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Post by Knygathin on Jun 24, 2012 19:01:29 GMT
I imagine you must carry a rich inner tapestry of colorful impressions from it. Does it contain much of weird fantasy situations and supernatural creatures (aside from afreets)? Or are the stories mainly repetitions of fighting over wealth and sexual jealousy?
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 24, 2012 19:20:30 GMT
Richard Burton's rich life experience is revealed in this portrait I think.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 24, 2012 22:00:56 GMT
I'm resisting the temptation to get ultra boring here as I think I may have done so extensively somewhere else in the vault but you really should read it and his other work if you get the chance. I imagine you've read Robert Irwin's Arabian Nightmare and his book about the textual history of the Arabian Nights - both fantastic books.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 25, 2012 8:35:06 GMT
There's demons, magical talismans and transformations mostly from beasts to men and back - loads of ifrīt, translated as ‘demons’, ‘genius’, ‘genie’, or ‘jinni’. There's one tale about a Prince whose wife cast a spell changing him into a man partially made of stone.
Generally speaking the tales are about avarice or lust though and the whole book centres around a fairly simple philosophy - lots of sex and money is good but watch out as your wife will be humping the servants at the first opportunity.
I haven't read much on Burton. - I prefer just to read the man himself. The things he did were astounding and its an age when you could do these sort of things if you were extremely brave. He was a soldier, a spy, diplomat, a linguist, (spoke 27 languages or so) a scholar and translator of erotic fiction as well as playing footsie with every attractive woman he could find, fighting duels, writing the definitive guide on sword play and generally finding or exploring continents at the drop of a hat.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 25, 2012 16:43:45 GMT
playing footsie with every attractive woman he could find This I never heard before. Quite the contrary, actually.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 25, 2012 19:32:46 GMT
playing footsie with every attractive woman he could find This I never heard before. Quite the contrary, actually. You mean he didn't play footsie with young women at all or he had other preferences?
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 25, 2012 19:53:17 GMT
You mean he didn't play footsie with young women at all or he had other preferences? In his own day, he was rumored to have other preferences. He certainly devoted a lot of effort to investigating and documenting pederasty in its many international varieties. Since you have read all of his ARABIAN NIGHTS, you must surely have read this appendix. This is all circumstantial evidence, of course. But I was definitely not aware of any reputation for womanizing.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 25, 2012 21:41:57 GMT
You mean he didn't play footsie with young women at all or he had other preferences? In his own day, he was rumored to have other preferences. He certainly devoted a lot of effort to investigating and documenting pederasty in its many international varieties. Since you have read all of his ARABIAN NIGHTS, you must surely have read this appendix. This is all circumstantial evidence, of course. But I was definitely not aware of any reputation for womanizing. I have read a biography or two to be honest and the Terminal Essay in the edition I have which is by The Heritage Press. I had an incomplete one much older that I found in New Orleans but its at my brothers. I have a few other things by him - Kama Sutra, Perfumed Garden and The Kasidah and they all have intros. (I just looked) which I would have read. The following works I read in the library at Bochum university: Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851) Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah 3 Vols. The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa (1859) The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860) The City of the Saints, Among the Mormons and Across the Rocky A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomé (1864) The Guide-book. A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (1865). I spent days in the library there some years ago as I couldn't afford to buy these books and I prefer getting as close to the original as possible. I am a voracious reader and if I like an author I can't stop reading his stuff. However I have a real problem retaining things and tend to remember images,anecdotes, bits an pieces. In the case of Burton as i remember it the rumours of his pedestary were rumours and it has been said they were based on his work on sexual practices and used by his many enemies - the implication being that he wrote about it therefore he must have done it. In short he was probably smeared. I think his may have been a typical example of overcompensating latent homosexuality. In Victorian times any mention of sex was a bit