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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 11, 2021 18:44:54 GMT
I am surprised that nobody has made the “seaman” point before about THE SWORDS, especially as quoted on the back cover of this very Fontana book is:
“‘Go on’ shouted the Seaman. “Stick it in!’”
A sort of anti-anti-natalism?
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 12, 2021 10:35:58 GMT
On second thoughts, perhaps PRO- Anti-Natalism!  |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 12, 2021 11:19:53 GMT
Then the female gets her own back on the male, in the next story which is THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER by Anonymous, a historic vampire fiction! For my full review of the latter anonymous story and the context of all the stories in the 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories: HERE |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 16, 2021 9:19:41 GMT
THE GREAT RETURN by Arthur Machen
“Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies, corroborates, explains each separate piece.”…and this strikes me as gestalt real-time reviewing of literature in a hindsight nutshell, not a jigsaw solution, as Machen may suggest consciously, but an epiphany that he knows from within his complex soul or simply from within his simple instinct. Beyond the “Iconostasis” and any “tmesis” mentioned here, we follow a thread from Protestants through Catholic incense within a Welsh chapel into a cross between “Freemasons” and “Fishermen”, towards the holy “Graal”, the latter two terms at least making me ask the eternal question (that earlier ‘question of time’ above in this review): ‘Is it a Tench?’ — and giving me the certainty I now have that Aickman (based at least partly on the “evidence” of this being his choice of such a Machen work for the climax of this anthology) was imbued with the works of John Cowper Powys, even though, I am told, there is no evidence to this fact in Aickman’s memorabilia. But mere evidence (!) is not everything, as this Machen work proves. A visit to Llantrisant by the narrator during the other ‘lights’ of the then world war to sort out a personal ‘jigsaw’ about what the Welsh natives there had experienced — those “mysteries in sound” of bell or bells, that gorgeous light of rosy fire above the sea, “fragments of dreams” that Machen miraculously expresses though the narrator, the changes in the perfumes of their local church and in their churchman himself. The Dream of Olwen and other healings. References to Railers and Dissenters. The “paradise” in meat and drink, and in many other things. A farmer who is a “little black man” and the arrival of forgiveness in bitter local disputes. The Rosicrucian triangulation as seen by the consumptive Olwen during her healing. A rose on fire. Is this all a “collective hallucination” or the genuine pervasive “glow” of transfiguration, an epiphany beyond our understanding? Reading this story makes you understand, though, indeed makes you KNOW — ironically despite what it says in its very last sentence! Aickman’s swords in our side? Full context on above HERE |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 16, 2021 12:46:42 GMT
John Cowper Powys four Wessex novels, Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, and Maiden Castle, must rank among the greatest novels in the English language I would think. they are huge aren't they, but I didn't find them heavy going. I have his novel Morwyn: or The Vengeance of God in the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult edition, but I haven't read it yet. The narrator and his beloved Morwyn end up in part of hell inhabited by some of the worst human beings who ever lived. Perhaps someone who has read it can comment on it. Also Powys considered his novel Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages his masterpiece. He also wrote a novel about Owen Glendower, the heroic Welsh figure.
Would you say Powys was a mystic?
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 16, 2021 13:06:13 GMT
John Cowper Powys four Wessex novels, Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, and Maiden Castle, must rank among the greatest novels in the English language I would think. they are huge aren't they, but I didn't find them heavy going. I have his novel Morwyn: or The Vengeance of God in the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult edition, but I haven't read it yet. The narrator and his beloved Morwyn end up in part of hell inhabited by some of the worst human beings who ever lived. Perhaps someone who has read it can comment on it. Also Powys considered his novel Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages his masterpiece. He also wrote a novel about Owen Glendower, the heroic Welsh figure. Would you say Powys was a mystic? Yes, as I understand the term, JCP was a mystic. I have been obsessed with his books for many years, particularly THE GLASTONBURY ROMANCE and THE INMATES. I feel he was a significant influence on Aickman’s work, indeed, as big an influence as I have also found Thomas Mann to have been. |
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Post by helrunar on Jun 16, 2021 13:51:59 GMT
Weirdmonger, have you ever read anything by JCP's brother, T. F. Powys? I've been thinking of reading Mr Weston's Good Wine, a very dark, strange, twisted book that my closest friend as a teenager fell in love with. He would describe passages to me and cackle away at the dark humor. This was a man so eccentric he made me look ragingly normal--which may be frightening to contemplate.
