Echo

by Steven Cline

A Surrealist Fairy Tale by Steven Cline. Twin sisters Echo and Echo just want the story to go their way. They wander through the pages looking for ways they can interfere and twist the narrative to their will, and are most pleased when the characters meet with disaster. However, there is someone who interferes with their plans. He is the Vibrating Albatross. If they want everything to go their way, the Echoes will have to do something about that nuisance of a bird… Includes 12 full page collage pieces.

48 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 2015

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The literary equivalent of a bag of Sour Patch Kids™.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the kaleidoscopic invention, with all the non-sequiturs and laugh-out-loud moments. Ok, I probably have a weakness for this kind of surreal humor.

The townsfolk would then pull out a bed of convulsing mosses for them to sleep on until the last bird of summer laid its last violet egg. The girls always giggled at this behavior and gluttonously consumed the moss between meals. (Everyone knows that a spoonful of moss cures most ailments, including gingivitis.)

And this just keeps coming. The collages are mighty fine as well, in that vintage style.

[Nathanimal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a fair amount of surrealist material over the last year or so. Here’s something I’ve learned. You don’t read the product of surrealist activity as you do other literature. What you get out of it greatly depends on how game you are at the moment you read it. It’s up to you to negotiate the Tarot being slapped down in front of you. This is your inkblot. And if it doesn’t do anything for you at that moment, fine. It doesn’t necessarily mean you're a hopeless bourgeois and should go drown yourself in a Starbucks flat white. Some dreams are provocative and esoterically profound; some are mental indigestion.

I’m tremendously game for the mischievous mating of surrealism and fairy tales—it’s a match made in heaven (or whatever empyrean realm surrealists believe in). Is it maybe a point of surrealist games—or at least a hidden benefit?—that they give a structure to the chaos of ‘pure psychic automatism’? Games being made of rules, rules being a source of order? Fairy tales, too, are very order-y. At times they seem to have the logic of songs rather than of stories, with their three-patterns and repetitions, their symmetries and stark ironies. There is a massive irony in this tiny book, between the blocky structure of fairy tales and the goo of surrealism. (Cline likes goo.) Child-adult power struggle, competition between opposites and other fairy tale motifs, are recognizable among the giant splash of imagery, giving order to the disordered senses and pleasure to reader. Me. I’m the reader.

This is also a gorgeous book. The cut-ups and beautiful print block on creamy pages—it’s a delight to just hold in your hands.

[Patrik Sampler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Cline's Echo is a lovely book, both as literature and as an artifact. Its apparently stream-of-conscious narrative is complimented throughout with the author's own collage compositions. As writing, it is impactful -- not only by way of its original wordplay and bizarre imagery, but also on a moral/emotional level. One character's indifference to a lover's death is as strong an indictment of human infidelity as Imamura's Ballad of Narayama. Echo is a thoroughly enjoyable read despite a few spots in which the book's voice falters: occasionally a cliche sneaks in, creating distraction -- "razor sharp teeth" (if I remember correctly) comes to mind. Overall, however, Echo is a book with strong style, and a good example of neo-surrealism.