Review:
Sein und Werden |
click to visit site |
by James Christopher
Maddox |
I really didn't want to do a review this time around. Instead of writing these words, I wanted to stare at the river through my condo windows, listen to the birds chirp in the early morning sunlight, maybe drink some strong supposedly foul-tasting but I kind of like it coffee, and get to work on fiction or returning the correspondence of emails that had gone unanswered for far too long.
I'm tell you this so you understand how much I didn't want to look through Sein und Werden, how much I didn't want to analyze what they were doing at their pub, how much I didn't want to get involved with the awesome stories they had collected for their current issue. Simply put, I didn't want to become an instant fan. But alas, it has come to pass. I saw what I was missing out on by being a lazy bastard, and now I am so glad I pulled myself out of it.
As an amalgamation of different genres and mediums, Sein und Werden has made it their goal to stand out among the current crowd of internet and papered zines. Each issue has a theme to better express their stories' "werdenism." Though this may seem like a task, they tend to pull it off with an good amount of flare.
SuW is perfect for those looking to read stories that have more of a personal meaning to the reader. In most cases, Surreal and Existential fiction aren't beat-you-over-the-head-with-the-meaning kind of genres. Instead, we as the readers get to create our own sense of right and wrong, of importance and justification, of moral guidance and deprivation. That's what it's all about people; it's up to you to assign the canon.
SuW surprised me by showing me a publication where these kinds of stories flourished and thrived, mated and reproduced. Honestly, though some may scoff when I say it's hard to find this kind of thing out in the world—"Dude," says fiction pub groupie, "I can name, like, six."—I'll make the addendum that it's hard to find one that does it even half as well as SuW.
I believe this area of surrealist fiction is powerful in the publishing world. The ideas and concepts that SuW allow us to access, that they support and encourage, are those of gods. Self-made gods, sure, but gods none the less.
Hopefully, SuW will be around for a long while to push recognition onto those stories that deserve it, and give us something great to read in the process.
So I will be watching closely, eagerly even, to see what else they show us in the future. But until then, I'll step out with a nod, a smile, and a thank you to SuW. They showed me that there's still hope that a small press zine can do big things when they try.
Now, I'm going back to watching my river,
listening to my birds, and drinking the stinky-inky.*
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* We at Susurrus do not condone the use of the word "stinky-inky" and plan to ridicule and belittle James Maddox ceaselessly for choosing it.**
** But visit Sein und Werden anyway.