Strollers
As a series of reflections upon my own six novellas continued from HERE, I shall now be concentrating on STROLLERS that was originally written in the early 1990s and later printed in this 2010 book…
This reflection upon STROLLERS will appear in the comment stream below…
This reflection upon STROLLERS will appear in the comment stream below…
Ah, it’s all coming back to me as I re-read this early work of mine. The narrator is called Deadlocker and he starts by telling us that he is sidekick to a dick (private detective) called Dogmucker Lean in a northern working-class place called Dormitory Town and their visit by train to the Big Smoke (London) where they have a mysterious investigation after getting some money from a bloke called Pyke. I admire the sense of place and the building of character, especially Deadlocker’s past that seems to involve things cancerously scatological, and working as food taster in a sweets factory etc. We are in queer times here. A flavour that needs to be tasted, too, as I can’t convey it to you here. A rum do.
We are also told that Dogmucker’s real Nickname is Dogfucker, for kennelish reasons in his teenage years! And although this is not said in the novella, I recall that Dogfucker Lean was my play on Dick’s name for Horselover Fat.
We learn more about Deadlocker through his own account of dreams and hang-ups, his parents from whom he has orphaned himself and Dogmucker’s beautiful full-breasted mother, and his own jobs in real or dream life, and his father turning out to be the Pyke mentioned earlier. We have not yet got much further with his trip with Dogmucker to London, but we learn more about Dormitory Town whence they come. I now really think I was a much better writer in the 1990s than much of what I attempted later and this book of Strollers and Ladies seems in hindsight the optimum DF Lewis work? Goodness me. Did I just say that?
One joke is that we learn from Deadlocker that Dogmucker has not had any girl friends, because who would want to date someone whose real nickname is Dogfucker!
Having said above that ‘Strollers’ is optimum stuff, these pages represent what seems to me, today, to be a Joycean description featuring the character called Pyke which may be an acquired taste to some readers. Deadlocker’s tale about himself and Dogmucker Lean resumes on page 46.
I am afraid the Pyke sections have become cancers themselves ironically in a book actually about cancers as well as about Deadlocker and Dogmucker. Which is doubly ironic for reasons I might eventually divulge about my life at this very moment in time. I recall this ‘Strollers’ work, in a shorter form, was originally entitled ‘Bad Bananas Caper’ and did not feature this Pyke character. At the moment I cannot find it anywhere but when I do I shall post it on-line and link to it from this page.
Meanwhile, I suggest the Strollers hard copy printed book is worth getting for its inclusion of LADIES alone. For this reason I shall now abort this review and proceed to one on WEIRDTONGUE, a work that has already produced enough controversy in itself…
It is so much better than STROLLERS!
Agra Aska: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/my-six-novellas/
Ladies: https://elizabethbowensite.wordpress.com/ladies/
Strollers (Bad Bananas Caper): https://nullimmortalis2010.wordpress.com/strollers/ (this one)
Weirdtongue (Glistenberry Romance): https://weirdtongue.wordpress.com/weirdtongue-commentary/
The Apocryfan – not yet established
Yesterfang – not yet established
Nemonymous Night (the novel): https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/nemonymous-night/