Mister Gum, by Rhys Hughes

Mister Gum is a creative writing tutor who illustrates the rules of good writing – beginning of course with “Show, don’t tell” – with a series of extended anecdotes that may or may not be from his own life. Eventually he loses his position, but his adventures in sex and language continue, including a spell working at the inflatable headquarters of Scrofula Yard with Detective Ynch Short.

This is a book drenched in gentlemanly emissions from start to finish, and if it isn’t the filthiest thing I’ve ever read (that would have to be Les onze mille verges by Apollinaire, which I expect to be arrested for reading any day now) it’s in the top ten, somewhere near Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris. But for all the semen being flung around in these pages, it’s really very genteel and polite. This isn’t Rhys Hughes does porn, or Rhys Hughes sets out to shock; it’s the same Rhys Hughes, just with oceans of semen, talking hymens and characters like Fellatio Nelson, a pirate with a prehensile penis, and, erm, Lynne Truss, punctuation fanatic.

This is the third book by Rhys Hughes I’ve read in as many months, following The Smell of Telescopes (Eibonvale) and The Postmodern Mariner (Screaming Dreams). Mister Gum comes to us from Dog Horn Publishing, publishers of Polluto magazine. This multiplicity of publishers suggests that Hughes is something of a wanderer (either that or no single publisher can cope with his prodigious output). And so it goes with his stories (after three books I’m now an expert!), many of which feature journeys of one kind or another. His stories are like extended “a man walks into the bar” jokes; their conclusions share the unforeseeable inevitability of a punchline.

What I like so much about Hughes’ work is (egocentrically enough) exactly what I like in the novels I’ve written myself. It’s the freedom he gives himself, to follow his nose, to be deliberately silly, to extend jokes as far as he fancies. The difference of course is that mine are rubbish, lazily written nonsense, whereas his stories are carefully-constructed, detailed nonsense! He’s sometimes accused of being self-indulgent, but there are more than enough books out there that indulge their readers. How great to have a writer working for himself, to create more of the kind of art that he appreciates.

And anyway, as Frank Black sang about the Three Stooges, “Some nonsense, it is so serious.” Here, in a very, very silly book, I think Hughes is making very serious points about the near-total irrelevance of externally-imposed rules when it comes to creating art; they’re useful when it comes to selling it; and working within self-imposed rules can create interesting results (viz. the Oulipo work he admires); but if you want to write a story that is all tell and no show then don’t let a silly rule stop you.

I can’t imagine trying to edit or translate his work. Translating it, how to adapt the puns to another language, how to even spot them all? Editing it, how to know what’s a mistake, when almost any apparent mistake could be another joke? (Well, you would just ask on the proofs, but I’m coming over all rhetorical.) Reviewers face similar difficulties. For example, my pre-release version contains several mentions of prostrate glands. Should those be prostate glands, or is it another joke? Maybe they are prostrate, as a result of all their hard work! If it was a mistake, I hereby claim my no-prize! But if it was a joke, I’ve shown myself to be a complete dullard!

Anyway, to sum up: fantastically filthy, fantastically entertaining! But I think Lynne Truss will be on the phone to her lawyers…

Mister Gum, by Rhys Hughes, Dog Horn Publishing, pb, 108pp

Broken Symmetries, by Steve Redwood

A highly entertaining collection of short stories, of which I’ve been lucky enough to read an early version. Each is almost completely different to the rest, except for the fact that they’re all so good… Some are funny, others deadly serious; some are bafflingly erudite, others are fluffy confections. Some, like “Sanctuary”, seem serious at first, but end up being extremely silly – in a good way!

“Damaged” opens the collection, taking us with John William Smith on his visit to the library – he’s there to renew his most recent loan. “The library shelves were unusually well-stocked that day, with golden-skinned women dangling languid bare legs over the edges.” If that gets you thinking of sauce and Sidney James, stop right there: Steve Redwood’s writing is characterised by a real fury at the way men treat women.

For another example see “Epiphany in the Sun”, a non-fantasy story about a couple driving through Turkey. They find a dying dog and John insists on trying to find help for it. The disregard he shows for his wife is appalling, yet totally believable. Men do ignore their wives in this way all the time, and it clearly makes Redwood angry. Even more scathing of our fallible gender is “Expiry Date”, where Peter receives a post-Advent calendar that catalogues a history of one man’s dismaying behaviour towards women.

Other interesting stories here include “Going Back”, a new spin on time travel (I didn’t think there were any to be found at this point), which again hinges on the evil that men do; “Fowl Play”, a tribute to Rhys Hughes (interesting, since I read that author’s The Smell of Telescopes at the same time as this book, and the two complemented each other very well); and “A Helping Hand”, about one man’s war with a beggar. A particular favourite of mine was “The Heisenberg Mutation” where Charles Algernon Soames, “who occasionally lent money to the Sultan of Brunei”, begins to flatten… Another was “Two Legs Bad: a Love Story”, which does, as its subtitle promises, feature “unusual sexual practices”, though not the kind you might expect.

Many of these stories previously appeared in small press magazines, like Midnight Street, Polluto, Roadworks and Whispers of Wickedness, and Redwood is a small press editor’s dream: a fine writer with big ideas who doesn’t quite fit established pigeonholes. But what’s good for the small press isn’t necessarily good for him! He deserves to be better known, and I hope this collection will do the trick.

Broken Symmetries, by Steve Redwood, Dog Horn Publishing, pb, 200pp