Literary Horror discussion

Hey folks, a few of us have expressed some interest in reading this title. I am proposing it as a Buddy read for the start of the new year. This title is available from a number of places, but can be purchased directly from the publisher, Snuggly books, here: https://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/star-o...

Giving notice this far out should give everyone a chance to either order a paperback copy (or even hardback if you so desire) well ahead of when we intend to start... right after the start of the new year. I don't believe Snuggly Books have made any of their books available in electronic format. Sorry folks... =)

As it so happens, this particular collection of 5 of Damian Murphy's novella length pieces happens to reprint in a far more affordable and accessible edition 4 previously published novellas that are long out of print by the fabled Ex Occidente Press.

Damian has been working with Snuggly Books to re-publish many of his long out of print titles in more accessible and affordable editions. This is his second collection with Snuggly.

Sounds good, count me in!

I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) this collection earlier this year, and would definitely be up for revisiting it in a group setting.

Awesome... glad to hear that you guys are interested. I have read 4 out of the 5 novellas from this collection, a while back when they were originally published by Ex Occidente. There is a brand new novella that the author wrote specifically for this collection... similar to what he did with Daughters of Apostasy. I intend to re-read all of these novellas when we get started with the buddy read. Really looking forward to discussing these stories... lots of symbolism to mull over.

Just ordered my copy.

My copy is on order and scheduled to arrive later this month. I'm looking forward to this read!

Just got my copy, I'm raring to go!

I just ordered my copy. They said I would have it in 3-9 days.

Hi All and happy New Year. I figured we can get started on this this weekend. I might crack this open tomorrow...

I just read the first story, "The Imperishable Sacraments".

To be honest, my immediate reaction was that it was all a bit adolescent. In places it was also badly written. The sentence "Simone awoke at an uncharacteristically early hour, unable to remain fettered by the bonds of sleep" made me want to scoop out my own eyeballs with a spoon.

That said, the story did contain some intriguing ideas and images, so I'm hoping the rest of you will be able to talk me out of my grump and get me to see its better qualities.

Hey Merl, I'm sorry you did not enjoy the first story. Based on your comments and examples, I think you might be struggling with the writing style, which is intentionally done in a florid/decadent prose style. All of the stories are less stories and more of an exploration into some kind of ritual using that very particular style. I can tell you, if you are not digging this style, you are definitely not going to enjoy the other stories much either.

I have read lots of poorly written literature that actually did need proofing and editing... I didn't see much of that here in this story... but again, it may be just the style that you don't like, which is totally fine... its not for everyone. I happen to greatly enjoy this kind of language use.

I particularly enjoyed this sentence... being a bit humorous in explaining Simone's well developed disconnection from other human beings... "...her passion withered in the company of others, that her ardor flamed most brightly when untouched by impure hands." There is a lot of meaning here that goes a pretty long distance in explaining Simone's desired solitude.

Can this sentenced be stated differently or less floridly... sure of course... but then it would cease to be the writer's style.

I think the exploration into ritual/occult is well suited for using this kind of prose style... but others are welcomed to disagree.

=)

Benjamin wrote: "Based on your comments and examples, I think you might be struggling with the writing style, which is intentionally done in a florid/decadent prose style."

You're right on both counts. It felt like the author had read a lot of Huysmans. Of course everybody should read a lot of Huysmans, that's a good thing. But this felt like too much of a pastiche for my tastes.

Speaking of Huysmans... I noticed something new about 'Imperishable Sacraments' this time around that I had not noticed before, which was the extra detail given to what Simone ate throughout the narrative... Strawberries and Champagne, Prawns, etc... a bit akin to Des Essientes own explorations of food in 'A Rebours'. I wonder if there is any significance to the narrative.

I have wrapped up Imperishable Sacraments. How is everyone else doing with this? I don't want to get too far ahead of folks.

I just got back from out of town, to my copy. Will start ASAP.

