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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 12, 2009 21:18:15 GMT
Things have come to a pretty pass when almost fifty years on we're still waiting for the first UK edition! The introduction to this book is a rather bitter affair, with Wakefield declaring that he's written his last ghost story, and claiming that the ghost story is dead as a genre, and who can really blame him considering the way he was ignored in his own country for so long. The critical consensus seems to be that most of Wakefield's work after Old Man's Beard is disappointing. As is so often the case, the critical consensus turns out to be a load of bollocks.
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 11, 2009 23:13:07 GMT
Masques of Satan - Reggie Oliver (Ash-Tree Press 2007)
The Man in the Grey Bedroom Grab a Granny Night The Children of Monte Rosa Mr. Poo-Poo The Silver Cord The Road from Damascus Mmm-Delicious Puss-Cat The Old Silence Music by Moonlight Blind Man's Box Shades of the Prison House, a novella The End of History
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 8, 2009 13:55:12 GMT
I struggled with Ligotti for a long time, and usually just assumed I was too thick to understand what was going on, but something seemed to click whilst I was reading Teatro Grottesco - I actually found many of the stories a) very scary, and b) very funny, not reactions I had particularly had too his earlier work. I'm not sure if this suggests that I'm getting smarter (unlikely), or if Ligotti's getting better - going back to the earlier volumes like Grimscribe I did find a lot more to enjoy than first time round, but I still think Teatro Grottesco contains most of his best (and most reader-friendly!) work.
Perhaps he's just learnt not to take himself too seriously - the list of artworks mentioned in "Severini" (including such classics as Defiled and Delivered, On Viscous and Sacred Ground (a.k.a. The Tantric Doctors), In Earth and Excreta, The Black Spume of Existence, Integuments in Eruption, and The Descent into the Fungal) is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but if published 15 years earlier in Noctuary it might have been meant in earnest. Another favourite quote, from "The Shadow, The Darkness":
"I wrote it after being treated in the emergency room of that place very late one night," explained the poet. "What were you treated for?" I asked him. "Oh, nothing serious. I went home a few hours later. I was never admitted as a patient, I'm glad to say. It was, and I quote from my poem on the subject, the 'nucleus of the abysmal.'" "That's fine to say that," I said. "But could we possibly speak in more explicit terms?"
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 7, 2009 13:39:16 GMT
Blimey, I've been wracking my brain all day - and finally the answer came to my mind! Big white monster, Victorian era, raping women. The women like it. Now where have I heard that before? And of course, it's in the movies. I wonder if this was influence? Anyway - here's an IMDB link: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072752/La bête by Walerian Borowczyk (1975). That's a great film. Very much recommended. Apparently it's based (roughly) on Prosper Merimee's "Lokis", and the real-life mystery of the Beast of Gevaudan: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudanIt's also the only soft-porn movie about bestiality to feature a member of the cast of Casablanca.
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 7, 2009 13:14:03 GMT
Grimscribe: His Lives and Works - Thomas Ligotti (Carroll & Graf, 1991; Jove, 1994)
Introduction
The Voice of the Damned The Last Feast of Harlequin The Spectacles in the Drawer Flowers of the Abyss Nethescurial
The Voice of the Demon The Dreaming in Nortown The Mystics of Muelenberg In the Shadow of Another World The Cocoons
The Voice of the Dreamer The Night School The Glamour
The Voice of the Child The Library of Byzantium Miss Plarr
The Voice of Our Name The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 7, 2009 12:16:18 GMT
Strayers from Sheol - H. R. Wakefield (Arkham House, 1961)
Introduction: Farewell to All Those! The Triumph of Death Ghost Hunt The Third Shadow The Gorge of the Churels Mr. Ash's Studio Woe Water A Kink in Space-Time Messrs. Turkes and Talbot "Immortal Bird" The Caretaker "Four-Eyes" The Sepulchre of Jasper Sarasen The Middle Drawer Monstrous Regiment
The final volume of Wakefield's stories to be published in his lifetime; an Ash-Tree Press edition a few years ago added "Death of a Bumblebee", "The Last Meeting of Two Old Friends", "Appointment with Fire" and "The Animals in the Case".
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 4, 2009 23:04:31 GMT
Depends how desperate you are, mr. breakfast. Maybe you're best to wait and see if Wordsworth enter the fray? Erckmann-Chatrian certainly fit their 'must be dead 70 years' ruling and i'm sure a budget priced collection would shift a goodly few copies. This is a complete guess here, but presumably Wordsworth (or anyone else) would still have to pay in order to use the existing English translations, or else commission new ones, so it might be best not to bank on a nice cheap paperback coming along too soon.
