Repost:LBL reviews #2-9

[Lobolover]

Finaly reposting the old reviews,for I have one that I made not posted on this site and two new ones minimaly coming up.Im gonna post what JD said to them at places.

LBL Review # 2-Strange Stories-Ernest Hello

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As with my favourite czech book from my favourite home author,˝Dům o tisící Patrech/Hous of the thousand floors˝ from Jan Weiss-one of the most wonderfull and deliriously imagintive books-fell into my hands by chance,so did this book-a book without any physical atractivness-a new brown cover without any text or ilustrations.What lead me to look into this?Maybe because
I prefer old books from the time of the first republic,around the 1920´s when a majority of clasical weird works from the international scene were published here-but sadly almost none have been reprinted since the 80 plus years.

It looked old-and when I looked inside,I found it was.The publication date was 1920.Also,the style was of that period,the one I prefer over the modern one.

The name of the author was given as ˝Arnošt Hello˝-a thing by local publishers then was to translate first names of foreign writers/people,so identification was a bit dificult.However,I managed to locate that the person who wrote this IS the french thinker Ernest Hello.

What could possibly atract a reader in the very first pages?Not much,seeing as the authors preface was largly a christian ballad on morals.

However,upon going further I stumbled on the first story-˝Louis˝.It is a tale of psychological horror,insanity,greed and sadistic torment,going much further then De Isle Adams´s ˝A Torture by Hope˝ EVER did.It is a story of first magnitude and deserves to be resurected from oblivion.The story simply deals with a man trying to save as much money and thusly he makes his wife and daughtr miserable and forcedly and with a sadistic pleasure drags them into abstract poverty.Then,to secure his own fortune he buys a special safe,into which he deposits his gold,which he also has began to worship and truly love,under the password of ˝God˝.When he,however wants to get money,he forgets the word and when he is about to sell his dog,the only thing left to his wife and daughter,the dog kills his master- it is implid they may have never opend th chest.Rating 9/10.

The second story is probably the bigest letdown-˝Two strangers˝-it is a tale of a doctor who refuses to work,to eat,to live,because he feels theese things inferior to himself,after he met a wonderfull man many years ago.To this point,even to the storming in of the haggard and torn bizare priest, comanding the doctor to obediance to come to that same man he met bfor,the story is good.FROM this point ,however,it is simply several pages of philosophical discusions on Gods mercy and Theology-in fact,it is nothing more then 8 pages of a lengthy christian sermon.4/10 at best because of said let down.

˝A simple ocurence˝ is a moral story ,but a much smaller tet down then the previous tale.So 5/10.

˝A double household˝,however is a Weird tale of the purest form.It is a tale of two cousins wedding two brothers.While one of the girls mothers is happy,the other is bitter and wants to estrange her daughter from her husband-and uses a man she knows to this end-the strange hermit Bertham,who is said to posses a strange money making cas.One day,the younger girl disapears with her mother and Bertham.She is only found out in the woods one night,after a shriek cuts the night.However,the girl looses her reason.Many days later,a litle act of heraldry brings her reason back.A letter then tells how the box was lost and she was to help look for it-but soon after,two burnt corpses are found around the mountains-these are identified as those of Blanca´s mother and Bertham.
Wonderfull and trully a great story.8.5/10

˝Julian˝ is a tale of a young man going to Paris,loosing faith in God and then followed by a strange senseless lettr and the death of his father.When he arives,his mother dies soon after .It is remarkd he never takes of his gloves. His dead mother points to one of theese after her death.His step sister confronts him,but when she speaks the name of God before him,he bcomes beridled with blood and soon after he is found scorched to a cinder. 6.8/10

˝Nightly Washer˝-a tale of a rathr curious sort-first it tells of an old lady,a person of a peculiar nature borrowing money with a tendfold interst,who is killed when her money is gone.She is sn as a ghost,washing her money in her own blood.

Then the greedy helper who hears this legend is seemingly adopted by a man of wicked nature who believes her his daughter.Then many yars later she is found dead as an Old Woman by The Mother of Money,who takes the last few drops at the womans heart for her own washings. 7/10

˝A told secret˝ is a tale from a madhouse,where a man learns the personal tragedy of another.6.2/10

That is as far as I have read till now,however it is surely worth a read,even if this book is a bit God loving at parts.

Edits will follow.

LBL Review # 3-A strange Manuscript found in a copper cylinder-De Mille 1888

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Not too many tales have been labeled as a satirical romance,and yet have such general signs of the Weird and adventureous,that it is truly puzeling. The only reason I can give is that the manuscripts definition in the tale itself, handed by the skeptic Melek was from some strange reason considered an official categorisation.The first five,six chapters cannot leave one at doubt about that.

