I was fortunate enough to have been given a review copy of
His Master's Wretched Organ
His Master's Wretched Organ
His Master's Wretched Organ
His Master's Wretched Organ
, which is now available as a Kindle edition on amazon.
These are great stories, and although I found myself chewing through the shorter pieces relatively quickly, I felt that I needed long periods of recess between reading to savor the depth of implications. The philosophical undercurrent is strong, and a host of eerie quirks of perspective emerge as the reader explores more deeply. Not all of the ideas presented are necessarily original (this is, after all, religion and philosophy we are talking about) but the manner in which they are presented certainly is.
Strange linguistic and behavioral conventions are implied between characters which the reader can only guess at. There is a grain of perversion at the heart of everything, the world in caricature. Names, faces, places – nothing is ever quite right. It has the unmistakable odor of the grotesque about it. Everything unsettles, and this is tied to the message at the core of this collection. Things are never quite as they seem, and the onus falls upon you (or more specifically, consciousness) to investigate. This seems to me to be the essential theme of Gnosticism: inquire or suffer.
HMWO reads like some uncanny fusion of Lovecraftian cosmicism and apophatic theology. Writers who try to emulate Lovecraft write about tentacles. Writers who try to emulate Thomas Ligotti write about puppets. Murphy does not emulate either of these writers (with the exception of one very deliberate humorous instance), rather he adopts the spirit in which both of these masters of weird horror operated – the ordered mind of the conscious entity immersed in a system that functions on an inconceivably higher order. This isn't horror about sheer chaos and godlessness: this is horror about intelligent order behind surface reality, and our utter incapacity to confront or even recognize it. What is perhaps most frightening to me is that this premise is very likely true. You are already in a hell of your own making, only we are mostly ignorant of the fact that there is even a problem.
The stories in HMWO work with varying degrees of surrealism. At best, they are distorted parodies of waking life, at worst, they deteriorate into a kind of schizophrenia. The lack of consistency evident between entries in this collection is mostly due to these varying degree of reality represented: dreams within dreams within dreams.
The titular entry is less of a story and more of a haunting, existentialist prose-poem. It is good, but nothing compared to the longer, more well-structured pieces, some of which I will delve into briefly now.
Uncle Drew – A student is forced to care for his disabled uncle who is a slug-like creature who “thinks in cones”. One of my favorites for sheer strangeness and imagery.
Tiny Tim is a tale of a socially isolated man who inherits a mansion with an unusual history. Although it immediately promises to be standard fare, it takes some curious twists and turns, as well as occasionally masterful use of misdirection and narrative distance that T.E.D. Klein would be proud of. However, as wonderfully eerie as the atmosphere is (without spoiling anything) the pacing toward the end felt a little rushed.
Dissolution is the real gem of the collection, perhaps just ahead of Peregrinations. It is also the most realistic (well, the least surrealistic). I can't divulge details without ruining anything, but the message of this insomnia-focused story is thought-provoking and totally horrifying. As a sufferer myself, I know this couldn't have been written unless the author had personally been pushed to the brink of insanity through sleeplessness. Marvelous concept, expertly executed.
Gathering Dust is a peculiar, dream-like tale about a boy with synesthesia and his family who move from hotel to hotel with no permanent abode. Themes center around grief and loss, although the epistemological questions rear their heads quickly. It isn't the most surreal, but like many of the others, it is heavily metaphorical and full of oddly structured phenomenological content and frequent but subtle allusions to esoteric mysticism. The ending is imbued with a rich ambiguity which some people might find frustrating. I myself thought it felt exactly right.
The Extraordinary Transformation of Lord Bloodclock ramps up the surreal factor. It appears superficially to riff off the hackneyed trope of the brash Victorian scientist who insists on performing experiments upon himself in order to further his own scientific knowledge. An entertaining read, although not especially original.
The Eye of the Dough-Golem –is an utterly strange, deeply metaphorical tale about confronting and superseding the limitations of human knowledge. Murphy has a frequent tendency to remind us that we are animals, and this is especially evident here. Staff working for a company supplying religious icons (an interesting premise in itself) are portrayed as quasi-human, walking on knuckles and wearing livery. Very strange, and a stimulating read.
The Peregrinations of Richard Denk is my second favorite of the book. A socially inept man living with his mother devises strange psychonautical experiments with psychedelic insects. A very unnerving and visual story, one that has got under my skin and stayed with me for many days afterward.
The humorous entry I alluded to earlier is Thomas Ligotti and the Perpetually Re-heated Lasagne. A very odd little pastiche, but quite brilliant. Clearly a nod to one of his major literary influences, this very short, semi-comical horror story is packed with descriptive Ligottian ideosyncrasies.
The collection neither begins nor ends with anything strong, which would be my only real criticism. The strength of some stories overshadow the weaker (read: shorter) entries, which although feature fascinating ideas, never allow themselves quite enough space to unpack them at vignette length.
All in all, a really wonderful little collection from a new author. I would pay full price for this collection if only for my two favorite entries, 'Peregrinations' and 'Dissolution', which are surprisingly original. I look forward to having this in print because the cover is just beautiful. I will certainly keep looking for more from this new practitioner of the weird, who assures me that he has many more projects in the mix. 4.5/5
- Belinda Sykes (Sasha)