February's Febrile Focus For Finding Fulfilling Fiction

[AE35Unit]

Halfway through The War Of The Worlds, really enjoying it so far.

oh thats a classic. If you can do look for Garret Serviss's sequel!

 

[Vertigo]

Vertigo: Although it may seem a bit too much to take on, you might find Burke's essay "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" as a good source to see some of the deeper, more "terrific" aspects of this and other "horror" novels of the same period. Using Burke's schema, Frankenstein (and in fact the majority of the Gothics) is closer to the "sublime"...

A very interesting and informative post, thanks JD! I shall definitely make the time to take a look at those essays; they do look very interesting though I have a fear they may shoot over my head! However, you don't know if you don't try!

 

[j d worthington]

A very interesting and informative post, thanks JD! I shall definitely make the time to take a look at those essays; they do look very interesting though I have a fear they may shoot over my head! However, you don't know if you don't try!

You are more than welcome. I hope you find them of interest, as I think they will add an enormous amount to your enjoyment of such fiction....

Continuing with Passport to Eternity by Ballard; three stories to go. Tonight I'll be tackling "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista"....

Hoops... Which version of the Bulwer is this? In most cases, the final portion of the story is excised -- the narrator's meeting with the mysterious figure who set the whole thing up -- but it actually takes the story in a different direction than one might expect, and has some powerful aspects to it. Incidentally, the vision the narrator has of this figure's death has always made me think very much of the ending of Frankenstein....

 

[Fried Egg]

I started the month with Aleister Crowley's novella "Ercildoune" and now I've started on Philip K. Dick's "Collected stories volume 2: Second Variety".

 

[Solstice]

Just finished Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Not an easy read, at least for me; I have read a fair bit of stuff written end of the 18thC beginning of the 19th (Verne, Wells, Doyle, Burroughs etc.) and I throughly enjoy the way they use the English language. This however is a hundred years earlier (1818 I think) and there are a lot more words that have dropped out of use, changed their meaning (for example, this is the first time I have come across the original use of 'terrific' meaning something terrifying rather than something great) or are used in unusual (for us) ways. The order of words in sentences is also often different (interestingly my German lodger reckons they are are much closer to the order he would use in German). This wasn't a real problem but did leave me a little confused on occasions.

As to the book; I think it was certainly not a horror story (though maybe it would have been in 1818) but was a desperately sad indictment of society's attidudes to deformity or just plain being different (look at the treatment of the turkish merchant); judging purely on looks not on the person. In that sense I almost feel it was an indictment of racism and slavery and the timing would be about right for that, too.

[...]

I have read Frankenstein more than ten years ago, and, if i well remember, the prose was filled up with glooming descriptions of physical and mental illnesses, and depressive states of mind. It gave me the (perhaps wrong idea) that the Victorian Age people were always constantly sick, or demotivated. Still, that somewhat depressive environment had it's own charm, and gave me another insight of what shapes literature could take, other than the ones i have come up with so far.

It's curious that you mention the way English language was used, because i am currently reading another English literature "gem"; but this one in Arcaic English. I'm reffering to William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land".
Curiously enough, this book also starts with a first chapter dealing with some Victorian Age romance, but then, as soon as the second chapter kicks in, you are thrown into a far trip taking place some millions of years in the future.
It's also considered a horror novel, (by the then standards, i guess) but it also has some Fantasy and Science-Fiction elements thrown in for good measure.

I understand many people might feel turned off by the Archaic English writing, specially if English is your primary language. But, since i am Portuguese, i guess reading Archaic English doesn't affect me (us) as much as the standard English-talking person. After all i have spent some time reading the Marvel Comics "The Mighty Thor" stories, as well as those Epic "The Ten Commandments-type" biblical movies, so i guess Archaic English has become "natural" to me; although i sure couldn't write anything like that myself.

In addiction to that obscure piece of literature, that i am actually reading online in this laptop; (it's free, public domain right now) i am also reading a physical John Varley's Portuguese-language version of the Transhumanist SF novel "The Ophiuchi Hotline".

I'm still forming an opinion on both books, since i haven't finished either, but The Night Land is the one that has made my mind race the most. Perhaps because i am a huge fan of Apocalyptic/Post Apocalyptic/Dying Earth Fiction. And the environment, settings, and general feeling of that work is one i wish to imprint to my own. (Minus the Archaic English, of course)

 

[Juliana]

Soooo, this is exciting. Finally finished Giovanni's Room! (Poor Giovanni, where's the sobbing smiley?) and now just picked up The Alchemist of Souls by uh... I forget.

