Karen WilkinBesprekingen

For six decades, since his first solo exhibition in 1950, the work of the Saskatchewan painter William Perehudoff has embodied the highest standards of aesthetic seriousness and excellence. His impressive reputation extends widely and he is celebrated not only in his native Prairie region, but also across Canada, and in the United States and Great Britain. This lavishly illustrated account of Perehudoff's career and the most comprehensive overview to date of the artist's early work in conjunction with his later abstract paintings.

A fine, gorgeous book -- perfect for Gorey fans who are looking for a bit more insight into his work. No, it is not a biography, but I didn't expect that. It is a well-written guide to some of the work of one of the most brilliant and catholic minds of the 20th century. Entertaining, beautiful, brilliant.

Mostra c/o Philippe Daverio Gallery

How Gory is Gorey?

The answer of course, depends entirely on you. How gory or bloody is your imagination? What's the worst your imagination can feed you? There's your answer. You see, Edward Gorey's work; full of dangerous death-dealing villains, scheming faultlessly in full Victorian garb and their helpless victims; includes a brief summation of the unfortunate events, but his actual work does not depict the actual event. He merely pokes and somewhat prods our imagination into the right direction-- how evil and dark the event becomes in the end is, quite entirely, up to you.

Being a longtime collector of Gorey's delightfully tenebrous work, it has often been a cause of much amusement for me over the years to hear the reasons why some viewers of his work find it to be "offensive" in nature. A particular incident comes to mind, so I will share it here with you. There were many remarks made like this from various co-workers about the Gashlycrumb Tinies images from the Edward Gorey calendar I had hanging up at my old job. When asked why they found it to be "offensive" in nature, they responded they thought the subject of Death and the children to be too violent.

I would respond to their statement with questions of my own regarding their interests. Did they ever watch the News, read the Newspaper headlines, watch TV in general, movies, or use the internet? Generally, they would answer in affirmative to one (if not all) of these activities. Did they derive any sort of entertainment from these programs? Were any of them amusing or beneficial at all in some part? Yes, they answered; mostly with a vaguely confused look on their faces. I would then point out my line of reasoning, which follows thus: Somehow, it was not so clear to them that watching or reading about Death and violence on TV, the movies or the Internet was in any way similar to the matter at hand...i.e. How could one be offended by Edward Gorey's ironic and charmingly droll stories-- which do not actually show the actual Death of any of the characters-- and NOT be offended by the very real descriptions, pictures and images which daily confront them in the Newspaper, on the Internet, the TV screen or in the movies? Something to think about, eh?

Although admittedly some of the topics of Gorey's stories can seem a bit disturbing at first glance (''A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by Bears"), the more careful observer will perhaps find that they are merely "mildly unsettling", as Gorey himself put it in an interview. 'When asked if he ever thought about the effect of his work on his readers''. On page 26 of Elegant Enigmas, the author Karen Wilkin articulately goes on to describe the je ne sais quoi of the attraction, response and appreciation of Gorey-philes and his work,

"When Gorey's people venture outside, through their wrought-iron gates of their slightly creepy dwellings, they don enormous hats with veils and ankle-length fur coats...Cats and indescribable creatures behave like humans or lurk in corners. These... drawings are not simply illustrations but achieved works of art in their own right, extraordinarily various and unexpected in their imagery, and deeply evocative".

As both a friend of the late Mr. Gorey, who sadly passed away in 2000, and the author of Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey On Edward Gorey, Karen Wilkin can indeed be considered a "Gorey Expert" as the inside book flap suggests. As both friend and critic, Wilkin peels away the subtle layers of the opulent and characteristically ambiguous catalog of works by Gorey, and even offers us a rare glimpse into the mind and workings of the man himself. His influences that drove his work (Louis Feuillarde's silent films, the choreography of George Balanchine), his reading habits and the books and objects he collected in his home ""The Elephant House"":obscure English novels, complete sets of obsolete children's series, tattered issues of Punch, studies of Asian ceramics, compendiums of party games, and a volume on napkin folding" (11); to the artists he admired most (Paul Klee, Rene Magritte, Odilon Redon and Balthus).

However, even with these treasured clues as to the associations and allusions that are made known to us through Wilkin's efforts, there will always be the mysteriously unreachable precipice where all the meanings lie... Just at the edge of your imagination, where all the "mildly unsettling" take place, naturally.

This book therefore, is not to be recommended to those who are "un-initiated" or not already familiar with Gorey's work. (Start with Amphigorey) This is for those readers whose literary and artistic palate already savours and delights in the dark but brilliantly wry flair of All Things Gorey. It will deepen your appreciation for the man, his work, and his gently decadent panache.