The company (GreatBookPrices with Alibris) sending me my copy lied. They haven't even mailed it yet. :(

Had to cancel my Amazon order as they couldn't promise fulfillment before mid-February (I ordered the first week of December!). I shall try my luck with Snuggly Books directly. Since that publisher offers free shipping on any order over $30, I'll probably pick up another paperback as well. Any suggestions from those who know this publisher well? (

Marie-Therese wrote: "Had to cancel my Amazon order as they couldn't promise fulfillment before mid-February (I ordered the first week of December!). I shall try my luck with Snuggly Books directly. Since that publisher..."

Snuggly is usually very reliable regarding shipping. As to recommendations... are you interested in contemporary authors or authors long passed?

I have never read her, but I have heard from a few folks that they have enjoyed many of Jane de La Vaudère's books. Snuggly has re-published many of her collections.

As for contemporary, they have published many of Quentin Crisp's works, who I have enjoyed greatly. I haven't read any of their anthologies, but they look quite interesting...

Benjamin wrote: "Snuggly is usually very reliable regarding shipping. As to recommendations... are you interested in contemporary authors or authors long passed?

I have never read her, but I have heard from a few folks that they have enjoyed many of Jane de La Vaudère's books. Snuggly has re-published many of her collections."

Thanks for the response, Benjamin-I'd hoped you would chime in as I know you're very familiar with this press. De La Vaudère is one of the authors I was most intrigued by when browsing Snuggly's catalogue, so I think I shall order something by her and perhaps by Renée Vivien as well.

Merl wrote: "I just read the first story, "The Imperishable Sacraments".

To be honest, my immediate reaction was that it was all a bit adolescent. In places it was also badly written. "

I agree, but call it overwritten. Not quite to the extent of being purple prose. But certainly lavender. Using adverbs and adjectives for anything but stark description is a form of narrative intrusion by the author on a text, a way of telling the reader the author's opinion and assuming the reader will share it.

Here's just two of many examples of the problematic prose, which come back to back:

"Seeking ever greater raptures, she headed out into the awaiting arms of the city as it drowsily prepared for the coming sojourn through the night." In other words, she left work late that night to return directly to her apartment. No raptures awaited her in her apartment, of course, but to say there were makes for a more exciting sentence.

What was waiting for her when she got home, you ask? I'm so glad you care, because I don't. For the record, we're duly informed that "she dined on strawberries and slightly stale bread washed down with the remnants of a bottle of chardonnay which had been keeping dubious company in the icebox." Keep the contents of this late night snack in mind because they're integral for understanding the rest of the story. Just kidding. It's really not, despite the fact the strawberries make their return on the very next page.

The author informs us of these, and many other, inconsequential narrative tidbits ten pages in to the 48-page story all before we the reader have any inkling what the situation in the story is, before we know what problem the protagonist has that she will be attempting to overcome.

I'm not feeling it yet with this book, but still hopeful the story might improve. I'm going to try to forgive/ignore the lavender prose going forward.

Overall I enjoyed "The Imperishable Sacraments", with reservations. Loved the opening ritual, the keys, and the evocation of insomnia and eventual dream-like state.

I did have some eye-roll moments with the prose, for example:

She again reached into the depths of the bag, as if it were the very mouth of mystery...

I'm sorry, but every time I reach into a paper bag, do I think of it as "the very mouth of mystery"? I also don't insist on telling all of you what I had for breakfast this morning.

Finally, I really wish Murphy hadn't named the big guy at the end. Wasn't it enough to describe him vaguely? All that baggage seems to me a bit much for the ending. (I enjoy cryptic rituals for their aesthetic qualities, and prefer not to have Names named to direct my interpretations.)

I will say this about the prose... and it will be the last thing I say about it... I think we can all accept that some folks like the decadent/florid prose and some do not... no biggie.

That being said, I think this style is intended to intoxify the reader as the ritual and communing with the ineffable is attempted by the protag. I find my brain soaking up the words in a way that makes me a little... hmm... not sure what the right word is... perhaps hallucinatory or febrile.