dodgy as can be seen by large parts of his his work being published purely in Gentleman's clubs. I do remember that as a young man he became besotted with a certain woman and climbed rooftops to get her. He had a reputation as a gallivant as a youth - a man who would try anything - running across crocodiles in a pond in India as a soldier is another anecdote I remember. He was a snob and man of a class who tended to inhabit an underworld of sex carefully concealed from respectable ladies. It might be fair to say that he was more ambitious than flirtatious in later years but I am pretty sure that a man who had a Hindu female help as a soldier generally kept for sexual purposes and was known in his youth as a romancer would have been playing footsie with loads of women . The allegations of homosexuality were never proven - they might have been viewed as fairly commonplace at Trinity -- the obsession with sex is self evident.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 26, 2012 9:23:33 GMT
Glad you brought this up Jojo as you made me crawl through the mess and I found the Pentamerone 1893 edition probably my most valuable book. I picked it up for £21 when I had some money and its going for over £200 on abebooks. . Sadly it might have to go.... burtoniana.org/books/1893-Pentamerone/index.html
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 22, 2012 8:32:29 GMT
Some way to go before he is out of copyright, but I just wanted to say that (I think) Walter de la Mare needs a modern (i.e. inexpensive) anthology. I caveat that statement only because I've actually read so few of his short stories ("Seaton's Aunt" of course, "All Hallows", "Bad Company", and - best of all - "A:B:O"), and they may be the best of his work. Apparently, though he wrote "at least 40" supernatural stories (so Wikipedia says, so it must be true). . . . If you buy only one book from Tartarus Press, I would heartily suggest Strangers and Pilgrims. A beautiful heavy thick book. There you have 31 stories. Together with The Collected Tales of Walter de la Mare (Knopf), which only partially overlaps, you have 49 of his tales.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 22, 2012 21:14:26 GMT
Some way to go before he is out of copyright, but I just wanted to say that (I think) Walter de la Mare needs a modern (i.e. inexpensive) anthology. I caveat that statement only because I've actually read so few of his short stories ("Seaton's Aunt" of course, "All Hallows", "Bad Company", and - best of all - "A:B:O"), and they may be the best of his work. Apparently, though he wrote "at least 40" supernatural stories (so Wikipedia says, so it must be true). . . . If you buy only one book from Tartarus Press, I would heartily suggest Strangers and Pilgrims. A beautiful heavy thick book. There you have 31 stories. Together with The Collected Tales of Walter de la Mare (Knopf), which only partially overlaps, you have 49 of his tales. STRANGERS & PILGRIMS is a lovely big collection, so big in fact that it's difficult to hold up to read in bed!
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 22, 2012 22:52:18 GMT
STRANGERS & PILGRIMS is a lovely big collection, so big in fact that it's difficult to hold up to read in bed! I can't possibly read in bed. My head drops to sleep within a minute! Armchairs are not ideal either. Too comfortable. I start to nod. I sit straight on a chair by an old wooden table, with a candle. That is perfect. And the book can be any size!
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 23, 2012 13:36:04 GMT
Any comments on the following earliest tales by Walter de la Mare, written under pseudonym?
Kismet The Hangman Luck A Mote The Village of Old Age De Mortuis
They appeared in the collection Eight Tales.
One would guess them to be inferior to his later work. But "A:B:O.", also in that collection, and very early, is absolutely wonderful and sick.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 25, 2012 10:32:43 GMT
Some way to go before he is out of copyright, . . . Apparently, though he wrote "at least 40" supernatural stories. E. F. Bleiler also makes it 40 (including the novels), all of which he rates highly. . . . Two volumes of Walter de la Mare collect 82 stories. Plus a separate volume with an additional 19 stories for children. www.gilesdelamare.co.uk/page11.htmSo it might be a good idea, after all, to wait a few decades more for the Wordsworth edition. But then, I am happy with the books I've got. I'm no completist anymore . . . I thought the volumes above were extemely expensive, but they can actually be found second hand for a realtively low sum.
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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 25, 2012 11:28:06 GMT
Since suggesting de la Mare, I managed to pick up a very cheap copy of his 1942 "Best of" collection, but the best of those were ones I'd already read and there were far too many non-supernatural stories (or stories where the supernatural element was too subtle for me to appreciate, maybe) included. Still, at his best he is brilliant.
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