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goneworldgone's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
bobbygw's review against another edition
5.0
For some unfathomable reason - and no doubt also to other devotees of his early novels - Erickson has gained only a small readership, although he has garnered some impressive reviews by a number of critics both in the US and Europe. Sadly, I just don't think Erickson has ever been marketed or promoted properly or with any real understanding of how amazing and original novelist he is.
`Tours of the Black Clock' is his third novel, and should have been the key to his literary stardom; his `breakout' fiction that should have, but didn't, take him to new and more popular heights, following his marvellous `Rubicon Beach' and equally wonderful `Days Between Stations'.
Sadly, this has not been the case, and his novels since, while still gaining some excellent reviews, have led him to a readership that is tiny by comparison to many other more popular `literary' novelists. For this fiction at least, there is no doubt that Erickson deserves more attention and celebration, and popularity. His fiction has a stark, poetic and haunting brilliance, reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison (at her most intense; i.e., with her novel, 'Beloved'). It is a fantastic, fantastical work that cannot - should not - be ignored and is a wonderful alternative modern history twist and take on key events/people in the 20th century.
The novel begins with Banning Jainlight, who is found dead in a boarding room, along with Dania, the obsession of his life, and Marc, their son - a product of surreality itself. Dania's and Marc's presence acts as a sort of catalyst, enabling Banning to narrate his story and, by doing so, reveals the myriad and complex memories that connect them and shape their histories.
Banning's life is experienced in a non-linear way; chronology and space become multi-dimensional as one memory merges with another. At the same time, his thoughts often assume a physicality, shaping the history of Dania's life, and extending and weaving the web of characters and stories that are being told.
Without his at first realising, Banning becomes a writer of erotic, strange stories for Adolf Hitler's consumption during WW2; stories which - unbeknownst to Banning - fuel Hitler's megalomaniac passions. History overturns itself, becoming a nightmarish Wonderland, and the world becomes bleak and decidedly Orwellian in this alternative reality.
The last few lines ending this tour de force are a match for (and an homage to) James Joyce's ending in his famous Dubliners' story, The Dead, when the main character Gabriel watches the snow fall. And are brilliantly, beautifully done.
This is truly mesmeric modern fiction at its best. It portrays an overwhelming knot of obsessions of voyeurism, erotic desire, of the licentious nature of power unchecked, and of the pain and anguish that make up the absurd time (black clock) that ticked away on the face of the 20th century. Amazing.
`Tours of the Black Clock' is his third novel, and should have been the key to his literary stardom; his `breakout' fiction that should have, but didn't, take him to new and more popular heights, following his marvellous `Rubicon Beach' and equally wonderful `Days Between Stations'.
Sadly, this has not been the case, and his novels since, while still gaining some excellent reviews, have led him to a readership that is tiny by comparison to many other more popular `literary' novelists. For this fiction at least, there is no doubt that Erickson deserves more attention and celebration, and popularity. His fiction has a stark, poetic and haunting brilliance, reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison (at her most intense; i.e., with her novel, 'Beloved'). It is a fantastic, fantastical work that cannot - should not - be ignored and is a wonderful alternative modern history twist and take on key events/people in the 20th century.
The novel begins with Banning Jainlight, who is found dead in a boarding room, along with Dania, the obsession of his life, and Marc, their son - a product of surreality itself. Dania's and Marc's presence acts as a sort of catalyst, enabling Banning to narrate his story and, by doing so, reveals the myriad and complex memories that connect them and shape their histories.
Banning's life is experienced in a non-linear way; chronology and space become multi-dimensional as one memory merges with another. At the same time, his thoughts often assume a physicality, shaping the history of Dania's life, and extending and weaving the web of characters and stories that are being told.
Without his at first realising, Banning becomes a writer of erotic, strange stories for Adolf Hitler's consumption during WW2; stories which - unbeknownst to Banning - fuel Hitler's megalomaniac passions. History overturns itself, becoming a nightmarish Wonderland, and the world becomes bleak and decidedly Orwellian in this alternative reality.
The last few lines ending this tour de force are a match for (and an homage to) James Joyce's ending in his famous Dubliners' story, The Dead, when the main character Gabriel watches the snow fall. And are brilliantly, beautifully done.
