| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Let's play "What is Wrong with Certain Authors"... There are always certain glaring defects in the works of certain authors. For instance, Lovecraft's erroneous belief that he knew anything at all about philosophy. He didn't. I doubt he even knew the difference between an analytic and synthetic proposition. But anyway, my three first candidates for this little game of "What is Wrong with Certain Authors" are Jane Austen, Henry James and Dylan Thomas. They all share the same specific wrongness, namely: No dinosaurs, no robots, no highwaymen, no mermaids, no talking cats, no square planets, no walking trees! Over to you... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Dylan Thomas wrote Under Milk Wood (no more to be said?) , Henry James wrote Turn of the Screw (as well as the shining 'Golden Bowl') and Jane Austen, reading between the lines, was a real goer on the quiet. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.7.247 |
Why oh why did Shakespeare keep having characters soliloquizing in the same room as the folk about whom they were disclosing private - often plot-blowing - reflections? I mean, did William know nothing about elementary acoustics? Did he have vestibular problems involving spatial-aural orientation? I mean, just what was his problem? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Ah yes, Under Milk Wood, in which absolutely nothing at all happens from the beginning to the end... I often hear Flann O'Brien called "the Irish Dylan Thomas". Certainly O'Brien had the lyrical tongue and the ear for nuance, but... O'Brien was massively inventive. Dylan Thomas didn't have a gram of invention in his body. In Flann O'Brien's books, policemen turn into bicycles, mad scientists conclude that "night" is really just an accumulation of "dark air", mythical beasts in the shape of Ireland come out of the sea... In Dylan Thomas's works, men get drunk and blow their nose. I know which I prefer. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.7.247 |
Too close to home, mate. I can't stand Charlotte Bronte. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Gary: I think plenty of writers for the stage lacked knowledge of elementary acoustics. But some of them were even more despicable than that. Take Musicals, for instance. The characters will often start singing together in perfect time with all the words in the correct place, even though the song is wholly original to that show and couldn't possibly be known to them. The writers of these Musicals clearly believe in instantaneous telepathy and the hive mind. Talk about gullible! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Ah yes, Under Milk Wood, in which absolutely nothing at all happens from the beginning to the end... ============= I saw a live dramatised version of it recently at the theatre. A lot of things *seemed* to happen. And the language was still wonderful. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I wish Dylan Thomas was alive now, so I could kill him. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.7.247 |
Funniest unintentional moment in a musical is in Whistle Down The Wind. The guy playing the escaped crim hiding in the barn is desperate not to be located . . . so he sings a MASSIVE ballade about it. Full blast. Raises the roof. Them pesky crim-hunters will never find him, no, no. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
If I was a dictator I'd ban Musicals. Why, O why can't I be a dictator? It's much to ask really, is it? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.7.247 |
If you need to ask, you're not up to the job. The whole point about dictators is that they don't ask. They just do. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Anyone who dislikes Stephen King? Have you tried his Dark Tower books? They are remarkable. After reading King since Carrie (every book as they came out - except the Dark Tower books because I didn't fancy them arbitrarily) and now at my age now, I am ready to approach the Dark Tower books (on the first one at the moment). They have the potential to contain dinosaurs, robots, highwaymen, mermaids, talking cats, square planets, walking trees - and, in part, so far, *do*. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Damn it! I knew there was a flaw somewhere in my character! I'll never be a dictator. Boo hoo! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.173.166.96 |
Shakespeare got it very wrong when he seemed to think 'disguise' meant 'putting on a hat'. I think of him when I watch THE WRONG TROUSERS, and the penguin takes off his disguise, which is simply a rubber glove on his head supposed to make him look like a chicken, and Wallace says in a surprised voice "It's you!" | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.7.247 |
