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Book Reviews: Amphigorey: Fifteen Books, Edward Gorey
I read Amphigorey over the course of a month, wondering the whole time if I was planning to write 15 individual book reviews or to treat it like a short story collection and write one. I pace my short story reading, interweaving another work, so that stories stand alone in my mind—but even then, short story collections are—well, collections; they're generally curated to function as a whole. Amphigorey is just a reprint of Gorey's early books (minus two—I wonder why?), which were published as books; while many short stories are also published individually before being collected, this collection doesn't feel curated except for the fact of early career of single author.
...so obviously I had to review this collection as individual books, and RIP my Goodreads followers because it turns out that even 1-3 sentence reviews are a lot when there's 15 of them.
I'll take a break before reading more Gorey in order to avoid burnout, and frankly I don't love the collated Amphigorey experience—the pacing of panels is lost when there's multiple per page, and texts this short need to rely on their intended pacing. Nonetheless it was wildly successful—so consistently enjoyable. Nothing was on par with making The Gashlycrumb Tinies the first Gorey I've read in full, because that piece is fantastic and now his style is more familiar and, as result, less remarkable. But, like reading Maurice Sendak in bulk, there's value in more. Gorey's style has a distinctive aesthetic, but his short works allow for both variation and reinvention—some works are strange experiments, some revisit earlier experiments, and the cumulative effort is fascinating.
As usual, my most favorites/the most remarkable are outside the cut.
Title: The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1953)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,180
Text Number: 1104
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Book about writing are generally indulgent and tedious, but this is charming. And indulgent, of course, but also self-aware, with a satirical ennui and an unexpectedly affecting melancholy. It's more substantial than most Gorey—more text, in particular—despite an abrupt ending, and perhaps this is why it succeeds: angst about every step of the creative process; angst, in a Prufrock sort of way, about life entire.
Title: The Listing Attic
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1954)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 318,305
Text Number: 1105
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Gorey succeeds by balancing humor and the macabre, like injecting dissonant darkness into pseudo-picture books, like viewing his own dark concepts with an affected disinterest. But limericks are innately crude, which skews the balance towards meanness; in too many cases, the punchline is "unexamined depiction of misogyny or child abuse," which honestly isn't funny. Some poems are great, and the potential is frequently visible. But the limerick collections are the first of Gorey's work to have given me pause.
Title: The Doubtful Guest
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1957)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,335
Text Number: 1106
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This succeeds on the strength of things that would make any other work a failure: a near-total lack of progression and a refusal to provide explanation or resolution puts the entire focus on adapting to an inexplicable houseguest, dwelling on every eccentricity and inconvenience. It's up to the reader to interpret metaphor or social critique; the text is more concerned with unconventional rhymes and a droll humor. Absurd! and delightful.
Title: The Object-Lesson
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1958)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,365
Text Number: 1107
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: If The Mysteries of Harris Burdick were an absurdist class-commentary, it might be this: small scenes within a conspicuously absent larger narrative, distinctly Gorey in sensibility, engaging and foolish and coy. I don't have a lot to say about it, but I like it—untold stories delight me, they're evocative and shimmer with potential.
Title: The Bug Book
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1959)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 20
Total Page Count: 318,385
Text Number: 1108
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This feels like Gorey intentionally playing with and against his similarities to children's picture books, with limited success. The simple art and use of color is unusual for Gorey but, frankly, uninteresting; the humor and violence is distinctive in a picture book, and it has a bizarre charm, but again it isn't that interesting.
Title: The Fatal Lozenge
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1960)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 318,420
Text Number: 1109
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Like his limericks, this is sometimes meaner than I want Gorey's humor to be. The off-color elements which are so delightful in The Gashlycrumb Tinies are less successful here because this less resembles a children's book—it's more obviously for adults, and so depictions of misogyny, etc. aren't dissonant, aren't subversive; are uncritically presented. But I love the concept of an alphabet book for adults so much—it has a native inversion of tone and expectation which is perfect for Gorey's style. He doesn't realize the full potential here, but I appreciate the attempt.
Title: The Hapless Child
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1961)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,485
Text Number: 1109
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Most Gorey is very Gorey but this is especially Gorey, with an exaggerated gothic sensibility and a speculative element looming in the background—it's morbid, playful, a distillation of his strengths. I love the cognitive dissonance of a speculative element within such a familiar tragic narrative and the art is particularly strong, with dense, dark crosshatching and clever background details.
Title: The Curious Sofa
Author: Edward Gorey writing as Ogdred Weary
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1961)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,550
Text Number: 1110
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: My review notes read "wtf Gorey (reprise)," as if playful excess and experimentation were at all unusual for him—but the adult content does make this feel different. It's parodical, queer, and coyly offstage, a smorgasbord of innuendo. But the ending! the injection of the macabre is, again, entirely in Gorey's wheelhouse, but it's wildly, flawlessly disorientating in context.
