Rhysop’s Fables – Rhys Hughes
Gloomy Seahorse Press (2014)
RHYSOP’S FABLES
Unhelpful and irresponsible fables for the modern age
I have just purchased this book direct from the printer and intend to carry out one of my real-time reviews of it. There are 207 fables and I intend to review each one on a daily bedtime basis just as I am reviewing the same author’s flash fictions here on a daily breakfast basis. Of course, I cannot guarantee it will always be on a daily basis if normal life intervenes!
My previous real-time reviews of Rhys Hughes works are linked from HERE.
MY REVIEW WILL SOON START IN THE COMMENT STREAM BELOW:
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44 responses to “Rhysop’s Fables – Rhys Hughes”
THE TWEED JACKET
I am bemused that a tweed jacket would even be eligible for a competition as a ‘best-dressed entity’. That would entail such a tweed jacket getting dressed in another tweed-jacket? Or cross-dressing with a skirt and blouse?
I am bemused that a tweed jacket would even be eligible for a competition as a ‘best-dressed entity’. That would entail such a tweed jacket getting dressed in another tweed-jacket? Or cross-dressing with a skirt and blouse?
RECURSION
Recursion is similar to using one thing to neutralise the same thing, a phenomenon that I earlier called in this review the Ocarina Syndrome.
Recursion is similar to using one thing to neutralise the same thing, a phenomenon that I earlier called in this review the Ocarina Syndrome.
THE LIBRARIAN
A very clever fable because it made me realise that if two people are standing together on a sphere they are also standing the distance of the circumference of that sphere apart, however huge that distance is, even if it is as much as a googol miles.
Sometimes I fear that – like the author describing these fables as irresponsible and unhelpful – my review is also irresponsible and unhelpful!
A very clever fable because it made me realise that if two people are standing together on a sphere they are also standing the distance of the circumference of that sphere apart, however huge that distance is, even if it is as much as a googol miles.
Sometimes I fear that – like the author describing these fables as irresponsible and unhelpful – my review is also irresponsible and unhelpful!
TRUNKS
Hilariously corny, especially if you know what a trunk call actually is, as I do.
But I did learn a new word: sessile. Thanks.
Hilariously corny, especially if you know what a trunk call actually is, as I do.
But I did learn a new word: sessile. Thanks.
SILLY GOOSE
Have a butchers, have a gander,
The asteroid is on a lander.
Have a butchers, have a gander,
The asteroid is on a lander.
THE ROCK POOL
“There was a rock pool that fell in love with a wave.”
…is the first line of this witty fable and if one were wanting to satirise these Rhysop fables with just one line, one might well have invented that one!
“There was a rock pool that fell in love with a wave.”
…is the first line of this witty fable and if one were wanting to satirise these Rhysop fables with just one line, one might well have invented that one!
THE WINDMILL
Sessile turns up again in a mercenary fable that is a sort of Ten Commandments version of Camberwick Green.
Sessile turns up again in a mercenary fable that is a sort of Ten Commandments version of Camberwick Green.
THE ICE HARLOT
“He had made the wrong career choice when he was younger and that’s why he was an explorer instead of something else.”
A fictioneer is an explorer of sorts. I certainly made the wrong career choice in fictioneering and, judging by this fable alone and its made up word of ‘frostytute’, so did this fabulist!
“He had made the wrong career choice when he was younger and that’s why he was an explorer instead of something else.”
A fictioneer is an explorer of sorts. I certainly made the wrong career choice in fictioneering and, judging by this fable alone and its made up word of ‘frostytute’, so did this fabulist!
TWO CHIVES
You need to be a Frankie Goes To Hollywood fan to appreciate this fable.
You need to be a Frankie Goes To Hollywood fan to appreciate this fable.
THE FABLE WITH A MORAL LONGER THAN ITS TEXT
And this review is shorter than the title!
And this review is shorter than the title!
GET YOUR INSULTS RIGHT!
I can’t believe anyone would want to write this and, if they did, why!
I can’t believe anyone would want to write this and, if they did, why!
LUMP IN THE THROAT
It’s never too late to be ill.
“I’m assuming that’s what the moral is; I might be wrong.”
It’s never too late to be ill.
“I’m assuming that’s what the moral is; I might be wrong.”
rhysaurus
I love the way your reviews of each fable have become new/alternative morals for those fables!