H.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 16, 2021 13:58:22 GMT
Weirdmonger, have you ever read anything by JCP's brother, T. F. Powys? I've been thinking of reading Mr Weston's Good Wine, a very dark, strange, twisted book that my closest friend as a teenager fell in love with. He would describe passages to me and cackle away at the dark humor. This was a man so eccentric he made me look ragingly normal--which may be frightening to contemplate. H. After him you could move to Llewelyn or Philippa, or if you like lace making, Marian. Such a talented family |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 16, 2021 14:24:35 GMT
Weirdmonger, have you ever read anything by JCP's brother, T. F. Powys? I've been thinking of reading Mr Weston's Good Wine, a very dark, strange, twisted book that my closest friend as a teenager fell in love with. He would describe passages to me and cackle away at the dark humor. This was a man so eccentric he made me look ragingly normal--which may be frightening to contemplate. H. After him you could move to Llewelyn or Philippa, or if you like lace making, Marian. Such a talented family No, I have only read JCP. The first one I read was The Glastonbury Romance, and have read it a few tiimes since and it always repays rereading. The first time was in the 1970s, and as a result, I arranged a holiday in Glastonbury for me and my wife and my then quite young son and daughter! ps, my choice quotations from this massive book: weirdtongue.wordpress.com/quotations-from-the-glastonbury-romance-by-john-cowper-powys/ |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2021 14:34:54 GMT
After him you could move to Llewelyn or Philippa, or if you like lace making, Marian. Such a talented family No, I have only read JCP. The first one I read was The Glastonbury Romance, and have read it a few tiimes since and it always repays rereading. The first time was in the 1970s, and as a result, I arranged a holiday in Glastonbury for me and my wife and my then quite young son and daughter! ps, my choice quotations from this massive book: weirdtongue.wordpress.com/quotations-from-the-glastonbury-romance-by-john-cowper-powys/ GLASTONBURY ROMANCE. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 16, 2021 14:36:05 GMT
After him you could move to Llewelyn or Philippa, or if you like lace making, Marian. Such a talented family No, I have only read JCP. The first one I read was The Glastonbury Romance, and have read it a few tiimes since and it always repays rereading. The first time was in the 1970s, and as a result, I arranged a holiday in Glastonbury for me and my wife and my then quite young son and daughter! ps, my choice quotations from this massive book: weirdtongue.wordpress.com/quotations-from-the-glastonbury-romance-by-john-cowper-powys/It's good that the best (or even pulpish) literature can influence us to step out into the world and explore new things and ways of thinking. I'm thinking positively here, I know there is a darker side. but we must be upbeat. The book is so colossal that I don't think one reading is in anyway enough. I must read it again. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 16, 2021 14:37:24 GMT
Weirdmonger, have you ever read anything by JCP's brother, T. F. Powys? I've been thinking of reading Mr Weston's Good Wine, a very dark, strange, twisted book that my closest friend as a teenager fell in love with. He would describe passages to me and cackle away at the dark humor. This was a man so eccentric he made me look ragingly normal--which may be frightening to contemplate. H. Did he dress eccentrically? I hope he did. I'm think a sort of hippy look. Maybe old clothing from another age. Glasses, I'm also thinking small round glasses. I bet I'm very wrong. Here is my final guess: small round glasses. Old red soldiers jacket from 19th century. Striped yellow and white trousers. Swampirella, how do you think an eccentric friend of helrunar would look? If he made him seem normal? |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 16, 2021 14:49:19 GMT
Sorry, I stand corrected.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 16, 2021 14:53:21 GMT
Sorry, I stand corrected. He's being picky. Jojo behave. |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 19, 2021 6:25:03 GMT
The ultimate expression of Gluey Zenoism from an author who wrote The Demon Lover in one of the Aickman Fontana Ghost Books:
“‘I’ll tell you something, Clara. Have you ever SEEN a minute? Have you actually had one wriggling inside your hand? Did you know if you keep your finger inside a clock for a minute, you can pick out that very minute and take it home for your own?’ So it is Paul who stealthily lifts the dome off. It is Paul who selects the finger of Clara’s that is to be guided, shrinking, then forced wincing into the works, to be wedged in them, bruised in them, bitten into and eaten up by the cogs. ‘No you have got to keep it there, or you will lose the minute. I am doing the counting – the counting up to sixty.’ . . . But there is to be no sixty. The ticking stops.”
From ‘The Inherited Clock’ (1944) by Elizabeth Bowen
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