oh, don't be such a bore," replied Nina, tugging his sleeve. "I want to go home. Besides, I've got such a pain."

Adam frowned. "But you're still wearing the apron."

Nina attached a fake twirly moustache to her upper lip and giggled. "It's my disguise, silly. In case we get stopped by a policeman."

But they needn't have worried. When the Director of the gallery turned up the next morning with the Minister Of Arts And Culture and last week's Prime Minister for an informal viewing of the critically-applauded new show that everyone was talking about, he stood open-mouthed on the thresh-hold, shocked surprise gradually giving way to enraptured awe.

"Truly we are at the Dawn Of A New Age!" he cried, clapping his hands together in delight. He turned round to stare at his bemused guests. "Please tell me you can see it?"

The Minister For Arts And Culture had until very recently had been an assistant manager at a small museum dedicated to rural agriculture in a Devon backwater. In truth his sudden and unexpected appointment to high office had more to do with an administrative faux-pas than his knowledge of Art, which was, if anything, less than slight. His name was Brown, and like many Browns, people were often mixing him up. However, what Brown lacked in knowledge he more than compensated for in evasive diplomacy (which was why he was confidently predicted To Go Far).

"Of course, Sir Basil. It's very impressive."

Last week's Prime Minister merely grumbled something unintelligible and non-commital. He had missed breakfast because his boiler had packed-in, and not being Prime Minister any more meant that he had to pay for the repair himself. Indeed, he had been volubly fermenting upon the outrageous cost of plumbing in the metropolis when Sir Basil's chauffuer had called for him.

The Director of The Serpentine walked excitedly into the room to explain the Concept to his prestigious visitors, one hand tucked into his waistcoat pocket, the other gesturing authoritatively.

"It would appear that the artists returned to the Gallery last night to create new pieces of contemporary art," he informed them. "How truly innovative! Art as a dynamic state of conscious realism, in fact. See here how they ruthlessly castigate Architecture Run Riot, with their subtle construction of ash and tobacco? And there, the draped linen, soiled perhaps with the stain of Lost Humanity?"

Spinning on his heels - heels that last week's Prime Minister thought indecently high for any Englishman to wear in public - he turned to face his guests.

"And we three - what, mere functionary mortals? - we and we alone have been granted the first privileged glimpse into the future of modern realism! Is it not exciting? Does it not thrill you to the very core of your being?"

Last week's Prime Minister looked doubtful but he had high hopes of Sir Basil suggesting an early lunch. Glancing uncomfortably at his companion, he replied cautiously. "Of course, Sir Basil. It's very impressive."

The new Minister for Arts And Culture was left temporarily speechless. After a moment he spoke. 

"I can only echo that," he said miserably.

Which of course was true.

Winter Chills

Just published by Egaeus Press: "A Midwinter Entertainment".

Features my 40 page short story 'Better Than Borley Rectory', which describes the experiences of a contemporary film crew in the former family home of the quietly famous author of ghost stories, M.R. James. Part homage, part pastiche, the story is predominantly an original work of new fiction.

Also features work by Vincent O'Sullivan, 'X.L.' (aka Julian Osgood Field), Marion Fox, Mark Valentine, Ron Weighell, Alison Littlewood, Arthur Symons et al.

Limited edition of 400 copies, superior quality illustrated 286pp hardback.

+ Welcome to The Discomfort Zone - Stay Tuned For More Jarring Musical Narrative +

+ SLINT: NOSFERATU MAN +

"...inspired by the 1922 German Expressionist silent film 'Nosferatu', the song's verse includes a dissonant guitar riff, which uses high-pitched notes similar to those in 'Breadcrumb Trail' and a drumbeat based on snare and toms, absent of cymbals. The chorus, featuring 'jagged' distorted guitar and a thrash-influence beat, segues into an extended jam before the song ends with 30 seconds of feedback."

[Anon., Wikipedia.]

"Last one in isn't a math rockster!"  

+ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: THE MURDER MYSTERY +

" 'The Murder Mystery' is more intricately structured and harder to parse, the closest the Velvets ever came to writing a concerto or symphony. An instrumental intro lays out the two main musical statements of the piece. The spoken/sung lyrics, divided among all members of the band and split cleanly into left and right channels, approach mere gibberish, but also touch on the Velvets’ primary topics—derangement of the senses, violence, body horror, and the nighttime rhythms of urban social life. The Velvets frequently indulged their Dionysian impulses, but 'The Murder Mystery' is possibly their most artfully constructed piece of music, and it’s every bit as impressive as their more chaotic work."

[Source: Magnet Magazine.]

+ CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: DROPOUT BOOGIE +

I told you what, I told you what. 

Please note that passengers should be aware that there will be abrupt time-signature changes during the journey in addition to the occasional unexpected piano bridge. 

"We're The Sweeney, son, and we haven't had any dinner." 

+ RADIOHEAD: PARANOID ANDROID +

"In the suite 'Paranoid Android,' acoustic and electric instruments float understatedly through the mix as Yorke sings, through clenched teeth, lines like "Ambition makes you look very ugly." Complex tempo changes, touches of dissonance, ancient choral music and a King Crimson-like melodic structure propel the song to its conclusion, where Yorke sings in a pleading voice, "God loves his children." "

[Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone.]

Sobriquets & Seasonal Winter Chills

First draft of 'The Mine Field' 

A short while ago I decided to commit to writing mainstream contemporary literature under three of my real names e.g. Christopher Richard Barker. However, I still feel the irrepressible urge to occasionally compose work of supernatural horror (I refer here to the more intellectually sublime edge of the genre, haunted by the likes of Robert Aickman, Angela Carter and Reggie Oliver). To that end I created the sobriquet 'Jane Fox'. 

As 'Jane Fox' my short story 'The Mine Field' won third prize in a recent British Fantasy Society short story competition; this tale is set at the former workings of Magpie Mine in the Peak District, Derbyshire. If you have ever visited the site you may have been struck by its strange, eerie atmosphere. Also as 'Jane Fox', my longer piece 'Better Than Borley Rectory' is soon to appear in Egaeus Press's 'Midwinter Entertainment', alongside work by the superlatively decadent Vincent O'Sullivan. 

'Better Than Borley Rectory' recounts the experiences of a television crew who seek to film a documentary about the famous ghost-story author M.R. James at his former family home in Great Livermere, Suffolk. It is based upon my personal visits to the house and a real-life ghost story told to me by one of the subsequent residents. My fictional characters discover the childhood diary of M.R. James under one of the beds, and their plunderment of this dangerous volume unleashes a series of disturbing supernatural incident. 

The story is an homage to the televised ghost story as perhaps best exemplified by the BBC's excellent 'Ghost Story For Christmas'.

Still from 'The Signalman' (BBC 'Ghost Story For Christmas', 1976)