Customer Reviews

Snakes and Ladders

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This book isn't for everyone, but if you're not everyone (and you could be anyone, natch) then it may fascinate. As the prior reviewer noted, this is a meditation on "magic" and art, via an exploration and "invocation" of the life of writer Arthur Machen, a quite amazing man who, amongst many prose achievments, wrote THE GREAT GOD PAN and several horror tales which influenced Lovecraft. The very idea of "imagination" is both the canvas and the brush which Moore uses to explore Machen, life, death and creativity. To those looking for another WATCHMEN, this might be an abstruse, impenetrable read, but for anyone interested in Machen and/or visionary writers (in the literal, William Blakean sense) will find much to impress. This comic is an adapation of a performance piece by Moore, which is available from RE: search records. I must confess to not fully "getting" the comic upon my hasty first read, but hearing Moore speak the words added a new level of illumination, not that buying the CD is in any way a necessity. Moore's continuing exploration of his ideas about imagination, creativity, writing and their logical extension "magic" (the comic reveals what this is) are fascinating, thought provoking and delightfully lucid.

This pamphlet is a type of sequel to THE BIRTH CAUL. It's not a sequel in the sense that it follows on the events of THE BIRTH CAUL (were there any events in THE BIRTH CAUL?). Rather, it's a sequel in that it's by the same creators, has the same length, is written and drawn in the same style, and uses the same expository tone of voice that THE BIRTH CAUL uses. Like its predecessor, this one has no actual story, but functions as a type of artistic "statement".

The earlier work had some interesting points, but I went into this one frowning and came out frowning. Something about the nature of art and how it's related to magic. According to the credits page, SNAKES AND LADDERS was originally presented live to the Society of the Golden Dawn, so parts of the book may have something to do with the philosophy of that particular, um, fellowship of believers, but I couldn't get enough out of it to figure out what's what.

It might be more interesting to people who haven't already read THE BIRTH CAUL, but I got tired of it pretty quickly. I'm not sure if Moore and Campbell intend to make a series out of these things, but if so, this is as far as I'm going. Well, maybe.