Every fable needs at least one reader as a role moral.
METROPOLIS
Do robots really have gender? Women robots, although better drivers generally than the male robot in this fable, should still beware glass ceilings.
METROPOLIS
Do robots really have gender? Women robots, although better drivers generally than the male robot in this fable, should still beware glass ceilings.
THE TARNISHED RULE
A feeble fable, I’m afraid. The feeblest so far, possibly.
A feeble fable, I’m afraid. The feeblest so far, possibly.
LOOKING UP
Dictionaries are often red – with embarrassment at the things some people look up in them.
Dictionaries are often red – with embarrassment at the things some people look up in them.
SHORT BREAK
“I was referring to the fable. It’s the worst one so far!”
Anything with a mention of Lawrence Durrell is OK by me, even if it is a derogatory mention. Any publicity for one of my favourite authors is good publicity.
“I was referring to the fable. It’s the worst one so far!”
Anything with a mention of Lawrence Durrell is OK by me, even if it is a derogatory mention. Any publicity for one of my favourite authors is good publicity.
THE FOUNTAIN PEN
The danger of being taken literally is a danger that features in much of Rhys Hughes’ work. This is akin to his child-like insistence to get to the bottom of things that I mentioned earlier, like being asked for your address and when using your best pen from the pencil case to write the address out you do not stop at ‘the world’ or even ‘the universe’…which I suppose is getting to the top of things as well as the bottom.
The danger of being taken literally is a danger that features in much of Rhys Hughes’ work. This is akin to his child-like insistence to get to the bottom of things that I mentioned earlier, like being asked for your address and when using your best pen from the pencil case to write the address out you do not stop at ‘the world’ or even ‘the universe’…which I suppose is getting to the top of things as well as the bottom.
THE STONE DOG
Cupboard love is the only love there is.
Cupboard love is the only love there is.
APPEARANCE OF THE REALM
The witty moral happily makes up for the body of this fable, a fable that, like some other fables in this book, wildly cavorts with its characters and ideas but also sadly gives at least the appearance that the author has no unifying thread – behind those wild cavortings – of an underpinning sense at least running in his own head (even if he does have that necessary underpinning thread of sense in his head).
The witty moral happily makes up for the body of this fable, a fable that, like some other fables in this book, wildly cavorts with its characters and ideas but also sadly gives at least the appearance that the author has no unifying thread – behind those wild cavortings – of an underpinning sense at least running in his own head (even if he does have that necessary underpinning thread of sense in his head).
TOO MANY CHARACTERS
A remarkable diverse list of characters that has the perfectly minimum number of them to be classed as too many.
A remarkable diverse list of characters that has the perfectly minimum number of them to be classed as too many.
A QUICK DRINK
I’ve spent most of today sending my mind into a perpetual buzz of Rhyshughesiana by reading and reviewing his mind-blowing JOURNEYS BEYOND ADVICE collection. So this particularly feeble fable suffers even more by comparison.
I’ve spent most of today sending my mind into a perpetual buzz of Rhyshughesiana by reading and reviewing his mind-blowing JOURNEYS BEYOND ADVICE collection. So this particularly feeble fable suffers even more by comparison.
THE HASHISH PIPE
There’s a picture of this pipe just before the moral. ¶
And every other moral in the book.
There’s a picture of this pipe just before the moral. ¶
And every other moral in the book.
TWO BUDDHISTS
Never follow the moral of a fable that claims it is based on a true story.
Never follow the moral of a fable that claims it is based on a true story.
THE IMPROBABLE VELOCIPEDE
Hilarious! Could easily be my favourite fable yet.
Hilarious! Could easily be my favourite fable yet.
A TOWN NAMED DÉJÀ
I think I have read a fable about apricot jam on someone’s nose earlier in this book!
Moral: A book of separate fables may be a novel in disguise.
I think I have read a fable about apricot jam on someone’s nose earlier in this book!
Moral: A book of separate fables may be a novel in disguise.
THE SEA SERPENT AND THE ROWING BOAT
Probably the most oblique fable so far, and none the worse for that.
Probably the most oblique fable so far, and none the worse for that.
THE APPRENTICE
A fable about Alan Sugar.
A fable about Alan Sugar.