˝A strange manuscript found in a copper cylinder˝ is the story of a manuscript found in a copper cylindr,writen on papyrus.The manuscrupt relates how Adam More became shipwreckt and alone on the Pole and,escaping a hord of strangely kind canibals,falls through a cataract and ends in a tropical land, hemmed in by mountains,where he locates a curious people-loving darkness, death and slaying their even slightly wounded comrades.A place where the poorest are the highest esteemed and the rulers are considered the lowliest and pettiest.This could be considered satirical enough,however the way Mille plays it makes us truly believe what he is saying-believing it credible in the realm of the fantastic and not the humorous.Relations to buddhism and asketism only strengtens this belief.

Also,Moore finds a woman of a diferent sort here,Alma,who becomes his love.However ,he learns that theese people,theese kind and self sacrificisng people are cannibals as well and that they plan to give him and Alma ˝the blessing of death˝ at the begining of the light season,when they will all crawl back to their caves.He finds an ally only in Layelah,the daughter of the Kohen Gedol,the ˝lowest˝ in the land,having the greatest wealth and power, who is a man much like us.His daughter falls in love with Moore and wants to fly away with him on one of the local phantastic creatures-pterodactyles of a strange sort,surviving in this isolated warm climate for untolled ages.

The story ends with the fleeing Alma and Moore being captured and brought back and because of the lies the Kohen Gedol´s daughter told,they are to be ˝honoured˝ with the greatest blesings of the local people-the Kosekin- by deprivation of liberty,wealth and confinement with the most haggard and vile paupers and hags,separate of each other.However on the eve of the sacrifice,Moore manages to kill the Chief Pauper and Alma the Chief Hag and take over as rulers of the land-and,for the great joy of the people-taking a great amount of riches,palaces and light and demoting everyone and also decide to ship all the paupers to the island from which they themselves tried to escape for them all to starve to death there asketicly.The final note the manuscript gives is how they will escape after a litle time of rest.

This narativ is at times interupted by discusions on the contents by the men finding the copper cylinder and the manuscript.Most of them,especialy the learnd professor tend to believe it after some scientific discusion and proofs,but the only one to not acknowledge it as anything else then an out of the way way to publish a sensationalist novel-a poor explanation at that-is the jovial,and unlikale skeptic Melek.It are his words that give the text its clasification.I ask why,however,considering how serious this tale is made-including some well researched discusions on prehistoric lizards known today almost infamously,but referenced in the text as a novelty.

All in all,this is a wonderfull imaginative story,whose only fault is probably the somewhat soap operatic Chapter 20,so my rating is 7.4/10.Certainly for everyone.HPL knew why he had this in his library.




LBL Review # 4-The House of a thousand floors-Jan Weiss 1929

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[FONT=&quot]A book writen by one of the good czech writers Jan Weiss-the first novel he wrote,after a series of three colections of tales.Published in 1929,it is a strange and delirious vision of a gigantic city under one roof,the Mullerdóm, where the mysterious unsen enigma,Ohisver Muller,rules not only over his people,but over the world.

The novel shows a man awakening on a red carpet on the stairs.Going upwards in a frenyzy,he halts to find out he doesnt know who he is.A notebook tells him that he is most likely the detective Peter Brok,who is asigned to find out and asasinate Muller.

He finds that he has been made invisible and so watches the babylonian jumble of weird people,who advertise such diverse services as Magic,Painless Death,Poisons,eternal forgetfullness,prolongation of life,bringing madness and somthing dubbed ˝rays GGGGGG˝ and ˝WWWWW˝ .

The man,uncertain of anything,completely oblivious of hist past,is also constantly bugged by a strange dream of hanging on a wooden platform under a faint,glimmering yellow light,in inhuman cold with others,freezing to death,ending in horrible pain in the skull.

After an array of adventures,involving him going to the Market where slaves and thrones are sold and the temple of God Muller-who has himself dubbed ˝ruler of the world and stars˝,God,and other such compensative titlelings- he finds and helps free Princess Tamara-another one of lovely women abducted by Muller and manages to reach Gedonia,the residence of most of Mullers beloved,where i is said one can reach heavenly bliss stil on this earth and manages ,after suporting a revolt of workres and escaping the only one against whom his invisibility is useless-Orsag,the Blind Man,with rvolving mirros on his cheeks-and intrudes into Mullers true domain-where he locates numerous tomes devoted SOLELY to Muller and his ˝God-ness˝ and finds a small,withered man who uses numerous fake disguises to make him unnoticd-including a huge statue of lard,which poses for him in Gedonia- and confronts him and manages to make the tower of the Mullerdóm crumble.


