Hamster Dam

 Hamster Dam - Quentin S. Crisp

Unsettling is the word that came to mind when making book diary notes for this one, and the nib was hovering above the page for quite some time. Hamster Dam is quite the perspective shifter. 

In the book, Hamster Dam is a sort of Gordon Murray/Oliver Postgate kids' TV series from the 1960s or 1970s, set in a community of anthropomorphic hamsters. Or it is according to the memories of Gary, who is taking leave of absence from psychiatric work. His story is narrated by Brian, a colleague and case worker, and he seems uncertain if Hamster Dam ever existed in reality, and, increasingly, what reality even means for Gary, and him, and everyone else.

The writing has multiple hilarious (to me) moments that leaven a weird horror/science tone. There's nothing like a finely-timed bit of whimsy to take the sourer edges off a sober and fairly intense gaze at modern life. The narrator's uncertainty also provokes a constant sense of discomfort about how events might unfold. 

So, yeah, unsettling.

I don't know much about Quentin S. Crisp other than what I've gleaned from various interviews that have popped up with him, including this super effort from the Kulchur Kat blog, and the other bits and pieces of his work that I've scoured dutifully since reading Hamster Dam and being mighty impressed with it. He's definitely now one of those writers where I'll be 'just getting their stuff'.

Hamster Dam is also among the books that tilted me and a fellow tomehound into doing a podcast, watch this space. Crisp and Hamster Dam will almost certainly feature in the inaugural episode.

Do Humankind's Best Days Lie Ahead?

 Do Humankind's Best Days Lie Ahead?

Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Alain de Botton, Malcolm Gladwell

An almost definitionally shallow sixth form debate level exploration of a feeble motion. This transcript from 2015 presents four riff-heavy bigwigs trading sententious barbs, book-ended by a self-important introduction and reflection sections that add nothing.  

The book is a particular snapshot of a particular moment in time where "71% of people view progress as a continuing thing". Such vague  optimism seems particularly anachronistic in 2023. 

I think I might have enjoyed this more if John Gray and Thomas Ligotti had participated.
 

The Night Clock

The Night Clock

Paul Meloy

 Another book picked up at a library sale. I liked the look of it. It seemed to fit in with other stuff I'd been reading or had on the pile. 

Unsettling from the opening, the horror/sci-fi of The Night Clock presents psychological dreamscapes jostling with grimy urban sink estates. Escape hatches between the two shift and clatter. It has several memorable characters and set pieces: the bit where a mobility scooter gets a diabolical chop shop makeover worked especially well. Also, Meloy does a fine line in dry dialogue.

With cosmic automachy, psychopomps and an uber-villain known only as the Junction Creature, it's got a lot of mass beneath the main narrative. This is to its detriment on occasion for me: a fair few "the what now?" moments with back stories, parallel mythologies and new characters. Sometimes it seemed like it was part of a greater whole, but in a kind of sketch-like, unfinished way, where the ideas might have suited a more leisurely unfolding. I can see it working as part of a comic series, for example - it reminded me of something from Vertigo I might have devoured.

Having said that, the dislocated and weird fragmentation aspects are part of the appeal. They suit the dream themes and ideas of fractal mirrorball otherwhens behind the fabric of what we call reality.

Definitely a thumbs up from me, though a volume that has now moved on from the stack.