FREAKSOME TALES

The author sent me a copy of this novel to review:

No sophomore jinx for William Rosencrans! When I reviewed Willie's first novel, The Epiphanist, I said it was a cross between fantasy and weird fiction. What do I compare this work to? How about a balance of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein and Mel Brooks 1974 movie Young Frankenstein? Some of the ten tales are scary; some are funny. The supposed writer is V.V. Swigferd Gloume, but really, it's Willie Rosencrans in his H.P. Lovecraft costume writing these macabre short horror stories. Even the picture on the front cover is a revised Lovecraft. Reshape Lovecraft's head, change the stoic look to a scowl, and what do you get? That's right, Gloume! I'm not surprised that Willie’s tales seem to spoof Lovecraft's style because good ole H.P. is the grandfather of weird fiction and gothic horror. Since most of the tales deal with the psychology of man, or pure mental fear, I am also reminded of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher. Okay, one last comparison: Both H.P. Lovecraft and the fictional Gloume are known racist. Gloume, talking about the foreigner's invasion of England said, ”For their number, disgorged daily from the same ships Liverpool prospered by, grew even greater.” He hated what he called "the others".

The first tale, Hysteria horrificans, is of the scary variety. How would you like a mons veneris (I’m not going to tell you what that is!) crawling after you in a hot and steamy room filled with thorny roses! The second tale,The Veil Betwixt, is also scary and deals with a man, a pentagram, and nine goblins that come a knocking. Do I have your interest yet? The third tale, Metempsychosis, is very funny and deals with a 37 year old seismologist hit by a horse bus, and later thinks to himself, ”Somehow the process of reincarnation had got bungled.” By the way, all of these tales are written by Gloume under a pseudonym with each publisher going out of business soon after publishing his tainted tale. The fourth tale, The Hundred Doors of Kanhaksha the Mazdakite, deals with the adventures of Knoal Heftmonks looking for a sacred baresman, and frankly, I didn’t connect with this tale. The fifth tale Vile Sickness of This World  Born Not is Gloume at his racist best. He pits Rodgebert Croagmire against the "others". So in my estimation, the first half of the novel produced three excellent tales and two "take it, or leave it" tales.

The sixth tale, A Haunting at the House of Quaddock, is a enjoyable story. A man goes to the House of Quaddock for a haircut. As Mr. Quaddock starts the haircut, ”the door opened, and, accompanied by the jingling of bells, an unremarkable gentleman entered the shop.” The seventh tale, Flesh of My Flesh, features a tall, blind, and powerful woman living with her son in an ancient stone keep. This is one of the scary tales, and my advice to visitors of the keep is to stay away! The eighth tale, And Softly Wailed the Child, is of the horror variety, and it is one of the best tales. It involves a Board of Health inspector named Clockpayne inspecting the uncleanliness of Chinatown in England. Did you ever hear of a breadfruit called a durian? Neither did I, but it exists. The ninth tale, Manuscript (Found beneath a Service Pipe), is a solid five star horror tale! We have the mad Dr. Donjonierre practising vivisection (ouch!) while looking for revenge. The last tale, The Hideous Dereliction of Mrs. Blaughducks, is absolutely hilarious. Did you know that when you die your sphincter muscle opens and lets your soul out. Ha. But if it doesn’t close, other wandering souls can enter. This is the premise of Mr. Gloume’s final tale. The second half of the book produced five tales that I have appraised as winners.

As I typed this review, every other word seemed to be underlined in red, telling me it was misspelled. Charles Dickens couldn’t come up with more colorful or unusual character names. In my opinion, Mr. Rosencrans has written a very clever and imaginative novel. Lets hope that rousing sales of this novel wake up the sleeping giant publishers. Once again, I highly recommend a William Rosencrans novel.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Since Rosencrans style seems to be similar to H. P. Lovecraft’s, let’s talk about H.P. He was an American horror writer (8/20/1890-3/15/1937), who may be the grandfather of Weird fiction. His writing style was different from most authors of his time. Wikipedia says: “Often in Lovecraft's works the protagonist is not in control of his own actions, or finds it impossible to change course. Many of his characters would be free from danger if they simply managed to run away; however, this possibility either never arises or is somehow curtailed by some outside force...” See what I mean.

The following are some famous quotes by H.P. Lovecraft: “Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and stumbles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement. And just as inferior people prefer the inferior animal which scampers excitedly because someone else wants something, so do superior people respect the superior animal which lives its own life and knows that the puerile stick-throwings of alien bipeds are none of its business and beneath its notice. The dog barks and begs and tumbles to amuse you when you crack the whip. That pleases a meekness-loving peasant who relishes a stimulus to his self importance. The cat, on the other hand, charms you into playing for its benefit when it wishes to be amused; making you rush about the room with a paper on a string when it feels like exercise, but refusing all your attempts to make it play when it is not in the humour. That is personality and individuality and self-respect -- the calm mastery of a being whose life is its own and not yours -- and the superior person recognises and appreciates this because he too is a free soul whose position is assured, and whose only law is his own heritage and aesthetic sense.”

About his youth he said: “I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little-known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there; but of this I must say little, since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me.”   

And finally, H.P. on horror: “The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life. Relatively few are free enough from the spell of the daily routine to respond to tappings from outside, and tales of ordinary feelings and events, or of common sentimental distortions of such feelings and events, will always take first place in the taste of the majority; rightly, perhaps, since of course these ordinary matters make up the greater part of human experience.” If you have read these quotes, you have to admit that this man was very complicated.