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 4, 2009 18:52:20 GMT
The Author's Tale sounds truly far out. Ghostly flagellation "for the win" as the kids say. I'll not be getting my hands on it unless there is a Wordworth edition or something similar though, as I'm no way forking out the £200+ dealers seem to want for the Ghost Story Press edition on the strength of one story I've not read... "The Author's Tale" is in a Richard Dalby anthology of vampire stories which is relatively easy (and cheap!) to find second-hand. It's a great story, possibly my favourite of the Lewis tales I've read, although I'm not entirely sure what it has to do with vampires...
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 24, 2009 14:10:20 GMT
i'm sure there must've been more snuff movie-sploitation novels, but i can't think of any off the top of my head. anyone? I've never read it, nor seen the legendarily bad Audrey Hepburn movie made from it, but I'm pretty sure Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline has a snuff movie theme.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 21, 2009 16:41:29 GMT
The Horrifying Presence & Other Tales - Jean Ray (Ex Occidente, 2009)
The Story of the Wulkh I Have Killed Alfred Heavenrock The Inn of Spectres Merry-Go-Round The Black Mirror The Graveyard Guardian The Man Who Dared The Night at Camberwell Cousin Passeroux The Head of Mr. Ramberger The Bench and the Door In the Fenn Marshes Between Two Glasses The Monsters at the Window The White Beast The Horrifying Presence Round Dance at Koenigstein The Formidable Secret of the Pole House for Sale The Choucroute Mr. Wohlmut and Franz Benschneider The Night at Pentonville God, You and I The Moustiers Plate The Prettiest Little Girl in the World The Wedding of Mademoiselle Bonvoisin The Tesseract
Translated by Antonio Monteiro
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 19, 2009 22:03:20 GMT
Teatro Grottesco - Thomas Ligotti (Durtro 2006; Virgin 2008)
Derangements Purity The Town Manager Sideshow, and Other Stories The Clown Puppet The Red Tower
Deformations My Case for Retributive Action Our Temporary Supervisor In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land: - His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House - The Bells Will Sound Forever - A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing - When You Hear the Singing, You Will Know it is Time
The Damaged and the Diseased Teatro Grottesco Gas Station Carnivals The Bungalow House Severini The Shadow, the Darkness
The Durtro edition apparently comes with a section of Ligotti's poetry, which I haven't read and probably wouldn't be able to judge even if I had. The stories in this collection are excellent, and often extremely funny, which isn't necessarily an adjective I would have applied to a lot of Ligotti's earlier fiction. My personal favourites included "Purity", "The Town Manager", "The Clown Puppet" and "The Bungalow House", but really it's all pretty great.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 20:42:57 GMT
The Desolate Presence - Thomas Owen (Kimber, 1984) Two of a Kind Modelled in Pure Wax The Sparrowhawk 15.12.38 The Blue Coat A Dead Butterfly's Wing The Desolate Presence My Cousin The Castellan The Girl in the Rain The Hunter The Passenger The Sow The Black Ball A Real Chinese Puzzle The Death of Alexis Balakine Her Dear Departed Husband The Passing of Dr. Babylon A Night in the Chateau Portrait of an Unknown Man The Park The Equivocal Informant As far as I know this is the only English-language collection of macabre stories by the Belgian-born writer Thomas Owen (1910-?). The stories are taken from various original French-language collections, and are all translated by Iain White. The cover illustration is by Penelope Makins.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 20:12:21 GMT
American Supernatural Tales - ed. S. T. Joshi (2007, Penguin)
The Adventure of the German Student - Washington Irving Edward Randolph's Portrait - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe What Was It? - Fitz-James O'Brien The Death of Halpin Frayser - Ambrose Bierce The Yellow Sign - Robert W. Chambers The Real Right Thing - Henry James The Call of Cthulhu - H. P. Lovecraft The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - Clark Ashton Smith Old Garfield's Heart - Robert E. Howard Black Bargain - Robert Bloch The Lonesome Place - August Derleth The Girl with the Hungry Eyes - Fritz Leiber The Fog Horn - Ray Bradbury A Visit (The Lovely House) - Shirley Jackson Long Distance Call - Richard Matheson The Vanshing American - Charles Beaumont The Events at Poroth Farm - T. E. D. Klein Night Surf - Stephen King The Late Shift - Dennis Etchison Vastarien - Thomas Ligotti Endless Night - Karl Edward Wagner The Hollow Man - Norman Partridge Last Call for the Sons of Shock - David J. Schow Demon - Joyce Carol Oates In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888) - Caitlin R. Kiernan
I wonder if Harold Bloom knows Stephen King is now being published in Penguin Classics...
