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Newsletter
Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been Goth?
reviewed by
Encyclopedia Gothica, from Toronto writer and alternative music expert Liisa Ladouceur, is, well, an encyclopaedia. It's a cute-looking hardcover--even if the cover should have been grey instead of beige! Still, there are smudge marks on that pale brown, a decorative curlicue surrounding the title--said illustration featuring a skull and a bat--and the paper is ragged-edged. What's not to love?
Ladouceur makes a good stab at defining the indefinable G word and gives readers a clue as to how to use this book, which is crammed with names and terms that generally define the interests of this special group of darklings. Some are familiar, others not so much. For instance, under G, there's writer Neil Gaiman, followed by singer Diamanda Galás. Under the letter N, you'll find Normal, The--a paragraph about Daniel Miller and his 1978 single 'Warm Leatherette'--followed by Nose Chain, a definition and history of jewellery connecting the nose to the ear. The alphabetically-organized book of short entries has some pretty clippy writing and quite a bit of humor. Ladouceur has a sharp eye and she hasn't missed much. She especially excels at references that are her specialty--music and musicians. This is a book that defines pretty much everything you've ever wanted to know about Goth but were too mesmerized by Edward Sissorhands (who is included) to ask. For instance, What is a Perky Goth? Look under P and Ladouceur tells us: "A Goth who smiles. No, seriously." Ending the paragraph with, "Prone to bouncing."
Encyclopedia Gothica would make an unusual and terrific holiday gift for the goth gurrl or boi skulking around in your life, the suburban wanna-be goth, those who are doomed to love a goth(s), and for the goth-curious, including misguided souls who see this charming group of morbid beings as aligned with Satan. As you hand over a copy of Encyclopedia Golthica, feel free to quote poet Percy Bysshe Shelley: "Sometimes the Devil is a gentleman[woman]"
Mick Mercer is a legendary musicophile who has written extensively about alternative music, with a particular focus on his baby, goth music and the goth scene since the 1970s. He's a British dude who has now turned his biting humor to fiction with this, his first novel.
The Old Lady Who Invented Goth traces the life of outrageous outsider Hermione M. Lee, a woman born at the wrong time, always struggling against the world of dull normals, trying to find those her soul seeks, aka the darkly inclined.
Hermione is a delightful character who symbolizes the apartness felt by those of us who just don't fit into the square box or round hole. Her ideas and actions are wacky and edgy. As we travel with her through her quirky life, we meet those with whom she shares a certain camaraderie--Prince Albert and the then Lady Elizabeth, and Winston Churchill, just three of the notables. But Hermione is passionate and that means she can be both sweet and sour, an unpredictable woman clearly made for goth.
She perpetually struggles to earn a living with ideas and inventions that fly in the face of the status quo, for example: "'What about oven gloves?' she thought. 'Lurkers oven gloves, in a set of four, with a different Lurker on each.'"
Mercer hauls his readers screaming and laughing through the decades of her antics and by the time he reaches the 1970s he is solidly in an era of music, a realm wherein he is an expert, and it shows in the writing.
"A year that started with her blissfully blocking out the noise made by The Slits, supporting The Clash at the Lyceum, would have far-reaching consequences. She marvelled at the bravery of the Nips singer, with a face straight out of the Beano, because if he could get up onstage, anybody could! ...wherever you looked bands were coming out of the woodwork like termites on steroids. It reminded her of the war; that effect of freedom, the actual freeing of political prisoners. Malcontents were everywhere you turned, it was exhilarating. Just look, she would order people, at The Cure! She looked at them a lot, the impish wastrels, with their deceptively twee songs that rounded on you like an adder with toothache."
The Old Lady Who Invented Goth is a delightful and fun read, not to be taken too serious, perhaps with a glass of absinthe. Another great gift for that grim little being clothed in black that you just can't help but admire and love!