I loved Rob Young's Electric Eden, on the massive and influential British folk-rock scene, and was mildly looking forward to his Magic Box. This review may have cooled me off a little, however.
I'm aware that for many people I know (at least on Facebook) "Folk Horror" is the vast hyphal network that undergirds the subconscious of the British people. On investigation, I found it consisted of Ben Wheatley's A Field In England, two public safety films about drowning in creeks from 1971, The Children of the Stones and Witchfinder General. Oh, and the Wicker Man, obvs. Christopher Bray, the reviewer, seems to agree with me, although Magic Box author Rob Young managed fill up the other 499 pages so I guess there must be more of it out there somewhere.
The reviewer gets all the best lines, even if they're someone else's (Irene Handl's "Who of?" and Steve Martin's “I remember when I had my first beer”), along with spotting a number of alternative facts in the book. I'm still considering buying the book. Well, maybe borrowing it.
I wouldn't have posted to say this, however, if Christopher Bray hadn't said,
"Like the Beatles’s “girl with kaleidoscope eyes”, Young sees patterns everywhere."
That gave me one of those startling moments when one's whole world momentarily does a Necker cube thing. I'd always assumed the girl had eyes, which if you looked at them, appeared as kaleidoscope patterns. It turns out that the girl has eyes, which if she looks out of them, see the world as kaleidoscope patterns. Whoah. (I believe that is the correct expression to use.)
I have had an episode of ocular migraine myself (just the one, thankfully) and I know exactly how that looks. I'd just never considered it before.
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