In the world of Claude Lalumière’sThe Door toLost Pages, history and myth are treated as one whole. But that should not feel so strange—think of the ancient city of Troy; you cannot discuss its truth divorced from the legend. For the reader willing to step into Lalumière’sfictional bookshop, Lost Pages, whole new worlds become accessible.
Lost Pages seems untethered by our concept of space and time. It appears when and where it needs to be. Its staff and the patrons who find their way within become embroiled in the aeons-old conflict between Yamesh-Lot, the lord of nightmares, and the Green Blue and Brown God, protector of the realm of dreams.
It is ten-year-old runaway Aydeewho may be—if anyone is— the book’s protagonist. She appears in the majority of the chapters, and is the only character to undergo an extended narrative arc.
When we first meet her, she reveals that Aydee was “her secret name, the one she’d given herself. No one knew of it, especially not the man and the woman who’d given her that other name when she was born.” After a strange encounter leads her to Lost Pages, she senses a kindred spirit in Lucas, the proprietor. He shares his home with her and Aydee shares her secret with him. While working she finds a letter addressed simply to Lost Pages and keeps it for herself. Within the purloined letter is “a story she needed to read: an opportunity to learn how other people, besides Lucas, besides herself, had been affected by their contact with Lost Pages.”Finally, after Aydee has replaced Lucas as the curator of the store’s curious collection, she must accept and defeat her worst nightmare: herself. Or at least, a version of herself that had remained on the streets, and never found a home or a purpose at Lost Pages.
While ostensibly a novella, portions of The Door to Lost Pages have appeared previously, as short stories. Hints of those origins remain in Lalumière’s writing. He has a clever shorthand that evokes his character’s physical and emotional being quickly and efficiently. Statements like “Most of the money from the man’s job went into business suits and cocaine”give the reader an immediate impression of Aydee’s father.
Just as a bookstore patron never knows what volumes might follow them home, so Lalumière keeps his readers guessing, switching tones and adeptly rocketing them from chapter to chapter. “Let Evil Beware,” is infused with four-colour comic book sensibility as eight-year-old Billy enlists the aid of Lucas and Aydee to battle the monsters that haunt his dreams. In “Dregs” a young man’s first sexual experience and its subsequent impact on the remainder of his life bursts with eroticism. “Dark Tendrils” drips with a claustrophobic sensation of suspicion and betrayal.
What Lalumière captures best however, are the strange twists and turns that folklore takes as it evolves:
Long ago, in the time before the Earth had taken the shape of a globe and so night was night and day was day throughout the world, the Shifpan-Shap flew every night, battling the nightmares with their mighty weapons… In those days, the night sky was so pitch black; no stars could shine through the dense darkness of the attacking horde. When the morning sun rose on the horizon, the nightmares cowered back into the dark embrace of their creator, Yamesh-Lot, who yearned to rule the land of dreams.”
The books stocked at Lost Pages “hinted not only at alternate pasts of the world but an altogether different way of apprehending reality.” While titles such as Antediluvian Folktales and Intrigues and Scandals of the Lemurian Court may not exist in our world, they all feel like they could; in my ten years of bookselling, I’ve certainly shelved stranger.
The verisimilitude of these legends is such that it is no stretch to believe they could have developed from one of our ancient cultures. Lalumière’s “Antideluvian Folktales”owe as much to the weird tales of the pulp era as they do to the Biblical fall from Eden, though in Lost Pages’ mythology, it is Lust, not Pride that comes before a fall.
For those not weaned on the pulp tradition, the prologue, Fuel for the Dark Dreams of Yamesh-Lot, may come across as impenetrable. It is a select group of bibliophiles that want their fiction to begin with“enslaved corpses”that“marched toward the subterranean Moon, which rested on its earthen cupule, shielded in the depths of the dark abyss from the ravages of sunlight.”Within the prologue’s scant pages, Lalumièresets the foundation for his invented mythology and hints at the themes that will be seeded throughout the rest of the novella. It is a proper introduction to worlds that do not or should not exist.
In The Door to Lost Pages’metatextual coda, The Lost and Found of Years, is a uniquely portrayed, yet achingly familiar snapshot of the writer’s life. Lalumière chronicles the hunt for inspiration, the desperation of looming deadlines, and the struggle to balance a creative life with one’s personal life.
As hesits at his office desk and stares out the window every day, the house across the street appears to change.“Today it’s a tepee.” Day after day he struggles to catch the house in its moment of change, until finally: “the house is a bookshop. Not just any bookshop. Lost Pages. The bookshop from my stories.” Claude sees his characters within.
What are the best stories but gateways to a writer’s dreams and nightmares? Pick up this book and open your own door to Lost Pages—you might find something inside that you didn’t know existed.
