Iain Sinclair Archives | Swan River Press

Reading the Signs

John Kenny in Conversation with Mark Valentine about Mark’s new collection Lost Estates.

Mark Valentine is the author of several volumes of short stories including The Collected Connoisseur (Tartarus Press 2010) and Secret Europe (Ex Occidente Press 2012), both shared titles with John Howard. He has also written a biography of Arthur Machen (Seren 1990); and Time, a Falconer (Tartarus Press 2011), a study of the diplomat and fantasist “Sarban”. His books with Swan River Press include Selected Stories (2012) and Seventeen Stories (2013), both collections of his short fiction, and The Far Tower (2019), an original anthology of stories in celebration of W. B. Yeats.

John Kenny: Your previous collections published by Swan River Press focused on Middle Europe between the wars. This time out the focus is more on aspects of folk horror. There exists a strong tradition of folk horror that’s deeply rooted in the English rural landscape. Why do you think that is? And can you tell me who your inspirations are in this regard?

Mark Valentine: I’d like to plead “not guilty” to “folk horror”! I prefer a couple of terms I came upon recently in contemporary 1923 reviews of Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair and Visible and Invisible by E. F. Benson. The publisher, presumably with these authors’ agreement, called them “borderland” and “otherworld” stories, evidently terms then in use and well understood for occult and supernatural fiction. I think they do convey better the sense that can sometimes be felt in certain places of being close to a different realm. I’ve certainly had that experience several times and I appreciate in particular the work of writers who have also tried to express this sense of the numinous, such as Arthur Machen, Mary Butts, Forrest Reid, Jocelyn Brooke, John Cowper Powys and quite a few others in the field. For me, this was also bound up with my discovery in my late teens and early twenties of ancient mysteries books and journals, such as Mysterious Britain by Janet & Colin Bord and its sequels, which made exploring antiquities and remote landscapes seem exciting and strange, as if the world of Machen and these similar writers still existed.

JK: I really like that term “borderland”. Folk horror does seem to be largely connected to rural settings, whereas a couple of your stories in Lost Estates take place in cities: “And maybe the parakeet was correct” and “The End of Alpha Street”. I do think city streets and houses can accrete this sense of the numinous you’ve referred to. I’m thinking of some of Peter Ackroyd’s work, such as Hawksmoor, and that of Iain Sinclair and the whole concept of psychogeography. Is this a concept you think has validity?

MV: Yes, I admire the work of Iain Sinclair too and particularly the way he uses modernist literary techniques in his prose: the supernatural fiction field can sometimes seem a bit fusty and it’s good to see a more contemporary style: another example of a more radical approach would be M. John Harrison. And in fact Machen is now seen as a precursor of psychogeography, with his interest in wandering the back-streets and lonely quarters of London, as seen in The London Adventure, or, The Art of Wandering and with his flâneur Mr. Dyson. My friend and colleague John Howard does this to fine effect too, in his London stories. My understanding of the original concept of psychogeography is that it involves “aimless wandering”, the aimlessness being vital: ambling around just for the sake of it and seeing what transpires. I can see that this might lead to a heightened receptivity, where chance encounters and signs begin to seem significant: again, an approach Machen uses in his stories.

JK: There is certainly a sense of aimless wandering in “The House of Flame”, where the main character takes to the London streets, although he is in search of a kind of spiritual awakening. The story centres around the death in 1885 of Charles George Gordon, who is also referenced in another story in Lost Estates. What drew you to the story of Gordon of Khartoum?

MV: Well, in my childhood there was a series of colourful cards of Famous People given away with boxes of Brooke Bond tea. I was very interested in history and I enjoyed collecting these. The two that appealed to me most were not, as perhaps they should have been, social reformers and scientists, but two enigmatic soldiers: General Gordon and Lawrence of Arabia. No doubt it was because they seemed more mysterious. Later, I read in one of Machen’s autobiographical volumes his recollection of bringing the news of the fall of Khartoum to his father in the rectory at Llandewi, using his schoolboy Greek. This vignette stuck in my memory, and so when I was asked to contribute to a Machen-themed anthology I imagined a version of the youthful Machen and what the figure of Gordon might have meant to him.

