TLO Member Interview: Odalisque

INTRODUCTION
Hello again. Interview the second was with a fellow I have only recently had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with, known by all and sundry as Odalisque, or Pet. Allow me to say that conversing with him has been an enormous pleasure for me. Without additional fanfare, I present his interview. Enjoy it, and be edified!

1. Obviously, you are an admirer of Thomas Ligotti's works. So, how did you first come across his writing?

In Dagon fanzine. I was a regular contributor to the magazine. There was a Ligotti story in issue 20, another in issue 21 and the “double” (more like one-and-a-half) issue 22/23 was a Ligotti special. These appeared in 1987-88, a period during which I was extremely poor. The only new weird fiction to come my way was in my contributors’ copies of magazines. Ligotti had less rivals for my attention than he would have done at some other periods in my life.


2. How long have you been a fan of weird fiction? Also, how were you first introduced to this genre?

I started to buy weird fiction in the summer of 1962. Someone had given me a half guinea (if that doesn’t sound too quaint) book token for my sixteenth birthday – and I spent it on the first three volumes of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series (all the volumes which then existed). After that, I expanded my collection of such things with such cheap paperbacks as crossed my path. But, backtracking before that, when I was a child, my parents had a fat green covered omnibus book on a high shelf of their bedroom cupboard. Its title was A Century of Thrillers. My little sister and I used to fetch it down from its shelf and scare ourselves by looking at the illustrations. I didn’t attempt to read any of the stories, until I was fifteen or sixteen, but the fascination went back a long way further.


3. If you were to choose, which Ligotti story is your absolute favorite, and why?

Perhaps The Journal of J. P. Drapeau. It was the first Ligotti story I ever saw, and there is always something special about the first time. Also, it’s the sort of thing I can’t write, which gives it a bit of extra ้lan. The opening reminds me of one of William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki stories, lending it an air of things past, dimly remembered. That air, in turn, lends itself well to the narrative as it develops. I’ve never been to Bruges, but the tail end of the story brought to mind the (surely entirely different) Birmingham Canal Navigations. No doubt, that highlights the way in which a story is different for every reader. Also from a personal perspective, it ends with a footnote – and I read the story at about the time I started to write what would become my footnote-riddled novel Odalisque. It certainly didn’t influence me in that regard, as such, but it has the aspect of synchronicity. I also receive a little charge from the contents page of the magazine in which it appeared, where my name appears four places above Ligotti’s.


4. Ligotti aside, what are some of your other favorite authors in this genre?

Partly for sentimental reasons, Lovecraft is my absolute favourite. Algernon Blackwood, at his best, is unbeatable. Lovecraft considered The Willows the best weird story ever written. If he was wrong about that, I’ve yet to discover the story that tops it – but Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One is not so very far behind. H. Russell Wakefield was another to produce some excellent chills. And Arthur Machen, of course. I have an enormous liking for the finer examples of Clark Ashton Smith’s work. I don’t know whether he belongs here, but Jack Vance is another whose stories I relish. Roland Topor, apart from writing The Tennant, created some of literature’s stranger and more unsettling stories – although they don’t seem very well known.


5. And which stories most influenced you? At a young age (dependent on your answer to question two), and as your tastes changed with age?

When I was a teenager, stories had an enormous influence on my outlook and ideas. George Orwell’s fiction (including, perhaps especially, his less well known novels), Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and so on. Also during my teens my ideas were much influenced by a couple of works of fiction I read in translation – Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and Wu Ch’ Eng En’s Monkey. A little later, underground comic books had an influence on me, not always for the better. But it’s hard to disagree with Snappy Sammy Smoot’s observation that if you can’t come to live with reality, then reality will almost certainly come to live with you.
Influences on my writings have mostly been for the worse – Ray Bradbury during my teens, Lovecraft during my twenties. Somehow, my affection for Lovecraft survived his baleful influence, my liking for Ray Bradbury was irreparably damaged. Having singled out the worst two offenders, perhaps I should not name and shame any other writers who hindered me in my quest to find my own voice.


6. As far as horror television shows over the years go, do you have any favorites? Any that had a lasting influence on you?

