Jottings from a Far Away Place eBook Brendan Connell
Download As PDF : Jottings from a Far Away Place eBook Brendan Connell 
Ranging on the fringes of imagination and erudition, forming a mosaic of stories, maxims and sketches, at once fragmentary and cumulative, Jottings from a Far Away Place combines the timeless, mannered assurance of the Eastern discursive essay with the experimentation of the Western avant-garde. As the focus shifts between fantastic tales and studies of viciousness, the reader is treated to, among myriad other things, the adventures of a Taoist guitar player, a bloody episode with Countess de Báthory, a recipe for cinnabar sauce, and the story of a man who has been reincarnated as a spoon. A book that is like a collection of bulletins from the world of dreams.
Jottings from a Far Away Place eBook Brendan Connell
Brendan Connell's Jottings from a Far Away Place made a huge impression on me. I loved it and found myself totally mesmerised by its contents.Jottings from a Far Away Place is one of the most original short story collections I've read during the recent years, because it's boldly different from other short story collections. It's brilliantly witty entertainment to readers who dare to read something different and who are fascinated by absurd and surreal happenings. In my opinion, it's an outstanding achievement in experimental storytelling.
Brendan Connell has never disappointed me with his fiction, because he always writes good prose and surprises his readers with extraordinary tales. He examines many things through a skewed lens and his output is fascinatingly bizarre and captivating. His stories are imaginative and intriguingly twisted, and some of them can be interpreted in different ways depending on the reader. This short story collection is a marvellous example of his writing skills and endless imagination.
Jottings from a Far Away Place is an enjoyable collection of short stories that defy easy classification. In this collection, literary fiction meets speculative fiction with interesting results.
This short story collection contains the following stories:
- Observations
- Habitually Dancing
- Showing the World
- Entrusting
- A Ramshackle Village
- Ghost Cave
- Gradual Activity
- Uncommon
- Defilements
- Gesture of Bowing
- Many-Coloured Eyebrows
- Entities
- Maladjustment
- Nothing to Hide
- Slow Amulets
- Irreversibility
- Emerging from a Trance
- Treasures
- Wild Ducks
- Tissues and Banners
- Constant Principle
- Holding Up the Sky
- Red Dalmatics
- Bewilderment
- Sacred Contours
- Giggling Flutes
- Worn-Out Straw Sandals
- Generating Worlds
If you have read Brendan Connell's previous short story collection and novels, you'll find bits and pieces of his trademarks in these stories (those who have read Brendan Connell know that he has a fascinating way of infusing his stories with elements associated with absurdism, surrealism, decadence, body horror, viciousness and whimsiness).
This short story collection has an interesting and unique structure. It is slightly similar to the structure of Metrophilias (Better Non Sequitur, 2010), but is far more complex and intricate. The stories are fragmentary and they have been divided into numbered sub-sections that consist of a few sentences or several paragraphs. Each of the sub-sections feels different from its neighbouring companions, but some of them are linked to each other and have a few themes in common.
It's possible that reading this short story collection may feel a bit strange, but when you think of what you've read and how the different pieces connect to each other, you'll notice how brilliant a work of fiction it truly is and how extraordinarily well it has been written. It offers plenty of food for thoughts and leaves you wondering about many things. If you're like me and enjoy reading books that don't fit into the neat and tidy cookie-cutter mold that most books are made of, this collection will please you very much.
I personally call this book a collection of small pieces. It's like a puzzle that awaits to be solved. Each of the pieces is different and the contents of the pieces vary a lot. The pieces are either poems, parables, lists, mini-stories or longer stories.
The bizarre, thoughtful and vividly written pieces form a unique narrative structure, because they seem to be unrelated to each other, but actually all of them are connected to each other in a complex way. Certain characters and themes appear in different stories. The author spices up the pieces with fantastical and vicious elements.
