Book Review: The Vorrh by Brian Catling

Adult fantasy based on an idea of French author Raymond Roussel.  Featuring both Raymond Roussel and the photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge, the novel is set in an African town with European style architecture situated at the edge of an impenetrable forest called The Vorrh.  Features two women who both are involved (differently) with a Cyclops and two hunters who roam the forest looking for each other, one armed with a bow made from his dead lover's bones and the other with a powerful rifle.  There is also a logging operation carried out by semi-human slaves who have almost become part of the Vorrh.

An excellent book about the strangeness of life in general, with beautiful imagery of the Forest and various creatures getting lost in the Vorrh.

The Penumbra

Brief Description Haslemere to Petersfield
Date 19-Jul-15
Actual Distance km 26.70
Actual Distance miles 16.60
People 7
Hours 5.33
View map

Forests like Cathedrals rising perpendicular

To touch the mystical Sun above our heads

Its light penetrating in patches to our feet

A sprawling viridescence of fecund biogenesis.

Lunch in a time-warp with no wi-fi or mobiles

Forced our society into eloquent conversation

Remembering many long-forgotten pleasantries 

We rested our digits, of screen-prodding sick.

Woodlands traversed, hundreds of summers old

Under the penumbra of sessile oak and alder

Sunlight and golden wheat at the forest edge

Made us forget all our discourse of philosophy.

London Bridges Walk

"The 13 Bridges Walk"
11 people
15 July 2015
17km; 11m

Over the Tower Bridge with its thronging crowds

Across the London with its packs of suits

Returning by Southwark to the Tate Modern

London that night milled around our riverside bars.

Over the Millennium Bridge with gawping art lovers

Across the Blackfriars to visit the National

Returning by Waterloo to Cleopatra's Needle

Where people in a park discussed Affairs of State.

Over the Hungerford Bridge with theatre goers

Across the Westminster to the Houses of Parliament

Returning by Lambeth, doing our special walk

The crowds had thinned out, not a spy to be seen.

Over the Vauxhall Bridge with solitary couples

Across the Chelsea to the Park and Peace Pagoda

Albert and Battersea we only crossed virtually

As we hurried by St Peter's to Clapham Junction.