Excerpt:
A
fisherman from the Caribbean plays with his long hair while singing
intimate lullabies having to do with the obsessive pursuit of raw
mackerel. The raw mackerel is of course important, but not more
important than clothes, money and other superficial items of utter
pettiness. If the legs of the cat had no holes in them, then there
would be no exit for leg-mackerel, and they would remain comfortably
trapped within these agile, furry limbs for most of eternity, leading
to the unhappy precipitation of mashed pomegranate seeds. The fish
seeds release their final breath, and the felines resume a game
of panty-billiards that had been initiated four hundred years ago,
when people were still afraid of tomatoes, and when the stock market
was nothing but a cruel and scary fantasy. But upon the arrival
of great hordes of the highly paranoid fruit bats, the pomegranate
seeds were reintegrated within the folds of smashed skin, and reconstructed
fruits were delightfully soaked in a mild brine to create a nutritious
bat soup, which these fruit bats would consume before a great journey
to a new set of caves on another continent. This faraway continent
was the very same one where other fruit bats resided and played
the cello during idle moments when the seagulls became the horns
on a sweaty forehead during a steep hike up frozen mountains. The
skeletal architecture of the fruit bats was an x-ray bath towel
that once was on sale during an anthropologically important religious
festival involving the throwing of horseshoes at furniture. Once
the moisture-soup was absorbed, each paranoid fruit-bat became
a red maple leaf that was carried away by the wind, erasing grimaces
with the sunset of red maple trees, and using laser surgery to
attach fresh eyeballs to sightless coconuts.
|
Back
Cover Description:
A
seductive collection of stunning, psychological prose-poems
executed in an improvisational style. A contemporary
example of surrealist expression.
This
modern collection of surrealist prose-poems was inspired
by the improvisational method of automatic writing, popularized
by the International Surrealist Movement. From one brain
to another without any literary rules or standards, the words
in these automatic writings are not just words, but rays
of subconscious illumination that peel away the various layers
of the "civilized," western psyche, one by one.
Full
of bizarre transformations and dark, irrationally motivated
patterns of erotic thought, these writings will seduce
the reader into nothing less than a sublime overload and
transgressive derangement of the senses. While a must-read
for the poetically daring and the adventurous, this book
is not recommended for those who seek peaceful numbness
and safety!
Reviews:
 Surrealism is not dead, December 1, 2004
To quote from the back cover of this book: "This modern collection of surrealist prose-poems was inspired by the improvisational method of automatic writing, popularized by the International Surrealist movement. From one brain to another without any literary rules or standards; the words in these automatic writings are not just words, but rays of subconscious illumination that peel away the various layers of the `civilized,' western psyche, one by one."
For those who understand what that means, and are interested in such writing, read no further; buy this book. For everyone else, these are not stories in the usual sense. They are collections of strange images where bizarre things happen right next to each other. In just the first story, a thin stream of sugar is dropped into a tiger's eyeball, a frog burps a shiny platinum marble, there is a talking caterpillar, and an umbrella reveals a family sunning themselves on the shore of an island continent formed from green volcanic glass deposited hundreds of thousands of years ago.
This book is very much not for everyone. For those who want to give their brain a workout, this is an excellent choice. For those who want "normal" books with plot and characters and all those English Literature words, this book can be skipped
***
Bragg's At
the Threshold of Liquid Geology is unlike any other
book I've ever read. It is finely-crafted, radical and
surreal. The proses and poems symbolize the very existence
of our being: full of contrasts and restlessness. If you've
been searching for a book that nourishes your soul and
appetite for anything unusual and extremely fluid, Bragg's
is probably what you're looking for. It is the Picasso
of literature, I must say. Divided into six stories, this
anthology is an example of post-modern literature with
a nose for new age spirituality. But with a punch, I must
reiterate.[]
The
author hopes that this collection of automatic writing
is perceived not as an "Art" or "fantasy" book,
but instead as a chronology of poetic images to be used
in the exploration of human subjectivity. Automatic writing,
ever since it was first systematically implemented by the
first surrealists in the early twentieth century, has for
many years provided a valid alternative to a busy world
whose various forms of daily thinking tend to follow logical,
rational and often utilitarian trends. With the efforts
of contemporary surrealists all over the world, the practice
of automatism has flourished in many places
and at many times into the twenty-first century.
The creation of written
poetic thought, whether within this work or anyone else's, is attainable when
the poetic investigator achieves a simple but disciplined state of 'receptive
disinterestedness' in order to capture the flow of thoughts. This type of verbal
reception is comparable to the mental chatter sometimes experienced during the
early stages of sleep, or ultimately within the dream, for example. The worth
of automatism, verbal or otherwise, resides in its unabridged poetic content,
in its ability to make a psychologically uncensored photograph of the mind as
it triumphs over its obstacles, in its effort to tap the subconscious roots of
human existence.
This method of surreal
knowledge has its unique place among other logically elaborated varieties, creating
a sublime dialogue whose content can supersede the limitations of conscious reality.
With such a subconscious alphabet, it may be possible to communicate experiences
and latent movements of thought that normally go undetected in the waking world.
If the imagination can overcome the reality principle of the moment, of today,
then new possibilities for thinking are brought to light. And if we were interested
in expanding the limits of our subjectivity, then wouldn't this form of poetic
automatism make a great tool for discovery? The proof is in the experience.
|
|
