Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ok, yes hoard works too, since I really am
> hoarding all these authors. It is greed. I doubt I
> will even have time to read them all.
>

I think this could be turned into a fine horror tale (in film or book)! Like getting trapped by a woman's bodily beauty, and succumbing under its ultimate illusion, you may similarly get entangled in adoration for your favorite dead authors; and by reading them you really pull their strings, disturbing their rest, awakening their ghosts that will haunt you and crowd in upon you.

Is that idea just a little like the idea in John Meade Falkner's The Lost Stradivarius, where the unquiet party is a composer rather than an author?

Since the first Dunsany story I encountered was "The Hoard of the Gibbelins" I find this discussion very apt!

Ken, was that first encounter with Dunsany by means of the appearance of the Gibbelins story in an anthology called Monster Mix? That was mine, circa late 1968 or early 1969.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Is that idea just a little like the idea in John
> Meade Falkner's The Lost Stradivarius, where the
> unquiet party is a composer rather than an author?


Perhaps ..., I am not familiar with that one. I thought I had something unique here! ;D

Back to Dunsany. My first was The King of the Elfland's Daughter. After that I don't exactly remember. Either I read his original collections in order (Luce editions), or else I started with A Dreamer's Tales and Tales of Three Hemispheres (both from Owlswick Press); I remember liking the "Idle Days on the Yann" trilogy (there were two follow-up stories!).

I found The Gods of Pegana boring. Dunsany used it to set up his mythology of the dreaming gods; it's a kind of bible. The second collection, Time and the Gods, was better, having some quaint descriptions of the lands of men.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Herding together a personal library of books
> gathered from various sources into one great hoard
> makes sense as preparation for surviving the
> cultural zombie horde descending upon us.
>
>

Very good ...!!! Most well put.

Knygatin Wrote:
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>
>
> I don't believe Lovecraft ever read or mentioned
> any of the Jorkens tales. Those were written by an
> older Dunsany during the latter half of his life.

He did. He called them "tripe". The first Jorkens collection appeared in 1931.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> >
> > I don't believe Lovecraft ever read or mentioned
> > any of the Jorkens tales. Those were written by an
> > older Dunsany during the latter half of his life.
>
> He did. He called them "tripe". The first Jorkens
> collection appeared in 1931.

Thanks Martinus. It is like I have mentioned before, Lovecraft, in spite of being a "dreamer on the nightside", did keep himself updated on current events.

I think this may be a case of preference. The Jorkens tales are perhaps better suited for worldly men, than dreamers of the fantastic.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Martinus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Knygatin Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > >
> > >
> > > I don't believe Lovecraft ever read or
> mentioned
> > > any of the Jorkens tales. Those were written
> by an
> > > older Dunsany during the latter half of his
> life.
> >
> > He did. He called them "tripe". The first
> Jorkens
> > collection appeared in 1931.
>
> Thanks Martinus. It is like I have mentioned
> before, Lovecraft, in spite of being a "dreamer on
> the nightside", did keep himself updated on
> current events.
>
> I think this may be a case of preference. The
> Jorkens tales are perhaps better suited for
> worldly men, than dreamers of the fantastic.


Succinctly, the Jorkens stories are a running set piece, an extended episodic joke, that runs for 100+ stories.

They are like Fitzgerald's Patty Hobby stories. Hemingway has the Nick Adams stories, but they're not intended to be funny, as Jorkens or Hobby are.

If you're looking something of the cosmic, you've come to the wrong department.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Has anyone here read Dunsany's three autobiographies, Patches of Sunlight (1938), While The Sirens Slept (1944), and The Sirens Wake (1945)?

I have read Patches of Sunlight (1938). Found it rather pedestrian, not as poetic as Machen's first volume autobiography (of three) Far Off Things (1922). Beautiful title though. That's why I bought it.

Knygatin, I haven't read these. I had the impression also that they would be unsatisfactory, but a fantasy scholar said the first, at least, was good -- I forget just what he said. But it sounds like my impression was correct & I may as well not bother.

But Machen's Far-Off Things is simply one of my favorite books of all that I've read.

There is another collection by Dunsany called The Little Tales of Smethers, containing the famous short story "The Two Bottles of Relish".

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Has anyone here read Dunsany's three
> autobiographies, Patches of Sunlight (1938), While
> The Sirens Slept (1944), and The Sirens Wake
> (1945)?
>

I have. The first one is indeed the most interesting (and entertaining), even though Dunsany keeps his cards close to his chest and never gets too personal (the title is a hint; he skips many of the bad parts of his life). For the later books his only sources were his writing log, his hunting journal, and whatever letter he had written to his wife that he could find lying around. The two later books therefore become a long chain of anecdotes based on whatever associations these sources brought him.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Has anyone here read Dunsany's three
> > autobiographies, Patches of Sunlight (1938), While
> > The Sirens Slept (1944), and The Sirens Wake
> > (1945)?
> >
>
> The first one is indeed the most
> interesting (and entertaining), even though
> Dunsany keeps his cards close to his chest and
> never gets too personal (the title is a hint; he
> skips many of the bad parts of his life).
>

Hmm, he was a soldier in the despicably wretched and woeful WW1. That must have been a hard hit on his dreaming fantasies. His writing was different after that. Still, he was able to write The King of Elfland's Daughter.


There was also a correspondence between Dunsany and A. C. Clarke, I would like to read.

In Clarke's essay Dunsany, Lord of Fantasy, he had this to say about Dunsany's writings:

"Dunsany is a poet in the truest sense, but it is in prose rather than in verse that his finest work has been done. No-one has ever approached his skill in suggesting, so flawlessly and with such economy of means, that the world is not exactly as we suppose. No-one can make the blood run cold with a simpler phrase, no-one can suggest so much while saying so little. His stories sparkle with ideas, often single sentences that challenge the mind with vertiginous implications. Under the magic of his art, the commonest things become enchanted, and. when his imagination soars away from earth we enter realms of fantasy indeed."

And Clarke said of The Charwoman's Shadow:

"The ending of The Charwoman's Shadow is the finest piece of pure magic I know in the whole of literature, [...]"

#7. “The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller, and of the Doom That Befell Him”

This is the story I’d begin with, to make the case that, in his famous short fantasies at least, Dunsany is the anti-Tolkien. (Tolkien himself regarded it as showing “Dunsany at his worst.”)

It’s the “Hoard of the Gibbelins” plot: a would-be thief seeks treasure of preposterous value, ventures in a well-prepared manner into the fastness of the guardian(s), is caught, and is hung up on a hook. The knight in “Hoard” was motivated by greed; the master thief is motivated by professionalism (“business was business” is repeated) and lust for the merchant’s daughter’s screams when he shall possess her soul.

Lin Carter used to rave about Dunsany’s invented names. Here we have Zid, Mursk, Snarp, Ag, and Woth, which probably few Dunsany admirers have celebrated; but they fit a story whose unreality the author is happy to emphasize, as he does in the well-known final paragraph: “And the only daughter of the Merchant prince felt so little gratitude for this great deliverance that she took to respectability of a militant kind, and became aggressively dull, and called her home the English Riviera, and had platitudes worked in worsted upon her tea-cosy, and in the end never died, but passed away at her residence.” The story-bubble bursts and the reader is meant to laugh, or, I suppose, grin anyway.

In other words, the whole thing is a performance and the reader is invited to feel sophisticated because he enjoys it. This is the opposite of Tolkien’s effort to give to the world a consistent secondary world and that awakens in us a refreshed, restored delight in the primary world.


[tolkiengateway.net]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11 Aug 21 | 10:00AM by Dale Nelson.