Wednesday, June 07, 2017

'The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington' (2017)

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington. Inroduction by Kathryn Davis. Translations from the French by Kathrine Talbot (and Marina Warner), and from the Spanish by Anthony Kerrigan. St. Louis: Dorothy, a publishing project, 2017. 

Published on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Leonora Carrington (April 6, 1917-May 25, 2011).

As the back cover quip by surrealist Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel notes of Leonora Carrington's stories: "Her delirious fantasy reveals to us a little of the secret magic of her paintings." 

The collection is divided into three main sections: 
THE HOUSE OF FEAR (six stories)
THE SEVENTH HORSE (sixteen stories)
PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED (three stories)

These strange tales are made stranger still by Carrington's understated approach to the macabre. We are invited into her dreamscape and become as if characters in her visual art. Is this a dream or a nightmare? 

Here's a brief snippet from "Monsieur Cyril de Guindre."  Make of it what you will:

     '"Precious mummy," he murmured, laughing. "Who knows? Won't you have fun after all?"
     Slowly he went down the marble staircase.' (page 82).

One of the eeriest stories is "Pigeon, Fly!" There is supposed to be a song with this title, but so far all I can find along these lines is Elton John's (and Bernie Taupin's) "Skyline Pigeon." I'll keep looking. 

But here is a sentence from the story version: "I followed the enormous walking wig like a sleepwalker." (page 66). Who knows? Maybe soon, you will, too. 

Today's Rune: Flow. 


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