Recent Reads

I've been reading Ramsey Campbell since about 1985. I first found him in the Little Professor Bookshop in York, PA. They had a copy of The Inhabitant of the Lake, which was HPL mythos juvenalia he sold to August Derleth at Arkham House, but which was pretty good. This recent trilogy revisits that universe.

It's an uneven series. I thought the first volume showed a lot of promise, but as we progress through the years with the main characters the story was less convincing, and the central character became more of a bore.

The original horror from the Inhabitant of the Lake is back, and is influencing the prophet of a new Church which claims to teach the True Gospel. This Church also uses a meditative technique to spread its message, and the meditative technique is effective at helping children who have seizures and who are "on the spectrum." The narrator of the series discovers as a young boy that one of his teachers is trying to re-awaken an eldritch horror, and combating this becomes his life mission. After volume 1, which is somewhat reminiscent of better Campbell novels (like Incarnate), the story gets looser but I maintained enough interest to see it through.

I'm seriously pleased one of my fave writers is still plugging away, more often good than not. And the idea that he would even attempt a trilogy is great.

Though the recent trilogy is uneven, this collection of new short fiction shows Campbell is still a master of that form. Campbell has always had the knack for taking reality and twisting it just enough to make it creepy AF. His prose is as mysterious and engaging as ever, and his poor protagonists suffer merciless fates.

 
Wow. This is not a collection of horror stories, but the stories are as viscerally disturbing as any horror. Every story is just wrong in only the most delightful and harrowing ways. Definitely Shirley Jackson level shit, and the characters, the plotting, the craftsmanship are at a very high level. But oh man, hold on to your hat.

 

Dude riffs on what we can know about the world of Odysseus from Homer and other writers and current archaeology. Chapters on manhood and traditions and hierarchy and economics. Appendices which destroy all the Troy bullshit accepted as fact since Schliemann.

  

Look at the cards. Try to visualize them. Read the chapters. Let your unconscious do the rest. The Teacher will appear when the student is ready.

 

One of my all-time faves. I read everything he releases. His short stories make me so happy. These are no exception. He can keep writing them until he can't and I'll keep reading them until he stops or I do.

 

Our task is to integrate all the autonomous parts of our Psyche into Unity. The Ego wants to think it rules the roost, but the other elements will fuck up your shit if you don't take a backseat sometimes. The Self wants the Ego to balance unconscious and more eternal elements of the Psyche, and in the Unseen Partner we get one woman's experience of the individuation process, through her spontaneous poetry, associated art works, and blurbs about the Jungian ideas behind it all.