glenncolerussell's reviews
1456 reviews

Robert Silverberg - Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, author of over eighty novels and hundreds of stories and essays - an inspiration for writers and readers both in and beyond science fiction

“In 1996, when I was seventeen years old, I discovered Robert Silverberg’s work with Nightwings. The subtle melancholy of its three lyrical novellas moved me deeply. Beyond this, I was thrilled to realize that I had made first contact with a vast and cool intelligence, one that had spent decades producing enthralling stories now awaiting my discovery. I immediately hunted as many Silverberg books as I could find, reading perhaps fifty over the next two years.” From Alvaro Zinos-Amaro’s Preface. And let me tell you, Alvaro's conversations with Silverberg make for one engaging book since Silverberg has traveled widely and read widely and can speak with authority on a broad range of subjects ranging from literary fiction and science fiction, art and music, aesthetics and philosophy to film, archeology, travel and nearly everything else in between. To share some of the book's rasa, here are a number of direct Robert Silverberg quotes along with my own comments:

"I am—or was—a science fiction writer, and one of the things my science fiction is noted for is the vividness of landscape, the descriptive sweep. I don’t think I could have done that had I seen only one square mile of Brooklyn in my entire life."--------- Silverberg realized at an early age how world travel would fire his imagination and enhance his own writing. He also acknowledges such globe trekking isn’t necessary for all writers. Many of the author’s tales of travel make fascinating reading – like the safari in Africa when his wife rolled down the window to take a picture of a nearby lion. Hey, honey, it’s a lion!

"I try in each page to provide some color, some sound, taste, olfactory perception, and tactile sensation in order to make the work more vivid for the reader and to have more impact, as I’m leading the reader through the stages of the road to catharsis. There is a stylistic element having to do with prose rhythm, punctuation even: I want to maintain the reader’s interest by writing in such a way that the prose itself—the sound of it, the rhythm of it—engages his interest." ---------- One Silverberg reflection within the chapter on Aesthetics. For an aspiring writer, there are many lessons to be learned from this seasoned author about constructing a novel or story to really grab and hold a reader’s attention.

"I’m not obliged to bend myself out of shape for every little movement that comes along in the course of ninety years. In fact, I would rather look at Picasso, who certainly upset a lot of people before I was born, or Monet, or Turner. There’s an example—Turner was regarded as insane in his later period. I’d rather look at their work than the work of the sculptors who are scattering objects on the floor of the gallery. I’ve drawn the line. I’ve said, “Thus far and no farther.”" ---------- The voice of wisdom. Now in his mid-eighties, the author has seen enough art and visited enough museums around the world to judge some artwork simply not to his taste or worth the time and effort to know more intimately. I must say the range of Silverberg's knowledge of the arts is nothing short of breathtaking.

"I think what you have to master as an artist is the material that you are struggling with, which is in the beginning without form. Even God looked upon the face of the waters without form. Then you impose form on them. That’s what an artist does. And Nietzsche overstates the case by talking about the chaos. I don’t think a novel that is in the process of gestation is emerging from chaos. I think it’s emerging from nothingness. That’s not the same thing. By a process of selection and compression, the artist produces, in whatever art he practices, a work of art." --------- Very well stated. A blank canvas or a black page is not a chaos but just that, a blank, a nothingness from which an artist or writer can pick and choose how to fill.

“Up to a point the craft and technique can expand your ability. I think I’ve forgotten a lot of tricks I used to use! But I’ve been around a long time. After a while the technique doesn’t improve. What the writer needs is the reservoir of experience that he will manipulate using the craft at his command.” ----------- Craft and technique are only half of the equation; more importantly, a writer needs a fund of insight into life through experience combined with inspiration and imagination.

On Hermann Hesse: “I read The Glass Bead Game—it had some other title when I read it. A kind of fantasy novel. He, for me, is a one-book writer. I never went on to Steppenwolf, which everyone was reading at the time. Siddhartha was for the kids of the ’60s; college reading, like Tolkien." ------------- For me, one of the highlights of the book was Alvaro asking Silverburg to comment on a number of different Nobel prize winners. Respecting Hermann Hesse, my own view is we have an author best read when one is in their early twenties. I say this having read all of Hesse's novels right out of college and dearly loving each one.

“I’m very rigorous in my routines, and my habits are essentially unchanged. You don’t produce the number of books and stories that I did without regularity and routine. You don’t wait for inspiration and bat out something every now and then and run up a bibliography that’s the size of the telephone book. All of my life was built around the writing routine. And though that’s been subtracted now, the regularity is irreversible.” ------------- Pure gold for an aspiring writer: establish a discipline of setting aside time to write every day and stick to it. No exceptions! If you feel dry, just start writing and inspiration will kick in. Take it from an author who has written over eighty, that's right - eighty novels.

“The science fiction world has been my community since I was in my teens, when I went to local gatherings of readers and met writers. I still define myself as a science fiction writer, though I’ve written plenty of other things. I don’t think I’ve ever met another popular archaeology writer, or if I have, I’ve forgotten it. But I think of myself as one of the gang in the science fiction world. And have been for sixty years.” ------------------- I’m new to science fiction myself. I haven’t read any science fiction by Robert Silverberg but after reading this book of interviews, he’s definitely on my list.

Catulle Mendès, a key member of the 19th century French Decadent literary movement, wrote novels, poems, tales, plays and essays. He also write many charming fables. This collection includes 25 of his fables. If you enjoy fables and if you can read French, the book is available on amazon; if you can read Spanish, the book is available via the link below. With some help from Goggle translate, here is my translation (the very first in English) of one of my favorites:

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

At that time and in that country if young women knew they were attractive they did not know more than by word of mouth since all the mirrors, large or small, hanging on the walls or taken in hand, would break into pieces when young women looked into them. And do you know why all those mirrors broke? Because, although only objects, they were desperate not to be the mirror in which the Princess Amarante gazed at her perfectly formed lips, heavenly eyes, or the flower in her sun streaked hair.

For a hundred miles around, however much as they tried, nobody found a lady whose beauty was comparable to the princess. She was the admiration of all, men, animals or things. Not even the king, her father, and his little dog could help admiring her beauty. If she stayed a few hours without crossing the room where the nations of the court were meeting, those courtly members were sick with sadness. When she did not go for her usual walk in the park, the balsam and hyacinths became sad and forlorn, asking, “How long will this darkness last?!"

Most regrettably, the princess was at least as bad as she was beautiful. Although she had deep blue eyes softened by delicious light, this did not prevent outbursts of anger that shook the whole world. And, although her mouth had the sweetness of a friendly pink peach, she would often want to bite off pieces of other people’s flesh. . And, alas, her anger was not her biggest flaw: she was jealous. She possessed chests of jade, gold, pearls and diamonds but she would turn pale with rage if she saw one or two drops of dew on a morning primrose or some cheap jewelry around the neck of a poor person. With such a closed heart, she plunged the most handsome and richest men of the earth in despair, men who could not gaze on her beauty without loving her. The toll was great: no less than twelve suitors were left to die of grief for not having obtained her hand in marriage.

II

One day she was playing hide and seek with her ladies on the lawn – this was a game very popular in those days in court - when she heard two pages that were walking along a nearby trail, hidden behind a bush talking among themselves of a wonderful bird who appeared, according to the accounts of travelers, as a fire gemstone in flight! And this bird had its nest on the highest top of a barren mountain in the land of the Algonquins.

On hearing this, despite having twenty aviaries of all species of exotic birds, she wanted to own this unknown bird. She sent for a prince to conquer the territory inhabited by the unknown bird, a prince who had remained gloomy in court for more than a year. He was the nephew of Emperor Trebizonde, as young and as handsome as a spring morning. To win the favor of the princess, he had engaged in dangerous feats, had won the toughest tests; but he was never rewarded for his love and devotion.

After being summoned, when the prince arrived, she told him: “Sir, please, go forth to fetch the bird that looks like a fire gemstone and that has its nest in the mountains of the Algonquin! And if you bring that bird to me, maybe I will give you the opportunity to kiss the tip of my pinky.

Oh! Madam, - he exclaimed. It is known in the distant solitude, that bird is guarded by a thousand fierce eagles with talons and beaks of iron that would immediately tear apart the strongest and bravest of anyone who was foolish enough to approach. Furious, Amarante broke off a rose stem with her hands and asked “Why are you mentioning this? I thought, sir, that you were a man.”

He bowed and walked away briskly. Such was his courage, such was his desire to earn the promised reward for which he would face a thousand fierce eagles. A few days had passed, - the mountains were less far off than what was commonly believed. When he returned, he brought the bird perched on his fist like a tame falcon, the wonderful bird made of living stones. But, much to his discouragement, the princess, with an air of disdain, said the winged little animal was not worth its reputation. However she agreed to pet the bird of living stones two or three times. But, cruel tyrant that she was, she did not let him kiss the tip of her pinky nor did she even notice that the prince, a victor over a thousand eagles, had his forehead, cheeks, neck and hands torn to shreds. The prince resigned and retired without a protest.

III

And that was not the only danger to which she exposed the prince. As she had wanted an unparalleled emerald, she commanded that he must descend into the bowels of the earth and conquer a crowd of gnomes armed with flaming torches. He returned full of burns! Again, cruel tyrant that she was, the princess refused to accept the fine stone and promised the prince nothing.

On another occasion she demanded he pluck for her, in the lands of a fearsome sorcerer, a flower that sang like a nightingale. The singing flower grew in an immense forest where all branches were spears. The prince, however, returned after suffering a thousand punctures and almost dying! The princess agreed to hear the song of the flower but had no intention of letting the emperor's nephew kiss her pinky: The price never complained, happy to suffer without the least reward.

IV

One morning, when she was playing out on the lawn with her bridesmaids the princess overheard two palace officers talking behind a door. They spoke of a fair, beautiful maiden more exquisite than any fairy or any women on earth, a fair maiden that was being held captive in a bronze castle by an African giant. This maiden was so perfect that she was called "Beautiful World", simply to say that no one on earth was more beautiful than she. Thinking they could not be overheard, the officers commented that compared to this young maiden their Princess Amarante was nothing more than a kind of monstrosity. At hearing these words, the princess smashed four Chinese vases into small pieces with her furious fists! Ha! The prettiest girl alive someone other than herself, that was something she could never tolerate.

She seized upon the idea of subjecting this maiden known as Beautiful World to the most horrific torture. Never could anyone compete with her in beauty. Thus, she commanded the prince yet again: “Lord, bring back to me the most beautiful maiden in the world that is held captive in a house of bronze by an African giant. And, if you succeed, I swear that this time, I will not reject your kissing the tip of my pinky.

“Oh!,” exclaimed one of the bridesmaids, “Do you not know, my princess, that in that distant castle Beautiful World is guarded by a thousand warriors with tiger and lion heads and will dismember and devour any fool who roams nearby? Even an innumerable army of heroes brandishing spears could never destroy these monsters that never sleeps. With such horrors, it would not be the fault of the prince if he refuses to obey your whim.”

Amarante spat on both cheeks of the compassionate bridesmaid. Then, turning to the prince said: “And what, sir, have you not seen? Be gone and do as I command!” The prince lowered his head and left. After an absence of several months the prince appeared again before the princess. He was in such a state that would move the most atrocious heart since his suit hung in torn rags, deep wounds lacerated all his flesh and he lacked one arm, an arm he certainly left in the jaws of one of the warriors headed lions or tigers. But the pride of victory was in his eyes and the sparkle of his gorgeous golden hair! Following behind him, among some African slaves, on the back of an elephant, was a tent of yellow velvet with long golden fringe.

