Genuinely surrealist novels are as rare as hen’s teeth. They are a different form from the magic realist, the absurdist, the wacky, the mimsical and the nastily satirical. But Brian Catling is a genuine surrealist novelist, and it no doubt helps that his artwork is surreal (he is professor of fine art at Ruskin College, Oxford: how Ruskin would have loathed him). He has previously written a trilogy of novels, The Vorrh, which has been among my highlights of the past few years. This is a more slender book, but it is slender like a stiletto. If there is one defining feature of truly surreal literature, it is that it defies the imposition of meanings while retaining an affective hold on the reader. Oh, and horrifying them.
Earwig is actually a character called Aalbert Scellinc (yes, I have tried anagrams and etymologies and came up with zip: he resists meaning too).
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