Review: When the Black Lotus Blooms

English, Elizabeth A. Saunders (Ed.), When the Black Lotus Blooms, Unnameable Press, Atlanta, GA, USA, 1990

Octavo; paperback, with wrappers decorated by Jame A. Riley; 322pp., many black-and-white illustrations. Mild shelfwear, otherwise good.

Signed by the following Authors: Jane Yolen, Michael N. Langford, Carleton Grindle, Brad Linaweaver, Gerald W. Page, Jame A. Riley and Brad Strickland

This volume represents a serious attempt to get back to the roots of HPL. I’m not talking about his juvenilia although to some extent that sort of sketching is represented here. I’m talking about the authors who inspired HPL, who helped him to forge forward upon his own idiosyncratic schedule. Some of the authors in this collection try to ape Lovecraft using the tropes and mainstays that are the basis of what we perceive as Mythos writing; the rest reach deeper to those sources which inspired HPL in his craft – Lord Dunsany; Algernon Blackwood; William Hope Hodgson; M.R. James; Sheridan leFanu.

I have to say that I’m not, strictly speaking, a reader of poetry. I like what I like and I seek out the stuff that I think is good. This tome is filled with the collected poetry of Dunsany-inspired wannabes and – to be honest – I can live without it. There’s only so much deathless metaphor I can choke down at any one sitting. This however, is not the strength of this volume and can be largely dismissed (cue: vegetable-throwing now. Sorry: none of it is very good. It’s all just space-filler, or a means to get otherwise good writers to be present without having to actually do the hard yards.)

I guess I’m one of those guys who just says “oh, for Christ’s sake – just get on with the mayhem!” and who grits his teeth while the author strives for all the subtlety and nuance they can pile on.

But that’s just it: subtle is subtle. You can’t pile it on. It’s like Clive Barker trying to write “The Beckoning Fair One”: it’s just not going to happen.

When talking Lovecraft, there are a varied number of styles that an imitator can choose: My suspicion is that the focus of the material was too broad and that too many authors were left to run their own agenda on the project. In “The Wind Has Teeth” we see a full-on Investigator versus Old One confrontation which, while thoroughly enjoyable, is less Blackwood than its subject matter would require. To be really subtle the jokes would be less broad, but that’s fine – not everyone has a PhD in Lovecraft (I certainly don't), so broad is good.

I have a little sense of tension with this collection. There are stories that use HPL tropes – concepts and inventions – that are commonplace in Mythos pastiche; there are other stories whose rationales are wildly peculiar – more the weird fantasy, Lord Dunsany kind of thing. My problem is that there are things to really like here in both writing camps, and they suffer equally from not being part of a more focussed collection.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, I champion these types of publications and I think they ought to be encouraged. There should be more of them. If there were, they would be able to be rigorous in what they’re trying to achieve and not just bending the parameters to include every Johnny-come-lately who shows up with a last-minute manuscript in order to justify the page count. Do, or do not; there is no try.

(I suspect this is how one-trick-ponies like ‘whatsisname Hopfrog Willum thing-o’ get published: limited pond; exaggerated plop.)

Anyone who’s interested in Symbolist writing should really take a hard look at this compilation. Symbolists are wilfully hard to pin down: is it Octave Mirbeau? Or is he too Decadent? Is it Oscar Wilde? Or does nationality exclude him? I suspect that if you stuck four Symbolists in a room with a three-course meal, four bottles of wine and a deadline, you’d have six different definitions for Symbolism and eight new magazines. I imagine that’s what the editorial meetings of this publication were like!

Elizabeth A. Saunders’ selections are all interesting and varied, but that’s just it: too wide a focus means too varied a selection. All of these stories are great; they just suffer from being placed into too nebulous a frame.

There’s nothing to dislike here (except the poetry); go out and buy a copy if you can find one. But please – if you’re going to publish one of these collections, maintain your focus. Whenever you read a story in a selection like this you think, ‘what is it doing here?’; if you can’t immediately or satisfactorily answer that question, you know something’s up.

If you have a copy of this volume, please take care of it. Every one is limited, in the best publishing sense, and signed by various of the contributing authors. Some of these people might be bestsellers in years to come, so gently, gently does it. It would, in fact, be interesting if the publishers set up a website, or blog, to let owners of the various numbers sign in and explain their fascination for the work and to declare which numbered issue they’ve obtained. That would certainly get my bibliophile senses tingling!

Three-and-a-half tentacled horrors.