The Empty Chair by Roger Keen
Photo specially taken by myself in Brighton a few days ago during an uncharacteristic sabbatical from reviewing…
PART TWO OF THIS GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEW AS CONTINUED FROM HERE: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/the-empty-chair-roger-keen/
DARKNESS VISIBLE 2021
My previous review of Roger Keen and this publisher: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/04/05/literary-stalker/
When I read this book, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…
25
“…a Synclavier to create corresponding audio trippiness.”
A sort of Morse code for this tranche of Steve’s life, his relationship with a new ambitious actress totty called Olivia, his life and career now ever on the up toward envisaged perfection, but like with his Shares and Skis during this period, with future downs built in, I guess. A ‘cocktail of bliss’. Beautifully conveyed and novelistic at the top regions of novelistic, I would objectively say. And with believable glimpses of the times and its TV programmes and the arts world and celebrity circles that sat behind such a wonderland world. Plus Lewis Carroll vis à vis macropsia and micropsia. And “…a new dimension, almost a spiritual extension, to the whole meaning of winter.” And comparing Steve’s own parents with Olivia’s. Alliances and plots.
Yet, later, Steve’s Jake maverick shrink is a “relentless experimenter”, and I wonder if Jake’s Arm Fling method described is just a ‘brainstem’ premonition for Durrell’s jerk of death? And the brush with Bowie: an inevitable immediate precursor to looking daggers at Annabel and Olivia’s brandishing of a carving knife? And an opportune typo in the text being just a concomitant of a dose of bad E: “and Steve was so exited he felt like a kid again.” (Sic) An ecstasy thwarted. An Exit preordained.
“Kylie Minogue started off in Neighbours, remember.”