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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 31, 2012 23:03:29 GMT
Vance's Dying earth trilogy is a masterpiece. Lyonnesse is on the other hand an excellent read with some moments of genius. Almost all Vance's work as far as I can see is based on meticulous research and possible rewrtting of various texts - academic, philosophical and otherwise - and changing one or two elements to support fantasy. In Lyonesse he uses myths legends, fairy tales and the fairy tales also seem slightly unbalanced in the general context of the tale. I love him to bits and wish he'd written twice as much as he has.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 1, 2012 2:06:45 GMT
Really? Don´t get me wrong, I am seriously interested. I always thought this the weakest part of the tale. I mean, I love and adore Lovecraft, but as far as plotting and action goes, he was sometimes not very convincing. All this build-up in this tale, you have this imprisoned god from beyond the stars, whose presence alone drives people all over the world insane. And then this octopus emerges, swims around, gets hit by a ship and swims poutingly back to sleep some more. This is so disappointingly anticlimactic. And, which is more regretable, it is not worth of the ideas and atmosphere established beforehand. I think it depends on how you read it. Which sentences and words are important you, and which you choose to focus on. And what references of experience and knowledge you have for use to interpret what you read. You may see a silly old fat monster with rubber tentacles (envisioned from bad movies, or insufficient fantasy art) wading about in the water. Or you may see something else. To me, when Cthulhu is out there, the spells, or whatever you want to call it, emerging from him . . . his ponderous alien setup and energy patterns . . . they disintegrate the physical reality by whose reference points our anatomical setup and nervous system is adjusted to and supported on. And exposes us to other physical composites or laws. The very air is bending inside out. The molecules become different, poisoning us. It is absolutely sickening! I am sorry, I can't explain it better. It is more complex than I intellectually comprehend.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 1, 2012 11:49:42 GMT
Really? Don´t get me wrong, I am seriously interested. I always thought this the weakest part of the tale. I mean, I love and adore Lovecraft, but as far as plotting and action goes, he was sometimes not very convincing. All this build-up in this tale, you have this imprisoned god from beyond the stars, whose presence alone drives people all over the world insane. And then this octopus emerges, swims around, gets hit by a ship and swims poutingly back to sleep some more. This is so disappointingly anticlimactic. And, which is more regretable, it is not worth of the ideas and atmosphere established beforehand. I think it depends on how you read it. Which sentences and words are important you, and which you choose to focus on. And what references of experience and knowledge you have for use to interpret what you read. My reaction to the end of the story is similar to Andy's. After some wonderfully evocative setup scenes in which the Great Old One is barely glimpsed (the sculptor's nightmare, the Louisiana swamps), his actual appearance comes as a letdown. As much as I like Lovecraft, I find that his tendency toward over-explicitness sometimes undercuts his efforts to develop "cosmic horror." To cite another example, "The Whisperer in Darkness" is partially ruined for me by the mental image of the curiously ineffectual Mi-Go sitting around griping about their "cheap imposture." Edmund Wilson's (in)famous line about the "invisible whistling octopus" is nasty, but he has a point. On the other hand, knygathin, I think it's great that Lovecraft's language resonates for you in that way. I like your description of the thought processes it evokes for you. On the third hand, I also enjoy some of Lovecraft's earlier stories that just try to deliver pulpy thrills instead of building mind-blasting vistas of cosmic horror. "The Lurking Fear" and "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" ("Under the Pyramids") are two of my favorites in that vein--they go way beyond over-explicitness into lurid brilliance. Vance's Dying earth trilogy is a masterpiece. Lyonnesse is on the other hand an excellent read with some moments of genius. I agree with that take on Lyonesse. As for Tales of the Dying Earth, I loved all of it except the Rhialto part, which left me cold for some reason. The Cugel sections are hilarious in a mean-spirited way, and nobody writes dialogue like Vance (I can't imagine anyone actually talking that way, but it's great to read).
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jun 1, 2012 12:41:39 GMT
I agree with that take on Lyonesse. As for Tales of the Dying Earth, I loved all of it except the Rhialto part, which left me cold for some reason. The Cugel sections are hilarious in a mean-spirited way, and nobody writes dialogue like Vance (I can't imagine anyone actually talking that way, but it's great to read).
Yes. Meanspirited and absolutely hilarious really. I always thought that Cugel - which I think is marble in German - gave the impression of a ball kicked about by fate. Vance liked E R Burroughs but I feel he tried to give a more realistic take on heroes while still retaining the vast magisterial landscapes.