THE ITCHY PLANET
The Bill Haley jokes at the end of this planetary affair had me laughing out loud.
The Bill Haley jokes at the end of this planetary affair had me laughing out loud.
COLD TEDDY
Layers of puns within a trademark RhysHughesian child-like logical bottoming-out of a paradox…
Layers of puns within a trademark RhysHughesian child-like logical bottoming-out of a paradox…
- nullimmortalis
- THE HOT GEYSEROO
“¶ Make up your own moral for this fable.”
Literature is better when ‘deliberately vague’ than when clearly described. -
PLAYGROUND FIGHT
Here anthropomorphism of some very very small things.
Oops, I forgot I wasn’t going to use that anthro word in this review… -
THE LOST FABLE
“When the earwig asked him what the matter was, the fable said, ‘Can you take me out of this set of facile fables and put me into Aesop’s collection instead?'”
This is not a facile fable, or indeed a feeble one, and it does shed some light on the nature of Aesop and why a fable, when anthropomorphised, is male: i.e. chafing rags.
(Damn, there’s that anthro word again!) -
CLOUDCUCKOOLAND
Don’t give room in your brain for Rhys Hughes to grow there. -
VERNE YOUR KEEP
A ludicrous pickle jar of pre-Whovian Jules-Verneisms that simply makes me want to shimmy right back to the core of things. -
THE SCARED GHOST
To kill a ghost: Red Rum it. -
ABUNDANCE OF ROOTS
Nuff said? -
SEEKER AFTER WISDOM
Possibly the truest fable of them all. That every one of us is a hypocrite. -
THE EMERGENCY AARDVARK
More apricot jam on the nose – and egg on the face for the fabulist after this one, I feel! -
THE MARTIAN CORACLES
A fable about arcane one-person boats called coracles from an arcane principality called Wales leads to a wordplay on an old, equally arcane, commercial for a chocolate bar. Let’s hope most readers are arcane, too. -
MIGHT BE TRIPLE
aka Umberto’s Umbrage?
The implicatory effects of fiction … No wonder Rhys often offers his readers to appear in his work by name, so that he can get away with murder. Even with racism, which is worse. Or, at the basest level of all, ironic double coding and beyond. -
BANANA DRAMA
Never use a pun that doesn’t work. You’ll be blamed even if the pun’s not working was your intention. -
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Some of this book’s more feeble fables, like this one, seem to have a laboured build up of explanation or scene-setting so as to lead eventually to the wordplay revelation or crystallisation of the title or the moral. -
THE EARWIG’S WISH
Probably the strangest series of non-sequiturs in the history of fabulism. I enjoyed it in aftertaste more than I expected when reading it. -
THE MOTHERLODE
I’m afraid I’m as confused as this fable’s moral. -
SETTING OFF AGAIN
I didn’t understand this, but when the fox and carrot appeared, I made an earwig’s wish… -
THE CONDENSATION REPUBLIC
I had an effete dose of the vapours over this next fey fable. -
FEELING BLUE
“…and blues music is made of sadness, in the same way that skeletons are made of bones.”
If sadness and happiness are upside down to each other, which one is downside up? -
THE LUCKY BLACK CAT
A superstitious time travel story that interestingly made me wonder when Modern History starts or ends. -
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
Rhys spends a lot of his time illustratively reconciling phrases and sayings by means of fables with ‘unhelpful’ morals. This is no exception. -
THE WALNUT WHIP
Don’t marry a wife who takes your requests literally. -
IN A FLAP
The flying machine that needs to flap its wings and the glider that doesn’t.
A mating dance to imagine. -
SKELETON OF CONTENTION
“It is quite draughty being a skeleton,…”
A fable with a one word moral. -
I am now taking what I consider to be a well-earned summer break from real-time reviewing or Dreamcatching books until September.
-
TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
Many of these fables have the cheek of the devil… with spinning morals, some flat, some pointed, some downright daft. -
The Astral Doggers
Science as voyeurism. Hilarious for hilarious sake. A good implied moral, as well as the real one to which we all scrape and Bowie. -
The Weather Station
A crap moral following a crap fable. I’m not being funny. -
An Epic Realisation
I feel that these Rhys fables are not suiting me in my present frame of mind, while the Rhys flash fictions are continuing to inspire me here.
