THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK (https://www.ligotti.net/index.php)

- Personal (https://www.ligotti.net/forumdisplay.php?f=112)

- - Etepsed (https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2476)

I intend this thread to explore the D F Lewis/P F Jeffery connection.

The origins of this thread began when Des posted this to the Dave Carson thread:

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1037

It's a picture of D F Lewis and P F Jeffery at Lancaster University in 1968. The pair are clutching The Egnisomicon, a jointly written work. In this form, the picture was scanned from the D F Lewis special edition of Dagon magazine.

Some more posts on this matter appeared on the Dave Carson thread, but -- it seemed to me -- that was not really the place for them.

This is another version of the picture with PFJ, DFL and The Egnisomicon, scanned from the original photographic print -- and very much clearer.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1032

This photograph was, I think, taken only a few days before the one with The Egnisomicon. The location is almost the same, just a little to the left. A big difference between this and the Egnisomicon picture (as well as the lack of D F Lewis and The Egnisomicon) is that the noticeboard is covered with a collage. I think that this picture may be the only image of the collage.

The location is the study-workroom shared by D F Lewis, P F Jeffery, one whom I will call only by the title "Brother of the Indian Grocer", and John Hindle. The last named loved the IRA and hated the collage. Not long after this picture was taken, he ripped down the collage. Now, at last, he is named and shamed on the Internet -- and rightly so. This study-workroom was often known (aptly) as the study-playroom.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1033

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 15951)

I intend this thread to explore the D F Lewis/P F Jeffery connection.

Thanks, PFJ.
To kickstart any further thoughts (and not wishing to appear presumptuous) and to give some direct on-the-spot reporting from 1989 reviewing the same reporter's earlier self in the year of 1968 (a literal on-the-spot snapshot of which year is shown above) and to answer more easily any basic questions about the then artistic/philosophical ricochet between two earlier selves of two current TLO members (him and me), here's a scan of PFJ's essay called 'Etepsed' that was published in the DAGON DFL Special in 1989:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/etepsedc.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/etepsedd.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/etepsede.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...s/etepsedg.jpg

Thank you DFL. Posting that has saved a lot of new explanations. :)

The Kindly Elder (by PFJ):
and The Hound (by HPL): (Cf. later article: WHO KILLED ST JOHN? by PFJ)
were two fictions mentioned in the above 'Etepsed' article.

The PFJ story and St John article have been recently linked (plus other PFJ material):
FROM HERE: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the...pf_jeffery.htm

BTW, not really intending to post to this minority-interest thread regularly, I thought I should set on the record that I demur from the possible contention (in the above article 'Etepsed') that The Rape of Susan Stenn in the Sixties was my first published fiction. It was 'Padgett Weggs' which I indeed did scribble out in about ten minutes in the quite unconfident submission to 'Tales After Dark' (editor Garrie Hall) in 1986. Here is a scan of that very first publication in 1986:

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...thus/padg1.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...thus/padg2.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...thus/padg3.jpg

Here's another picture from the same roll of film as that of DFL, PFJ and The Egnisomicon:

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1034

The date is the early summer of 1968. The place is the flat roof outside our university study-playroom.

I am finding this thread utterly fascinating. The young Mr. Lewis looks like such a nice, quiet boy... who would have thought his head was filled with brilliant weirdness?

And Mr. Jeffery looks like one very cool cat!

Here's a photo from the same batch as the Egnisomicon one. It shows Des Lewis on the flat roof outside our Lancaster University study-playroom.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1044

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16022)

Here's a photo from the same batch as the Egnisomicon one. It shows Des Lewis on the flat roof outside our Lancaster University study-playroom.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1044

Horror!
And why does my hair look like a hat?

This is me more recently (hard to credit):
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...toncone233.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16023)

Horror!

If one can't post horror on the TLO, where can one post it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16023)

And why does my hair look like a hat?

Actually, your hair in the 1968 picture looks like a wig -- although I'm sure it wasn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16028)

Actually, your hair in the 1968 picture looks like a wig -- although I'm sure it wasn't.

You're right. Although I probably need a wig today!

PFJ (Bowland Bar at Bailrigg, Lancaster University1969?):
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...desunivv45.jpg

DFL - in Morecambe 'Digs' (when at Lancaster University 1968?)
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...us/desuniv.jpg

DFL typing his poems at home in Old Heath Rd, Colchester (when on holiday from Lancaster University 1968?)
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o.../desuniv36.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16023)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16022)

Here's a photo from the same batch as the Egnisomicon one. It shows Des Lewis on the flat roof outside our Lancaster University study-playroom.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1044

Horror!
And why does my hair look like a hat?