Cugel is nothing if not self centered. The scene where he ditches the beautiful witch queen to become the slave of a scruffy conman would just never happen in any other novel. You fully expect things to work out well as in a classic romance but they just descend to inevitable tawdriness.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 1, 2012 12:57:30 GMT
As much as I like Lovecraft, I find that his tendency toward over-explicitness sometimes undercuts his efforts to develop "cosmic horror." To cite another example, "The Whisperer in Darkness" is partially ruined for me by the mental image of the curiously ineffectual Mi-Go sitting around griping about their "cheap imposture." And the Mi-Go are master strategists compared to our two heroes who are too stupid to live. You could write a long essay about how idiotic the protagonists in "Whisperer" have to behave to make the plot happen. "Whisperer" is one of Lovecraft´s worst for me in that regard. Of course you could also write a long essay about how well this story is written in terms of atmosphere and descriptions; the scene where our "hero-scholar" finally drives into the wood to the Akeley farm is so beautiful told you seem to hear the leaves whispering and the landscape take on a sinister menace which is hard to ignore. Oh, and interesting take, knygathin. Never saw it that way, I have to confess.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 1, 2012 14:25:56 GMT
Cugel is nothing if not self centered. The scene where he ditches the beautiful witch queen to become the slave of a scruffy conman would just never happen in any other novel. You fully expect things to work out well as in a classic romance but they just descend to inevitable tawdriness. That was the exact moment when I realized that Eyes of the Overworld was going to be something very different from an ordinary fantasy tale. Getting back to Cold Print for a moment . . . "The Tugging" is a fun one--it draws heavily on the very Lovecraft story we've been debating and has an impressively over-the-top ending (even if it doesn't feature a Great Old One dog-paddling after a ship). I'd already read "The Faces at Pine Dunes" and "The Voice of the Beach" elsewhere, and they're two of my favorites among the three or four dozen Campbell stories I've read. Each captures the spirit (rather than the style) of HPL in an original way. I don't think it's a coincidence that the neo-Lovecraftian stories I like the best are typically ones by authors who developed their own styles and then revisited HPL's themes. Other examples include Fritz Leiber's "A Bit of the Dark World" and "The Terror from the Depths," Robert Bloch's "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" and "Terror in Cut-Throat Cove," and T.E.D. Klein's "Black Man with a Horn." I was disappointed when I realized that my edition doesn't include "The Franklyn Paragraphs," which I've never read. That's OK, however, because I plan on buying Demons By Daylight at some point (but probably not the Jove edition, which has a cover that's a bit, um, rape-y for my sensibilities).
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Post by andydecker on Jun 1, 2012 19:16:42 GMT
Getting back to Cold Print for a moment . . . "The Tugging" is a fun one--it draws heavily on the very Lovecraft story we've been debating and has an impressively over-the-top ending (even if it doesn't feature a Great Old One dog-paddling after a ship). I re-read this some time ago when it was reprinted in one of those Lovecraft anthos last year and was surprised how much I liked it. I had read it back then when it appeared in the german edition of Cthulhu´s Disciple in the 80s and didn´t think too highly of it. I never forgot it though, a sure sign that it had left a impression. I really should spend some time with Cold Print. Especially in Ramsey´s fiction are a lot of nunances which I didn´t or couldn´t understand back when I bought it.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 1, 2012 21:21:05 GMT
After some wonderfully evocative setup scenes in which the Great Old One is barely glimpsed (the sculptor's nightmare, the Louisiana swamps), his actual appearance comes as a letdown. As much as I like Lovecraft, I find that his tendency toward over-explicitness sometimes undercuts his efforts to develop "cosmic horror." To cite another example, "The Whisperer in Darkness" is partially ruined for me by the mental image of the curiously ineffectual Mi-Go . . . In that sense Lovecraft is expressive and colorful. Some of his stories appear more like fantasy than horror. I think I reacted in a similar way to Cthulhu the first time I read the story. It is very demanding upon the imagination to see a lumbering green monster with tentacles as actually being scary or horrible. The mind is not set up to do that, we have no references from real life to draw memories from; except our minds having been tainted with inadequate representations from movies and paintings. We humans are scared of loss, abuse, psycho murderers, war, weather catastrophes. Local, mundane situations. That's what we know. Cthulhu demands more from our imagination. One solution is (and a very rewarding one it is!) to linger upon the monster. Meditate upon it. Give it time. And let the mind transcend past the first impression and prejudice of it being silly. Explore its possibilities. Because, it really is horrible! Using a telescope and looking up at the stars and planets also help opening the mind to its hidden recesses, and coming to intellectual acceptance that such bizarre creatures are part of reality.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 11, 2017 10:46:26 GMT
Thoroughly enjoyed the story Cold Print, but am quite glad the 'hero' got his comeuppance. The seedy atmos put me in mind of an old second hand bookshop near Holborn I used to visit. Hordes of paperbacks, a cordoned-off jazz-mag section. I first obtained Last Exit To Brooklyn there. It was kept behind the counter on the wall and it took many visits before I plucked up the courage to ask.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 11, 2017 11:41:26 GMT
Thoroughly enjoyed the story Cold Print, but am quite glad the 'hero' got his comeuppance. The seedy atmos put me in mind of an old second hand bookshop near Holborn I used to visit. Hordes of paperbacks, a cordoned-off jazz-mag section. I first obtained Last Exit To Brooklyn there. It was kept behind the counter on the wall and it took many visits before I plucked up the coutage to ask. Was that the notorious Lovejoys (RIP) is Charing X Road? Set up sounds very similar. Cold Print is unquestionably one of my all time Ramsey favourites (admittedly there are quite a few). Anti-hero Sam Strutt has more than a touch of Death Line's celebrated James Manfred OBE about him wouldn't you say (likewise fellow CP enthuiast James Waddicot who fell victim to another evil Larrakins.com scam in The Late Bus).
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