| Title | : | Amphigorey Also (Amphigorey, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0156056720 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780156056724 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1983 |
Amphigorey Also (Amphigorey, #3) Reviews
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Included in this collection is:
the Utter Zoo
the Blue Aspic
the Epiplectic Bicycle
The Sopping Thursday
the Grand Passion
Les Passementeries Horribles
the Eclectic Abecedarium
L’Heure Bleue
the Broken Spoke
the Awdrey-Gore Legacy
the Glorious Nosebleed
the Loathsome Couple
the Green Beads
Les urnes Utiles
the Stupid Joke
the Prune People
the Tuning Fork
Of the 3 Edward Gorey collections so far, this is my least favorite. Even saying that, there are still some great stories in this collection. I thought ‘the Blue Aspic, the ‘Epiplectic Bicycle’ and the ‘Sopping Thursday’ were great stories. There were also several stories in here that didn’t work for me. There were a few other stories too.
I still want to add this book to my collection someday. There are better places to start than this one though. -
Anywhere you open up an Edward Gorey book, you will immediately be punched in the mouth by Rad. The highlight of this book was "The Sopping Thursday," the most powerful story of a man losing his umbrella you will ever see.
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Almost as top-notch a collection as
Amphigorey and
Amphigorey Too, and better than his final, posthumous collection,
Amphigorey Again. There’s no knack for word wizardry nor elan for illustration that I haven’t already praised and expounded upon in the previous reviews for Gorey's work linked above. As always, Gorey's art is a heady delight for the eyes, ears and mind, and in this collection I unabashedly adored The Loathsome Couple, was happily horrified by The Stupid Joke, couldn't help but be cheerfully creeped out by The Prune People, and feel impelled to inform you that The Awdrey-Gore Legacy is a must-see metafictional chef d'oeuvre. As satisfied as I am with my Gorey reading experience, I am also slightly crestfallen…now I have no more Gorey compilations to read! Sob. -
Mostly creepy as f*** and what is it about him and all those furs all the time anyway?
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I haven't read all the Amphigorey books (not that the order of them matters), but this one happened to be sitting around in my grandma's house, so ... I sat down and read the whole thing, which didn't take long. Edward Gorey has always been one of my favorite illustrators, and I love his dark sense of humor. There were a couple stories in this anthology that I found a little ... over-the-top (particularly a really disturbing one about a couple who murder children––yikes) but for the most part I really enjoyed it, and I'll have to check out the other books in the series.
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My partner thinks i'm an easy grader - yet ANOTHER 5 star book? Yup. Gorey is a genius. Not only is his art gripping, hilarious, inexplicable, and just a little creepy in a schadenfreude sort of way, but the terse, lean writing is perfect. What a pleasure. Why did it take me so long to read this?
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This one has my favorite cover of the Amphigoreys. Many excellent stories. I read “the Blue Aspic”, a story about an opera singer and her obsessive fan, the same day that I attended the opera for the first time in my life. The story reminded me of the movie Perfect Blue, which is also about an obsessive fan and a star. Both have Blue in the title!
In this collection we really see an East Asian influence on Gorey’s art. This was prevalent in the other volumes too but I really noticed it here. I especially loved Less Passementeries Horribles. The series is just pictures of people being stalked by giant Omamori tassels and Hanamusubi knots that ominously float over them, ghostlike. Literally genius. I have a few of these tassel/amulets and associate them with a feeling of security, because I bought them at a shrine to provide protection. It tickled me to see that inverted here, the knots are a potentially dangerous specter.
This volume had way more color stories than the other two! And so many bicycles!
Another standout was the Awdrey Gore Legacy. First of all I loved the fictional pulp novel covers he drew on the title page. I realized that Gorey did the covers for a couple books I own and I’ll def be on the lookout for more. This story is not a story at all, it is just presenting the evidence of a murder mystery and you can peruse it at your leisure. Maps, objects, suspect profiles, fragments of notes.