When you begin to read this collection, the different stories and their sub-sections may seem baffling and it may be difficult to fathom their meaning, but please, be patient, because this is not your normal kind of a collection. In normal collections, you'll know immediately what's going on, because many of them are easy to read, but in this collection you have to let the author guide you through different scenarios and happenings to comprehend certain things. I can guarantee that this collection is an extremely rewarding reading experience when you give it an opportunity to amaze you.
This may sound a bit odd, but in my opinion, the different pieces form a kind of a literary symphony. This collection has a beautiful rhythm that flows throughout the whole book and dramatically changes its power at various points. To find this rhythm, you need to pay attention to small details and different happenings or you'll miss it.
As the synopsis states, this book "is like a collection of bulletins from the world of dreams." This summarises its contents in one sentence, because the stories feel like glimpses into a dream world or another state of reality. The author pulls all the right strings to create an atmosphere that exudes dream-like strangeness and otherness.
It's slightly difficult to describe some of the stories to readers due to their experimental nature, but here are a few words about some of the stories, so that readers will get a taste of what's in store for them when they begin to read this collection:
"Observations" is a fantastical and well written story about the adventures of Alan Li Po, who is a singing Taoist guitar player. This story contains an interesting reference to Hank Williams.
"A Ramshackle Village" is a story about an emperor who sacrifices people. This story is a fine example of the author's ability to shock and thrill his readers with vicious happenings.
"Defilements" contains an interesting sub-section about two holy men, Madhusudan and Vishvatma. Visthvatma offers to carry a woman across water, but Madhusudan feels differently about the situation and his opinions about the woman and what will happen to Vishvatma are amusing.
"Emerging from a Trance" is one of the most memorable stories in this collection. The ending of this story is a fascinating account of a man who reincarnates as a spoon. The author's approach to reincarnation and rebirth feels fresh.
"Giggling Flutes" contains vivid imagery, because the author tells of Andy and his life in a stunning way.
"Generating Worlds" is a blood-filled story about Countess de Báthory and what kind of morbid things she does to avoid a few wrinkles. This macabre short story is a perfectly written piece of different kind of horror fiction.
Brendan Connell's prose is beautiful and excellent. There's something intriguingly poetic and lyrical about his prose and sentences that impresses me. He has an uncanny way of evoking the reader's yearning to immerse himself into the stories. In my opinion, he has a unique literary voice that beckons to be explored by readers.
There's charmingly funny and witty humour in some of the stories. I admire the author's ability to write about odd happenings with a touch of humour. Readers who have read The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (PS Publishing, 2014) and Cannibals of West Papua (Zagawa, 2015) will be delighted with the author's way of adding humour to these stories. I especially enjoyed all the hidden humorous elements, because they made me chuckle when I read the stories.
I'm not sure if other readers will agree with me on this, but I've noticed a few similarities between Brendan Connell and Rhys Hughes. When I read this collection, I was slightly reminded of certain short stories by Rhys Hughes. In my opinion, both authors share a few similarities in terms of absurd, surreal and thoughtful stories.
Some of the sentences in this collection can be used as excellent quotes. They're so thoughtful and full of meaning that many of them resemble aphorisms.
Jottings from a Far Away Place is not for readers who read books in haste and don't pay attention to details. It's a book for readers who enjoy intelligent stories and fully immerse themselves into them. Avoiding any kind of distractions is recommended when reading this book, because distractions may affect your reading experience and cause you to miss out on something precious. I personally read this collection while listening to classical baroque music.
Brendan Connell has developed quite a lot as an author and has polished his writing skills. He has been an excellent author from the start of his writing career, but now he seems to be even more capable of creating unique reading experiences than ever before. One of the reasons why I like his fiction so much is that he dares to write experimental stories and trusts that his readers are intelligent enough to think for themselves without pointing out all the obvious things.
I give this collection full five stars on the scale from one to five stars, because I was impressed by it. I sincerely hope that readers will find it, because it's different and unique in the best possible way.