Title: The Willowdale Handcar
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,615
Text Number: 1111
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This is the perfect counterpoint to the unfinished stories of The Object-Lesson: throwaway snippets from within a larger mystery narrative that the PoV characters only tangentially involved in. Where The Object-Lesson is all about the delight of stories in potentia, this is a less satisfying exploration of the story fragmented and denied. And not unsatisfying in a bad way—it's an interesting and arguably more complicated effort which speaks to narrative construction and tropes like the Zeppo.
Title: The Insect God
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,645
Text Number: 1112
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This feels like a cousin to The Hapless Child: an equal excess of tragedy, this time spread around to bystanders, with a speculative element looming in the background—growing oversized and oppressive until it reaches a sudden, unsupportable climax. It's almost repetitive within Gorey's body of work and that ending is borderline frustrating, but these are "flaws" which operate as strengths: Gorey distilled, exaggerated, delightful.
Title: The West Wing
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,675
Text Number: 1113
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: The wordless panels allow the art (especially the detailed crosshatching) to speak for itself, and invite the reader to caption each one, to linger, to consider, to search every apparently-innocuous empty room for signs of strangeness—a sense of wonder which the well-placed obvious oddities keep alive. It's perfectly balanced and affects a subdued, haunted atmosphere (still with Gorey's persistent playfulness). I love that Gorey's short books allow the freedom—and are the just the right length—for this sort of experimentation in form.
Title: The Wuggly Ump
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,705
Text Number: 1114
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: A subversively dark "children's" book is obvious and easy but I still love it—and where The Bug Book flounders, this succeeds. The colors and simpler art ape children's books; panels alternate between a saccharine singsong and a creeping threat, and the places where the elements overlap—the children playing, like Merricat Blackwood, at charms for safekeeping—are particularly strong.
Title: The Sinking Spell
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1964)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,735
Text Number: 1115
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: The way this offscreens the sinking figure is embarrassed, dehumanizing, not just preserving but also denying the mystery of the thing—it's an unexpected and effective approach that fosters a quiet, secret wonder.
Title: The Remembered Visit
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1965)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,800
Text Number: 1116
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Unusually for Gorey, this is more wistful and nostalgic than it is playful and macabre, although it maintains the social criticism of a certain society—or here, a certain sort of life—that runs throughout his work. It's likable and gently introspective, but not as memorable as I expect from Gorey.
...so obviously I had to review this collection as individual books, and RIP my Goodreads followers because it turns out that even 1-3 sentence reviews are a lot when there's 15 of them.
I'll take a break before reading more Gorey in order to avoid burnout, and frankly I don't love the collated Amphigorey experience—the pacing of panels is lost when there's multiple per page, and texts this short need to rely on their intended pacing. Nonetheless it was wildly successful—so consistently enjoyable. Nothing was on par with making The Gashlycrumb Tinies the first Gorey I've read in full, because that piece is fantastic and now his style is more familiar and, as result, less remarkable. But, like reading Maurice Sendak in bulk, there's value in more. Gorey's style has a distinctive aesthetic, but his short works allow for both variation and reinvention—some works are strange experiments, some revisit earlier experiments, and the cumulative effort is fascinating.
As usual, my most favorites/the most remarkable are outside the cut.
Title: The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1953)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,180
Text Number: 1104
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Book about writing are generally indulgent and tedious, but this is charming. And indulgent, of course, but also self-aware, with a satirical ennui and an unexpectedly affecting melancholy. It's more substantial than most Gorey—more text, in particular—despite an abrupt ending, and perhaps this is why it succeeds: angst about every step of the creative process; angst, in a Prufrock sort of way, about life entire.
Title: The Listing Attic
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1954)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 318,305
Text Number: 1105
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Gorey succeeds by balancing humor and the macabre, like injecting dissonant darkness into pseudo-picture books, like viewing his own dark concepts with an affected disinterest. But limericks are innately crude, which skews the balance towards meanness; in too many cases, the punchline is "unexamined depiction of misogyny or child abuse," which honestly isn't funny. Some poems are great, and the potential is frequently visible. But the limerick collections are the first of Gorey's work to have given me pause.
Title: The Doubtful Guest
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1957)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,335
Text Number: 1106
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This succeeds on the strength of things that would make any other work a failure: a near-total lack of progression and a refusal to provide explanation or resolution puts the entire focus on adapting to an inexplicable houseguest, dwelling on every eccentricity and inconvenience. It's up to the reader to interpret metaphor or social critique; the text is more concerned with unconventional rhymes and a droll humor. Absurd! and delightful.
