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How to classify "The Red Seed"? It's a historical mystery (by "historical," I mean having to deal with history - the story itself is a-historical), complete with a pulpish feel, but of a highbrow nature. The adventure lies in uncovering secret connections and bringing to light mistaken interpretations. But at its heart it is an adventure, of sorts. An academic adventure of discovery and, ultimately, horror. 5*

I never thought I'd say this, but Fisher's final essay in this volume is far too optimistic in its hope that the 2008 financial crisis might have turned our attitudes toward capital and climate change around. Not. A. Chance. I wonder if the loss of this hope was part of what drove him to suicide. It has to be more complicated than that, but I wonder if it was a contributing factor. We will never know.

The pendulum swings back and forth and Fisher argues for de-privatization in the wake of "Handsworth Songs and the English Riots". Meh.

At first, I was a bit taken aback by Fisher's assessment of Inception as a fairly banal film, but after watching him break it down and thinking about it myself, I'm convinced that he's right. The film could have been so much more . . . dreamlike, but it wasn't. It's like a "starbucks" idea of dream, more shott-em-up than oneiric and, therefore, quite disappointing when analyzed closely.

Fisher, in "The Lost Consciousness: Christopher Nolan's Inception" points out what Inception might have been. Interesting that one of Nolan's main themes is "the lies that we tell ourselves to stay happy". After just watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I am really struck by this theme and its utility as a way to critique film, literature, and art.

In any case, this is Fisher in top form.

I have The Rings of Saturn on my bookshelf, waiting to be read when my yearning to get back to England will inevitably crash into my inability to get back there. I worry that Fisher's self-avowed skepticism of Sebald's work might subconsciously cause me to put my guard up, rather than taking in the book as it is. This is the danger of reading critical essays, I suppose.

I really like how the essay "Grey Area: Chris Petit's Content" celebrates the banal in the English landscape. I love the beauty of the Cotswolds, but there is some blase beauty in the flats of East Anglia (I lived on the edge of this area when I lived in England). I am reminded of the wonderful collection Est: Collected Reports from East Anglia, and that is a thoroughly good thing.

Fully half of the essay "Nomadalgia: The Junior Boys' So This is Goodbye" had nothing to do with anything else in this section. The last third of the essay gains traction, with some great insights into Nomadalgia, nostalgia for travellers. I wish the first 2/3 of the essay equaled the last 1/3, but the beginning drags things down - and I like the album being discussed. But it's not to the point.

Call it psychogeography, hauntology, or a baedeker of the London-haunted, Laura Oldfield Ford's Savage Messiah and Fisher's review of it here has piqued my curiousity to the utmost. I love finding the liminal spaces, urban and rural and suburban. I sought these transition zones as a child. I love those places, and so does Ford.

Lucian is undergoing a transformation, almost as if he has lost a part of himself or traded a part of himself for something else. Aren't life's most bitter and sweet experiences like that, an exchange of innocence for knowledge? Every man an Adam, every woman an Eve?

It's hard not to hear these records' demandsthat we enjoy ourselves as rhin attempts to distract from a depression that they can only mask, never dissipate.

And the last chapter of the hauntology section only gets more cynical and depressing. Insightful, but man, what a friggin' downer. I can see Fisher's sad demise on the horizon from here. Gut-wrenching.

"Electricity and Ghosts: Interview with John Foxx" was excellent and intriguing. It did little to bolster Fisher's standpoint in the previous essay, nor did it directly contradict it. I still feel that the previous essay felt contrived. This is much more genuine, but it's because Fisher lets Foxx carry the microphone to speak for himself and his work with his own voice.

I admit it: halfway through "A Connoisseur of Grief," I thought "this is one of those stories that the author or editor plugged in here because it wasn't good enough to be published elsewhere. Then, things took a turn. The abrupt switch from flowing narrative to journal entries snapped the story into place. Into a very grim place. But a place that satisfied my grim sense of humor and scratched my dark itch. 5*

In "Old Sunlight from Other Times and Other Lives: John Foxx's Tiny Colour Movies," I see where Fisher appreciates Foxx's music (which is, indeed, lovely), but it feels like he (Fisher) is mapping his own idea of symbol and representation onto Foxx's music. The next piece is an interview with Foxx, so I could be wrong - maybe Fisher's interpretations match Foxx's intent. But, if so, hasn't Fisher cheated?