For that reason, I am now abandoning the Fables, at least for a while. Sorry. -
The Training Coach
Choo choo!
I’m back! :) -
I think my mistake earlier in this long-running review was to talk about each fable one by one. I shall now experiment with dealing with batches of fables, and I hope I shall be persuaded that the Rhysop Fables are generally as good as the rest of this author’s canon…
Goose Writing Advice, The Glove, Educated Shapes, Green Soup
“Will you come dancing with me tonight?”
Wordplay of pitching a novel, gloving the sky, squaring the circle of education and the most horrible conceit of venereal soup! Moral: A batch of fables is not as foul as one of its ingredients. Or: let a batch of discrete fables percolate together before tasting them as a gestalt. -
Undermining Authority, The Rabbit in the Bakery, The Busty Whore, The Highly Qualified Nose, All Anyone Can Ask, The Cossack, A Smashing Excuse, Chapped Lips
On the day there is a Ukraine ceasefire declared (believe it or not!) we have a playful wordplay on Ukraine as well as a real laugh-out-loud busty whore joke, mixed with daftnesses in other shorter fables in this batch that are not even worthy of being daft, but they benefit from the company they keep like an excellent Bunny joke and an aardvark again with apricot on its nose! -
The Spice Rack, The Dragonfly, Tonguewaggle Chipchop, Midnight in the Morning, The One Hundred and Tenth Fable
Fifty shades of grey, thirty tributes to Calvino, one hundred and ten trombonhomies… This batch ends with a fine coincidence worthy of my real-time reviews. Just a few minutes ago while reviewing ‘Doom it Heavenwards’, I conceived of a story being reviewed by a story with exactly the same words… and here, in a comparable context, we have: “Worried in case anyone around you thinks you are mad for talking to yourself?” By the way, if I ever wanted to write a cruel parody of a Rhys Hughes work, I would have written ‘The Spice Rack’. But Rhys does it so much better!
Acting the Goat, Vampires!, Acting the Ghost, More Vampires!, Middle of the Road
“Her first role was to play a goat that got itself stuck at the top of a cliff.”
There is an expression in England (but perhaps not in Wales) about ‘playing the giddy goat’ and Rhys Hughes as a writer often plays the giddy goat with our imaginations, as he does here. Also he has the cheek to repeat his ‘all mirrors are vampires’ conceit (see my recent review of ‘Vampiric Gramps’ here). And ending with traffic islands as holiday resorts. A fabulous melange of morals.
The Warlord, The Same Boat, The Snob, A Close Brush, Trying it On
“But the sea wasn’t sympathetic at all. In fact it was made of dismissive hands.”
To be in the same boat is like being in the same batch of fables like this batch, and indeed a sentient hot-air ballon flies between them. The last of this batch has a laugh-out-loud moment with a man’s tweed jacket and its breast pockets. An abstract painting, and a bloodshed, a trunk telescope, and a warlord with big pockets plus an air pocket (the balloon again) sentiently moving through the batch like the reader myself.
“But the sea wasn’t sympathetic at all. In fact it was made of dismissive hands.”
To be in the same boat is like being in the same batch of fables like this batch, and indeed a sentient hot-air ballon flies between them. The last of this batch has a laugh-out-loud moment with a man’s tweed jacket and its breast pockets. An abstract painting, and a bloodshed, a trunk telescope, and a warlord with big pockets plus an air pocket (the balloon again) sentiently moving through the batch like the reader myself.
Table Talk, The International Punfest, A Linear Adventure, The Midair Meeting, Throwing a Meringue, The Equator’s Mistake, The Bed’s Error, The Disappointed Mermaid
…being a list of fable titles like those lists of customers in the first fable’s restaurant, as if fables can eat each other, their morals being quips and grunts and expletives in the main with this batch, and misunderstanding of words, a whole life based on puns being puns, boomerangs boomerangs and not meringues, mermaidingues, and fable meeting fable in midair and bouncing back to the reader. You know, I am now enjoying these fables more in batches, like a pick-n-mix used to be with sweets in Woolworths?
