Quote:

“He certainly didn't bother to read properly the book he is quoting, because Amory certainly gets Dunsany's place of birth right.… ”

Lachman's hardly the sole offender, in this regard. It's an occupational hazard among scholars and authors, these days. Books tend to be read partially, selectively, and then "data mined". Who knows where Lachman got his erroneous information regarding Dunsany's birthplace?

Again, I offered the reference primarily for Lachman's observations about Dunsany's stories, tone, and perspective, and, as I see the matter, it certainly remains valid for those of us who don't care quite so much for Dunsany's work. In particular, Lachman is dead on the money with respect to Dunsany's hackwork. It's remarkable that Lovecraft, who was so sensitive to hack-like tendencies in other authors, failed to see--or at least strenuously object to--this quality in Dunsany.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10 Jun 11 | 08:55AM by Absquatch.

I finished the Leiber collection Swords Against Death a while ago. The second story, "The Jewels in the Forest", his earliest Lankhmar (1939), was the high point I thought. The following stories never quite reached up to my expectations, even though very good in parts.

I find Leiber a very competent writer, and he has a fine grasp of human psychology. But he doesn't quite reach ecstatic artistic levels. That is why I did not include him in my list of best writers in the "Best writers" thread.

I read Hodgson's The Ghost Pirates. And have never had such a reading experience before. It works pretty much as a study book for sailors. Crammed with old schooner terms. Having a dictionary handy was necessary. The Ghost Pirates has been described as having "an economic style of writing" and being "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published". But I found it a chore to read, the text being preoccupied with materialistic descriptions, details being repeated over and over. And the dull-minded sailors aboard the ship remained very stubborn in their reluctance to accept the supernatural signs.

But the sudden cruel and mercilessly grim ending of the book worked as a very effective irony, in contrast to the sailors's materialistic sluggishness in acting effectively. This changed my overall impression of the book. Suddenly it all made sense. The slow and outdrawn pace of the book was necessary to make the ending so much more effective. Seen as a whole I consider it a powerful work of art. It is remarkable how writers back then could take the space to build up dramatic tension like that; it would have been impossible today, with the restless consumers craving instant gratification.

The story reminds me of a large nineteen century Victorian painting (overgrown with "lichen", overcrowded with non-relevant naturalistic detail, so typical for this strictly academic art period), that you must to step back from a few paces to get a perspective overlook of what's going on. Since Hodgson was born in that era, his writing style being similar to the visual arts makes sense. The rising spiritualism of the period, present in Hodgson and others writers, was of course also a reaction and a welcome relief to the materialism of the 1800s.

Nevertheless, I still hold The Boats of the "Glenn Carrig" (first half of it) as my favorite Hodgson book. Remains to be seen if it will still hold that position, when I am done with The Night Land, which I will begin reading now ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 21 Jul 11 | 07:57AM by Knygatin.

Knygatin Wrote:
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> The Night Land,
> which I will begin reading now ...




Good grief! Finally done. I need a vacation after this. The toughest book I have ever read. It was an experience similar to that of the character in the book.

I refuse to believe that many people have actually read The Night Land all through. They may say they have, but I doubt the truthfulness of such a claim. Everyone who has done it should receive a medal.

Only the Victorian Age could have produced a text so preposterously slow-moving with repetitive garbage.

I was only able to read one page, or two at the most each night, before the muscles of my neck relaxed and my head dropped to sleep. Still struggling with my eyes askew crosswise to see the text, until being forced to drag myself to bed.

And half-way through the book, after about 200 pages, the newly met lovers start kneeling before each other and kissing each other's hands... page after page. But it was my firm intention to complete The Night Land, so I set off daytime for this overwhelming and dreary task, and read aloud to keep myself awake. But then, from sitting on a chair all day, my lower back started troubling me. Damn it, Hodgson!

Here is an example of reader addressing, that you can expect at the bottom of most text-segments, on every page:

"... And this thing I give for your enlightenment, even on a small matter; so that you shall have a clear knowledge to abide with me all the way; and you to agree of this for wisdom, and I to be pleased that you so agree. And this shall be plain onto you to be a reasonable thinking, as you shall mind; and so shall you conceive of all my feelings; for we do be all so human in this matter, and to meet on a dear natural ground, as you will say. In verity, the dreadfulness of that time doth shake me now to think upon, and you also, if that you have gotten my tellings to your hearts, so that your human sympathy doth be with me, as you to perceive, this time and that. And this thing I beg that you have always in your mind, and so to understand why we did be oft long upon this part of the journey and that, by compare with mine outward going. As you do well know from my tellings. In truth, it be very natural. And you to agree with me in this thing, or to be lacking of sympathy and good human understanding. And, indeed, this my tale to be not easy told."

