Lord Dunsany

[BAYLOR]

I've just finished "Don Rodriguez: Chronicles Of Shadow Valley".

Well it would seem that the great Lord Dunsany was not infallible. I've loved every other book I've read by him and came to this one with accordingly high expectations and for the first time, he has not lived up to them.

In this story we follow Don Rodriquez after he inherits no more than a rapier and a mandolin from his lordly father and sets out on a quest to win himself a castle (with his rapier) and a lover (with his mandolin).

The problem for me was that the story just wasn't very interesting, the protagonist often impossibly dense and "surprise" plot developments not very surprising. All this probably wouldn't have mattered so much if I had found Dunsany's writing as engaging as I usually do but unfortunately it was not the case. Many of the passages I found long and laborious and frequently found my attention wandering. There were still flashes of Dunsany's brilliance, an occaisional turn of phrase that made me chuckle or left me in awe of its beauty.

Other quirky aspects were frequent, inexplicable and entirely unnecessary remarks of the narrator directed straight at the reader. Some of the dialogue of the characters left me feeling a little uncomfortable from a politically correct stand point (and believe me, I'm usually quite tolerant of this sort of thing in older authors).

Overall I would say that while this story still holds some of that Dunsany magic, I would not recommend it to anyone other than die-hard fans.

I have that edition.

 

[Extollager]

Just now I reread “Thangobrind” and “A Shop in Go-by Street,” and...find no reason in them to revise significantly my critical remarks on Dunsany. But I did enjoy him when I was 15-18 or so, and enjoyed drawing illustrations of his work.

 

[Randy M.]

I enjoy Lord Dunsany. In fact, I've enjoyed the same stories over and over again, never able to retain details of specific stories (with a couple of exceptions) and so they are always new and fresh. But I always walk away with a sense of a certain mood or atmosphere conveyed successfully.

It strikes me that he's more about a mood, an atmosphere, than about other aspects of stories.

Randy M.

 

[BAYLOR]

I enjoy Lord Dunsany. In fact, I've enjoyed the same stories over and over again, never able to retain details of specific stories (with a couple of exceptions) and so they are always new and fresh. But I always walk away with a sense of a certain mood or atmosphere conveyed successfully.

It strikes me that he's more about a mood, an atmosphere, than about other aspects of stories.

Randy M.

One of the greatest fantasy writers of all time.

 

[Extollager]

Again, his work reminds me of the comment made about the music of the American composer Alan Hovhaness, that it unrolls like endless yards of handmade wallpaper. I like Hovhaness but I think that is a fair comment about the composer of Symphony #1 Mysterious Mountain, etc. Hovhaness really does have affinities with Dunsany, the Orientalism, also the way you just passively listen and enjoy it without feeling there's the virile energy of Beethoven or the deeply-felt eeriness of Sibelius's "Tapiola," etc. Saying he's one of the greats doesn't make him so. Influential, yes, but that doesn't make him great. I'm not even saying categorically that he's not great, but that if he is, somebody needs to make the case in a reasoned way. I would've repeated the standard opinion about him as great myself, back in the day. I'm doubtful of that now for reasons I have tried to suggest above and won't repeat here. Nor does Dunsany have to be "great" to be worth reading in the right mood.

I have read the six Ballantine editions of his work, much of the material therein more than once, plus The Curse of the Wise Woman, some stories in the Dover collection of Dunsany called Gods, Men, and Ghosts, and perhaps a few odds and ends -- nearly all of this many years ago. I read The Curse of the Wise Woman within the past ten years or so and thought it was pretty good, perhaps better than much of his fantasy because it connected with feeling for the real world, and, so, like something Dunsany had more of a stake in. Did he, finally, have much of a stake in a lot of his fantasy? I don't know. But much that I say is provisional. I haven't (attempted to) reread The Charwoman's Shadow, which I loved back in the day, lately, nor The King of Elfland's Daughter. So, sure, I don't expect or want anyone to just take my word for the evaluation of Dunsany. But here and there I mention him, maybe mention having reread one or two of his stories and not having found them very interesting now.

