Fancy dream

My dreams always seem to dance on the edge of fancy, correct-not-correct versions of non-dream life. There are things that happened in my dreams that I count as happening in my life, aspects of my life that have distinctly dream-like qualities.

One strong dream-memory I have is of taking a sea cruise, falling off one side of the ship, swimming through the wake to find the other side firmly concreted to the land. One dream-like episode of my life involved a French-speaking barmaid called Juliette, the old, old 12-Bar Club, and a club night set up by Martin Dowsing named No Wankers Allowed[1].

One of my recent dreams involved arguing over the use of 'form' in poetry with a Doctor of Law. This is something that happens in my day-to-day life though the denunciation of my dream struck me as noteworthy: "One could argue that 'form' is the technique that allows the writer freedom to express rather than stiffening it. This is the same for 'conventions' for using oils and watercolours in painting, marquetry, joinery, so on. Without 'form' there is no shape."

I can't be sure of this, dreams are not the most reliable sources, though I think the 'form' we so hotly debated was referring to the different styles of poem one can deploy. Poetry crops up regularly at the moment, for projects and just because I want to write more.

And yet in the last few weeks my ideas have been pushed aside through work and personal life, not finding a thread to follow or rejecting the ones that sprang up[2]. One day soon a floodgate will explode.

Ambergris will flood. Jeff VanderMeer has hinted at such. I am making good progress through the City Of Saints And Madmen[3], and with it the slow realisation that VanderMeer might just be one of my favourite writers.

I am not one to review a book by spending three quarters of the words revealing the plot and one quarter being my thoughts. I don't want to reveal the plot and it's myriad of devices, what is the point in me telling you 'X told V that Y was the murderer when Z was manipulating everyone.' There's no joy sharing that.

So we're left with my thoughts and recollections, opinions and memories. Like with his Southern Reach trilogy of books, City Of Saints And Madmen gives me a sense of a fictional world complete where one might visit and touch it. This is not to say VanderMeer's writing is detailed, more to acknowledge that his writing is incomplete like real life. You and I, dear reader, have no way of knowing our world in the same way fictional worlds are presented in a novel.

This is how I find myself in Ambergris, and part of why I am enjoying the book so much. I know that Jeff VanderMeer has hoodwinked me into thinking this way, but then this is his work, his world he is letting us visit.

What a visit to Ambergris it is. There is a sense of profound beauty and savagery permeating through each paragraph. The city lures you in with civilised criminality and naked prophets, where love and romance are undone by staying out too late on the night of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid.

Reviewers tend to score, percentages to help entice readers and sales. I throw caution to the wind, give City Of Saints And Madmen a read, you will thank me later.

Notes and references
1 - Martin is quite a talented musician and writer, and I urge you as a fan[1.1] to check him out.
1.1 - I played bass guitar in his band for about a year, a period of my life that brought some of my most surreal episodes.
2 - Stupid, crappy, nonsensical, subpar stuff I don't want to read so therefore no one should read.
3 - At the time of writing I am about ten pages into The Transformation Of Martin Lake.