December 11, 2009 · 7:53 pm

when i think of Viriconium

now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away; yet it has all the unrealistic clarity of something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away, possessed of an unrealistic clarity like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through optical glass. When I think of Viriconium now, it seems very far away yet having an unrealistic clarity, like something seen through

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15 Comments

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15 Responses to when i think of Viriconium

  1. mikefleetham
    December 12, 2009 at 2:05 am

    when i think of Viriconium i am in a bookshop in Stratford 15 years ago where my shrewd wife plucks the Barley Bros. from a shelf and says, “you’ll probably like this” and later i read it and realise that it is possible to use language intelligently and wisley and deeply. I begin to believe that letters and words and sentences are worth the time. Thanks MJH for pointing us to a place where words run out…

  2. uzwi
    December 12, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    Hi Foible.

    I was tempted to say that “letters and words and sentences” only become worth the time when you’ve spent time in a place where they aren’t. Then I thought: ah, that’d be the mediated world, then, or as we call it now, the world.

    That aside, for me the place where words run out is the place they come from etc etc (how glib).

    What I’ve been looking for since the late 70s is a condition of minimalism so profound you don’t feel you have to say anything at all. No luck with that, then.

  3. foiblecarrion
    December 12, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    I like that idea – word destination and origin: one and the same. I guess all we need do is peer out the carriage window as we pass their meeting place, but of course we’ll blink at just the wrong moment.

    Also: where music runs out…where symbols do the same…places to dwell?

    Hey whatever, xmas shopping to crack on with.

  4. MikeM
    December 13, 2009 at 5:11 am

    The place where etheric lungs breathe real air for edification (the other way round is just superstition).

    Or I suppose by minimalist, making the mediation a tissue thin membrane shared organically by mutualistic organisms.

  6. Mark Reep
    December 13, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    Well, you’re still replying to comments, not out hunting your axe. So that’s good. Hope the ms. hasn’t yet found the reams of this stacked beside your typewriter :)

  7. fredhale
    December 13, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    Beckett – every word a stain on silence and nothingness. Reading his poetry at the moment; his translations of various French poets are especially good. I want the same kind of minimalism in my photographs. Savage minimalism.

  8. Martin M
    December 14, 2009 at 9:53 am

    One does get so sick of repetition, doesn’t one? Queen Jane told me that again only yesterday.

    Dwarfs, pies, dubious swords – let’s face it, it had its moments. But minimalism is definitely the way to go, if only to keep sane:

    “The total amount of words ‘consumed’ in the United States has more than doubled from 4,500 trillion in 1980 to 10,845 trillion in 2008. The estimates do not include people simply talking to one another.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6801633/Modern-life-causes-brain-overload-study-finds.html

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  10. Krishna
    December 14, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    Viriconium aspiring to the condition of wallpaper.

  11. fredhale
    December 14, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Lara – thank you for the christmas card, I found it just now, after a late night and lots of coffee this morning. I’m not sure mine’s better though, only different – I like ramping up the contrast and sharpening the picture, but that means that your way has more detail. Either way, merry christmas x (I tried to say this on your post but couldn’t work out how to… I pushed the comment button a lot, but it only confused me. I’ve scarcely slept.) (also, i think i may have managed to add you to my blog roll. I am very slowly getting used to that bit…)

    Sorry to go OT, Mike.

  12. Mia Wolff
    December 14, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    I love Viriconium, words and all…whether they pile up inside or out, they rain down and slowly reveal the shape of the place and then again obscure it with their own weather

  13. Duke of Sussex
    December 14, 2009 at 9:04 pm

    Viriconium is a place I return to often.
    There is lots to love about it but what I particularly like is the deft incorporation of British folk customs such as the Mari – I will never forget the impact that bony steed had when I first saw it.
    It reinforces the feeling that these customs exist and endure in their own time and out of time.
    Still recovering from our Mummers play in Brighton on Saturday when we carpet bombed the pubs with death and ressurection before drunkenly performing it to late night revellers on a train on the way home.

  14. mckie
    December 16, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    I’ll tell you what I like most about fantasy. The one-word change from London to Viriconium, or vice versa, in a Young Man’s Approach. The distinction between a horse’s head and a horse’s skull. The name of the Grand Cairo. All the names, in fact.
    I like Durrell’s comment that we don’t read fiction to escape; we read it to have confirmed as real those things which we have not ourselves experienced, but which we somehow know are real.
    I hate most fantasy, I need hardly say. Except that all fiction is fantasy, from Austen to Le Carre to Spark to Golding to… well, fill your own names in.

  15. MikeM
    December 18, 2009 at 11:46 pm

    mckie – thanks for the reference to Durrell. It reminds me of the quote from Vaughan Williams that Holdstock prefaces Mythago Wood with:

    “I had that sense of recognition…here was something that I had known all my life, only I didn’t know it”,

    or Burroughs:

    “”You can’t show anyone anything he hasn’t seen already, on some level – any more than you can tell anyone anything he doesn’t already know. It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows.”