Nevertheless, I see the prose style as part of the mood setting and atmosphere development for that actual narrative. If you don't like it (whatever color you want to call it) then you don't.

I agree with Bill here though... I suspected that Simone's communing was specific to one side of the occult spectrum... I could have gone with out the entity being named... =)

That being said... I really enjoyed the imagery presented of Simone's encounter at the tower. It was beautifully imagined by the author.

Benjamin wrote: "Nevertheless, I see the prose style as part of the mood setting and atmosphere development for that actual narrative."

I agree with your assessment, Benjamin. And my taste within the florid prose spectrum usually runs quite narrow. But for some inexplicable reason Murphy's writing casts a spell on me, causing me to surrender my preconceptions, thus allowing my reading mind to relax and sink into the scenes. It's quite the bewitching effect.

I will also note that I believe (and I admit to not having revisited the collection yet) this first story ended up as my least favorite of the batch, though I still found elements of it to be compelling. I think it felt the least developed (again, from what I recall--and I promise to refresh my memory before making additional off-the-cuff comments...).

Damian Murphy's books have been rated 316 times here at GoodReads and he has an average of 4.7, which means he has at least two five ratings for every four rating, on average, no threes or below (on average).

How impressive. His writing must be in a class by itself. No? No.

As one small example of his writing I offer a random paragraph on page fifty. The context is that this young woman has been wandering around for fifty pages doing really nothing with no one. There are no other characters she interacts meaningfully with at any point during the story. She's in a passage in some church examining the contents of a cabinet. Damian Murphy writes:-- Wait, no! Damian Murphy would never merely write. Damian Murphy scribes:

Stone columns and obelisks, frail and diminished, arranged themselves in geometrical aberrations repellent to the human spirit. A ravenous wind beguiled an eternity of Antarctic waste. Bleached monuments arose at abominable angles as if to spite the colorless sky. Simone raised her hands above her head as if to court the breath of the Holy One. Her lips remained sealed. Her heart was pure as ice. As the stone passed before the fluctuating star the sound of shattering glass brought the vision to a halt.

Where to start. Let's break down the meaning sentence by sentence. "Stone columns and obelisks, frail and diminished..." When is stone ever frail? Is this column found in a cabinet--remember columns usually support a structure--frail? It's not much of a column then. Diminished? Diminished how? Diminished why? What is the significance of finding columns and obelisks in a church cabinet? Damian Murphy never bothers to indicate. We're just on to the next nonsensical image.

Let's see. These columns and obelisks arrange themselves. Of course they do. Don't they all? How do they arrange themselves? Oh yes. Into "geometrical aberrations repellent to the human spirit." Which human spirit? Your human spirit? My human spirit? All human spirits? What geometrical aberrations repel your human spirit? Do parallelograms really turn you off? Do you have something against triangles? They have such pointy parts after all! Oh and these columns and obelisks are arranging themselves into more than just one aberration. These are multiple aberrant shapes first explored no doubt by Euclid here (assuming you are as into aberrant geometrical shapes as Damian): Euclid's Elements.

Now, along comes a wind that has missed a meal or three. What is it doing? It's capturing the interest of a lot of snow located near the South Pole. This is the one and only mention I can recall in the story of the Antarctic, by the way, although stars visible from the southern hemisphere alone are frequently if completely randomly referred to throughout the "story."

These bleached monuments that arise at such offensive angles out of this church cabinet, are they the columns and obelisks referred to in the earlier sentence, I wonder? How dare the sky withhold its color. No wonder those monuments are arising at such objectionable angles out of sheer spite and malice!

Simone wants some dude with the initials H.O. breathing on her, so she puts her hands above her head? Yeah. That should do the trick. Wait a minute. She's courting him. Does she want this holy dude to maybe do more than breathe on her? This could get quite kinky.

Nope. She's going to keep the lips sealed. Oh well.