A semi-successful attempt to establish a canon of American horror literature (emphasis on the literature bit) - it struck me that Joshi had chosen most of the right authors, but not necessarily the right stories. Robert Howard's "Old Garfield's Heart" is utterly dreadful, and the Wagner and Beaumont stories, though perfectly acceptable, are nowhere near their best work. Joshi's rather grudging praise for King ("some highly able short stories") doesn't do much to dispel the impression that somewhere along the line it was decided that the book had to contain a Stephen King story, and "Night Surf" was short and didn't annoy the editor too much.
Some positives now; I've never been overly keen on what I've read of Robert Bloch's work, but "Black Bargain" (a 1942 Weird Tales piece) is great - I think it helps that, in this instance, Bloch hasn't constructed the entire story in order to get to a pre-chosen punchline. I don't think I've read anything by Norman Partridge before, but "The Hollow Man" is fantastic, a very creepy tale told from the point of view of an extremely nasty "something" (Joshi suspects a Wendigo, but Partridge never makes it completely clear) preying on hunters in the woods. "The Real Right Thing" is a true rarity - a Henry James story where every word feels necessary.
The jewel in the crown is probably T. E. D. Klein's "The Events at Poroth Farm", the novella that Klein later expanded into The Ceremonies, his first (and to date last) novel. I haven't read that version, so I don't know how they compare, but the novella here is as good as anything in Klein's Dark Gods collection, which is saying a lot.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 19:52:39 GMT
American Gothic Tales - ed. Joyce Carol Oates (1996, Plume)
Wieland, or The Transformation (extract) - Charles Brockden Brown The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving The Man of Adamant - Nathaniel Hawthorne Young Goodman Brown - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Tartarus of Maids - Herman Melville The Black Cat - Edgar Allan Poe The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Romance of Certain Old Clothes - Henry James The Damned Thing - Ambrose Bierce Afterward - Edith Wharton The Striding Place - Gertrude Atherton Death in the Woods - Sherwood Anderson The Outsider - H. P. Lovecraft A Rose for Emily - William Faulkner The Lonesome Place - August Derleth The Door - E. B. White The Lovely House (A Visit) - Shirley Jackson Allal - Paul Bowles The Reencounter - Isaac Bashevis Singer In the Icebound Hothouse - William Goyen The Enormous Radio - John Cheever The Veldt - Ray Bradbury The Dachau Shoe - W. S. Merwin The Approved - W. S. Merwin Spiders I Have Known - W. S. Merwin Postcards from the Maginot Line - W. S. Merwin Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams - Sylvia Plath In Bed One Night - Robert Coover Schrodinger's Cat - Ursula K. Le Guin The Waterworks - E. L. Doctorow Shattered Like a Glass Goblin - Harlan Ellison Human Moments in World War III - Don DeLillo The Anatomy of Desire - John L'Heureux Little Things - Raymond Carver The Temple - Joyce Carol Oates Freniere (from Interview with the Vampire) - Anne Rice A Short Guide to the City - Peter Straub In the Penny Arcade - Steven Millhauser The Reach - Stephen King Exchange Value - Charles Johnson Snow - John Crowley The Last Feast of Harlequin - Thomas Ligotti Time and Again - Breece D'J Pancake Replacements - Lisa Tuttle Spirit Seizures - Melissa Pritchard Cat in Glass - Nancy Etchemendy The Girl Who Loved Animals - Bruce McAllister Ursus Triad, Later - Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg The Nuclear Family: His Talk, Her Teeth (from Geek Love) - Katherine Dunn Subsoil - Nicholson Baker
Given who's editing it, it's probably not surprising that this book focuses mainly on the more "literary" end of the spectrum, but it's all been a bit of a slog at the moment. Poe's "The Black Cat" actually come as a bit of a relief - using gothic tropes as a metaphor for loss and our inability to communicate with each other is all well and good, but sometimes you just want to read about a man gouging a cat's eyeballs out.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 18:39:56 GMT
Is 19 Tales of Terror a hardback, jonathan? The only other antho of the Burnett's i've seen is Things With Claws (Ballantine, 1961) which reprints the Shandeling and Seabrook stories. It's a paperback, dem. There's no mention of any earlier printings, so I'm guessing there wasn't a hardback edition.
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