“Welcome,” said princess Amarante, “if you bring Beautiful World!”
“I do bring her!” he said.
“In the palanquin?”
“Yes.”
“Show her to me!”

The prince approached the elephant as the animal kneeled down. Once the velvet yellow cloth was pulled away, the princess beheld a stunningly beautiful maiden dressed in snow and gold, which reminded her of the sun in all its magnificence.

Princess Amarante gave a cry that was at once both joy and rage. Joy because she was so happy to have in her possession the object of her hatred, the maiden who mocked her by her incomparable beauty. Now at this point the princess could not help but admire the prince’s courage and said, “You will not only have my pinky to kiss but I will give you my whole hand and my whole person. You shall be king of my kingdom and the husband of my bed!” And the princess then signaled to the officers and servants to take hold of the prisoner, when the prince cried out:
'I've conquered Beautiful World indeed; only, ma'am, I have conquered her for me, not for you; I have conquered her for my love, not for your hate. For after so many trials that have exposed my life, you still denied me the tip of your little finger. I do not want to be your husband nor the king of your realm. I am taking Beautiful World to my palace, for this maiden is not only more beautiful than you, but she is sweet as you are ruthless!”

That said, the prince quickly boarded the elephant and closed the curtains. As fast as a light antelope, the enchanted elephant disappeared amidst the dust of the road. The princess Amarante, meanwhile, to mitigate his anger, began biting the arms and shoulders of her bridesmaids.

This book and many others are available in Spanish translation: http://www.iesxunqueira1.com/mendes/antologiaspdf.htm

Ion is a very short Platonic dialogue between Socrates and a rhapsode by the name of Ion who specializes in reciting the poetry of Homer. The dialogue explores the nature of poetic and artistic inspiration in a most playful way. If you are interested in literature and the arts, you will really enjoy. Likewise, if you haven’t read any Plato, this is a great place to start. To offer a taste, here are a few snatches of the dialogue along with my brief reflections. Sidebar: all of my statements are, in a way, questions, not to be taken as definitive answers; scholars and philosophers have been debating the details of Plato’s thought for over 2000 years. Available on-line: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1635/1635-h/1635-h.htm

SOCRATES: I often envy the profession of a rhapsode, Ion; for you have always to wear fine clothes, and to look as beautiful as you can is a part of your art. Then, again, you are obliged to be continually in the company of many good poets; and especially of Homer, who is the best and most divine of them; and to understand him, and not merely learn his words by rote, is a thing greatly to be envied. --------- A stroke of true Socratic irony. The idea of a philosopher envying someone preoccupied with wearing fine clothes and making sure they look beautiful. What a scream. And then to say such a person ‘understands’ Homer. Too much. Plato must have had fun writing this dialogue since he adjudged the philosopher beyond concern with physical appearance and ascribed ‘understanding’ to the realm of abstract, logical thinking.

SOCRATES: The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but which is commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone. In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take the inspiration. ---------- What a crystal clear image! The divine muse is the magnetic stone and the poet is the magnetized ring pulled by the stone. And the poet inspires others in the same way: the magnetized ring magnetizes a 2nd and a 3rd ring, forming an entire chain of magnetized rings. Applying this to our Goodreads site, Crime and Punishment is written by muse-inspired Dostoyevsky, the novel inspires members to write reviews and the reviews inspires comments and more readers of the novel. Thus, according to Plato, everyone in the chain is muse-inspired. How inspiring!

SOCRATES: For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles. ---------- Anybody who loves music and has developed a degree of technical expertise in playing a musical instrument knows the experience of reaching a point, a zone, where the music flows naturally beyond the boundaries of the ordinary thinking mind. When a number of musicians play together and share this inspired state – sheer magic.