Hearts as pure as ice. Is Damian Murphy confusing Simone with an old Foreigner song about hearts being as cold as ice? Maybe Damian is forging boldly and cleverly ahead by making a new metaphor! After all, we all know how pure ice is, or hope it is before it gets placed in our Sonic slushee.

Stones always pass through stars that fluctuate, don't they? I mean, have you ever known one not to? I've heard passing stones through stuff can be painful though. Is Murphy going to bring kidneys in?

Nope. It's time for a loud noise. How about that shattering glass, eh? It's not just any shatter glass either. It's the shattering glass. Yeah. The glass we were just talking about. Oh, wait a minute. We weren't talking about glass. We were talking about rude, unkind, or in some way objectionable geometric shapes.

Oh. This was all a vision. Brought about by looking into a church cabinet. I see, except not really. Why is Simone having visions? Will Murphy tell us? Nope. The next paragraph just starts out with Simone dropping a stone because the shattering glass has her "startled half to death", which is better than being repulsed all the way to death by execrable writing, I suppose.

While I too have reservations about the writing, I think all the posters so far have been quite clear about our respective opinions on such. I'm not sure I find such extended ruminations on a single paragraph to be helpful here.

Marie-Therese, when do you think your copy will arrive? If it'll be some time, perhaps we might proceed to the shorter second story?

Bill wrote: "I'm not sure I find such extended ruminations on a single paragraph to be helpful here."

It's called close reading. At least, part of close reading is breaking down sense sentence by sentence. I felt it would be useful for our discussion because some were saying that the ability to appreciate the writing was merely a matter of taste. While there is indeed room for taste in ability to appreciate types of writing--some people like postmodernism and dislike Victorian literature, for example, and can say why--there is also just bad writing, which consists of making elementary mistakes that can be indicated. Since I appear to be burning some people's idols, I'll refrain from further comment and leave the topic open to the 5- and 4-voters--the rest of the world in other words. I promise.

Hey Dan,

I guess you weren't bewitched... (Thanks Sean... that is indeed the word I was looking for). =)

I don't think you are burning anyone's idols down at all. You are welcome to your opinion even if it is different from mine or others.

I can't say I find your sentence by sentence breakdown particularly compelling but hey, no big thing. Enjoy the book or put it down... totally your call.

Getting back to the narrative of the first story... I also noticed there were references to numbers at different parts and in different contexts. I feel like there is some meaningful puzzle here with regards to the numbers... I can't quite put my finger on it. I think they were related to how Simone numbered her "holy" books or hymns.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Bill wrote: "Marie-Therese, when do you think your copy will arrive? If it'll be some time, perhaps we might proceed to the shorter second story? "

It's going to be a while so please go on ahead without me and I'll catch up later.

S̶e̶a̶n̶ wrote: "I will also note that I believe (and I admit to not having revisited the collection yet) this first story ended up as my least favorite of the batch."

Thanks for this comment, S̶e̶a̶n̶, it's encouraged me to keep going.

I read the second story last night, and found it a lot less irksome than the first. Yes, that's pretty faint praise, and I can't say I actually liked it much, but perhaps they will keep getting better as they go along...

As with the first story, I liked some of the ideas, even though the execution didn't do much for me. In this one I was especially intrigued by (view spoiler)[the notion of the doppelganger who doesn't actually resemble you (hide spoiler)].

I really liked the central ideas of "The Apostatical Ascetic" (the narrator with the murky origins, and what's hidden in Merl's spoiler in the last note), not so much the execution. I would have done very different things with the same ideas.

To provide some additional context, and I think Murphy provided a brief note at the beginning of this book about where this story comes from, but I found the use of first person narration to be a very interesting one with this particular story, given that it is a tribute story to Fernando Pessoa, found in the anthology, Dreams of Ourselves: An Appreciation of Pessoa.

