The Cathedral of Mist

I was suckered into buying this by the publisher’s write-up: “a collection of stories from the last of the great Francophone Belgian fantasists: distilled tales of distant journeys, buried memories and impossible architecture. Described here are the emotionally disturbed architectural plan for a palace of emptiness; the experience of snowfall in a bed in the middle of a Finnish forest; the memory chambers that fuel the marvelous futility of the endeavor to write; the beautiful woodland church, built of warm air currents and fog, scattering in storms and taking renewed shape at dusk.” Well, yes. That’s all true and, from time to time, the writing and the stories even live up to the hype. But generally, I found the collection show more disappointing—the imagination was just a little too fantastical, the writing not quite convincing enough. However, the last two pieces in the book are non-fiction essays, one on reading and one on writing. Though I found the writing a bit self-indulgent, both essays were worth the time and I enjoyed them. show less

I hate to be disappointed by this collection, but I really am. The first story is absolutely devastating, an ideal example of how to write dreamy semi-surreal fiction with huge emotional heft. The rest of this book (five more stories and two essays) have their moments but largely lean way too far into sentimentality, self-aggrandizement, and vague misogynistic tedium. A lot of comparisons to Calvino, Borges, and Proust come through and I don't wish to be unnecessarily mean, but a lot of time these writings feel like the work of those three with insight replaced by sentimentality.

- Requiem For Bread: This piece brings this book up a whole star-rating by itself. It is beautiful and emotional, but with a soft hand that never overplays show more itself. 5+/5
- An Archbishop's Flight: Nostalgia that isn't really up to anything but has some pleasant images. 2/5
- Cherepish: A story that feels pretty heavy-handed in its turn to tragedy at the end, but I appreciate the slowly developing pace and the general conceit. 3/5
- In the Horse's Eye: A particularly Borgesian story in both its interest in language and its weirdness around indigeneity. I like the way he ties the conceptual into the emotional here. 4/5
- The Palace of Emptiness: Both boring and misogynist, like the least interesting parts of the decadent movement. 1/5
- The Cathedral of Mist: Quite pretty and with some vaguely interesting thematic content, but ultimately still a bit too gauzey and nostalgic for my taste. 3/5
- Reading: Every day I am more convinced we need to stop letting writers write about reading and writing. Tedious, smug, and, outside a few moments, almost entirely lacking in insight. 1/5
- Writing: Better than reading as it feels like Willems has actual thoughts here, though I don't find them terribly interesting for the most part. 2/5 show less

Most of the stories in this collection really surprised me, almost blew me away. The third story, I think it was, did not move me the same way. When I got to the eponymous piece, I was startled by the voice of it; it was very different from the rest of the collection up to that point, and I recognized in some of the phrases (at least, as translated by Gauvin) a style that I have seen before in a place very meaningful to myself personally.

magisch realisme