book release - 0127: the rays of light that did not illumine

[Greg Farough]

<https://corwoodindustries.com/product/0127/>

-g

--
"A person can live and be healthy without killing animals for food;
therefore, if they eat meat, they participate in taking animal life
merely for the sake of their appetite. And to act so is immoral."

[Steven Smith]

ordered that the second i saw the link, the guys lyrics are great so im curious what a novel would be like from him. or perhaps it will be poetry instead. curious if this includes any of the alleged material he wrote and burned after being rejected

[James Davies]

I know musically he started out slowly releasing music across a long time period before the live/improvisation works of the last decade (which of course have the consistency of legacy images used in many of the covers).

With the novels, whilst it would be fantastic to see them, the story is that he burned them many years ago, which sounds very decisively like those chapters were intended to be closed a long time ago? I mean burning paper is pretty definitively the opposite of archiving or even mislaying something :)

But then again, this is Corwood, with the rep who suddenly appeared in an unlikely place when no one expected it.

Let us know what you think of the book!

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[Danen J]

So as with all Jandek related things, so much of what you take from "The Rays of Light That Did Not Illumine"  is deeply personal and somewhat aloof simultaneously. It's tracked in to its characters deepest thoughts and feelings while never giving us a sense of where we are or what's going on save that the character is going through a crissi. Having read through this twice today, I have a few thoughts, though I don't want to expound too much as the spontaneity of the sentences/paragraphs need to be discovered by the reader.

First, this is a decidedly short existential book with mostly third person sections (where the main character, who is never truly described, is "he"), and one first person section, which seems to be that character's thoughts, but it's not the kind of book that's going to explain that for sure. 

The book is composed of what some would call "prose poems", but as they are narratively connected, I would simply call them prose. Still, one could call this a sequence of connected prose poems and not be wrong. 

Most paragraphs consist of "staccato" (a word that pops up) sentences. These sentences remind me of two things:

1. Samuel Beckett's novels. There's actually a section that reminds me a lot of a section in "Malloy."  In those books, there's a lot more physical description of places and (some) characters, but much is the stream of consciousness views of the principle character. Here's an example of one of those paragraphs:

"The body only to exist as a command. Do this or die. The nothing trance. It's your being. Unfurl the carpet you step on. Unravel the curtains for the hanging. Remove the cloak from your eyes and stare the refracted sun. Drip the blood of consciousness. Slither and scrawl. New clothes in the morning. He said no. Foolish not. Straight across lips. Eyes penetrate somnolent sound. Benign odor. Tactile on clouds."

This is part of a narrative, yet every sentence stands on its own. They relate to each other and the visuals describe more of a sense as opposed to a direct image, sort of like how "the rays of light that do not illumine" are in fact rays that allow the character to interact without being seen or making him be seen by others. I find a lot to chew on and find it quite unique.

There's also a lot of dry humor. Here's a paragraph that's a good example:

"Don't ever lose the candid tremor. He knocked on the floor. Nobody said hello."

There is indeed a climax and ending of sorts, which give it a sense of closure, but it's the journey here that matters most.  I find it fascinating and well put together and at only 28 pages it doesn't take long to read, but it greatly rewards re-reading and time spent line by line. It's such a gorgeous book, clothbound and on a good weight paper, in Corwood blue, small but wide, and ready to display and invite curiosity. .

Hope that all get it and enjoy it. 

Danen

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[ilfuturiste]

From the second part of the 2014 Wire interview: "I wrote one that I probably will publish. I got it formatted for publication. I would probably put it out on Corwood. I have a name for it. But I can’t remember it. The Light That Does Not Illumine, something like that. I wrote it in Glasgow."