Adam McOmber
In One Note, Gabriel Blackwell asks writers to talk about the book they are currently reading and why. One Note 015: Adam McOmber, Phlegon, Book of Marvels.
In One Note, I ask writers for just that: one note, a single paragraph, on what they’re reading right now.
Today’s note comes courtesy of Adam McOmber.
I’ve been reading widely from the literature of the fantastic and the grotesque — everything from Lord Dunsany’s In the Land of Time to the Duchess of Newcastle’s The Blazing World. Currently, I’m reading William Hansen’s translation of Phlegon’s bizarre Book of Marvels. Phlegon was a Greek freedman who served on the staff of Emperor Hadrian in the first century, and his book of marvels is a catalogue of the grotesque, the horrific and the sensational. The book is arranged according to theme: Ghosts, Sex-Changers, Finds of Giant Bones, Discoveries of Live Centaurs, etc. Phlegon presents all his writings as fact (he even goes as far as writing that the emperor himself keeps the persevered body of a Centaur in a secret storehouse). The first story under Ghosts, entitled “Philinnion,” tells of a dead girl who escapes her tomb each night to visit (and presumably make love to) a guest in her parents’ house. The guest is unaware that the girl is dead, and her parents are horrified when they discover their dead daughter’s transgressions. I won’t ruin the story by explaining how the girl reacts when parents and lover attempt to keep her in her tomb. It’s too much fun to read Phlegon’s description of it. The section on Finds of Giant Bones is equally entertaining. Phlegon describes a scene that takes place after an earthquake. Vast bodies have been discouraged from the earth. A giant tooth from one of the bodies is brought before the emperor who asks that a model head be fashioned, large enough to contain such a tooth, so he can see the size of the creature. The story ends with the line “[The emperor], saying that the site of the head was sufficient for him, sent the tooth back to where it had come from.”
Adam McOmber is the author of This New and Poisonous Air (BOA Editions, June 2011) and Empyrean (Touchstone, August 2012). His work has appeared in Conjunctions, StoryQuarterly, Third Coast and Quarterly West. He teaches literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago. Visit adammcomber.com
