Recent (Re-)Publications by Michael Butterworth

Michael Butterworth

Carter Kaplan has asked me to convey some words about a few recent publications on behalf of International Authors and Null23, which have collaborated to publish two new books by Michael Butterworth: Butterworth and My Servant the Wind.

I first became aware of Michael upon reading his contribution to the very first Emanations anthology way back in 2011, a short story titled "Das Neue Leben," whose opening line read as follows: "He stood five feet eight, and the anaconda, not yet full grown, slightly longer than that." Talk about a hook! I liked the story immensely and told Michael he should turn it into a novel. That hasn't happened yet, but we do now have other things by him to read.

Let's see what Carter (or is it Gareth Jackson?) says about these other writings:

Butterworth presents the collected short works [including "Das Neue Leben"] of the author Michael Butterworth - previously found in long-out-of-print anthology paperbacks and yellowing magazines such as New Worlds and other offshoots submerged by the accumulation of time, and which have been mostly lost and overshadowed by his later "Ecker" infamy as the co-publisher of the Northern provocateurs Savoy Books . . . These works are often located in a post-atomic wasteland of haunted deserts, conjoined with a dislocated Manchester of memory - being speculative fictions with veins of autobiography. The page becomes a structural space in which narrative is dismembered and arranged. Place becomes uncertain and hallucination is explored with thoughtful rigour. Neither of the future nor of then, these are works which occupy an era but conversely exist outside of any catalogued time.

My Servant the Wind: Navigating his story, there is nothing linear; autobiography becomes speculative memoir that crosses into fiction. In alien contacts the geography of the page disintegrates and time has become uncertain, located neither here nor there. The wind is blowing from the future deserts which he remembers from his youth. He is haunted by himself and memories of the apocalypse. He has travelled through new worlds and wild turbulence, protracted labour - a difficult birth. The wind blows a novel against his receiver and he transcribes . . .

Carter (Jackson?) also offers a bio of the man:

Michael Butterworth is a UK author, publisher and editor. He was a key part of the UK New Wave of Science Fiction in the 1960s, contributing fiction to New Worlds and other publications. He began publishing small press literary magazines, including Corridor in 1969, and in 1975 founded Savoy Books with David Britton. He co-authored Britton's controversial novel Lord Horror (1989), and in 2009 launched the contemporary visual art and writing journal, Corridor8. His last book was a memoir, The Blue Monday Diaries: In the Studio with New Order (2016). He is a regular contributor to Emanations.

Descriptions of the new books as well as links to respective Amazon sales pages can be found at the International Authors website:

International Authors

Here are links to Amazon, UK:

Butterworth

My Servant the Wind

The One True Path to Success in the Wily Korean Wilds

Here are photos that Sun-Ae and I managed to bring back from our Bonghwasan hunt stalking a wild Emanation.

Seeing the Emanation before it saw us, we quietly sneaked up on it . . .

. . . but it then saw us . . .

. . . and distanced itself . . .

. . . then turned its back to us and flew to another bench.

It then fluttered toward a growth of tall, thick grasses . . .

. . . but approached us carefully, seemingly curious . . .

. . . but soon backed off again toward the thick grass . . .

. . . where it lingered, as if to bolt into the safety of the tall, thick stalks and blades.

Off it then suddenly went again, so we followed till it reached a dry gulch . . .

. . . where it again stopped, and looked around . . .

. . . as if to reflect on the paradox of streambed with no stream.

Baffled at that, then at tree roots above ground . . .

. . . the Emanation opted to fly away, though I nearly succeeded in plucking it from the air!

It managed to escape, however, for my reach exceeded my grasp, and it flew to a nearby tree, where it perched precariously.

Then, spreading its wings,  it flew from the tree to a bench . . .

. . . then to another tree . . .

. . . then to yet another tree . . .

and another, where it remained . . .

. . . a while, then left for good . . . or for ill.

After all, who knows what good or ill might be accomplished by a book as complex as an Emanation?

Especially when it's called "Emanations."

Murakami: "Deep Wells"

Blind Sleep

Bland Woman, Sleeping Willow:

"I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while" (Murakami).

"From deep wells, you must have drawn your anger . . ." (Hodges).

