“Yours is a holy calling,” he told her.
“Or a useless one.”
“Perhaps,” he said, ever the optimist. “Perhaps.” Then he embraced her again and departed. It was, the archivist suddenly realized, the last human contact she was likely to ever have.”
It is hard to argue that a collection made up of stories written for a whole bunch of different sources has a single mission statement. That said Evenson was in a flow it seems with themes he wanted to explore the collection with the subtle title The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell. I could be wrong but there are clear themes and ideas that were near the surface in many of the stories.
The dark surreal underbelly of high literature is kind of the space that Evenson writes in. Weird, bizarro, horror, Science Fiction, cosmic, surrealist all labels that fit stories here and there in the various collections he has released. The first author that lived in that space for me was Clive Barker, while he went on to commercial success, the first couple of years Barker was the undisputed champion of the horror short story. Over the years Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas Liggotti, Laird Barron, and few others danced the line between beautiful prose and the absolute darkness of weird and scary fiction. There might be better storytellers but in all the reading I have done over the years no one has kicked my ass with beautiful darkness as Evenson has. This should come as no shocker as I have reviewed Brian’s work half a dozen times and interviewed almost as many.
To me at this moment Brian Evenson is hands down the best horror fiction short story author. Hyperbole, sure.
The above passage says much about the themes throughout this book. If a theme runs through this dark and surreal book it is the fear and isolation of environmental and societal collapse. The characters are nameless, just descriptions like Nameless Citizen or Archivist. They are reluctant explorers in a frontier of world-ending banality. The end times and a wrecked world filled with mutated post-humans are every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds, the hell of our creation is the frontier lands these Evenson stories explore.
The reader knows the reality and the state of the planet in one of the later stories The Extrication Evenson talks directly to his reader…
“Have I been clear enough? The world is dying, is in fact already well on its way to being dead. Were it not, you never would never have wandered in here. You would never have occasion to think, what is this? An unoccupied bunker in which to shelter myself? What luck! And then have fallen into my trap. You instead would have a job in a small town as an accountant, say, or a data specialist.”
You as a reader may actually be a person with a standard job, and simple life but when you peer into these worlds and Evenson’s vision in a crafty way you have fallen into a trap. You can’t think straight forward, you have to open up your mind. He is willing to write a story that is just weird like the opener Leg. A story idea that sounds silly, about a captain of a ship whose prosthetic leg is an evil monster…
The rules don’t apply. Take the Devil’s Hand a story based on the trope of a deal with the devil story but done so strangely. A bet over a thumb. When a character points out that he has two thumbs and winning won’t mean much.
“Then I suppose you will have three thumbs. I’ll attach the third wherever you’d like.”
How humans are casually transformed in Evenson's works. Keep in mind he is the dude who wrote a noir mystery novel about an undercover agent in a mutilation cult. Probably my favorite example in this book is when the mutating people and the surreal locations melded.
“And then he would tell me a story about a city that had come from another world, a city that was, in ways he either could not explain or which I could not understand, sentient. The beings in this city had once been like us.”
Evenson is never been a writer who describes deeply. There will never be detailed world-building or chapters that describe the weather or pages about how a tree looked. The loose world-building and phantom places exist mostly in a foggy shadowy place that just gets hints of the dust or rotten unbreathable air.
A great example is the Train car in the story Grauer in the Snow.
Described as “Just a place,” and another character says “It is or isn’t.”
Characters Amorphis enough to be human, maybe or probably wrestle with the grandest and most heavy themes of who or what deserves to live. The story Leg has a main character who is the captain of a ship. Boat? Spaceship? Not sure but it didn’t hurt the effect for me. Clouds of doom in Curator push nasty air and rain acid but the exact who or why doesn’t really matter.
“Nameless Citizen!” The voice called. Surely you don’t want our species to die out?”
But I did. Why ever not? We had destroyed almost everything along with ourselves. It would be better for what little remained if we did die out.
Or they, I should say, since even though I was one of them, I could hardly be said to be so now. The disaster had changed me. I had become a different creature altogether.”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said “I might be nameless, but I am not a citizen. Not of your community.”
Nameless Person is a powerful point for me here. Because despite if it was Evenson’s intention it made this character all of us. I mean honestly if the world ends up becoming this ecological nightmare we all are responsible. Nameless Person could be me, you, or anyone else who reads the story. We all could end up asking ourselves if it is worth it to live another day.
That question hangs over this collection like the death cloud in the story Curator. It is the stories Nameless Citizen and To Breathe the Air that most capture the themes.
“You,” said the other. Have no such constraints. You live outside, not underground. The air cannot hurt you. Truly, you are a wonderous being.”
Nameless Person will not help them. It is a dark and sad point but, in a collection, names The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell I was not expecting unicorns and rainbows. If you met Brian he is a teacher and a father, a delightfully pleasant fellow. You might think from reading this collection that he is an angry eco-goth and I love that about this book.
My favorite stories in the collection include Leg, Curator, Breathe the Air, Justle, Nameless Citizen, Elo Havel, and Daylight come. Leg is a strange and impressive for the power it has despite the ridiculous concept. Curator is a dark tale that sets a grim stage while addressing themes. To Breathe the Air might have been my favorite mood in the collection, it is one I wish was a novel. Justle has vivid powerful world-building with the most powerful ending in the collection. Nameless Citizen is filled with powerful moments but for me, the way it speaks to the reader is the power. Elo Havel is the best of the transformed person tales and Daylight Come is a short, weird tale that drips with a vibe.
You should pre-order this collection, but if there are many Evenson collections to read. Songs for the Unraveling of the World and A Collapse of Horses are collections up there as essential like the Books of Blood. Any Corpse might be one of my all-time favorites and now I have to add Breathe the Air.
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