This is me more recently (hard to credit):
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...toncone233.jpg

des, the conical hat in the more recent photograph is more becoming. Let us hope that it's not becoming conformed to your head's actual contours. :drunk:

I can't remember seeing the picture of me in Bowland Bar before (and I think it probably is from 1969). In my opinion, it makes me look less cool than the 1968 pictures -- which is probably no bad thing. I wonder who the young woman in spectacles sitting next to me was.

Here, by contrast, is the very latest picture of me (taken on 6th January 2009). I'm wearing my new (cashmere) hat.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1043

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16052)

I can't remember seeing the picture of me in Bowland Bar before (and I think it probably is from 1969). In my opinion, it makes me look less cool than the 1968 pictures --

PFJ, I seriously think that 1969 photo is a very cool one of you.

Below is one of our collaborations published in the Nineties. This one is ALONE TOGETHER in 'Trash City' (1993). I intend to post some of these collaborations here abstemiously over 2009 if and when I can find them.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...trashcity2.jpg

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...trashcity3.jpg
I do not know if you realise that my crazy novel THE VISITOR (1974) is posted HERE which contains much of your embedded (even crazier?) commentary on it that was written at the time and included as part of the novel as it went on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16063)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16052)

I can't remember seeing the picture of me in Bowland Bar before (and I think it probably is from 1969). In my opinion, it makes me look less cool than the 1968 pictures --

PFJ, I seriously think that 1969 photo is a very cool one of you.

Thank you for that! Here's one of me trying to look cool in 1968 by pretending to play the guitar. :D

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1045

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16063)

Below is one of our collaborations published in the Nineties. This one is ALONE TOGETHER in 'Trash City' (1993). I intend to post some of these collaborations here abstemiously over 2009 if and when I can find them.

And thank you for that. I think that Alone Together reads remarkably well. I wonder whether that picture was intended to illustrate the story. It doesn't look much like the door of a Norwood Junction train. Or did the artist know something about Norwood Junction trains that I don't? Maybe it's supposed to show the arrival of men in the world. :confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16063)

I do not know if you realise that my crazy novel THE VISITOR (1974) is posted HERE which contains much of your embedded (even crazier?) commentary on it that was written at the time and included as part of the novel as it went on!

I had forgotten about The Visitor. I wish readers well with my crazy comments (and with the rest of the novel) should they click on that link. :drunk:

WHOFAGE
by DF Lewis

This short essay was first published in USA - 'Atsatrohn' 1993 and then in UK - 'Midnight in Hell' 1995.

When I corresponded with Peter (now Petal) Jeffery back in the 60’s and 70’s, a convenient acronym cropped up for the type of literature we both enjoyed: WHOFAGE (Weird, Horror, Occult, Fantasy, Avernal, Ghost, Egnis). You will have to read the mighty Tome that we conspired to write at Lancaster University in 1967 (THE EGNISOMICON) to understand Avernal and Egnis. Only two copies exist. Petal’s and mine. One a photocopy, which we consider to be the pukka one. As you may know, in the 80’s, Petal was to become the Red Brain in the now late lamented Lovecraft fanzine DAGON.

But my first introduction to whofage started even earlier when I was at Colchester Royal Grammer School - and who was in the same Sixth Form class as me? None other than Michel Parry. And it is that fact which reminds me that Anthologies were my real spur toward whofage. In Great Britain, there were a good many horror anthologies edited by Michel during the early 70’s, mostly in Mayflower, Corgi and Panther paperbacks, such as The Supernatural Solution (spook sleuths), Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories (six volumes), Strange Ecstasies (drug fantasy), Rivals of King Kong, Rivals Of Dracula, The Hounds Of Hell (doggy horror - and aren’t all dogs horrible?), Beware the Cat &c. &c. There were also two Devil’s kisses anthologies edited by Linda Lovecraft (who was Michel Parry in disguise!), one of which was banned because the early 70’s were too early for this brand of erotic horror. So, if you have the Devil’s Kisses anthologies (as I do), they’re probably valuable. But, no, of course, the early seventies were too late to have influenced me in my most impressionable years. My first real taste of WHOFAGE (even though the acronym hadn’t been invented at that stage) was when I accidentally met Michel Parry in the Colchester WH Smiths bookshop in 1964(?) where he picked the Panther edition of HPL’s Haunter Of The Dark off the shelf and recommended it to me. He scored his nail under a few tales (the Dunwich Horror being one, I recall) as particular favorites of his. Despite still being at school, Michel had a flat of his own where he later showed me an amazing Arkham House collection. And that was strange in those days, I guess.

