The Betrayed Confidence: Seven Series of Dogear Wryde Postcards

Rating:
Summary: The Book Form of Seven Sets of Dogear Wryde Post Cards
Review: "SCENES DE BALLET:" six cards which caricature the ballet, its exotic titles and its performers. MENACED OBJECTS: 16 cards featuring every day objects with captions that turn the commonplace into the grotesquely sinister, e.g. "Devilled egg beneath a leak starting in the ceiling" ARMS FOR OBLIVION: 15 cards showing common objects within frames with a minimum of connotation e.g. "Papier mache doughnut (Diameter 4') made by D. Guest." or, "Mourning veil and cauliflower in the Uplift kitchen." INTERPRETIVE SERIES: 14 cards featuring a Gorey-creature wearing shoes and gloves with an upper case "I" prop, pantomiming the meanings of various words beginning with "I." "Insouciance" and "Idolent" are two examples. NEGLECTED MURDERESS SERIES: These 13 cards are subtle reminders that the female as well as the male can be deadly. "TRAGEDIES TOPIARES" is the tour-de-force of this collection. Its 13 cards with their captions in French are brilliant visual oxymorons. WHATEVER NEXT? Its 13 uncaptioned cards with a variety of spaces with objects, leave them open to interpretation. I'm convinced that the card with the frying pan setting on the edge of a table is a pictorial tribute to the Three Stooges.

Rating:
Summary: The Book Form of Seven Sets of Dogear Wryde Post Cards
Review: "SCENES DE BALLET:" six cards which caricature the ballet, its exotic titles and its performers. MENACED OBJECTS: 16 cards featuring every day objects with captions that turn the commonplace into the grotesquely sinister, e.g. "Devilled egg beneath a leak starting in the ceiling" ARMS FOR OBLIVION: 15 cards showing common objects within frames with a minimum of connotation e.g. "Papier mache doughnut (Diameter 4') made by D. Guest." or, "Mourning veil and cauliflower in the Uplift kitchen." INTERPRETIVE SERIES: 14 cards featuring a Gorey-creature wearing shoes and gloves with an upper case "I" prop, pantomiming the meanings of various words beginning with "I." "Insouciance" and "Idolent" are two examples. NEGLECTED MURDERESS SERIES: These 13 cards are subtle reminders that the female as well as the male can be deadly. "TRAGEDIES TOPIARES" is the tour-de-force of this collection. Its 13 cards with their captions in French are brilliant visual oxymorons. WHATEVER NEXT? Its 13 uncaptioned cards with a variety of spaces with objects, leave them open to interpretation. I'm convinced that the card with the frying pan setting on the edge of a table is a pictorial tribute to the Three Stooges.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed Collection
Review: Those unfamiliar with Gorey's subtle, obscure sense of the absurd amidst bleak Edwardian scenes had better start with his "Amphigorey" collection. This offbeat small-press offering is more for connoisseurs of his work. It collects some postcard series by Mr. Gorey, as ever using an anagram for the author's name, in this case Dogear Wryde. The artwork is the usual brilliant, careful pen-and-ink fare. "Scenes de Ballet," the first series, pokes hilarious fun at the pretensions of the high arts with absurd ballet names and costumes (though you may need some understanding of French to get some of the joke.) "Menaced Objects" is my favorite series, by far the funniest. It depicts lackluster objects like a spool of thread and a "tray of calling cards" supposedly in peril from other vaguely menacing presences. (My personal favorite: "Formal glove shone on by gibbous moon.") "Arms for Oblivion" is a drawn-out joke displaying utterly forgettable objects in forgettable locations. It's good for a smirk, though you may not return to it often. "Interpretive Series" shows a creature acting out various adjectives that begin with the letter "I." These indeed would make wonderful postcards, though in book form one needn't read them more than once. (I wonder where I can get actual postcards. This reprint book is valuable as a catalog of the master's work, but the work was indeed intended to post.) "Neglected Murderesses" is exactly the kind of morbid humor one would expect, a rogues' gallery of obscure women who used odd means of killing people (such as tipping their wheelchairs over precipices and braining someone with a bowling ball). "Tragedies Topiares" is outrageously funny because the entire premise is so bizarre - various topiaries (sculpted shrubbery) are held up as examples of menace; a shrubbery automobile is seen apparently running somebody over, etc. The contextlesness of the whole thing is marvelous. "Whatever Next" is an intentionally boring series of views of obscure corners of rooms, with no text atall. Again, a one-time look, although one wonders how Gorey could spend so much time to so carefully render this curious joke. Overall, this book is a highly amusing browse for a rainy day, but it helps if you were a fan already.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed Collection
Review: Those unfamiliar with Gorey's subtle, obscure sense of the absurd amidst bleak Edwardian scenes had better start with his "Amphigorey" collection. This offbeat small-press offering is more for connoisseurs of his work. It collects some postcard series by Mr. Gorey, as ever using an anagram for the author's name, in this case Dogear Wryde. The artwork is the usual brilliant, careful pen-and-ink fare. "Scenes de Ballet," the first series, pokes hilarious fun at the pretensions of the high arts with absurd ballet names and costumes (though you may need some understanding of French to get some of the joke.) "Menaced Objects" is my favorite series, by far the funniest. It depicts lackluster objects like a spool of thread and a "tray of calling cards" supposedly in peril from other vaguely menacing presences. (My personal favorite: "Formal glove shone on by gibbous moon.") "Arms for Oblivion" is a drawn-out joke displaying utterly forgettable objects in forgettable locations. It's good for a smirk, though you may not return to it often. "Interpretive Series" shows a creature acting out various adjectives that begin with the letter "I." These indeed would make wonderful postcards, though in book form one needn't read them more than once. (I wonder where I can get actual postcards. This reprint book is valuable as a catalog of the master's work, but the work was indeed intended to post.) "Neglected Murderesses" is exactly the kind of morbid humor one would expect, a rogues' gallery of obscure women who used odd means of killing people (such as tipping their wheelchairs over precipices and braining someone with a bowling ball). "Tragedies Topiares" is outrageously funny because the entire premise is so bizarre - various topiaries (sculpted shrubbery) are held up as examples of menace; a shrubbery automobile is seen apparently running somebody over, etc. The contextlesness of the whole thing is marvelous. "Whatever Next" is an intentionally boring series of views of obscure corners of rooms, with no text atall. Again, a one-time look, although one wonders how Gorey could spend so much time to so carefully render this curious joke. Overall, this book is a highly amusing browse for a rainy day, but it helps if you were a fan already.