Then,finding he is a soldier and that the reality of the yellow light was true, he rejoices in life.

The characters presented aray from the withered old 33 year old blind man,the first whom Brook meets-a fomr workman,building the Mullerdóm- Prince Ačorgen,the usurpator of Princes Tamara,Shwarz,the poison maker with the absurdly huge nose,the Mylord,the man who chooses peopl to be used as slaves from those suposedly flying to other stars with the company Vesmír and ordering those found ˝useless˝ burned to powder,Orsag,the blind man,Sudar Čuklov-the man who claims to have saved the ˝god Muller˝ from ruin caused by the astronomer Gallio-to whom Muller sold the stars-and who recieved,as a reward,the title of King of 50 000 stars-all theese form a mozaik of wonderfully baroque and original charactrs,put in phantastic scenes and places make out a great part of this books charm-the other being the literary style,the unique usage of fantastical phrases and descriptions-like the blind workmans explanation of life in the Mullerdóm,Mullers many forms,of the scene of horrid decay-West-Wester, where one can buy death,immortality or a human soul,makes this an absolute masterpiece-and one of the few truly fantastical books of czech literature.

Yes,the ending IS now dated and repeated,but heed this was writen in or before 1929.Surely,the fact that when the title character finds out his love never existed and was just a dream is not a source for gleeing cheerfullness, but this may be the only fault on a pice of art which will gripe your imagination and wont let it go till the end.Weiss was in fact the only czech writer I know of who in his works advocated the need to Dream.


I simply hope my feble style was able to capture a TENTH of th magic within these pages.[/FONT]

 

[Lobolover]

LBL Review #5:The Dwellers in the Mirage-A.Merritt

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Initialy while I loaded this of from Australian Gutenberg,I pondered whether or not it was a parody.Dont get me wrong,I had not READ ot then,so I didnt know-something about observing the chapter titles hastily just had ticked me off.

Latzer,I found out my fears werent justified.I began reading.

The book has some interesting premise,although one that would make you think of a diferent ocurence.

Anyway,the first quarter of the book,that begins with the two hearing the anvil storkes and chanting in the night and which recounts the title characters strange ocurence in the land of the Uighur´s is by my judgment the best part of the book and if it were expanded upon THEN,I think litle would have been lost and alot would have been gained.The ancient, decrepit priests,the beaten remains of the nigh antideluvian peoples in their torn and time broken temples and city-is well greatly consuming.Also the Uighur captains parting words to the title character resound a deep cord within one.

The story then progresses to encountering the mirage,venturing into it-till that point the story was stil standart.However then came Merritt and his urge for pulp-ness-with showing to us a race of miniature golden haired trilling musical pygmies.Fair enough,it WAS not as used up a thing as today and it did litle to harm the book.However,when the witch woman was introduced-I just couldnt compare her norse apearance to the ancient customs and garbs described to the Ancient Uighur´s in the first quarter of the book.It was kind of of seting.

Fair enough,we come into pygmy land.And who awaits the title character there,like a good,obedient,2-d character with litle to no personality?Yes, it is the main characters love interest,the nigh virginaly described,stainless, perfect,inocent,etc. ,called Evalie.Skiping a bit a tosh we get to the main character ariving at Karak-fair enough.

What bit me there though were two things-one the lack of male children being born in Karak did not recieve any explanation at ALL thoughout the book,not so much as a hint.Also,I would imagine if an Uighur speaking yellow haired man resembling the Ancient race so much would pop up-dont you think ONE of the soldiers would get at least the idea before he blabs it out?

Im not riping at the book or anything,im just stating my facts.This is prety minor,okay.We move on.And when Dwayanu gets a love interest,surprisingly for Merritt,it is the witch woman a female character who actualy has DEPTH (GASP!).

The following things were nice and good-except id imagine much more fear for Khalkru.

And here is the thing-if this was a homage to HPL he sure wasnt trying to picture Khalkru as the awe inspiring all powerfull undefeatable-under-the-sea type of guy like his big Cousin.Theres me possibly bigest gripe-aside from Evalie and the pygmies-the way Khalkhru is treated and disposed of is reminescent of-well,anything else and in fact I think he gave more actual power to the cubes and spheres in The Metal Monster.Having even Dwayanu doubt him........

The book has props for linking with actual folklore.The horror scenes are depicted fine and in all honesty I prefer Dwayanu to Leif-not only because the first has more backbone and self trust-Leif neds HIM to survive,not vice versa-he actualy DOES more then Langdon-he just ends up at Sirk and goes on to the end of the ride.