Whofage only really came home to me a year or so later with August Derleth’s anthologies. You must have seen these. Or perhaps you haven’t. In the late sixties, one could often find English paperback editions of these American classic anthologies in secondhand bookshops. I always recall travelling round Peter Jeffery’s home town of Southend, picking a goodly trawl of Derleths from market stalls &c. Not now, I’m afraid. Derleth, to my mind, was not a good writer, but he did assemble some pretty amazing whofage tales by motley crews under single roofs. Among the best of these are Who Knocks? and When Evil Wakes. Herein I furthered my love of HPL and people like John Metcalfe, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, J. Ramsey Campbell, C.M. Eddy Jr., Arthur Machen, and Seabury Quinn. Oh, the list is gloriously endless. These anthologies are Required Reading. Or they certainly were when whofage was sparse on the shelves. Now there’s too much of it. All those wide black spines. Ramsey Campbell (yes, the J. Ramsey Campbell mentioned above) and Stephen King are the only two worth reading to my mind. But who am I to say?

Peter Haining’s anthologies of the sixties and seventies also inspired me: there are literally scores of these, so I imagine you still may be able to obtain them secondhand. Robert Aickman’s and later, R. Chetwynd-Hayes’ Fontana Ghost Story volumes that they edited were amazingly good, too.

Robert Aickman...Aaah! Well, that’s another story. Perhaps next time.

I’ve just returned from a holiday in Sark, Channel Islands. It is an island 3.5 miles by 1 mile, ringed by back-breaking craggy bays to get down to. Its only transport horses, bikes or the odd tractor. Definitely no cars. Well, this was an ideal spot to renew ancient acquaintances. And some of these anthologies have been better friends than most people. Sitting in a cave, I listened to the waves gently whofage, whofage, whofage on the pebbles outside - the only way for a sea to gurgle or ripple or softly sough.

As I recall, the E of WHOFAGE was originally Etc. That said Egnis is certainly better.

This is the first chance, for all but a very small group of people, to see this strange document.

I used to contribute a regular column called Sacrum Bleu! to Dave Carson’s magazine Skeleton Crew. It was a rolling history of Gothic fiction, and all of the published instalments were (to the best of my knowledge) accurate. This final (as it transpired) instalment was quite another matter.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1073

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1072

This was written whilst visiting Des some time in the late 80s. Baroness Barmbrack, the subject of the piece, is entirely fictitious. I submitted it as a genuine article partly in a spirit of mischief, and partly because I was interested to see whether any lazy scholars would refer to Baroness Barmbrack or her work on the basis of what I’d written.

Unfortunately, Dave Carson did not publish the piece, nor did he ever again contact me. I imagine that he realised that there had been no Baroness Barmbrack, and was a bit miffed by my submitting a hoax article.

Looking at it now, I’m rather pleased by the titles of the baroness’ novels, and by my mock gothic prose when I quote her supposed work. (The Jane Austen quote, incidentally, is also bogus.)

The baroness’ name was inspired by Des’ daughter making us barmbrack that weekend. It’s a kind of cake. If I recall correctly, only Des’ daughter and I liked the barmbrack.

A strange eccentricity of the first page is that, while it has generous margins at the top and to the left, there is no margin at all at the foot of the page.

THAT'S ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!! Thanks.
Forgotten all about that. Not read it since then.

(Just one correction: it was Dave Hughes, not Dave Carson).
des

PS: I forgot about the cake. I thought it was a name of a character from my novella: LADIES?

PPS: can margins be generous?

Doh! Yes, Dave Hughes, of course! Isn't it just too confusing that two men have the name "Dave"?

Curiously, the late Thomas M. Disch had a novel published in 1975 named Clara Reeve. The novel's byline was Leonie Hargrave.

Clara Reeve (1729 - 1807) was a real Gothic novelist. She is best known for "The Old English Baron" (1777) -- a weedy novel without the grue of the genuine M G Lewis' "The Monk" or the fictitious Baroness Barmbrack's "The Abbot of Cadiz, or The Epiphany of Terror".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16106)

PPS: can margins be generous?

At least marginally so!

I've taken this picture from my profile visitor messages, with the thought that it may interest visitors to this thread. Des said of the picture "...here is a picture of the 'Jack & Jill' pub on the Clockhouse Estate (Coulsdon) where I think we wrote at least one collaboration during the early nineties. This picture, however, was taken in 2002, when I made a brief revisit on the way along the M25."

http://a834.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...b1e3662cf9.jpg

This was Des' local pub when he lived in Surrey. It's mentioned in his fiction and, as he said, we wrote at least one collaborative story in the Jack & Jill. Actually, I think that we wrote at least two stories in the pub.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16063)

I intend to post some of these collaborations here abstemiously over 2009 if and when I can find them.

As a sort of birthday present to myself, here is a reminder (to myself) of a collaboration with PFJ (one of our most remarkable if not the best). I am not scanning the publication as it would be difficult to scan. It was published in something called 'Urges' in 1996:

FACT & FANGLEMENT
A collaboration by DFL and PFJ

As the Rat Catcher left, the customary pub hubbub faded to no more than a few self-conscious whispers.

Although accustomed to such situations. I was annoyed upon discovering that the other drinkers - all now twisted round on their barstool to look at me - had syphons to suck much longer than mine. It looked as if yours truly had drawn the short straw yet again.

It was chagrining, for all of the fact that they happened to be imbibing spirits whilst I was the only one wielding a pint of bitter with dimples but plenty of bite. Noting their supercilious looks, I decided my straw was not worth the spill it could have been lit up to be. So I threw it into the ornamental ash-tray with a flourish - and resorted to my bare lips for the deepest satisfying gulp possible.

Down in the mouth, the others returned sulkily to their shorts. For some these were merely drinks. The most imaginative crocheted brief garments with long hooks resembling ibis bills. One or two surreptitiously watched films on video recorders not much bigger than wrist watches. Another sprinkled a mixture of bran and coarse flour into his drink. The resultant mixture, no doubt, provided ample excuse for sulkiness.

"I could catch rats, too - if I tried..."

My voice sounded unnaturally loud and seriously squeaky, in the now quiet bar-room. No one replied, but their looks were redolent of meaning. Even if I could catch a rat, they seemed to imply, its stewed flesh would be acrid and its bones too brittle to carve into nativity scenes. Their attitude was typical of the rabble. The more glorious one's former station, the greater the contempt of guttersnipes when one falls. Once, I would not have so much spat in the direction of the pub prepared to admit a Rat Catcher, for I had been in the service of the Duke himself. Indeed, I had risen to the dizzy heights of the Fan Bearer to the Duke's Chamberlain.... heights too dizzy for me, as it turned out.

How I had resorted to drinking pints instead of cocktails is a longer story than the one I intend to tell. Furthermore, the facts containing my fall from grace are only of tangential relevance whilst of very little interest in themselves. The story I intend to tell, however briefly, has indeed not yet happened - so yes, come with me, as I leave the pub, tracked by the icy stares of the pointy-faced sipsters...who, it has to be said, only toyed with short drinks for the sake of their bladders; not for any reasons of nobility or of breeding - or, even, of an impending shortage of long, twirled-paper syphons.

My purpose is to pursue the Rat Catcher whose name I once knew as Veronica - an erstwhile colleague in Fan Bearing. Recognition was more than could have been expected because a Rat Catcher, enveloped in thick hides against the bites of vermin, could not hope to resemble a diaphonously draped Fan Bearer. But Veronica it surely was.

I should not have waited so long before following her into the street, but luck was with me: the leather-clad figure had yet to turn the corner into Sink Hole Court. She was scraping something red from a drain hook, no doubt after pausing to skewer a rat. Business must be bad. Even I knew that the drain rats in this quarter were lean beasts with not so much as a farthing's worth of flesh on their bones.

Clearly, Veronica did not pause a second time. When I entered Sink Hole Court, the only person to be seen was a wizened fish wife, squatting in the gutter, relieving herself as she scraped the scales from an anaemic carp.

If that old hag was the only person to be seen, there were three shadows - which in hindsight, must have resulted from people confiding in each other - catching the corner of my eye. Surely, one was Veronica because in silhouette, like a circus trick of casting images upon a tent wall, I saw her passing a rat-shaped parcel to one of the other two. My concerns as to the darkness being full of such pre-emergent characters in my tale were soon dispersed when I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind me - from the better lit area whence I had entered such darkness. The stench of fish filled my nostrils - maggot-food fish, scarcely fit for the consumption of the poor. (I will not dwell upon the fish served at the Duke's Oval Table, the memory is too painful.)

"Unhand me," I said quietly, but with as much authority as possible.

"I may have fallen low, but come from gentle stock. This is rude conduct; the Office of Question might begin by tapping my shoulder like that."

"Don't you dare speak to me of rude contact - nor of gentle stock. Besides, your moans at my touch will be of a different order from those at the Question! Eh, girlie?"

The voice sounded aristocratic. Turning, I gazed upon an oddly familiar face, unable at first to place the familiarity under its layers of filth, but helped by my earliest exercise at recognising Veronica. It was with shock that I finally placed Harriet d'Albon.