There were many wonderful pieces in this anthology, finding many different ways to incorporate Pessoan themes , settings (probably why the story is situated in Lisbon), and perhaps the author himself. The anthology played a game with the reader, providing a pseudonym of the author for each story. You knew the names of all the real authors who contributed to the anthology, you just didn't know which story they contributed based on the pseudonym... hence the puzzle in trying to figure out who wrote what story. Needless to say, Murphy's prose style was very easy to recognize.

Anywho, getting back to the theme that Merl and Bill are talking about (whithout spoiling things), I can think of at least one other story in the anthology that used this very theme, but to a different end. It makes me wonder if this theme is something that Pessoa explored in his own works... regrettably I have read only a few pieces by Pessoa... I wish I had read more.

Likewise, the prose style is again decadent and situates the narrative in a dream like atmosphere. One other thing to consider, and I have been thinking about this since the first time I read this piece... I wonder if Murphy intended us to believe the narrator in this piece to be (view spoiler)[ Fernando Pessoa (hide spoiler)], given the narrator's profession and expressed disdain for his profession.

Thanks Benjamin, that sheds a lot of interesting light. (Although I have to confess I've never read a word of Pessoa and know nothing about him.)

I finally glanced through this to refresh my memory, and the remaining three stories that haven't been discussed yet were my favorites in the collection. They're also the ones I felt had the strongest narrative drive, perhaps not coincidentally.

Offense taken to Damian Murphy writing style can be seen as good example of weird fiction/MFA/educated reader mindset vs Neo-Decadent mindset...neither is Damian Murphy writing horror, literary or otherwise...his fiction is mostly enjoyable and pleasant, such as the story "The Star of Gnosia" where the collaborative children discover many interesting things...

Stone columns and obelisks, frail and diminished, arranged themselves in geometrical aberrations repellent to the human spirit. A ravenous wind beguiled an eternity of Antarctic waste. Bleached monuments arose at abominable angles as if to spite the colorless sky. Simone raised her hands above her head as if to court the breath of the Holy One. Her lips remained sealed. Her heart was pure as ice. As the stone passed before the fluctuating star the sound of shattering glass brought the vision to a halt.

The excerpted paragraph is happening in a vision, where combined visual + associative "subtle sensory" impressions take precedence, not literal reality. Anyone who has observed ancient ruins can remark on the accuracy of stone being described as "frail." The "close reading" here brings to mind the remark attributed to Hitler,

"Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized."

Now many people are appreciative of green skies and blue fields in painting but when similar freedom is exercised in the adjectival realm, those with academic qualifications can become discomfited...

It seems like there was a period in the 20th century where modifiers were discouraged, probably due to the influence of newsprint and magazine text limitations; this was correspondingly seen as "good style"...anyway we are now in the 21st century and there is nothing to stop the free play of more and more modifiers. Academics and readers used to processing "flowing" writing without much thought will naturally be upset

DAMIAN MURPHY INTERVIEW ; this was conducted over the course of a year and explains much of the theoretical content behind Damian Murphy's style and approach...including the stories in THE STAR OF GNOSIA

Dan announced that he would refrain from further comment five days ago, and has honored his pledge. If anyone would still like to pick a fight with Dan, I would recommend messaging him directly, and not make long posts to that effect on this forum.

While I agree with Bill that zeroing in on Dan's very specific quibbles with Murphy's prose is not constructive here, I do think Justin raises an important point. And I think talking at a more general level about the significance and context of an author's style is entirely appropriate to a book discussion.

I agree with Justin that many of us as readers have been conditioned to perceive the kind of style Murphy employs as overwrought and old-fashioned. Those who consider themselves 'serious readers' might expect to have to work their own imaginations harder to visualize scenes in a book. But there is also the occult focus pervading all of Murphy's work to consider, and how his style is integral to his efforts in communicating occult experiences through fictional means.

I would also encourage people to read the lecture and interview Justin posted. I read this last year and found it helpful in placing Murphy's work in context. Knowing his underlying concerns and intentions added a significant dimension to the reading experience.

Thank you Justin for recommending the Murphy interview and also posting a link. Having started this thread, I am definitely remiss in not having provided that link at the beginning before we launched into this collection. I recall reading this a while back and greatly enjoyed it.

I share Sean’s sentiments that this interview gave me much greater understanding and appreciation for where Damian was coming from and the style he was using to convey some very complex ideas and imagery in his works.

I feel a bit bad because this might have been a helpful starting point for Dan and perhaps other readers who have never read Damian before. Ah...C’est la vie.

As for Dan, I think we are all agreed that he seems to have put the book down and left the discussion. I’m not going to take umbrage with his comments, more of a “his loss” kind of deal than anything else.


I’m enjoying reading this collection with every one this thread. I'm now moving onto the third story of this collection.

Where is everyone else at?

Benjamin wrote: "I'm now moving onto the third story of this collection. Where is everyone else at?"

I read the third story last night, but I'm going to hang fire on any comments until other people have had a chance.

I'm done with the third story too. As S̶e̶a̶n̶ mentioned, it has a stronger narrative skeleton than the first two.

I’m just about finished with A Perilous Ordeal. Feel free to shoot out comments and observations.

So.. I really enjoyed this one greatly... in fact, it felt like the tension for us, the reader, in uncovering the mystery here, felt much stronger than the other two pieces... mainly because it felt like we kept questioning whether or not the ordeal that our protagonist faces is just a test or initiation or did the war time chaos involve itself in his life and disrupt his path. I also greatly enjoyed the dialog between the protagonist and his interrogator.

Likewise, it wasn't until a bit later on that we get some kind of clue as to the setting, location, time period, etc. Everything seemed shrouded in mystery here.

The interview was interesting, though I've had trouble with writers who claim to be influenced by film. See for example the Cronenberg anthology which was a recent buddy read; obviously the two are very different, and I tend not to enjoy a detail-clogged description of a scene that might work very well in a film.

I enjoyed "A Perilous Ordeal" more than the two earlier stories. The writing is a bit more restrained, and there are more events to hang my narrative hat on. Again, I'm not sure I would have included the loaded symbols (Nazis, kerubim/seraphs, etc). But there were intriguing rooms to pace through, and engaging collections of objects to look at. Not a fan of the ending, but IMO this sort of thing is hard to pull off.

Our current monthly read, Shelley Jackson's Riddance: Or the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children, is also written in rather mannered prose, with hundreds of pages of (mostly) characters walking through quaint rooms containing quirky objects. I'm trying to understand why I'm enjoying Riddance significantly more. This might be partly because Jackson sets up her narrators as almost hilariously unreliable; they're constantly questioning and contradicting what they had just proposed as venerable "scientific" principles (about communicating with the dead, of all things!) I'm feeling sympathetic about their foibles, and laughing at the same time.

Unless I'm completely misreading Star of Gnosia, I don't think I'm supposed to laugh at Simone in "The Imperishable Sacraments", or Bartolomeu's ordeals.

Hmm, I felt the ending certainly conveyed a sense of closure of the particular ordeal,(view spoiler)[but left things open to new vistas for Bartolomeu to explore (hide spoiler)].

One thing I'm curious about is the meaning of the three sections of this narrative. I wonder what House of Onyx, Amethyst, and Pearl are referencing. I only have a vague notion but can't really define it in my mind.

I have never read the Jackson novel, but from what you are describing Bill, they seem like two very different kinds of works having authors attempting their works with two very different intentions/approaches. *shrugs*

The pieces in Star of Gnosia strike me as more solemn/serious explorations of occult ritual/practice and discovery of the mystery. Aside from a few funny (albeit understated) comments/observations here or there, I don't read these stories as comedic... so I don't think you are misreading them... at least that is my general impression.

My experience with "The Hour of the Minotaur" is similar to "A Perilous Ordeal". I liked the ritual at the end, with the ambiguous vintage photos, puzzle, and cryptic machine. Not so excited that the cherubim/seraphs are back.