 

[BAYLOR]

Again, his work reminds me of the comment made about the music of the American composer Alan Hovhaness, that it unrolls like endless yards of handmade wallpaper. I like Hovhaness but I think that is a fair comment about the composer of Symphony #1 Mysterious Mountain, etc. Hovhaness really does have affinities with Dunsany, the Orientalism, also the way you just passively listen and enjoy it without feeling there's the virile energy of Beethoven or the deeply-felt eeriness of Sibelius's "Tapiola," etc. Saying he's one of the greats doesn't make him so. Influential, yes, but that doesn't make him great. I'm not even saying categorically that he's not great, but that if he is, somebody needs to make the case in a reasoned way. I would've repeated the standard opinion about him as great myself, back in the day. I'm doubtful of that now for reasons I have tried to suggest above and won't repeat here. Nor does Dunsany have to be "great" to be worth reading in the right mood.

I have read the six Ballantine editions of his work, much of the material therein more than once, plus The Curse of the Wise Woman, some stories in the Dover collection of Dunsany called Gods, Men, and Ghosts, and perhaps a few odds and ends -- nearly all of this many years ago. I read The Curse of the Wise Woman within the past ten years or so and thought it was pretty good, perhaps better than much of his fantasy because it connected with feeling for the real world, and, so, like something Dunsany had more of a stake in. Did he, finally, have much of a stake in a lot of his fantasy? I don't know. But much that I say is provisional. I haven't (attempted to) reread The Charwoman's Shadow, which I loved back in the day, lately, nor The King of Elfland's Daughter. So, sure, I don't expect or want anyone to just take my word for the evaluation of Dunsany. But here and there I mention him, maybe mention having reread one or two of his stories and not having found them very interesting now.

Ive read The King of Elfland's Daughter and The Charwoman's Shadow 30 years a go. He influenced a number writers Tolkien among and he hasn't been forgotten. Extollager , Im neither a scholar or critic so I cannot make a case for his greatness.

 

[Extollager]

I’m doubtful about Dunsany having influenced Tolkien without some evidence, but, again, I’d be reluctant to take it that “influence” suffices to justify calling an author “great” — if the author is demonstrably influential, fine, let’s say “influential,” but that leaves plenty of room for discussion of whether or not the author attained literary greatness.

I think it would be easy to show that various great authors, like Coleridge, were influenced by earlier authors inferior to themselves.

Btw, I also think Coleridge was probably a great influence, directly and/or through other authors, on Dunsany. Read the prose prologue to “Kubla Khan.” There you have the dream-thing, the Oriental flavor, the air of doom and mystery and weird voices....about a century before Dunsany.

 

[BAYLOR]

I’m doubtful about Dunsany having influenced Tolkien without some evidence, but, again, I’d be reluctant to take it that “influence” suffices to justify calling an author “great” — if the author is demonstrably influential, fine, let’s say “influential,” but that leaves plenty of room for discussion of whether or not the author attained literary greatness.

I think it would be easy to show that various great authors, like Coleridge, were influenced by earlier authors inferior to themselves.

Btw, I also think Coleridge was probably a great influence, directly and/or through other authors, on Dunsany. Read the prose prologue to “Kubla Khan.” There you have the dream-thing, the Oriental flavor, the air of doom and mystery and weird voices....about a century before Dunsany.

You might want to check out Tales Before Tolkien. The Roots of Modern Fantasy by Douglas A .Anderson

Its been said that H P Lovecraft's novel The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is a bit of homage to Dunsany and some Clark Ashton Smith Stories as well.

Interestingly The last thing Dunsany wrote before he died a science fiction story. Future Scope of which iv never seen a copy of.

 

[Extollager]

That’s a good idea — checking Tales Before Tolkien. But I can’t get at my copy right now — it’s in a building on the property separate from the house, and is snowed up!

I should have said I’m doubtful about Dunsany influencing Tolkien’s major work. But I even wrote an article about Tolkien’s likely debt, in his poem “The Mewlips,” to perhaps Dunsany’s best short fantasy, “The Hoard of the Gibbelins.”

