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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 17, 2010 22:16:32 GMT
I'm wondering where our eastern friends went to in this thread. I'm not terribly familiar with Eastern European literature as a whole, but there are some wonderful Russian authors who ventured into the field of horror; Nikolai Gogol's 'Collected Tales' contains some masterpieces of the disturbing, and Anton Chekhov's 'Ward 6 and Other Stories' is a favourite of mine. Perhaps they get overlooked because they're treated with such reverence for their 'classical' literature, but the Russians relish their fantastical horrors. Does anyone know of any Polish or Hungarian genre authors who have been translated into English? Are there any particular Chekhov stories that you would recommend, lemming13? I'm sure I've got a collection of his short stories around somewhere, but I don't think I've ever read it. Jan Potocki, who wrote the classic The Manuscript found in Saragossa, was Polish (although he wrote in French).
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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 17, 2010 22:02:49 GMT
Here's one the late, great Peter Haining made earlier, quite pointless of me to post it save to illustrate that the Wordsworth is excellent value for money. I've got the follow-up volume that Haining edited: The Demanding Dead - (Peter Owen, 2007) The Moving Finger The Eyes Kerfol Miss Mary Pask Mr. Jones Pomegranate Seed Roman Fever All Souls' Beatrice Palmato (fragment)I'm not sure what "Roman Fever" is doing in there, as it's about as far from being a ghost story as anything I've ever read, but I think "The Moving Finger" should probably have been included in the Wordsworth edition. "Beatrice Palmato" is apparently a story that Wharton was working on before her death, dealing with the cheery topics of child abuse,suicide and incest. The fragment that actually exists is a frankly rather eye-popping sex scene between father and daughter. Now, if only someone could unearth that bestiality novel that Henry James was working on...
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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 6, 2010 16:08:12 GMT
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 20, 2010 23:32:36 GMT
can't remember exactly where, but i recall some very negative response to another of Aickman's relatively straight stories, Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale, his mildly erotic take on Sweeney Todd, in Kirby McCauley's superlative Dark Forces anthology. The reviewer was very "Oh no, no, no! what's he playing at? this isn't Robert Aickman!" Me, i hugely appreciated it as a far easier read than, say, The Cicerones, though even i, who have no interest in such matters, can tell which is the "better" story. I really liked "Mark Ingestre" too! "Growing Boys" is another story which seems to get a lot of flak - admittedly it's closer to a Chetwynd-Hayes story than an Aickman tale, but luckily I like both authors. I quite liked "Pages", but whenever I read vampire tales (especially ones about female vampires), I always end up judging them against "Carmilla", which is probably deeply unfair. I love "The Trains", despite / because of the ending, which almost seems to have been bolted on by another writer - I've read reviews which claim that the ending is intended as a Gothic pastiche (make of that what you will). Personally, the only Aickman story that I actively hate is "Rosamund's Bower" - as far as I know, it was only published posthumously, so maybe if it had gone through another draft it would be tolerable. Maybe. That aside, I think that some of the very short tales ("The Waiting Room", for example) feel a bit throwaway, and "Never Visit Venice" spends rather too long on a whinge about the modern world to be very effective. Choosing the best is much harder - "The School Friend", "Choice of Weapons", "A Roman Question", "My Poor Friend", "Marriage", "The Fetch", "The Cicerones", "The Visiting Star"... oh, and "Ringing the Changes"! And then there's The Late Breakfasters, which should really be reprinted by someone.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 20, 2010 22:29:51 GMT
Jonathan, I belong to a small minority of readers who actually likes Sand. Yes it is drawn out and repetitive in a similar manner to The Damned which I disparage above. But I find both Sand and A Descent into Egypt hypnotic. Reading these two long Egyptian tales almost feels like participating in a rite of cermonial magic. I can sypathise with those who find them prolix and static though. - Chris I should probably give it another go... If nothing else, it seems bad form to disparage a story that I didn't even finish. Do you have any views on "The Regeneration of Lord Ernie", from Incredible Adventures? That was the other well-regarded Blackwood tale that I just couldn't finish. I take your point about the hypnotic effect of much of Blackwood's work - I must confess, I very rarely find his stories dull whilst I'm actually reading them, but if I get to a point where I set them to one side, I find it very hard to come back. That's probably why I tend to prefer the stories which can be finished in one sitting.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 20, 2010 2:40:27 GMT
There's a Penguin paperback from a few years ago which is still around in bookshops...
Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Tales - Algernon Blackwood, edited by S. T. Joshi (Penguin, 2002)
Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House The Willows The Insanity of Jones Ancient Sorceries The Man Who Found Out The Wendigo The Glamour of the Snow The Man Whom the Trees Loved Sand
I couldn't finish "Sand", which, from what I've read, appears to be an 80 page long essay about, um, sand. Not particularly interesting sand either. Perhaps it picks up after the first 60 pages... The other choices are pretty much spot on - "The Insanity of Jones" is a great reincarnation tale, a lot nastier than Blackwood usually gets, with a surprising streak of black comedy.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 18, 2010 11:48:43 GMT
Has anyone considered that Aickman might have been asked to put together a book of 'classic weird stories' and then at the last minute Fontana changed the title to 'Great Ghost Stories' to increase marketability? I think I always assumed that he was asked to compile a book of ghost stories and then completely ignored the brief and picked whatever he wanted.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 14, 2010 17:15:55 GMT
It is notable that "Pages," one of his least interesting works, is (as far as I know) the only one of his stories that ever won an award. I think "The Stains" won a British Fantasy Award (albeit posthumously).
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Post by jonathan122 on Mar 12, 2010 12:33:12 GMT
The other cover Wordsworth had, the "Like one who, on a lonely road, doth walk in fear and dread" one - this one in fact; - works a lot better for my money. I've always liked this cover best. John Atkinson Grimshaw, isn't it? For some reason it always reminds me of "The Mezzotint".
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Post by jonathan122 on Feb 7, 2010 22:42:35 GMT
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Post by jonathan122 on Dec 8, 2009 0:10:06 GMT
It's worth noting that there are two versions of Le Horla - the most famous version (written in the form of a journal) was written and published after the onset of the syphilis-induced madness that eventually claimed de Maupassant's life, but an earlier version, in which the events of the story are recounted by the protagonist to the doctors at the lunatic asylum, is also available, and arguably better - it appears in the Penguin edition of de Maupassant's stories, which skimps a bit on the horror stories, but is still worth seeking out.
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Post by jonathan122 on Oct 10, 2009 22:17:49 GMT
The first one sounds so familiar, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. Annoying when that happens...
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 28, 2009 21:19:31 GMT
Secondly the BFS Awards. I had always assumed they were an equivalent to an Oscar, chosen by a select band of critics, so I was surprised to find out if was done on votes. Making the issue non-book specific as I haven't read the book in question, it strikes me as the equivalent of an Oscar being given to Napoleon Dynamite, not because it deserved critical acclaim but because it was a cult film that would have attracted a hardcore following that would have voted en masse. I would always see an Oscar nomination as a cast-iron guarantee of a quality film, and would have thought a BFS Award should be the same. It undermines the value of the award otherwise. Having read Johnny's comments I would hesitate to purchase other books which won a BFS award moving forward as I would no longer see it as an indication of quality. Sorry to disappoint you, Justin, but Oscars are voted on, by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, or whatever it's called. All past nominees are automatically members, so this means that (for example) Elton John's thoughts about what constitutes Best Editing in a movie are widely sought after. I remember seeing an interview with Omar Sharif once, in which he went through the voting process - basically (and I paraphrase a bit), "I don't know how to distinguish which film has the best use of sound effects, but I've worked with X before, so I'll vote for him". Personally, I gave up on the Oscars as a guarantee of quality long ago - have you seen "A Beautiful Mind"?
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 20, 2009 23:37:44 GMT
Dark Matters - Terry Lamsley (Ash-Tree Press 2000)
Back in the Dunes The Power of the Primitive The Lost Boy Found The Walls Suburban Blight An Evening with Harrod The Stunted House The Snug Climbing Down from Heaven Volunteers Getting a Life
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 20, 2009 23:30:28 GMT
Conference with the Dead - Terry Lamsley (Ash-Tree Press 1996; Night Shade Books 2005)
Walking the Dog Blade and Bone The Break Someone to Dump On Running in the Family Screens The Toddler The Outer Darkness Inheritance The Extension
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