JK: While Gordon couldn’t be considered a social reformer, he was actively involved in suppressing the slave trade in Sudan while he was there. I note that many of your stories use as a jumping off point an actual historical event, as in “The Fifth Moon”, which looks at the disappearance of King John’s treasure in 1216. Do you find that having an actual event at the heart of a story lends credibility or is it more a case of your interest in history acting as inspiration?

MV: I am interested in the way that history, legend, and literature interweave. I’ve been following the latest historical thinking on the figure of Arthur, which is now highly sceptical about not only any factual basis for such a king or warlord, but even the whole Britons vs Saxons story. It just isn’t supported by current archaeology or newly available genetic studies. Probably that will need to be refined further as research and analysis continues: the discipline of history itself is always changing. In the case of King John’s treasure, I was already familiar with the lonely landscape around North Norfolk and South Lincolnshire where the loss occurred and so enjoyed setting the story there, and it is an enduring mystery which still fascinates people today: treasure hunts are always thrilling. I also relished studying the various accounts of the incident and trying to trace exactly what was said at the time and how that has been changed through the centuries, making the story more alluring and romantic. In my own researches, for example on legends of the last wolf in England and on the origins of inns signs, I’ve tried to go back to the very earliest sources. They often tell a quite different story to the current one, and that is the case with King John’s treasure too. Then, of course, the imagination comes into play and I began to wonder just what was lost, and what might survive.

JK: It is a fascinating piece of history, yes. It’s clear that not a little research goes in to many of your stories and that’s part of what makes them so compelling. Your mention of inn signs, for example, which is the main subject of “The Understanding of the Signs” and is also an element in “Worse Things Than Serpents”; I’m curious to know if the specifics of the signs mentioned are true. And do the books listed exist?

MV: Yes, all of the inn sign books mentioned in that story are real and almost all of the books the narrator finds in “Worse Things Than Serpents” too. Inn signs have interested me since I was young too: on family journeys I would write down the names of all those we passed, and later started with a friend an inn signs newsletter. When I came back to studying them, I found that the usual explanations for the most popular signs simply don’t hold up. They can often be traced to a stout Victorian study but even there were often advanced tentatively. It’s another example of stories repeated through the ages that only have the thinnest basis. But when you do start to ask what is the origin of the signs, you uncover a much richer and more varied set of possibilities. Also, they seem part of what I have called “folk heraldry”, the popular enjoyment of strange beasts and monsters as local symbols.

JK: Which feeds very much into the history of an area or locality and how people interact or become part of that landscape. I’m thinking of “Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire” and its possible companion piece “The Readers of the Sands” (by virtue of the fact that they both feature a character named Crabbe). The sense of place in your stories is very well realised. Have you visited all the places in which your stories are set?

MV: Some of the places I know very well but others I haven’t visited at all. But when I’m writing a story I like to have a clear idea of the setting, by studying maps, looking at old postcards, reading old walking guides. I try to imagine just what the character might see, hear and smell in that particular season. What would their journey there be like, what would they do when they got there, what route would they take to their destination? In “A Chess Game at Michaelmas”, for example, the custom in question is a perfectly genuine one and it belongs to a house located just where I describe, though I have adapted it a bit fictionally. So in writing the story I worked out where was then the nearest railway station, and what would be the way the narrator gets from there to the house on foot. As it happens, that would take him past some ancient stones with interesting lore, also genuine, though again adapted slightly.

JK: “A Chess Game at Michaelmas” is one of my favourites in this collection. And the journey to the house is as much an integral part of the story as the custom in question. As is your reference to yew trees in this and a couple of other stories in Lost Estates. Is there a particular significance to these references?

MV: Yes, I have a fondness for slightly overgrown or semi-wild gardens, that point where the art of the gardener has been reclaimed and reshaped somewhat by nature. Topiary, often with yew trees, is already beguiling because of its figuring into strange shapes and when it’s a bit neglected it looks wilder still. I like that blend of artistry, pageantry and yet melancholy they seem to convey.

JK: With the demise of Wormwood, the magazine of fantasy, the supernatural and decadent literature, which you edited, is the primary focus for you now on your own writing? And is there a novel in you or is the short form your first love?

MV: Well, I still contribute to the Wormwoodiana shared blog, where we try to cover similar books and authors to those we might have featured in the journal. I’m usually following up discoveries from my book-collecting expeditions, which may lead to further essays. I even dream about browsing in bookshops, and sometimes remember titles from the dream shelves.