Read Alchemist and Merchant of Dreams one after the other in January, really enjoyed them!

This month so far: finished the second of Myke Cole's Shadow Ops books, Fortress Frontier. He really found his stride in this one, very exciting and I love the whole magic/millitary tie-in.

Now reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Meant to watch the film before starting the book but got tangled up in the kids' summer holidays and missed it...

 

[HoopyFrood]

Hoops... Which version of the Bulwer is this? In most cases, the final portion of the story is excised -- the narrator's meeting with the mysterious figure who set the whole thing up -- but it actually takes the story in a different direction than one might expect, and has some powerful aspects to it. Incidentally, the vision the narrator has of this figure's death has always made me think very much of the ending of Frankenstein....

Oh, definitely the full version, because their talking just went on and on and on and on...

And yes, I'll say it went in a different direction -- I started off thinking that it was a ghost story (and a really nice one at that) and then turns into a ruddy lecture.


Anyway, I read the Mummy's Foot one last night and while not particularly ghosty and certainly not scary it was a really enjoyable tale, I really liked it. Especially the Pharaoh admonishing the dude for being too young for his three thousand year old daughter...and that people these days have no idea how to preserve themselves

Also, seeing as No One wouldn't let me read his book (it's his copy) while in the bath (I rarely drop them! He's just precious about his books) I also started reading The Blade Itself by Abercrombie. I'm a few dozen pages in and can't quite yet see where it's going, but the Torturer dude is interesting enough to keep me reading.

 

[AE35Unit]

Ha I remember reading the Mummy's Foot. Good one!

 

[Vertigo]

You are more than welcome. I hope you find them of interest, as I think they will add an enormous amount to your enjoyment of such fiction....

I do think I might try and squeeze in a little more of this type of fiction; maybe I'll try a Lovecraft book sometime!

I have read Frankenstein more than ten years ago, and, if i well remember, the prose was filled up with glooming descriptions of physical and mental illnesses, and depressive states of mind. It gave me the (perhaps wrong idea) that the Victorian Age people were always constantly sick, or demotivated. Still, that somewhat depressive environment had it's own charm, and gave me another insight of what shapes literature could take, other than the ones i have come up with so far....

Must admit I also found the constant obsession with illness a little trying, though I suspected, as did you, that it would have been more common in those days. Incidentally this is Regency era rather than Victorian.

Now reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Meant to watch the film before starting the book but got tangled up in the kids' summer holidays and missed it...

I have that one moving closer to the top of my TBR pile; might get to it later this year. I'll be interested in your thoughts. Interesting that you wanted to watch the film first; I generally tend to prefer it the other way around!

 

[Fried Egg]

I'm still forming an opinion on both books, since i haven't finished either, but The Night Land is the one that has made my mind race the most. Perhaps because i am a huge fan of Apocalyptic/Post Apocalyptic/Dying Earth Fiction. And the environment, settings, and general feeling of that work is one i wish to imprint to my own. (Minus the Archaic English, of course)

The imagery of the book has stuck with me ever since I read it (a couple of years ago) and it always pops back into my mind when I am cycling back from the pub at night when there is nothing but a faint red glow on the horizon and rolling back clouds overhead...

However, the actual experience of reading that book was gruelling. In my opinion, it is a particularly bad example of archaic prose styling. I don't mind it at all when it is done well (such as in "The Worm Ouroboros"). And, I might be wrong but I don't think "Frankenstein" was written in an effected archaic prose style, presumably at was current, in the time it was written.

 

[Lobolover]

At the moment I'm reading H.P Lovecraft's Book of Horror, a collection of short horror stories which he mentions in his essay.

Rather liked Dickens short Signalman story. The House and the Brain started off really well, really enjoyed that but then it turned into loads of dialogue that I mostly skipped. Then read The Spider by Hans Heinz Ewers and what an amazing line to open with!



That is definitely how you open a story. I enjoyed this story (I love love love horror stories in diary forms, I love that you can watch a person's mind unravel as strange things happen) although it was one that you could largely stay one step ahead of, especially when they started their little window game.

Looking forward to the rest, though.

I advise you, if you can, to look into Ewers because that man was simply.....something for which I have yet to find an adjective !

Seriously, if you can, look into getting his novels, Alraune and The Sorcerer's Aprentice. The latter especialy.