Unlike the other collections, and unlike most stories, we actually end on a triumphant note. The Tuning Fork seems like another one of Gorey’s typical stories where a child is horribly abused and then the kid either dies or the story ends abruptly in an unsettling manner. This time the little girl attempts suicide but is saved by a sea monster, who then helps her enact revenge on her cruel family. I loved the dark water in the illustrations.
I think this is the best volume overall even though nothing has made me laugh as hard as the Hapless Child. -
Just the other day I realized, by dint of perusing my Amazon wish list and noting its absence, that someone was giving me Amphigorey Again (#4) for Christmas. Well, someone gave me Amphigorey #3 last Christmas and somehow I had never read it. Incomprehensible, but true.
I have the first two volumes as well, of course, and it's impossible to say which I like best, but this one is a strong contender. There are no less than three of Gorey's alphabetically-themed collections: "The Utter Zoo," "The Eclectic Abecedarium," and my favorite, "The Glorious Nosebleed," which has nothing to do with nosebleeds but instead riffs on twenty-six adverbs in alphabetical order. ("He disposed of the fragments Slyly," "She ran out of the room Tearfully," "He explained himself Unconvincingly," and so on.)
Any opera fan will guffaw appreciatively at "The Blue Aspic," which traces the rise and downfall of one Ortenzia Caviglia, whose career takes off when someone (presumably Ortenzia's fan Jasper Ankle) sends a box of poisoned candied violets to the principal soprano, thus giving Ortenzia a chance to go on in her place. Another of Ortenzia's rivals, her manager, and a wealthy suitor all mysteriously die, presumably at the hands Jasper, though in typical Gorey fashion it's only obliquely inferred.
But the entry that gave me the greatest pleasure was "The Awdrey-Gore Legacy," a send-up of mystery writers such as Agatha Christie. (Here as elsewhere Gorey delighted in using anagrams of his name.) I will quote the beginning:Introductory note by E.G. Deadworry
On last St. Spasmus's day Miss D. Awdrey-Gore was found dead at the age of 97. Just before dawn a nameless poacher came upon her body in a disused fountain on the estate of Lord Ravelflap; she was seated bolt upright on a gilt ballroom chair, one of a set of seventeen then on display at Suthick & Upter's Auction Rooms in Market Footling; her left hand clutched a painted tin lily of cottage manufacture, inside which was rolled up a Cad's Relish label of a design superseded in 1947; something illegible was pencilled on the back. That she had been murdered was obvious, though as yet the cause of death has not been determined."
Exactly what the Awdrey-Gore Legacy is is beyond my powers of description, but I will just say that any fan of classic British detective fiction will be greatly amused.
Plus, of course, there are all the drawings, which are at least as droll and inexplicable as the titles, couplets, and stories, if not moreso. -
Less fun than the first and second collections less nonsense and limericks. Mostly I think of Gorey's characters as people-to-whom-things-happen, and of course, they read like characters from Victorian and Edwardian novels. I love The Utter Zoo and the little butterfly-doggy creatures and Bruno from The Sopping Thursday and the sweater-sporting dogs of L'Heure Bleu. The Awdry-Gore Legacy is spot-on. But The Loathsome Couple is too much like true crime books, which I avoid these days. It is literally dark with so much densely-drawn settings.
I understand why I don't know these as well as those collected in the first two. I might very well not have read this since getting it.
What I want now is Categor y. Love those cheerful little cat faces.
Personal copy -
If Gorey ever did something that WASN'T brilliant, I haven't seen it.
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Re-read (rare).
I'm not sure I'll ever quite be able to separate Edward Gorey's work from the person who introduced me to it - and at least half of this post is about that. Inside it is the frisson of having found someone/thing perfect like I had always been looking for. But the flipside. The precision of the words and art bound up with an overwhelming effort, fumbling in the dusk, to say and write the right thing, and the annoyance and coldness a small error may bring. (Gorey is evidently influencing me to talk in rhyme.) Not wanting to frighten off this rare and delicate creature. The darkness and disturbance under the surface of what looks so lovely if you don't know what to expect.