It doesn’t seem to me that television is a good medium for producing horror. Buffy was a great show that included horror in the mix, but was not usually great as horror. (That said, the Hush episode is a notable piece of televisual horror, albeit leavened with some good jokes.) Others of my favourite television shows have sometimes flirted with horror, including The Avengers. The best horrors made for television are almost certainly the BBC M R James adaptations – and the best of those is Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad with Michael Hordern. The BBC adaptation of Lost Hearts was the second best.


7. And what about movies?

Movies are, I think, better suited to horror than television. The best horror film I’ve seen is Suspiria, partly because of the soundtrack. From the silent era, Caligari is genuinely creepy, but the very best silent horror film I ever saw was an adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher. The Usher silent often comes to mind, but I’ve no idea who made it – and have never seen a reference to it in a book. I enjoy some of the old black and white horror talkies – White Zombie, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and so on. (The placing of armadillos in Dracula’s castle was brilliant – I don’t know why, but it was.) From the late 50s and the 60s Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations, Hammer Horrors and Amicus films are a lot of fun – they scared me, too, when they first appeared. Even now, some of them can still make me jump. From more recent times Evil Dead 2 is hard to beat for eye-popping horrors.


8. Okay, departing from this genre, what else do you like to read?

I probably read more nonfiction than fiction. The most recent nonfiction book I read in its entirety was about cryptography. My interest in ancient Egypt is deep and abiding and I read quite a bit on that topic. When I was young, I reveled in the baroque of Egyptian literature in translation. I’ve since realised that it seems that way because Middle Egyptian is such a pithy language – sometimes expressing in a single word things that it takes four or five words to say in English. I marvel at the beautiful simplicity of Ptahhetep’s prose in the original, however convoluted it may seem in translation. In fiction, apart from weird and fantastic material, I read mostly classic children’s books. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was my favourite book as a child, and I still love Lewis Carroll. Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows is a truly wonderful book, with some profound things to say. The Pooh books are simply brilliant. Evadne Price’s Jane books seem to be little read today, but I think their amoral and strangely bleak world view would appeal to a number of Ligotti fans. Then there’s Richmal Crompton’s William books, and Arthur Ransome’s books, too.


9. And aside from reading, what sort of activities do you enjoy?

I used to enjoy dancing a whole lot, back when it was a matter of kicking up one’s heels and having fun. Now, it seems to be about practicing carefully learnt steps, which is no fun at all, and (alas) I haven’t been dancing for years. My occasionally seeing live music gives me a chance to bop a bit. The two bands I’ve repeatedly enjoyed live in recent years are Goldfrapp and Client. I listen to music quite a fair bit, but we’ll come back to that. Often, I enjoy writing – but I think that for me writing may be more of a necessity than a pleasure. Playing with toys is something I enjoy. I also have a large collection of DVDs which I enjoy watching – a bewildering array of material from which one could pick at least a dozen recurring themes.


10. Do you have a personal philosophy, an outlook on life, as it were?

Yes. I describe myself as a Kemetic rationalist. The Kemetic part refers to the religion of ancient Egypt (Kemet was the Egyptian name for Egypt, from which we take alchemy, literally [the art] of Egypt). I am, more specifically, a devotee of Hat-hor, who is the Mistress of Heaven, the golden goddess, the drunken one, the soul of Egypt, and much more. On the other hand, I’m a firm believer in reason and I believe that Kemetic religion sits more easily with this than any other faith of which I am aware. I set out my ideas at some length in Golden Goddess and Bloody Times, which will be found on my blog. Here, clearly, there isn’t space to make an adequate summary of what I wrote there. Philosophically, my chief influence is probably phenomenology.


11. Would you describe yourself as a believer in the possibility of the supernatural, or a skeptic?

As a devotee of Hat-hor, you would probably expect me to be believe in the supernatural. But I think that whatever there may be is natural. The goddesses and gods are part of nature. Things may not be as we suppose, but they are assuredly natural.


12. From what I have noticed of you, you seem to have a categorical and erudite knowledge of literature and film. Did this develop slowly over years, or did you go through phases of hungrily devouring and absorbing such knowledge?

