To Be Read Upon Your Waking by Robert Jackson Bennett

To Be Read Upon Your Waking Reviews

• 
  carol.

  Interesting, perhaps a little sad. A little predictable, dialogue a little awkward, but other than that, very good. I enjoyed almost all the words, and even though epistolary stories aren't really my thing, Robert Jackson Bennett's writing is. A failed Cambridge archeologist and adventure hunter writes his love from his new home, the falling-down Anperde Abbey in France.
  
  
  November 4th, 1949
  
  I am so excited. I can only imagine how you are reading this letter—- I assume you have slept late, as always, and the postman has dropped it by and you are scratching your head and squinting at it (because I do not think you ever get letters—- I cannot remember any). But before you see my name and react, my darling, just imagine this:
  
  A forest stiller than any forest has ever been. Gray dawn light pours through the trees. They are slender, with smooth gray trunks. The sky is contemplating snow, loosing a few flakes just to see what it’d be like. And in the center of the trees, dark and crumbling but magnificent, are many columns, and part of an old, old arch."
  
  Reminds me a bit of
  Mythago Wood, only a hundred times less sexist, mostly because it's about two men. The dialogue seems a bit forward for 1949. I wonder why Bennett chose to root it so in space and time?
  
  Three and a half letters... rounding up to four, I suppose. Could be three some days. It's four today.
  
  
  https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
• 
  ✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans)

  Actual rating: 4.5 stars.
  
  The ruins of an ancient abbey + a strangely still forest + rural France in the late 1940s + spoiler spoiler spoiler + atmospherically eerie stuff (whatever that is) + Lovecraft style stuff + epistolary style stuff = YES, please. Aka yummy in my tummy.
  
  Also:
  
  
  
  No ghosts or zombies were harmed in the writing of this story. Mainly because there are no ghosts or zombies to be had in this story. Ha.
  
  ➽ This story is short. This story is free. This story is
  here. So bloody shrimping read it
• 
  Mir

  
  
  
  
• 
  Tudor Ciocarlie

  Good novella in the style of Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood and a homage to Lovecraft that would have infuriated him.
• 
  Daniel

  Damn, this is some classic (pre-Tolkein style) fantasy.
  
  1949, James, an archeologist? historian? scholar of some sort leaves England (fleeing his creditors?) and ends up in France living in a ruin of a house and excavating an old "abbey" near a town that once lost an entire year. As he excavates, strange things happen in the woods, and he meets some unusual figures.
  
  The story is told through James' letters to his lover Laurence who can not travel right away to join him due to illness.
  
  Really well done. Romantic rather than romance. (In the sad sense.)
  
  Took longer to read than I expected, looks like it's novella length, about 20k words.
• 
  Sage

  Epistolary. Creepy. Satisfying.
• 
  Lady Selene

  "It should feel strange to write to someone not knowing if they will read it, or how they will feel when they read it—- but perhaps all epistles are perfect expressions of that curious nature of time, in which, very occasionally, two distant and different moments can bend towards one another and brush just slightly, just the merest kiss, and become one.
  Perhaps it is the same with people. For what are people except for stores of time?"
• 
  The Lazy Reader

  "But before you see my name and react, my darling, just imagine this:
  
   A forest stiller than any forest has ever been. Gray dawn light pours through the trees. They are slender, with smooth gray trunks. The sky is contemplating snow, loosing a few flakes just to see what it’d be like. And in the center of the trees, dark and crumbling but magnificent, are many columns, and part of an old, old arch."
  
  This is a work of romantic horror, and it holds deadly enthrall. Like waking up from sleep to listen to soft, melancholy music playing somewhere in the distance. I dream and shiver, and am completely bewitched.
• 
  Keeley

  It has a couple of my favourite elements: history and weirdness. Some bits I didn't like. Some bits were uncomfortable. The historical mystery was fun. The ending was sad and... irritating? I guess irritating.
  It's a short read and can be found for free online.
  Copious unnecessary F words are what took this down from a 3.5 to a 2.5.
• 
  Jess

  4.5 Dark, poignant, mythic, unusual, and absolutely beautiful.