by Lloyd Jones
Duxie left three photographs on the table by the window in his flat, overlooking the football field.
One shows a man in a fez, a magician, about to do a trick.
Another shows a rainbow over the sea with seven white swans flying through it.
The third photograph shows a picnic scene somewhere by a lake, and the hills in the background are covered in snow. A very beautiful young woman is looking into the camera. She has a happy, excited look on her face. The other person in the photograph is looking past the camera, into the distance, and he’s smiling.
On the door of his flat they found an orange Post-it note with seven words written on it:
Gone for a picnic with Olly – Duxie.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the following: Don Waine for providing many ideas; Penny Perrin for her inspired picnics; my editor, Penny Thomas; also Dr Christine Gilbert, Patrick McGuinness, Cary Archard, Dafydd Apolloni, Derek Mahon and Brynley Jenkins.
Many thanks also to Richard C Allen for allowing me free and unlimited use of his excellent article on the Wizards of Cwrt y Cadno, which is published in the North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Vol 1, 2 (Summer 2001) and available on http://spruce.flint.umich.edu/-ellisjs/Allen.PDF.
I have adapted passages from The Tibetan Book of the Dead for the purposes of this book. For the real thing read the The Tibetan Book of the Dead, edited by Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (1971), OUP, (extracts reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, www.oup.com) or visit: http://reluctant-messenger.com/tibetan-book-of-the-dead.htm.
Likewise, a passage in Chapter 10, written in a style similar to that of Arthur Machen, is an adaptation of a passage from The White People by Arthur Machen (copyright © Arthur Machen 1909). To view a proper version of The White People visit the website
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/whtpeople.htm
For more information on Arthur Machen visit:
http://www.machensoc.demon.co.uk/ or read Arthur Machen by Mark Valentine, Seren.
The lines quoted in Chapter 10: ‘Papery moths drift to the light, / Churr in a hand’s cave, / Then out, out.’ are from ‘Early Summer’ by Peter Scupham.
The passage from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolph Erich Raspe, is from http://www.authorama.com/adventures-of-baron-munchausen-1.html
‘People with bad consciences always fear the judgement of children’ is a quote by Mary McCarthy.
‘The Snow Party’ by Derek Mahon, from Collected Poems (1999), is reprinted by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle Country Meath, Ireland.
The following books were also consulted, and, in some cases, quoted:
The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, Vintage Classics; The Island of the Colourblind, by Oliver Sacks, Picador; The Emperor’s Last Island, by Julia Blackburn, Pantheon; A Separate Reality: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, by Carlos Castaneda, Arkana; The Life of Olaudah Equiano: Or Gustavus Vassa, the African, by Olaudah Equiano, Dover Publications; If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino, Martin Secker & Warburg, (extract reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd); Desert Encounter, by Knud Holmboe, Quilliam Press; Dancing on the Grave – Encounters with Death, by Nigel Barley, John Murray; Paradise Lost, by John Milton, Oxford University Press; Dracula, by Bram Stoker, Penguin; The Primary Colors, by Alexander Theroux, Henry Holt and Co; The Journey Through Wales, by Gerald of Wales, Penguin Classics; Best Walks in Southern Wales, by Richard Sale, Constable; Terrors and Experts, by Adam Phillips, Faber & Faber; Houdini’s Box, by Adam Phillips, Faber & Faber; On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored, by Adam Phillips, Faber & Faber; Winnicott, by Adam Phillips, Collins; Darwin’s Worms, by Adam Phillips, Faber & Faber; Monogamy, by Adam Phillips, Faber & Faber; The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse, introduced and edited by AR Davis; The Mabinogion, translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, Everyman; Celtic Heritage, by Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Thames and Hudson; The Age of Arthur, by John Morris, (extract reprinted by permission of Phoenix, Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group); The Ancestor’s Tale, by Richard Dawkins, Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Voices of the Old Sea, by Norman Lewis, Penguin; To Run Across the Sea, by Norman Lewis, Cape; Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, edited by Roger Sherman Loomis, OUP; The Legend of Merlin, by AOH Jarman, University of Wales Press; The History of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Penguin Classics; Rings of Saturn, by WG Sebald, Harvill (extract reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd); The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami, Vintage/Harvill (extracts reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc. Copyright © 1997, Haruki Murakami); In Siberia, by Colin Thubron, Penguin; The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler, (extract reprinted by permission of Penguin Books); No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith, (extract is reproduced by permission of Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd, www.birlinn.co.uk); Icemen – a history of the Arctic and its explorers, by Mick Conefrey and Tim Jordan, Boxtree; Endurance – Shackleton’s incredible voyage to the Antarctic, by Alfred Lansing, Weidenfeld and Nicolson; The Black Book of Carmarthen, trns Meirion Pennar, Llanerch Publishers; Private Myths: Dreams and Dreaming, by Anthony Stevens, Harvard University Press; The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud, Oxford Paperbacks; Flaubert’s Parrot, by Julian Barnes, Pan (extract reprinted with permission granted by PFD on behalf of Julian Barnes); A Child Called ‘It’, by Dave Pelzer, (extract reprinted by permission of Orion Non-Fiction, a division of the Orion Publishing Group); The Slow Train to Milan, by Lisa St Aubin De Teran, Penguin; The Holy Wells of Wales, by Francis Jones, University of Wales Press; Roma: Hen Wlad fy Nhad, by Dafydd Apolloni, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, Penguin; Haunted Clwyd, by Richard Holland, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch; Blinding Light, by Paul Theroux, (extract reprinted by permission of Penguin Books).
Lyrics from ‘Tainted Love’, Words & Music by Ed Cobb, © Copyright 1967 Equinox Music. Campbell Connelly & Company Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; the publisher and the author regret any omissions and will be pleased to rectify them in future editions.
About the Author
A former farm worker, nurse and journalist, Lloyd Jones lives on the North Wales coast. After nearly dying of alcoholism and undergoing spells in hospital and living rough, he quit drinking and walked completely around Wales – a journey of a thousand miles. In doing so he became the first Welshman to walk completely around his homeland, and his epic trek was the inspiration for his first novel, Mr Vogel. For Mr Cassini he changed tack, walking across Wales seven times in seven different directions.
Mr Vogel won the McKitterick Prize in 2005 and was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
Praise for Mr Vogel
“Surely one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject of Wales – or rather around the subject, because it is an astonishing mixture of fantasy, philosophy and travel, expressed through the medium of that endlessly figurative country.”
– Jan Morris
“A rambling, redemptive mystery stuffed full of all things Welsh: rain, drink, wandering, longing, a preoccupation with death and the life that causes it. A bizarre and uncategorisable and therefore essential book.” – Niall Griffiths
“The tour-guide Wales has been waiting for: warped history, throw-away erudition, sombre farce. Stop what you’re doing and listen to this mongrel monologue.” – Iain Sinclair.
“Mixing fact and fiction, Jones shoehorns elements of the detective novel, a great deal of mythology and some uncommon history into what must be one of the most dazzling books ever written about Wales.” – Independent on Sunday
Mr Vogel is available from Seren, £7.99, www.seren-books.com
Overland
Richard Collins
author of
The Land as Viewed from the Sea – shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award
Home isn’t a place on the map, it’s a state of mind.
Sometime like 1978, somewhere like Europe, Oliver and Daniel are driving towards and away from home on a roadtrip to places that never were. Two men with very different purposes and meanings to their lives travelling, for a while, in the same direction.
Richard Collins’ new novel is as vivid and atmospheric as his first, his prose both lucid and evocative. Overland is an exhilarating, comic, tender, crazy and ultimately moving account of two journeys towards love.
ISBN 1-85411-420-4 £7.99
Eleven
David Llewellyn
It’s 9am on September 11, 2001. Just another day at the office for the twentysomethings of corporate Cardiff, as they email each other their gossip, jokes, requirements for the weekend and, occasionally, work.
At the centre of the novel’s online world is ‘process accountant’ and would-be author Martin Davies. Martin is frustrated by his job, in denial over his break up with his girlfriend and baffled by the triviality of his life. And when, just after lunch, people start flying airliners into New York office blocks, Martin feels he is losing the plot....
Written entirely in email form, Eleven is required reading for anyone who has ever clicked SEND when they really should be doing something else.
ISBN 1-85411-415-8 £6.99
www.seren-books.com