Works of Sublimity and Mystery: O Altitudo by Thomas Strømsholt

Thomas Strømsholt - O Altitudo

Ex Occidente Press, limited to 100 hand numbered copies

One of only three books released in this particular format under the Les Éditions De L'Oubli imprint of Ex Occidente Press (subsequent L'Oubli editions are printed in an entirely different format). A wee tiny little book, beautifully produced. The book has the feel of an imaginary object, a volume extant only in the libraries of Borges or Stanislaw Lem, a book that you want so badly to exist, to hold within your hands, but which by its very nature will be denied to you. Except that in this case it is real, albeit only in a very limited edition. 

There are four stories contained herein: In Search of the Hidden City, The Auwisnat Transfigurations, The Émigré Emperor, and The Furnished Room. Each one is sublime, but it is the first of the four stories that I find myself coming back to again and again.

In Search of the Hidden City is a story that might exist within my dreams. I often dream of stories read and half-remembered, books consisting only of impressions or aesthetic traces which, for all of their immateriality, leave their mark upon my sleeping soul such that the atmosphere of the phantom book remains in memory long after every other detail of the dream has faded. A story in a dream might mingle and blend with the narrative experience of the dreamer. Just so with this story – have I not wandered through some of the spaces detailed therein? I could swear that it’s possible, but when might it have been, and where? A topology of a phantom city, indeed. 

"She saw houses flicker like grinning ghosts in the violet hour. She saw their featureless facades flake away like old skin revealing their brittle bones; a concrete block of flats opened its flat gaze towards the pale blue sky, its tiles swelling to form a voluptuous cupola; an office building was slowly enveloped in an embrace of lush ivy and blossoming periwinkle; and whichever way she turned her eyes, walls grew extravagant ornaments and carved figures…"

Another book is contained within the pages of this one, if only in the form of a partial description. It is called The Copenhagen Peregrinations, and it was written in the late 19th century by Tajny Pruvodce. I highly doubt that it could possibly exist as a real book in the exact format in which it is presented here, and a brief search for its author bears no fruit. But what I would not give to peruse its pages!

This story is long steeped in Mystery and Sublimity, yet is also shot through with depravity and unease. The result is singular and intoxicating, at once audacious and inexplicably familiar. It leaves a resonance upon my palette not unlike that left by my first taste of fine, strong liquor.

"And yet, after three days of meandering about the curved streets, Elaine had a nagging feeling that the quarter was larger than it should be…"

The remaining stories strive toward the perfection of the first, and indeed each comes close in its own particular way. Strømsholt has produced what looks to be a fair amount of published work in his native Danish, but very few pieces in English (so far as I know, none of his Danish writing has been translated). The strictly limited nature of this release does not make it an easy item to track down. It is currently sold out with the publisher, though copies of the book do occasionally turn up in the used book market for a not unreasonable price. As with all Ex Occidente books, the rarity of this item is part of its charm, its mystery. Seek it out. If you do manage to find it, the long sought after artifact will be worth far more to you than if you had simply placed an order on Amazon.