Indeed, any Mystery and Crime Fiction in Italy is a "giallo" as a genre since the late 1920s, at first in literature and then in film and any other medium. There is a short but useful entry on Wikipedia:

Quote:

" The term giallo was originally coined to describe a series of mystery/crime pulp novels first published by the Mondadori publishing house in 1929. Their yellow covers contained whodunits, much like their American counterparts of the 1920s and 1930s, and this link with English language pulp fiction was reinforced with the Italian authors always taking on English pen names. Many of the earliest "gialli" were however English-language novels translated into Italian.
Published as cheapish paperbacks, the success of the "giallo" novels soon began attracting the attention of other publishing houses, who began releasing their own versions (not forgetting to keep the by-now-traditional yellow cover). The novels were so popular that even the works of established foreign mystery and crime writers, such as Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace and Georges Simenon, were labelled "gialli" when first published in Italy. Giallo Mondadori is currently published every month, as one of the most long-lived publications of the genre in the world. "

The Wikipedia article nevertheless goes on to perpetuate the usage I find silly and misleading. In other contexts, I have even seen pimply-faced American "experts" lecture mystified Italians on the "correct" definition of giallo.

Regarding MacDonald's Princess and the Goblin, that novel has always struck me for the obvious influence it had on The Hobbit. Although definitely a fantasy novel with a strong fairy tale sensibility, I would not classify it in the weird category, unlike Lilith or Phantastes. That said, its a very good novel!

Im back.Ive recently done a re-evaluation and made sure my writings arent ,ehem,"premature" anymore,so be secured,you wont be seeing anything which I wouldnt enjoy myself,if I post in here.

DW-to your post-he may not have read "Sand Man" ,not even I got around to it,but I hope to.But anyway,on Hodgson, he doesnt mention the marvelously weird "The voice in the night" or "A tropical horror" (lets face it-its something HE would have dreamt up,surely) and as I understand it,his short fiction,other then Carnacki,was prety hard to get at during HPL's time and made acessible only after his death (Lovecraft's).

And yes,I found a good interest in Lilith myself,though it originaly seemed more fairytale-ish and fantasy mainstream-like-ish -I abhor todays "mainstream" fantasy style and scope.But yes,I find myself missing it.

To the Hoffman-uh-wait IS THAT YOU?

anyway,"The devils Elixir" is his only book I have and it was quite good-a litle dated,but very enjoyable nonetheless.Also,the original title is a plural,meaning the beter translation would be "The devils ElixirS".

Also-I read The Thing from the Lake and quite frankly,this must have missed Lovecraft by a hairs breath, because I do not understand how he could not have mentioned such a weird tale at all.It reminds me of Bennet's "Claimed" in that aspect.Also,I generaly dont like terms like "Lovecraftian",I learnt to abhor "Mythos" and generaly have a few ill meant words for the overal shape and form that Mr. Derleth left HPL's work-dumbing it down to the level of the masses in his "colaborations" etc. and make it a less cheap Harry Potter almost.

To Wordsworth-do a Wakefield and dont omitt anything from SHiL and Ill keep quiet about missing first publication dates.

yellowish haze Wrote:
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> Another writer worth examining is Leonid Andreyev.
> Wikipedia says that ""The Seven Who Were Hanged"
> and "The Red Laugh" was found in the library of
> horror writer H.P.Lovecraft".

It says so because I put it there-its listd in Joshi's "Lovecraft's Library:A catalogue",acording to what I was told by J.D.

also

[www.violetbooks.com]

this is so rare,unknown and unobtainable it hurts.Havent read it, of course.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 26 Oct 08 | 08:04PM by David Kartas.

Is anyone familiar with Ernst Theodor Hoffman? And in particular his tale The Sandman? I heard him mentioned through a music album based on that tale. For a lover of Smith, Lovecraft, Hodgson, and Machen; is Hoffmann of similar literary quality?

I do not know what you mean by "literary quality," but certainly from the point of view of literary history E T A Hoffmann is considerably more important than the authors you mention. He was one of the central figures of Romanticism.

"Importance", in a literary-historical sense, means nothing to me. Hoffmann may be of greater historical "importance" than Machen, for instance, but he never produced a tale as fine as "The White People", in my estimation. I suspect that his current superior historical reputation is largely because his work is ironic, and therefore much more palatable to the critical orthodoxy of our day.

My view of Hoffmann is similar to Lovecraft's: Hoffmann was a mere dabbler in the weird and the grotesque, and there is little that is of great imagination or originality in his work (for instance, as former Professor of German under whom I studied remarked, Hoffmann's "Golden Flower Pot" is almost a plagiarism of Novalis's Marchen). Read a few tales and decide for yourself, though; English translations are abundant.

English translations of Hoffmann are indeed abundant, but many of them are not only inaccurate, they are also odd or downright dull. I see homage to Novalis in "The Golden Pot", but not plagiarism., just as I see the same phenomenon in George MacDonald's PHANTASTES. Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" is reliable only for those works that have a link with Lovecraft's own aesthetic - therefore he completely misses the point in Le Fanu, dismisses Hoffmann based on a small sampling of his work, yet praises Bulwer Lytton's bloated novels for hinting at something that is virtually buried beneath oceans of cosmopolitan chatter.

Lytton is a very good novelist and both Zanoni and A strange story are very good reads if you give them the time.

