OBO URLACH – 'Fires of Wilmeldestran'

    Pass me my glass, would you? It’s the one with the fat unicorn and the… Yes, that’s the one. Thanks.

    Now, where was I?

    Oh yes.

    It was a couple of years ago, I think, when the right dishonourable Georgy Riecke dropped me a line. I say dropped me a line – I mean he wrote me a letter. Remember those? Envelopes and all that… Well, I seem to recall that Riecke had a penchant (more his word than mine) for writing letters on lime green paper. Don’t ask me why. The man is terribly affected. The best half-arsed bohemian I’ve ever met. You know these literary critics: the epitome of life in the fast lane. Lime green notepaper today, antique pink envelopes tomorrow. He’d say the colour had a significant and profound affect on the power of the words. I’d say it’s green paper – and you wouldn’t catch me using it. But don’t let me stop you, Georgy. Use any paper you like, my dear fellow.

    Anyhow, let’s get to the rub (rub-a-dub-dub). What, I hear you quiz, was in this blessed green letter? Listen up and I’ll tell you. The letter was asking me (yes, that’s right, me) to state which novels by contemporary European writers I thought to be in or amongst the ‘greatest’ category (whatever the hell that means). Well, you know how it is. It was mid-summer and poor Georgy must’ve been desperate. He hadn’t an article to stand on and his beloved magazine was due to hit the shelves within the month. So he did what any critic would do: he resorted to a list. Make a list and discuss it. It never fails to fill space. Everyone feels involved. And if you’re a super-scamp, as Riecke surely is, you can always use your list as an excuse to attack the tradition of lists (which, of course, you secretly love). Ho ho: irony!

    Funny thing is, this list actually attracted some interest. No, I’m not kidding you. Somewhere someone read it – and liked it. And that someone told someone else and blow me down, after some time, at least six people were vaguely interested in it! Unbelievable. Two years later, I understand Riecke is still feeding off it. What can I say? It’s almost as if I wish I’d taken his request seriously.

    It was Riecke’s luck that he caught me, if not sober, than at least at a relatively low level of inebriety (which, some witty wretches would say, is as sober as I get these days). On any other day, I’d have written reams in reply, only to post them through a hole in a tree, or through someone’s mouth (you may laugh, but it has happened). On this day, however, I managed both to keep my reply simple and, more importantly, I remembered to send it (by the usual means). Now, though I was not aiming to shock – far be it from me to stoop so low -  I was hardly displeased to hear in time that my suggestion (there was only one) was 'the most controversial of them all'. Riecke only included it, I hear, because there was nothing else to fit in that space. Otherwise he doubted the wisdom of my choice. Or to be more exact (and why not?) he doubted whether or not the novel I had put actually existed.

    I shall quote him (for I know it pleases him, poor attention-starved soul): ‘I very much doubt that Obo Urlach's 'Fires of Wilmeldestran' even exists’ he wrote. Oh pish-posh, said I: what impudence! I give a man who claims to welcome obscure culture one of the most obscure novels I know – and how does he respond? He thinks I have invented it! Well, damn him. He should think more of me than that. Anybody knows I gave up telling that sort of lie ten years ago (in public, that is: I cannot be held responsible for what I say in person). If I wasn’t a indolent whisky-drenched stereotype of an unsuccessful artist I’d have tracked Riecke down and whacked him over the head with the very book whose existence he doubted (as it was, I could neither be bothered to leave the house, nor find a copy of the book)

    Perhaps Riecke was right to doubt me. In picking Obo Urlach’s novel, I had gone beyond the obscure – and into the depths of the exceptionally unknown. From the rose bushes of the very rare, I had picked a previously unseen petal (as Riecke might have put it). Yes. I’d beaten the old man at his own game. I’d out-obscured Mr Obscurity.

