Jean Lorrain's Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker was published by Snuggly Books in February 2016.
Information about Jean Lorrain:
Jean Lorrain (1855-1906) was the pseudonym of Paul Alexandre Martin Duval. He was one of the leading figures of the Decadent Movement and the author of numerous novels, volumes of poetry and short stories. At one point he was probably the highest paid journalist in France. Though mostly remembered today for his famous duel with Marcel Proust, he might be seen as the true chronicler of the fin-de-siècle.
Information about Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker:
None of Jean Lorrain's biographers has contrived to discover exactly when or why he began taking ether, or how much of it he took before realising (too late) that it was an extremely bad idea. The drug certainly helped provide the feverish, nightmarish atmosphere of these wonderfully decadent and sophisticated tales, and many of the apparitions with which they are populated.
Brian Stableford's superb translations represent the first appearance in English of Jean Lorrain’s ether-inspired ‘nightmares’, originally collected as “Sensations et souvenirs” in 1895. The later tales also translated here for the first time are in the tradition of the contes cruel, and in them the influence of ether-drinking is still very much apparent.
In his authoritative Introduction Brian Stableford presents Lorrain as one of the select band of literary figures “whose life and art were bound together into the most seamless whole. He was the man who embodied, more intimately and more inescapably than any other, the absurdities, affectations, paradoxes and perversities of the Decadent style and the Decadent world-view.”
A REVIEW OF JEAN LORRAIN'S NIGHTMARES OF AN ETHER-DRINKER
Because I recently read Jean Lorrain's Monsieur de Phocas (Tartarus Press, 2015) and was captivated by its decadent and dark atmosphere, I was eager to read Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker. I'm glad that I had an opportunity to read it, because it's an excellent shorty story collection.
Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker was a very pleasant and rewarding reading experience for me, because it was everything I expected it to be. It was a fascinatingly decadent, dark, hallucinatory, strange and captivating short story collection filled with beautiful and nuanced prose.
Jean Lorrain's Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker is a treasure trove of decadence and literary strange fiction to readers who want to read something out of the ordinary and are fascinated by decadence. It's great that Snuggly Books has re-published this difficult-to-find short story collection, because it has been out-of-print for a while now (it was previously published in English by Tartarus Press in 2002).
Because Jean Lorrain may be an unknown author to many readers, I think it's good to say a few words about him and his fiction. He was one of the leading figures of the Decadent Movement and a chronicler of the fin de siècle. Many of his works feature decadence and depravity in various ways.
Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker contains the following stories, which have been divided into five sections:
The Early Stories:
- The Egregore
- Funeral Oration
- The Locked Room
- Magic Lantern
- The Glass of Blood
- Beyond
- Glaucous Eyes
Sensations:
- One of Them
- An Undesirable Residence
- A Troubled Night
- A Posthumous Protest
- An Uncanny Crime
- The Holes in the Mask
- The Visionary
- The Possessed
- The Double
Souvenirs:
- The Toad
- Night-Watch
- The Spirit of the Ruins
Récits:
- Dolmance
- One January Night
- The Spectral Hand
- Prey to Darkness
Contes:
- The Princess of the Red Lilies
- The Princess at the Sabbat
- Narkiss
- The Princess aux Miroirs
The literary values of these stories are eternal, because they're beautifully written, grotesque, disturbing and wonderfully atmospheric stories that echo the way of life in the late 19th century France.
The contents of these stories range from literary fiction to literary strange fiction and from horror themed stories to fairy tales. Although I mentioned the word horror, I must emphasise that some of the stories are not your usual kind of horror stories, because the horror rises from a different source than normally. They're literary horror stories with an emphasis on atmosphere and strangeness. Some of the stories have intriguing gothic elements.
These stories explore French decadence in an atmospheric and memorable way. They highlight almost everything that decadence stands for, because Jean Lorrain doesn't shy away from decadent and depraved elements. The author paints a vivid and memorable picture of decadence and decadent way of life, because his stories are filled with unforgettable imagery ranging all the way from homosexual dandies and haunted houses to masked balls and etheromaniacs. Some of his descriptions are truly memorable and feature lush prose that shimmers with depravity, passion, eroticism and lust.