As for his stories, well, he wrote many excelent ones but alot of them I only came across in a local collection published in 1916, and I think the collection that's out in english had only three stories in it.

Heck I remember I came across another very short collection of his stories, and one story was just basicly a collection of notes and observations for another one of his stories ! Was greatly dissapointed by that.

Two of the man's best obscure stories I have read are "From the diary of an orange Tree" and "The end of John Hamilton Llewelyn".

 

[Juliana]

Vertigo, I am so often disappointed by film versions that I would rather watch and enjoy the movie before I go "but thats not how its supposed to be!!!".

 

[Solstice]

The imagery of the book has stuck with me ever since I read it (a couple of years ago) and it always pops back into my mind when I am cycling back from the pub at night when there is nothing but a faint red glow on the horizon and rolling back clouds overhead...

However, the actual experience of reading that book was gruelling. In my opinion, it is a particularly bad example of archaic prose styling. I don't mind it at all when it is done well (such as in "The Worm Ouroboros"). And, I might be wrong but I don't think "Frankenstein" was written in an effected archaic prose style, presumably at was current, in the time it was written.

Yes, you're right, "Frankenstein" reads a whole of a lot better than "Night", and it sure wasn't written in Archaic English as "Night" was.

And yet, somehow i am actually managing to enjoy "Night's" prose nonetheless, although i have found some sentences to read pretty much similar and repetitiously to the ones just before... perhaps some editing by the author himself could have been usefull by then, but now it's a little too late for that.

The book was considered a horror story back then, but nowadays it reads more like a mysterious Lovecraftian-related F&SF menagerie of monsters, weird creatures and astonishing places, doused with a lot of imagination on steroids. It somehow has grabbed my the proverbial throat, and sometimes, it feels like a real-time documentary of a future time.

I'm still halfway on the story, but it gets more, and more interesting...

 

[Fried Egg]

I'm still halfway on the story, but it gets more, and more interesting...

Have you got to the bit where the soppy, sickening romantic stuff starts happening yet? It went further downhill for me then...

 

[Solstice]

Have you got to the bit where the soppy, sickening romantic stuff starts happening yet? It went further downhill for me then...

Hmm.. i guess not. I'm about to start to read the chapter that tells of the "great slope".

 

[Vertigo]

Vertigo, I am so often disappointed by film versions that I would rather watch and enjoy the movie before I go "but thats not how its supposed to be!!!".

Interesting approach, but I think I would be worried about spoiling the book (assuming the film remains at least close to it) when I would normally expect to enjoy the book more. But different strokes and all that...

 

[Southern Geologist]

Finished The Space Merchants. Very enjoyable story and I enjoyed the semi hard-boiled (soft-boiled?) vibe of the narration. Moving onto the next book in that LoA collection, I'm now starting on More Than Human.

 

[Connavar]

The Illiad by someone called Homer.

Im excited like a little Kid to finally read this cover to cover.

I have read some parts for lit classes. First time i read it was ancient writing i coulndt read, second time slow but interesting story and the Third time fast paced Epic poem that sang in my head. Funny no books showed me more how you need to evolve with langauge, reading abillity, grow an interestto enjoy some books. Not liking something as Kid in school shouldnt get in the way of your adult reading self.

 

[Randy M.]

[...]And yet, somehow i am actually managing to enjoy "Night's" prose nonetheless, although i have found some sentences to read pretty much similar and repetitiously to the ones just before... perhaps some editing by the author himself could have been usefull by then, but now it's a little too late for that. [...]

A couple of years back I read The House on the Borderland and last year I read the Carnacki stories. I found the same flaw in most of them; a bit more editing, a bit more faith in the reader to "get it" and the stories would have flowed better.

In his defense, sort of, I recently found something similar true in a collection of Algernon Blackwood's John Silence stories, though less so in a collection of his other stories. Blackwood was a contemporary of Hodgson's.


Speaking of Carnacki and Silence, I'm nearly finished with Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot (a.k.a.: Rivers of London in the U.K.), an urban fantasy featuring Peter Grant, a cop who becomes a sorceror's apprentice which makes Grant, I suppose, something of a descendant of Carnacki and Silence, by way of Phillip Marlowe (if you like first-person wise-ass, this is for you) the fantasy in Campbell's Unknown. Sort of. I'm finding it even more entertaining than I'd imagined.

Randy M.

 

[The Judge]

You might be interested in this thread, then http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/536788-rivers-of-london-by-ben-aaronovitch.html