She was the youngest daughter of the Baron d'Albon whom, the last I'd heard, held an honoured place amongst the Lords of the Duke's Oval Table.

"Harriet Why are you dressed like a wizened fishwife?"

I was surprised at how unsurprised I actually was with regard to her appearance. Being a word-fangler - one of those itchy-bitchy story-spinners that some Royal families keep for bedtime - I was not at a loss for...

"Words?"

"Yes, Harriet. A mind-reader, as ever, I see."

"Yes, but before I tell you about my disguise - one that is voluntary. I assure you - I must tell you of what stink you left behind around the Oval Table..."

I nodded, for I, too, was a mind-reader of sorts (or should that be "thoughts"?) She would merely need to fill in the details that reading between the lines missed. But - to set the dear reader straight - who, my bet is, cannot gauge the drift of my plot without a narrator's touch on the tiller - let me tell you:-

As all but the ignorant surely know, there are three distinct wordy crafts. The word-limner copies the words of others - whether they are the Holy Books, Malpraquet's Deeds of the Dukes, or a duplicate copy of the Duke's taxation records. The word-wright forms words into new patterns, but only by set formulae. It might be a fresh page of taxation records, or the funerary formula for a Lord of the Oval Table. The word-fangler, distinct from either of these, combines words into entirely novel patterns.

This that I now write (albeit merely fangle in my head till I get the pen and paper required), however humble, may serve as an example. When first I conceived the desire to fangle words, I sought the leave of the Chamberlain who - in turn - approached the Duke in person. The reply was that I might, on two conditions. One was that the fangling must not impinge upon or distract me from my duties. The other was that I must submit every word and every pattern to the Office of Question so that anything blasphemous, seditious or unwholesome could be burnt - and the wicked thought which had inspired it purged from my body. I swear that I was ever scrupulous in both conditions. May the Office of Question take me if it was not!

Although of great interest, whether any of that about the wordy crafts is relevant to my short tale remains to be seen. But I do believe never be too careful who is listening, watching or - should I say ? - reading (or, indeed, mind-reading).

So, yes, my slavish obedience to the two conditions for word-fanglers was spotlessly maintained. My fault, rather, lay in the despatch of certain fanglings to a far land, beyond the sea. It was indeed only after the Serjeant-at-Arms intercepted the package that I discovered the truth about the land beyond the sea.

"Truly I did not know!" was my plea in mitigation.

"Ignorance of vileness is no excuse," the Questioner replied. "If I find you sleeping with a rascal, am I to excuse you, because you believed him a saint ?"

"No...but..."

"No buts about it, and this is the worst kind of vileness. Years ago, those foreign devils rose in armed revolt against the rightful Duke. They set up their own Duke - a mock Duke, chosen by lot amongst the serfs and fish wives."

"But what of the successors of the deposed Duke?"

"They reign on - but their once great Duchy, the largest the world has known, is reduced to a single island. The present Duchess - witless and toothless - is a pawn in the hands of her courtiers. The chief courtier - so called - was lately the most venomous of fish wives. Now a village simpleton has taken her place... .So - before I put the Question, do you understand the nature of your crime?"

"Why has the switch taken place between fish wife and simpleton?"

My attempts to keep him talking, and talking about things I had already read into his mind, were of no avail. The Question was put without remorse, amid my pleas and tears. But before you, dear reader, become confused with levels of chronology in this my unfolding tale, I must return you to the present moment (albeit, like all present moments, ever a temporary one) when I am faced with double-agent Harriet - instead of pursuing a more pleasant adventure (later to be fangled out into tasty words) with Veronica, once Fan Bearer, now Rat Catcher.

"Yes, I know it's Veronica you're really after," Harriet said, having followed the whole recapitulation in my mind, agreeing with some of it, disagreeing, if not disowning, most of it - as was her perverse wont.

"Veronica at least leads a life interesting enough for stories. Unlike me," I pleaded self-pityingly, having just tried, against, all the odds, to soup up my own involvement in the plot's machinations. I knew what ran through Harriet's mind, even down to the subconscious of which she was unaware. She me likewise, no doubt. But had it yet dawned on her that she was not a double agent for the mock-Ducal regime abroad, but a triple one, with many more bluffs up her sleeve?

Whatever the case, she seemed certain of what needed to be put into spoken words, as opposed to mental ones: "If any more of your dammed fanglements are smuggled abroad you'll get all those foreigners scurrying over here, eager for saucy adventures - and you know what else?"

