Richard Gavin
As I mentioned in my Top 5 Reads of 2009 post, the two greatest book-related discoveries I made last year were the unbelievably rich world of weird fiction and the amazing contribution that small presses are making to the world of literature. In the present age, even those books that have not yet made the jump from tree pulp to electrons have not escaped unscathed. On the contrary, they increasingly bear the indelible markings of an ignoble birth: printed on ever cheaper paper, assembled more and more hastily, they decreasingly seem worthy of being the vessel for the great written legacy that the best of their contents represent. Small presses are the only ones systematically resisting this tide and continuing to treat books as near sacred objects, the way they have traditionally been viewed. A quality book from a small press is not just a book, but often a work of art itself, and at the very least demonstrates by the quality of its construction the high esteem in which its creators still hold the written word.
For this reason, I've made it part of my mission this year to explore not just new authors but new small presses too. My latest voyage takes me to the output of Dark Regions Press and to the excellently-titled The Darkly Splendid Realm by Richard Gavin. I can't remember where I first heard about this collection because it was almost six months ago, but once I did, and read its opening story, I knew I had to read the whole collection as soon as I could.
That first story was "Prowling Through Throated Chambers" (available in its entirety as a free download here), and it is one of the collection's finest. On the surface, it is the story of a troubled young man trying to locate a remote, ultra-frightening haunted house, but it also reads as a sort of parable about what can happen to those parts of ourselves that we choose to ignore and try to leave by the wayside. Regardless of how one reads it, it is a fantastic story.
The best story in the collection, in my opinion, is "Waterburns," an absolutely beautiful story that is at least as sorrowful as it is frightening. It tells of a monster that visits a girl and her sister in their youth and of its occasional return into one of the sister's lives over the ensuing decades. "Waterburns," more than any other story in this collection is about love, loss, and the sometimes cruel way in which we find ourselves on different sides of fate at different times.
My second favorite would have to be "The Astral Mask," in which a man has a nightmare of sorts that leads him to question his own sanity. I don't want to give anything away but suffice it to say that by the end, an entire new plane of existence is revealed to him and he is not the man he once was.
Another great story is "Final Night in Nevertown," the story of a town that begins to disappear piecemeal after a thick mist descends on it. The reason is revealed after a fantastical journey into the mist. This tale is very atmospheric and its resolution reminded me of a particularly effective quote from the Mark Samuels tale "Apartment 205" that I won't mention here because it would give away the entire story.
"Children of the Mound" is another great tale; the story of an ill-fated mission of a group of warrior-missionaries to the far reaches of the Roman Empire to discover what befell a similar party dispatched a year previously that disappeared, and to carry on their work of wiping out the beliefs of the locals and erecting a church.
"Where the Scarab Dwells" concerns a man alienated from corporate life and afflicted by guilt for his company's involvement in the destruction of some tenements in the small towns surrounding Toronto in the name of development. In the end, he believes he may get a chance to prove his innocence in a particularly bizarre way. Other good stories include "Dreaming While Adrift on the River of Despair" and "The Bitter Taste of Dread-Moths."
Less good in my opinion were "Phantom Passages," "Primeval Wood," "The Language of the Nameless Region," and "Getting the Strap." To be honest, I was a little surprised that there were any stories in this collection that weren't top notch, since those that are good are astonishingly good.
I suspect, though, that this is inevitable when one writes stories that are this cutting edge. Mr. Gavin's work pushes particular boundaries of weird fiction in a way that feels unique. While most weird fiction by definition involves some aspect of the weird impinging on everyday reality, Mr. Gavin's stories go further and portray the working of vastly powerful forces that could do far more than merely impinge and at whose mercy we all exist. Whether it's the power of nature, disembodied alien souls, or something else, by the time many of these stories conclude, it is these forces and the spheres they inhabit that seem to constitute the main locus of reality and everyday reality that has been relegated to the tangential backwater. This has the effect of casting human affairs in an even more pitiful and precious light than they already are, which is both terrifying and humbling.
While not a perfect collection, The Darkly Splendid Realm does contain a number of perfect stories. I agree wholeheartedly with those who have said that Mr. Gavin's writing is unique. This is the only work of Mr. Gavin's I've read, but it was enough to make me incapable of picturing weird fiction without him.
Rating: 9/10
The True First
The Darkly Splendid Realm was first published by Dark Regions Press in 2009. Three editions were published simultaneously: a lettered edition, a signed limited edition, and a trade paperback edition.
[This review was not based on a review copy]
10 comments:
Very insightful review, Ben. Personally, I thought "The Bitter Taste of Dread-Moths" was the highlight of the collection, but that's what's great about strong works such as these: everyone will have their favourites.
You ought to look up Gavin's previous collection, OMENS, now. You don't have anything else to read, do you?
Very funny :) I do actually have a few books to read lying around here somewhere...
I enjoyed "The Bitter Taste of Dread-Moths" but it just wasn't as good to me personally as the others I mentioned. Like you said, though, to each their own.
I will definitely hunt down "Omens" eventually.
Ben, I'm a newbie here but caught on recently that you're putting up interesting posts. Hope you don't mind a comment from a stranger. Like you, I loved "Prowling Through the Throated Chambers". Another way it can be read is as commentary on why we read or write horror: look at the last sentence, which is also presaged earlier by the piped-in voice in the house of horrors. I loved how tight the story is, how the ending surprised me and shed new light on the earliest word choices, and the whole sequence of choices inside the house and what they culminate in.
I also think "Dread-Moths" is excellent. The central imaginative ideas are highly weird and effective and one with the themes, which brush against some other good work I've read by, what's his name, oh yes, Strantzas or something like that.
@Todd T: Welcome and thanks for your comments! Excellent observations! I agree that "Prowling Through Throated Chambers" is a very tight story.
As I said, I enjoyed "Dread-Moths" but not as much as some of the others. But perhaps I need to reread it if everyone is of the opinion that it is the best story in the collection.
I think I may also differ from most readers in that I did not care too much for "Primeval Wood"
Nice review, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading through this one myself. Richard Gavin is an awesome guy and a hell of a writer.
You should definitely pick up a copy Orrin if you haven't already. One of the nice things about the way this book was released is that both collectible copies and cheaper trade paperbacks are available.
Please. He's not that good a guy ...
Well, he may not really be that good a guy, but his bribe payments arrive promptly.
Ben, I'm not quite with Simon in choosing "Dread-Moths" as the best story in the book, but I did think it was very well done, so I fall between you. But as you and he said, different taste, or how we differ in valuing the strengths of a story or its themes, makes for different reactions, and that's as it should be.
The Free Download is a Dead Link.
I just fixed the link. They had moved it for some reason...
Post a Comment