    I had also cheated, a tad. Fires of Wilmeldestran does exist, yes, but its claims to greatness are, well, hard to qualify. By which I mean, it ain’t great in, you know, the normal sense of the word. Its greatness lies in its potential – in the scope and size of its ambition – but not, I repeat not, in the final product. Wait, no, I take that back (twice). The final product is great. It’s a great failure. The greatest failure there ever was. Greater even then that book about the dancing bathtubs (do you remember that one? A bona fide classic…). Yes indeed. I cannot think of any worse books than Fires of Wilmeldestran (and that’s including the work of Zulitta Zouff). There are certainly no other books that aimed so high, only to have plummeted, like a sad fat albatross, to the very lowest depths of mediocrity. Yes, there is an undeniable greatness to the weakness of this book. I lie not. I have retched better novels into a bucket. Better prose has been picked from my nose. Even Riecke himself could, if he really tried, put Obo Urlach to shame. Even Riecke...

    So it’s no surprise, is it, that no one has ever heard of Fires of Wilmeldestran? Well yes (I guess) and no (you know). For like I said, this book had great ambitions. It was noble trash. Pedigree rubbish. It came, as they say, of good stock. Of such good stock that its subsequent failure was more than embarrassing. I mean, I’ve suffered embarrassment in my life. There was the time I woke up in a large bowl of fruit salad, for instance, or (even worse) in Peggy Grounter’s bed. But seriously, neither of these were anything when compared to the embarrassment suffered by the authors of Fires of Wilmeldestran.

    That’s it. I’ve said it now. Authorssss. Yes. There was more than one author. Another point to Riecke. For though the book did exist, Obo Urlach didn’t. At least not as a single identity. Nor even as a cover for a couple of people, like that crazy Dutch couple, or the ‘scribbling triplets of Turin’ (remember them? Couldn’t write for toffee, but they were mighty good-looking). No, the real identity of Obo Urlach was stretched across more people than this. Fourteen, to be precise. Yep. Four-teen. Not only that, but fourteen decent writers. Not just any old people. No. You see where we’re going here? When I say ‘decent’ writers, I’m talking of writers with ‘reputations’. Reputations that can be lost, if only, well, if only someone reveals something that has hitherto not been, um…

    Hold on a second. My glass is curiously empty.

    Right. Where was I? Ah, yes. Reputations that can be lost. A novel of inspiring mediocrity. Fourteen unknown writers cowering behind the name of one non-existent one (honestly – what kind of a fake name is Obo Urlach?). And here’s little old me, holding onto information that others would rather I kept locked in a box in a safe in a vault in a bunker in a cave on the moon. Yes, you heard me correctly. I have the knowledge. I own the truth. I am the keeper of deep and dark facts.

    Far be it from me to milk this opportunity, but let’s take a step or two back, shall we? Let’s take a look at how this whole thing might have come about. Who organised it – and why?

    You don’t need an intoxicated smartarse like me to tell you that this sort of thing has happened before. The concept seems like a jolly good one, doesn’t it? Gather a load of talented writers together and get them to write the perfect book. All those self-obsessed geniuses, working in harmony, sculpting sentences out of pure gold, bringing to one single book a library of scintillating ideas, working in harmony to… Wait, did I already say ‘working in harmony’? Of course I did. Can’t you hear the over-obvious irony alarm going off? Take that fluff out of your ears my dear man and listen up for the tuneless bong of reality, steady as a broken bell. If you’ve only a quarter of a brain (and let’s face it, most of us do) you’ll have realised long ago that nothing beats a team of clever people when it comes to creating pure stupidity. Common knowledge. And yet, not common enough to have reached the brain of Vincent Miesegas, the Danish millionaire whose fabulous idea Fires of Wilmeldestran was. You might say that no one told the writers either, but that would suggest they thought the thing would work – which they didn’t, not necessary. No, they were mostly in it for the money  (the scabby peasants). It might have crossed their minds that they could be part of something brilliant, but it’s more likely that they were blinded by gold. And I mean gold. Mr Vincent did not throw money around: he hurled it hither and thither. He really thought that he was onto something (bless him). The maddest thing about him was that he wasn’t mad. Work that one out.

    Like I said: fourteen writers. All of them relatively big writers – in the region of European literature that is, so, well, hardly celebrities, but you catch my drift (how do you do that?).Now here’s the part where I should name them. Here goes… Ooh, no – just thought of something. Hang on. Perhaps you’d like to know where the name Obo Urlach came from first? Yes? No? Interested in that?