I did know what else: underminings of the Ducal Status Quo and overwork for the Office of Question. But what choice had I? The only fanglements which appeal to persons of quality are tales of courtly romance. Mine concern ordinary reality. Even if serfs and fish wives could read - which the eighteen demi-angels forfend, it would cause nothing but sedition - they would not wish to read of reality, there being too much reality in their miserable lives. Writing a tale with no reader is talking to oneself - in other words, a piece of madness. My only possible readers were foreigners - who might be mad, but better they than me.

The present fanglement that you read, dear reader, may serve to demonstrate the path of realism. A romancer would go straight into the tale of Veronica the Rat Catcher, which is my theme. Alas, reality is otherwise. The route we must trace to discover Veronica is circuitous and strewn with snares - literal and metaphorical.

And imagine my surprise when she, Veronica, came straight back into the unfolding events - unbidden, unanticipated and unannounced. I pride myself on being able to read people's minds sufficiently well to see from yours, dear peruser of these untangling words, that you require a surprise to reawaken your interest. And indeed, as if a gift from those realms where omniscience doesn't work, Veronica pounced - just like one of those rats she was out to catch - between Harriet and myself, her nose twiddling invisible whiskers from side to side, green eyes beadier than my cheapest necklace and ears pointier than a court jester's. Not at all how I remembered her from Fan Bearing days.

"You two are talking about me!" she accused.

"No, dear Veronica, we were talking fanglements and foreigners," I countered.

Harriet looked shifty - as if she believed that any lie would be a truth...or, at least become a truth, with the benefit of selective hindsight and narrative trickery. Thus, silence was the best policy when at least one of the party present was not a mind reader.

You see, despite her sea change, Veronica was loved passionately by both Harriet and me. She could hardly know what a triangle she created in Sink Hole Court that day...in that dark, dank, fish-reeking lodestone of a quarter where all plots somehow ended up, no matter to what foreign parts the words otherwise took us.

Mingled with my love for Veronica was a measure of pity. She could not know the realm beyond empathy which lay open to Harriet and myself. And as the emotional mix grew stronger, the contents of Harriet's mind made me stickier with passion. A background of lavender-scented baths formed the contrast with Harriet's arousal by filth. Her seeking squalor fused with my having it forced upon me. Not a short straw, after all.

Indeed, our respective circumstances and lusts reflected one another, amplified one another, like two facing mirrors. All this was denied to poor Veronica. Veronica was an object of our love, but could not fully partake in it. Truth to tell, her outsiderhood stimulated me as filth did Harriet - there was much more than pity.

Suddenly I knew, sensed for the first time, the cause of Veronica's disgrace. Harriet had engineered Veronica's being stripped of her former rank. That stripping was to Harriet much as the stripping of clothes is to certain vulgar folk. This I sensed only for a fleeting - fleet upon sea of change - moment before I passed beyond that, to fully experience Harriet's passion.

You can, I hope, visualise the sight we made, since I have been painstaking in my efforts to make these words work upon the ever-unfolding sea-changing of events, words at their optimum level so as to conjure emotions which folk like you - who enjoy being called "dear reader" - cannot otherwise have as emotions for yourselves. Indeed, we three witches (as it must be admitted we resembled) wheeled hand-in-hand amid the tawdriness of stench and drain hook: playing, now, an uncut version of Ring O' Roses. But even your personal guide through these otherwise convoluted matters can be new-fangled by her own prose...

By the Goddess of the Ducal Ducatry! I abruptly recalled those three apparently autonomous shadows I had earlier spotted from the eye's corner - and here they were again! Harriet, of course, saw them as soon as I did. Veronica, however, did not see them, since we kept her twirling at a more frantic rate to prevent her eyesight locking into any one direction. The shadows had taken up the burden of our grievances - leaving us to grapple only with the self-perpetuating force fields of carnal passion. Ducal politics, yes - doubts, questions, concerns, all were blotted up by the shadows of spirit, leaving us only the flesh to please.

Yet I forget (have I not ?) about the rat-shaped parcel that Veronica's shadow passed to one of the others. But there is no time for any concerns, not even blatant loose-ends, as we rip the rags from our bodies. Concerns are only for those who have enough time to read.

Yes, you've guessed it almost at the same time as I've guessed it! Beneath the rags and torn leathers, yes, tattoos. When a seeking mouth is closed, so are the eyes. When a tongue touches skin, the sight's near enough to read the tattooed words: the fangliest texts that flesh can ever bear.

So tiny were the words on Veronica's belly that, at first glance, they appeared a bluish bloom, as of a ripe sloe. She was moaning her contentment before the bloom declared itself to be, as I've already more than hinted, words. And as I focused upon them, the stroke of my tongue fell into a merely mechanical rhythm. Fanglements, indeed, they were. Dark fanglements. Fanglements as bitter as the ripe sloe.

