The early reception of the <i>Sun Machine</i>

The Early Reception of the Sun Machine' focuses on Nicholas Royle's David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine (2023), exploring the early critical reception of the work alongside more philosophical questions: Why do we speak of 'reception' rather than 'effect', 'impact', 'understanding' or 'response to'?How might we elaborate and perhaps think differently about the concept of reception?The text engages with the nature of limits: it is at least implicitly understood that an author does not, should not, and even cannot offer an account of the critical reception of their own work.The discussion involves questions of comedy and propriety, as it moves through reflections on the experience of writing the Sun Machine book and on its relation to other books by Royle, especially Telepathy and Literature (1990), The Uncanny (2003) and the novel Quilt (2010).Drawing on the music of Bowie, the storytelling of Blyton, and the paintings of Lola Onslow, Stephen Finer and George Underwood, Royle concludes with an argument for the scene of reception as a scene of reading, affirming the unforeseeable, chance and serendipity.