Growing up in Chile, only moving to England at age 11, King’s prose contains within itself the ambivalence and aloof alterity of the natural ‘outsider’, most discernible when occasionally attempting to characterise the quotidian or the mundane, as opposed to his preferred portrayal of the beleaguered obsessive, lost in a tempest of solitude, introspection and isolation-induced despair.
He often takes as inspiration the lives of figures such as Olivier Messiaen in a touching story reflecting on the transcendental quality of art (‘Quartet for the end of time’); the obscure pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus in a story about all the chance moments of history expunged in the flames of time, while others manage to resist the perpetual flux to become mythology (‘Consigned to Mythology’); and the Russian writer Nikolay Gogol who, in a fit of spiritual despair, was impelled to destroy his work (‘Burned Manuscripts’). The intellectual intent of these experimental pieces is evident; King is seeking to explore the parameters of his own psyche, his foibles and motivations through the lens of these seminal true-life figures.
Written over a period between 2011 and 2014, the stories gain in strength as they progress which is promising in and of itself. What is equally promising is that, in parallel, the initially overt influences on his work begin to fade to the periphery; evidence of a gradual but very definite formulation of his own ‘voice’.
Indeed, the first story ‘8pm in Buenos Aires’, depicting the protagonist’s wanderings around the Argentine capital having just watched Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’, resurrects several of those foremost South American influences as ghosts – Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Roberto Arlt.
King’s predilection for political theory, for philosophy and for the creative arts frequently enforce their weight upon the texts; more than once reflecting upon the importance of the literary canon and intellectual enquiry as being the most profound mode of existence. There seems to be a constant tug-of-war between rational pragmatism and irrationality, even nihilism, being waged through the stories alongside a quest for understanding and self-realisation (most successfully, I felt, in the Borgesian tale ‘The Hermit and the Despot’).
For all of his periphrastic ambition, King’s style is still, one can discern easily, of an inchoate form (as he himself concedes in the Preface, ‘several stories are clumsily written’). He occasionally seems to stumble over his own feet with jarring turns-of-phrase that sit more than a little uncomfortably; delinquent phrases tossed like stink-bombs down the otherwise elegant corridors of his prose. He can be prone to the odd clunky solecism (for instance, ‘verminous liquid’, ‘motes of dust coaxed over...’), and clichés that do disservice to the high-minded frame of the narrative (for instance, ‘drink like a fish’, ‘I slept like a log’, and particularly, a cringe-worthy sexual metaphor involving Dracula).
Such quibbles regarding a formative writing style aside however, the wealth of imaginative ideas is palpable, particularly, to my mind at least, in the pieces that King himself appears keen to disregard in the afterword. There is the joyously nonsensical absurdism of ‘Hit the North!’, in which an inhabitant of a flourishing neoliberal South of England takes a bizarre journey to the nuclear wasteland of the north, encountering Mark E. Smith who has become the immortal leader of a mutated Fall. There is also the Freudian screenplay ‘My Vinyl Fetish’ in which six characters, five of whom appear to be different manifestations of King’s personality, sit around and discuss Captain Beefheart, Van Morrison and Bach records.
Ironically, where King’s writing is at its most comfortable, assured and imagistic is the incidental piece ‘Valperaiso’ (dismissed in the afterword as an experiment in naturalism), which belies the versatility and future potential of his work.
As oblique, ambiguous, even knowingly difficult, as many of these efforts undoubtedly are, they demonstrate just the kind of absurdist and subversive literary mind that in years gone by may well have thrived but nowadays seem lamentably redundant. The challenge for King now is to iron out the occasional clumsiness, hone his voice further and embark upon something more substantial, of a longer form. It’s encouraging to believe that this strange creature of creative flight is only just learning how to stretch his wings.
Check out Saimon's blog here.
King’s predilection for political theory, for philosophy and for the creative arts frequently enforce their weight upon the texts; more than once reflecting upon the importance of the literary canon and intellectual enquiry as being the most profound mode of existence. There seems to be a constant tug-of-war between rational pragmatism and irrationality, even nihilism, being waged through the stories alongside a quest for understanding and self-realisation (most successfully, I felt, in the Borgesian tale ‘The Hermit and the Despot’).
For all of his periphrastic ambition, King’s style is still, one can discern easily, of an inchoate form (as he himself concedes in the Preface, ‘several stories are clumsily written’). He occasionally seems to stumble over his own feet with jarring turns-of-phrase that sit more than a little uncomfortably; delinquent phrases tossed like stink-bombs down the otherwise elegant corridors of his prose. He can be prone to the odd clunky solecism (for instance, ‘verminous liquid’, ‘motes of dust coaxed over...’), and clichés that do disservice to the high-minded frame of the narrative (for instance, ‘drink like a fish’, ‘I slept like a log’, and particularly, a cringe-worthy sexual metaphor involving Dracula).
Such quibbles regarding a formative writing style aside however, the wealth of imaginative ideas is palpable, particularly, to my mind at least, in the pieces that King himself appears keen to disregard in the afterword. There is the joyously nonsensical absurdism of ‘Hit the North!’, in which an inhabitant of a flourishing neoliberal South of England takes a bizarre journey to the nuclear wasteland of the north, encountering Mark E. Smith who has become the immortal leader of a mutated Fall. There is also the Freudian screenplay ‘My Vinyl Fetish’ in which six characters, five of whom appear to be different manifestations of King’s personality, sit around and discuss Captain Beefheart, Van Morrison and Bach records.
Ironically, where King’s writing is at its most comfortable, assured and imagistic is the incidental piece ‘Valperaiso’ (dismissed in the afterword as an experiment in naturalism), which belies the versatility and future potential of his work.
As oblique, ambiguous, even knowingly difficult, as many of these efforts undoubtedly are, they demonstrate just the kind of absurdist and subversive literary mind that in years gone by may well have thrived but nowadays seem lamentably redundant. The challenge for King now is to iron out the occasional clumsiness, hone his voice further and embark upon something more substantial, of a longer form. It’s encouraging to believe that this strange creature of creative flight is only just learning how to stretch his wings.
Check out Saimon's blog here.
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