…being a list of fable titles like those lists of customers in the first fable’s restaurant, as if fables can eat each other, their morals being quips and grunts and expletives in the main with this batch, and misunderstanding of words, a whole life based on puns being puns, boomerangs boomerangs and not meringues, mermaidingues, and fable meeting fable in midair and bouncing back to the reader. You know, I am now enjoying these fables more in batches, like a pick-n-mix used to be with sweets in Woolworths?
Rhino Cop, The Hippocratic Oath, Can’t Think of a Title, Poor Visibility, The Generous Breasts, The New Knight, The Natural Spectacle
Now we seem to come to a thin batch of thin jokes about rhinos, hippos, bears, raccoons etc. These two example quotes from them show how Rhys can sometimes take the mick out of his readers. Sometimes even genius cannot be excused.
“‘We’re stuck, aren’t we?’ said Tim gloomily. / ‘Yes, in a rubbish fable.'”
“Inventing morals for these fables is getting a bit boring now.”
Now we seem to come to a thin batch of thin jokes about rhinos, hippos, bears, raccoons etc. These two example quotes from them show how Rhys can sometimes take the mick out of his readers. Sometimes even genius cannot be excused.
“‘We’re stuck, aren’t we?’ said Tim gloomily. / ‘Yes, in a rubbish fable.'”
“Inventing morals for these fables is getting a bit boring now.”
On the Shelf, The Famous Alexander, Boulder Croquet, Antimatter Pasta, The Politico and the Polyp, King of the Liars, The Popular Garden Plant“Fancy keeping a shelf on a shelf!”
The highlight of this batch is an extreme liberal that reminds me of a Rhysian story about the inner illogic of ‘Freedom’…
I have used the word batch so far for these groups of fables, but has anyone out there got a better collective noun for fables? Add a comment, if so.
Homeopathic Curses, Poor Plato, The Sea Trails, Holding Up The River, The Allotment, The Castaway Cook, Down the Shops, The Flying Fish
“One of the principles of homeopathy is that the more something is diluted the stronger it gets!”
Another sentient hot-air balloon floats into this batch along with a floating voter and some flying fish. But basically, the author himself takes over this review when he says from within the fables “That pun doesn’t really work, does it?” as the moral of one fable and, about another fable, “This is probably the worst fable of the entire bunch.” Hmmm. A ‘bunch’ of fables? Better than ‘batch’?
One bit I did like in another fable was: “A row of humans had pushed through the soil overnight, bald scalps gleaming with fresh dew, eyes blinking slowly.” They can’t really believe that they’ve been allotted to one of these feeble fables, I guess.
“One of the principles of homeopathy is that the more something is diluted the stronger it gets!”
Another sentient hot-air balloon floats into this batch along with a floating voter and some flying fish. But basically, the author himself takes over this review when he says from within the fables “That pun doesn’t really work, does it?” as the moral of one fable and, about another fable, “This is probably the worst fable of the entire bunch.” Hmmm. A ‘bunch’ of fables? Better than ‘batch’?
One bit I did like in another fable was: “A row of humans had pushed through the soil overnight, bald scalps gleaming with fresh dew, eyes blinking slowly.” They can’t really believe that they’ve been allotted to one of these feeble fables, I guess.
The Parable of the Homeless Fable“There was a fable that didn’t belong to any known collection, […] So it was my moral duty to help.”
Well, we next come to a longer fable, one that I can announce, with some relief, is worth alone the cost of this whole book. It is a well-textured treatment, one with some truly original metafictional wit, a treatment of fables through history, comparing fables with parables, and honouring its reader as the only reader worth the honour of reading this fable. A Rhysian classic that deserves to read itself.
Incidentally, my earlier wonderment as to a collective noun for fables is serendipitously relevant to this particular work. An anthromorphology of fables? An anthrology of parables?
