|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Aug 31, 2011 18:35:19 GMT
and no doubt I'm showing my complete lack of understanding of this genre but.. Wuthering Heights? as one of the top 100 fantasy novels? why? There are numerous suggestions of ghosts (of Catherine mostly, but also later of Heathcliffe) - it could also be claimed that it is a fantasy on the theme of love being stronger than death, with the suggestion that Catherine and Heathcliffe are finally able to be happy together in an afterlife. A girlfriend of mine persuaded me to read it years ago. There was a faint suggestion of it being "better" than the sort of things I tended to read (fairly unsophisticated and non-literary ghost and horror stories). I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would - but she wasn't that impressed by me saying it was basically just a ghost story, not greatly different from a lot of the stuff I was reading anyway, just padded out with girly gothic romance. |
|
|
|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 1, 2011 0:30:32 GMT
Wuthering Heights is a fantastic book (and makes a great film of course) It's extremely dark and in its way utterly fantastical but again its literature - maybe the best sort of literature but its not fantasy in my book. With Genre books something just clicks that its part of the genre. The Shining's horror, Killer Crabs is horror. Kafka's Castle aint horror, Wuthering Heights aint fantasy.
|
|
|
|
Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 1, 2011 9:33:28 GMT
Wuthering Heights is a fantastic book (and makes a great film of course) It's extremely dark and in its way utterly fantastical but again its literature - maybe the best sort of literature but its not fantasy in my book. With Genre books something just clicks that its part of the genre. The Shining's horror, Killer Crabs is horror. Kafka's Castle aint horror, Wuthering Heights aint fantasy. If only Lindsay Anderson had made his version with Richard Harris! |
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 1, 2011 17:59:27 GMT
it seems just about every genre and sub-genre bar SF has tried to nab Wuthering Heights as one its own. In her The Vampire In 19th Century English Literature (Bowling Green State Uni Press, 1988), Carol A. Senf devotes a chapter to Bronte's novel and Stoker's The Lady Of The Shroud as examples of "fictional works in which one of the characters suspects another of being a vampire: however, because this is never proved conclusively, the reader is left to focus on ordinary human evil rather than supernatural evil." For Mrs. Senf, Heathcliff is a vampire "in the metaphoric sense rather than the literal", but Cathy is pretty much the real deal, even if Bronte never saw fit to include any graphic scenes of spicy blood-sucking. i'm not up for digging out my vampire bibliographies just now but i'm pretty certain Wuthering Heights has been listed in one or more of them.
anyway, time to try finish off useless non-review of Susan Hill's sword & sorcery masterpiece, The Woman In Black.
|
|
sara
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 69
|
Post by sara on Sept 2, 2011 0:12:10 GMT
Well, lists like this are good in that they provide new slants on old favourites, I guess  . But including Wuthering Heights - even with the ghosts - as a fantasy novel still seems kind of funny  |
|
ghost
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 14
|
Post by ghost on Sept 2, 2011 8:12:26 GMT
There's been a bid to claim the Bronte's Gondal/Angria material for (early) Science Fiction...