I’m currently working on an anthology of essays about Malcolm Lowry and his use of magic and myth, which I think are quite important themes in his books. As to fiction, I’ve enjoyed in more recent years writing longer stories (typically 12,000-15,000 words) and would like to try a few more of those, but I don’t think I have a novel lurking anywhere. I like the short story form and I think it still has a lot of possibilities.

Buy a copy of Lost Estates.

If you’d like, you can read John Kenny’s full review of Lost Estates.

Excavating Oblivion

In Conversation with Iain Sinclair

Matthew Stocker: I honestly didn’t know how to open this interview, then yesterday I was in a restaurant with my children and wife and I spotted beside many bits of Joyce paraphernalia a quote;

“I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.”

In Agents of Oblivion, Dublin is mentioned once or twice in passing, but with regards London do you see yourself undertaking the same type of project as Joyce attempted for Dublin?

Iain Sinclair: Dublin wrote Joyce into existence. The city identified its ideal scribe at the optimum moment when the solid structures and achievements of nineteenth-century fiction were ready to be absorbed into the permissions of high modernism. Those special theories of everything hovering over the sweat and stink and chatter. Joyce, as the chosen instrument, had to be expelled, forced to carry out his epic sequence of masterworks at a safe distance. Whatever the cost. Whatever the collateral rewards. Poverty, vanity, a Swiss grave. He gave everything to become—the horror of it!—a cultural resource. A brand. Municipal real estate pimped for cultural tourism. But he links very neatly with the Protestant austerity of Beckett. The one who could revise and refine the task, strip it down, and carry it away from the choking rituals, the provincialism, and the heady particulars of a mesmerising and Oedipal port city.

Living for four years in Dublin was the best possible preparation for appreciating that London could never be excavated in that way. London was not a project for me. It was the curse that never stops giving. A Faustian contract to be worked out through fortunate collaborations, in poetry, film, performance, pilgrimage. Pulling away from London gravity was never successful. Those books were barely noticed or permitted. The point was to live there, to begin with the first step outside my Hackney door. To dig in, to stay. To honour characters who presented themselves and demanded a cameo.

Stocker: The book, Agents of Oblivion, is dedicated to B. Catling and he appears within the text alongside a plethora of other literary giants. I was saddened to read of his passing, I really enjoyed The Vorrh trilogy and Munky (published by Swan River Press, also illustrated by McKean); it makes a lovely companion with Agents.

Why Blackwood, Machen, Ballard, and Lovecraft? Writers/characters such as Brian and Alan Moore and Steve Moore (no relation) play almost a bigger role as travellers through the textuality.

Sinclair: Again, it felt as if those writers, with their own haunting characteristics—writers much more implicated in generic tropes than Joyce—were authentic witnesses and contributors to the weave of London mythology. Reading them, they nudge the pen. They whisper.

They have laid out the model. But it is not finished, never finished. Their words remain contemporary. They are our psychic landscape as much as Woolwich or Farringdon Road or Northolt.

The characters from our own times, like Alan Moore, Brian Catling, and Steve Moore, have doubled identities. They shape worlds, they mine extraordinary language reserves—and they also share experiences that I can subvert or celebrate. As ever: “The living can assist the imaginations of the dead.” And vice versa. Those writers know how to take the dictation and how to exploit it. They pass on the obligations of attentive readership. They pilot the future.

Stocker: Does the book serve a double purpose, on one side to be read/enjoyed/absorbed in its own right, but also as a reading list for the initiate to dive into? As a syllabus, I have been racking my mind as to what the course would be called.

Sinclair: It is my reading list at the time of writing these stories, a period of a few months. It is not a pitch for an established academic discipline. Nobody is required to locate and absorb every referenced figure. I haven’t read those books at an examination pitch. I dipped and pecked and reached out for the shelves when things were flagging.

I should say that the stories were put together in a posthumous dialogue with Brian Catling. And as a companion piece to Munky, the novella he published with Swan River. That also came with perfectly sympathetic drawings by Dave McKean. It was Catling who pointed me towards Blackwood and the John Silence stories the first time I visited his family home, off the Old Kent Road. He was also, in the late 1960s, a devourer of Lovecraft. I heard many stories of Ballard and the era of New Worlds from Mike Moorcock. I appreciated that lineage, what passed down from Moorcock, Ballard, Angela Carter to Alan Moore and Catling. They tapped the fabric of London as London prodded them.

