Nothing is Strange, by Mike Russell: Out there in a good way

9781502901088
Strange Books, 2014
144 pp

paperback
(my copy from the publisher - thank you!)


"We all already occupy the same space...It is just our centres that are at different points."

Small presses are a godsend to someone like me who seriously craves something beyond the ordinary, and I definitely got that in Mike Russell's Nothing is Strange.  While I was reading this little gem of a collection, for some reason René Magritte (whose work I absolutely love)  popped into my brain, but I could only remember part of a quotation of his, something to do with things being hidden and having an interest in wanting to see them.  It bugged me most of the evening, until finally I was so exasperated with my memory that I had to go look it up and voilà:

"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.  There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us."

If I had to concisely summarize these little stories, I seriously couldn't think of a better way to do it than via Magritte's words.

There are twenty stories in this small book, obviously very short but definitely powerful.  What I discovered is that while reading, I could actually visualize his bizarre characters and settings in my head and it was sort of like walking through a gallery of surrealist paintings.  That's the best way I can describe it -- I wasn't  blessed with the gift of eloquence in my writing (as I'm so fond of saying, I'm a reader, not a writer and I'm a reader, not a reviewer),  so that image will just have to do.

As just one example - one of my favorite stories in this book is his "Extraordinary Elsie,"  a very short tale but one that speaks volumes. It begins like this:

"The words 'Extraordinary Elsie' are written in yellow light-bulbs on the front of the theatre... Yesterday, when the audience read about Extraordinary Elsie on the poster pasted to the front door of the theatre, they could hardly believe it, but believe it they did."

Inside, the theatre is filled with people who have come to see her, "a small, disheveled elderly woman" who steps inside a wooden crate on the stage. The crate is locked, and at the theater owner's nod, a young boy "begins a drum roll," which over time "continues...and continues...and continues..." but the crate stays locked.  Time goes by -- first, three minutes, then three hours, at which point "the drum roll has slowed to an occasional, exhausted tap," yet all the while, the audience "remains as positive and excited as they were when Elsie first appeared."  More time goes by -- three days, three years, nine years, and still the audience waits.  And then we're told that (without giving much away):

"Nine years ago, Elsie entered the theater through the back door. She had been on her way home from the supermarket when she had noticed the words written in yellow light-bulbs on the back of the theatre. The words read 'The Extraordinary Audience.' When Elsie read about the audience on the poster pasted to the back door of the theatre, she could hardly believe it, but believe it she did." 

I won't reveal what happens to either Elsie or the audience, but suffice it to say that images were just flying around in my head while reading this story and I was totally caught up in how extraordinary it is.
The thing is, most of the stories in this little book have this strange power that allows a reader to fully visualize what's happening, which helps bring about that aha moment when the brain cogs whir and meaning materializes.

Not everyone is going to love this book -- it probably won't appeal to a lot of readers who have to have things spelled out, explained, etc., since that doesn't really happen here. This is a book for people who enjoy a good think,  and who "... want to see what is hidden by what we see."  Its elegance lies in its simplicity, and its simplicity belies its complexity.

It is dark, definitely designed for people who want something different in their reading; it's also one of those books I appreciate for its ability to go outside the box and push my own reading boundaries outside of the norm. It is beyond cool, well beyond ordinary, and just so what I needed right now.

Jottings From a Far Away Place, by Brendan Connell

9781943813018
Snuggly Books, 2015
148 pp

paperback (my copy from the publisher, thank you!)


I am beyond indebted to Snuggly Books (love the name, by the way!) for sending me a copy, and I loved it so much that after I read the book, I bought a brand-new one.  If you ask me why I loved it so much, I don't really think I could explain it -- I just did.  I'm not even shelving this book -- it sits out on my desk and I still (after having finished it some time ago) flip through its pages randomly from time to time.  There are  certain books which just sort of speak to me, and Jottings From A Far Away Place is definitely one of those.

I'll confess that I've never read anything by Brendan Connell prior to Jottings, but when I posted a brief wow on Goodreads to hold the spot where my thoughts should go, people started giving me advice on this author's must-read titles. Looking into these books, I realized that Jottings is a completely different animal to the ones that were recommended; quite frankly, unless I count the many Chinese-language works I had to translate during my tenure as grad student, it's a completely different animal to pretty much anything I've ever read. It has that same sort of floaty atmosphericness (okay, I know that's not a real word, but it works) as those works, and "jottings" is a great title word here -- it particularly reminds me of a work I read by a Ming Dynasty scholar called "Little notes on the Nature of Things." Then again, it also has a bit of a Buddhist flavor, but this collection is anything but a ripoff of Eastern philosophy.

 The blurb says that in this book you'll encounter (among other things)  "a bloody episode with Countess de Báthory, a recipe for cinnabar sauce, and the story of a man who has been reincarnated as a spoon."  The spoon story, by the way, has one of countless great lines to be found in this book -- so cool that I marked it:

"A man without God or love has little to complain of when he finds himself reincarnated as a piece of fine silverware." 

Please don't ask me why I think that's a great line, because truthfully, I don't know, but somehow, somehow, there's a lot of wisdom in that statement in an offbeat, off-kilter sort of way.  Now, you might laugh or raise an eyebrow wondering if  I'm totally nuts for thinking that or if I happened to read this book while stoned,  but that's exactly what this book did in my case -- it caught me completely off guard over and over again due mainly to its strange randomness and little wordbites that for some weird reason that I can't fathom made complete sense to me.   For example, there's a particular story I liked in here about an Indian (Indian from India) ascetic who just couldn't get over the fact that a particular holy man who had crossed the river with an unclean prostitute continues to be so loved.  It starts, and then the author turns his attention to  other "jottings," and in the middle of a story about a terrible king who imprisons his daughter, the Indian story picks up again.

So, here's what I'll say about this book since I stink at trying to pull things apart and get all literary-intellectual about things: It is so cutting edge cool without trying to be -- and I just loved it. Jottings From a Far Away Place  may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the back-cover blurb on the ARC I received says the following that really fits how I see it:

"A book that is like a collection of bulletins from the world of dreams,"

to which I will add that if you are a reader who appreciates what certain authors do with language and style without trying to be in-your-face clever about it, this book will blow you away.  Don't expect anything and you will be extremely surprised and happy.  

Dear Snuggly Books: I hope it sells thousands and thousands of copies. It's that good.