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 2, 2011 9:58:32 GMT
There's been a bid to claim the Bronte's Gondal/Angria material for (early) Science Fiction... again, that does make some kind of sense, and i'll bet James Cawthorn formulates a clear and concise argument for the inclusion of Wuthering Heights in Fantasy: 100 Best Books (which is growing in appeal with every post). Then again, a litlle creative licence and you could probably argue a case for E. G. Swain as father of splatterpunk (who's to know that The Man With A Roller didn't flatten the guts out of somebody before nice Mr Batchel put a stop to his capers?), or Ghosts & Scholars as a one-stop shop of XXX-rated adult sleaze (married woman snogs skeleton in Kathleen J. Patterson's The Abbot). The possibilities are infinite. Stephen Jones's Best New Horror anthologies went through a phase where, in the case of certain stories, if you could actually locate the 'horror' content you were doing a whole lot better than me. |
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Sept 2, 2011 10:16:05 GMT
Then again, a litlle creative licence and you could probably argue a case for E. G. Swain as father of splatterpunk (who's to know that The Man With A Roller didn't flatten the guts out of somebody before nice Mr Batchel put a stop to his capers?), or Ghosts & Scholars as a one-stop shop of XXX-rated adult sleaze (married woman snogs skeleton in Kathleen J. Patterson's The Abbot). The possibilities are infinite. Not to mention sf-scribe Murray Leinster who invented the Internet in 1946 |
|
ghost
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 14
|
Post by ghost on Sept 2, 2011 11:12:51 GMT
Is there a handy Venn diagram for the difference between Fantasy and fantasy? Clive Barker does sterling work talking about the fantastique, but that too needs Venning. |
|
|
|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 2, 2011 16:18:44 GMT
The problem with this kind of discussion is that you end up saying that Homer was really the first fantasist or the Chinese bloke that wrote shuǐ hǔ zhuàn in the 14th century or the unknown good guy who created the Mesopotamian myths from the 4th millennium or maybe, for the cynic, the Bible and its antecedents would be a good bet. The reality is that except in the minds of a pedant or an erudite drunk, Fantasy (like horror and SF) is a genre that began at a more or less specific period in modern time and every case for a first is a dilution of the idea of Fantasy as we know it.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 3, 2011 11:50:27 GMT
Patrick McGrath & Bradford Morrow (eds.) - The Picador Book Of The New Gothic (Picador, 1993)  Cover photograph: Simon Marsden
Jamaica Kincaid - Ovando
Martin Amis - Horrorday
Jeanette Winterton - Newton
Paul West - Banquo And The Black Banana: The Fierceness Of The Delight Of The Horror
Anne Rice - Freniere
Janice Galloway - Blood
Scott Bradfield - Didn’t She Know
John Hawkes - Regulus And Maximus
Yannick Murphy - The Fish Keeper
Lynne Tillman - A Dead Summer
Joyce Carol Oates - Why Don’t You Come Live With Me It’s Time
Robert Coover - The Dead Queen
Angela Carter - The Merchant Of Shadows
Bradford Morrow - The Road To Nadeja
Ruth Rendell - For Dear Life
Emma Tennant - Rigor Beach
Patrick McGrath - The Smell
Peter Straub - The Kingdom Of Heaven
John Edgar Wideman - Fever
Kathy Acker - J
William T. Vollman - The Grave Of Lost StoriesFrom the intro Were Poe to come across this collection he might perhaps be bewildered by the various accents and settings of the work, but he would certainly applaud the spirit animating them. This is the New Gothic.Poe may not be alone in finding McGrath & Morrow's interpretation of Gothic "bewildering" - God knows, i struggled to get my head around it at the time. Will give The New Gothic a separate thread eventually, as a rematch is long overdue. for the moment it feels appropriate to lob it in here as another example of extreme genre bending. Or possible example. Apart from the Straub Vietnam war story (which is excellent), i remember so little about the selection that it would be very wrong of me to suggest there is little here for vampyres, black magic barons & sex crazed monks versus innocent maidens traditionalists, less for, ahem, aficionados of "girly gothic romance" (© Dr. Strange), but that's sure how i remember it. Anyone else had the pleasure and if so, what did you make of it all?