Brian was responding, to his last breath. He projected a fourth volume of The Vorrh, in parallel with Surreycide, a questing return to the mythology of a rubbled childhood among the tenements and canals of Camberwell. That city, that time. The museums lying in wait as he rode in a London bus alongside his adopted father. Because it was always the boy who chose his parent. Who recognised and teased the inheritance from William Blake.

Stocker: You appear to take the reader on a journey linking author after author and their works, it goes beyond intertextuality. It feels like a ghost story, the writers you write about haunt the places and live on in both their writing and the landscape (I should note not all the characters are dead—Alan Moore for one).

While the literary/film characters of the book fill the pages, it is the peppering in of people like William Lyttle that add an extra dimension to your writing. (Less of a question and more calling out an aspect I loved. On second reading, I sat with Google by my side and fell down many enjoyable/educational rabbit holes, was that your intention?) That kind of interplay between a text and the digital world didn’t exist twenty years ago—what, if any, impact do you think that has had on your writing?

Sinclair: Not much. Beyond the convenience of checking dates and facts, with frequently unreliable results. Sometimes—as with the walking films of John Rogers on YouTube—I find inspiration, confirmation. In general, the digital world is a swamp. Easier to drown than swim.

Stocker: As you write, do you start with a map to the journey you take the reader on both with regards the physical places you bring them and the writers that inhabit them? Or is it a chain of events, one naturally leading to the other as you wrote?

Sinclair: I don’t know how “natural” the process is. But there is no pecking order: maps are usually involved, but I might not consult them until the walks are done. And those maps tend to be so old that they have the charm of fiction. Key buildings and sites have vanished. The latest interventions are not yet admitted. The Secret State redacts inconvenient military installations, pharmaceutical and “experimental” facilities. London documentation has to ooze through the cracks in forbidden zones. There is a perpetual struggle to outperform CGI boasts and projections. Writing is a dangerous negotiation. You pay a price to be admitted to the game.

Stocker: The artwork in the book is phenomenal, I am an avid fan of Dave McKean. (Loved your previous collaboration, Slow Chocolate Autopsy) How does that process work, how does the end product gel with the imagery in your head as you write?

Sinclair: Dave has a preternatural gift for fine-tuning his imagery to the extravagant conceits of my prose. In practical terms, as I discovered from the start, with Slow Chocolate Autopsy and London Orbital, the best way forward was to send Dave a bunch of my research snapshots—places, characters, and incidents from which the fiction took off. Dave has that classic Victorian or Edwardian gift of catching the lineaments of character and exaggerating them to achieve a higher truth.

He would do what you wanted, what you pre-imagine—and then much more. I did not for a moment conceive of the range of illustrations he would extract from Agents of Oblivion. What he delivered made it a different and richer book, a graphic novella.

Dave’s animated interventions boosted the films I made for Channel 4 with Chris Petit. There was an unforgettable moment in The Falconer when he finessed a vampiric Hammer Films seizure out of an overheated television interview Peter Whitehead conducted with a Norwegian woman, when he talked about cohabiting with raptors.

Buy a copy of Agents of Oblivion

Matthew Stocker, a graduate of the English Department of Trinity College Dublin and occasional storyteller, lives under the kitchen table and tells stories for food.

Our Haunted Year: 2018

2018 Christmas

Running Swan River Press can be a difficult job. The hours are long, usually after returning home from my day job (also weekends), and any financial risks are wholly my own. The victories are incremental, only often partly enjoyed with my attention fixed on what the next challenge might be. That’s why it’s nice to sit down with a cup of coffee, some homemade cranberry bread, and reflect on some of the successes of this past year. I’m always pleasantly surprised at how many there are.

The first book of the year was R. B. Russell’s Death Makes Strangers of Us All. I’ve known Ray for a good long time now, and where guidance is concerned, you can’t go wrong taking your cue from Tartarus Press. This is the third book Ray and I have done together. The first two were Ghosts (2012) and The Dark Return of Time (2014). Michael Dirda at the Washington Post seemed to like the book too, commenting that, “The disorienting title story of R. B. Russell’s superb Death Makes Strangers of Us All takes us into an ‘unreal city’ straight out of Kafka or Borges.” Not too shabby, huh? You can read more reviews here and an interview with Ray here.