Nearly nine years ago I couldn't see the surreality of the situation, nor nearly so much of the surreality in Gorey. I was so tense I couldn't laugh much, but many of these cartoons are actually quite funny. What is so striking about both are the gaps in what is said and meant. Much is unspoken because it's prettier like that; you have to join things up in the right way. But if you're only reading and don't feel you have to produce a right interpretation nothing matters much. It is still odd to read them in modern surroundings, not to look up and see what looks very much like a Victorian study. And I still feel scruffy by comparison with the neat little drawings and him and the place. (I'm one of those people who always looks slightly crumpled or unkempt, no matter how hard they try - there's always a metaphorical hair out of place, although I have grown to like this, and I like it in others.)
It is odd to think of Gorey's work as having existed before the 80s, when this combination of dark/cute/intellectual first had an obvious cultural place in Goth. What did people used to think of it? It evidently had a place in American culture, but from the British context it seems unplaceable, except as a play on Hilaire Belloc. Although vintage culture has been around longer than we may think: there was a vogue for Edwardian things in the 1960s - in one of those Mondo documentaries (London in the Raw, Primitive London) there's a scene in an Edwardian-style diner. And Gorey's twisted retro, long before before the current retro mania, may be related to that current.
Themes, some of which I hadn't fully noticed before:
- Opera recurs time and again. Most Gorey titles sound rather like operas.
- Alphabets. There are lots of them. Not just the Gashlycrumb Tinies.
- Bicycles. Also riding on handlebars of bicycles. Which fits the person from whom I got EG. Most people I've been out with for any length of time have been cyclists, and always since way before the hipster fixie craze. Probably something to do with independence and bloody-mindedness.
- And of course the many anagrams of his name.
- There are probably references to famous paintings that I have missed. Most scenes from The Prune People in particular, seemed utterly familiar, although I only managed to place one of these instances of deja vu, an illustration associated, perhaps not officially, with a favourite song, 'Gibbous Moon' by Momus.
Favourites from Amphigorey Also:
- Les Passementeries Horribles, in which unsuspecting individuals are stalked by giant crochet tassels and mats. (I loathe useless crochet things, so useless and annoying and cluttering and in the way! But they were made by people, usually relatives, who put time and effort into them so it's also rather dismissive and cruel to get rid of them. Argh.)
- The Eclectic Abecedarian. There is quite a lot of sensible advice in here, and it made me smile for different reasons. It's not just cute gruesome deaths.
- The Awdry-Gore Legacy. These charts of possible features of a murder mystery would make an excellent writing exercise.
- The Glorious Nosebleed. Some panels of this ABC are so poignant. Why do I like it so very much that 'The creature regarded them Balefully', 'He looked out the window Hopelessly', 'She toyed with her beads Jadedly', etc etc? 'He spoke to the child Repressively' is another gem. 'She watched him go Yearningly', the picture more than the words - the aptness of which I only noticed later ... perhaps I was already primed by the obelisk in The Epiplectic Bicycle ... set 'Us' by Regina Spektor playing in my head instantly. Another part of that same time.
- Urnes Utiles. Probably not everyone will find these giant, curiously labelled jars quite so funny. It helps that I like Cornish Blue (in a scrappy, random, not properly having sets or collecting it way) and Original Suffolk pottery (just to look at, I've a spectrum-y aversion to the rough surfaces) and Gorey's drawings seem like a satire of the ridiculously specific and sometimes overly large jars they each make.
There is one piece here which puts a new light on Gorey's other work. The Loathsome Couple are a Hindley and Brady / Fred and Rose West type pair. All the worst stuff, is, as you would expect from EG, off-screen and unspoken, and the presentation remains neat and genteel whilst dark. "They met at a Self-help Institute lecture" also seemed like inspiration for Tyler Durden and Marla's meeting in Fight Club. Somehow the extreme darkness of the subject shows that there is awareness of the true horror of events in all the other stories, which are received more cutely. Things aren't just there to be funny, there is a real and potentially cathartic understanding of terror and pain and violence beneath it all - but the presentation is eccentrically buttoned-up. (Another reason, surely, that many think EG seemed British; instead he was one of those New Englanders more English than most real Englishmen.)
