General Weird discusion thread

Well,that too I suposse.

What I meant with skeptics was that they didnt believe in the ocultist jabs-and those who did-well,lets just say Blackwood makes some of his works slightly less memmorable with his "profesional ocultism".

Which reminds me yet again-another even less known czech writer-Alexej Pludek-he made some impresive tales in his "Searching for the antipod" collection-one about a tree that has all the secrets of the world writen on its leaves,another modern day antipod or "cagliostro" apearing to a man and making him do a ritual with a tibetan artifact-the later one-the title story- realy surprised me with its quality and closeness to the general weird, at that period as well.

To the stories ive said id translate-had a bit of trouble,but hoping to do it today (and:my "Alraune" jost got here,but I have to wait till 5 for it to be on the post office)
 
Have finished White's "The snout"-a briliant piece.It seems White can make you read much quicker then many others-I read the whole 20 pages on the comp in one siting till two AM.Is there anything else,besides "song of the siren" and "lukundoo" that White did would deserve a mention?

Ps:Ive found a nice litle colection of Erckman Chatrian online,for you to fix that hole of yours.Want the link?

Pps:Read "Æpyornis Island"-not bad-but it was more like "the stolen bacilus" , in that it wasnt anything VERY weird-except for the egg hatching part.Thanks though,trading "Pollock" now.
 
I have a fairly good selection of Erckmann-Chatrian at this point, both from the Lock and Key Library set (a 10-volume set HPL used for quite a bit of the source material for his essay, by the way), as well as the collection The Invisible Eye:

The Invisible Eye

But I thank you for the link. Why don't you post it here, as I believe it contains some things not to be found at any of the other sites I've seen... or at least, being more concentrated in what it offers, they're easier to track down there than in some others....
 
Well, as I've mentioned, though I acquired a lot of these things fairly recently, I'm reading through all HPL's suggestions (as well as related items) in the order he discusses them. I have particular reasons for doing this, and would much prefer not stepping outside of that where this is concerned. That being the case, I've not yet read the Erckmann-Chatrian tale, so I can't really give an opinion....

As I've brought up this point before, just so you're aware what point I'm at: I'm finishing up reading several things by Wilkie Collins, and am moving on next to H. Rider Haggard, with a re-read of She, then several things I've not read before by him... then to R. L. Stevenson, and so on....
 
Collins?I though he was sort of mediocre-did he have anything REALY good?

I also heard Le Fanu's "Green Tea" is quite good-would you sugest it?
 
Collins wrote some very good work -- but not in the weird vein you seem to prefer. His was more hints and adumbrations, rather than outright weird events (generally speaking). Lovecraft was right, I think, in putting him in the class of those following the Gothic and post-Gothic tradition. His work is more along the lines of the numinous and the supernal, which he treats with a very deft, sure, but often very subtle, hand. I tend, on the whole, to prefer his novels, and of those, The Moonstone, The Woman in White, and (so far, anyway), Armadale are among his best, though the very short novel The Haunted Hotel is also well worth reading.
 
Hmm.I actualy have the Moonstone in book form,but never got around to reading it.
 
It's more of a mystery tale (in fact, T. S. Eliot called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels"; and he wasn't too far wrong; though both The Woman in White and Armadale exceed it in length); but it does have a thread of the eerie and preternatural running through it -- as do most of Collins' works; he seemed fascinated by the subject of some sort of "Fate" involving forces far beyond the comprehension or full awareness of his characters (though not above their ability to intuitively feel, at times). Also, Collins uses humor more than you would perhaps find to your taste; and, as these are novels in the true sense, they are not glorified short stories, so they don't maintain that "singleness of purpose" or mood so important to the shorter weird tale.

As for Le Fanu's "Green Tea" -- yes, I'd say it's one of the best ghostly tales of its time, though rather peculiar. It is also one that often doesn't make a great first impression, but tends to grow with you as the years go by (such was, incidentally, the case with me). And it shows, in concentrated form, Le Fanu's fascination with that "awful machinery of Hell" that forms such a strong theme in so many of his works in one way or another. Le Fanu as a whole is well worth looking into; but I advise savoring his tales and pondering them, as there is frequently a great deal going on there below the surface....
 
Going to read the other White tales from "Lukundoo and other stories" and will say which ones are worth a read.

Because,like with everything else,"The song of the sirens" didnt fail to impress me.Benson,White and Machen have rarely let me down,while Kipling has- optimistic ending of "The mark of the beast" ruined the vision of strangeness and horrid transmutation.

But-ive sort of a question-"[FONT=&quot]The Elixir of Life" by Ransome-was it done by the same Arthur Ransome,who is listed at wikipedia as a childrns book author?

Also-the site has a few Jams Hog things-so,aside from "Kilmeny" poem,have you read any of theese?

Oh-and one more thing-Carnacki-it has theese tales:

[/FONT]
      • The Gateway of the Monster1
      • The House Among the Laurels1
      • The Whistling Room1
      • The Horse Of The Invisible1
      • The Searcher Of The End House1
      • The Thing Invisible
      • The Hog
[FONT=&quot]Now,"A house among the laurels" is a waste,wonderfull atmosphere prematurely ruined by an explanation of the "re-adjusting the wires" type (same thing I hated about "The Necromancer"-about 4/6th's of that series calls Necromancy a "cheat-cheaters-fake-fakes" at least twice a page-the description of the supernatural events seemed to be well observed by the "victims"-and later Kahlert tells us that all of those people just saw someone with make-up-I mean COME ON)
-which of those ARE supernatural?

