Every few hours I checked my temperature. On the threshold between high and very high fever, something slipped: in that in-between, I read. Reading became a kind of broth—clear, dense, sustaining. Closer in, it revealed itself as something else entirely: a refinement of Kafka and Lydia Davis, dusted with Calvino’s tonal powder. When the fever passed, the dreams remained. So did Joanna Walsh’s Worlds From the Word’s End.
I read it again, lucid this time, and recognised the same spectral figures that had entered the fever-dream. Walsh lulls with wordplay, tonal evenness, but something darker edges in. There’s the demon who has read all the books you left unread; the town where words themselves fall out of use. She writes in images, layered and deliberate. The stories hold high visual depth, frames more than scenes.
On both readings I found it necessary to let the stories breathe, to allow their textures to settle. There’s a tension between play and inquiry, between surface invention and metaphysical unease. Beneath it all: the quiet insistence that being in the world remains an unresolved question.
Each story is a part of a fascinating existential trajectory that somehow links the work into one text. The ideas contained in that journey are brilliant.
I’m looking forward to this. Vertigo was such a wonderful collection, I’m glad to hear that the magic is still there.
Definitely magic within each of these stories,
I admire you for being able to read a dense broth when you are feverish – I find I overegg even the simplest of phrases and wade through swampy, clingy treacle.
They read far better when the fever had passed, leaving only a residue of the earlier reading.
I really liked her Fractals collection and like Melissa have this as part of my And Other Stories subscription. She’s a definite talent. Good to hear that shines out here.
This is my first, Max. I’ve bought a couple of others. The Fractals collection seems instantly out of print. Annoyingly.
Are you London based Anthony? I could always lend you my copy if you promised not to fold the corners…
Thanks, Max, that is such a kind offer, and, yes, I am London based. I wouldn’t dream of accepting as I am a little tough on books, especially paperbacks.