The next book was a long-time in coming: William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland. This title is one of the two of which I own excessive multiple editions: the Chapman & Hall, 1908; the Arkham House, 1946; plus innumerable paperbacks, etc. The situation really is ridiculous, folks. I figured the logical next step would be to publish my own edition. And this I did, with my dream line-up consisting of Alan Moore (introduction), Iain Sinclair (afterword), John Coulthart (illustrations), and Jon Mueller (soundtrack) — everyone who participated shares a deep admiration for Hodgson’s masterpiece, which is really the only way to do a project like this one. Apart from some production difficulties (ugh), we produced a beautiful signed edition just in time for the 100th anniversary of Hodgson’s death at Ypres in late April 1918. Alan declared it the finest edition of The House on the Borderland that had ever been published. Some reviews can be read here, a wonderful discussion between John Coulthart and Jon Mueller is here, and if you want to listen to Jon’s soundtrack (and even buy a digital copy), you can do that here.

Next was up may well be our most unsettling book of the year: Nicholas Royle’s The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories. Apart from his introduction to Joel Lane’s The Anniversary of Never (2015), this is the first time I’ve worked with Nick. I suffered a few sleepless nights due to him, but sure, it was worth it. The stories evoke the uncanny in the Freudian sense, and that cover by Bill Bulloch is most disturbing. Reviewer Mario Guslandi also liked the book: “Royle’s dark fiction is always worth reading . . . His storytelling is impeccable, his plots always interesting and his characters credible.” If you’re still not convinced, you can read an interview with Nick here. You need a copy if you don’t have one already.

IMG_20180620_162604_437 Shortly after The Dummy, we published Rosalie Parker’s Sparks from the Fire. This book was special not only because I got to work with Rosalie again, but also because Rosalie’s collection The Old Knowledge (2010) was the very first hardback book we published, ushering Swan River into a new era. Publishers Weekly gave a favourable review to what is one of our most popular books of the year: “[Parker’s] treatment of the fantastic is often so light and ambiguous that stories in which it does manifest are of a piece with tales such as ‘Jetsam’ and ‘Job Start’, sensitive character sketches whose celebration of life’s unforeseen surprises will appeal to fantasy fans as much as the book’s more overtly uncanny tales. Parker proves herself a subtle and versatile writer.” Naturally, I think you should buy a copy. Here’s an interview with Rosalie conducted by Jason E. Rolfe and some more reviews.

DnDQUqNX4AARHq8.jpg large And then there’s Uncertainties 3. I edited the first two volumes in 2016. This year, to keep things fresh, I handed the reins over to Lynda E. Rucker, whose collection You’ll Know When You Get There (2016) I hope you’ve already enjoyed. Lynda did a superb job in selecting stories, showing the broad range of what supernatural literature in all its guises can do. Do take a peek at the line-up! In addition to some great reviews, Joyce Carol Oates wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that, “Among the most memorable books I’ve read this year are [ . . . ] several slender, elegantly designed collections of short stories of the uncanny (Uncertainties Vol. 1, 2, 3) published by Swan River Press.” Okay, so she has a story in the anthology too, but still! In addition to all that, Robert Shearman’s “Bobbo”, Lisa Tuttle’s “Voices in the Night”, and Rosanne Rabinowitz’s “The Golden Hour” were chosen for Best British Horror 2019! I don’t know about you, but I’m very much looking forward to Timothy J. Jarvis’s turn as editor for Uncertainties 4 next year.

47575930_571374369993353_4001565216583188480_n Then there are issues 11 and 12 of The Green Book, the former of which was excessively late this year. I apologise. Anyway, issue 11 boasts cover art by none other than Mike Mignola. This marks the second time we’ve worked with Mike — anyone remember the first? Issue 11 features articles on Lord Dunsany, plus the first serialised entries from A Guide to Irish Writers of Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Fiction, a long-term project I’m working on with Jim Rockhill. Issue 12 features more entries from the Guide, and our issues for 2019 will continue with these. The project has has proved an extremely enlightening one. I’m learning loads and my reading list has grown like you wouldn’t believe. Intrigued? Stay tuned.