Brendan Connell's Jottings from a Far Away Place may not be to everyone's liking, but if you are openminded and dare to venture outside your literary comfort zone, you'll be pleasantly surprised by it. It showcases Brendan Connell's writing at its most experimental and inventive. It's a rewarding and memorable reading experience that can be enjoyed many times. Please, let this collection seduce you and lead you into a world where anything can happen.
Highly recommended!
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Jottings from a Far Away Place eBook Brendan Connell Reviews
More than any previous collection, Jottings from a Far Away Place shows the wonderfully absurd imagination and incisive wit of Brendan Connell. Though the reader will find fragments of the body-oriented horror which left a distinctive mark upon previous collections, such as Metrophilias and Unpleasant Tales, Jottings tends far more toward the curiously exotic and whimsically playful. Connell, after all, stated in a recent interview that he would have a hard time writing anything as dark as the sublimely disturbing stories found in Unpleasant Tales; to those who found "The Maker of Fine Instruments" and "The Putrimaniac" to be marvels of contemporary dark fiction, Connell's diversion from the overtly decadent grotesqueness of his earlier works could be somewhat disappointing. However, if you've always enjoyed Connell's more humorous side--think "The Tongue" from Unpleasant Tales--Jottings shows the author further exploring certain tendencies that have always been in his work.
Besides this general turn from the often morbid character of previous collections, the structure of this new work will, perhaps, be even more disarming. Instead of writing exclusively stand-alone stories, Connell has divided the content into individually titled sections which are further divided into numbered sub-sections; these sub-sections range from single sentences to short stories. So, structurally, the book is even more singular than Metrophilias--a book which had simply taken a different geographical location to both divide and unify each of the pieces. Nevertheless, for its strangely fragmentary nature, Jottings retains a certain degree of coherence which is detectable after reading a few of these sections. From section to section, Connell sometimes lists categories of things--happy things, annoying things, etc.--and sometimes he stretches a single story over a few, non-consecutive sections to create a spontaneous though episodic movement. In this way, the reader could compare the other contents of these overlapping sections and watch certain thematic continuities emerge. I won't get into any detail on these comparisons, as this is, at least in part, up to the reader's own experience of the book.
While I can hardly elaborate on the many seeming non sequiturs and lateral one-liners which flood this book, I'll share some thoughts on the two finest longer stories I've found in here. In the section, "Showing the World," there's an excellent story about an aristocrat's castle which mysteriously duplicates its architecture across the region. Connell precisely renders the aristocrat's anxiety regarding the matter and paves the way to the majestically ridiculous "solution" to this singular problem. And though this story is highly enjoyable simply on its own terms, it also encapsulates the lengths to which certain members of elite society will go in order to ensure the authenticity and exclusivity of their possessions.
The other of these longer stories I most enjoyed--and which spans several, non-consecutive sections as I mentioned before--involves two eastern Indian holy men one being a stark and solemn ascetic, while the other is a plump, gregarious lover of life. Again, Connell's precise rendering of detail perfectly defines these characters in few words and gives a lucid understanding of the conflict between how the ascetic's practices grow increasingly austere from his envy for the renown his fellow believer has attained in spite of his pleasure-seeking nature. As this tension reaches its near-climax, Connell unfurls a very satisfying conclusion with a bit of paradoxical wisdom.
With its greater emphasis on Connell's absurdist sensibility, his often Rabelaisian wit, and an equally ethereal and infernal imagination, Jottings from a Far Away Place shows the author to be a continually evolving dreamer and thinker. The one constant in his work is, of course, an immaculate prose style capable of endearing you to the strange and defamiliarizing the ordinary. Still, I reserve my five stars for his incontestable masterpiece in miniature, Metrophilias.
So now I will end with what I found to be a few of the book's most quotable lines
"Words aren't precious, but nothing is."