    Ah, damn it. I don’t know anyway. Someone made it up, I guess. There’s no ‘story’ behind it. So anyway, these fourteen writers. Needless to say, they’d rather I didn’t reveal their identity. In fact, I once swore I'd never do it. But then, I have sworn over a lot of things in my day. I once swore I’d never kiss an orang-utan. But these things happen – and you can’t always stop them. Of course, there are ways around this. Which leads me to reveal what may have been another cheeky facet to my recommendation of this book to Riecke’s list. You will recall (if you hadn’t been asleep at that point) that Georgy was looking for the ‘greatest novels by contemporary writers’. By this he meant, writers who are still alive. Breathing and all that – not ‘alive’ in people’s hearts, no, none of that sentimental drivel. Biologically alive - that's what I'm talking about.

    Now, the question of whether or not Obo Urlach is alive is a tricky one. For the fact is, Fires of Wilmeldestran was written a good twenty years ago – and some of its contributors were, well, getting on for age. Since then, they’ve got past getting on and have, well, got off the train altogether, which is to say they’re dead as a dormouse that has been stepped on by a drunken dodo. Believe it or not, as many as ten of them are no longer with us. That's right. Two of them died shortly after completing the project (possibly from the shock). Eight others have fallen over the two decades since, leaving me in, one might say, in an interesting position. After all, here I am thinking about embarrasing people – and here some of these people are, completely beyond embarrasment. The door is open. You could stick a jar in it if you wanted to (but why would you?).

    Time to uncover the cover-up. If they’re dead, it won’t matter me revealing their names. But that’d be kinda boring, wouldn’t it? What’s more, the poor worm-eaten sods can’t defend themselves, which takes away half of the fun. I mean, we want to see real people squirm don’t we? Not corpses –  not even the relatives of corpses. No, let’s embarrass the living. Now, that’s a game worth playing. An occasion that calls for another bottle of… No? Okay, okay. I’ll get on with it. Here goes: the living members of the unfortunate fourteen authors behind Fires of Wilmeldestran, the worst novel in the history of time (in non-alphabetical order):

    C P Pedrik. Roc Quarret. Benedict Beneburg.

    You heard it here first. And I’m not having a laugh. You may have noticed that two of these sad creatures featured elsewhere on Riecke’s ‘greatest novels’ list (next to each other, no less). I noticed that too, wise noticer that I am. And, naturally, it made me smirk. A big wide smirk. Not that I’d disagree though, not at all. Thing is, I actually have respect, bundles of it, for C P Pedrik. His Ignoble Trilogy is a wonderful work. It was the first inanimate object I made love to. I couldn’t think of a better book if I could be bothered to. Still, I can’t hide the facts. Pedrik dipped his toe in the waters of Fires of Wilmeldestran and there’s no hiding it. The time has come for the man to take the blame, so too his fellow partners in literary crime, both of whom I also, in lesser measures, respect. Roc Quarret – silly silly name, but all the same, a talented fellow. Beneburg’s Wisdom Lingers, meanwhile – a truly admirable work. That scene with the broken suitcase – what a scene! My sides unzipped, they truly did. But justice will be done. There comes a time when you’ve got to stand up and be counted. For most of us, that time comes at school. But for others, it also happens metaphorically. And that (they say) is when things get really serious. You know what I mean. I’m talking about ‘public shaming’. Public Shaming.

    But enough of the dirty stuff. It has just occurred to me that this is meant to be a book review and bless me if I’ve barely touched the content of the book yet. Not that anyone would want to touch it really, but I’ll reckon it falls me to me  to make a slightly better attempt to explain the nature of the ugliness that can be found within the covers of Fires of Wilmeldestran.

