MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Magical powers
JONATHAN TAYLOR is entranced by a collection that touches themes of homelessness, loneliness and abuse with dream-like imagery
Police and demonstrators with a bus parked on London Bridge in central London during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion, August 31, 2021
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
He Used To Do Dangerous Things
Gaia Holmes, Comma Press, £10.99
ARGENTINIAN author Jorge Luis Borges once claimed that artistic creation was, for him, like surrendering to a “voluntary dream.” Though he was speaking of art in general, his words seem particularly applicable to his chosen form: the short story.
Of all literary forms, the short story seems closest to a voluntary dream, in terms of its narrative length, its disorientating propensity to start and end in the middle of things, and its frequent recourse to non-rationalist elements. The magical, the ghostly, the surreal often irrupt into short stories, even those which, at first glance, seem straightforwardly realist in tone and subject matter.
Similar stories
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends two collections of short stories that use a single location to connect the narratives, and explore the limits of our ability to understand the world
MARY CONWAY applauds a brilliant theatrical adaptation of Sam Selvon’s classic 1950s novel of oppression, betrayal and resilience
FIONA O’CONNOR admires a collection that is a riposte to the armies of developers, estate agents, private capital speculators and their marketeers
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends the application of ‘Gothic Marxism’ for its memorable portrayal of the physical violence done to working people