SOCRATES: Then, my dear friend, can I be mistaken in saying that Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in other poets, since he himself acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge of all those who speak of the same things; and that almost all poets do speak of the same things?
ION: Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say?
SOCRATES: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole. ---------- What a thought-provoking line of reasoning. Applying Socrates’s logic to lovers of novels, when someone can offer penetrating insight into a novel or novels written by one author, they should be able to provide insights into any novel. I sense a fallacy here but this is such an interesting question, I wouldn’t want to spoil it with an answer.

Heinrich von Kleist (1777– 1811) was a true romantic, a literary genius on fire with poetic inspiration all throughout his twenties and early thirties, dedicating himself to writing plays, poems, essays, novellas and short stories before ending his life at age thirty-four via a suicide pact with a beautiful young woman suffering from terminal illness. I dearly love each of these dramatic von Kleist tales, however, for the purposes of my review, I will focus on one story from this Penguin collection that has remained with me for years: St. Cecilia, or The Power of Music.

A synopsis of the mysterious events at the heart von Kleist’s tale runs as follows: four Protestant brothers from the Netherlands, in the spirit of iconoclasm, plan the destruction of a Catholic nunnery. Weapons in hand and supported by armed followers, they attend mass held in the convent’s cathedral on a day of Corpus Christi.

During the playing of Gloria in excelsis, the four brothers take off their hats, fall to their knees and touch their foreheads reverently to the ground; all four held in a kind of mystical bliss. The effect of the music is so strong the brothers do not emerge from their ecstatic state; rather, they continue to be held in rapture and thus lose their ability to sense and experience the outside world.

They are eventually taken to the city’s madhouse, where, dressed in the hooded robes of monks, they spend their remaining years in unbroken sublime devotion, sitting around a crucifix positioned on a small table, interrupted only at midnight when they rise to sing Gloria in excelsis. The four brothers live to be very old men, dying in peace and joy.

I have a deep, personal connection with this story I first read when a college student in my twenties, the age of the four brothers at the beginning of the tale. At that time I had one of the most powerful experiences of my life – a vivid dream where I was held in ecstasy by music from angelic trumpets while beholding a glorious vision of heaven. Of course, my experience was much different than the four brothers since my being held in ecstasy lasted minutes not years. But our respective experiences touch on two important points: 1) the brothers and I are not of the Catholic faith, and 2) the unmistakable power of music.

On the topic of music’s power, here is a quote from the nineteenth century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, “The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain. Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves.”

Schopenhauer judges music to be the highest of the arts since it expresses the very core of life. And it is no accident the world’s mystical traditions emphasize the importance of music. Ironically, Schopenhauer was an atheist, however his view of music has much in common with many religious philosophers, theologians and mystics, a common ground speaking volumes about how our experience of music can transcend the differences created by various religions and theologies.

But the phenomenon of the four brothers differs sharply from the traditional religious/spiritual/mystical life in one critical way: the mystical experience of the brothers was so powerful that all four were held in its grip every moment for the rest of their lives; indeed, since they were never released, in a very real sense, their blissful devotion was not a matter of their own choosing. This difference cannot be overemphasized.

John Cassian writes about the Abbas and hermits who, following the example of Anthony of the Desert, retreated to the wilderness to live in silence and solitude, devoting themselves to communing with God. Cassian relates the numerous unending challenges these hermits faced, including the noonday demon – depression. But none of the noonday demon nor any of the many other challenges on the spiritual path for the tale’s four brothers.

The second quality of the brothers’ experience worth noting is its communal nature. If such a profound, life-transforming experience happened to one man, well, that could possibly be explained as an individual defect or specific medical crisis. But to have the exact on-the-spot spiritual transformation taking place in four brothers deepens the mystery of von Kleist’s story. And, at least for me, makes this tale unforgettable.