Darwin Young's Origin of Evil

That's the title, Darwin Young's Origin of Evil (by Bak Jiri or Park Ji Ri or Park Ji-ri), and we learned yesterday - my wife and I - that our translation of the first 20 pages to this novel has gotten for us a KLTI grant to subsidize a translation of the next 60 pages. (The KLTI, of course, is the Korean Literature Translation Institute.) If the eighty-page total sooner or later gets the attention of an American publisher, we'll probably be selected to translate the entire book of some 500 pages.

Some followers might want to read this book sooner rather than later, but time will take time . . .

Murakami: Visible Darkness

Things that happen only during "the spooky hours between midnight and dawn . . ."

"In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."

A "pyrotechnical genius," he sets the novel on fire . . .

Murakami: The Wind-Up, the Pitch

The well is full of desolated hope:

"I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for."

But the world just keeps spinning 'round . . .

Murakami: Color Red

Somewhere in the story, some character says something like the following:

"You can hide memories, but you can't erase history."

Well, I say that you can erase history, but only if it has been written down. Just take your eraser and rub out what's been written. But far more history has never been written down.

Murakami goes wild . . .

A darn good sheeple-chase!

"Humans by necessity must have a midway point between their desires and their pride. Just as all objects must have a center of gravity . . . . Only when it is gone do people realize it even existed."

What goes up, must come down . . .

Same as it ever was!

And see what Murakami's up to these days:

"Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else . . . . But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return."

Let's do the Twist, like we did  last summer! Dance, dance, dance!

Everything Sheep-Shape

Murakami feels the passing of time:

"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting."

Regrets, I've had a few . . .

South of the Border, West of the Sun: Difficult Directions

"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star . . . . Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything."

Murakami never forgets . . .

 ELEPHANT VANISHES

Re-Appears Just About Everywhere

"There are some things about myself I can't explain to anyone. There are some things I don't understand at all." (This very pageless page cited yesterday)

Murakami once said . . .

The Elephant Vanishes: Stories. Are we telling stories . . . Lies? But why?

"There are some things about myself I can't explain to anyone. There are some things I don't understand at all."

Let us lie together . . . or break bread together on our knees. And is the elephant now gone? Look carefully . . .

Murakami's Windsong?

Typical Murakami?

"There are wells, deep wells, dug in our hearts."

"From deep wells, you must have drawn your anger . . ." (Hodges)

Without Murakami?

Murakami must have lucid dreams:

"Dreams are the kind of things you can - when you need to - borrow and lend out."

Unless he means the books that he writes, available in The Strange Library.

Murakami knocks 'em dead

Here

Better ways to live than by killing . . .

"Today when I awoke from a nap the faceless man was there with me. He was seated on the chair across from the sofa I'd been sleeping on, staring straight at me with a pair of imaginary eyes in a face that wasn't."

. . . but not by looking death in the face.

A Murmur of Murakami

Can a library whisper:

"Beyond the inner door was a shadowy corridor lit by a single flickering bulb. We stepped into the dying light."

Murakami's maybe.

A Slight Murakami

Kafka? Some German-Jewish writer on the eve of the holocaust who might or might not have said these words in Murakami's novel:

"Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on . . . . Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes."

But a true coward would stand up for what he believes in and proudly close his eyes.

Another Murakami excerpt . . .

1Q84

Excerpt of an excerpt:

The taxi's radio was tuned to a classical FM broadcast. Janacek's Sinfonietta — probably not the ideal music to hear in a taxi caught in traffic. The middle-aged driver didn't seem to be listening very closely, either. With his mouth clamped shut, he stared straight ahead at the endless line of cars stretching out on the elevated expressway, like a veteran fisherman standing in the bow of his boat, reading the ominous confluence of two currents. Aomame settled into the broad back seat, closed her eyes, and listened to the music.

How many people could recognize Janacek's Sinfonietta after hearing just the first few bars? Probably somewhere between "very few" and "almost none." But for some reason, Aomame was one of the few who could.

Good hook. Good series of hooks! I think I'll do this for a few days since I'm so busy.

"The Annie Cho" Reviews the Bottomless Bottle of Beer

Ghost Person

My friend Annie Cho has reviewed my first novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, and has ranked it at three exclamation marks:

Really good! Well written! Great illustrations!

Three exclamation marks amounts to five stars, I gather. Thanks Annie, for the concise praise!

Moreover, rightly appraising a scary story such as mine requires a Ghost Person, which seems to be the actual name given to the sort of non-photograph displayed above.