Duck in Disguise, The Bomb Scare, The Fruity Alcoholic Beverage, The Magical Eye
I suppose the ultimate duck in disguise might be Donald Duck, which would make this one neither a fable or a parable, but a farable. Meanwhile, this batch seems to be more substantial than some of the more run-of-the-mill, quickquippish flibettygibbets and other feeble fables that preceded it in this book. For example, the conceit of a bomb being scared is worth a chuckle. But careful does it; there just may be cyberbots’ eyes upon this review since my comments about turbans here. Someone may wish to cocktail my lights out. I’ll just get my “I’ll just get my quote and leave..” and leave…
I suppose the ultimate duck in disguise might be Donald Duck, which would make this one neither a fable or a parable, but a farable. Meanwhile, this batch seems to be more substantial than some of the more run-of-the-mill, quickquippish flibettygibbets and other feeble fables that preceded it in this book. For example, the conceit of a bomb being scared is worth a chuckle. But careful does it; there just may be cyberbots’ eyes upon this review since my comments about turbans here. Someone may wish to cocktail my lights out. I’ll just get my “I’ll just get my quote and leave..” and leave…
The Cough, The Beans, A Lot on his Platypus, An Angry Condiment, The Short Sentence
I would like to take this opportunity to recommend an excellent story entitled ‘The Coughing Coffin’ by Charles Black that I first published in a Nemonymous book in 2007. The best of the bunch here is ‘The Short Sentence’ and I imagined a short sentence fighting for its integrity within a text by Marcel Proust. What I often find off putting, however, about some Rhysian fables, is that the morals are part of the flow of the action or just pointless quips, rather than a summation of the fable. Some of them are not even punchlines. Still, we were warned at the beginning that the following fables would be ‘unhelpful and irresponsible’. But we were not warned that some of them are feeble.
I would like to take this opportunity to recommend an excellent story entitled ‘The Coughing Coffin’ by Charles Black that I first published in a Nemonymous book in 2007. The best of the bunch here is ‘The Short Sentence’ and I imagined a short sentence fighting for its integrity within a text by Marcel Proust. What I often find off putting, however, about some Rhysian fables, is that the morals are part of the flow of the action or just pointless quips, rather than a summation of the fable. Some of them are not even punchlines. Still, we were warned at the beginning that the following fables would be ‘unhelpful and irresponsible’. But we were not warned that some of them are feeble.
The Unforgiving Terrain, The Slobbery Kiss, Brassed Off, The Thirteenth Fable, Sentient Hot-Air Jellyfish Balloon
Two of this book’s recurring cartoonish leitmotifs in the previous batch and this one are sentient hot-air balloons and aardvarks with apricot jam on their noses. They wander in and out willy nilly. The best in this bunch of fables is ‘The Thirteenth Fable’ and it throws much needed light on ordinal destiny.
Two of this book’s recurring cartoonish leitmotifs in the previous batch and this one are sentient hot-air balloons and aardvarks with apricot jam on their noses. They wander in and out willy nilly. The best in this bunch of fables is ‘The Thirteenth Fable’ and it throws much needed light on ordinal destiny.
Baddie Twoshoes, Two Lettuces, Seeing a Genius, Cumquats, Sleepy Uprising, The Plumber, Cloud Disco
Two engaging fables in this batch, the one about a lettuce in a permanent vegetative state and the other a Whitehall Farce of peering at others through holes while looking for a genius, while all the time you are the genius that they are seeing. I wrote my name earlier in a rectangle provided by this book to stake my premonitory claim.
Two engaging fables in this batch, the one about a lettuce in a permanent vegetative state and the other a Whitehall Farce of peering at others through holes while looking for a genius, while all the time you are the genius that they are seeing. I wrote my name earlier in a rectangle provided by this book to stake my premonitory claim.
The Tree and the Beaver, The Seven Cs of CCCCCCCRhye, The Caveman, The Sultana, The Bathtub, When the Pot Called, Me Marzipan You Janus
Much of this book’s recursively anthropomorphic word-cartoons is now summed up by the morals in two fables from this batch…
“I really have no idea why I wrote this fable.”
“And that’s the ugly truth.”
Much of this book’s recursively anthropomorphic word-cartoons is now summed up by the morals in two fables from this batch…
“I really have no idea why I wrote this fable.”
“And that’s the ugly truth.”
Many a Slipper, A Donkey’s Head, Photo Opportunity, Forms of Transport, The Circular Barrier, A Bear Called Ted, The Game Show, Fox in Socks, Lemon Jelly Hospital
Other than the concept of the circular barrier, I couldn’t find anything to highlight in this batch. I think, after a while, the self-deprecation becomes wearing. One suspects it’s a writerly defence-mechanism rather than a witty bathos.
Other than the concept of the circular barrier, I couldn’t find anything to highlight in this batch. I think, after a while, the self-deprecation becomes wearing. One suspects it’s a writerly defence-mechanism rather than a witty bathos.
