The Rialto Books Review vol.006 -- Out Now
The Rialto Books Review vol.005 is now available (https://www.broadaxepublications.com/rialto-books-review/the-rialto-books-review-vol006).
The following pieces are printed in this edition —
A Remembrance of Harold Bloom from The Editor’s Desk
The League of Berries and Laurels Pt.II by Russell Block
A Poem by Tom Porter
A Letter to a Friend After a Viewing of The Thing by Daniel Bossert
Excerpts from vol.006 can be found below. Copies of the journal can be purchased online, or in store at our stockist.
A Remembrance of Harold Bloom
from The Editor’s Desk
10/21/19 With Paradise Lost and Hart Crane on my ottoman, Harold Bloom, among whose select pillars these two poets were elect, now dead, the erosion of poetry in the general consciousness makes these look sinking archipelagos.
The League of Berries and Laurels
by Russell Block
The general spirit of that day they find embodied in the sign, a symbol evident enough to bafflement, and sustained in permanence, although its purpose is to their scrutiny yet unknowable. Mystery it looks, which the seated, attentive pair attempt to reproduce. The rows pictured, amazed at, act their guide, new life afforded those secured in cease by these attempting imitation.
“What is this, this crazy thing they do with their hands?” one asks, one not looking up or elsewhere from his endeavor.
“What is this?” Their bard interlocks fingers in that old sign, letting the frame, left to him, fall to rest against the body. “Why, this was the gesture and the symbol of The League of Berries and Laurels.” The old sign, with origin ancient more than even the gray, neat hair of Ulie’s forebear, obstructs their view of the league.
“It is impossible to do,” the other says, looking over, and then Ulie reiterates the same, frustratedly. Their afternoon cordials they balance as they try.
“It could not be easier. With your thumbs and forefingers, link your hands; and these are the slight berries. Let hang downward from the wrist your other six, and these the ample laurels make.” An epiphany in the motion looks to call to form one from the many possibilities their own ten fingers confuse. Slowly, tentatively peering over, to the other’s hands, each holds a cat’s cradle save for missing string. Progress does, however, get made, the other adapting whenever a new step is discerned. So their consternation tends toward alleviation when suddenly one speaks.
“I think I got it.” Markedly the words are hazarded.
“You do, if ever anyone had.” The downs and occasional optimisms of their frustrated attempts are quelled by the assurance. No word of relief is heard from the anxious cordials, whose surfaces, once the mirror to the pair’s emotion, are now placid and grabbed at again.
A Letter to a Friend After a Viewing of The Thing
by Daniel Bossert
A—,
It seems that I was slightly over-exuberant about my immediate interpretation of The Thing. I, in my fear (and paranoia), had written over the film, and changed (slightly, but indelibly) what might have happened. I had forgotten (or not quite seen) the scene where MacReady tests his own blood with the hot needle, thus (seemingly) proving that he is not a Thing. That happens almost two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through the film, so it is VERY unlikely that my interpretation—of him being a Thing almost the whole film—is correct.
But this slightly false interpretation perhaps shows something even more important— about the film, and about me. On my end, simply that I took the bait, and ran with the ambiguity and doubt of the film to make the most DARK interpretation possible, of all the events and story that happens in the film. But that also highlights the particular power—and success—of the film itself, being as it is a ‘horror’ movie or a ‘scary’ film. There are two types of fear: fear of what is known; and fear of what is not known, and perhaps never is (or never can be). The first is still fear—being scared of a bear that is angry and is rushing towards you is very real and very terrifying. But it’s not the fear that really eats away at us, the sort of fear which burrows into us and lays eggs, which one day (every day?) hatch and refuse to afford us any rest or respite or calm. That’s the fear of doubt, of what may come at any time, and of what we don’t KNOW, exactly, what it is that is coming. The fear of The Thing, in other words. If someone were to have a particularly hopeful and optimistic interpretation of the film—that neither MacReady nor Childs is infected, that the Thing has been destroyed, once and for all—that would only go further to show the aesthetic success of the film, insofar as it draws out the most personal thing (darkness or light) from within us, with which to face up to the unknowing fear that the film instills. So while my interpretation that a perfect imitation would even forget that it’s an imitation—and that MacReady is such a perfect imitation—may not be true ABOUT the film, it is TRUE nonetheless, about me, and about the fear that the film indelibly conjured up in me.