    Listen up, ‘cause I’m only going to say this once. Fires of Wilmeldestran is a fantasy novel – or it was meant to be at any rate. This was the early eighties, remember, and there were still a lot of people trying to cash in on that whole late-seventies-pixie-fetish-thing. I was one of them, in fact (but enough of that). The idea, anyway, was that the novel would be the first volume of a great fantasy epic. Trolls, dwarves, wizards, pretty women with pointy ears – you know the sort of thing. It would be like all that other stuff, but better. Infused with genius. Watertight. Fanciful, but never overly so. Philosophical, but never too-clever-by-half. A little bit of everything, but not too much of anything. In short: nothing. A cak-handed compromise. Not one thing nor another. Not anything. So bad that it seems a waste of breath to point out how bad it is. I could tell you the plot, but since that would involve, well, telling the plot, I must choose not to do so. I’ve told unfunny-in-retrospect-hilarious-drunken-stories that are more interesting than the plot of Fires of Wilmeldestran – and that’s saying something. No, it really is saying something. The tediousness of this book is hard to imagine, I know, but just… Actually, don’t bother. Some things are best left unimagined.

    So there’s my book review. Pretty poor, you say? Well, have it your way. If you want to know more, go read the book yourself. You heard me… Go read the... Ah, but I see your point. For the thing is, it isn’t one of those books you can go out and read, for the simple reason that it's near impossible to get your hands on a copy. There were plently of them published at the time – boxes of the unfortunate things – but they’ve since become obselete (nice word that). In fact, there are so few traces of the book that it begins to make sense to doubt its existence. I don’t even own a copy. Pedrik, I think, made it his mission to destroy all those he could get his freckly paws on. And he did good, make no mistake. What with his reputation at stake, that man let nothing stand in his way. I heard he took a trip into the Amazonian rainforest simply to track down a copy of the book that was said to have got into the hands of a native chieftain. It was better for him that he spent half of his life getting rid of this one appalling novel than writing four or five brand spanking new ones. Such was the power of Fires of Wilmeldestran.

    But who’s to say the legend shouldn’t live on? More be could be said, of course. I mean, I haven’t even begun to go into the process through which this unholy muck was produced: the way in which these fourteen writers fought their way through endless arguments, ceaselessly fighting over pages of prose that weren’t fit to pass through a dung beetles digestive system. More could be said, there’s no doubt about that. For now, however, I am content in the knowledge that, at the very least, the issue is out in the open. I have answered my critics: the book does exist (somewhere, anyway). And though it isn’t great quality as such, it is great in many other ways. Was there ever greater proof, for instance, that too many good writers spoil the sentence? To put it most simply – was there ever a greater bad novel?

    Hang your heads in shame! (I direct this comment to the writers). Hang your heads in shame! (and again). The truth is out – and it wiggles with sinister charm. So I haven’t revealed the names of the other ten writers: that may wait (slow down, you move too fast, as a wise man once said). Let us first allow our attentions to rest on the first three: Pedrik, Quarret and Beneburg. Once we have given the living their due, we may move on to the corpses. Everything in good time. Maybe we might be able to find a copy of the book and really put things into perspective. Why not? I’m sure Georgy Riecke will send out a sniffer dog or two if he thinks there’s publicity in it. He has a pretty good nose for bad literature himself.

    Like I said, everything in good time. Meanwhile... What was I going to say? Ah yes –  meanwhile, a little bit of backtracking to end the piece. A tiny scrap of information which I had previously forgotten to mention. A small portion of knowledge which it may (or may not) interest you to hear. Perhaps the eagle-eyed among you are already on my case. Oh you weasals! Not that I didn’t make it obvious. You shouldn’t have had to have stolen an eagle’s eyes to have spotted this one. Oh no. I dispensed with subtlety in the mid-90s, along with my pride. In fact, shame on you if you haven’t reached my conclusion before I do. Which is what I am doing – now. Ready? Yes?

    Okay.  This 'information' relates to a mistake – as well as providing an explanation. There were, you will recall, fourteen writers involved in the writing of Fires of Wilmeldestrani. Ten of them are dead. The rest of them are alive. I named three. Now, in the knowledge that my readers’ grasp of mathematics may vary, I’ll give you a second or two to work this….. Got it already? Right. So there’s one person left. One more unfortunate writer. Someone else to shame. The mysterious 'fourth man'.  The last of the woeful Wilmeldestrans.

    Already guessed it? Hurry up you lot at the back: stop dilly-dallying. It isn’t difficult.

    Got it? Yes? Good.

    Yes, dear miserable reader, I admit it. 'Twas I.

 Lucien Ropes

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