Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Reader's imagination is important . . . people
> > without it don't get much pleasure or meaning
> from
> > reading.
>
>
> Neither chills! These people, the rabble,
> consisting of most of the masses, tend to reject
> quality supernatural fiction, complaining that
> "nothing happens". They crave materialism, blood,
> disemboweled guts, and chopped off heads, to be
> impressed. And why does this garbage totally
> dominate literature and other culture today?
> Because of democracy, and its consequence
> outgrowth, materialism. Everyone's opinion and
> taste is "as good" as anyone's else; the masses,
> the idiot rabble have been allowed to set the
> agenda, because they dominate in number. At the
> beginning of the 1900s, before democracy had
> reached absurd levels and spread into every niche
> of society, when the elite still dominated taste
> and was respected, then the last sparks of quality
> literature, fine artistic expression, was
> encouraged and lifted forth. And that was the
> selection the rabble had to choose from, take it
> or leave it, either read or continue their
> customary barroom brawling. Today their primitive
> appetites are satisfied by literature down to
> their level, swarming the bookstore shelves,
> pushing away the more subtle and refined literary
> voices, tasteless bookcovers screaming out their
> senseless perspectives, leading the minds of youth
> onward towards Armageddon. And of course, it's a
> commercial success for the publishing houses!
> Capitalistic triumph. All thanks to democracy.
> Indeed, how wonderful.


Sorry, but that's nonsense. What has long been called a "subliterary tradition" of writing has always been with us; it just tends not to survive as well as the better work -- or hadn't, until the advent of cheaper printing and now the electronic media which allows anything and everything to survive.* If you think the writing of today is bad, try reading the penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, etc. Even the best of them, such as Varney, the Vampire, The String of Pearls (often simply called Sweeney Todd), or their equivalents, such as George W. M. Reynolds' Wagner, the Wehr-wolf, the novels of William Harrison Ainsworth, or Capt. Frederick Marryat (each of which has some points of interest to the lover of weird fiction), make today's literature almost shine in comparison. And that isn't even touching on the sorts of things Blackwood's often published, or the plethora of Gothic novels such as Children of the Abbey by Mrs. Roche or (heaven forfend!) the Horrid Mysteries of "the Marquis von Grosse", or the tons of shorter Gothic tales published in the magazinse of the period. (Lest it be asked: Yes, for my sins, I have read all the titles specified above, as well as a fairly large selection of the general sorts mentiioned.) And this is only covering the last few centuries. The Romans had their garbage literature, too....

For a good taste of the middling-range (except for such things as The Necromancer and Horrid Mysteries, which I would put at the nadir) of Gothic fiction, I'd suggest looking up the "seven horrid novels" mentioned in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. They have been in print as a set from the Folio Club many years ago, and are (if memory serves) currently available from Valancourt Press. For the shorter works, find Peter Haining's two-volume Penguin paperback selection of Gothic Tales of Terror, the Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, or Ronald Curren's Witches, Wraiths, and Warlocks or The Weird Gathering....

*By "survival", I do not simply mean their continued existence but their remaining in print or easily accessible at least periodically over the centuries.

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sorry, but that's nonsense. What has long been
> called a "subliterary tradition" of writing has
> always been with us; it just tends not to survive
> as well as the better work -- . . .

Well, you're right . . . Even though I have not read any of the old things. I was actually thinking about R. W. Chambers as I wrote the post, and his reputation for having written mainly cheap romances.

However, I still hold that when the evolved elite was in authority, quality in culture and arts was prioritized more, this supremacy, general atmosphere and mentality of society also inspiring and leading on special talent to flower. It can be seen in old architecture, painting, sculpture. Sloppiness was not allowed. Only the best was good enough, and commercial interests did not steer, or limit end results as of today. Or am I still talking nonsense?

Sorry if that offended; it wasn't a personal attack, but a strong taking issue with the argument.

As for the reply... I would a bit closer to agreeing there, but I would still say that it is an overly simplistic view, based on the exceptions (which have survived) rather than the norm (which often have not). It has always been a case of the more educated and wealthy setting the tone for a culture, true; but this is a case of the "public" face of the culture, rather than the "private" face, which is more often made up of poverty, shoddiness, ignorance, superstition, and the like. If you were to travel back to any time in history, you'd almost certainly find they were less "cultured" than the obvious remains would lead one to believe. One has only to look at some of the writings of Chaucer, Dryden, Swift, or the like to see these facets living side by side. Or look at the period of, say, the Ripper murders, and see what even London was like at that time. The face presented to the world was highly cultured, refined, abstemious... almost ascetic. The reality, however, was quite a different thing. The wonder is that there weren't more figures such as the infamous Leather Apron at work.

