The Spoils: April 2013

A bookstore sale allowed me to pick up loads of titles this month, namely, the first seven titles in the list below. The last three came from a much-delayed online order.

1. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe (third book in a series but this and the fifth book on the Romantics are the ones I’m really interested in)
2. The Dream Archipelago by Christopher Priest
3. The Stain on the Snow by Georges Simenon (published in the US as Dirty Snow)
4. Midnight Plus One by Gavin Lyall
5. Before, During, and After: Poems by Hal Sirowitz
6. The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
7. The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
8. The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation by Fanny Howe
9. The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972-1995 by Michael Palmer
10. Thread by Michael Palmer (reviews from Jacket 2, Lana Turner, The Constant Critic, Poetry magazine, and Publishers Weekly)
11. Conjunctions 37: Twentieth Anniversary Issue (Fall 2001)
    

Apophenia 1: Harrison, Derrida, Lacan, Poe, Public Enemy

I’m a big fan of M. John Harrison‘s writing in general: not just his novels and stories but also his blog entries.

Lately, Harrison’s been posting lists of works in the related genres of fantasy and science fiction. It would be an understatement to refer to these lists as unorthodox; while most of the entries are books, some are films, computer games, and pop songs.

In a comment on one of Harrison’s follow-up lists, an artist named Edwin Rostron mentions something called The Codex Seraphinianus. Following the link Rostron left, I found myself thrilled by both the book itself and that essay about it. Additionally, I was also thrilled by the mention of a professor named Terry Harpold.

That was when things became apophenic.