Also-the ending too-I would have loved for Khalkhru to madingly wreck the Mirage and its land and send the remains of its people forth ,just as of old,as Leif and Evalie would watch in the distance.That would make a hell of a lot beter and more climatic end at the END of the book.

Characters?There are any?Sarcasm aside,besides Dwayanu,Lur ,Tibur-and thats about it all the other characters,like Yodin dont do much.Heck,Jim,the indian,only acts as ˝exposition reciever ˝ at the begining of the book.

All in all.all the parts of the book are GOOD,but the first fourth is SUPREME. I will surely recomend it to anyone,but I have my LITLE gripes,just as anyone.

Rating-7.6/11

J.D.- This is one I need to reread, as it's been quite a long time now.... However, again, it is one I recall with fondness but, as noted, there are some complaints here and there. I've always had more fondness for The Face in the Abyss, myself; but I would agree that the earlier portions of this particular book are the strongest. As an adventure novel, it is likely to please most fans of the adventure writing of that period (especially those who enjoy the better grade of pulp fiction), but as a weird tale it does lag at times.

Nevertheless, I would recommend it to anyone interested in either the "lost race" sort of tale, a good, rousing adventure, or one of the formative masters of fantasy in the twentieth century....




LBL Review # 6-The Brood of the Witch Queen-Sax Rohmer,1914

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"Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horror, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by "Sax Rohmer" (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Door of the Unreal, by Gerald Bliss"
H.P.Lovecraft,Supernatural Horror in Literature,The Weird Tradition in the British Islands​

That H.P.Lovecraft would have liked "Brood of the Witch Queen" by Ward sems elmentary to anyone having read it.The question put up by such a reader would stand otherwise-how come HPL mentions it so vaguely in Supernatural Horror in Literature?Ive ponderd over this question quite a bit.

With its central figure of the corupt magician Antoy Ferrara and the horrors he evokes within London,the strange ceremonies and customs he takes part of in private,the horridly vivid descent in a narrow path down a secret road in an ancient egyptian Pyramid and witnessing of an unspeakabely horrible ritual performed by Ferrara in the secret heart of the pyramid,the monstrous misusage of a common women by Ferrara for utterly devilish purposes and the final image of his horrible end-surely theese are all things that Lovecraft would have fully endorsed.Especialy when he gave high scores to Gautier and his visions of underground tombs and ancient citadels of the unthinkabely ancient Egyptian land and of its strange and horrid mysteries.

So why did Gerald Biss get the long end of the stick in this situation?Dont misunderstand me,ive read The Door of the Unreal and found it marvelous,however it IS slightly,albeit stil perceptibly marred by the same thing which dilutes the pleasure of Bram Stoker´s Lair of the White Worm to a great decree as well-the vague mater of fact way in which the supernatural crust of the novel is explained between the characters in such a fashion that litle actual place for mystery remains. While in Biss,it happens three quarters through,the final quarter is singificantly short and strong of hapenings of other sorts to not tarnish the book in any great respect.Sadly such cannot be said about the Stoker,for there it is presented to us in the half of the book,which kind of marshes down on the suspense.

So with this brought into the mater-what remains for consideration?
"Rohmer" was able to write tosh too,like his uterly ruined "The Blue Monkey" or his yellow peril novels of no particular interest for the Weird student.However,in this book he atains climaticnes of such mastery of the horrible and the inhuman,that I am not shy to say few besides works by Lovecraft and Chambers themselves,can outmaster them.

One is lead to possibly consider the romantic element to be the reason.It is what drags down "Sinister House" in Lovecraft´s eyes,however I have to agree with Joshi saying how this is an overstatement,as it is very subtle and only as part of the plot.To top it of-Rohmer only has a prety mild description of one victorian-esque "intimate" scene and the entiery of the romantic in a 148 page edition of this book can acount for only 2 and a quarter of a page at the very most.While Biss has far more in far fewer pages.

So we will probably never know.Be it an antipathy to Ward for his other tosh works or some other aspect,however the fact that he stil notes it in his book suficiently for others to read and enjoy is stil a great plus.

End rating-10/11

J.D.- Thanks for the review, Lobo. I'm hoping to get to this one in the next few months, but only time will tell -- my reading program has taken a beating the last year or two, so I don't count too much on such things.

A couple of points, though: I think I'd disagree about the "Yellow Peril" novels not being of interest to the student of the weird. Certainly there are several passages in the Fu Manchu novels which evoke a very weird atmosphere, and the Doctor himself is hinted to have much more obscure -- and terrible -- origins than one finds on the surface. The problem is that Rohmer tended to write too much and too fast, thus diluting what were often superb ideas and tableaux; nonetheless, there is enough there to put them in the same class as Doyle's Holmes tales which also often hinge on an eerie situation or hints of the weird.