The part I would agree with is that of the "public" face a society presents. Here, indeed, it was a case of "putting one's best foot forward" to impress the rest of the world; but commerce still played a major part in that, much as we traditionally like to deny that fact. The difference is that, until the general, often uneducated and even ignorant, public achieved such a strong voice in public matters, the other side was what sold... at least abroad. At home was often another matter. Let's not forget the dime novels, P. T. Barnum, and the hokiness of the melodrama, or the bloodiness of the Grand Guignol, to name just a few examples of the general tone of a culture from within that culture. And, as I mention, even the Romans had their examples of this sort of thing; Apuleius' Metamorphosis; or, the Golden Ass, or Petronius' Satyricon are excellent examples of even the higher echelons' interest in the prurient, the gory, the sadistic, the vulgar, and the outright scatalogical.... And then there are the numbers of figures of Priapus.....

You make good arguments, and seem well read in history. There are some starting-points here toward further reflections for me.

My basic concern is which of the two forms of society, the elitist or the democratic in which the masses set the agenda, is the most supportive of refined cultural evolvement. At the same time, as you imply when saying my argument is too simplistic, a society is a complex organic structure which can't merely be branded one way or another all across. In our modern democratic materialistic society, there are still elitist groups domineering on their own in new inventive fields, creating fantastic things (even if I still feel that the materialistically decadent society at large seep in and affect the chosen direction of even these talented individuals.)

Thank you for the compliment. I'm not sure that I'm all that well-read in history per se, but I have learned an awful lot about certain aspects of it, certainly... often in the oddest ways.....

As for the two systems you propose... yes, it is a good deal more complex (which is a gargantuan understatement) but I will agree that the more "the masses" influence the arts, the closer they often approach to the lowest common denominator (e.g., the "comic" elements in Marlowe's Faustus, for instance, which otherwise would be one of the most perfect tragedies ever written); but whether this is innate in large groups of people or the result of lack of good education (especially in critical thinking) is, I think, an open question. I would also agree that the closer we approach to an ochlocracy, the more debased tastes become....

Aaaaaannnnd... to be a little closer to the purported topic of the thread: yes, Aickman has that effect of "delayed reaction" (to use a trite phrase), where his approach gets in and niggles at you later on, until the implications both literally and emotionally take on considerable power. He is a strange, haunting figure, and I think his own choice of calling his work of this kind "strange stories" is probably the best label one is likely to find.....

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the more
> "the masses" influence the arts, the closer they
> often approach to the lowest common denominator...
> ; but whether this is innate in large groups of people or the
> result of lack of good education ...

One of the fallacies of political correctness in modern democracy, is the stubborn notion that all people are equal, and can be educated to equal ability. "Goodness" forbids us to even think anything else.

Out of a large group of people, only a few will be of very high intelligence. Even fewer will have Artistic understanding. Ability and talent will be diversified over different areas, the main part of the group being suited for mundane tasks. But, neither should muscular talent be undervalued. And individuals with lower mental intelligence sometimes compensate this with higher social and emotional intelligence.


jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Aaaaaannnnd... to be a little closer to the
> purported topic of the thread: yes, Aickman has
> that effect of "delayed reaction" (to use a trite
> phrase), where his approach gets in and niggles at
> you later on, until the implications both
> literally and emotionally take on considerable
> power. He is a strange, haunting figure, and I
> think his own choice of calling his work of this
> kind "strange stories" is probably the best label
> one is likely to find.....



Yes, just enough, I thought that was a quite moderately sufficient dose of off-topic.


Further, seeing other readers's comments, "The Swords" is perhaps one of Aickman's more concrete and easily digestible stories. I guess increasingly complex and confusing affairs await me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 7 Mar 12 | 06:02AM by Knygatin.

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

> One of the fallacies of political correctness in
> modern democracy, is the stubborn notion that all
> people are equal, and can be educated to equal
> ability. "Goodness" forbids us to even think
> anything else.
>
> Out of a large group of people, only a few will be
> of very high intelligence. Even fewer will have
> Artistic understanding. Ability and talent will be
> diversified over different areas, the main part of
> the group being suited for mundane tasks. But,
> neither should muscular talent be undervalued. And
> individuals with lower mental intelligence
> sometimes compensate this with higher social and
> emotional intelligence.