I'm pretty far into Hour. I should be done today. I'm curious what put you off about the use of those terms? To me, its a specific kind of language used to precisely point to a specific idea the author has in mind. I think if the occult was being used as a simple motif or plot device, I would agree with you that such detail or specifics would be unnecessary perhaps even ostentatious. In this case though, I think the very purpose of these stories is occult initiation. These narratives definitely feel less like your conventional story and more like some kind of gnostic experience/simulation that the author wishes to share with the reader. I have never read anything like this before (before having read the authors works).

The details seem meaningful to me... even though I am only vaguely familiar with the occult and all the language used to describe the occult. I have heard of these terms mind you, and I am aware that there are categories and hierarchies that these terms fall into, but beyond that, I am woefully ignorant.

These narratives definitely feel less like your conventional story and more like some kind of gnostic experience/simulation that the author wishes to share with the reader. I have never read anything like this before (before having read the authors works)

I debated about posting in here again as I don't want to try to force my own interpretation too much; neither was I trying to pick a fight with anyone as suggested earlier, but for me this is the very interest and appeal of Damian's stories, that they are almost always describing specific processes whose aim isn't always entirely clear at first, but which are entirely the point of the story rather than simply being part of its atmosphere. The often laborious descriptions of preparation work for ritual activity are authentic in the sense of this kind of methodical preparation being necessary to "get" anywhere with the aims in question. In a more conventional story it'd be glossed over with a few lines; here it is actually the point itself.

I don't find all of the stories equally successful or interesting, and I've definitely struggled with some of them before. Others (not necessarily the stories in this particular collection) have hit me very forcefully with sudden and overwhelming intensity. Others I've noted down to return to later and explore in more depth.

To put it another way I'd class Damian more with a writer like Robbe-Grillet than any current 'weird fiction' or horror writer. That doesn't mean I think his books are inappropriate for this group, just that it doesn't surprise me that some readers would have an indifferent or strongly negative reaction, given that the elements usually prized in fiction ("realistic" psychological characterization, plot, humor, etc.) are not emphasized in Damian's writing to the extent they would be elsewhere. That's not to say those elements are totally absent, just that the emphasis is different.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Justin, and you are of course very welcome to post in this buddy read.

I think I definitely share in these sentiments. I have greatly enjoyed these pieces in this collection. But I certainly understand if some folks don't share the same level of enjoyment I derived. Damian's writing is distinctly different from most anything else I have read, and rightly noted by you, his approach largely has nothing to do with the conventional weird tale and even some unconventional weird tales... and I read a lot in that genre.

That being said, I think there are enough folks in this group that are open to reading works that go beyond the horror or weird genre.

I finished up Hour of the Minotaur. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed this piece from before.

I am moving onto the final piece, which I have never read before. Definitely looking forward to this. =)

Like others here, I also enjoyed "A Perilous Ordeal" a lot more than I had enjoyed the previous two.

I'm still not in love with the writing style, and I do think that if you're going to go in for such heavily ornamented prose then you should at least be able to do it grammatically, ffs. But then I'm a grump about such things, so that's enough of that.

I am generally dubious about fiction that uses Nazis as a plot device or trope; there's a lot of that sort of thing that's just plain tacky. But in this case the author gets away with it, given the Nazis' real-life simultaneous fascination with and persecution of occultists. I wonder whether part of the inspiration behind this story was the life of the Czech hermeticist Franz Bardon, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis and then later hounded to his death by the Stalinist regime. Do any of you Murphy fans know whether he has said anything specific about that?

I know next to nothing about Freemasonry, but I believe that the phrase "a perilous ordeal" is linked to Masonic initiation rituals. So maybe the pearl, amethyst and onyx are Masonic allusions too.

I didn't make it through all of the long interview text that Justin linked to, but what I did read definitely helped me to get a handle on Murphy's approach, so thank you for that.