re-reading Wilson
Every few years I re-read Colin Wilson. This morning I began another reading of his novel, THE GLASS CAGE. And, as always happens when I read this novel, it instills within me an ache to pull out my William Blake and return to ye poetry and biographies. I've just gone to Amazon and order'd a biography I've never seen--ETERNITY'S SUNRISE: THE IMAGINATIVE WORLD OF WILLIAM BLAKE, by Leo Damrosch, publish'd just last year. Wilson's crime novel seems extremely literary, and that is one reason I find it so irresistible--I adore books that are written by people who love Literature as much as I do. Of course, this flimsy paperback edition is a tatter'd old thing, and so I have just order'd a 2nd-hand hardcover copy, & will put off my return to ye novel until that edition arrives. Crime fiction, especially British mysteries, are perhaps my favourite kind of fiction. Although I cannot write anything but horror, I never actually read horror fiction, moft of which I find deadly dull.
Books are Life--literally. I think that's why my very best friends are almoft all writers or editors. I have very little interest in ye cinema, rarely watch telly, and can usually be found in my cozy armchair with a book in one hand and a cup of mild coffee (French Vanilla Cafe) in ye other. 'Tis a good life, aye.
Did you ever read "Mind Parasites" by Colin Wilson? William Blake was an English genius - in the truest sense inspired. His sense of the numinous is infectious. Many English writers of the strange have been eccentrics, outsiders to the great mass of their fellow countrymen. Even those who worked with and in the establishment have found their escape in the regions of the greater mind. I am reading Robert Aickman at the moment and find much of that sensibility there. I suppose even H P Lovecraft was not alien to the influence of The Other that Blake tapped into. Hope you are well. G. ;-)=
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