While I agree with much of this in principle, from my experience (as well as various things read over the years), a higher percentage of the general populace has the capacity to learn a greater amount than is generally accepted amongst the intelligentsia. Granted, a relatively small percentage will be of the highest intelligence or sensitivity, but even those with severe mental handicaps can often learn a good deal more than people give them credit for. It depends on how they are approached and the methods used for teaching; which makes it quite difficult, as it frequently comes down to a case-by-case basis.

But what I was meaning here is that, in order to truly resolve how much of this is due to each, we need to have a darn sight better educational system in place than we have so far evolved. There will, however, always be those who simply cannot be reached by any methods, including those who are simply stubbornly, willfully, ignorant and resistant to learning.

Though not wishing to keep this discussion away from the literature itself, I think this bit from Dr. Johnson's thirtieth Idler essay (11 November 1758) is rather interesting:

"One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of close attention, and the world therefore swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read."

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Though not wishing to keep this discussion away
> from the literature itself, I think this bit from
> Dr. Johnson's thirtieth Idler essay (11 November
> 1758) is rather interesting:
>
> "One of the amusements of idleness is reading
> without the fatigue of close attention, and the
> world therefore swarms with writers whose wish is
> not to be studied, but to be read."

I love that quote. I tell myself that I write for several reasons, but the thing that keeps me going is being published and read. I doubt that I would continue if I lost my readership, they are of vital importance to me, especially when they are Lovecraftians. I see myself as a serious writer who is trying, in her own wee way, to create weird fiction that is also Literary art. I now have a good sense of my audience, which is something I don't think Lovecraft had at any time in his life as an author. Lovecraft had his comrades who also wrote for Weird Tales, but his opinion of the readers of that magazine never seemed very keen.

We are lucky in this age to have the small presses that we do, for they supply book after book of less familiar writers old and new. I am currently reading three recent Centipede Press purchases, E. H. Visiak's MEDUSA, Donald Wandrei's DEAD TITANS, WAKEN!, and Gustav Meyrink's THE GOLEM. I read, decades ago, the Wandrei novel in its Arkham House edition as THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND, but the text in the Centipede Press edition is different from that used by Derleth. Hippocampus Press, too, is dedicated to publishing books by lesser known weird writers, and eagerly engaged in finding new talent for forthcoming editions of weird fiction and scholarly works. It's a wondrous time to be a lover of genre fiction!

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12 Mar 12 | 11:33AM by wilum pugmire.

Not a lot of people are familiar with literature from the independent line, but when you are able to read through them, you would recognize some sort of pattern that they hold true off.

There is something with being able to read on the not so famous releases that lets you see how the common lay thinks, be at whatever level they are working comfortably on.

I love Adrian Ross' The Hole of The Pit and that would probably be the best description of work that has gone unrecognized but really holds a lot of great value to what they have going, and at times bordering something weird.

Truly, it would be great that people would get to be familiar with the weird pieces that sure holds a lot of value right within their ranks, still.

Talking of Adrian Ross, I had a nice surprise while dipping into my Baudelaire in English (Penguin): a translation of 'Strange Perfume' by Arthur Reed Ropes, AKA Adrian Ross...

I'm sure there's a chance that some of the good scholars of Eldritch Dark know it already, but just in case...

Strange Perfume

When, with shut, on some warm autumn night,
I breathe the perfume of your bosom's heat,
Before me stretch the lands i long to greet,
Dazzled with beating of monstrous light;
Strange trees and fruit of savour sharp and sweet,
Men whose brown limbs are lean and strong and fleet,
Women whose eyes are strangely free and bright.
Drawn by your perfume under magic skies,
I see a bay, filled by a fleet that lies
At rest from waves that weavied it so long;
While the strong scent of the green tamarinds,
Born through my nostrils on the trpoic winds,
Strikes to my soul, mixed with the mariners' song.

Taken from his Poems (1884)

Unfortunately there appears to just be the one translation by Ross in there...

It's so quiet here on the forum, so I don't think anyone minds if I bring this old thread back up again.

