Punch and Judy Book Club (IV)
Kind of like the Richard and Judy book club... except not on TV, and nobody paid me to say anything nice if I don't want to.
I still haven’t finished the counter-culture books I picked up. This is because essentially, they are quite boring and laden down with facts but I will persist - only not very fast apparently. More on that some other time. Meanwhile:
I don’t and never have read science fiction - I don’t even like fantasy that much unless it’s really special (so… just Clive Barker then and he is slacking off more than a County Council employee) - but I try to keep my options open because those are immensely movable goal posts. Even publishers aren’t sure where to put these things in a book shop any more. Does Neil Gaiman belong in the fantasy section or just out with the general fiction with his books fending for themselves like grown ups? I bet if I asked him, he couldn’t answer that sensibly either.
What happened this week, was Eleanor said she was thinking about getting a big canvas to paint on and I said “Clive Barker big?” - by which I meant this big:
…and then I fell down a rabbit hole of watching Barker painting for half an hour (you can join in here if you wish) but in amongst the videos, I got fed a review of a book I had never heard of which was apparently a bona fide influence on Barker’s work (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis too).
I’d never heard of it - or the author.
It’s called A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay. Originally published in 1920, it bears all the scars you would expect from something over 100 years old but I was curious having spent my whole adult life considering Clive Barker to be a one-off (and I still do, there’s nobody like him out there), however, Arcturus is something of a prototype for Barker but it’s like comparing a Ford Capri with a Tesla - kind of the same in theory but the minute you get behind the wheel, you can feel the difference in your bones.
Arcturus is as weird as weird can be. Events happen within one sentence with no explanation that you simply have to roll with or you’ll be left behind. Rather than tell you the plot, here’s a pretty accurate précis of the whole affair:
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by the Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. An interstellar voyage is the framework for a narrative of a journey through fantastic landscapes. The story is set at Tormance, an imaginary planet orbiting Arcturus, which in the novel is a binary star system, consisting of the stars Branchspell and Alppain. The lands through which the characters travel represent philosophical systems or states of mind as the main character, Maskull, searches for the meaning of life. The book combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence.
Here’s a first edition - from the days when they really knew how to dress up a book! A paltry $25,000 at Abe Books if you’re in the market:
Bizarrely, this is the cover of a Penguin reissue:
…which says nothing about anything! What an odd and pointless cover. It looks like an Alan Sillitoe kitchen sink drama rather than an experiment in other worldly psychology. Maybe the illustrator thought Arcturus was somewhere in Greece? The oddest thing on it is the traditional penguin in the corner.
Anyway, it’s throughly enjoyable if you want to wander off the beaten track for a while. I also came across a version of the book published by Beehive Books which is glorious in more ways than I can describe - so instead, I’ll steal some images from their site and point you here because it looks like the kind of book you should have on your shelf even if you hate the damn thing.
Sidebar: check out this video from Beehive for their version of The Island Of Doctor Moreau:
…and this forthcoming slice of brilliance with regards to everybody’s favourite Pine Seed Boy:
The music industry has fallen so far behind in these stakes, I can’t even see them on the horizon.
I think I’m about to spend some money.
Yeah, sorry about that - they have some great looking things in there don't they. The kind of things that you simply must own for no other reason than you'd feel like you weren't doing your job as a reader properly if you didn't grab something
Posting a link to Beehive Books is a bit like taking an alcoholic on a brewery tour!