As for us not ever knowing... this may not be the case, either. I've not had a chance to go through the last couple of volumes of Lovecraft's letters that have been released yet, but the Derleth-Lovecraft correspondence has large sections devoted to discussions between the two of them on various writers of the weird, so there may be something there. And, from what was being said at the Eldritch Dark forum, there's a lot more coming:




LBL review # 7-The Lair of the White Worm,Bram Stoker

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(Concerning Bram Stoker) The Lair of the White Worm, dealing with a gigantic primitive entity that lurks in a vault beneath an ancient castle, utterly ruins a magnificent idea by a development almost infantile.

H.P.Lovecraft,Supernatural Horror in Literature,The Weird Tradition in the British Isles.​

Most of times a writer,whose works are of a sort not quite reaching perfection will get beter through time,thanks to experience and weairng of of the novelty of it all.However,there are those who create one celebratd work and all their other works are published bearing the by-line "From the author of X!".More often then not this is simply horrid lunacy and unfair to both the writer and the readers-because theese works fall into the oblivion alongside numerous nearly forgoten but briliant works-like Alraune from Ewers,The Thing from the Lake by Ingram,Undine by Fouché,The Dark Chamber by Cline,Stories in the Dark by Pain or The Maker of Moons by Chambers to name but a few.

However then there are writers whose first gleams will never be outmatched by anything they will write thereafter.Abraham "Bram" Stoker is one of them.His Dracula has become one of the most sadly infamous and I dare use the words "whored" stories ever,being right there besides Frankenstein .While ive not read Dracula,I know of it repute but shall not judge it.The only thing I will say is that in numerous countries the works of numerous authors of the weird on the same or even higher level are compltely and uterly unheard of,compared to nigh yearly new editions of the "select few" .

Besides this,he wrote Jewell of the Seven Stars-a story which I have been itching to read for a long time-and The Invisible Giant,amongst others,a phantastical story of the highest stuffs.

Then there followed his most laconic work,The Lair of the White Worm.

The story,as Lovecraft notes,has a very promising idea-that of a huge ,antideluvial monstrous worm living down in catacombs since pre ancient times.And as he also notes,its execution is very lacking to say the least.

First of-it is this-that instead of keeping a steady suspense of mystery throughout the novel till right before the climax,the story profers to indulge us in the characters puting forwards,in full seriousness,speculations that at such state of evidnce and story development would realy have all sane people gulp and run away from you,if you would relate it to them.Not out of fear of the Thing,but of you.Downright skepticism exhibited even after profoundly weird events occur is something diferent-that is more often then not dispelled and the characters possesing such stuborness pay for it one way or the other.

However-downright absence of ANY skepticism and twentieth century thinking,im inclined to say even seventeenth century thinking,is downright mind bogling and does make you stare at the characters uterances in dis-belief-because for all of your imagination you can not ever think of you in that role forming such conclusions based on THAT.The rigidness of some of the characters is made even more sharply contrasting with their feigned academicness and/or whimsical witt.

This problem occurs in Gerald Biss´ The Door of the unreal to a decree.However it hapens MUCH later and the action and genuine horror that follow make up for it.

The story DOES have other eerie moments/situations beside the main theme, however those are profoundly overshadowed by it.

Then comes the note on the romance-another reaosn for HPL giving it a low score.Here the romance is positively even more "toshy" then in Abraham (coincidence?) Merritt´s works.Of course,it cant reach Chambers shop girl level,but it is firghtfully close.Basicly the romance is handeled both primitavely and unbelieavabely.

Third-the racism.Now,HPL might not have found too much fault with it at said time,nor contemporary readers,however I found quite a bit of fault with it.While its "the tongue of the times",I stil dont see the need for such overexagerations.In fact,its so uterly vulgar that I was GLAD when the black character died,so I wouldnt have to read it/listen to it anymore.

However,the book has many meritous sides too-the weird conduct of Cosgrove,his desire to kill,the strange kite and finaly the last,and truly great chapter where the horribility is unsurpressed.

I hope I wont deter anyone form reading it-it is a GREAT weird story,the only problems are that Stoker should have known beter.after so many years how to evade such beginers mistakes.So for my end rating I will say-6.8/11.

 

[Lobolover]

LBL Review # 8-Cold Harbour by Francis Brett Young

Literary criticism often does not do a good job at eithr staying consistent or by judging up a book corectly.The contemporary reviews of Francis Brett Young's "Cold Harbour" (1924) fail on both theese fronts.

