The Violet Apple news

Scenes from Arcturus by David Kanaga

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Over at his Small Musics blog, David Kanaga has released four short pieces "Inspired by David Lindsay's amazing novel A Voyage to Arcturus". Titled Lusion Plain 1 & 2, and Wombflash Forest 1 & 2, their total duration comes in at just over 7 minutes.

On his MySpace page, Kanaga lists his influences as The Beach Boys, Daft Punk, Eric Dolphy, Brian Eno, Toshio Iwai, Lil' Wayne, My Bloody Valentine, Oval, The Ramones, Steve Reich, Erik Satie, Phil Spector & Igor Stravinsky. Coming more from the Eno/Reich end of this spectrum, the four short Arcturan pieces have an abstract electronic sound, somewhat like an updating of the pioneering Louis & Bebe Baron soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.

"Scenes from Arcturus", as the four pieces are collectively called (not to be confused with Ron Thomas's 2001 album, Scenes from A Voyage to Arcturus), they can be downloaded free at the Small Musics blog.

The Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A website for the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy has recently appeared, whose aim is to "provide a forum where writers and scholars from various disciplines can discuss folk narratives, fairy tales and fantasy". Sussex, as the site's main page states, is an area "rich in examples of all three kinds of narrative, ranging from folk narratives of various kinds, through literary fairy tales written in, as well as about, Sussex... to major works of fantasy and myth by Sussex residents". David Lindsay is cited as one of several such one-time residents, along with George MacDonald, Mervyn Peake and Neil Gaiman. (George MacDonald was, for a while, minister in the Trinity Congregational Church in Arundel; Mervyn Peake lived for a while in Warningcamp, and is buried in Burpham, both near Arundel; Neil Gaiman grew up in East Grinstead and opens his celebrated Sandman comic at nearby Wych Cross.)

David Lindsay is most often tagged as a Scottish fantasist (A Voyage to Arcturus being included in the 2005 list of "100 Best Scottish Books", for instance), and it is certainly illuminating to regard his works as springing from the same imaginative roots as James Hogg (The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner) and (again) George MacDonald. But there is nothing to say that a writer, once claimed, can only be studied from a single angle, and in my opinion there's as much to be learned from regarding Lindsay and his works in the light of where he lived as from his lineage. (In this I may be biased; like Lindsay, I'm half Scottish by descent, and live in Sussex).

In Lindsay's works, Sussex features in The Haunted Woman (which is set in Brighton, Hove, Worthing, and at the fictitious Runhill Court, which Lindsay situates near Steyning), while in The Witch Lindsay comes close to infusing the Sussex landscape with as much pregnant supernaturalism as he did with Arcturus's Tormance. The Violet Apple, meanwhile, is set mostly just south of Brasted, in nearby Kent. Lindsay, of course, lived in Ferring (near Worthing), and in Hove at the end of his life, but was obviously familiar with the larger area, being married in Godstone in Surrey (only a few miles from Brasted), while his friend L H Myers, who would often take him for rides through the countryside, lived for a while in East Grinstead.

Audio reading of A Voyage to Arcturus

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A new audio reading of A Voyage to Arcturus can be found at the Internet Archive. Clocking in at 14 and a half hours, it is the result of many years of work by Rafi Simcha, and is partially abridged ("leaving out a lot of the wine and cigars" in the early chapters, as it says on the main page). Extremely generously, it is entirely free to download, or listen to streamed from the Internet Archive page (which should certainly mean nobody will have to spend any money on the computer-generated reading covered here in a previous news post).

Monsieur de Mailly released by Resonance BookWorks

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Resonance BookWorks continue their programme of releasing David Lindsay's novels this month with The Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly. The rarest of David Lindsay's completed novels, last published in 1927, this is the first time ever for this book in paperback, and a welcome chance for many readers to get hold of it at last, and at an affordable price.

The book can be ordered via the publisher's website.

Devil's Tor and Nightspore on Tormance from Resonance BookWorks

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Resonance BookWorks have released not one but three editions of Devil's Tor, and an edition of Voyage to Arcturus under the title David Lindsay originally intended for it, Nightspore on Tormance.

The three Devil's Tor editions are a hardcover, a paperback, and a "cheap edition" paperback, which has the text printed on 268 pages, rather than the larger edition's 552.

Resonance have plans to release the rest of David Lindsay's completed novels, too, as you can see from their website — including The Adventures of M. de Mailly, which would mean that this is the first time this Lindsay novel has ever been reprinted.

The books will be available via Amazon and other online booksellers soon, but in the meantime can be ordered via the publisher's website.