The Novels, Short Stories & Poetry of
Philip Goddard
www.philipgoddard-fiction.co.uk
Fiction & Poetry by Philip Goddard

Novels, Short Stories and Poetry from an Author who looks below the surface of things, and gives a challenging and mischievously humorous perspective on the interplay of human potential and human confusion...

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Expanding horizons...
The Author in his element, at Great Mis Tor, Dartmoor, south-west England, July 1999. Photo by Antony Galton. Any rumours that this monkey eats babies and ravishes prime Tamworth sows are completely without foundation -- official!
The Author at Great Mis Tor on Dartmoor, South-West England.

Getting out into the wilds and cultivating the broadest possible perspective on life is all part of the creative process behind his works.

Explore and enjoy! -- Is this man crazy?
Notes & summaries,
with the full works for download

Not just fantasy, but a unique blend of 'clear-minded surrealism' and mischievous earthy satire, directed to achieve a powerful end...

Five full-length novels with the most extraordinary titles, and contents to match.
  • The Hunting-Down of Michael Maus
  • Dead Pigs
  • The Awful Destiny of Physalia Gorgon
  • Still Life With Strangled Porcupines
  • Three Blind Executioners (Betrayal and Crucifixion of Climber on Mount Everest just 174 metres short of the summit, without oxygen)

Fourteen stories ranging from truly short to novella length.

Highly original and exploratory poetry with an elemental and often visionary rather than intimate quality.



'Family' surfers, please note!
The Author cannot guarantee that readers won't find the odd non-gratuitous naughty word or brief taboo passage in a few of the works readable from these pages. These works are intended for those who want to expand their horizons and like to be invigorated, inspired and sometimes challenged by their reading.

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Introduction

The writer of the works presented here has been through experiences that have given him a unique viewpoint upon the irrationality and indeed craziness of much of what is accepted as normal human behaviour, lifestyles and outlooks - which is in grotesque contrast with people's intrinsic capacity for being consistently aware, rational, positive, joyful and loving. In his works and especially the novels he has taken himself on journeys of exploration based on particular 'What if...?' scenarios that formed the respective starting points of the works.

All these literary works were written before the Author had managed to 'conquer' music notation and thus to openly compose the actual symphonic music that was pretty well constantly working itself out in his mind. Thus, when writing anything literary he naturally tended to apply his innate musical composition processes to ideas and turns of phrase as though they were melodic motifs in a complex symphony. Indeed, in an important sense, his five completed novels and the shorter story Nothing, Sweet Nothings can be seen as his first six symphonies - his musical ones following on later.

Using such a 'symphonic' approach to literary writing pretty well necessarily involves a sort of 'dynamic surrealism' in the way that ideas and images are brought together and related one to another. Although I do not associate myself with the surrealist paintings of Salvador Dalí, because of their dark force and night hell connections, in certain of his paintings he himself has shown a little grasp of what I am calling 'dynamic surrealism', in which there is a deeper purpose and 'meaning' in the way that 'objects' are brought together in a work, so that the overall creation is much more than the sum of its parts, and even apparently small and inconsequential details can have powerful effects because of the ways that they have been 'charged up' with particular significances through previous association in entirely different contexts.

One recurrent feature in the 'surreal symphonies' - especially in the novels - is exposure of the craziness and inhumanity of taboos and the negative impact of religion upon all human life. Taboos are all of 'the dark side', and are about humans' urges to control and dominate each other - and so are religions - and they all get quite a pungent lampooning in the novels. They all run completely counter to the manifestation of peoples' underlying nature of deep awareness, love, positivity and the secure happiness of inner freedom. It is the dark force that drives people into confusion, control agendas and negativity, and has people living by rules and 'moral codes' instead of love, deeply sourced good sense and the inner clarity born of true self actualization.

Showing up the idiocy of taboos is not in itself a primary feature of the works presented here, but exposure of absurdity in human outlooks certainly is. In a wide variety of ways, with an urgent and sometimes mischievous sense of humour the Author explores in his works the convoluted interactions between people's fundamental positivity and 'goodness' on the one hand and, on the other hand, the effects of the troublesome influences. To this end he goes looking below the surface and cutting through all manner of widely held beliefs and preconceptions.

When he wrote these works he did not realize that 'dark forces' / 'the dark side' was anything more than a figure of speech, so you will NOT find in his works a preoccupation with 'the occult', but rather, you will find a dream-like interaction between people's positive and negative traits (the primary polarity being between inner freedom and the plethora of influences of control and rigidity of outlook), with a certain surrealistic quality about it all. However, as in a dream, in the odd places there are occurrences that would suggest a sinister force or influence being involved - as there really are in everyday life, whether or not people are willing to countenance or acknowledge such things.

Much more recently the Author experienced a massive and sustained attempt by all-too-real 'dark forces' to wreck him, as you can read about in The Dark Force ('Astral Entities') - My Own Tough Experiences on his Self Realization & Clear-Mindedness website. As he progressively made himself invulnerable to the dark force through his single-minded self actualization process, he gained a multitude of deep insights into the ways in which that most troublesome influence interferes with and controls / manipulates virtually everyone. This has given him a whole new, deeper understanding of what is actually going on in his literary works, all of which he had produced well before the dark force finally blew its cover and piled in on him to cause major disruptions in his life for a few years.

Was it doing all that to him because of 'naughty' or indeed too insightful things that he had written in his literary works? -- No, not at all! What it was apparently seeking to stop was the very sort of material that the Author now has on his Self Realization website. But that is another story, and you can explore there if you are interested.

Meanwhile you can be entertained, amused, challenged, 'shocked', intrigued and gripped by these works, many of which - especially the novels - could be seen as 'symphonic dreams' which take you on compelling exploratory journeys through deeply felt abundances of human experience. Every detail in the apparent convolutions of each 'dream' has its meaning - often at various levels - for the reader who has the depth of awareness to be able to open to it. For this reason, like a major symphony, especially the novels reward periodic re-reading, when all sorts of new 'angles' and depths of meaning can be discovered.

"Let us all become progressively more 'naked' and stop pretending to each other that we are other than who and what we really are!" -- That could be said to be one of the primary underlying 'messages' in the Author's literary works. He directly and clearly explains the true meaning of being an authentic person on his personal website: Do you want to be 'appropriate'? ...Or authentic?.



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