Pleasant Tales - Brendan Connell

[Evans]

Weird Fiction is dead and Brendan Connell killed it

https://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/boo...sant_tales.htm

This book is so nice – Tim Parks

Pleasant Tales replicated the experience of mild intoxication whilst at an equitable temperature better than anything else I know - Haruki Murakami

This book cures wars – Karen Armstrong

It’s like Peake, but Peake were he well-groomed, socially stable and possessed of a passing interest in collectable rubber beer mats - China Mieville

Funny, Cute Bunny Rabbit Eating Raspberries! Sweet Funny Bunnies Rabbits - YouTube

[Justin Isis]

I think people are probably underestimating just how pleasant the Pleasant actually is. Anyway I will probably make my introduction to Brendan's book public shortly before it is released. I am also working on Pleasant Tales II which will likely be released either at the end of this year or early next year. I can't reveal much about it but some of the story titles include "A Walk in the Park," "The Grace of God" and "The Adorable Child."

[Eibonvale]

Here's the cover! or at least, half of it. And just to clarify, the book is now available for preorder. We're running a special as well, for the first orders. Brendan has provided an exclusive chapbook entitled 'Curious Births to Light the Universe', limited to just 50 copies. Buy a hardcover and you will get the chapbook for free while it lasts; we have also prepared a bundle deal with the paperback. You can find full information on the Eibonvale website: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/book...sant_tales.htm

[xylokopos]

I am intrigued. I have always wanted to read more BC, ever since I read snatches of his prose on Amazon - snippets from Metrophilias and the Lives of Notorious Cooks. And here he comes across as very well read and playfully belligerent. He strikes me as a weirdist who treads a path first opened to the Weird by Borges. Borges is also pleasantly weird, or weirdly pleasant, but his pleasures are meant for the adept.

It is hard to think of pleasant weirdists. Lewis Carroll is pleasantly weird, but not always. Paul Willems comes to mind, there are strong elements of nostalgia and wish fulfillment in his tales, which are achingly pleasant. Michael Ende, for sure. Contrary to Ligotti's assessment, I don't find Schulz systematically unpleasant - there is a sense of lethargic wonder in some of his tales. After this, I am drawing a blank. Symbolists, Decadents, German Expressionists, the rest of the Belgian School, the new Weird, all of that is unpleasant at core.

I suppose a lot of folklore could be considered pleasantly weird, at least when it is bereft of explicit moral instruction. But I am rambling.

Will probably get the book in the near future. I am also curious about Justin Isis as a fictional character. Will he be treated well? Is it going to be like HPL and Bloch annihilating each other in the Haunter of the Dark, the Shambler from the Stars, etc.? Or will Connell's literary magnanimity see Justin truly ascend to those higher spheres "through amore and refined fashion-sense"?

[Eibonvale]

And here's the cover blurb.

"According to inductive process, the more weed someone smokes, the more likely they are to eat a green apple. Billy Glandzk has been smoking too much pot and hates apples, so it’s time for him to change his lifestyle. Justin Isis lives in a single tiny room in Ikebukuro but, through amore and refined fashion-sense, hopes to rise to higher spheres. Ricky Fishback is a bicycle cop who has spent too much time in the saddle, and his restless sex life is taking a turn for the worse. Can he get his mojo back? Carla Jo Arduini works at the Family Dollar Store, but her aspirations go higher—much higher. Will her faith guide her to success?

In Pleasant Tales, a contrasting follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2010 collection Unpleasant Tales, Brendan Connell has written ten unusual and colorful stories of contemporary life. The brittle and deranged mundanity that surrounds us is viewed through a lens that is both extremely perceptive and ever so slightly flawed, resulting in both an inverted projection of the familiar and a dose of the alien. These are modernist, sparse and slightly subversive expositions on the normal that perform a disjointed dance with the world you thought you knew."

[Eibonvale]

Quote Originally Posted by xylokopos

I am also curious about Justin Isis as a fictional character. Will he be treated well?"?

All I can say to that is would that I one day have the honour to be treated as such. It does involve buying Flaubert’s penis at auction though, and subsequent developments, so I guess you will have to judge for yourself. :-)

[Shadenuat]

Quote Originally Posted by xylokopos

Contrary to Ligotti's assessment, I don't find Schulz systematically unpleasant - there is a sense of lethargic wonder in some of his tales.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ligotti is in minority with his reading of Schulz. That was never my main impression of his fiction either. Yeah, there's some nightmarish and sad stuff in there, but there's a lot of beauty and wonder in it too.

[Zaharoff]

Glad you posted the update of Connell's book, Evans.
For several months, I had been skirting around the Eibonvale website, looking at titles to purchase.
Since the site had not been updated since 2015 at that point, I was a bit wary.
Thanks.

[Eibonvale]

Quote Originally Posted by Zaharoff

Since the site had not been updated since 2015.

Yes - I allowed myself some time to rest for everything except actual orders due to considerable exhaustion. Now I am back, with the site somewhat refreshed, a new book and more in the pipeline.