“The kiss and the bite are such close cousins that in the heat of love they are too readily confounded.”
― Heinrich von Kleist

"She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair and rimless glasses. She had no make-up, no lipstick and no jewelry. The rimless glasses gave her that librarian's look." But, Marlowe, you surely must know what she would look like without the glasses, wearing her hair loose and a little make-up and jewelry. Beware! A femme fatale in hiding. This has always remained my very favorite Raymond Chandler novel.

And as far as The Little Sister goes, there is more than just one femme fatale. And maybe, according to Raymond Chandler, Hollywood itself is the ultimate femme fatale. Having his face rubbed in Hollywood culture (or anti-culture), Philip Marlowe turns existential. I urge you to read for yourself to see if the concluding chapter amounts to a happy ending. Hint: the novel does not have a Hollywood ending.

Building on the teachings of Plato and with his profound impact on the Christian contemplative tradition, Plotinus is one of the most influential philosophers in the Western tradition. If you would like to begin studying Plotinus, this little book of selections translated by Elmer O’Brien is a great place to start – clear, crisp, accessible language with helpful introductory remarks and guiding editorial notes.

Rather than making general remarks about Plotinus’s ideas on such topics as the One or the Good, for the purposes of this review and to provide a small taste of the great philosopher’s mysticism, I will focus on the first chapter of O’Brien’s translation: Beauty. And within this critical topic and its application to our lives, I will share some personal observations based on my own practice of meditation and contemplation.

The treatise begins with the following words: “Chiefly beauty is visual. Yet in word patterns and in music (for cadences and rhythms are beautiful) it addresses itself to the hearing as well. Dedicated living, achievements, character, intellectual pursuits are beautiful to those who rise above the realm of the senses; to such ones the virtues, to, are beautiful.” So, right from the start, beauty for Plotinus is centrally the beauty we can see using our eyes and also the beauty of words and music and sounds we can hear using our ears.

Further on in this chapter, Plotinus urges spiritual seekers to transform themselves into works of beauty and pure light: “Withdraw into yourself and look. If you do not as yet see beauty within you, do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be beautified: he cuts away here, he smooths it there, he makes this line lighter, this other one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. Do you this, too. Never cease “working at the statue” until there shines out upon you from it the divine sheen of virtue, until you see perfect “goodness firmly established in stainless shrine.” Have you become like this? Do you see yourself, abiding within yourself, in pure solitude? Does nothing remain to shatter that interior unity, nor anything external cling to your authentic self? Are you entirely that sole true light, which is not contained by space, not confined to any circumscribed form, not diffused as something without term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and something more than all quantity?” ---------- If you find this passage inspiring, congratulations! You are most definitely a candidate for the mystical, spiritual path elucidated by Plotinus.

Keeping in mind how beauty, for Plotinus, as noted above, is principally visual and secondarily audial, here is a quote from Tarthang Tulku, a contemporary Buddhist teacher from Tibet, on our working with our feelings, our senses and our body as a way to experience beauty: “The more we explore the intensifying of the senses, the more we find a great depth within our feelings. Sensations become richer, textured with subtle nuances, more deeply joyful. We can explore the creamy texture of our deeper feelings, and contact an ever subtler level of beauty within our bodies and our senses. Within the open space of meditation we can find infinite joy and perfect bliss. Once we discover that spirit of vitality, which is the essence of awareness, we find that our bodies, actually become a channel through which we are capable of contacting a higher level of awareness within ourselves.”

I cite the above quote as a point of contrast to the Western contemplative tradition. You can read and study Plotinus and hundreds of works in Western philosophy and religion going back to Plato and Aristotle and on to such thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas, but you will not find anything in any of those ancient and medieval texts like this quote from Tarthang Tulku.

And why am I including this in a review of Plotinus? Because, from my own experience, anyone on the spiritual path who attempts to minimize or discount the body does so at their own peril. With his emphasis on the intellect and the experience of beauty via seeing and hearing as a way of spiritual growth, Plotinus is nothing short of illuminating. However, one would be wise to also include a daily practice of working directly with the body through such disciplines as yoga, meditation, pranayama, tai-chi or qugong.

