Novels, Short Stories and Poetry
by Philip Goddard

Introduction

The Author 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 and 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 six novels and the shorter story Nothing, Sweet Nothings can be seen as his first seven symphonies — his musical symphonies 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 the Author doesn't associate himself all that much with the surrealist paintings of Salvador Dalí, because of their garbage and night hell connections, in certain of Dalí's paintings the painter himself has shown a little grasp of what the Author sometimes calls 'dynamic surrealism'.

In that, 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 they've been 'charged up' with particular significances through previous association in entirely different contexts.

One recurrent feature in the 'surreal literary 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's the garbage 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 isn't in itself a primary feature of the works presented here, but exposure of absurdity in human outlooks undoubtedly 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 didn't 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 does appear to be in everyday life, whether or not people are willing to countenance or acknowledge such things.

Much more recently (2003–07) the Author experienced a massive and sustained attempt by all-too-real 'dark forces' (i.e., the garbage) to wreck him, as you can read about in The 'forces of darkness' ('astral beings') — My own tough experiences on his Clarity of Being website. As he progressively made himself invulnerable to the garbage 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'd produced well before the garbage finally blew its cover and piled in on him to cause major disruptions in his life for a few years.

Was the garbage doing all that to him because of 'naughty' or indeed too insightful things he'd 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 Clarity of Being website. But that's another story, and you can explore there if you're 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's all become progressively more authentic 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 on his personal website the true meaning of living as an authentic person: Do you want to be 'appropriate'? …Or authentic?.