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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 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 11:40:44 GMT
Has anyone on the forum actually read all 16 volumes of Richard Burton's Arabian Nights? It is massive. It should take at least a year of hard study, even for a moderately fast reader.
I believe a Wordsworth edition would be waste of paper. Some will buy it for collective purposes, the first couple of volumes, perhaps at most, being read, and the remaining volumes just collecting dust.
Print on demand (POD) is more sensible, to meet the actual need for the texts. Cosimo.com (POD?) is offering the complete set as individual volumes, both in paperback and hardback.
I have the first 10 volumes (not the Supplemental Nights) in a single fat volume. It's about a foot thick, with double row pages side by side on each page. It's bigger than the biggest bible you ever saw. In the 90's I simply wanted all the texts, and xeroxed the pages from a library set. Later I bound the pile in leather, with scarlet pastedowns and endpapers, and it actually became quite attractive.
I have read the first few chapters, which were enjoyable.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 22, 2012 14:46:53 GMT
More terrible than ghosts, ghouls and vampires, almost, are really the likes of "s6hree" with their spinechilling disrespectful arrogance. Can't he be tracked down by the IP address, and be shot with a silver bullet between the eyes?
That may be a horrible thing to say on Midsummer's Eve, but I personally prefer the magic, cruel joys, and justice of our forefathers to the current Christian meekness that is bound to be Europe's downfall.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 17, 2012 21:48:37 GMT
I guess Hartley's ghost stories will be released by Wordsworth Editions sooner or later. I see now that L. P. Hartley was not even included among the 20 most popular authors in the Wordsworth New Author Poll. You weren't even allowed to vote for him. I guess Hartley will never be reprinted - at least not in my lifetime.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 16, 2012 0:46:41 GMT
Shalken The Painter - and i had to put my lit git head on special for this. The story first appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 1839 and was revived in his posthumously published collection The Purcell Papers as Strange Event In The Life Of Shalken The Painter. This version, according to E. F. Bleiler, is the more frequently anthologised (I just found it in the first book i checked, Fontana's The Vampire Lovers tie-in). It begins; "You will no doubt be surprised, my dear friend, at the subject of the following narrative ...." In 1851, Le Fanu privately printed his exceedingly rare Ghost Stories & Mysteries under the McGlashan imprint. This four story collection included a revised Shalken The Painter which begins: "There exists, at this moment, in good preservation, a remarkable work of Shalken's."Bearing in mind that Bleiler was writing in 1964, it's not impossible that the revised text is now more commonly reprinted than the original, but i'm guessing by the longer title that Wordsworth have run the original/ Purcell Papers version. If the demon lover isn't quite vampiric enough in that version, you can find the revised, 1851 Shalken The Painter in E. F. Bleiler's Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu, Alan Hull Walton's The Open Grave and Michael Cox's Illustrated J. S. Le Fanu, probably more. I read the revised version, "Shalken The Painter", and found it excellent and most satisfying. Then I wanted to compare it with the first version, "Strange Event In The Life Of Shalken The Painter". But starting to read this, I felt the beginning was not as artistically integrated self-standing as the revised version. I thought it was frustrating, because it opens on a loose end in the middle of unexplained events, and, addressing the reader, assumes the reader already has previous knowledge of the situation (perhaps from an earlier introductory text within The Purcell Papers, linking to the story?). I felt left out. I was so disappointed that I put the story aside. And I didn't want to ruin my positive first impression from the revised version, with a less than perfect re-reading. The revised version also opens up much more strikingly, cutting to the essence immediately.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 14, 2012 21:50:39 GMT
Robert Lory's Dracula Returns, the first NEL novel. That's the Dracula artwork on the Vault homepage banner. What's that other creature on the banner? A ghoul? The "little people"?
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 14, 2012 21:37:31 GMT
Tonight, for example, I plan to start reading Robert Lory's Dracula Returns, the first NEL novel I've ever bought and something that I never would have come across without the Vault. Nice cover art. I have never heard of it before. I hope it's better than it sounds, so your time will be rewarded.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 14, 2012 21:21:41 GMT
My post was unfortunately formulated. This sentence, too! Just kidding. Yeah . . . I know. It didn't sound good. Please help. What is wrong with it? It seems to have a double meaning.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 14, 2012 18:26:12 GMT
I Only couldn't remember them becasue I have a memory problem. . . . My post was unfortunately formulated. I didn't mean to be personal and make a comment about your memory. Sorry that it came across like that. My intention was only to present a general idea about Blackwood's fiction and why some of his stories, or sections of them, are difficult to remember (I find it difficult myself).
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 13, 2012 21:23:06 GMT
. . . Many become increasingly sinister on revisiting, Three or Four for Dinner being a good example of this, the dialogue is funnier and yet darker every time I reread this tale. - Chris I envy all you fast readers. I am going to finalize my book collection now! So I too can find time to start revisiting my favorites. L. P. Hartley will be the last addition! (I also have a few anthologies of "unknowns", but for the authors in those books a single story per author will have make do!!!)
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 13, 2012 21:01:29 GMT
. . . From about the 1890s till the end of Weird Tales is broad enough for this slow and fussy reader. You have not missed Sheridan Le Fanu? His work may be much about the upper classes though, or a mix. I am a slow reader too, and think it's a good idea to try to limit the scope in some way. At least be selective, and not waste time on stuff I don't genuinely feel in tune with. I would rather find time to revisit my old books, than only read newly acquired things. Getting a more profound experience by looking closer into a work, may be more rewarding than always chasing after new sensations.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 12, 2012 22:26:50 GMT
I have only read "Ancient Sorceries" among those I think. It was fine and atmospheric. (There seems to be something very rewarding about the mere presence of cats in supernatural tales!)
I am reading The Centaur right now. I didn't know Blackwood could be so humorous! Excellent observations of social behaviour and dialogue aboard the ship in the beginning of the book. Otherwise this is a great work on the subject of opening up the being to greater awareness of the panistic dimension, to Nature, to Truth beyond superficial appearances. Repetitive on the theme, but Blackwood is so good, and chants inspired glimmering variations as if in trance, to draw us in and gradually tare down our illusions. A joy to read.
Craig Herbertson said he couldn't remember any of the stories in Tales of the Uncanny . . ., having read it several times. I think it may be because Blackwood is so spiritual in perspective. I think the brains of his generation, the Spiritualists, worked differently from ours. He is very inspiring to read, but difficult to grasp and retain afterwards. Too spiritually philosophical, and materially abstract.
I have feeling that Blackwood is not as popular as, say M. R. James. One reason may be that Blackwood, in much of his work, turns his back on civilisation, even on human relations, to step out and become one with Nature. That is probably unbearable for most people.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 12, 2012 22:23:44 GMT
Eating a raw egg, munching on a scoop of butter, and stuffing the mouth full of flour, is quite different from tasting the alchemical transmutation that has taken place in the finished cake.
I have seldom considered literature in terms of alchemy. A story develops gradually, or in leaps, in linear fashion. On rare occasions I may have experienced a sort of alchemy, a feeling towering up, after the story is finished, being completely different from everything experienced while still reading. In a subtle way.
For the author, on the other hand, it may be an alchemical process, as the artistic struggles finally transform into a written free-standing work.
There may be a delayed alchemical effect on the reader, if he learns something from the story and matures afterwards.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 7, 2012 0:33:20 GMT
I have not read a lot of his work. But I have sweet memories from The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, “A Sound of Thunder”, and "Frost and Fire".
The Martian Chronicles is coming down from the bookshelf again, into my greedy hands for a re-read sometime ahead.
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