"Jacques de Plomb loved to hear the sound of his own voice. So did others. A thousand pines stood and listened."
"When Bernasconi was told to hold his tongue, he took it wildly in his arms and kissed it with liberal passion."
"Relics were manufactured wholesale from the bones of dogs and pigs and sold for healthy profits."
"Fish can't be drowned, ashes can't be burnt. Completely used up, no one can use you."
Brendan Connell's Jottings from a Far Away Place made a huge impression on me. I loved it and found myself totally mesmerised by its contents.
Jottings from a Far Away Place is one of the most original short story collections I've read during the recent years, because it's boldly different from other short story collections. It's brilliantly witty entertainment to readers who dare to read something different and who are fascinated by absurd and surreal happenings. In my opinion, it's an outstanding achievement in experimental storytelling.
Brendan Connell has never disappointed me with his fiction, because he always writes good prose and surprises his readers with extraordinary tales. He examines many things through a skewed lens and his output is fascinatingly bizarre and captivating. His stories are imaginative and intriguingly twisted, and some of them can be interpreted in different ways depending on the reader. This short story collection is a marvellous example of his writing skills and endless imagination.
Jottings from a Far Away Place is an enjoyable collection of short stories that defy easy classification. In this collection, literary fiction meets speculative fiction with interesting results.
This short story collection contains the following stories
- Observations
- Habitually Dancing
- Showing the World
- Entrusting
- A Ramshackle Village
- Ghost Cave
- Gradual Activity
- Uncommon
- Defilements
- Gesture of Bowing
- Many-Coloured Eyebrows
- Entities
- Maladjustment
- Nothing to Hide
- Slow Amulets
- Irreversibility
- Emerging from a Trance
- Treasures
- Wild Ducks
- Tissues and Banners
- Constant Principle
- Holding Up the Sky
- Red Dalmatics
- Bewilderment
- Sacred Contours
- Giggling Flutes
- Worn-Out Straw Sandals
- Generating Worlds
If you have read Brendan Connell's previous short story collection and novels, you'll find bits and pieces of his trademarks in these stories (those who have read Brendan Connell know that he has a fascinating way of infusing his stories with elements associated with absurdism, surrealism, decadence, body horror, viciousness and whimsiness).
This short story collection has an interesting and unique structure. It is slightly similar to the structure of Metrophilias (Better Non Sequitur, 2010), but is far more complex and intricate. The stories are fragmentary and they have been divided into numbered sub-sections that consist of a few sentences or several paragraphs. Each of the sub-sections feels different from its neighbouring companions, but some of them are linked to each other and have a few themes in common.
It's possible that reading this short story collection may feel a bit strange, but when you think of what you've read and how the different pieces connect to each other, you'll notice how brilliant a work of fiction it truly is and how extraordinarily well it has been written. It offers plenty of food for thoughts and leaves you wondering about many things. If you're like me and enjoy reading books that don't fit into the neat and tidy cookie-cutter mold that most books are made of, this collection will please you very much.
I personally call this book a collection of small pieces. It's like a puzzle that awaits to be solved. Each of the pieces is different and the contents of the pieces vary a lot. The pieces are either poems, parables, lists, mini-stories or longer stories.
The bizarre, thoughtful and vividly written pieces form a unique narrative structure, because they seem to be unrelated to each other, but actually all of them are connected to each other in a complex way. Certain characters and themes appear in different stories. The author spices up the pieces with fantastical and vicious elements.
When you begin to read this collection, the different stories and their sub-sections may seem baffling and it may be difficult to fathom their meaning, but please, be patient, because this is not your normal kind of a collection. In normal collections, you'll know immediately what's going on, because many of them are easy to read, but in this collection you have to let the author guide you through different scenarios and happenings to comprehend certain things. I can guarantee that this collection is an extremely rewarding reading experience when you give it an opportunity to amaze you.