"Come on!" Harriet's voice broke upon my enchantment. "You've read enough of Veronica. I need your attentions, too."

"But, these words...." I whispered, raising my head reluctantly.

"Pretty, aren't they ? I had the tattooist transcribe them from a foreign book. With such dangerous ideas on her belly, poor Veronica can never hope for Ducal pardon." Harriet no longer spoke, but broadcast thought.

"You had this tattooed to keep her in rags? It's monstrous!" Here too, I was silent, was unable to speak, my tongue now busy with Harriet's carnal needs.

"You have the makings of a prude. Besides, I had other reasons for the tattoo. They're wonderful words...And Veronica enjoys the extra tongue-work as her lovers read... Wouldn't you?"

She had a point, but rather than concede it I drove my thoughts elsewhere:

"Who wrote those fanglings?"

"He lived..."

"He. How could a man fangle words?"

"I was going to think that he lived in a far and foreign country...."

"Foreign? I smuggled fanglings into foreign countries only under the press of necessity - but for you to have smuggled foreign fanglings here into the Duchy! Besides no matter how far and foreign, how could a man fangle these words ? Even if he plucked his hairy body, darkened his eyes, reddened his lips.... How could he become one with a Muse? Why, to fangle such words one would need to lie in a bath of perfume for a week..."

"Come on you two," Veronica said, voice cutting into our exchange. "You think too much."

Whether the story had ended there or whether it has only just begun, I still fail to fathom how a man could have fangled as well as a woman. Perhaps the interconnections of plot and smugglement have led to importations of ambivalence in identity and gender.

Confusions of freehold writer and leasehold narrator are possibilities, too. Bluffs are sweet creatures of hoax and humour. Double bluffs; collaborations of fact and fanglement. Lying is ugly (unless it's lying in perfumed baths!). Truths are impossible creatures of myth, but beauteous, nevertheless, when thought, if not written. Whatever the philosophical niceties, the three shapely shadows left their mistresses in fine grappling fettle and went off to suck spirits at the pub. The moral ? Leave no loose ends or you'll get 'em rat-chewed. Or, at worst, get 'em fangled as extraneous body parts.

Thank you, des and Pet for a most entertaining story. Upon reflection, I think that there is a fourth type of writer. The word-mangler. I be one of the fraternity is. :drunk:

Ah, horror orgies! Fond memories!

The most memorable horror orgies were each based on a single book. And, of those, three stand out from the rest:

M. G. Lewis The Monk (abridged edition Paul Elek, Bestseller Library, 1960).

L. Sprague de Camp (ed.) Swords and Sorcery (Pyramid Books, 1963). This title now sounds unpromising to my ear, but it includes such gems as Clark Ashton Smith's The Testament of Athammaus and C L Moore's Hellsgarde. For me at least, this was my first introduction to Clark Ashton Smith. We both emerged from the horror orgy as his devotees.

Bernhardt J. Hurwood (ed.) Monsters Galore (Fawcett Gold Medal Books, 1965). A wonderful compilation of grue -- both fictional and fact-based. It was, for both of us, a first introduction to the opening passage of Varney the Vampire and to the real life (and real death) Countess Bathory. Best of all, perhaps, were a series of of what we might call "world stories" (by analogy with world music) as told (or re-told) by Bernhardt J. Hurwood himself. They include a number of Siberian demon tales and Mohammed Bux and the Demon. I haven't seen these stories elsewhere and have wondered sometimes whether Bernhardt J. Hurwood made them up from scratch. Good luck to him if he did!

I remember those - but I needed reminding by a superior retention.

The underlying theme, I do recall, was 'The Hound' in those ancient days and in more recent readings.
'The Hound' is indeed a masterpiece. More musical even than the Music of Erich Zann, often more enigmatic than the deepest poetry, and it slides off the tongue like it was meant to be and could not exist in any other way.
A credo, an archetype, an incantation, a perfect confection of form and content...
The inaugural flight of the craftigator.

I agree that The Hound is like a piece of music. It is a wonderful piece of sound more than it is a story, in my opinion. (Paradoxically, perhaps, it is much more so than any of Lovecraft's verse.) Possibly because of its musicality, The Hound is (like good music) endlessly reprisable. And, no doubt, because of this reprisability I think that the majority of our horror orgies included a reading of The Hound (perhaps the vast majority of them). Whether any of the three horror orgies I mentioned included the story, I don't know. I'm virtually certain that the Monk one didn't. (Reading the entire book was a tall order without tacking on anything else!) None of the three books include The Hound, but it is possible that a reading of the story was added to either or both of the Monsters Galore and Swords and Sorcery horror orgies.