The reason The Green Book 11 was delayed for so long turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of the year for me. The second Dublin Ghost Story Festival took place in late June. As in 2016, the festival sold out long before this intimate event and proved to be just as enjoyble as its predecessor. The guest of honour was Joyce Carol Oates (!!), and the opening night’s entertainment was provided by the great Reggie Oliver, who is surely one of the finest writers of the supernatural tale. Other guests included Helen Grant, Andrew Michael Hurley, V. H. Leslie, Rosalie Parker, Nicholas Royle, R. B. Russell, and Lisa Tuttle, each of whom brought with them their passion for the genre. Ladies and gentlemen, you’d better believe we indulged the entire weekend in all things ghostly and strange, with discussions, readings, signings, and a trade hall that could easily claim the entire contents of your bank account. There are some photos over on Facebook. So will there be another Dublin Ghost Story Festival? I’d love to know the answer to that too!

37710479_2143309032570526_903951175399768064_n Sure, running Swan River Press isn’t always easy, but looking back over the year I can clearly see the late nights and hard work were worth it. Thank you again to those who have shown Swan River support through this past year. I raise my glass to everyone who read our books and shared them with friends, wrote reviews, attended the festival, supported us through patronage, or sent correspondence and kind words. And a special thanks as always to the Swan River team: Meggan Kehrli, Ken Mackenzie, and Jim Rockhill. They put in loads of work, and it’s due to their expertise that our books always look their best.

Oh! Before I forget, because I completely missed it during the year, October was our fifteenth anniversary — our first publication, a chapbook entitled “The Old Tailor & the Gaunt Man”, first saw print in 2003. I’m working on a bibliography, Fifteen Years of Swan River Press, which I’ll try to issue as soon as I can.

I promise you I’ve got a full publishing schedule ready to go for next year. Some titles I’m particularly excited about, so make sure you’re on our mailing list. It’s the best way to get the jump on all things Swan River. You can also join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I look forward to hearing from you all again soon.

Coulthart and Mueller on the Borderland

For Swan River’s new edition of The House on the Borderland (with a new introduction by Alan Moore and an afterword by Iain Sinclair), artist John Coulthart contributed ten illustrations, while musician Jon Mueller recorded a three-track album especially for issue with the book. Publisher Brian J. Showers discusses with the pair William Hope Hodgson, his classic novel, and its influence on their work.

Brian J. Showers: Do you recall the first time you read William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland?

John Coulthart: Yes, I was about twenty at the time. I’d been reading ghost and horror stories from the age of ten but it took me a while to get round to Hodgson after being alerted by Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. The first copy I found was the notoriously disgraceful 1977 paperback from Manor Books, the cover of which is still the worst of all the House on the Borderland covers. The quote from Lovecraft has his name printed at a much larger size than Hodgson’s; the house is a typical American farm in a dustbowl landscape, while the foreground of the cover painting is occupied by a preposterous corncob. If I hadn’t been so eager to read the book I would have refused to pay the mere 25p it was selling for. I was further aggrieved when I found the 1972 Panther edition (with excellent cover art by Ian Miller) to discover that Manor Books had omitted the opening poem and some of the novel’s other front matter. An inauspicious introduction.

Jon Mueller: I only just discovered the book within the last four years or so. I stumbled upon a mention of Hodgson in an article, and was surprised I had never heard of him. The article suggested that The House on the Borderland was his best work, so I figured I’d start there. I couldn’t help but see the similarity between the two men in the story, discovering the central character’s journal, and my discovery of Hodgson’s book. Both seemingly random, yet somehow fated. From there, this realisation grew to surreal heights as I too got lost in the nightmarish (not just descriptively, but literally) world of its story. Like the two men in the book, it consumed me. I wondered about the central character, his dog, the beasts, and what was happening as the universe seemed to implode within the house, and even within them. I walked away from the end of the book feeling like I was really woken from reality. That a whole other layer of existence was all around me. John, do you remember what your initial takeaway was?

Coulthart: Now that the book is so familiar it’s difficult for me to recall an initial impression other than one of surprise at the sudden change of tone halfway through. Any book that begins with a kind of adventure narrative — even one involving monstrous entities — can be relied upon to develop fairly predictably but that’s not what we find here. I was also impressed by the lack of resolution or tidy explanation, an unusual thing in genre novels even today. The inexplicabilities at the heart of the novel are a persistent attraction.