This is truly mesmeric modern fiction at its best. It portrays an overwhelming knot of obsessions of voyeurism, erotic desire, of the licentious nature of power unchecked, and of the pain and anguish that make up the absurd time (black clock) that ticked away on the face of the 20th century. Amazing.
karp76's review against another edition
4.0
Never much one for alternative history, Erickson's poetry catapults this beyond the realm of the strange and absurd into that of art. A haunting vision. "Through the warm fog of his last breath, he watched the memories of a hundred ghosts drift skyward to finally and vainly burst." Masterful.
briandice's review against another edition
5.0
I've been thinking a lot about this book recently - two months after finishing it Banning Jainlight haunts me like an unscratchable itch on a phantom limb. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Steve Erickson is really a powerful warlock and his magics are threaded into the words of his novels. Bewitching, truly.
This isn't my favorite novel I've read all year, but it is the one to which my mind keeps returning. Erickson's protagonist struggles to understand what it means to be alive in a world that became untethered in the 20th century. We all serve at the pleasure of history Jainlight opines. In another aside he offers this beauty:
The author takes one of the worst participants in last century's 100 years of misery - Adolf Hitler - and makes an alternate history equally as absurd as the real one. It works on a level so visceral it makes for a reader's discomfort and reveals even more about our world than a fictional story told in a setting of true history. Not unlike an adult fairy tale.
I purchased two more Erickson novels after finishing this book, but now I'm almost afraid to start the next one. What dark magic will his other works contain?
This isn't my favorite novel I've read all year, but it is the one to which my mind keeps returning. Erickson's protagonist struggles to understand what it means to be alive in a world that became untethered in the 20th century. We all serve at the pleasure of history Jainlight opines. In another aside he offers this beauty:
In my time, I have no reason but to believe that whatever God exists is a God of revenge. A God of revenge in a century of revenge.
The author takes one of the worst participants in last century's 100 years of misery - Adolf Hitler - and makes an alternate history equally as absurd as the real one. It works on a level so visceral it makes for a reader's discomfort and reveals even more about our world than a fictional story told in a setting of true history. Not unlike an adult fairy tale.
I purchased two more Erickson novels after finishing this book, but now I'm almost afraid to start the next one. What dark magic will his other works contain?
mfichtel's review against another edition
Boring start, flipped through and did not like writing style.
liam_so_goated's review against another edition
5.0
How is Steve Erickson not regarded with the same prestige as Pynchon or Delillo?
shawnwhy's review against another edition
5.0
oh my god this is so fucking good. The bits of humor are perfect and a lot of the side characters are quite endearing.
msaari's review against another edition
3.0
A difficult book. Fascinating, but at times hard to follow. Not my favourite Erickson (that would be [b:The Sea Came in at Midnight|861572|The Sea Came in at Midnight|Steve Erickson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335555462s/861572.jpg|1621053]). Interesting look on the Twentieth Century and the nature and humanity of evil. The book is very much about Hitler, but the perspective is fresh.
kansass's review against another edition
4.0
"I have to make you the saddest man alive. A dead man caught in the body of a living one."
Es complicado escribir sobre Steve Erickson, independientemente de lo difícil que se me hace escribir sobre un autor que me interesa mucho, se hace raro porque es muy complejo describir la forma en que Erickson extrapola este mundo en el que vivimos al mundo de los sueños, porque terminada cualquiera de las novelas de las que he leído suyas, he tenido la sensación de que ha querido narrar todo un universo de acontecimientos bajo la premisa de un sueño. En el caso de las novela que me ocupa sus personajes aparecen y desaparecen entre las diferentes lineas temporales, presente, pasado y futuro, viajan en el tiempo en unos mundos que siempre andan derrumbándose, recorren mundos postapocalípticos, realidades distópicas o transformando el curso de la historia en historia alternativa, de alguna forma desafía los géneros marcados y llegado un punto no sabes si es ciencia ficción, realismo mágico o simplemente la historia de unos personajes reconvertidos en fantasmas cruzando mundos paralelos. Se le clasifica dentro de la literatura posmodernista porque estamos obsesionados en encasillarlo todo en compartimentos, pero este es un término en el cual Erickson no se siente cómodo y si buceamos en alguna entrevista suya, para nada le gusta que le encasillen en el posmodernismo y si nos fijamos bien, su esencia es clásica, sobre todo por la forma en que concibe las historias de amor: obsesivas, idealizadas y que perduran en la memoria del tiempo.
"You from the city? said the boatman. Which city? said Blaine after a moment. I've come from a lot of cities. I've come looking for a woman."
