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The Writer's Answer - AN ABHORRENCE TO ALL FLESH

Ranging from (MR)Jamesian narration technique to the 'Quincunx' sects (& sex) of Lawrence Durrell, this story, for me, is about names and letters (ie for God and Truth) , bits missing (T instead of U), Flesh and spirit as one, unquenched fire of May Sinclair, large breasts, Machen-like or Poe-like transfiguration, questionable authorships, religions as deterrents to the things they worship, twisted genealogies, books (bibles) and recurring librarians, the speaking of crossed tongues, and more, changing from lovers to siblings and back again - all a symphony of sheer Horror in isolation implied and explicit - or "adrift in an eternal nocturne"..

Later: A quote I was trying to rediscover until it was ready to be rediscovered: "...I simply could not generate the false persona necessary to any form of writing..."

The Monk's Answer: NOTES OF A MAD COPYIST

I have only read I and II so far of above section.
My jumble list above of 'An Abhorrence To All Flesh' has become more unified here towards what I've alwasy seen as SYNCHRONISED SHARDS OF RANDOM TRUTH AND FICTION.
The narrator here, like the previous narrator, looks at his hand ... the flesh and bone....

Words seen as 'savourable' objects - a major preoccupation of mine, too, as is what lies behind:-
"The purity of my intentions had not mattered. The new thoughts struggling to emerge had had their say, with no regard for my reservations. [...] my book had been transformed radically, through a shocking shift in vocabulary and theology, into something else."

Thanks, kpaffenroth, that's relevant and may become more relevant to the reading of this book. I've now read up to the end of

Part III of The Monk's Answer: NOTES OF A MAD COPYIST

I had to finish reading where I did after Part II, because I somehow felt the shadow of my own 'abbot' behind me, checking up on me. Really! As if reading someone else's work (this work) was like the monk's 'copying' of it.

The third part is extremely disturbing. Writing Horror, as I have done for many years, does bring one's own abbot 'shadow' as tutelary guardian agel only to find out it's a demon not an angel. This part of the story seems to imply that he is part of the Horror itself and not something trying to punish me for writing (or reading) Horror! These thoughts are part of what the fiction I'm reading here makes me think. It is good to know it is only fiction, therefore. I shall finish 'reading' this story tomorrow, I hope, or soon after. I hope to finish the whole book before Christmas. It is not a long one.

I concur with all those above who imply that the work of Matt Cardin is 'the business'.

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Part IV & V (end) of The Monk's Answer: NOTES OF A MAD COPYIST

For the last few years I've speculated (and blogged) about 'Magic Fiction', 'Fiction as Religion', Proustian Selves, Nemonymity etc
and all the while this 'story' existed without my direct knowledge which seems to embody some of these concerns through (Biblical?) exegesis and text as savorable texture.

Not only is it thus rarefied and special, it is also accessible disturbing Horror in a fiction genre I've always loved.

My thoughts on it, however, seem subject to their own (false?) exegesis: as if I'm a wayward Monk who fails to copy correctly and brings in his (i.e. my) own extraneous and irrelevant concerns and theories in the comments so far on Matt Cardin's text????

"...Fallow be thy Names."

Answer Given to an Innocent Bystander: THE BASEMENT THEATRE

Here we have a nightmare of ever-tightening deja-vu and suffocating levels of meta-fiction - where the reader at first identifies with the Sub-lessor/Narrator of the fiction but, for me, I identified more readily with the Head-lessor (the playwright) which in many ways was even more frightening than empathising with the story's 'I' (Matt Cardin?) whom I seem to persecute against my own wishes.
A masterpiece - and it echoes the reading between the lines not only of the text (as before in this book) but between the lines on the palm of your hand to see if it is your map of life you're following or someone else's completely.