(I really wish there was a discussion thread about how the CAS stories in the Night Shade Books volumes differ from previous publications. I have not heard a single remark on this. Shouldn't this be a forum of CAS studies? I don't have the NSB, so I can't start myself. In my old "unexpurgated" Necronomicon Press copy of Tales of Zothique there are some differences from older publications, perhaps most notably in "The Witchcraft of Ulua" with an added delicious sexually charged scene. But that is just about all I know of the "Unexpurgated" Smith.)

David Lindsay's The Haunted Woman, Sphinx, and Devil's Tor. Any comments on these? Can you recommend them? Remember, I am not a person who needs a "story", "ekshun" or adventure; I merely enjoy profound, rich writing, charged with color or some kind of mystic or weird significance.

> David Lindsay's The Haunted Woman, Sphinx, and Devil's Tor. Any comments on these? Can you recommend them?

Lindsay is my favorite writer. After A Voyage to Arcturus, his books are more down-to-earth, and some frankly find them very boring. I don't. The Haunted Woman is the story of some people who see an extra staircase in an old house, and when they ascend, they enter another plane of reality beyond the mundane sham we all know. Sphinx is about a man making a machine to record dreams, which similarly accesses reality. Devil's Tor is the most ambitious of them. I'll copy a short column I did on it for F&SF's Curiosities section several years ago:

**
Devil’s Tor (1932) by David Lindsay.

David Lindsay wrote seven novels, and is mostly remembered for his classic A Voyage to Arcturus (1920), whose basic plot has been reworked by authors as various as C. S. Lewis, who Christianized it for Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and Harold Bloom, who rewrote it as The Flight to Lucifer (1979). Arcturus is an imaginative tour-de-force, whose overall mood is foreshadowed musically in the first chapter by associations with Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”

Most of Lindsay’s novels have a musical mood to them, and with the exception of Arcturus, all of the others are sedate and earthbound. The mood of Devil’s Tor is that of Wagner—slow, ponderous, and all-encompassing. It concerns the broken pieces of an ancient supernatural talisman associated with the worship of the Great Mother—according to prophecy, when the two pieces are reunited in modern times, it will bring about an uplifting of the human race. On this simple plot Lindsay builds a metaphysical novel filled with considerations of colossal themes such as the purpose of the creation of life, and the role of fate made visible in the world. The breadth of this novel is staggering, and to a reader who can appreciate its mood, the rewards are similarly boundless. Whereas Arcturus impresses initially by its flights of imagination and quickness of plot, Devil’s Tor gives the feeling of the slow movement of a mountain.

E. F. Bleiler described Devil’s Tor in his Guide to Supernatural Literature as “not easy reading, but for massive power there is nothing comparable in English fantastic literature.” An astute description for one of Lindsay’s undervalued masterpieces.

***

Lindsay's best novels are (in my order) A Voyage to Arcturus (1920); Devil's Tor (1932); The Witch (not yet fully published); and The Haunted Woman (1922). Sphinx (1923) and The Violet Apple (1976) take a long time to get gelling, but have wonderful sections. The Adventures of M. de Mailly (1926; US title A Blade for Sale) is a French historical novel, quite fun, but unlike Lindsay's metaphysical fantasies. He also wrote a lighter but quite good fairy play ("A Christmas Play") which I published for the first time in my anthology Tales Before Tolkien (2003).

Doug A.

I've just picked up a copy of A Voyage to Arcturus and I'm looking forward to dipping into it sometime this autumn when I have the time.

An author who I've been dabbling with is Ronald Fraser. I've only read Flower Phantoms and The Flying Draper. I wouldn't call them "weird tales" as such, as I really associate that term with genre fiction, which this is not. The closest comparison I would make is with Blackwood's The Centaur or maybe Machen's Hill of Dreams (but much less so, I think), although neither is an exact fit. Fraser is less occult than either and possibly more Eastern in his mysticism. Both the novels I have read deal with a spiritual/transcendental epiphany of an individual, with some downplayed supernatural trappings, and the effect it has upon another. Flower Phantoms in particular is very beautiful. Very much of its era and probably not for everyone, but certainly if you like The Centaur then I think he's worth trying. Bare in mind Ronald Fraser seems to have penned quite a few tomes over the years and not all are supernatural or even fiction, so have a nose inside before you buy. I can't vouch for his realistic works. I have another two of his supernatural works on my shelf waiting to be read.

Sadly there seems to be very little about him on the web. But here's some links:

[homepages.pavilion.co.uk]

[www.sfsite.com]