ChiZine | 224 pages | $14 | paper | ISBN #978-1926851129
‘The Door to Lost Pages’ by Claude Lalumière
Book Reviews
In the world of Claude Lalumière’s The Door to Lost Pages, history and myth are treated as one whole. But that should not feel so strange—think of the ancient city of Troy; you cannot discuss its truth divorced from the legend. For the reader willing to step into Lalumière’s fictional bookshop, Lost Pages, whole new worlds become accessible.
Lost Pages seems untethered by our concept of space and time. It appears when and where it needs to be. Its staff and the patrons who find their way within become embroiled in the aeons-old conflict between Yamesh-Lot, the lord of nightmares, and the Green Blue and Brown God, protector of the realm of dreams.
It is ten-year-old runaway Aydeewho may be—if anyone is— the book’s protagonist. She appears in the majority of the chapters, and is the only character to undergo an extended narrative arc.
When we first meet her, she reveals that Aydee was “her secret name, the one she’d given herself. No one knew of it, especially not the man and the woman who’d given her that other name when she was born.” After a strange encounter leads her to Lost Pages, she senses a kindred spirit in Lucas, the proprietor. He shares his home with her and Aydee shares her secret with him. While working she finds a letter addressed simply to Lost Pages and keeps it for herself. Within the purloined letter is “a story she needed to read: an opportunity to learn how other people, besides Lucas, besides herself, had been affected by their contact with Lost Pages.” Finally, after Aydee has replaced Lucas as the curator of the store’s curious collection, she must accept and defeat her worst nightmare: herself. Or at least, a version of herself that had remained on the streets, and never found a home or a purpose at Lost Pages.
While ostensibly a novella, portions of The Door to Lost Pages have appeared previously, as short stories. Hints of those origins remain in Lalumière’s writing. He has a clever shorthand that evokes his character’s physical and emotional being quickly and efficiently. Statements like “Most of the money from the man’s job went into business suits and cocaine” give the reader an immediate impression of Aydee’s father.
Just as a bookstore patron never knows what volumes might follow them home, so Lalumière keeps his readers guessing, switching tones and adeptly rocketing them from chapter to chapter. “Let Evil Beware,” is infused with four-colour comic book sensibility as eight-year-old Billy enlists the aid of Lucas and Aydee to battle the monsters that haunt his dreams. In “Dregs” a young man’s first sexual experience and its subsequent impact on the remainder of his life bursts with eroticism. “Dark Tendrils” drips with a claustrophobic sensation of suspicion and betrayal.
What Lalumière captures best however, are the strange twists and turns that folklore takes as it evolves:
Long ago, in the time before the Earth had taken the shape of a globe and so night was night and day was day throughout the world, the Shifpan-Shap flew every night, battling the nightmares with their mighty weapons… In those days, the night sky was so pitch black; no stars could shine through the dense darkness of the attacking horde. When the morning sun rose on the horizon, the nightmares cowered back into the dark embrace of their creator, Yamesh-Lot, who yearned to rule the land of dreams.”
The books stocked at Lost Pages “hinted not only at alternate pasts of the world but an altogether different way of apprehending reality.” While titles such as Antediluvian Folktales and Intrigues and Scandals of the Lemurian Court may not exist in our world, they all feel like they could; in my ten years of bookselling, I’ve certainly shelved stranger.
The verisimilitude of these legends is such that it is no stretch to believe they could have developed from one of our ancient cultures. Lalumière’s “Antideluvian Folktales” owe as much to the weird tales of the pulp era as they do to the Biblical fall from Eden, though in Lost Pages’ mythology, it is Lust, not Pride that comes before a fall.
For those not weaned on the pulp tradition, the prologue, Fuel for the Dark Dreams of Yamesh-Lot, may come across as impenetrable. It is a select group of bibliophiles that want their fiction to begin with “enslaved corpses” that “marched toward the subterranean Moon, which rested on its earthen cupule, shielded in the depths of the dark abyss from the ravages of sunlight.” Within the prologue’s scant pages, Lalumière sets the foundation for his invented mythology and hints at the themes that will be seeded throughout the rest of the novella. It is a proper introduction to worlds that do not or should not exist.
In The Door to Lost Pages’ metatextual coda, The Lost and Found of Years, is a uniquely portrayed, yet achingly familiar snapshot of the writer’s life. Lalumière chronicles the hunt for inspiration, the desperation of looming deadlines, and the struggle to balance a creative life with one’s personal life.
As he sits at his office desk and stares out the window every day, the house across the street appears to change. “Today it’s a tepee.” Day after day he struggles to catch the house in its moment of change, until finally: “the house is a bookshop. Not just any bookshop. Lost Pages. The bookshop from my stories.” Claude sees his characters within.
What are the best stories but gateways to a writer’s dreams and nightmares? Pick up this book and open your own door to Lost Pages—you might find something inside that you didn’t know existed.
ChiZine | 224 pages | $14 | paper | ISBN #978-1926851129