Title: The Object-Lesson
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1958)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,365
Text Number: 1107
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: If The Mysteries of Harris Burdick were an absurdist class-commentary, it might be this: small scenes within a conspicuously absent larger narrative, distinctly Gorey in sensibility, engaging and foolish and coy. I don't have a lot to say about it, but I like it—untold stories delight me, they're evocative and shimmer with potential.
Title: The Bug Book
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1959)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 20
Total Page Count: 318,385
Text Number: 1108
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This feels like Gorey intentionally playing with and against his similarities to children's picture books, with limited success. The simple art and use of color is unusual for Gorey but, frankly, uninteresting; the humor and violence is distinctive in a picture book, and it has a bizarre charm, but again it isn't that interesting.
Title: The Fatal Lozenge
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1960)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 318,420
Text Number: 1109
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Like his limericks, this is sometimes meaner than I want Gorey's humor to be. The off-color elements which are so delightful in The Gashlycrumb Tinies are less successful here because this less resembles a children's book—it's more obviously for adults, and so depictions of misogyny, etc. aren't dissonant, aren't subversive; are uncritically presented. But I love the concept of an alphabet book for adults so much—it has a native inversion of tone and expectation which is perfect for Gorey's style. He doesn't realize the full potential here, but I appreciate the attempt.
Title: The Hapless Child
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1961)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,485
Text Number: 1109
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Most Gorey is very Gorey but this is especially Gorey, with an exaggerated gothic sensibility and a speculative element looming in the background—it's morbid, playful, a distillation of his strengths. I love the cognitive dissonance of a speculative element within such a familiar tragic narrative and the art is particularly strong, with dense, dark crosshatching and clever background details.
Title: The Curious Sofa
Author: Edward Gorey writing as Ogdred Weary
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1961)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,550
Text Number: 1110
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: My review notes read "wtf Gorey (reprise)," as if playful excess and experimentation were at all unusual for him—but the adult content does make this feel different. It's parodical, queer, and coyly offstage, a smorgasbord of innuendo. But the ending! the injection of the macabre is, again, entirely in Gorey's wheelhouse, but it's wildly, flawlessly disorientating in context.
Title: The Willowdale Handcar
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,615
Text Number: 1111
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This is the perfect counterpoint to the unfinished stories of The Object-Lesson: throwaway snippets from within a larger mystery narrative that the PoV characters only tangentially involved in. Where The Object-Lesson is all about the delight of stories in potentia, this is a less satisfying exploration of the story fragmented and denied. And not unsatisfying in a bad way—it's an interesting and arguably more complicated effort which speaks to narrative construction and tropes like the Zeppo.
Title: The Insect God
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,645
Text Number: 1112
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: This feels like a cousin to The Hapless Child: an equal excess of tragedy, this time spread around to bystanders, with a speculative element looming in the background—growing oversized and oppressive until it reaches a sudden, unsupportable climax. It's almost repetitive within Gorey's body of work and that ending is borderline frustrating, but these are "flaws" which operate as strengths: Gorey distilled, exaggerated, delightful.
Title: The West Wing
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,675
Text Number: 1113
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: The wordless panels allow the art (especially the detailed crosshatching) to speak for itself, and invite the reader to caption each one, to linger, to consider, to search every apparently-innocuous empty room for signs of strangeness—a sense of wonder which the well-placed obvious oddities keep alive. It's perfectly balanced and affects a subdued, haunted atmosphere (still with Gorey's persistent playfulness). I love that Gorey's short books allow the freedom—and are the just the right length—for this sort of experimentation in form.
Title: The Wuggly Ump
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1963)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,705
Text Number: 1114
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: A subversively dark "children's" book is obvious and easy but I still love it—and where The Bug Book flounders, this succeeds. The colors and simpler art ape children's books; panels alternate between a saccharine singsong and a creeping threat, and the places where the elements overlap—the children playing, like Merricat Blackwood, at charms for safekeeping—are particularly strong.
Title: The Sinking Spell
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1964)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 318,735
Text Number: 1115
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: The way this offscreens the sinking figure is embarrassed, dehumanizing, not just preserving but also denying the mystery of the thing—it's an unexpected and effective approach that fosters a quiet, secret wonder.
Title: The Remembered Visit
Author: Edward Gorey
Published: Berkley Publishing Group, 1980 (1965)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 318,800
Text Number: 1116
Read Because: reading the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library (in Amphigorey: Fifteen Books)
Review: Unusually for Gorey, this is more wistful and nostalgic than it is playful and macabre, although it maintains the social criticism of a certain society—or here, a certain sort of life—that runs throughout his work. It's likable and gently introspective, but not as memorable as I expect from Gorey.