Podríamos considerar su estructura como circular porque el primer capítulo comienza en 3ª persona con Marc, y muy poco después nos adentramos en la historia de Banning Jainlight, su padre, contada en 1ª persona para finalmente concluir de nuevo con Marc, en una especie de bucle atemporal. Banning Jainlight nace en 1917 y se cría en una granja en Pensylvania y tiene la habilidad de visionar su tiempo a través de una ventana. Escapa de su familia muy jóven y se traslada Nueva York donde se convierte en escritor de historias pulp, más concretamente pornográficas. Las historias de Banning usan como modelo a Dania, una mujer misteriosa a la que ha idealizado y pronto llaman la atención del llamado Cliente X, que lo contrata para que siga escribiendo y enviarlas a Alemania donde están muy solicitadas. Pronto Banning se ve obligado a huir a Europa, donde el cliente X, se convierte en el cliente Z (Adolf Hitler), obsesionado porque siga escribiendo historias usando de modelo a Geli Raubal, su sobrina que se suicidó una década atrás en extrañas circunstancias. La historia de amor de Hitler con su sobrina es ya sobradamente conocida, pero Erickson la usa aquí como base para las historias que escribe Banning Jainlight porque sin que él lo sepa, a través de sus historias eróticas y bizarras, consigue cambiar el curso de la historia en la que está implicada Alemania en la 2ª Guerra Mundial. De pronto la novela se ha convertido en otra cosa, una especie de distopía o realidad alternativa muy a lo Philip K. Dick.
“I looked out my window onto the street, the same street, the same buildings I always see, the windows that stare back at my own; and it was different. The moment was a different moment, of a different now. What I saw from my window was the other Twentieth Century rolling on by my own, like the other branch of a river that's been forked by an island long and narrow and knifelike: the same river but flowing by different shorelines and banks.”
Condensar o intentar describir esta novela argumentalmente es casi una inutilidad porque realmente de lo que se trata es de dejarte embarcar en la mente de Banning Jainlight y seguirle, aunque su vida está repleta de saltos porque no está contada linealmente: memoria, recuerdos, sueños…, el lector nunca sabe realmente donde está en ese momento físicamente Banning, si es un sueño o es realidad puramente física. Hay una especie de angustia existencial por un mundo que se desmorona pero al mismo tiempo Erickson consigue recrear momentos atmosféricos a través de la sensualidad, del erotismo y de la búsqueda de una mujer obsesivamente. Porque en esta historia hay continúamente un hombre buscando, ansiando volver a revivir, a encontrar a una mujer idealizada, no sabemos si real o imaginada.
"I got tired of being men´s dreams. I got tired of being Paul’s, I got tired o being Joaquin´s. I was tired of being yours when I didn´t even know I was yours. I never meant to be anyone´s dream does it have to be my dream too? It was your dream.”
Steve Erickson está continuamente deconstruyendo los límites físicos, sexuales, históricos, temporales de este mundo, desmitifica cánones establecidos, deconstruye la historia y nos recuerda que ese pasado puede ser el presente. Al igual que Banning Jainlight es capaz de visionar la historia alternativa a través de una ventana, el estilo atmosférico y casi hipnótico de Erickson nos transporta a esos otros mundos como si el mismo lector fuera el voyeur obsesionado por reconstruir estas lineas temporales. Y al igual que en Dias Entre Estaciones de nuevo tenemos la simbologia del color azul, y de Wyndeaux y su estación de tren, esa ciudad que parece suspendida en el tiempo. ¡¡Erickson es lo más!!!
“We arrive at the Wyndeaux train station the morning of the next day. Wyndeaux is a medieval city as blue as the one we left sinking in the italian lagoon..."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021/08/tours-of-black-clock-de-steve-erickson.html
Es complicado escribir sobre Steve Erickson, independientemente de lo difícil que se me hace escribir sobre un autor que me interesa mucho, se hace raro porque es muy complejo describir la forma en que Erickson extrapola este mundo en el que vivimos al mundo de los sueños, porque terminada cualquiera de las novelas de las que he leído suyas, he tenido la sensación de que ha querido narrar todo un universo de acontecimientos bajo la premisa de un sueño. En el caso de las novela que me ocupa sus personajes aparecen y desaparecen entre las diferentes lineas temporales, presente, pasado y futuro, viajan en el tiempo en unos mundos que siempre andan derrumbándose, recorren mundos postapocalípticos, realidades distópicas o transformando el curso de la historia en historia alternativa, de alguna forma desafía los géneros marcados y llegado un punto no sabes si es ciencia ficción, realismo mágico o simplemente la historia de unos personajes reconvertidos en fantasmas cruzando mundos paralelos. Se le clasifica dentro de la literatura posmodernista porque estamos obsesionados en encasillarlo todo en compartimentos, pero este es un término en el cual Erickson no se siente cómodo y si buceamos en alguna entrevista suya, para nada le gusta que le encasillen en el posmodernismo y si nos fijamos bien, su esencia es clásica, sobre todo por la forma en que concibe las historias de amor: obsesivas, idealizadas y que perduran en la memoria del tiempo.