John W. Crawford and Hershell Brickell may have made interesting neighbours- because their ideas,at the very last on litrature,in whose reviewing they were both employed,and on this book spcificaly are so fundamentaly diferent it is striking-and a person reading literary reviews in both the Now York Evening Post and Literary Digest may have been at an utter loss as what to think.In a nutshell-

Mr. Brickell claims this work is is "inferior" to everything else Young wrote and Crawford said it opens up "new spiritual horizons".

Whatever the (in)validity of theese remarks it is of note that Cold Harbour , unlike other works cited by Lovecraft in his "Supernatural Horror in Literature" has actualy been in a somewhat obtainable reprint-run-after its initial publication in 1924,it was reprinted in 1968,in 2002,for the well to do and lonesome collector,there was the 2007 reprint by Ash Tree,at the usual abysmall price,and finaly in 2008,the work was reprinted in 2008 together with Leland Halls's "Sinister House".

The novel is one of the most capturing works of "modern" supernatural literature.The country,potrayed in dark hints and touches to a form of a grotesque smudge of a nation,horribly isolated,within circles of woods dusted by the decade-long fumes of the fires of the Black Country, with the sky itself apearing like a greasy glass-pane,is mastered so briliantly that only a few,such as Clark Ashton Smith or Lord Dunsany could have created a vision more unreal and yet so tangible.

Furnival ,whose array of powers we are at a real loss how to judge,as all the "explanations" of the phenomena come from outside and not while anywhere near him-(it leads one to think there may have been,as Ronald Wak originaly sugested,some REAL "haunting" going on in that house, only magnified by Humprey Furnival's presence) is a strikingly horrible cynic and we arent at all confused by his wifes loyal bablings on his inner niceness to note his true character-horrible,exploiting,knowledgable.

Supernatural fiction doesnt,in my view,fare well with the adversary being primarily human and doing primarily human things.However,this argument falls aside in this case.

In fact,one could say Furnival may be the only character in the book.It is he upon whom all relatively important talk is held.He whose views are the most profound to be established-he whose personality is the only one truly developed-if one could,one would call his wife but his own projection,a mirror of fear to try and win over the victims if not with charm,then with pitty.Besides him,all the characters are cardboards ,empty picture panes, bland sculptures for him to gash and beat whenever he passes them.

Ronald Wake and his wife are nothing but "victims"-they are,not unlike certain supernatural fiction protagonists,not realy there to fill a role, but only to tell us what WE should feel were we there,what that man radiates of himself to the world around him.What is saved by actual character striving in the case of the Pierre and Julia staring "Sinister House" is not there at all for these two.And what more to say of the "company" to whom this tale is tolled,Harley,the nameless narrator and the others?

Strangely,that doesnt affect the novel in any way,as was the "difusion" of the supernatural only a slight fall-if the novel would have fared diferently at the end,it would have been another novel.And im not sure if it would bea beter one.

So ,Mr. Crawford,I say "yes" to that!

Rating:10/11

J.D.- It's been close to twenty years since I last read Cold Harbour, but I would have to say that it did very much hold my interest -- in fact, I found it a difficult book to put down. While it may not be in the first rank of weird classics, it comes very close, I think; and it has deserved the reprintings it has had. It is also by no means so old-fashioned as to be off-putting to a modern horror reader, though the horror it purveys is more of an inner, or spiritual, sort than what most may be used to....

Me-The only thing would set one off would be some automobilistic descriptions,I guess.Also,I dont know why this shouldnt be considered amongst the top wrid classics,because minimaly it manages the most ive ever seen done with a purely human enemy and a purely human horror.

LBL Review # 9 The Other Side-Alfred Kubin (1901)

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A most elusive title,scarcly known today.Alfred Kubin,an expresionist painter at the begining of the past century sat down to pen one of the strangest weird tales for decades-yet one that would plunge into relative obscurity as soon as his own name.

The book itself deals with a man being invited to live in a "dream empire" (the words "traum reich" can actualy go as "dream empire",or "dream imperium"( with a litle flexibility)),build in a secret location by his former school colleagu, Patera,who by this time has become almost imsurabely wealthy-just like if Bil Gates and mr. Buffet would fuse into a single bank acount and were send back 100 year through time-speaking of 200 000 000 marks for a single person out of a near numberless ansamble of personel in 1901 seems relatively bold-then again readers in the 1930's could probably consider it small change.

Followed up,we are related a short description of a journey,that is the sole contents of the shortest,first, unnamed part-already the final lines of this part build up some powerfull echoes.

The second part,"Perle" is aproximately as long as the third and is the buildup stage,where all the characters,placs and the like,even the life in the dream empire are described-a life thrown back by many decades,forcibely.

