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Post by Knygathin on Jul 29, 2013 20:49:08 GMT
"Quincunx" - What a beautifully written little story, or episode. Not terribly horrifying, but engaging. That poor old lady! This one is clearly interconnected with "A:B:O". It doesn't have to be, it could be free standing. But I believe they belong together. Am I saying the obvious?
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Post by Knygathin on Nov 28, 2013 21:11:00 GMT
Tonight I will post a book review. I am rather fond of lingering around details, so please bear with me if this review will not be well rounded.
EIGHT TALES (1971, Arkham House)
Book review:
This book is up to Arkham House's usual excellent standards! With good paper, and solid boards. The typography and proportions of the text is pleasant and easy to read. The publisher has gone through considerable efforts to deliver a fine product. It is rather small, and makes a person like me happy holding it in my hands. I can almost stick it in my pocket! It should disappoint no one.
When I first saw this book, I thought, "Oh, this must be the ugliest dust jacket Arkham House ever made." It is plain blue, with the title enclosed in a speech bubble! The title is decorated in typical overcrowded Victorian style, like thick growths of moss or lichen, with so much detail that you "can't see the wood for all the trees". Ugly.
But then I studied it closer, with a magnifying glass. And I felt a growing horror creeping over me. Those letters are not illustrations. They are actually constructed of laminated layers!
And there is an eerie aura about the details. Some things are impossible to analyze! Why should it be that those decorations remind me of the wretched beggar in one of the book's stories, poking his warty fingers up in my face?
Now, why in God's name would anyone make letters with sides that thick? Those masses are unproportionate, and fill no function! What is the rational decision behind it? What aesthetic logic? I can't find any. There is none. It's sheer madness! The artist must have been plagued by lunacy!
The more I look at those letters, the more disturbing they become. There are strange bending angles in them. Peculiar stretching labyrinthine niches. . . . DAMNED!
Some madness must . . . just be hiding there, behind those blocks!. . . Around the back corners.
I dare you! DON'T look through the magnifying glass below! Cover your eyes!
Ï-ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄHHH!!! . . . FHTAGN! NNnnnnnnnnNnn-GHhh! . . . .
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 1, 2013 0:48:46 GMT
*Mumble, mumble* . . . Eehhh?! .. Euum . . . Tralalla lalla lalla! . . . TRALALLA LALLA LALLA LAAA! . . . TRALALLA LALLA LAAAAAAAA!
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Post by dem bones on Dec 1, 2013 6:58:02 GMT
Is Mr. Kempe in it?
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 1, 2013 13:19:15 GMT
EIGHT TALES (1971), xx + 108 pages
vii • Introduction • essay by Edward Wagenknecht 3 • Kismet (1895) 10 • The Hangman Luck (1895) 20 • A Mote (1896) 36 • The Village of Old Age (1896) 48 • The Moon's Miracle (1897) 66 • The Giant (1901) 74 • De Mortuis (1901) 86 • A : B : O. (1896)
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Post by dem bones on Dec 1, 2013 22:04:26 GMT
Thank you for providing the table of contents, Knygathin. You're enjoying the collection, I take it?
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 2, 2013 9:55:09 GMT
Oh, YES! . . . It's a LOVELY book! . . . But I have only sniffed at it. These stories are early efforts from his youth, originally presented under the invented name Walter Ramal. He agreed to their publication in book form only a short time before his death. In the three stories I have tried, he displays high artistic ability.
It was just added to my reading pile. Awaiting their turn first are some Machen, Le Fanu, Fritz Leiber, Robert Aickman, Arthur C. Clarke, and Henry Kuttner. And his more famous later stories, in Strangers and Pilgrims and The Collected Tales... . Thomas Ligotti is trying to sneak into the pile too. And T. E. D. Klein. . . . And Dune, when will I find time for Dune?
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zaraath
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 12
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Post by zaraath on Oct 5, 2014 9:18:30 GMT
His story All Hallows, about a cathedral taken over by Evil, is very atmospheric but the terror climax, if you can call it that, is brief and occurs towards the beginning, where the narrator and his guide have to hide in an alcove while a huge unseen being rushes past them. Later they go up on the roof, where the statues may or may not be animate. I read it in the anthology Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination. It can be found at project gutenberg also www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/delamarew-beststories/delamarew-beststories-00-h.html#Page_288
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Post by helrunar on Apr 28, 2017 1:22:57 GMT
Just a line to say how much I enjoyed reading this thread. Walter de la Mare apparently was something of a mystic (and perhaps an occultist) in real life--in Virginia Woolf's diary circa 1930 she recounts listening as de la Mare and Yeats spoke of dream interpretation at a tea party at Lady Ottoline Morrell's. It was a fascinating passage.
H.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 28, 2017 16:31:47 GMT
There's a paperback collection of de la Mare short stories just been published by British Library Publishing (I picked up a copy a couple of weeks ago). Contents are - Kismet A:B:O The Riddle Out of the Deep Seaton's Aunt Winter The Green Room All Hallows A Recluse The Game at Cards Crewe A Revenant The Guardian
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 21, 2018 20:20:04 GMT
For those who enjoy a soiree around the wireless (with a stiff fire and a roaring drink), BBC are repeating their series of Walter de la Mare ghost stories from 2010, starting fairly soon. They'll also be on the iPlayer for a while after broadcast. The tales are "All Hallows", "Seaton's Aunt", "Crewe", "A Recluse" and "The Almond Tree". Exact timings can been seen by following this link.Even though they've all been (not too badly) abridged, I remember enjoying Richard E Grant's reading of the marvellous "All Hallows" first time round. Just the idea of a gigantic cathedral by the sea struck me as pretty weird, before anything even happens...
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Post by ripper on Dec 28, 2018 15:37:25 GMT
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have read a few of De La Mare's stories, but not for a long time and probably not as many as I should, so this little series will be a nice re-introduction for me of some of his more well-known tales. Actually, I think that Seaton's Aunt was included in an ITV supernatural drama series in the 80s--Realms of Darkness, Shades of Darkness, something like that? Anyway, I believe it was the first time I came upon his work.
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 14, 2020 19:43:59 GMT
My favorite picture of Walter de la Mare. Can anyone name the location? I would guess it was a tomb, but looking closer at the door it seems to be a house.
Anyway, it goes xeroxed into one of my de la Mare collections.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 14, 2020 20:06:35 GMT
My favorite picture of Walter de la Mare. Can anyone name the location? I would guess it was a tomb, but looking closer at the door it seems to be a house.
Anyway, it goes xeroxed into one of my de la Mare collections. That is a metal grille door. It is a tomb all right.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 14, 2020 22:38:09 GMT
I agree - it looks like some sort of mausoleum. Where did you find the picture?
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