"You from the city? said the boatman. Which city? said Blaine after a moment. I've come from a lot of cities. I've come looking for a woman."
Podríamos considerar su estructura como circular porque el primer capítulo comienza en 3ª persona con Marc, y muy poco después nos adentramos en la historia de Banning Jainlight, su padre, contada en 1ª persona para finalmente concluir de nuevo con Marc, en una especie de bucle atemporal. Banning Jainlight nace en 1917 y se cría en una granja en Pensylvania y tiene la habilidad de visionar su tiempo a través de una ventana. Escapa de su familia muy jóven y se traslada Nueva York donde se convierte en escritor de historias pulp, más concretamente pornográficas. Las historias de Banning usan como modelo a Dania, una mujer misteriosa a la que ha idealizado y pronto llaman la atención del llamado Cliente X, que lo contrata para que siga escribiendo y enviarlas a Alemania donde están muy solicitadas. Pronto Banning se ve obligado a huir a Europa, donde el cliente X, se convierte en el cliente Z (Adolf Hitler), obsesionado porque siga escribiendo historias usando de modelo a Geli Raubal, su sobrina que se suicidó una década atrás en extrañas circunstancias. La historia de amor de Hitler con su sobrina es ya sobradamente conocida, pero Erickson la usa aquí como base para las historias que escribe Banning Jainlight porque sin que él lo sepa, a través de sus historias eróticas y bizarras, consigue cambiar el curso de la historia en la que está implicada Alemania en la 2ª Guerra Mundial. De pronto la novela se ha convertido en otra cosa, una especie de distopía o realidad alternativa muy a lo Philip K. Dick.
“I looked out my window onto the street, the same street, the same buildings I always see, the windows that stare back at my own; and it was different. The moment was a different moment, of a different now. What I saw from my window was the other Twentieth Century rolling on by my own, like the other branch of a river that's been forked by an island long and narrow and knifelike: the same river but flowing by different shorelines and banks.”
Condensar o intentar describir esta novela argumentalmente es casi una inutilidad porque realmente de lo que se trata es de dejarte embarcar en la mente de Banning Jainlight y seguirle, aunque su vida está repleta de saltos porque no está contada linealmente: memoria, recuerdos, sueños…, el lector nunca sabe realmente donde está en ese momento físicamente Banning, si es un sueño o es realidad puramente física. Hay una especie de angustia existencial por un mundo que se desmorona pero al mismo tiempo Erickson consigue recrear momentos atmosféricos a través de la sensualidad, del erotismo y de la búsqueda de una mujer obsesivamente. Porque en esta historia hay continúamente un hombre buscando, ansiando volver a revivir, a encontrar a una mujer idealizada, no sabemos si real o imaginada.
"I got tired of being men´s dreams. I got tired of being Paul’s, I got tired o being Joaquin´s. I was tired of being yours when I didn´t even know I was yours. I never meant to be anyone´s dream does it have to be my dream too? It was your dream.”
Steve Erickson está continuamente deconstruyendo los límites físicos, sexuales, históricos, temporales de este mundo, desmitifica cánones establecidos, deconstruye la historia y nos recuerda que ese pasado puede ser el presente. Al igual que Banning Jainlight es capaz de visionar la historia alternativa a través de una ventana, el estilo atmosférico y casi hipnótico de Erickson nos transporta a esos otros mundos como si el mismo lector fuera el voyeur obsesionado por reconstruir estas lineas temporales. Y al igual que en Dias Entre Estaciones de nuevo tenemos la simbologia del color azul, y de Wyndeaux y su estación de tren, esa ciudad que parece suspendida en el tiempo. ¡¡Erickson es lo más!!!
“We arrive at the Wyndeaux train station the morning of the next day. Wyndeaux is a medieval city as blue as the one we left sinking in the italian lagoon..."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021/08/tours-of-black-clock-de-steve-erickson.html