Until Edward Gorey became a minor Goodreads phenomenon [aside: someone else must have noted his use of the word Fantod, now mostly associated with Dvid Foster Wallace] and I looked again at listings of his work, I had always thought this the second book in the series. Amphigorey, Amphigorey Also. It has a nicer ring than the real order. Two of the others just didn't used to be there at all, at least in the UK. Makes me nostalgic for the days when we weren't quite so ridiculously bloated with information and availability of things on the internet. -
4,5
"Pasan más cosas de las que somos conscientes.
Es posible, debido a alguna circunstancia desconocida y desesperada"
La persona que me dejó “Amphigorey Also” y “Amphigorey Too” me habló unos meses atrás de una narración del señor Gorey en la que unos seres humanos son amenazados por borlas. Y yo, claro, empecé a imaginar cómo podía ser aquello. Al final las borlas me parecieron más siniestras que cualquier criatura que mi imaginación pudiera dar forma. ¿Os habéis fijado alguna vez de verdad en las borlas con las que sujetamos las cortinas? Qué objeto tan curioso y extravagante…
Esta antología sigue en la línea de “Amphigorey Too” con narraciones como “La pareja abominable”, “La broma estúpida”, “La vuelta de la tortilla”, tres historias que he disfrutado tremendamente. La primera dedicada a una pareja de asesinos; la segunda a un niño que no quiere salir de la cama; la tercera a una niña que decide suicidarse tirándose al mar. Las tres me han encantado, aunque tal vez mi favorita sea la última por la vuelta de tuerca (lo siento Gorey, ya sé que odias a Henry James...).
Sin embargo, Gorey nos deleita esta vez con más de sinsentido que en el anterior volumen. Presenta a la gente ciruela, a unas criaturas cabruseznas en un entorno azul, unas urnas que contienen cosas aleatorias, una obra ensalzando a las maravillosas bicicletas, la ya mentada dedicada a las borlas y otra narración sobre paraguas, esta última bastante extraña (como si las otras no lo fueran...). Hay una criatura negra, el supuesto ladrón de paraguas, al que no podía parar de observar. Literalmente me quedé embobada.
Por supuesto, hay dosis de abecedarios. Además de “Los pequeños macabros”, Gorey hizo otros que son menos conocidos pero igual de destacables. Los recogidos en “Amphigorey Also” son los siguientes: “El zoo absoluto” con criaturas de lo más graciosas; “El abecedario eclético” y “La gloriosa hemorragia nasal”, un alfabeto de adverbios.
En general ha sido una antología que ha sabido mantener el nivel de la anterior. Tal vez habría deseado alguna historia más lineal como “La pareja abominable” o “La vuelta de la tortilla”, pero el contenido es notable y original. Me ha hecho muy feliz y ha vuelto a estimular mi imaginación como solo él logra hacerlo.
¡Hasta la próxima, Mrs. Regera Dowdy! -
Primer contacto con Edward Gorey, Regera Dowdy, E. G. Deadworry... Y ya quiero más.
«No todo en la vida puede ser interpretado metafóricamente.
Eso es porque las cosas suelen quedarse a medias.» -
Oh, my, gosh.
I wish I had known this man. His imagination is beyond the universe. -
so delightful of course. favorites were the bicycle cards and the loathsome couple, which really made me sick to my stomach, as i suspected it would. the blue aspic has to be one of his greatest, and a lovely addition to this anthology.
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Odd and fun.
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A collection of some of Gorey's lesser known works. Gorey, of course, being known for his dark humor, whimsy, and incredibly detailed pen and ink crosshatching. Let me attempt to describe these for you.