Definitely a book to be treasured, including some previously unpublished material.

4.5 stars out of 5.½

Not the best introduction to Edward Gorey's wonderfully weird world, but an excellent work for those of us who already love him. This beautiful coffee table book contains many rare Gorey masterpieces, including the doodles he included on letters to his mother. Well worth having.

http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/2009/09/wilkin_gorey.php

I received a copy of Elegant Engimas: The Art of Edward Gorey through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, a shamefully long time ago, and was very pleasantly surprised when I received it to discover it was basically a hardcover exhibition catalog, in other words, much nicer than I was vaguely expecting.

As that may suggest, there are two significant parts to this book, an introductory essay and then a large number of reproduced images. The essay is by Karen Wilkin and is titled 'Mildly Unsettling.' I think this gives you a reasonable way of calibrating your tastes against hers: as I've said before, I find Gorey's art considerably more than mildly unsettling, so a lot of the ways Wilkin's essay was useful to me was crystallizing the ways I didn't agree with her, that is, didn't have the same reactions. But it did a very good job of pointing out some characteristics of Gorey's art that I would not have consciously identified and describing the breadth of Gorey's work and some of his influences.

Between the essay and the images, I now have a short list of Gorey works that I want to see in their entirety:

* The Raging Tide; or, The Black Doll's Imbroglio, which features 'battered stuffed toys' in 'ambiguous settings, simultaneously indoors and out,' and whose captions are things like: 'No. 18. There's no going to town in a bathtub. If you want to get back to the story, turn to 16. If you would like to tour the Villa Amnesia, turn to 23,' where of course the pages in question have nothing obvious to do with the text;

* [The Untitled Book], 'in which a fierce battle between real and invented creatures is elucidated by such captions as 'Ipsifendus' and 'Quoggenzocker,' ending with an enigmatic 'Hip, hop, hoo'; and

* The Haunted Tea-Cosy, a parody of A Christmas Carol in which 'Scrooge becomes a generic parsimonious recluse, confronted by a multilimbed insect, the Bahhum Bug, whose role is 'to diffuse the interests of didacticism.''

The plates include some unpublished images, alternate covers and studies for later drawings; drawings that Gorey did for other authors; theater designs; and really cool illustrated envelopes he sent to his mother (never before printed). Oddly, nothing from The Curious Sofa is included, though it's mentioned in the essay and presumably they would have had access (since other works also reprinted in Amphigorey are included). I can only assume that the exhibition didn't want the controversy of displaying 'pornographic' works, though they're nothing of the sort.

This would be particularly good for library collections, but those who like Gorey's work should definitely take a look.

Every Goreyphile I know is rabid about owning his work. I think this volume was beautifully assembled. While a lot of it is already in my collection, I was transfixed by the decorated envelopes that he created before sending his letters. Absolute treasure.

This book is a lovely addition to the collection of a fan of Edward Gorey. It's no replacement for his works, as the pieces within are not complete stories, but it does an excellent job sampling the bits and pieces, making you want to read more.

I enjoyed it thoroughly!

I received this book for free through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.½

If you love Edward Gorey, you'll love this book. I've been a Gorey fan since I first sat transfixed as a child by the opening credits of "Mystery" on PBS, and while I've poured over many of his little books, and his Amphigoreys, I've never had a good context in which to view his work. Karen Wilkin's insightful essay peels back the curtain and lets us see into Gorey's world. He was complex, and certainly did not want to be labeled or fit into any neat categorization people would like to put him, or his work, into. This book has really fleshed out my understanding of the man and his art. I never knew what a breadth of references he drew from, or how much I was missing. I love the background given to some of his more popular work, along with the chance to glimpse more private pieces that you normally would never get a chance to see. The hand-drawn envelopes he sent his mother when he was in school were simply marvelous. This book is terrific for anyone who wants to delve a little deeper into the mind of the man who has inspired so many. While I've been perfectly content to view his work at face value for all these years, I will certainly have a deeper appreciation for them now.

I'm only moderately familiar with Gorey's work, but this seems like a good place to begin a further exploration. I don't always understand what he's about, but I like the weird feeling he produces with his art. I think fans of Tim Burton would love this, especially those who enjoyed Burton's "Oyster Boy" book.

This an interesting overview of Gorey's work. I'm only slightly acquainted with his work, and this book definitely left me wanting to find most of his books in their entirety so I can get the complete context of his drawings. I do appreciate having this book as a jumping off point to do that.

