I'm taking a bit of a break, reading some Crane short stories. For many years, Crane has impressed me, and his better works bear multiple re-readings.

But not all of them. There's quite a variation in relative quality, and I say "relative" meaning relative to his better work, because all of it is of decent quality.

Then I came to find out that Crane was under fairly constant financial pressure, and his often-stated prescription was that he'd simply do more work--write more.

Write his way out of debt, in essence.

I now suspect that his lesser works were those written for the market, and without much intrinsic artistic inspiration; he was putting bread on the table.

Friends and fellow-EDers, does this sounds like anyone we know and admire? :^)

I wonder if a broad-based dissertation might be done on the documented effect on aesthetic quality of financial motivation as the principal impetus to prose creation as opposed to internal artistic motivation. You know, for people like Twain, Melville, Hemingway, etc. Did their quality tend to drop off noticeably, like CAS and Crane, or was it fairly consistent?

You'll note also that I purposely limited this to "prose creation": when was the last time a poet wrote in response to commercial demand?

--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 always confuse this guy with David Park Barnitz who wrote The Book of Jade. They looked identically alike! And they lived at about the same time. Crane died at 28 in 1900, and Barnitz died at 23 in 1901.

I've never heard of Barnitz. I'll have to check him out.

Thanks for the intro, Knygatin.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Did Stephen Crane write wierd fiction or horror stories? I am asking because I know his work, years ago I read some of his stories (I can recall "An Experiment in Misery", "In The Depth Of A Coal mine" or "The Fire") and I have to say there was nothing weird or terrible about them, no supernatural element. In actual fact, these little tales were nothing but a bunch of descriptions of depressive aspects and unpleasant situations of life. (Oh My God, so many "ofs" in just one sentence ...) I am sorry to say it but what I have read by Mr. Crane so far did not impress me at all ...

Crane's stories, like those of Guy de Maupassant, have had their pessimistic world view exaggerated by critics. Maupassant could be as dreary as they come, moreso for his health problems than any profound misanthropy. Unlike Crane, he became wealthy through a combination of prolificity and popularity, owning a yacht and a lavish home. Smith and Robert E. Howard's work did lapse in quality due to low and irregular compensation, and I think that accounts for some of Lovecraft's overblown reputation. HPL's lesser tales were either very short or revision jobs, but Smith's artistic growth (more rapid), coincided with the commercial pressures Sawfish brings up.

jkh

Minicthulhu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did Stephen Crane write wierd fiction or horror
> stories? I am asking because I know his work,
> years ago I read some of his stories (I can recall
> "An Experiment in Misery", "In The Depth Of A Coal
> mine" or "The Fire") and I have to say there was
> nothing weird or terrible about them, no
> supernatural element. In actual fact, these little
> tales were nothing but a bunch of descriptions of
> depressive aspects and unpleasant situations of
> life. (Oh My God, so many "ofs" in just one
> sentence ...) I am sorry to say it but what I have
> read by Mr. Crane so far did not impress me at all
> ...

Sounds like the same Crane.

He did Open Boat, Red Badge of Courage, and The Blue Hotel. Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (anticipating Drieser's Sister Carry, and Upton Sinclair's naturalist works). All of these have tremendous immediacy, in that one feels like one is being shot at and are understandably scared witless, or trying hard to find a place to land in rough surf in a rapidly swamping dingy, etc.

I mean, the reader--or such a reader as I--feels this quite strongly. Vividly. It then depends on if you're comfortable with the vicarious experience, because it *is* quite vivid.

But as I had mentioned, he was under a lot of financial duress (like CAS, but more so, since he seemed to have liked living large) and his stated-work around was to just write more.

Now to distinguish between lesser quality works in which he loses some of that immediacy, or he explores less visceral themes (and he's not good at social interactions so much as he is internal conflicts), that's one thing. And he has such work in his portfolio.

But there are others where his choice of subject matter is less agreeable, but the narrative is well executed and the theme--often life and death--is ably explored.

For example, he has a very short story called "Manacled", I think. It's simply this...

The setting is a vaudeville theater and it's about midway thru the bill, and an escape artist is on stage. He his manacled to an object on stage and is at the stage where he is convincing the audience that he really is locked, but not to the point where his assistant slips the key to him, thus fooling the audience.

But a fire breaks out in the theater at just that moment, the assistant and everyone else runs away, and he's left there on stage, manacled.

Very unlikely; very distasteful. But still, there were at that time, quite a few of disastrous theater fires, and so, what if...?

He is a very strong "what if" writer. The skill is there, most definitely, but the subject matter may be displeasing.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Crane's stories, like those of Guy de Maupassant,
> have had their pessimistic world view exaggerated
> by critics. Maupassant could be as dreary as they
> come, moreso for his health problems than any
> profound misanthropy. Unlike Crane, he became
> wealthy through a combination of prolificity and
> popularity, owning a yacht and a lavish home.
> Smith and Robert E. Howard's work did lapse in
> quality due to low and irregular compensation, and
> I think that accounts for some of Lovecraft's
> overblown reputation. HPL's lesser tales were
> either very short or revision jobs, but Smith's
> artistic growth (more rapid), coincided with the
> commercial pressures Sawfish brings up.

Very interesting perspective, Kipling. I tend to agree with it.

Here's an odd conclusion I had come to a while back. HPL seems very workman like, in that his stuff does not read like he is inspired during the act of writing, as I believe the better CAS (or Howard) work is. This is to say that as CAS was writing something like The Double Shadow (a very good story, in my opinion), as he wrote it he sometimes was spontaneously inspired with imagery that he then translated to his lapidary written style.

On-the-fly.

Now one thing I really admire about HPL is that he did ghost writing, and of the stories he wrote for Zealia Bishop, I think they are very good workman like jobs, very professional. And they were clearly his style, but he took care to not connect them in any way with his mythos, or with other directly related themes he explored in his own body of work.

Then I applied this working observation to his work in general, and I get the mild, subjective feeling that he writes much more laboriously than CAS--seems less inspired by a muse than he is a reporter of almost faux Fortean anomolies. You sometimes get some pretty cinematic stuff, like the climatic scene in Call of Cthulu, but often the content is closer to reporting a news story.

But this idea of being a journeyman rather than an inspired artist is not well tested, even in my own mind. I also need to be careful of confirmation bias... ;^)

--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:
>
>
> Here's an odd conclusion I had come to a while
> back. HPL seems very workman like, in that his
> stuff does not read like he is inspired during the
> act of writing, as I believe the better CAS (or
> Howard) work is. This is to say that as CAS was
> writing something like The Double Shadow (a very
> good story, in my opinion), as he wrote it he
> sometimes was spontaneously inspired with imagery
> that he then translated to his lapidary written
> style.
>
> On-the-fly.
>
> Now one thing I really admire about HPL is that he
> did ghost writing, and of the stories he wrote for
> Zealia Bishop, I think they are very good workman
> like jobs, very professional. And they were
> clearly his style, but he took care to not connect
> them in any way with his mythos, or with other
> directly related themes he explored in his own
> body of work.
>
> Then I applied this working observation to his
> work in general, and I get the mild, subjective
> feeling that he writes much more laboriously than
> CAS--seems less inspired by a muse than he is a
> reporter of almost faux Fortean anomolies. You
> sometimes get some pretty cinematic stuff, like
> the climatic scene in Call of Cthulu, but often
> the content is closer to reporting a news story.
>
> But this idea of being a journeyman rather than an
> inspired artist is not well tested, even in my own
> mind. I also need to be careful of confirmation
> bias... ;^)

I agree. I'm no film critic, but HPL was somewhat similar to Alfred Hitchcock, who famously said his films were pre-existent in his imagination before filming began. Smith's best stories, to me anyway, are more effectively WEIRD than Lovecraft's (with a few exceptions) for the very reasons you mentioned. "The Double Shadow" is, I think, better than "The Death of Malygris" because of the inspired imagery as it builds our "suspension of disbelief". Thanks!

jkh

Sawfish Wrote:
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> Minicthulhu Wrote:
>
> For example, he has a very short story called
> "Manacled", I think. It's simply this...

It sounds like a conte cruel story at its best! Maurice Level was a master at writing stories of this kind.

Minicthulhu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sawfish Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Minicthulhu Wrote:
> >
> > For example, he has a very short story called
> > "Manacled", I think. It's simply this...
>
> It sounds like a conte cruel story at its best!
> Maurice Level was a master at writing stories of
> this kind.

I seriously question why anyone would want to write a story like this; to do it well, you'd have to sit and dwell on the details...and grim details they would be, for sure.

But Crane was an odd character from what I can tell. He successfully and persuasively portrayed the battlefield experience of naive bravery as it collides with grim reality, and the victory of blind panic--all without having had any battlefield experience.

This is not to say that he had it right (I wouldn't know, not having had war experience), but he very persuasively established credibility and verisimilitude. He succeeded with critics, but he also succeeded with *me*, and I'm really skeptical and critical over these issues *if the story portrays itself as realistic*.

The flip side is that I'm pretty ready to accept a fantasy or SF writer's pitch, so long as he obeys his own established rules, more-or-less.

I', not familiar with "conte cruel" or Level. I thank you for the references, but it's not really likely I'll go there. I feel sort of repelled by these narratives--no concrete reason other than they're just not for me.

I mean, Manacled is so short that I had no real idea what it was going to be about until the final paragraph or so.

You know, it just dawns on me that Crane was a sort of proto-Hemingway in many ways. Hemingway dwelled on the unpleasant, often. There's a short piece telling about the unpleasantness of the Greek retreat from Turkish forces in WWI, I think.

Good exchange. 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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Some goods points there, Sawfish.

The way I see it (which is to say, feel free to disagree or ignore) is that people spend much of their time consciously or subconsciously regulating their ‘emotional thermostat’, making sure they don’t feel emotions that are too strong. However, occasionally we want our heart rate to go up a little (I mean that literally), in which case a good thing will serve as well as a bad thing: you could go dancing, climb a mountain or make love to your sweetheart, but you could also beat someone up, try to steal something or read a conte cruel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11 Jul 21 | 12:13PM by Avoosl Wuthoqquan.

Here one can find several short (really very short) stories by Maurice Level.
[gutenberg.net.au]
[thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com]

Here is the link to his longest story called "Those Who Return". As I can see its ratings on goodreads are quite positive.
[woolrich3.tripod.com]
[www.goodreads.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11 Jul 21 | 01:02PM by Minicthulhu.

> > Sawfish Wrote:

>
> I'm not familiar with "conte cruel" or Level.

This is strange. H.P.Lovecraft speaks about Mr. Level with recognition in his "Supernatural Horror In Literature."

"This type, however, is less a part of the weird tradition than a class peculiar to itself—the so-called conte cruel, in which the wrenching of the emotions is accomplished through dramatic tantalisations, frustrations, and gruesome physical horrors. Almost wholly devoted to this form is the living writer Maurice Level, whose very brief episodes have lent themselves so readily to theatrical adaptation in the “thrillers” of the Grand Guignol. As a matter of fact, the French genius is more naturally suited to this dark realism than to the suggestion of the unseen; since the latter process requires, for its best and most sympathetic development on a large scale, the inherent mysticism of the Northern mind."

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some goods points there, Sawfish.
>
> The way I see it (which is to say, feel free to
> disagree or ignore) is that people spend much of
> their time consciously or subconsciously
> regulating their ‘emotional thermostat’,
> making sure they don’t feel emotions that are
> too strong. However, occasionally we want our
> heart rate to go up a little (I mean that
> literally), in which case a good thing will serve
> as well as a bad thing: you could go dancing,
> climb a mountain or make love to your sweetheart,
> but you could also beat someone up, try to steal
> something or read a conte cruel.

Hah! Great observation!

I like to "sit on my emotions"--keep them at a distance. Perhaps this goes against the natural, evolved impulse, but for me to do well in the social environment I have inhabited since birth, I'm far, far better off distancing myself from my emotions. I mean, it's a western industrial social environment, for better or worse, and for me it works better to be detached except among friends/family.

But you still have these needs, and the ways you mentioned fulfill them.

There's a funny sort of observation a made some years back about *why* I am attracted to certain films, like Goodfellas, The Departed, Killing Them Softly, and also such films as David Lynch films, like Blue Velvet, or almost any he has made.

And it's this reason...

I really like the visceral enjoyment of being around volatile people (provided I'm not their target), like Frank in Blue Velvet, or Tommy in Goodfellas, but I don't like the actual danger, so by viewing these kinds of films, I voyeuristically am fulfilled.

In college, I had friends who were watered-down versions of people like Tommy, and you can get in a whole lot of trouble just being around them, when they're engaging in excessive behavior.

For example, you and a few other friends may eat at a steak restaurant, at your friend your "Tommy"'s invitation. He says he will to pick up the tab, but then, out in the parking lot, restaurant employees begin to chase you and call the police, because "Tommy" ran the tab--sneaked out without paying.

Guys like that think this is great fun...

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Minicthulhu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> It sounds like a conte cruel story at its best!
> Maurice Level was a master at writing stories of
> this kind.


And Charles Birkin! Brrrr!!!