Otherwise,ive been thinking of fan translating some tales and printing it out and giving it to some of my old teachers-a "collection" of stories centering on "abnormalities".

Ive made this list so far-

[/FONT] E.L.White-„Lukundoo“,“The snout“

M.P.Shiel-„The Pale Ape“,“Huguenin’s wife“

Irvin S. Cobb-„Fishhead“

Walter de la Mare-„ABO“

W.H.Hodgson-„The voice in the night“

E.F.Benson-„The horror horn“

Nathaniel Hawthorne-„Rapaccini’s daughter“

H.P.Lovecraft-„Facts concerning the fate of the late Arthur Jermyn and his family“

[FONT=&quot]Arthurt Machen[/FONT][FONT=&quot]-„The Grat God Pan“


Could you remember any other stories fiting this category?
[/FONT]
 
Well, define what you want when you're talking about "abnormalities" -- that's a rather wide-open term, and the selection you're presenting is also rather wide. That being the case, it's rather difficult to narrow it down to make suggestions.

On Carnacki: It's been (again) quite a long time since I read this collection, and my memory is somewhat vague; but you might find this to be helpful:

Carnacki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do remember being strongly impressed by "The Whistling Room", "The Hog", and "The Gateway of the Monster"...
 
Gonna go get "An Ekchange of Souls/Lazarus" from the post office-what do you think of that one ?
 
Hmm-okay,so ill tell you.

By the way-ive found the leter where MRJ replied about his reading of SHiL. (full link:M.R. James Letter
) What I want to know is:what exactly did he mean when he called "The king in yellow" and "the maker of moons" " horrid & nasty" and he also stated that "[FONT=&quot]The Monk" "[/FONT]by M.G. Lewis is really not fit to be read"
[FONT=&quot]
Also,he mentions :"[/FONT]. Percival Landon's Raw Edges has a horrid one called "Thurnley Abbey" havent read it,but theres a link here
THURNLEY ABBEY (1908) by Perceval Landon
 
Thanks for the link. I'd seen the letter before, though it was quite some time ago, and I don't recall having seen the aftercomments (though I did the original notes, as I recall).

I'll take a stab at answering your query: James was very much a Victorian in many ways, and certain M. G. Lewis' The Monk exceeded all bounds of good taste in that period (it's still a bit of a hot potato even today in various quarters), so I'm not at all surprised at his response to that one. As for the Chambers... James preferred an indirect way of approaching the central horror; something that played more on the imagination rather than blunt description, such as one finds in "The Yellow Sign" and parts of "The Repairer of Reputations", for instance. To reiterate two of my favorite quotes on the matter: "They must be men of very cold imaginations ... with whom certainty is more terrible than surmise" (Ann Radcliffe); or the distinction between terror and horror as the "awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse" (Devendra P. Varma). James was much more a proponent of the former than the latter....

As for "Thurnley Abbey" -- it's one of my personal favorites and it is, in its own way, almost the perfect example of the Edwardian ghost tale, especially in its having a second (and much more powerful) climax....
 
also-it wont let me edit that post.Weird.

Anyway,here's "A Strange Manuscript Found in a CopperCylinder" by De Mille

A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies, and Sketches

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15865/15865.txt

You said there are others-If given some names,I could try to find them-I also got a few amazon hits,if youd be intrested.

Anyway,Wright's "The World Below" sure has a one of a kind cover

World_below.jpg
 
Last edited:
Lobolover said:
Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies, and Sketches

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15865/15865.txt

You said there are others-If given some names,I could try to find them-I also got a few amazon hits,if youd be intrested.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the various links! As for "Q"... I've got (I believe) all those that have any of his weird or supernatural fiction in them, but the best of his stories of this type were all collected together (by S. T. Joshi) in The Horror on the Stair some time back:

THE HORROR ON THE STAIR Arthur Quiller-Couch 1st HC LIMITED OOP

At any rate, the other collections of "Q"'s stories that contain stories that are either weird or approach the weird are:

The White Wolf & Other Fireside Tales
News from the Duchy
Two Sides of the Face
Merry-Garden and Other Stories
Noughts and Crosses
Wandering Heath
Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts
I Saw Three Ships and Mortallone
The Laird's Luck & Other Fireside Tales
Corporal Sam and Other Stories

There is, as I recall, some slight repetition between the last and some of the others, but it's still worth getting hold of.

As for the links themselves: as you seem to be aiming them specifically at me (correct me if I'm wrong here), even where I do have the books themselves, by all means continue to post the links, as others -- even if they don't speak up -- may be following the thread and therefore get some use out of the links as well... and this may, in turn, prompt some feedback from others, as well....

On the Wright cover... yes, there were quite a few covers like that at that period.... I rather like them, myself.....
 
YOU MEAN
LIKE THIS
HUH?
Book name

Anyway,what I meant with "others" were the other books referenced in the library book.I cant find an e-text if I dunt know the name :D .
 
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