Tales of Hoffman: ‘Incurable’ reviewed in Fortean Times by Eric Hoffman (25/02/2019)

As always, I was extremely grateful to have garnered a good review, this time in the ever readable ‘Fortean Times’, courtesy of Eric Hoffman. The poets, authors and creative spirits of the Decadent era remain a perennially evocative subject. It was long enough ago to make us nostalgic for something we never experienced yet not too far back to be incomprehensible. Some might say that the era belonged to Oscar Wilde and although he was one of the figureheads of the last decade of the 1800’s, many of the ‘minor’ characters, including Arthur Machen, Ernest Dowson and Lionel Johnson, to name but a few, were equally enticing. In many respects, my preference is always with those considered ‘minor’, Wilde’s work can be too bombastic and over extravagant, whereas Arthur Machen had the lightest touch in enchantment, Ernest Dowson’s poetry is like a misty dream that fades before your eyes and Lionel Johnson has an exquisite ghostliness, he is just passing through.

It is a testament to Eric Hoffman’s skill as a reviewer that he manages to not quite warm to Lionel Johnson yet to still see ‘Incurable’ as worthwhile. Johnson is a symbol of all the young poets who died too soon, never realised their full potential, drank too much and cried too much. He was engagingly fallible yet managed to be a muse to none other than W.B Yeats, whose genius goes beyond the limits of time. Although Johnson disliked the term ‘Fin de Siecle’ he was very much a product of it as Eric’s review concurs. Lionel had a charming inability to do much of anything, except write poetry that has the appeal of an ancient tapestry in an ancient hall that still has an intimation of beauty despite it mouldering away quietly. To be able to do one thing well, whatever it may be is worth a rose left on a gravestone and a 4 star review.