*SIGH* Finally done, thank god.

Now I must go into convalescence, and relieve my mind with some humorously sardonic, and dynamic Jack Vance or CAS fantasy, before going back again to exploring the spooks of the old masters.

(This post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek (just a bit!). I will likely be back with very positive comments for this Masterpiece, that moved me to tears in the end, a book that is truer than the human world we dwell in. Written by a man who here tapped more profound sources than all the near-sighted Nobel prize winners put together. Once I've shaken off this superficial frustration and rehabilitated. If ever my mind will be the same. As shall be plain unto you.)

Knygatin Wrote:
>
> I refuse to believe that many people have actually
> read The Night Land all through.

I read it all the way through. A mere stroll in the park. Try reading _Melmoth the Wanderer_ THAT is an endurance contest!

Seriously, _The Nightland_ had parts that I thought were very innovative. It did put me into a wondering and eerie state at times. Other parts were a bit dull. Still other parts seemed just plain silly and humorously bizarre. Don’t forget that after the endless hand kissing, the hero had to scold and spank his naughty beloved a number of times.

weorcstan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:

> Seriously, _The Nightland_ had parts that I
> thought were very innovative. It did put me into
> a wondering and eerie state at times. Other parts
> were a bit dull. Still other parts seemed just
> plain silly and humorously bizarre. Don’t
> forget that after the endless hand kissing, the
> hero had to scold and spank his naughty beloved a
> number of times.

*Heh*... That spanking was a bit shocking when it got from bad to worse. Still, I don't condemn anything of Hodgson's vision in this amazing book.

The book is actually foremost a love tale, as it's subtitle says, and I don't mind. On the whole the romance is spectacular.

In some parts the books turns into E. R. Burroughs-like adventure, with giant creatures and cavemen. But much more realistic and brutal than Burroughs. The fights are as graphically expressive as some Richard Corben art.

I wonder if Lovecraft just skimmed through the second half of the book, because I don't agree with him that it was worse than the first part of the book.


(I will be back later to the forum. I'll be out of Internet for a few weeks.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 14 Oct 11 | 05:14AM by Knygatin.

I read it all the way through, but I agree it's tough going at times. The ridiculous writing style aside, there are some incredibly powerful moments in the book. There are also some passages (the "spanking", for instance, which at best indicates a complete inexperience with women, at worst is loathsome) after reading which I was tempted to devote the rest of my life to building a time machine just so I could go back and give Hodgson a stiff beating. (Yes, I know he was a body-builder, but a hefty truncheon does wonders to level those kinds of playing fields.) An armchair psychoanalyst could spend hours speculating--I'll refrain.

Hodgson does deserve credit for being way ahead of his time in adumbrating a whole host of science-fictional notions that wouldn't appear again until at least the '40s... e.g., "slidewalks" (though he doesn't call them that) for which Heinlein is often given credit ("The Roads Must Roll"), the "arcology" concept (not to appear again until cyberpunk, maybe some proto-cyberpunk), etc. And his ability to evoke a sense of cosmic majesty (on display in The House on the Borderland too) is in my opinion third in all of literature, behind HPL's and W. Olaf Stapledon's.

I can't help wondering, as with many writers who die prematurely, what sort of work he might have done later.

(One more comment before I go today.)

Yeah I think he took that spanking too far, it turned into flogging. It was revolting. It must also be remembered that this was written in the culture of the 1800s, before women's liberation.

I don't wonder that Lovecraft disliked the romantic elements, he was a feminist. Clark on the other hand, *heheh*, I don't think was all foreign to a little spanking, if the situation called for it. Read his "Something New".

Somewhere in the middle of the book, when they are recuperating on the island, the decriptions of romance spanning over several reincarnations through the Ages, is pure poetry. He strikes all the right notes. I don't think he was so inexperienced, not on the soul level at least.



Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> In some parts the books turns into E. R.
> Burroughs-like adventure, with giant creatures and
> cavemen.

There is even a tall four-armed man, although he is yellow rather than green. I found it hilariously imaginative how his lower pair of arms were genetically constructed only for gripping onto prey. So when the hero had cut off the top arms, the monster could not fight or defend itself with its remaining arms, but only hold on, while our hero chopped away.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 14 Oct 11 | 08:21AM by Knygatin.

