Review/Rant — "Primeval Wood" by Richard Gavin

Just finished PRIMEVAL WOOD (Burning Effigy Press, 2009) today. Marvellous. I don't know how familiar everyone is with Richard's work in the past, but he's been known (to me at least) as writing a style a bit more Baroque than most of his peers. A bit antiquated at times. This style is one I love reading, but I've always worried it was a bit of an acquired taste. I suspect Richard may have worried about this as well as this novella represents (I think) the first sojourn into a different style, a style similar on the surface to what many people are comfortable with, yet still retaining some of the striking prose, imagery, and themes of his previous work. It's not often I get jealous of my peers while reading their work but I feel jealous reading Richard's work. If I felt his fiction hasn't been given exposure enough before, I certainly feel double about it now. There is a Machenesque sense of mysticism in the work, but unlike that of others (like me, for instance) the mystical world operating in Richard's fiction seems wholly formed and complete, even if it's only hinted at. There is a strange beauty in what he writes, in the messages he conveys, that floors me. Richard's going to explode, I think, in the coming year, and this is the first sign of it. If you haven't, I urge you to buy PRIMEVAL WOOD now.

(I should take this opportunity to launch off on a blog post about changing styles, or rather the metamorphosis of a writer over time as he refines his craft, but I don't have the energy at the moment. Perhaps soon. Too bad, as it would have fit nicely with the above.)