It's Jules Verne's birthday so I thought I'd reminisce a little about my experiences with the works of this wonderful creative spirit.
I can't remember a time when his name didn't mean something to me, that's probably a slight exaggeration but not much. Hearing about travelling with Captain Nemo in the bookshop at the beginning of The Never-ending Story became synonymous to me with adventure and the excitement you could have reading. I heard there was the man who went around the world in 80 days, and another who went to the centre of the Earth. These were thrilling concepts to my young imagination.
At some point I must have seen some of the 1950s film of Journey to the Centre of the Earth and the dinosaurs and volcanic eruption stayed embedded in my imagination. (So it was very exciting when I found it on DVD in a garage sale).
Despite these early impressions and the resulting desire I had to read his books, I was in my late teens before I read one. Even then it was his lesser known and quite short Master of the World. It's a sequel, to wrap up how bad a choice it was for a place to start, but in some ways it possibly was actually better than diving straight into the sea for an epic voyage. It was short and had plenty of action right from the start. It also had fantastic inventions and a mad genius hellbent on world domination. Thrilling stuff.
Since then I've read a handful more of Verne's novels, most notably 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days. The former is a worthy classic, it has scenes of suspense and drama, the action of fighting off cephalopods is breath-taking and Nemo is a brooding antihero ahead of his time. On the downside, Verne does go into some very nitty-gritty details about the technical aspects and the longitude and latitude etc. It is at times stifling and could interrupt the pleasure of some readers.
Around the World in 80 Days has fewer passages which really slow the action and romance. It's an action novel right through, but with a lovely whimsy to it, making it very accessible.
So with all that, what is the legacy of Verne for me? I think it's the sheer creative energy he had. He poured himself into writing his books, he gladly and openly tried to forge a new genre and was quite put out when HG Wells started getting credit for it too. His stories are fantastic yet nailed down with his reasoning, he could bring exciting adventure with serious drama, or send us on a whimsical romp. What he didn't seem to do was small. His stories are so vivid and full of adventure that even their echoes in our culture stirs the imagination. So happy birthday Jules Verne and thank you for the spark of dreams.
Keep dreaming!
Showing posts with label Author Profiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author Profiles. Show all posts
Monday, 8 February 2016
Monday, 30 September 2013
Author Profile - Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith came from a poor background and spent much of his early life trying to earn money for his family. But even while young he displayed a love of story and a passion for language. Some of his earliest works were written as a teenager and they were strongly influenced by the Arabian Tales, an influence that would linger.
He abandoned prose for some years and was a fairly successful poet. After his first published volume he was taken under the arm by George Sterling and mingled with fellow poets of the time including Ambrose Bierce.
Nowadays he’s remembered for his short fiction works which he wrote primarily for pulp magazines like Weird Tales. In fact, in terms of the ‘weird’ fiction of the pulp era he was one of the three heavyweights along with Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, and while those two may be better known these days I would argue Smith is the better writer of the group.
The ties between the three, while primarily through letters, were highly influential however as they borrowed names and ideas from each other frequently. So the building and weaving of certain famous or infamous mythos began. Smith set many tales in Hyboria which shared and helped build Howard’s Hyperborean setting where Kull, Conan and Red Sonja ran about; and he used names from Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos thus building on their renown and our knowledge of them within that crazy mixed-up universe.
Smith’s stories I must admit are not strong in plot, some of them barely even have one. Take The Abomination of Yondo, it tells of a man exiled from a harsh country into a desert known to contain horrors. We learn a little of why he was exiled but not a great deal, otherwise he simply walks on, encounters one monstrosity, continues on then encounters something so utterly terrifying he flees back to face torture and execution to escape the mad fear. Not much of a plot, but as we read it we drink in the details of the desert and its horrors, we sense the dread and the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
And that’s the key to Smith’s fiction – atmosphere. He creates the world we are reading about so vividly it really is like visiting the places ourselves. His use of language is rich and exorbitant, you may need a dictionary at times I know I did, and he clear took great delight in playing with words to build up these fantastic vistas and horrific scenes of death and worse. Make no mistake, these stories can be highly macabre, some seem to exist for no other reason than creeping you out. In that regard he was something of a successor to Poe.
I could say lots more about him of course but the best way to experience his writing is for yourself and I highly, highly recommend you do.
Keep dreaming!
He abandoned prose for some years and was a fairly successful poet. After his first published volume he was taken under the arm by George Sterling and mingled with fellow poets of the time including Ambrose Bierce.
Nowadays he’s remembered for his short fiction works which he wrote primarily for pulp magazines like Weird Tales. In fact, in terms of the ‘weird’ fiction of the pulp era he was one of the three heavyweights along with Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, and while those two may be better known these days I would argue Smith is the better writer of the group.
The ties between the three, while primarily through letters, were highly influential however as they borrowed names and ideas from each other frequently. So the building and weaving of certain famous or infamous mythos began. Smith set many tales in Hyboria which shared and helped build Howard’s Hyperborean setting where Kull, Conan and Red Sonja ran about; and he used names from Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos thus building on their renown and our knowledge of them within that crazy mixed-up universe.