A Case of Arson, The Height of Everest, The Sandcastle, The Vegan Vegans, The Cinema Show, The Rough Estimate, Outremer, A Glass of Wine
Two fables to highlight here. ‘The Sandcastle’ is probably the most remarkable creative work you are ever likely to read, and not wholly for positive reasons! I don’t know how anyone could have the balls not only to write but also self-publish it. Beggars belief. Please spare me a bit of belief, Sir. And ‘The Cinema Show’ is a nifty fable that features the recurring aardvark with apricot jam on its nose and, so, it is fitting that this work is actually about a recurring dream!
Two fables to highlight here. ‘The Sandcastle’ is probably the most remarkable creative work you are ever likely to read, and not wholly for positive reasons! I don’t know how anyone could have the balls not only to write but also self-publish it. Beggars belief. Please spare me a bit of belief, Sir. And ‘The Cinema Show’ is a nifty fable that features the recurring aardvark with apricot jam on its nose and, so, it is fitting that this work is actually about a recurring dream!
Rhysop’s Fables, When it Lightly Rained, Reversing the Polarity, Flamingo Syndrome, The Radioactive Lord, The Ravenous Crow, Three Houses, The Camping Expedition, Categories of Love, Theaker Peculiar, Ship of Ghouls, Soup of Fools
“Ordinary Theaker? There’s no such thing! There is only the Theaker Peculiar. It’s an editor and reviewer. But it’s so rare that you’ll probably never meet one.”
The self-referential ship of fools, or ark of fables, this eponymous eponymity, with its crows, yeti, skeletons, aardvarks, sentient hot-air…I have a love-hate relationship with this now battered book that has been hanging around upon my person for months and months like a Catcher of the Wry, or the Cougher of Coffins, a jouster with jests, a work that currently completes for me the completist Rhysaurus, for good or ill. All has been forgiven, especially because of one fable in this last batch that inadvertently tickles me text… “Last night I reversed the polarity of a dreamcatcher,…”
end
“Ordinary Theaker? There’s no such thing! There is only the Theaker Peculiar. It’s an editor and reviewer. But it’s so rare that you’ll probably never meet one.”
The self-referential ship of fools, or ark of fables, this eponymous eponymity, with its crows, yeti, skeletons, aardvarks, sentient hot-air…I have a love-hate relationship with this now battered book that has been hanging around upon my person for months and months like a Catcher of the Wry, or the Cougher of Coffins, a jouster with jests, a work that currently completes for me the completist Rhysaurus, for good or ill. All has been forgiven, especially because of one fable in this last batch that inadvertently tickles me text… “Last night I reversed the polarity of a dreamcatcher,…”
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Tonight, I feel this is a very apt fable of polishing machine tools for my starting to read this book and not only because it is the first one – but also because of my having been triggered to read it by my reviewing this very morning the same author’s flash fiction fable entitled ‘The Tools’. My moral: ‘follow your synchronicity’. This fable’s alternative moral: ‘don’t be undermined by an undermind’.
A friendship between a carrot and fox. A moral about dressing for the part.
I anticipate having one of these reactions to each Rhysop’s Fable:
1. It made me think more than just superficially.
2. It made me laugh.
3. Both 1 and. 2.
0. Neither 1 or 2.
This one was 3.
I am busy this evening, so I have had my daily rhysop fable-fix just now. This is fable as incest. Think about it. By the way, I won’t be using the word ‘anthropomorphic’ in this review because from within such fables it tightens its grip as a tautology.
I was inclined to give this trite wordplay of a feeble fable about a camel a 0 rating on my gauge above, but its punchline moral was so cringingly bad, I actually found myself laughing at exactly how bad, so it gets a 2 instead.
This is a second feeble fable in a row. Unbelievably silly. Or Rhysoppy.
I bend my knees, one by one, in obeisance to this fable that made me think more than just superficially. My alternative moral: piecemeal coordination can never match simultaneous cooperation.
Just remembered that these fables are meant to be unhelpful and irresponsible. Well, this one failed on both those counts at once! Moral: a fabulist cannot control his own morals!
“…it had no belief. Yet it was amazed.”
Easy to confuse out-of-context fable extracts for things that make me think.