The Utter Zoo - Alphabet filled with fantastic creatures and rhymes. I love that he only shows about half the creatures. That is, not all of them are shown, and many are only half visible. That's one of the best things about Gorey's art; he only shows as much as you need to see.
The Blue Aspic - Fan stalks an opera singer; interesting juxtaposition of their fortunes.
The Epiplectic Bicycle - Brother and sister take an odd bicycle trip. I love the bicycle, how its feelings seem to be indicated by the direction of its handlebars.
The Sopping Thursday - Has the character of a foreign phrase book on the subject of umbrellas. I like how disjointed it is, but still comes together in the end. Gorey draws the best umbrellas.
The Grand Passion - The same, only more so. Does not come together in the end. "Englished anonymously from the Conton Dialect."
La Passementeries Horribles - Hilarious illustrations of people and animals being menaced by giant tassels, galloons, and fringes.
The Eclectic Abecedarium - Tiny alphabet, the pictures mere thumbnails, with rhymes.
La Heure Blue - More phrase books, features two dogs in matching tennis sweaters who appear to be having the kind of conversation that only makes sense to couples.
The Broken Spoke - Bicycles & bicycle-related memorabilia.
The Awdrey-Gore Legacy - Characters, murder weapons, and locations for an unwritten mystery novel.
The Glorious Nosebleed - An alphabet of adverbs, some with puns.
The Loathsome Couple - A couple who murders children. Darker than Gorey's usual works because it comes right out and says what it's about instead of just implying it horribly.
The Green Beads - Short and pointless, and that's saying something. I didn't get anything out of this at all.
Les Urnes Utiles - A collection of different urns. See, this is also pointless, but sublime.
The Stupid Joke - Reminiscent of Shel Silverstein, rhyming story about a kid who decides to stay in bed all day.
The Prune People - People with...featureless prunes for heads...engaged in a variety of activities.
The Tuning Fork - Cautionary tale? The tuning fork is seen briefly on the table and has no impact on the story; adore the last frame with the expired bathtub.
Seeing so much of Gorey's work in one place let me pick out his habit of including a white parallelogram in every story. It really sticks out on the black backgrounds, but is more subtle on the white or grey ones, often looking like a business card lying on the ground.
Four stars. The book itself has no page numbers or index, and no dates for the works, but it's still a great collection because I never would have bought any of these titles individually. If you're looking to get into Gorey, though, I'd recommend the first collection,
Amphigorey, because those pieces have stronger narratives and will let you get accustomed to Gorey's style and sense of humor. -
3.5 stars -
As a child, I was exposed to Mr. Gorey through the animated introduction of Mystery as hosted by Vincent Price, I believe. While Mystery made me a lifelong fan of Price from youth, it would be sometime before I would "rediscover" Gorey and make the connection. Still, the imagery stuck with me and when I did notice a poster with similar art many years later, I sought out the artist and thus my interest was born.
This collection might not be of Gorey's most famous works, but it is none the worse for having some lesser known works in it. His artwork is, as always,compelling and his stories strike the chord of a compelling adult based Seuss at time and border on something perhaps more dour at others. That being said, the joining of the the art and the words are almost symphonic and, if there is the rare missed note in this collection, it is not one I have found or at the least, the experience was so compelling it caused me to forgive it.
Pick up Gorey's work - this one or any other - and read it, let it settle, then read the work again. The more Iraqi e the art, the more I appreciate the blending of word and art in this work. A great read for a dark, rainy day...or any other day for that matter, but atmosphere helps.... -
"Amphigorey Also" by Edward Gorey is an eccentric visual slice of fantasy created by a prolific illustrator and quixotic writer who definitely knows how to bring out one's inner child. Rendered in black and white gothic glamour I particularly admired "The Letter Zoo Alphabet" and the way Gorey matched the rhyming nonsense text with the illustrations. It would be a wonderful story to read to children who are learning the alphabet and their letters. Two of the most gothic and elegant tales, "The Blue Aspic" and "The Loathsome Couple" touched on insanity, murder and obsession that I found dark and disturbing but still gripping enough to read twice in a row.