The end of this part ends in a hallucinatory dream,that is followed by the third and final part-"Der untergang der Traumreiches"("The fall of the Dream Empire")-where the true weirdnes begins.Of course,Pateras sole apearance in the second part was mighitly awe inspiring,but the third part trumps it with a gradual feel of degeneration,going back to a destroyed and decaying city, where nothing can be fresh for more then hours,where verything rotts and where most characters die one by the other-we are presented a second meeting with Patera and the end of the "dream",of the few surviving people,of the narrator,as well as of Patera's nemesis,the american millionaire Herkules Bell-the book ends with the narrators confession of the duality and twistedness of life.

The book is surely masterfuly weird,though one cannot tell so from the first two parts-the third is where IT lies and memorabely so.

There are books you may forget-but youll long remember Alfred Kubin's "The Other Side" ("Die Andere Seite").

LBL Movie Review # 1-Darkness Falls

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(Planed to do "Freddy got fingered" as number one,but okay.)


Weve seen them all-slashers and spookers.Both have several things in common-one they lack any real coherent and or unpredictable plot and they kill of characters every 2.5 seconds.

Slashers kill of the main cast-but no spookers cant,because those arent bimbo and macho teenagers-the main cast is made out of a woman,her son and her former love interest and her only true love -after her husband/boyefriend dies.

This movie is a spooker.Its main "antagonist" is a ghost plaguing the male hero.Now the first thing to downgrade on this movie is-dum dum dum dum (in more ways then one!) the PLOT.

Or whatever-you-call-it.

As much as I love to see the boring old "vengence against everyone" being the ONLY action done by the "spooks" being dropped,I cant help thinking why a ghost of a woman who loved children and was killed by adults would hunt and murder children even a century later.Personaly,ive seen far more being repayed by far less.

The plot is so linear its not worth delving into further.I have just this note- you KNOW when people are gonna die and which and WHEN-both the nurses died on the way down and the doctor a few seconds after geting into the car-and here I would like to ask-if you have light,which IS that things weakness,WHY did you not have it on continously while riding?Surely you DID see that the thing is faster then a car before,so trying to out-drive a ghost AT NIGHT seems,well,RETARDED.It was just a way of geting the doctor who served his fodder purpose of from the cast.

Then,when they arrive at the lighthouse,the cop naturaly dies.Yeah-didnt see that coming.

What I find unfair is on a scene where she apears to be destroyed she pops up again for NO APARENT REASON simply for a gruesome scene to be added into the movie.

After the cliché-cliché happy happy joy joy end the main male character naturaly wins the girl who seems not at all troubled with the recent death of her husband,nor is her son in any way sad about daddy being dead and murdered horribly.

There was not a scene in this film that didnt reak cliché,predictability and false tries to win our sympathy for the down trodden inocent wan acused by all of killing his mom-ignoring the fact he was 12 and that he wasnt bloodied,etc-things that even our classic tough guy im-pissing-on-your-rights-and-laughing-straight-into-your-face police chief could easily get,if he didnt recieve the same type of police training as Doyle from The Mask animated cartoon (which I loved and whose plots facepalm this movie 24/7).

So that being said-my rating is :

5/11

And I stil think thats too much.

LBL Movie Review # 2-The Core

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Ever since "Armageddon" desecrated our screens the first times-weve seen ti a zillion times-some danger threatens the earth,a team of specialists is sent out and they save the world,but 99% of them die in ridiculous acidents due to God just being a ******* with a bad sense of humour.

The earths core stopped spining.Oh yes,molten lava constantly propeled by the rotation of the earth can just say "Hold on chaps,im outa breath !" and sit it out,giving life on earth the finger.

And birds are actualy so stupid they will pull a kamikaze into a car ,defecating on the purely PHYSICAL aspect of flight and eyesight.

Now imagine the plot after being more then uncanily reminescent of what Jule Verne would have writen-except HE got MANY things corect DECADES before they were proven as a possibility.I have doubts that the writing team of this movie will ever do the same.

Yes,were drilling into the centre of the earth.

And believe you me-Verne's constant descriptions of empty cavers in "Journey" were far more entertaining.(Plus he made one very dark subtle hint)In fact,thats what I advise you to do if youre planing on seeing this-
go out-get an english translation of Verne's "Journy to the centre of th earth" and read from ANYWHERE as long as to mute out the movie.Because that is the only way I can think of of watching it and your brain cells not taking nigh irreputable damage.

Do I have to even say that the cast is killd of one by one in mind numbingly stupid ways which are in fact as acidental as geting hit by a meteor.Oh yeah,a pillar just happened to fall and pierce your head after MILLIONS OF YEARS JUST as you were passing by-now either God's an atheist or youre just plain dumb sriptwriters.