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Sept 7, 2011 18:36:41 GMT
Apart from the Straub Vietnam war story (which is excellent), i remember so little about the selection that it would be very wrong of me to suggest there is little here for vampyres, black magic barons & sex crazed monks versus innocent maidens traditionalists, less for, ahem, aficionados of "girly gothic romance" (© Dr. Strange), but that's sure how i remember it. Anyone else had the pleasure and if so, what did you make of it all? As it happens, I did have it at one time but also don't remember anything about it now. That could mean that I realised it wasn't really my sort of thing and got rid of it without reading many of the stories - I think maybe there's that whole "Southern gothic" / "American gothic" thing going on, which I really don't get. I also want to distance myself from that "girly gothic romance" phrase - clearly that was just a faint echo from my callow youth, when my tastes were so much less sophisticated and discerning than they are now, and I had yet to fully appreciate the feminine point of view. Anyway, I need some advice; which do you reckon for a first date movie - "Apollo 18", "Cowboys and Aliens", or the new 3D "Final Destination"? |
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Sept 8, 2011 12:29:22 GMT
Anyway, I need some advice; which do you reckon for a first date movie - "Apollo 18", "Cowboys and Aliens", or the new 3D "Final Destination"?  Neither? Just kidding. Well, Destination has lots of maiming and killing and I guess at least some tits. Also it is no.5? 6? This is a nerd movie. If she likes Big Bang Theory, this could be it. If not, not so good. Apollo 18 has some mixed reviews, seems it has a good idea not very well done. Kind of Paranormal Activity only on the moon. Cowboys also has very mixed revies, but it also has Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Guess this is the safe one.  |
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Sept 8, 2011 14:00:39 GMT
If she likes Big Bang Theory  |
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 8, 2011 20:39:16 GMT
As it happens, I did have it at one time but also don't remember anything about it now. That could mean that I realised it wasn't really my sort of thing and got rid of it without reading many of the stories - I think maybe there's that whole "Southern gothic" / "American gothic" thing going on, which I really don't get. I also want to distance myself from that "girly gothic romance" phrase ... yeah, the various Gothic subgenres have bamboozled me too down the years. i'm sure the distinctions mean something different to every reader but these are the ones - in my oversimplified way - i think i get . Southern Gothic: If its set in the backwaters of the Deep South and peopled by inbred folk considered too creepy for even the briefest walk on part in Deliverance then it's Southern Gothic. Gothic Romance (née "Girly Gothic Romance"). A long and proud tradition dating back to Anne Radcliffe and her disciples. Impossibly beautiful heroine beset by a seemingly supernatural menace. Typically, haunting is eventually exposed as hoax perpetrated by evil relative with their eye on young Arabella's rightful inheritance. Urban Gothic: Contemporary, city-based, but stretching out to encompass surrounding industrial wastelands. Gritty realism over romance, hopelessness and psychological meltdown a commonplace. If it was a rock band, it would be The Fall. Typified by Fritz Leiber's Smoke Ghost and much of Ramsey Campbell's work. Acid Gothic. Karl E. Wagner's mischievous self-catagorisation of his work nonetheless remains quite wonderfully, deleriously apt. KEW coined the term in response to the many "movements" rife on horror scene circa late 'eighties - Splatterpunk, Dark Fantasy, New Wave, Quiet Horror, etc. To best of my knowledge, nobody else has claimed to be an acid gothic, but it's a certainty that process of writing (by all accounts, plenty hard drink and possibly other stimulants were involved) wasn't unique to him. The New Gothic apart (pretty certain my initial response to the book was unfavourable otherwise i'd almost certainly have returned to it before now), the one i'm really not so sure about at all is American Gothic: Early on i came to think of that 'American' as a misnomer and what was really being referred to was the Northern states, though would not be surprised to learn this interpretation is well wide of the mark. The 'American Gothic' section on here is no help at all as, whatever the original thinking behind it (i genuinely forget), it has since mutated into a dumping ground for post-'eighties US horror fiction of every stripe. To confuse matters further, the section was named after a Ray Russell short (a black comedy that strikes me as near enough the epitome of Southern Gothic!), and not Robert Bloch's novel based on the exploits of H. H. Holmes, by far the more appropriate of the two in the circumstances. later ... And one i overlooked  . If our friend James Diog's selections are at all representative, then count me in as a fan of Australian Gothic too. Also, Frank Bernier's cover atwork for the Horowitz anthologies is supremely trad gothic horror, while Joan Lindsay's Picnic At Hanging Rock is a tour de force of literary supernatural superbness. Nick Cave's novel The Ass Saw An Angel and several of his lyrics for the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds have a Southern-Aus Gothic feel to 'em. All this and Kylie! If only they'd have me, i'd emigrate. |
|
. But including Wuthering Heights - even with the ghosts - as a fantasy novel still seems kind of funny 
Neither? 
. If our friend James Diog's selections are at all representative, then count me in as a fan of Australian Gothic too. Also, Frank Bernier's cover atwork for the Horowitz anthologies is supremely trad gothic horror, while Joan Lindsay's Picnic At Hanging Rock is a tour de force of literary supernatural superbness. Nick Cave's novel The Ass Saw An Angel and several of his lyrics for the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds have a Southern-Aus Gothic feel to 'em. All this and Kylie! If only they'd have me, i'd emigrate.