Radovarl Wrote:
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> An armchair
> psychoanalyst could spend hours speculating--I'll
> refrain.

If I remember correctly he also wrote at least one story in which sailors amuse themselves by dressing up as women. But I shall refrain from commenting on this.

Has anyone read The Dream of X, the abbreviated version of The Nightland? Does it eliminated most of what we find boring today?

Ken K. Wrote:
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> Has anyone read The Dream of X, the abbreviated
> version of The Nightland? Does it eliminated most
> of what we find boring today?


Haven't yet, though I have the complete Night Shade set of Hodgson set aside for reading in the (I hope) relatively near future.*

I, too, made it all the way through The Night Land, though it was about 30 years ago, and I've not revisited it since, either in its complete form, or in the edited version published as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. It is one of those books which is both a masterpiece of imaginative writing, and one of the most painful reading experiences I've encountered (well, outside of something such as the Malleus Maleficarum... now there is something which made me wish for a time machine. Mather I could handle; that damned book caused me to chip some teeth....)

On Melmoth... I can't really concur on that one. It has its awkwardnesses, certainly, and even a few "dry" spots... but really surprisingly few -- to me, at any rate. Then again, I have a fondness for the Gothics myself, having read a fair number of the things, and a few (such as most of Radcliffe-- Gaston de Blondeville being the main exception -- and Maturin's Melmoth) several times during the past three decades....

*By "relatively near future", I am speaking in broad terms. I've been reading my way through all the materials referenced by HPL in "Supernatural Horror in Literature", as well as related writings, and am currently reading a selection of Bierce's verse and letters, before moving on to Elsie Venner, etc. So the reading of Hodgson is a good way off... but in sight....

Ken K. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Has anyone read The Dream of X, the abbreviated
> version of The Nightland? Does it eliminated most
> of what we find boring today?

In a word: NO!

In a few more words: unfortunately it is just as tedious... yes, it removes some of the tiresome 'I walked for 12 hours and then had 3 food pills' guff that takes up so much of the unabridged novel, but it also removes a lot of the good stuff... Worse, it leaves the sickly sentimental crap. Yes, it is shorter, much shorter - but nope, it's still very very boring!

I find the Nightlands reputation as a great cosmic work puzzling... It's endless and sentimental emphasis on romantic love, to my mind, really doesn't feel very cosmic to me... House on the Boarderland is to my mind far superior, both in terms of its cosmic perspective and as a novel.

Oh dear. Yes, "The Night Land" is hard work, with its deliberately archaic English (not too convincing at that, rather like Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent) but the scope of the book is so vast and mind-stretching that perhaps only mock-Elizabethan English could carry it across (certainly not early 20th century English such as "Toodle pip, old fruit," or, "Dash it all chaps, mind my trousers"). As for the spanking, well, that still goes on in some households, and seemed to be quite popular in 1930s Hollywood screwball comedies, so it must still have conveyed a social message even then. (Knygatin refers to the work as being written in the 1800s, but we're talking early 1900s here, just before the Great War). Tough, yes, but worthwhile. I put my head down and ploughed resolutely through it, which somehow mirrored the hero's progress across the dead planet, and when I had finally finished I took a deep breath, sat back, and suddenly felt a strange sense of fulfillment. Now, that's something I didn't get after similarly ploughing through "The Worm Ouroborus" by E.R.Eddison ....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 8 Nov 11 | 05:21PM by asshurbanipal.

My mind is still reeling from the juxtaposition of William Hope Hodgson and Dick Van Dyke.

Anyone wanting a nice hardback copy of the complete stories of M.R. James can do a lot worse than buying themselves a copy of this: [www.amazon.co.uk]

I have a paperback, but it's a tad tatty and I wanted a nicer edition, which included 'A Vignette,' etc... Its annotated and it has a fairly substantial intro, which (refreshingly) isn't written by ST-fucking-Joshi! Although I haven't read it yet, so I can't vouch for its quality. It's also Oxford Uni Press, so hopefully it'll be relatively typo poor. It's also nicely priced at at the moment. Anyway, I just thought I'd point it out, although I'm sure most of you have ample ammounts of MR James already on your shelves.

EDIT: oh, and the dust jacket is much better than it looks on amazon BTW.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 9 Nov 11 | 02:04PM by The English Assassin.