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lakserk's review
3.0
"Simone felt as if she inhabited a secret city, known to few, veiled from those who have not passed, while awake, through the implicit barrier between one day and the next."
"But in secret I'm a poet, a member of a cabal of anonymous artists who pay homage to the ascendency of night. We seek to overthrow the light of reason, to return the race of man to its origins in obscurity, to submerge the shores of civilization in the waters of the relentless sea. Our struggle takes place behind the veil of sleep."
A woman haunted by the South Star and insomnia; a man retreating from the world in an ancestral mansion; an initiation that expands beyond the temple borders, ritual seeping into reality. Stories of individuals and families that seek transcendence from/in this prosaic world. A pinnacle of occult writing, where the apocryphal arts are approached with seriousness, love, and a burning devotional attitude. There is a wealth of ideas in here, as we get glimpses of occult mindsets, worldviews and ways of thinking. On a surface level the plots seem a bit thin, but there are strands and skeins of layers undulating underneath. As a sidenote, the writing seems to be a bit weighed down by the density of descriptive language and an abundance of metaphors; a mostly negligible issue, but do be forewarned.
I am enamored with the four first stories (which are fine specimens of occult writing), though somewhat torn on the namesake novella (the only story original to this collection) which seems excessively long and somewhat sparse on cohesiveness - it felt more like a collage of vague plot points, oneiric scenes and inventory apposition than a tight narration (though it certainly had its -many- moments). Still I will have to revisit it.
"But in secret I'm a poet, a member of a cabal of anonymous artists who pay homage to the ascendency of night. We seek to overthrow the light of reason, to return the race of man to its origins in obscurity, to submerge the shores of civilization in the waters of the relentless sea. Our struggle takes place behind the veil of sleep."
A woman haunted by the South Star and insomnia; a man retreating from the world in an ancestral mansion; an initiation that expands beyond the temple borders, ritual seeping into reality. Stories of individuals and families that seek transcendence from/in this prosaic world. A pinnacle of occult writing, where the apocryphal arts are approached with seriousness, love, and a burning devotional attitude. There is a wealth of ideas in here, as we get glimpses of occult mindsets, worldviews and ways of thinking. On a surface level the plots seem a bit thin, but there are strands and skeins of layers undulating underneath. As a sidenote, the writing seems to be a bit weighed down by the density of descriptive language and an abundance of metaphors; a mostly negligible issue, but do be forewarned.
I am enamored with the four first stories (which are fine specimens of occult writing), though somewhat torn on the namesake novella (the only story original to this collection) which seems excessively long and somewhat sparse on cohesiveness - it felt more like a collage of vague plot points, oneiric scenes and inventory apposition than a tight narration (though it certainly had its -many- moments). Still I will have to revisit it.
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