Returning to Plotinus, one last quote, a source of inspiration for us all: “We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing, a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use.”

Considering dozens and dozens of reviews are posted for The Master and Margarita and my review of this little collection of Bulgakov tales published some twenty years ago is one of the first on Goodreads, it is fair to say many readers have committed an oversight. Unfortunate since these short works are masterpieces in their own right. If you love The Master and Margarita you will also love reading this book.

Eleven tales included here, two of which - Diaboliad and The Fatal Eggs - are long enough to qualify as novellas. For the purposes of this review and in the interest of brevity, I will focus on the title story of the collection.

Diaboliad is a forty-five page absurdist romp through the Russian state-supported bureaucracy, told in eleven chapters, each chapter complete with its own heading, which can give one the sense of reading a novel in miniature.

We follow our hero and main character, Comrade Korotkov, a gentle, quiet clerk who would like nothing more than to continue his predictable routine at Main Central Supply (suppliers of Match-making Materials, that is) - and you have to love Bulgakov's telling us the unit is not only `Central' but also `Main Central', adding a pinch more spice to the satirical stew . And such spicy satire is sprinkled on every page.

Here is an example of what happens a day after the unit's cashier returns to the office with a dead chicken as part of his general announcement that there is no money. Imagine not only having to deal with the boss of your nightmares, but also the boss's identical twin, identical with two exceptions - the twin has a long red beard and much different voice. However, you are totally in the dark, thinking the twins are one and the same boss with a long red beard that keeps mysteriously appearing and disappearing and a voice that keeps changing.

Such is the plight of Korotkov. But this is only the very beginning. Turns out, Korotkov has to deal with his own twin, a twin who might or might not be the creation of bureaucratic error. As Korotkov runs frantically from office to office in an attempt to save his job, his identify and recover his stolen documents, we realize our hero is in a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, but this being 1920s Soviet Russia, we have Korotkov in Stalinland. How far can things spin out of control?

Toward the end, in Chapter Nine, TYPEWRITER TERROR, we read what happens in one of the government offices: "The wall fell apart before Korotkov's very eyes, and tinkling their bells thirty typewriters on desks began to play a fox-trot. Swaying their hips, wiggling their shoulders voluptuously, tossing up their creamy legs in a white foam, the thirty women set off in a can-can and circled around the desks."

Now a comrade can take only so much, even a comrade who is gentle and quiet and merely wants to do his job as a clerk. Comrade Korotkov becomes progressively more frustrated and then progressively more angry, stomping his feet and yelling, and, toward the end of the novella, when given a prompting to become violent, Comrade Korotkov does indeed become violent, resulting in a fellow-worker's very bloody face and head. Such violence leads to the final chapter, A CINEMA STYLE CHASE AND THE ABYSS, a chase and abyss that must be read in Bulgakov's own words, even if those words are in English translation.


Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov, 1891 - 1940

As a novelist works with plot and characters, as a poet plays with words and metaphor, so Russell Edson in his prose poems tools images in oddball combinations. So, if we encounter a man sitting in his chair, the man’s hand could grow potato fingers, his hair stand up straight held in a magician’s trance or his chair could sprout chicken feathers, give birth to old women, play the harmonica or attack the man out of spite. Either this flavor of humor, subtle philosophy and continual metamorphosis speaks to you or it doesn’t. But if it does, you are in for a treat. This little book, The Tormented Mirror, is the plumb fruit of many years of Russell writing his prose poems. Here are three to roll around in your psyche like colorful marbles, intimate and private:

A LETTER FROM HOME
One night a man’s shadow died. Slumping, it groped its heart and dripped down the wall into a dark stain on the floor in the shape of a man who died in his bedroom alone.