So-what do we give this one-well,the ZERO is reserved for Freddy,so lets give it a nice round 1/11.

LBL Movie Review # 3-Freddy got fingered

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You knew it was inevitable.Sooner or later I would get to this movie,wilingly or by force.

So-what is there to say what Roger Ebert didnt say?

Well-as much as I like the fact that an adult can be stuck into a molested childrens home and no one is concerned or even amazed by this ,funny, that is one of a few moments,in fact the only one.

However,im begining to see how the main character could become so-no,I dont think "retarded" is rude because in this case its a diagnosis.

The main character is such a looser that he spends millions of dollars to transport his fathers house to Pakistan only to have him sprayed with elephant semen.

Am I the only one who thinks semen isnt funny?The transformers movie doesnt as fars as ive heard,so as to puzzle me even further.

As well-constantly hurt characters can be fun,such as the kid from Hey Arnold,but in this movie,the kid takes such painfull doses and cries so much only Adolf Eichman could find it hear-warming.

The movie is in fact a showdown of "wits"-of who will win-the retarded unfocused main character or his neurotical abusive wife-beater material of a father?To tell you the truth,I didnt care.I wanted them to end in a meatwagon to give the movie some satisfaction after having seen it.


Theres none.The sole two characters forget their discomfort ,seemingly, after release form captivity and all's well that bleeeds well,eh litle Timmy?

-1/11

And thats final.

 

[Lobolover]

Update on "LBL Review # 2-Strange Stories-Ernest Hello"

A review of the remaining tales in this colection.

"The brave man" is a tale of a murderer pursued by the ghost of his victim, who at the end dies of natural causes.Similar to Julian, maybe a litle weaker.

"Memoirs of a bat" is a La Fontaine esque story, which recounts a bat, who is overly pious and god fearing for my liking, mistaking real life for a play/game and vice vrsa. Not realy my department, but would have been nice if Hello wouldn't have added an apendix to this well written story, where he over explained to death what he was on about.

"Kain, what did your brother do to thee?" is a story of a nobleman being hunted by an imagined ghost into full madness and death. Very good.

"Eva and Marie" a slightly confused story, about two girls living in the mountains with their father, one of whom, after going to the dreaded Red Cliffs, is wed by the nobleman of the region, and the nature loving first daughter, though driven into despair and exile from nature at first, is reconciled and acepted back into nature, while her sister, pursued by the unnamed fiend is finaly taken in her castle room, upon which the count peeks in and runs away, mute in fear. Nice, only the last section mostly consists of more then a three and a half page poem, which kind of doesnt add much to the flow.

"So, what hapened?" Hello is ultra moralist on us again, and this two page "story" just mentions, very vaguely, a man who ends in a tragedy haunted house (no descriptions or intricate passages of torture, torment or personal longing for freedom-nothing!), bcause.....

the woman was jealous. That's the big punch line, the big shocker, the grand pointe.

"The Judge's gaze" . You know what, forget what I said about "Eva and Marie" .This is confused. It hapens in some strange priestes/queen/whatever ruled country, where divine heritage and rulership shalt be inherited when a long locked room opens and shows a portrait and the name of the chosen one, and her rival shalt be consumed by the earth to work in an under ground black smith shop, and should just one drop of her sweat reach the earth, everything there would die and it would forever be a barren watseland. Make sense to you?

"He amuses himself" . Briefly, a kid tortures a cat, its owner tells him he will hang, many years later, he does, and she feels sorry , but it's never expanded upon.

"Three King's pie" Briefly, an old man, sadened that his family left not one piece of piece for God, who may demand his share by sending a beggar to their door, tells them how in his childhood, refusing to give one beggar anything resulted in the house and family experiencing a fall and their home being shunned by animals. But just as he finishes, someone, suposedly the beggar, raps at their door. So far so good, but Hello had to end on a positive note, so he aded that one child, absorbed in Grandpa's tale, forgot to eat it's share and they give it to the beggar. Why?

"He searched" Herein, the mightiest king of Asia searches for the physical name of God, but even after searching the world as something less then a king, he returns, finding nothing and dies. The beggar, who was barred from seeing him at all preceding moments, walks to his funeral with his bowl, on the inside of which is inscribed the name of god. This was the reason I bought this, actualy.

"The sorrows of Helen" a woman is driven mad by remorse and guilt, because she knows an inocent will be killed for a crime he did not commit. She reveals to a priest, at the very end, that one of the robbers was her brother. Not bad.

So, overall, the colection is quite good, and has a few generaly wonderfull touches, though at times either substitutes story for simple moralisms or catholic sermons. Stil, some stories are worth having, and the several supernatural/weird tales should be translated into the english language and resurcted from obscurity.