Splendid in Ash - a high quality Egaeus Press publication of more than a dozen pieces of weird fiction by contemporary British author Charles Wilkinson.
At one point in his Introduction to this collection, John Howard characterizes Charles Wilkinson's weird fiction: "Hard reality, bodied-out in lists of normal everyday objects defined and surrounded by light, can be transformed from the mundane and magnified and distorted. Commonplace actions become significant and sinister, ominous."
Although I myself am not overly familiar with what is termed weird fiction, I concur. And I'll add an additional observation: by my reading, the tales within Splendid in Ash possess a unique quality I'll term weird impressionism. What I mean here is a tale can move from one sinister, ominous scene to the next without linear, logical progression - the main character is faced with the bizarre over here and then walks down a dark lane and suddenly comes face to face with a second, much different bit of freakiness.
Again, as a relative newcomer to weird fiction, rather than making general, overarching judgements about the stories or the author's place within the tradition, I'll shift focus to the lead story, In the Frame. I was especially taken by this tale since much of the subject matter revolves around art and painting.
IN THE FRAME
We follow Luke walking downhill at dusk towards a railway station on the lookout for the Golden Age Art Gallery where he will meet up with his friend Callum who speaks in glowing terms of the current exhibit on display: “It’ll be amazing. Like a total synaesthetic experience: words, pictures, lights, ambient sounds. It’s not just some old guy’s easel paintings. Patachandra’s an incredible all-round artist.”
Luke knows he should have brought his phone or directions but he actually enjoys getting lost and exploring by instinct. But, darn, since he’s wearing his usual – Trilby hat, tweed jacket, jeans – none of the people in this remote area of town are dressed remotely like himself, making him feel like a complete outsider.
Luke spots a supermarket but there’s no sign of any art gallery. He asks a cab driver by the railroad station the whereabouts of Golden Age Art Gallery, to which the cabbie replies with a smirk, “Sorry mate. You won’t find no art galleries. Not round here.”
Undaunted, Luke continues making his way down a narrow path. The air smells dank as mud and his shoes begin to slip on what feels like fallen leaves. He has an eerie feeling about all this and tells himself it would be wise to turn back but just then he glimpses a low wooden building with a porch in a puddle of yellow light. He approaches two men who look like nightclub bouncers standing on the porch - on closer inspection both have large flat faces with their mouth, eyes and nose buried in a mountain of flesh. The sign on the building reads The Albion Bowling Club in spindly, dendritic letters.
Luke enters and observes numerous bowling lanes, a few bowlers and a bar where the bartender is a thin, pale woman with “eyes, agog with wonder – or fear.” When Luke asks about the gallery, she tells him flatly and in a loud voice that she knows nothing. Just then, at the far end of the bar by a ramp, Luke catches sight of words on a blackboard chalked in a wavering hand: Exhibition Open.
How peculiar. I couldn’t imagine a less likely location for an art exhibition than at a bowling alley. Anyway, as if our main man hasn’t encountered enough creepiness so far, when he steps up the ramp and enters the exhibit, he’s surprised there’s no catalogue or any information about the paintings. However, in the next room, a number of typical middle-aged, provincial gallery goers are staring at what appears to be blank white canvases.
Where’s Callum? Bringing to mind his friend prompts Luke to reflect on the suicide of Callum’s sister on the London Underground three months after his breakup with her. And to think, he repeatedly made his views clear: he had nothing but contempt for those who inconvenience others by throwing themselves in front of a train. Fortunately, she left no suicide note but he reckons her motive was, in part, a desire to cure him of his contempt.
Ah, finally, there's Callum. Luke taps him on the shoulder but when he turns, whoops, Luke realizes he's made a mistake - the man is not Callum. However, in their ensuing conversation, Luke learns the exhibit he’s been viewing is not part of the Golden Age Art Gallery; rather, the stranger informs him this is a private viewing for members of the Gogmagog Group where group members collaborated in creating the paintings to be placed on exhibit anonymously.
Luke then moves on to the last room where the canvases are larger and the lines are more definite, forming landscapes. “But picture by picture the valleys, crests, and summits suggest the folds of bedclothes and crinkled sheets; then the shape of a giant sleeping under a counterpane of ice. Only the last painting implies an awakening: the snow feathery, except on a crag shaped like the hand of a colossus, reaching upwards, as if to drag some vast body through the blankets of sleep.”
In his Introduction, John Howard remarks that when a reader encounters a Charles Wilkinson story, it is like looking at a painting by an artist such as John Nash or Eric Ravilious. Curiously, by my eye, I detect similarities in the below Eric Ravilious landscape and Luke's description of the artwork in the last room.
The story continues with many more wrinkles, including reference to the legend of Ancient Britons overcoming a race of giants and Callum eventually turning up but with a larger, rougher face atop a body considerably taller then Luke remembers. Added to this, the story's title, In the Frame, takes on multiple meanings, among their number: the frame of a painting, the frame of perception, a body frame and a bowling frame.
With each rereading of this remarkable Charles Wilkinson tale, I came away with a deeper appreciation for the author's precision of language and placement of image. I consider myself fortunate in owning a copy of this beautiful Egaeus Press limited edition. If you can put your hands on a copy, I'm confident you will likewise enjoy.
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