"Someone Else's Memories: Asher, Philip Jeck, Black to Comm, G.E.S., Position Normal, Mordant Music" is an essay that you'll want to read while actually listening to the referenced music in real-time. The music and writing are of a piece and echo each other. Besides, you'll be introduced to a bunch of interesting hauntological music, as I was.

"The Madman of Tosterglope" is a drab revelation, the uncovering of an occulted soul, the scrying of a haunting brought on by heartache and brought to light (or darkness) through further heartbreak. It is a stunning piece of not-quite-doppelganger-horror. The balance is set and, within it, an imbalance is created, setting up the final resonance that restores balance, but in a malformed sense. Five stars of remorse.

Honestly, I don't care about Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's lives either way. Meh.

It's those things lurking at the background of attention, things that we took for granted at the time, which now evoke the past most powerfully. From "The Ache of Nostalgia: The Advisory Council". So very, very true.

"Nostalgia for Modernism: The Focus Group and Belbury Poly" is an insightful analysis into the Ghost Box record label, one of my personal favorites. Of interest, among other things, is the idea that much of this music points us not toward pop culture of the past, but to hints of incidental TV music or library slideshow presentations. The sort of thing that is woven into the background weft of life. Profound stuff.

Marvick gets into territory that touches on some very personal experiences of my own, feelings I am deeply familiar with, musings that I've had myself, in "The Madman of Tosterglope". It's inspiring to me as a writer, causing me to dig deeper into my own sometimes painful experiences for inspiration. It has been a while since a work of fiction has pushed me in this way. Terrifying and refreahing.

I would very much like to know how much of this is autobiographical. Lucian's wonderfully-recounted relationship with his father, his falling in love, even his illumination of manuscripts- how much of this was copied from the pages of Machen's own life. If it is all fantasy, the convincing verisimilitude of the work speaks to how deep he had to dig as a writer to really let this work blossom. It blooms so naturally!

I find "Hauntological Blues: Little Axe" unconvincing. I think Fisher is reaching for straws in asserting that Little Axe is anything more than a (fantastic) blues outfit. It's a hollow attempt to assert meaning where there is none, of laying a hauntological template over the band's music simply because Fisher likes it. Truth be told, I like it, too. But it's not hauntological. It's the blues, plain and simple.

Forgive an author for his ever-so-slight over-reach. "The Mirror of Don Ferrante" strains just a tick to hard to be horrific, but does not stumble into ludicrous territory. The understated ending reins in earlier hints of melodrama and saves the story, keeping it disturbing, but not gratuitous. You will be wary of your reflection, going forward. Note the changes. Four stars.

"Devil's Music" is the work of a literary craftsman who has done his (horrific) homework. I love a well-researched story and here Marvick shows that he has some grasp of musicology and liturgy, as well as a touch of early modern history. Combine this with a good sense of moral repulsion for things that ought not to be, and this makes for a powerful, yet carefully restrained tale that disturbs deeply. 5 stars.

"Home is Where the Haunt is: The Shining's Hauntology" is a fabulous essay that jabs and pokes, but never fully lays out the hauntological corners of The Shining (both the novel and the film). It reaches out from around corners and taps the shoulder, then disappears. It is heard as distant moans and seen only in flashes of white. It's a fabulous essay, haunting in and of itself. Fisher in top form!

Like one long, lazy summer afternoon across the Welsh countryside. My dream. With a hint of disquiet.

. . . the kind of nostalgia that is now so pervasive may best be characterised not as a longing for the past so much as an inability to make new memories. Fredric Jameson described one of the impasses of postmodern culture as the inability 'to focus our own present, as though we have become incapable of achieving aesthetic representations of our own current experience.'

"Sleevenotes for the Caretaker's Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia" is exactly the sort of essay I was hoping for from this volume. It helps that I own two Caretaker albums. This playful essay declares in perfect terms the displacement, both in location and time, encountered when one listens to the album. This is a key hauntological essay that strikes at the heart of the matter. More of this, please!

"Pockets of Emptiness" may be one of the most effective ghost stories I have read explicitly because it ignores any attempt at scaring the reader but instead slowly scoops hope out of the reader and fills the gap with dread and a grey, drizzling depression. The writing is exquisite, carefully-crafted to draw the reader into a hazy mist of hopelessness. It powerfully robs the reader of power, pickpocketing essence. 5*

"Downcast Angel: Interview with Burial" is beautiful and poetic, not because of Fisher's writing, but because of Burial's observations about his own internal world of imagined portals and what lies beyond. Burial is simultaneously introspective and looking beyond the masks of society, but with a real sense of wonder. I feel a kinship with his outlook. Shared non-worlds.