Status Updates From Drowning in Beauty: The Neo...

Dan's story was surprisingly good until I read Quentin's which was brilliant, Borgesian, until the end. It was based on an unbelievable mythology not finally made believable. Still very good and probably the best though I've yet to read the last story.

Yarrow Paisley's Arnold of Our Time is more like the thing. Yarrow juggles his balls, linguistically and allegorically, before letting them lightly drop at the end of his performance. I thought only bad writers like Mike didn't know you never have two 'ou's consecutively when an adjective is made from a noun like 'humour' but there it was in misspelt 'glamorous' and Ursula Pflug's a good writer. I blame the editor

I read the introduction to find out what neo-decadent meant, basically art for art's sake. It has two manifestos, like Wilde, and the stories don't seem to comply with them. I'd read the first before. The second is a very well written study of a shallow, disagreeable character without any see-me language. The third is of a male sensibility becoming more feminine in soft imprecise language unfitting to obsession.

I knew that I was in for a treat of a read when I read Daniel Corrick's introduction where in he speaks of and tries to define the meaning of the 'Neo-Decadent' movement. He begins by stating what the movement does not contain, content such as 'Crowlian' grave robbers. This comment alone set my mind into overdrive, is there such a genre or ouvra ? If not ? then why not ? I for one would be highly in favor of such.