Directory of Lost Causes

I have already posted some links in a previous entry, but some more articles related to Shrike have now gone online. There are three new articles in all.

The first of these is a review by Joy Silence from the LiveJournal community, Darkling Tales. The review is well-written and favourable, although there are some minor spoiler elements in it. If you're sensitive to spoilers, you might want to read carefully. (A friend advised me that he had skipped bits when it looked like he might be getting into spoiler territory.)



The second article is yet another inteview with me at The Fix.

On the same site, is another review.

I've no idea whether there will be an 'All About Shrike, part iii'. It's possible.

It's been interesting reading the different reactions reviewers have had to the novella. I wonder if I'm less sensitive to criticism than I used to be. I suppose I've never had a review that totally panned something I'd written, anyway, but I have been a bit miffed with one or two reviews in the past. I'm quite straightforward in that I prefer good reviews to bad, but I think I've been more able to enjoy the actual variety of reaction this time around. The experience of perfection - which must be subjective, I suppose - is rare in human life, it seems. It bothers me less than it used to that what I write is not greeted uniformly with that experience in others. Life is a messy business, after all. To paraphrase Denton Welch, I can only go my own sweet way.

I intended to wait until most of the publicity I can expect for Shrike is actually out before gathering it together in one blog post, but it looks like I'll be waiting a while for some of it, and there's already a reasonable amount out there on the Web now, so, I'll gather together those bits that I'm aware of now, and do the later bits at a later date.



First of all, there are two interviews, here and here, the first on the blog of Charles A. Tan, a writer located in the Philippines, and the second (conducted by Justin Isis) on the blog of Edmund Yeo, Malaysian writer and film-maker.

I've just noticed that at the PS Publishing newsroom, Paul Raven has put up an item about the Bibliophile Stalker interview and kindly describes me as "surprisingly modest". Oh no... I think that the second interview will probably destroy such an impression.

I'm expecting at least one more (and possibly three more) Shrike-related interviews to appear on the internet sooner or later. That is, I've conducted one more that should be up in a month or two, and have been told that one or two other people may be interested in interviews. We shall see.

Now, for the reviews. To my knowledge there are three on the Net so far. I'll do a quick Google, just to make sure... Can't see any new ones. So, here are the three I know of:

Shrike reviewed on Bibliophile Stalker.

Shrike reviewed at The Agony Column.

Shrike reviewed on Goodreads.

I was wondering whether to comment on the reviews or not, but come to think of it, that's probably not necessary.

One or two people have asked me privately what's happening with Shrike, and it's possible others out there, who haven't asked me, are wondering. So, I've been scouring the Internet for signs of Shrike's advent, and know that at least two people have read it. This evidence being confusing rather than conclusive, I asked myself why I didn't just write to the publisher to enquire what the situation was. The answer, of course, is that, perhaps like most writers, I don't like to be a pest. Anyway, I did write, and I have information that Shrike will be published in the next few weeks.



The entry for pre-orders on the online catalogue still doesn't have the blurb up, but the blurb does exist on the Internet, here. I do wonder if lack of blurb has contributed to low pre-order figures. Just in case it will go towards rectifying that in any way, I will reproduce the blurb here:

Brett Stokes is already middle-aged and yet feels that his life has not begun. In an attempt to make sense of his existence he travels to the provincial town of Ôtani in Japan, hoping that, through his writing, he will obtain the insight that he lacks. But in Japan it is late autumn and, closeted within the garden of the lately widowed Mrs Kunisada, Stokes finds the motley collection of arboreal reds and yellows working upon his imagination, until reality itself becomes spectral.

As the strange season unfolds, and Stokes meditates upon the meaning of life, death and literature, the power of the Shrike gradually takes centre-stage.

In this startling novella, Quentin S. Crisp fuses delicacy with darkness and pathos with terror, creating a blend of Japanese and English literature that is as deeply moving as it is unique.

I'm actually pretty busy at the moment. I'm sure people won't believe me when I say that, if for no other reasons than 1) I still post entries here and 2) I don't mention in those entries much of what is happening in my actual life, so that people may form the impression that nothing is happening at all.



Well, things are happening. Or, at least, things are keeping me busy. Some people see that as a good thing. "Keeping busy? Good. Good." And so, often, misunderstandings occur if people ask how I've been, and I say, "Busy." I seem to be someone who, perhaps for physiological reasons, needs an extraordinary amount of time for private reflection, and what some might call 'wool-gathering'. I am a kind of cetaceous marine mammal to whom such reflection is air.



I'm getting off the track a bit. This post is meant as another kind of 'busy-back-soon' note on the door. Which is not to say I won't be in here from time to time, just that, well, I might not respond as soon or as expansively as I would like to communications and comments. I mean, you take all this for granted, anyway, don't you? I'm the only one who actually thinks I have to tell you this, aren't I?

Anyway, although I'm quite far from being a workaholic, I think my being busy at the current time is symptomatic of good things rather than soul-crushing things. I shall not say what those things are now. If, by any remote chance, anyone should be curious, then I'm sure those things will come out in the course of time, barring disasters, such as a sudden and unexpected attack of death, or something.

But to get down to business, as the title of this blog entry suggests, there are various things I wanted to post here by way of news and diversion and general bloggishness to give readers a reasonably pleasant 'watch this space' kind of feeling.



First of all, news, or should I say, vague rumour: All indications are that Shrike is progressing towards its release. I do not know the exact release date, but will let the details be known when I can.

Secondly, Mr Wu kindly made me aware that Mishima Yukio's short film, Yuukoku, or, Rite of Love and Death, has now been released on DVD, and may even be viewed online. I have taken the latter option, and it is, indeed, a jean-creaming piece of heavy, full-on art. Bowie tried doing the whole Renaissance man bit, but has mainly failed to convince outside the arena of music (though I'm very fond of The Man Who Fell to Earth), and I can't think of many other modern artists (popular or otherwise) who have even made much of an attempt, let alone succeeded. Mishima was bona fide.

Thirdly, oh, I seem to have forgotten. I felt sure there was something else. Oh yeah, I'm going to see Leonard Cohen on Saturday. That's at least one more thing I wanted to say, and if my busyness will at all permit it, I might report back here.



There might have been something else, too, but I've forgotten.

The Next Day...

I knew I'd forgotten something. I posted a link to it before in the comments section, but thought I should post a 'main page' link, too. A while back on Chomu I put up an essay I wrote called 'Useful Parasites'. I wrote it with a particular magazine in mind, but, perhaps appropriately, it was rejected. I'm really very (figuratively) footsore from peddling my wares to publishers who keep one waiting - sometimes for years - only to say 'no', so I put it up on Chomu immediately it was rejected. Since then, on Chomu, there has also been a piece by Brent Peterson, and it's good to see our little stable of writers gradually widening, though it's a shame that so far it is full of stallions, with no mares, except nightmares.

I realise Chomu is a bit irregular, in more ways than one, but would like to encourage people to keep checking back, as we are putting up new things in fits and starts, and don't always makes announcements. There are at least four 'serial' pieces that will be continued (I sincerely hope) at some point, too, namely, 33 Ways of Winning at Life, Who Would Have Thought that a Girl Like Me Would Double as a Superstar?, Scramble City and The Dream Cycle, and if that doesn't keep you occupied until I can fully retutn my attention to this blog, I don't know what will. Incidentally, I am also hoping to serialise my temporarily shelved novel of invertebrate ambition and excess, The Sex Life of Worms, on Chomu at some point. I've honestly got quite a lot on.