Alternately nightmarish and favorable the nostalgic way Gorey depicted his "characters" also reminded me of "Steampunk Fashion" and "Victoriana". This was shown most effectively in the picture tale "Les Passementeries Horribles" where various types of passementerie trims become nefarious objects that stalk and threaten their prey. Taut, with the suspense of a well-timed mystery, "Amphigorey Also" is a lively literary romp I enjoyed for its aesthetic and pictorial assets. -
Again, very uneven, but the five star stories might be some of my favorites, so the lesser ones are of no significance to the greatness of this book. The Awdrey-Gore Legacy is a new favorite for it's Agatha Christie multi-leveled parody. From mining Christie's own life to her tropes to her vook covers it was sheer genius. Also Les Urnes Utiles is just a great story that Gorey obviously did just to amuse himself and that's why I love it.
The Utter Zoo ★★★
The Blue Aspic ★★★★
The Epiplectic Bicycle ★★
The Sopping Thursday ★★
The Grand Passion ★★★★
Les Passementeries Horribles ★★★★
The Eclectic Abecedarium ★★★
L'Heure bleue ★★
The Broken Spoke ★★★
The Awdrey-Gore Legacy ★★★★★
The Glorious Nosebleed ★★���★★
The Loathsome Couple ★★★★
The Green Beads ★★★
Les Urnes Utiles ★★★★★
The Stupid Joke ★★★★
The Prune People ★★★
The Tuning Fork ★★★ -
Edward Gorey's outstanding AMPHIOREY ALSO book cover illustrations, of what I consider a series of Dog Bugs, make up my favorite anthology covers thus far (the backs always being a mite better than the fronts). Love, love love love, love...
CONTENTS
The Utter Zoo
The Blue Aspic
The Epiplectic Bicycle
The Sopping Thursday
The Grand Passion
Les Passementeries Horribles
The Eclectic Abecedarium
L'Heure bleue
The Broken Spoke
The Awdrey-Gore Legacy
The Glorious Nosebleed
The Loathsome Couple
The Green Beads
Les Urnes Utiles
The Stupid Joke
The Prune People
The Tuning Fork -
Though long familiar with his artwork, this and
The Unstrung Harp were my first exposures to
Edward Gorey's writing. I liked them, and here I was especially fond of his alphabets. "It was in the trunk Presumably." -
I enjoy Edward Gorey’s writing and art style, but I’d be lying if I said I like everything he’s written or drawn. Some are just not my taste, like many in this amphigorey collection. Also this collection, unlike the first two, are even harder to read in any order that makes sense; many of the narratives feeling rather jumbled. Still I think it is essential to read these to understand how his work evolved as he evolved.
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I must admit that I have a love of limericks, they are usually quite clever and funny.
Edward Gorey was one of those very talented limerick writers.
But, (imho) this collection of stories is rather haunting and ominous.
Where is the amusing poetry? The sharp verse?
Someone missed the boat. I think it was me. -
As much as I love Gorey's work, this book shows his tendency to return to the same wells one too many times. The dark whimsy, alphabetical games, and silly wordplay only go so far this time around, but there are still a few gems, esp. The Stupid Joke. Absolutely worth a look for fans, but there's a fair bit of dross here.
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Gobbled this up in a day! So bizarre and addicting and brilliant and just plain other. Also disturbing? But oh my gosh, I am LOVING Edward Gorey and can't wait to read and see more of his work. I especially liked the first half of this graphic novel -- The Utter Zoo and The Epiplectic Bicycle were particular favorites.
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Volume three is just as twisted as volume two, but several of the vignettes matched my sense of humor more. There was the episode of various persons being menaced by giant drapery tassels, knotted “frogs” and other crocheted details. WTH!? Haha, Gorey is truly a weirdo, but an entertaining one at that.
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Very weird...but amazing.
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I fell in love with Edward Gorey's artistry and macabre storytelling when I was a teenager. I own several Amphigorey compilations and have lost count of the number of times I've read them.