The book is a companion to an exhibition of his work, and is a pretty solid specimen of that genre. My personal favorite section was the illustrated envelopes from letters he'd sent to his mother when he was in college, which is exactly the kind of personal item I look for to make this kind of exhibition memorable.

This is a lovely book, nice to touch and to hold. And I suppose it would work well as an introduction to Gorey, but I would never recommend it as such. (Instead, if you want a crash course, buy one of the Amphigoreys.)

This book is for those who already admire Gorey. Who will enjoy an academic and trivia-fun but mostly pointless essay and seeing Gorey's pictures removed from their context. Gorey was ultimately a storyteller and cutting out images denies him his place as one of America's preeminent masters of the comics form. But this is why I do not recommend it for neophytes --- not a reason to reject the book.

In fact, this book is worth owning just for the envelopes he illustrated before mailing home to his mother while he was away at college. Those are great.

The book is the accompaniment to a travelling exhibition of Gorey's work. Most (but not all) of the included works are shown here, but I would still love to see the show. Here's to hoping it hits the Bay Area.

One last note: great bidirectional indexing, Pomegranate Press. Very handily done.

http://thmazing.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-five.html

In her essay entitled "Edward Gorey: Mildly Unsettling," Karen Wilkin begins by writing, "If you say (the name) 'Edward Gorey' you are most likely to get one of two reactions: a blank "Who?" or an excited outpouring of enthusiasm." I fall squarely into the second category.

K introduced me to Edward Gorey during our early years back in Chicago, and his peculiar, erudite style certainly felt apropos of our unconventional courtship: equal parts art and cartoon, whimsy and pathos blended with a fine attention to detail. My inaugural foray was with his Gashlycrumb Tinies. (Check it out before that link goes away, as I'm certain it will.) I was fascinated by the detail in the little book, by the clever play on words, by the macabre nature of the whole thing, by how nonchalant Gorey dealt with the deaths of 26 consecutive children. Since then, we've engaged on a full-on love affair with the man and his work, buying everything we get our hands on, and sometimes twice over when we individually and simultaneously stumble on something that we don't already have.

When I saw this book available on Library Thing's Early Reviewers list, I quickly threw my hand up and requested a copy, and was subsequently thrilled beyond belief that of the 1318 members doing the same, I got one of the 15 copies available.

Elegant Enigmas is essentially a catalog from an exhibition that the Brandywine River Museum has organized, on display through May 15 of this year (2009). As such, I wish Pennsylvania was closer. I'd love to see it.

Wilkin's essay, the text of the catalog, is a good introduction to Gorey. There are certainly other, more well-rounded books out there that go into greater depth (a few notable offerings by Wilkin herself, e.g., The World of Edward Gorey), but she provided what was needed for a coffee table entry into the man's work. The work itself is the real treat, and Pomegranate Press spared no expense in faithfully depicting a well chosen set of prints. From classic examples ("N is for Neville who died of ennui") to one of my favorites, The West Wing, you get a good sense of the scope and breath of Gorey's work, what influenced him, and how his craft evolved. One of my favorite additions were his sketches showing drafts for a few pages with which I was already intimately familiar, showing me that he did not, as I previously assumed, simply sit down with pen to paper and see what evolved. (Not all the time, anyway.)

So, to bring this full circle, if you're scratching your head with a blank expression on your face wondering who in the world Edward Gorey is, well I'm not sure this is a book you'd be interested in. Check out one of the Amphigorey's for a good first impression. However, if you're like us and you collect everything you can get your hands on, this will be an excellent addition to your library.

Invisible Lizard's Unusual Oranges

This is an excellent overview of Gorey's art, with some real treats for Goreyphiles. The early sketches and the reproductions of his decorated envelopes are particularly awesome. Those who aren't well-versed in Gorey's books might want to hunt down copies of his Amphigories as companions to this text; otherwise, the inclusion of only a few pages from several of his books might be a little frustrating.½

This newest exhibition catalog is the best one yet. Lovely bound hardcover book full of illustrations of exhibit items. Some never seen before, such as the envelopes to Mr. Gorey's mother in Chicago--just seeing these are a treat. A must have for Gorey collectors.

Ryan Murphy, author of Down With the Ship on the inspiration for his poem, "Morandi Sequence":

"...I think that I had been looking at a lot of MORANDI’s pictures, and I think I’d read a little biography of him at about the time, and I think that I felt, in writing this, that there was something I wanted to try to say to MORANDI."

(Interview by Open Loop Press)