This may sound a bit odd, but in my opinion, the different pieces form a kind of a literary symphony. This collection has a beautiful rhythm that flows throughout the whole book and dramatically changes its power at various points. To find this rhythm, you need to pay attention to small details and different happenings or you'll miss it.
As the synopsis states, this book "is like a collection of bulletins from the world of dreams." This summarises its contents in one sentence, because the stories feel like glimpses into a dream world or another state of reality. The author pulls all the right strings to create an atmosphere that exudes dream-like strangeness and otherness.
It's slightly difficult to describe some of the stories to readers due to their experimental nature, but here are a few words about some of the stories, so that readers will get a taste of what's in store for them when they begin to read this collection
"Observations" is a fantastical and well written story about the adventures of Alan Li Po, who is a singing Taoist guitar player. This story contains an interesting reference to Hank Williams.
"A Ramshackle Village" is a story about an emperor who sacrifices people. This story is a fine example of the author's ability to shock and thrill his readers with vicious happenings.
"Defilements" contains an interesting sub-section about two holy men, Madhusudan and Vishvatma. Visthvatma offers to carry a woman across water, but Madhusudan feels differently about the situation and his opinions about the woman and what will happen to Vishvatma are amusing.
"Emerging from a Trance" is one of the most memorable stories in this collection. The ending of this story is a fascinating account of a man who reincarnates as a spoon. The author's approach to reincarnation and rebirth feels fresh.
"Giggling Flutes" contains vivid imagery, because the author tells of Andy and his life in a stunning way.
"Generating Worlds" is a blood-filled story about Countess de Báthory and what kind of morbid things she does to avoid a few wrinkles. This macabre short story is a perfectly written piece of different kind of horror fiction.
Brendan Connell's prose is beautiful and excellent. There's something intriguingly poetic and lyrical about his prose and sentences that impresses me. He has an uncanny way of evoking the reader's yearning to immerse himself into the stories. In my opinion, he has a unique literary voice that beckons to be explored by readers.
There's charmingly funny and witty humour in some of the stories. I admire the author's ability to write about odd happenings with a touch of humour. Readers who have read The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (PS Publishing, 2014) and Cannibals of West Papua (Zagawa, 2015) will be delighted with the author's way of adding humour to these stories. I especially enjoyed all the hidden humorous elements, because they made me chuckle when I read the stories.
I'm not sure if other readers will agree with me on this, but I've noticed a few similarities between Brendan Connell and Rhys Hughes. When I read this collection, I was slightly reminded of certain short stories by Rhys Hughes. In my opinion, both authors share a few similarities in terms of absurd, surreal and thoughtful stories.
Some of the sentences in this collection can be used as excellent quotes. They're so thoughtful and full of meaning that many of them resemble aphorisms.
Jottings from a Far Away Place is not for readers who read books in haste and don't pay attention to details. It's a book for readers who enjoy intelligent stories and fully immerse themselves into them. Avoiding any kind of distractions is recommended when reading this book, because distractions may affect your reading experience and cause you to miss out on something precious. I personally read this collection while listening to classical baroque music.
Brendan Connell has developed quite a lot as an author and has polished his writing skills. He has been an excellent author from the start of his writing career, but now he seems to be even more capable of creating unique reading experiences than ever before. One of the reasons why I like his fiction so much is that he dares to write experimental stories and trusts that his readers are intelligent enough to think for themselves without pointing out all the obvious things.
I give this collection full five stars on the scale from one to five stars, because I was impressed by it. I sincerely hope that readers will find it, because it's different and unique in the best possible way.
Brendan Connell's Jottings from a Far Away Place may not be to everyone's liking, but if you are openminded and dare to venture outside your literary comfort zone, you'll be pleasantly surprised by it. It showcases Brendan Connell's writing at its most experimental and inventive. It's a rewarding and memorable reading experience that can be enjoyed many times. Please, let this collection seduce you and lead you into a world where anything can happen.
Highly recommended!
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