 

[Extollager]

But — again — influence doesn’t necessarily mean greatness. Just in case that point could be lost.

If you’re interested in a writer who really did influence Tolkien, dig into H. Rider Haggard.

 

[Guttersnipe]

It's probably not a good thing, but his prose in The King of Elfland's Daughter put me to sleep. I didn't get very far. That being said, one cannot deny his contributions and influence on fantasy writers.

 

[Randy M.]

It occurs to me the two exceptions I mentioned remembering, and vividly, are not typical Dunsanian fantasy. "Two Bottles of Relish" is a crime/mystery, its ending verging on horror. And "The Bureau d'Echange de Maux" reads like a collaboration between Robert W. Chambers and Jorge Luis Borges.

 

[Fried Egg]

Saying he's one of the greats doesn't make him so. Influential, yes, but that doesn't make him great. I'm not even saying categorically that he's not great, but that if he is, somebody needs to make the case in a reasoned way.

I'm struggling to think what makes an author (or any other kind of artist) great in an objective sense besides observing the extent of their influence? How do you measure "greatness"?

For me, it is a personal thing. A statement of the depth of effect a writer's work had on me when I read it.

 

[Extollager]

I'm struggling to think what makes an author (or any other kind of artist) great in an objective sense besides observing the extent of their influence? How do you measure "greatness"?

Since we can already describe an author as "influential," "popular," etc., I think we might as well use those words. So, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a very popular author and a very influential one. Having recently revisited one of his novels, The Gods of Mars, I wouldn't describe him as a great author. To take an extreme example, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a work of fiction that has been influential indeed. If it is great at all, it is a great plague and curse upon humanity, feeding that horrible evil that lurks in the human heart.

"Measure" makes me a little uncomfortable because it suggests something quantitative. "Greatness" would (in my view) pertain to qualities of a literary work such as the author's verbal resourcefulness, the convergence of imagination, invention, and meaning, the wisdom suggested by the work, the extent to which repeated readings reward the reader, the way the author's evident choices prove to have been the right ones, and so on. A literary work belongs to the literature of power primarily, rather than the literature of knowledge, but probably the author will appear to know whatever he or she needed to know in order for the work to realize its potential -- and so on. See C. S. Lewis's little book An Experiment in Criticism. Before I would, usually, want to describe a work as "great," I would want it to have been before the world for a while and shown its capacity to provide literary delight to more than the immediate generation of readers.

In his characteristic stories, there is, I think, in Dunsany's writing a pervasive littleness. It comes through in the author's cynicism and willingness to write mere confections.

 

[Fried Egg]

Given that Dunsany is, outside of niche circles such as this, all but forgotten, why do you think it is necessary to rain on his parade? Do you think he is best forgotten altogether?

I think it is clear that he was a significant influence in the genre of Fantasy (on many other authors) and he had a fairly distinctive and unique voice. But I don't really feel qualified to argue the case. All I know is that his work has (and still does) affect me more deeply than many other writers in the field. His stories may no longer work for you but they are certainly way more than "mere confections" for me.

 

[Extollager]

No, I don't think Dunsany should be forgotten, but if it's claimed that he was "One of the greatest fantasy writers of all time," as it was recently, that statement should be argued, not just asserted. Was he? What is meant by "great"? I've tried to show that using "great" when all that someone is prepared to say is that he was influential isn't (to my mind) good enough.

As you'll have seen, I have a personal stake in the discussion. When I was 15 I would have said he was one of my favorite authors. I bought the new Ballantine Adult Fantasy releases of his work as they appeared at a time when I didn't have much spending money, and ended up buying some other books of his too, some of which I didn't end up reading through. When I have revisited a few of his characteristic fantasy stories in recent years, I have found that they seem kind of tedious, not because the writing is "hard" but for reasons I've tried to suggest in earlier comments here.