Here are my thoughts about some of the stories:
"The Egregore" is a fascinating account of a man who is affected by an Egregore. The story is wonderfully told by a man who watches the performance of a brother and a sister and tells his companion about the brother and how he is under the Egregore's influence.
In my opinion, "Funeral Oration" is a fascinatingly Poe-esque story. The author evokes vibrant images related to death and funerals with his stunning prose. He tells the story of a man who uses ether excessively and dies from its use.
"The Locked Room" has a charming feel of a classic ghost story. It is slightly reminiscent of the stories written by M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe, but also differs from them. In this story, a man hears voices and music coming from the next room and is intrigued by them.
"The Glass of Blood" is a tale with lesbian and vampiric elements. It combines vampirism and different kind of sexuality in an interesting and slightly unusual way.
"One of Them" has a deep homosexual feel and undercurrent to it. The author's descriptions of the protagonist's feelings and lust are stunningly atmospheric and memorable.
"A Troubled Night" is an excellent account of a stormy night spent in a country-house. This story is so fascinatingly gothic that you can't help but be impressed by it. It has a certain Poe-esque feel to it.
"The Possessed" is a story about a man who has been addicted to ether. The man fears that is he'll become prey to a frightening obsession if he spends the winter where he is now. This is an excellent and well written story, because the author explores the man's fears in a gripping way.
"The Spirit of the Ruins" is an interesting and well written tale about a spirit of an old woman. It's one of the best stories of its kind.
"The Spectral Hand" will please readers who are fascinated by spectres and spectral manifestations. It's a fine ghost story.
"The Princess of the Red Lilies" is a well written fairy tale about Princess Audovere whose kisses give death. This story has a spellbindingly brutal atmosphere that thrilled me. The ending is fascinatingly macabre, but strangely beautiful.
"The Princess at the Sabbat" is also a well written fairy tale. It tells of Princess Ilse who loves nothing but herself. This story is a beautifully written account of vanity and its consequences. The ending is perfect and will linger on the reader's mind.
"Narkiss" and "The Princess aux Miroirs" are excellent stories with Egyptian elements. Both of them will please readers.
In order to fully understand and enjoy this short story collection, it's good to know at least a bit about Jean Lorrain and the era that he lived in, because his stories reflect his own way of life and experiences in an intriguing way. Because he embodied the absurdities, the paradoxes and the perversities of the decadent way of life and used ether, he was able to write these strange stories.
The introduction by the translator, Brian Stableford, sheds some light on the author's life and works, because it's an informative and well written introduction. Briand Stableford writes professionaly about Lorrain's ether-drinking, homosexuality, life and stories, and thus gives readers an intriguing glimpse into the author's extraordinary life.
What makes these stories especially intriguing is that although the author himself used ether, he writes about its dangers in some of the stories. He seems to have been aware of what its abuse can cause and how badly it can damage one's health, but used it anyway.
The stories in this collection feature different kinds of apparitions that may or may not be ether-induced visions. There's thought-provoking ambiguity in many of the stories that will be of special interest to speculative fiction readers.
Jean Lorrain examines decadence, sexuality, sensuality, moral corruption and other similar themes and issues in a bold and shameless way. He evokes a distinct sense of place and time, which is one of the reasons why these stories are so powerful and intriguing. When you read them, you're able to sense what the protagonists are going through and what kind of lives they live. The feel of a different era seeps through the text into the reader's mind.
Brian Stableford has done a magnificent job at translating Jean Lorrain's stories into English, because the prose is stunningly good. He has fully managed to convey the atmosphere and decadent nature of the stories to English-speaking readers who haven't read the original French stories.
Just like Monsieur de Phocas, this collection will strongly appeal to readers who are familiar with the works of Joris-Karl Huysmans, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe and Brendan Connell. I'm sure that it will also strongly appeal to readers who are fascinated by the stranger and hallucinatory side of literary fiction, because its contents often border on the line of being exquisitely strange and otherworldly.
I highly recommend Jean Lorrain's Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker to readers who enjoy reading beautifully written literary fiction and speculative fiction. It's a stunning feast of decadence and depravity from an author whose works need more publicity and recognition. Please, delve into this short story collection with an open mind and let yourself be ravished by literary prose and captivating strangeness. It's something unique and deeply mesmerising.
Highly recommended!