I’ve scanned in the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies.

First of all, the front and back covers of the edition of The Monk which Des read to me during a single night. This was the first edition of The Monk that either of us had seen.

This isn’t the horror orgy copy, but it’s the same edition, with the same cover.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1095

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1094

Here’s my second posting of the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies. This time, Monsters Galore.

This isn’t the horror orgy copy, but it’s the same edition, with the same cover.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1097

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1096

Here’s my final posting of the covers of the books that formed the bases for the three great horror orgies – this time Swords & Sorcery.

This is the actual horror orgy copy, presented to me (as a gift) by Des whilst I was an in-patient in Lancaster University Medical Centre. That was in the summer of 1969. The Swords & Sorcery horror orgyhad taken place at some time during that academic year. This time, as well as scans of the back and front covers, there is also one of inside the front cover – including Des’ dedicatory inscription. KZ refers to the central character of The Testament of Athammaus. Perhaps this book did not contain the only copy of The Testament of Athammaus in the world, but it contained the only copy in our world. It was a gift for which I have ever since felt grateful.

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1100

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1099

http://www.ligotti.net/picture.php?a...pictureid=1098

"By making a combined use of its various mouths and members, the abnormality* was devouring both of the hapless persons whom it had seized."
The Testament of Athammaus (Clark Ashtom Smith 1932)

*the thing that once was Knygathin Zhaum (KZ)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemonymous (Post 16063)

Just for the record on this thread - my 'novel' entitled THE VISITOR was originally written longhand in 1974 with carbon copies to PFJ for his epistolary comments. Chapter by chapter, PFJ indeed kindly commented on it in his on-going letters to me and his comments were written by me into the novel (while I was still writing the novel) as part of the novel!!

Later I typed the whole thing on an old-fashioned typewriter (in the 1970s or 80s). Of course, that was not the same as word-processing it. That typing was bad and consequently, in 2005, I found it impossible to scan it into a Word Doc. So in 2006, I typed the whole thing again (!) as a Word Doc, which, in 2006, I put on a blog. I also incorporated some brief 2006 comments from myself to describe illustrations I had originally drawn for the 1974 longhand version and other 'house-keeping' matters concerning the text. And below, for the record, I show just my 2006 comments at the end of the whole blogged novel:

DFL 2006 comment:
and so ends something I wrote in 1974, incorporating a few things from my writings in the sixties. I was born in 1948. Judge for yourself how young or old I must have been then. Having reVisited ‘The Visitor’ to blog it here, I wondered what the hell! It’s really bad, just as bad as I recall it. But, equally, it is better than I remember it. It echoes forward to later things. I have kept it more or less untouched … despite an urge to rewrite and refigure and make my visit an intrusive one. I am a believer in selves and the judgement of and by selves (Proustian?). Why should an earlier self of mine be dictated to by one of its future selves (ie. me!)? All selves are crazy. As are all commentators. Which brings me to PFJ whose actual 1974 epistolary comments you’ve just read piecemeal in this exercise of re-living. I have had a long correspondence with him weekly (I guess) through the post from 1967 – and a valued friendship (less frequently in person). Furthermore, he constructively commented in letters on lots of my stories in the late eighties and early nineties, for which I (and the world?) are eternally grateful. DFL the writer would not exist without him. Nor would DFL exist without various DFL selves throughout the decades. Together with RO'C's 1980/1990s' considerate views of the DFL publications and his advice re reading SF etc. I am pleased by the memory-breaking exercise of re-typing the whole of ‘The Visitor’ to have been part of those DFL selves again. I hope I was welcome.

If I recall correctly, The Visitor (Des' sprawling novel) was named after the Morecambe local newspaper of that name. Well, sort of. In the centenary year of The Visitor (the newspaper, that is) the Lancaster postmark commemorated the fact. So the envelope of every letter from me Des received (for an extended period) bore an inscription saying something like The Visitor family-owned newspaper 1874-1974. (At that time, I was still living in Lancaster.) It was after this inscription, I believe, that Des named his novel.

In fact, I think that the original handwritten manuscript quoted this postmark inscription in full.

On the Lancaster connection, note the Lancaster Market Bookstall stamp inside Swords and Sorcery (as shown in a scan already posted to this thread). :rolleyes:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odalisque (Post 16348)

Thanks for reminding me of that!!!!!

And that makes me remember that the actual title was really "The Visitor etc."