An unhelpful and irresponsible fable. In fact, like its moral, full of crap.
Serendipitously, the moral of this fable that I’ve just read seems to be very significant to the previous fable!
Buttocks versus some Perth Breasts.
For me, THE HIPPY BEACH is saved by the happy conceit of a grain of sand in conversation with a cloud being the vehicle of what I infer to be your anti-hippy polemics.
A fleeing from ill-treatment by a book and knife on a bike, a fable upon the theme of practicality versus theory.
My attempt at an alternative moral about a book and a knife: books that are stabbed to death become ebooks.
Culling badgers is bad, too.
Although an average cow probably weighs less than an average mammoth, the result would have been the same, I’m guessing. Unless the mammoth was a book, like the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror that, despite its thickness, could possibly have made the crossing without such negative results as the real mammoth or the average cow. Another fable altogether if the Mammoth book had been a Mammoth ebook, though.
The concept of the sun going on holiday and then being viewed by the inhabitants of its holiday destination as an unwelcome immigrant is so BIZARRE, even as polemical satire, I am speechless.
This fable had me laughing and thinking more than just superficially. It seemed to be about the riparian laws of one’s body-and-mind.
A brilliant fable, the best yet. Seriously. It seems to summarise the whole nature of life.
It is slowly dawning on me that these Rhysop’s Fables need to be taken in the spirit they were intended. Reader and Fabulist in tandem.
The most perfectly beautiful wordplay of any conceivable end-moral to any conceivable fable. Seriously, not just sweet talk!
A fable with a moral against following proverbs. But I’d say a proverb is itself a sort of moral, except it doesn’t have a fable to dress it up as a moral…
There is a certain world where these Rhysop fables take place, a place where deadpan nonsense happens as if it all makes sense to those in that world – with no fear of outlandish puns and wordtricks dispersing such inner acceptance of the deadpan world.
I fear (or hope?) that by the time I reach the 207th fable I shall be in that world, too! And what worth my reviews then?
Didn’t see any point at all. It didn’t even seem absurd or nonsensical!
As a seasoned reader of Rhys Hughes fiction, even I continue to learn more about it, gradually becoming increasingly adept at appreciating it. I just reviewed elsewhere a short fiction by him entitled ‘Stale Air’ which ends by calling itself a ‘silly story’, but it wasn’t silly at all. This skeleton fable seems silly to me, but on that evidence it probably isn’t. It’s just that I’ve still got more to learn about Rhys Hughes fiction. Even bones breathe.
Alternative moral: An addict is addicted to subtracting.
This is coincidentally the second Rhys fiction I’ve read today about a bottle. This one is dangerously close to being sexist, saved, thankfully, by me being confused as to who was studying maths, the bottle or the beer inside it? Another universal conundrum for the Rhysop’s Fables fan.
Well, some of these fables stay with you. This is one that won’t. Nothing to redeem it, I’m afraid.
It lost its deposit. Screaming Lord Sutch would have done better.
Now this is a great witty fable, and is a lesson for most of us who decide to read a book like Rhysop’s Fables. And as an added bonus I learnt what a Klein Bottle is!
This is probably my favourite fable so far, but I don’t know why! Or perhaps I do, as well as loving apricot jam. In future, the sort of failed originality that this fable’s moral entails will be called the Ocarina Syndrome. A moral, I infer, against the Avant Garde by using the Avant Garde itself. This Ocarina Syndrome also featured coincidentally in the Flash in the Pantheon work I reviewed this morning…
This fable so comprehensively out-Rhys Hughes Rhys Hughes himself that I fear for the rest of the book to rise to its level. Better jettison some of the more leaden jokes, I reckon. Seriously, another gem.
If this fable’s surprise ending (well, it surprised me) is an original take on its title, then it is a major work. But is it original?
An alliterative wordplay worth such eponymous exploitation, I’d say.
The Calendar Wars leading to this fable’s stoical finish about the finite.
I think the fabulist has got above his own Welsh station if he expects us to countenance this outrageous fable that features a philosopher and a hippopotamus.
A fable of the corvine in chess. As a child I often wondered why the castle was called a rook. I still don’t know, nor do I know what to say about this very strange work. But it has been caught in an eternal dream simply by thinking hard about it, even though that thinking actually failed to reach a conclusion.