Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

There seems something false about my method of real-time reviewing, a self-conscious approach to books where my actual knowledge of being publicly witnessed approaching in real-time those books chapter by chapter or story by story often affects the approach itself.
However, having conducted this experiment since 2008, I genuinely feel such an approach often catches otherwise uncatchable dreams and connects otherwise unconnectable elements in the book. And if more of us buy books and make this same approach, then books, thus triangulated, would prosper.
In this regard, I have been particularly satisfied by my most recent specific reviews of books by Laurence Sterne, Alasdair Gray, James Joyce, John Langan, Steve Rasnic Tem and Nathan Ballingrud, arguably making already great books even greater, at least for this particular reader (me). Hopefully for others readers, too. Even for the books' authors themselves!

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

Nemonymous, your real-time reviews - I've only read a few of them - seem curiously related to the method used by Roland Barthes in S/Z. I wonder if you would agree? All the differences taken for granted...

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

I have not read that, i'm afraid, although I have just skimmed through the Wikipedia about it. It seems far more linguistic than my approach, but I thank you for drawing my attention to it, and I think I ought to follow it up.

My approach has been facilitated by the Internet and the psychological effect on me of knowing (or pretending!) that others are concurrently reading my review as I write it, as I read the book, perhaps as they read the book alongside me - coupled with a need to create a gestalt from a book, even from a multi-authored anthology. My ultimate aim is for books to be triangulated by several people carrying out this process concurrently.

That is one aspect of my approach at least, but it has been an evolutionary process. And still is.

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

An optimal example of this is hopefully my latest completion of a dreamcatcher book review of 'Journeys Beyond Advice' by Rhys Hughes here.
Each review is indeed a defiant 'journey beyond advice'?

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

I have now attempted a reading of s/z by means of the PDF available on-line and I have given up as it seems completely over my head! :(
It was written in 1970 and Barthes died in 1980. So the crucial factor of the Internet that is central to my evolutionary Dreamcaptchas (once called gestalt real-time reviews) was missing. He seems to have some idea concerning codes, though, that may relate to the most recent evolution of my process (deriving from my Finnegans Wake review). I have never agreed with Barthes' idea of the death of the author, but more with the intentional fallacy views of Wimsatt that I find more amenable to the author.
My gestalt method seems simplistic as well as flexible - made for and by the Internet age; Barthes' method, as far as I understand or misunderstand it, seems hidebound by linguistic symbols and ill-tuned to poetry or instinct or any conceivable preternatural features of literature.

Thanks again.

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

I am pleased to see that my real-time reviewing site has been nominated for a British Fantasy Award:
British Fantasy Awards 2014: the nominees | The British Fantasy Society

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

My original Real-Time Reviews of British Fantasy Award 2014 nominees

Links:
Dogs With Their Eyes Shut, Paul Meloy (PS Publishing)
Spin, Nina Allan (TTA Press)
Vivian Guppy and the Brighton Belle, Nina Allan (Rustblind and Silverbright)
Whitstable, Stephen Volk (Spectral Press)
Death Walks En Pointe, Thana Niveau (The Burning Circus)
Signs of the Times, Carole Johnstone (Black Static #33)
North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer Press)
Rustblind and Silverbright, David Rix (ed.) (Eibonvale Press)
Black Static, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
Interzone, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
.
Total list of nominees HERE.

It just proves to me how few I have read among the nominees! Probably why I never feel able to vote.

I would have thought the Colin Insole and Christopher Harman collections might have been included. But there are many other books I would have included in the various categories, but, as I say, I feel I have not read enough to make any choice meaningful. For example, any student of Weird Fiction in any year should have read the Zagava/Ex Occidente canon. And likewise, I myself have no doubt missed out on other large canons of stuff that should be considered for award.

My own 2013 collection (‘A Dead Monument To Once Ancient Hope’ – “…as much a ‘D.F. Lewis’ collection as it is an Ex Occidente Press homage to an European icon.”), and my 2013 edited anthology (‘Horror Without Victims’ – “… this is among the strongest anthologies published in 2013 and confirms Lewis’ standing as one of the most innovative editors currently working in the field of fantastic literature.” – Black Static review), and my Small Press Organization (Megazanthus Press) should have been nominated – well, of course!

Seriously, I am very grateful and proud that my ‘gestalt real-time reviewing’ itself has been nominated. Thanks so much. And congratulations to all nominees. And thanks to the British Fantasy Awards administrator for his hard work.

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

My most recent real-time reviews, some finished, others 'in media res' or just started:

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...as-stromsholt/ Splinters of Horn and Ivory – Thomas Strømsholt

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...-joan-lindsay/ Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...ilvina-ocampo/ THUS WERE THEIR FACES – Silvina Ocampo

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...z-danielewski/ THE FAMILIAR – Mark Z. Danielewski

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...ack-static-46/ Interzone 258 / Black Static 46

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...the-white-day/ Romances of the White Day: in the Tradition of Arthur Machen

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...robert-aickman THE STRANGERS and other writings by Robert Aickman

https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com...ickmans-heirs/ Aickman's Heirs - edited by Simon Strantzas


Please let me know if you would like to upload your own real-time reviews to my relatively well-trafficked Dreamcatcher site.

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

Some of the recent public comments on #GestaltRealTimeReviewing:
* | DES LEWIS GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEWS - 10th Anniversary

The 2018 reviews so far:
* | DES LEWIS GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEWS - 10th Anniversary

Re: Real-Time Reviewing
 

Those of you who trust my tastes MUST read this book -
THE PARRY AND THE LUNGE by David Mathew

Probably an epiphany of literature.