The man writes home: Dear mom, my shadow is dead. I may have to be reborn, if you and dad are up to it, and have a new shadow attached . . .

His mother writes back: Dear Ken, please don’t count on it. In truth, dear, given another chance I think I would ask for an abortion . . .

POETRY
You will hear her, the muse; she knocks three times. Past that she knocks no more.

The password is nonsense.
This begins the secret which hides the final message.

You will sit in the dark waiting for the three knocks. Do not be fooled by the coming of the three little pigs, or the old man who hobbles on a cane. The one who slays the Sphinx at the end of the game.

The consummation is nonsense, without which the road of the final message is overgrown with meaning, and the vagueness of everything is everywhere. . .

ROUND
When there is no shape there is round. Round has no shape; no more than a raindrop or a human tear . . .
And though the organs that focus the world are round, we have never been happy with roundness; how it allows no man to rest. For in roundness there is no place to stop, since all places in roundness are the same.
Thus the itch to square something. To make a box. To find proportion in a golden mean . . .

---

On the topic of images combining in oddball combinations, I’d like to share one of my own prose poems published years ago. And, yes, Russell Edson is my favorite poet, a true inspiration:

JACK-IN-THE-BOX
I find a jack-in-the-box and crank the handle. At the end of the tune out pops the jack-in-the-box. I stuff him back in the box and the jack moans.

In the darkness of the box the jack continues to moan as I crank the handle and the music plays. And again, at the end, the jack pops up, but he isn’t smiling this time. The jack screams when I stuff him back in.

Now when I crank the handle, a dirge plays. The jack-in-the-box pops up dead. The jack is silent when I stuff him in his box, which I notice for the first time, is a black box with all the gold trimmings, veiled in grief.

As a way of wishing Happy New Year to all the beautiful ladies on Goodreads, I'd like to share some of my favorite lines of poetry:

Song to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair
By Richard Lovelace

Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee let it fly.

Let it fly as unconfin’d
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
Who hath left his darling th’East,
To wanton o’er that spicy nest.

Ev’ry tress must be confest
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.

Do not then wind up that light
In ribands, and o’er-cloud in night;
Like the sun in’s early ray,
But shake your head and scatter day.

Not being a mathematician myself, I’ve always found chaos theory a bit of a chaos. This book helped a bit, but much of the content was beyond me. I offer my microfiction below as an example of what I think the world might look like if chaos theory became a social reality:

CHAOS
A wife is a little confused – instead of her car, she drops off her husband for a change of oil and a tune-up. So this husband sits in the waiting room until they call his name, then he reeves up his legs and flops on the hydraulic lift as the mechanics, also a little confused, hoist him up.

They take his teeth for the grill, his hands and feet for the tires. The man keeps himself flat, he’s more than a little confused, having been hoisted up on his belly by the hydraulic lift. His arms and legs dangle, his heart is pumping, a heart the confused mechanics take for an engine.

One of the mechanics opens the man’s mouth and takes his tongue for a cylinder and his throat for the radiator. He announces to the crew, “Needs new points and plugs.”

“How much longer am I going to be up here?” the man asks.

One of the confused mechanics shrugs his shoulders and whispers, “Everyone is in such a rush these days; they should know this stuff takes time.”

When the mechanics are through, thee man has a couple of incisions in his back, the front of his head is shaved, his pants are pulled down, his balls smeared with grease and an inspection sticker plastered on the right cheek of his ass.

The confused mechanics lead him out to where he will squat on the oil-stained asphalt between a truck and a convertible until his wife comes back to pick him up.

The wife returns and asks, ”How’s it running?”

“Shouldn’t give you too many problems” says a mechanic, “now that we gave her the once over.”

The wife leads her husband away on a leash and when she passes another mechanic, the one who did most of the work, he tells her, “Lady, keep an eye on that stick shift of yours. It’s acting kind of funny. Try not to grind through the gears or you’re really gonna have problems.”