Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Goose of Hermogenes by Ithell Colquhoun is a first person-POV classic fantasy. The unnamed narrator travels to her uncle’s enchanted island and finds herself the center of a plot to steal her magical stones. As she experiences multiple visions, including ones of romantic love, she also has to contend with the possibility that she could lose her life.

The prose is a lot less straight-forward than I’m used to in modern fantasy. There’s constant metaphors, poetic imagery, and references to classics that make Goose of Hermogenes feel very different. If it came out now, I would probably argue it’s literary fantasy because Ithell Colquhoun is a lot more interested in the artistry of language than she is in telling a very clear plot that goes from A to B to C. I’m probably going to return to this book so I can soak up the language more.

As this book was written in 1961, some of the language in it is outdated, including the use of racialized terms for Asians and Black people. While I am personally fine with preserving the language of a text because it was written in the context it was written in and those word choices preserve our understanding of different time periods, I do think it is also important to warn readers when that kind of language is in a book.

I would recommend this to fans of classic fantasy looking for something more literary-leaning

Thank you to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for offering me an ARC copy of this new edition of The Goose of Hermogenes by Ithell Colquhoun, with an introduction from Jennie Higgie.

The Goose of Hermogenes is a short novella (144 pages) which follows an unnamed narrator as she visits, and becomes trapped in, her Uncle’s estate on an unnamed island. Colquhoun was a renowned British artist, poet and occultist who was mostly associated with surrealism and this certainly translates into the narrative of The Goose of Hermogenes.

We follow the unnamed narrator’s experience as she becomes trapped on the island. Unsure throughout whether what we are reading is true, a surreal fever dream, or merely the narrator’s own act of fictitious storytelling, Colquhoun offers beautifully lyrical descriptions of the lush island setting.

For the first half of the novella I was unsure about its pacing - the novella progressed slowly, with Colquhoun focusing on world building. The setting is increasingly gothic as we come to meet the Uncle, the Arbitrator, and explore the estate and the house. It certainly did take some time but all of a sudden we are plunged into the climax of the novella: an occult orgy of alchemical transformation. I came to understand the narrator as being stuck in some sort of liminal space on this island; she meets her family again, and her estranged father, but none of it really seems real.

Most notable to me was the short story embedded in one of the chapters, Corolla’s Pinions, which makes the novella worth reading in its own merit.

Perhaps I would have understood more of the book if I was more well read, as I have a sneaking suspicion some of the plot points were derived from classical texts.

Pushkin’s new edition of The Goose of Hermogenes also includes Hexentanz, the final chapter of the novella which was excised in the original publication. This a short, baffling chapter which is loosely related to the existing plot; perhaps it is narrated by the same character; we hear of the Arbitrator once more also. The final chapter has some quite gruesome elements of body horror which wraps up the message of The Goose of Hermogenes as a cautionary feminist fable of bodily transformation, coercive control, and occultist experimentation.

Goodreads Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7500535960

This was a really strange fever dream of a book which was written beautifully but I did find it a bit confusing in places. I enjoyed this overall as it was interesting and something different from the norm. I’d definitely read more from the author

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc