Re: Machen's THE TERROR: Unsolved Mystery?
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 18 March, 2022 07:50PM
Platypus Wrote:
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> Joshi's opinions are just words to me most of the
> time. Usually I have no idea where he is coming
> from, not even enough to agree or disagree. When
> he makes factual claims, on a topic within my
> knowledge, he is often dead wrong. Sometimes I
> suspect that Joshi does not actually like weird
> horror, and has somehow fallen into the odd
> position of being touted as an expert in a genre
> he does not actually enjoy or appreciate. He
> really likes Blackwood, or says he does, and
> singles out INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES for the highest
> praise possible. I like some of Blackwood's
> stories too, but the stories in INCREDIBLE
> ADVENTURES made so little impression on me that I
> cannot even disagree coherently. I suppose I can
> understand his having little use for Machen, since
> Machen is a bit of a mystic (if that's the right
> word), and Joshi a materialist.
I think you're right about Joshi not liking the supernatural or weird horror in fiction. He ridiculed Lovecraft's story "In the Vault" for the sole reason that the idea of a reanimated corpse taking revenge on Birch, the village undertaker, for chopping his feet off was hackneyed, I guess. No critical appraisal of a very well written story, with a fine sense of realism, just a crude expression of distaste for the revenge motif and the supernatural. He came around to an appreciation of Smith later, grudgingly, but has no respect for Robert E. Howard, to further support your view.
Oddly enough, Joshi never delivered a definitively accurate edition of Lovecraft, altering HPL's verb choices and other stylistic preferences to suit himself. He seems rather close-minded and overbearing as a critic in my opinion.
jkh