September Reading
Thought I might do a quick review of what I've been reading this month - if for no other reason than keeping it clear in my own head. I already mentioned the Elric novels so that was a big portion of it.
The other big one was Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow. I got this from the University of Adelaide ebook site as it was mentioned in terms of Weird fiction and having influenced HP Lovecraft. It was weird all right but not always in the sense of the supernatural genre.
It's a collection of short stories, the first four of which make reference to a fictional play, the eponymous King in Yellow. This play is so artistically wrought that anyone who reads it, or at least the second act, is mentally disturbed by it or downright insane. This concept Lovecraft liked and he referenced the play or the places mentioned in it a few times. He also liked some of Chamber's style at times.
The rest of the stories in the book, which make up the other two-thirds or so, have nothing to do with The King in Yellow or Weird fiction whatsoever. They are predominantly romances about naive American art students in Paris. One of them, The Street of the Four Winds, was absolutely brilliant though. It wasn't about a student but was set in Paris. It's a simple tale of a man who is kind to a stray cat and tells him something of his history. The coincidence at the story's heart will break the reader's own, at least it did mine.
I confess the concept of a play so powerful it affects people's psyches to the point of madness did rather rub the bells of synchronicity. I've been thinking about Artaud's Alchemical Theatre and the role of theatre to create a reality beyond our own mundane existence. The 'liminal' space and the greater truths of myth and story than everyday banality. Anyway, somewhere in that idea is my Masters thesis, one day.
The other things I've read, in full, are W W Jacob's The Monkey's Paw and some Lovecraft shorts. The former is a classic of the Weird too, and I believe Lovecraft thought it such as well. It works on the premise of less is more, terror over horror, suggestion over detail. And it works well. Reminiscent of a Buffy episode too, I suspect it was involved somewhere.
The Lovecraft were Pickman's Model and The Shadow Out of Time. The latter is one of his slightly longer works, a whole 76 pages in eight chapters, and is about a man possessed by a mind of a Great One from several epochs before humans evolved and consequently possessed the body of the Great One for a few years. Like In the Mountains of Madness, his longest work I think, it's less gripping than some of his shorter pieces but the atmosphere of dread slowly works a pervasive spell over you and the history of the world and the Great Ones and Elder Gods etc is quite fascinating.
Pickman's story has a more immediate effect, following in the Poe mode of first person 'I know this is unbelievable but it's what happened okay'. The plot itself is quite see-through these days but the descriptions and atmosphere are classic Lovecraft who truly knew the language of nightmare.
Keep dreaming - but not about Great Ones I hope.
The other big one was Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow. I got this from the University of Adelaide ebook site as it was mentioned in terms of Weird fiction and having influenced HP Lovecraft. It was weird all right but not always in the sense of the supernatural genre.
It's a collection of short stories, the first four of which make reference to a fictional play, the eponymous King in Yellow. This play is so artistically wrought that anyone who reads it, or at least the second act, is mentally disturbed by it or downright insane. This concept Lovecraft liked and he referenced the play or the places mentioned in it a few times. He also liked some of Chamber's style at times.
The rest of the stories in the book, which make up the other two-thirds or so, have nothing to do with The King in Yellow or Weird fiction whatsoever. They are predominantly romances about naive American art students in Paris. One of them, The Street of the Four Winds, was absolutely brilliant though. It wasn't about a student but was set in Paris. It's a simple tale of a man who is kind to a stray cat and tells him something of his history. The coincidence at the story's heart will break the reader's own, at least it did mine.
I confess the concept of a play so powerful it affects people's psyches to the point of madness did rather rub the bells of synchronicity. I've been thinking about Artaud's Alchemical Theatre and the role of theatre to create a reality beyond our own mundane existence. The 'liminal' space and the greater truths of myth and story than everyday banality. Anyway, somewhere in that idea is my Masters thesis, one day.
The other things I've read, in full, are W W Jacob's The Monkey's Paw and some Lovecraft shorts. The former is a classic of the Weird too, and I believe Lovecraft thought it such as well. It works on the premise of less is more, terror over horror, suggestion over detail. And it works well. Reminiscent of a Buffy episode too, I suspect it was involved somewhere.
The Lovecraft were Pickman's Model and The Shadow Out of Time. The latter is one of his slightly longer works, a whole 76 pages in eight chapters, and is about a man possessed by a mind of a Great One from several epochs before humans evolved and consequently possessed the body of the Great One for a few years. Like In the Mountains of Madness, his longest work I think, it's less gripping than some of his shorter pieces but the atmosphere of dread slowly works a pervasive spell over you and the history of the world and the Great Ones and Elder Gods etc is quite fascinating.
Pickman's story has a more immediate effect, following in the Poe mode of first person 'I know this is unbelievable but it's what happened okay'. The plot itself is quite see-through these days but the descriptions and atmosphere are classic Lovecraft who truly knew the language of nightmare.
Keep dreaming - but not about Great Ones I hope.
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