Showers: When I first read The House on the Borderland, I was floored by the sense of cosmic wonder that it elicited from me. Some readers have observed the book is clunky in its construction, the less sympathetic have gone so far as to call it naive. But for many readers it undoubtedly holds real and inexplicable power. What do you think those inexplicabilities are?

Mueller: I think the natural reaction is to try to make sense, or understand, or know. But we can’t. We’re given many details, but what they lead to, if anything, is something we struggle with in general. That being said, there’s no hint with a book like this that we have a chance of knowing. In fact, it builds an empire of not-understanding, but within that not-understanding, an odd feeling like we’re there, within it occurs. That is a peculiar situation for a human being and I think that’s why it’s so alluring.

Coulthart: You could write a long list of the questions the book presents, beginning with the House itself and its connection to other dimensions. Then there’s the Recluse’s relationship with his sister, the nature of the Swine-things, whether the visions are real (as in genuine views across time and space) or hallucinations/dreams, and so on. Inexplicabilities such as this stimulate the mind because of the gaps they create, gaps which are then filled (successfully or not) by the reader’s imagination. Whether Hodgson’s inexplicabilities are a result of inexperience or design is of no consequence, it’s how they affect the reader that matters. People who complain about such things don’t seem to realise that filling in the gaps and providing explanation destroys the frisson of the weird tale. Robert Aickman and Thomas Ligotti deal with similar disjunctions in their own work. If you want “well-constructed stories that make sense” there are thousands of examples elsewhere; many of those polished and coherent tales were being written by Hodgson’s contemporaries, none of whom are remembered or read today.

Showers: How did you each approach or engage with Hodgson’s text with regard to your own creative contributions — John’s illustrations and Jon’s soundtrack — for this edition? Did you take inspiration from any other sources?

Mueller: I was following through on some existing approaches I had been working with but tried framing them within the context of particular sections of the book — the emotional energy it expressed, the tension building and seeking catharsis, but also the moments of surreal calm, which of course get interrupted by more chaos. I bookended the work with dense gong sounds to represent the complex detail with no definition or resolution, as we’ve been discussing here. Like asking, “What do you expect here? What’s in it for you? What sense can you make of all this?”

Coulthart: I think I paid closer attention to the details than I had done in the past. If you’re illustrating a story in a fairly realistic manner then you’re forced to address certain questions of appearance that might otherwise remain unresolved while you’re reading. So the Recluse describes himself as an old man, and yet (as I think Iain Sinclair notes) he’s very active in the earlier chapters. There’s a couple of slight nods to other artists: I’ve always liked Jack Gaughan’s cover for the Ace paperback so the House in the Arena is reminiscent of his painting. And the figure floating in a fiery nimbus is a nod to Philippe Druillet who does this in some of his Lone Sloane comic strips. It only occurred to me later that Druillet was also one of the first French artists (possibly the first) to illustrate Hodgson in 1971; looking at his drawings it turns out that he had his Recluse floating through a landscape in a similar fiery nimbus.

Showers: Do you have any other thoughts on The House on the Borderland or William Hope Hodgson that you’d like to add?

Mueller: I’m fascinated by Hodgson’s personal life and how his literature came out of it. How the isolation of the sea, his hatred of it, and the torment by other sailors he experienced perhaps brought about his aim for revenge against forces that seemed to outnumber him. I admire how he potentially translated some of his many struggles with these forces into creative endeavours. I think that’s why The House on the Borderland has no resolve. These forces never really die. They just change form.

Coulthart: It’s tempting to wonder what he might have done had he survived the war, but then he wouldn’t have been William Hope Hodgson if he hadn’t also insisted on returning to the Front after having been wounded. The men of action in his novels and stories are all personae of the author, the Recluse included. Even if he had have lived twenty or thirty years more I doubt we’d have anything else like The House on the Borderland, it’s sui generis.

Buy Swan River Press’s The House on the Borderland here.

Listen to Jon Mueller’s soundtrack here.

Jon Mueller is a Wisconsin-based artist whose aim has been to use drums, percussion and sound as a way to express something felt but not easily defined. More about his work, performances and recordings can be found at www.rhythmplex.com

John Coulthart is a World Fantasy Award-winning artist, designer and writer. His illustration and design work has been exhibited worldwide, and includes commissions for Abrams, Angry Robot, Granta, Harper Collins, Savoy Books, Tachyon, and many others. www.johncoulthart.com