A lot of us here at Chrons have reading lives that extend over five decades or more, and that fact seems to invite discussions about youthful favorites. How well do they* hold up now? Aside from associations with our youthful days, when we were first happily exploring fantasy and science fiction, what excellences do our old favorites possess -- to this day?

For myself, this is not a threatening activity, because even if some books and authors don't hold up, a number of my old-time favorites, such as Tolkien, Le Guin, Garner, Lewis, Lovecraft, &c. do still please me, and, when I exert my adult wits upon them, they yield respectable results -- if not always all of their work, then at least some of it. I might now perceive them as having accomplished far more than I did when I read them basically just for exciting stories. I've even found that some authors I liked as a kid in the mid-teens have gone up in my estimation (William Morris comes to mind; I think I like him more now than I did then).

It may be that I will try more Dunsany tales and be able to place this author in a position of enhanced respect in my personal library. I've kept almost all those Dunsany books -- all six of the Ballantine editions, the Dover selection, a leather- (or "leather"-) bound Modern Library selection from the 1920s or so, an Owlswick Press book with Tim Kirk illustrations, etc. (I did let go of the Newcastle edition of The Food of Death.) But usually I haven't found Dunsany much to my taste lately. I did think The Curse of the Wise Woman was pretty good when, having carried the book around for many years, I at last read it a while ago.

I think it was W. H. Auden who said: An author may be undeservedly forgotten, but no author is undeservedly remembered -- or something like that. But it might be possible for literary works to be "remembered," repackaged, etc., as if they deserved it, when all that's at work is just the repetition of received opinion. I think Dunsany's got more than that going for him, but I am interested in seeing discussion of the qualities in his work that make it deserve remembrance and rediscovery. "Influential" sidesteps that. I think from now on when someone says an author is great because he or she was influential, I might press the matter and say: All right, how did this author influence others? Who were influenced him him or her? Show me how that influence was a good thing, of lasting merit, not a bad or neutral influence. Show me.

Otherwise, I might suspect that, when someone says Author X was great, this might be little more but an expression of affection for one's own reading past, or a thoughtless repetition of someone else's -- or the mob's -- received wisdom. We can do better than that. : )

*Asimov, Bradbury, Brunner, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clarke, Dunsany, Eddison, Howard, etc. might be members of this group.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well, for my part, when I claim an author is great I am mainly talking about my own feelings about their work and not from a scholarly perspective. I'll leave to others, if they choose, to make such a case.

 

[Randy M.]

That's fair, Extollager. I think we all reassess as we get older. As a teen I really enjoyed Agatha Christie's mysteries. A little older and I pushed them aside in favor of the Dashiell Hammetts and Raymond Chandlers (among others) as writers who put more meat on the bone of plot. I've recently re/read some of her short stories and have, as a consequence, re-reassessed her work. In a sense, using the mystery/detective format, she was rather like M. R. James in the almost gleeful use of her invention and cleverness to craft entertaining stories. What he did for his charges at school, she was doing on a much more commercial basis, but reading her feels similar when gauging the attitude behind the story.

As for Lord Dunsany, I don't have much trouble with thinking of him as one of the greats, but one of the greats within the field of what has come to be known as fantasy. He does not, I think, translate well outside the field, but he pointed later writers in a direction, they took the pointer and developed the field to a greater degree than he was capable of doing.

Coincidentally, I'm dipping into The Book of Wonder this week while primarily reading something else. I find it amusing but also slow going. There's a vagueness -- background to the character or the story, mostly, I think -- to some of what Lord Dunsany did that slows me and forces me somewhat to fill in the blanks.

Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

When I revisited "The King of Elfland's Daughter" I still very much enjoyed it (as much as I did the first time I read it). But I have to admit to starting a re-read of "The Blessings of Pan" and not finishing it as I found myself not quite in the mood for it. I do intend to go back to it soon though. Perhaps after I have revisited some of his short story collections.

 

[Randy M.]

One of my reading goals this year is to finally get to The King of Elfland's Daughter. My foray into The Book of Wonder wasn't planned, it was just in a format that was easier to carry with me when I wanted something to read.

Randy M.