Smith’s stories I must admit are not strong in plot, some of them barely even have one. Take The Abomination of Yondo, it tells of a man exiled from a harsh country into a desert known to contain horrors. We learn a little of why he was exiled but not a great deal, otherwise he simply walks on, encounters one monstrosity, continues on then encounters something so utterly terrifying he flees back to face torture and execution to escape the mad fear. Not much of a plot, but as we read it we drink in the details of the desert and its horrors, we sense the dread and the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
And that’s the key to Smith’s fiction – atmosphere. He creates the world we are reading about so vividly it really is like visiting the places ourselves. His use of language is rich and exorbitant, you may need a dictionary at times I know I did, and he clear took great delight in playing with words to build up these fantastic vistas and horrific scenes of death and worse. Make no mistake, these stories can be highly macabre, some seem to exist for no other reason than creeping you out. In that regard he was something of a successor to Poe.
I could say lots more about him of course but the best way to experience his writing is for yourself and I highly, highly recommend you do.
Keep dreaming!
Sunday, 26 May 2013
Author Profile - Edgar Allan Poe
I’ve decided to start a series of author profiles. Not just any authors of course, but ones who have influenced me – positively – or that I’m interested in, intrigued by or who fit in the nebulous conglomerate of sub-genres I’m most ‘in’ to. So who better to start with than Edgar Allan Poe who is all those things?
It’s worth noting that in more recent times he would probably have been known as Allan-Poe as he adopted Allan into his name from his foster father who was a more positive role model than his biological one. So from the get-go Edgar had emotional damage and an alcoholic father. The course for this tormented genius was pretty much set from there.
I won’t get into his biography that can be found out easily enough if you’re interested. What I do want to talk about is his broad scope of influence. Some call him the father of modern horror, which is debatable but certainly he is best known for his macabre works. He’s also possibly the father of modern crime fiction, with his tales of ‘ratiocination’ as he called them seeing Auguste Dupin solving crimes through logical deduction years before Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
Moreover, aside from writing short stories and poems, Poe was talented editor and essayist. He had a passion for the facts and was sometimes in trouble for presenting them too harshly in the eyes of people involved. For instance, his logical mind saw him demonstrate Maelzel's Chess Player, which was supposedly a machine that could play chess, had a man hidden inside - this ruse had fooled thousands.
These aspects of his career have a great bearing on his fiction as well. His stories are filled with facts, at least as known to him at the time, which influence the narrative. Take Descent into a Maelstrom, which is about a ship caught in a giant whirlpool; alongside his evocative prose the tale details a means of escape then believed to be scientifically accurate. It’s since been debunked so if you’re in a maelstrom, don’t try it, but Poe couldn’t have known that.
His first major success, MS Found in a Bottle, also discusses a theory then believed to be true – that the South Pole would be ocean not land, again clearly no longer believed – all while dealing with a man alone on a ghost ship. And the level of detail in The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall are considerable. That story also bears the marks of the other overlooked aspect of Poe’s writing – his humour.
There’s no humour or indeed relief in his most macabre tales, his goal is to chill the reader and he typically succeeds. But in works like The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall or The Man Who Was Used Up, his humour is right at the fore, if somewhat droll. And of course what is now sometimes read as the story The Balloon Hoax was a hoax he wrote in one of his newspapers at the time.
These things went into his work, and his work went into the world’s consciousness and infused themselves into its literature. He’s influenced numerous writers across a range of fields and continues to do so today. So, gentle reader, I implore you, read more Poe.
Keep dreaming.
It’s worth noting that in more recent times he would probably have been known as Allan-Poe as he adopted Allan into his name from his foster father who was a more positive role model than his biological one. So from the get-go Edgar had emotional damage and an alcoholic father. The course for this tormented genius was pretty much set from there.
I won’t get into his biography that can be found out easily enough if you’re interested. What I do want to talk about is his broad scope of influence. Some call him the father of modern horror, which is debatable but certainly he is best known for his macabre works. He’s also possibly the father of modern crime fiction, with his tales of ‘ratiocination’ as he called them seeing Auguste Dupin solving crimes through logical deduction years before Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
Moreover, aside from writing short stories and poems, Poe was talented editor and essayist. He had a passion for the facts and was sometimes in trouble for presenting them too harshly in the eyes of people involved. For instance, his logical mind saw him demonstrate Maelzel's Chess Player, which was supposedly a machine that could play chess, had a man hidden inside - this ruse had fooled thousands.
These aspects of his career have a great bearing on his fiction as well. His stories are filled with facts, at least as known to him at the time, which influence the narrative. Take Descent into a Maelstrom, which is about a ship caught in a giant whirlpool; alongside his evocative prose the tale details a means of escape then believed to be scientifically accurate. It’s since been debunked so if you’re in a maelstrom, don’t try it, but Poe couldn’t have known that.
His first major success, MS Found in a Bottle, also discusses a theory then believed to be true – that the South Pole would be ocean not land, again clearly no longer believed – all while dealing with a man alone on a ghost ship. And the level of detail in The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall are considerable. That story also bears the marks of the other overlooked aspect of Poe’s writing – his humour.
There’s no humour or indeed relief in his most macabre tales, his goal is to chill the reader and he typically succeeds. But in works like The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall or The Man Who Was Used Up, his humour is right at the fore, if somewhat droll. And of course what is now sometimes read as the story The Balloon Hoax was a hoax he wrote in one of his newspapers at the time.
These things went into his work, and his work went into the world’s consciousness and infused themselves into its literature. He’s influenced numerous writers across a range of fields and continues to do so today. So, gentle reader, I implore you, read more Poe.
Keep dreaming.
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