Both, really. Sometimes I absorb knowledge slowly, sometimes I devour it hungrily. Sometimes, I seem to absorb knowledge by osmosis, breathing it in from around me without study and without any clear idea of how I come to know the things I do. Like other aspects of the world, gleaning knowledge can be a mysterious and unexpected business – not what we think it is. Above all, I am a knowledge magpie, liking to take shiny pieces of information back to my nest.


13. What are your fears? Your Great Fear, if such a thing exists for you?

Having lived in a haunted cottage, I have a healthy respect for ghosts – although I don’t believe that they are what people think they are. Ghosts, like tigers, are not to be messed with – but are more frightening than tigers because one is more likely to encounter them in ordinary life. I’m afraid of heights, but I once steered a boat over the Pontcysyllte. That needs a little explanation. The Pontcysyllte is a high aqueduct that takes the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee. On the towpath side, there are metal railings, on the canal side just a sheer drop. I was the only one on the boat to be prepared to take the tiller for that part of the journey – so, although afraid of heights, I can control my fear if need be. Something that does frighten me is the idea of slipping into dementia.


14. Writers aside, any other heroes/idols, so to speak, be they fictional (John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, for instance) or actual?

I’m not sure that I believe in heroes – people are people, they do what they do for whatever reasons, that’s it.


15. Do you have any interesting folks hiding in your family tree? If so, what did they do, what are they known for?

I really don’t know. My family were always very reluctant to reveal anything about my ancestry – and my feeling is that they were ashamed of their forebears. It’s something I’ve long meant to investigate, but probably never will. My feeling is that it would be difficult to discover anything because I have no real information going back beyond my parents. If I already had some information, I suspect, it would be easier to add to it.


16. Are you a writer yourself? Or are you a creator in any other medium?

I am most certainly a writer, and have also done a fair bit of drawing and painting – a compulsion to create. In my time, I’ve written a huge quantity of stuff – poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Amongst my paid writings, the more respectable end includes contributions to the Call of Cthulhu game. The sleazy end includes three novelettes, of which at least two have appeared in print. Since I only discovered that one of them had been published by accident, it may be that all three have been issued. The first of these to appear was given the title She Male Slavery although my title was Oasis of Absolute Obedience. The titles may say sufficient of these pieces of hack work. The supreme piece of my more serious work is my novel Odalisque, which I have recently completed after about 20 years work, on and off. Having done so, I’ve started on another novel Jane, which I expect to finish in maybe 5 years – it shouldn’t take 20. In fact, I may not have another 20 years!


17. Benny Hill or Monty Python?

Monty Python. I have Monty Python in its entirety (films and television shows) on DVD, but no Benny Hill – so I’ve put my money where my mouth is on this.


18. Musically speaking, what are your tastes? A few of your favorite bands?

Mostly, I prefer material with female voices. My favourite band is Goldfrapp. Others I play quite a lot include Client, We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It!!, Daphne & Celeste, Roisin Murphy, Blondie, Shampoo, Girls Aloud, Peggy Lee, Sandie Shaw, Dannii Minogue, Nouvelle Vague, t.A.T.u., The Runaways, Joan Jett, Kirsty MacColl, Cobra Killer, Kim Wilde, The Raincoats, The Slits, Transvision Vamp, The Primitives, The B-52’s, Lily Allen, Helen Kane, Horrorpops, Girlschool… well, it’s a long list! I’ve just discovered Robots in Disguise and have been playing their music quite a lot.


19. Do you have a vivid recall of your dreams? Are your dreams astounding, or pedestrian?

I very rarely recall my dreams, but a few stick in my mind for years. There was one during my teens, in which I saw the room exactly as it was except that a figure walked past the end of my bed – with a second head and shoulders growing from its abdomen. Well – I was never 100% certain that it was a dream. Either I woke up, saw the figure, then it abruptly vanished – or I dreamed I saw the figure and then woke up, seeing the room exactly as in my dream, but minus the figure. The latter explanation seems the more likely, but how could I know for sure?


20. Anything you would like to add, perhaps something I didn't think to ask? (Boy, talk about lazy journalism!)

I decline to talk about lazy journalism, and perhaps I’ve already said more than enough. I’ve certainly said a lot more than the rather reticent Mr Carnivals!