Also-anyone interested can look up Guy Boothby's "A strange goldfield"

It's always interesting to see what ensues when someone asks for opinions! *laughs*

Anyway, not to get into a debate about the merits or demerits of Hoffmann's tales, but my former German professor certainly read Hoffmann both extensively and in the original, yet he shared Lovecraft's low opinion of him. I've read Hoffmann extensively in translation, and concur, but let everyone decide for himself. I am sure that there must exist a competent English translation or two of Hoffmann, Jim, so feel free to recommend one.

As for "The Golden Pot", I wrote that it is almost a plagiarism of Novalis. A cheap knock-off of Novalis's work, akin to a fake Rolex, might be a better comparison.

As for Lovecraft and LeFanu, I suspect that Lovecraft had read very little of LeFanu's work at the time of his essay, and was merely rationalizing his own ignorance of the greater body of it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 28 Oct 08 | 01:28PM by Kyberean.

My remark concerning translations was directed at Lovecraft's assessment, not your German professor's; the latter's was obviously based on the original German texts and not on translations.

We are fortunate that there were quite a few goodt translations available during the latter half of the 20th century - Lange, Bullock, Kent, Hayse, Passage, Taylor (the only decent translation of THE DEVIL'S ELIXIRS), as well as the usual estimable productions of Penguin and Oxford, etc.

None of these would have been available to Lovecraft.

Of the older translators:

* Ewing is accurate, and overall not bad, if you can tolerate the Victorian style.
* Bealby is also very Victorian in style and adopts a more serious more sonorous tone than either Carlisle or Ewing; but he cannot always be relied upon to leave the texts unmolested if he thinks he can make the story more acceptable to his readership.
* Carlisle is fairly accurate, but can he can also be a bit eccentric. Hoffmann's sentences are rarely as involved in German as Carlisle can make them sound in his own, sometimes turgid style. Nor is he at all consistent about creating English-language equivalents for German terms and titles: Kapellmeister = Bandmaster? Eh, no, not even close.
* The others are wretched and beyond wretched - second- or third-hand versions loosely translated in to French or Italian and then in to English by hacks indifferent not only to the original but to the niceties of their own language. Attempting to appreciate Hoffmann via such translations is equivalent to juding a painting by JMW Turner via a b/w copy at least twice removed from the color original. Even when the Ewing, Bealby, and Carlisle texts have reprinted, editors had no qualms - at least as late as the 1960s - about cutting, rearranging, and otherwise amending the texts to suit their fancy.

One other stumbling block many people seem to have with Hoffmann, which was no barrier to the Romantics and the Victorians, is that this author rarely uses the fantastic to evoke fright, and he has very little, if any interest, in producing the sensation of awe in his readers. An atmosphere of the uncanny, with moments of dread, yes, but he rarely focuses beyond the conflict between man and his self or man as he relates to Nature. Ultimately, the secrets to be revealed (or ignored with fatal results) are more about the self than they are about the what Aickman refers to as something "Larger than Oneself". Thus, "The Golden Pot" is set up very much like a miniature Bildungsroman - the very idea of focusing upon a human being's response and education through supernatural or supranatural phenomena is anathema to Lovecraft's aesthetic - with all the various phenomena all reflecting and/or eliciting different responses as the protagonist errs or succeeds. Hoffmann's temperament is more attuned towards the humorous (one could even say the humourous) view of man's place in the universe; but he also has his tragic side, as witness "The Entail", "Ignaz Denner (The Forest Warden)", "The Sand-Man", "Mlle de Scuderi", THE DEVIL'S ELIXIRS, etc.

Jim

An excellent and illuminating thumbnail analysis, Jim; thanks, especially for the overview of the translations.

I agree with you regarding "The Sand-Man", by the way, which is far and away my favorite of Hoffmann's tales.

Also,I dont post much here,but lets just keep this helpfull and only contribute to the topic and lets nmak a thread all for Hoffman if one needs be made.

Also,I would heartily second a nomination for W.C.Morrow's "The ape,the idiot and other people", findable on Guteberg as well,only two tales arent realy good,but the rest more then ten are all very Morrow-esque.

Thank you for interesting comments on Hoffmann.

(I'm sorry, I didn't read the full thread before I inquired. Made a search for "Hoffmann", but there was no hit. Now I know that you must make a separate Forum Search.)

CAS on Hoffmann: "As to Hoffmann, I guess my reaction would be similar to yours. The three or four tales of his that I have seen were distinctively dissapointing." (Letter to Lovecraft, January 1934)

The Sandman online: [www.fln.vcu.edu]

The Residents made a music theater album based on The Sandman. The acting is screechy and juvenile (I think they used their own kids for the parts, except for the very small part of the Sandman, acted by the band's regular singer.) But the album has glimpses of The Resident's trademark weird soundscapes of sonic bliss and calculated noise, that partly makes up for it. [residents.com]



yellowish haze Wrote:
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> supernatural tradition in Russian literature
.....
> The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
.....

I have not read this one, but have seen the 1949 movie based on it. Absolutely beautiful. If Lovecraft had lived to see it, I am sure he would have appreciated the eighteen century dream sequence. It is available on DVD together with Dead of Night, another interesting horror film.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28 Oct 08 | 07:17PM by Knygatin.