Knygatin Wrote:
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> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It's really interesting.
> >
> > So to expand the list, Tolkien has it, right?,
> and
> > I've not read that much in this sub-genre (Hah!
> > "elfin bells sub-genre"!!).
> > Maybe you can expand this list a bit?
> >
>
> Depending on what we mean by it, ... but if we
> say, a genuine presence of faery, I would list
> David Lindsay's The Haunted Woman. The scene where
> they look out through a magic window into the
> past, and see a "troll" with back turned sitting
> on the grassy slope below, playing the violin. It
> totally creeped me out. (Would Pan relate to this,
> or is that a different kind of energy?)

One wonders just how *well* a troll would play...

Or maybe it's like with the old joke about the dog who could recite Lincoln's Gettysburg address; one shouldn't quibble about the fact that he mispronounces so of the words. This is a *dog* who's doing it, after all...

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> One wonders just how *well* a troll would play...
>
> Or maybe it's like with the old joke about the dog
> who could recite Lincoln's Gettysburg address; one
> shouldn't quibble about the fact that he
> mispronounces so of the words. This is a *dog*
> who's doing it, after all...

"Troll" in this novel has a deeper and more serious implication than the popular silly notion entertainment caricature we see pictured in films and children's books. Here it is enchantment and sorcery taken to an adult level, and much of it flows through the expression of the violin. This is some tremendous stuff, simply beyond all common mediocre reproach and mockery.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 8 Mar 21 | 12:45PM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > One wonders just how *well* a troll would
> play...
> >
> > Or maybe it's like with the old joke about the
> dog
> > who could recite Lincoln's Gettysburg address;
> one
> > shouldn't quibble about the fact that he
> > mispronounces so of the words. This is a *dog*
> > who's doing it, after all...
>
> "Troll" in this novel has a deeper and more
> serious implication than the popular silly notion
> entertainment caricature we see pictured in films
> and children's books. Here it is enchantment and
> sorcery taken to an adult level, and much of it
> flows through the expression of the violin. This
> is some tremendous stuff, simply beyond all common
> mediocre reproach and mockery.

This sounds nuanced and interesting. I'll try it out..

There's that shriek that Oscar, in The Tin Drum does, that has much added significance and power. His drumming, too...

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Knygatin, is The Haunted Woman a novel or a SS?

Having trouble finding it at the library. If it is in a collection, if you know the name of the collection, I will try that.

Thanks!

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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I'm an admirer of Lindsay's novel The Haunted Woman too. I like it more than Voyage to Arcturus.

Ho!

I got a free copy of The Haunted Woman from Project Gutenberg, Australia!

I'll try it out as soon as I finish what I'm reading now.

Thanks for the multiple recommendations!

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Perhaps you can post your thoughts on The Haunted Woman in due course.

I've discussed Lindsay a very little with Douglas Anderson, a great admirer of this author. His view seems to be that one should not look to Lindsay's various books and try to precipitate out from them some one, consistent philosophy, but that Lindsay tried different veins of thought in his various books. I have read only this one and Voyage -- oh, and the Academy Chicago version of The Violet Apple, I think, but my impression is that that is an incomplete text (?). I started Devil's Tor & didn't get too far with it.

I have not started reading Devil's Tor yet, aside from the first few paragraphs, but expect great things from it.

Ok, Dale. An early impression.

I can't be more than about 10-12 pages in, and already it seems to me that the author establishes a tremendous amount of indirectly stated sexual tension. Not between the three main characters introduced so far, but a lot of potential sexual energy.

It's like a tremendous charge looking for ground.

I guess I see where this goes, soon enough.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish, your comment is with regard to The Haunted Woman, I take it. I should say that it's a while since I last read it, so I might not be able to engage much in a discussion.

Dale, yes, sorry. It's about The Haunted Woman.

Still not far enough in to see what's going on, but Lindsay's character descriptions, individually, and in the collective interactions of the story, are far, far above average, in my opinion.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish Wrote:
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> >Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> >
> > > Sawfish Wrote:
> > > ------------------------------------------------
> > > I'll add that I finished Lindsay's "The Haunted
> > > Woman" and was very, very impressed with the
> > > pacing, character development of the principal
> > > character, Isbel (a woman I'd make it a point to
> > > stay well away from), and of the supporting cast.
> > >
> > > The story, itself, seemed to delve into the ideas
> > > of socially repressed sexual desire, "liberated"
> > > in the ultra-dimensional rooms/passages of
> > > Runhill. In this sense, many passages were
> > > electric...
> > >
> > > Good recommendation, K!
> >
> >
> > Did you find the fiddle player seen from the window creepy?
> > I think there was some very good reason we were not
> > allowed to see his face, but only his back. His
> > long hair gave me the jitters. Not quite fully
> > human.
>
> Yes, it was creepy. A tall, broadly built
> *something* that had yellow hair and an
> inexplicable costume...and the instrument he
> played was similarly ambiguous.
>
> I expected that we *would* see his face, and it
> seems like Judge saw it, and died, and earlier
> there was another person who saw it (Mrs. B.?) and
> died also.
>
> Very, very effective book.


Perhaps it should be stacked and locked up alongside the forbidden tomes Necronomicon, The Book of Eibon, and Unaussprechlichen Kulten! Lest the seas will one day run red.

I'm going to set for myself a list of half a dozen fantasy classics to try to read, or reread, by (let's say) the end of summer 2023. These include:

Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (a 3rd reading; last completed reading 1974)
Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow (a 3rd reading; last read 1976)
Hodgson's The Night Land (I read only half of it)
Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist (never read)
Morris's The Sundering Flood (never read)

Knygatin, please suggest a Merritt novel other than The Ship of Ishtar, which I read in 2011. My inclination is to read Dwellers in the Mirage, which I have read, but so long ago that it predates my reading log begun Jan. 1974.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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>
> Knygatin, please suggest a Merritt novel other
> than The Ship of Ishtar, which I read in 2011. My
> inclination is to read Dwellers in the Mirage,
> which I have read, but so long ago that it
> predates my reading log begun Jan. 1974.

Very difficult, since I am not sure at all our literary tastes and preferences are close. I like the grotesque and bizarre and weird and colorful, while I assume you are more interested in something that supports and builds up human character in the reader. (I like that too, but it is secondary to me when reading fantastic literature.)

I have read The Dwellers in the Mirage once, and found it slow going, with a few touches of excellent fantasy. I mean to reread it some day, but then the uncut magazine version.

I could suggest reading the original short-story version of "The Moon Pool" which is quite fine, and after that continue with the magazine version of The Conquest of the Moon Pool, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?265331. (It is more pulpy, but has some excellent imagery, like the dragon worm and underground auroras in sparkling colors.) That is what I intend to do next.

I am most impressed with The Metal Monster, again in the longer magazine version and Hippocampus Press edition. And by The Face in the Abyss / The Snake Mother, yet again the two novella magazine versions, far superior to the truncated and melded book version.

Knygatin, thank you -- I will likely give those Moon Pool texts a try.