Undercover Elephant was the true master of this, Mick. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Can I butt in here in defence of "Under Milk Wood"? We read this in school English classes and, second only to "Gulliver's Travels" which we also did, it blew me away. OK so nothing much happens (unlike in "Gulliver's Travels"), but the language, the characterisation, and the sense of time and place is superb. I thank the teacher who introduced us to both Thomas and Swift, as reading/analysing those two works in class led to my interest in literature and made me realise how much the writer could achieve with skillful use of language.  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Des: my attitude to Stephen King is the same as it is to all kings. Cut his head off. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Rhys, I've already drawn a link from my RTR of The Dark Tower to this thread. So if any King fans see the above comment, I wonder what they will do. Do not go gently into that good night. I agree, Caroline, about UMW. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Sorry: 'gently' should be 'gentle'. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I'm not stopping anyone liking Under Milk Wood. I'm just asserting my right not to like it. And I don't. At all. As for King fans: bring them on! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
I think I normally take it as read that opinions on books differ, and that one view does not cancel out the opposite view, or vice versa. But I would draw a line at bringing them back to life to kill them. Or chopping their heads off. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
I utterly dislike Algernon Blackwood's writing style. There. I simply cannot get through Tales of Terror and Darkness. "The Willows" I liked, however. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.4.83 |
I can't hate someone who wrote "Light breaks where no sun shines". That phrase alone should pardon him from faggot and flame. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.4.83 |
I thought some of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's work was a little too satisfied with itself. (His non-fiction is very under-rated, though.) I find the same problem afflicts Neil Gaiman's work to a much greater extent. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
I think Algernon Blackwood's novels are some of the greatest novels in our genre. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
I've just met the Slow Mutants in Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER - THE GUNSLINGER (1982). Wow! | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 92.3.112.82 |
Henry James's sentences are too long and go on and on was there a shortage of full stops or something and the conicidences in Charlotte Bronte's novels are hard to believe and I hate the way 19th century authors such as C- H- G- always used hyphens when not naming a time or town or a certain personage and I hate anything written by Tom Clancy becuse it is Dubya's world view in prose and I can't bear anything written by that Archer bloke and Joanne Trollope really made me angry when she said she only writes about middle class people bacause they are more interesting than working class people because all they do is shout at each other so all I want to do is shout at her Terry. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I've just met the Slow Mutants in Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER - THE GUNSLINGER (1982). Wow! You've a long way to go, Des!  THE DARK TOWER novels are difficult to describe. They are, essentially, King's entire set of influences, obsessions and previous works thrown into a blender and then poured out onto paper in ways that are strange, funny, frightening and ridiculous in equal measures. Often, particularly in the later volumes, the result is a total mess. But along the way there are some wonderful characters, individual stories and set-pieces. You essentially get all that is good and bad about Stephen King bundled together into one epic story. Depending on how you feel about him going in, you'll either forgive the flaws, or think that they ruin the entire experience. Whatever you think, though, there's certainly nothing quite like it. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Thanks, John. That's the impression I've got. I am embrolied currently in a real-time review of the first book and I intend to do the whole series. I've read all King books since Carrie as the books came out, EXCEPT for the Dark Tower books because I didn't fancy them arbitrarily. Now I think I'm ready for them, as encouraged by participants on the official Stephen King forum. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I've read all King books since Carrie as the books came out, EXCEPT for the Dark Tower books because I didn't fancy them arbitrarily. Likewise. They were always described to me as King's 'heroic fantasy' novels - a genre I've never cared for - hence the reason I didn't read them until relatively recently (well, about five years ago). For the same reason, I've never read EYES OF THE DRAGON or THE TALISMAN, despite having made my way through just about everything else he's ever written (apart from a few of the more recent novels, such as DUMA KEY and LISEY'S STORY). | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Duma Key is great - and so is Full Dark, No Stars. And yes, I forgot about Eyes of the Dragon and The Talisman - I haven't read those, either! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.51.196 |
I loved the first four volumes of The Dark Tower but I think it may have been better if had remained a 'great unfinished epic'. From Volume 5 onwards it really goes downhill and I was properly disappointed by volume 7. Which was a shame because I had waited years for it! | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Yes, I've heard good things about DUMA KEY, Des. I'll get to it... one day. FULL DARK, NO STARS was three quarters excellent. John - that seems to be the general consensus. Volume 7 was a bit of a mess, and he makes some narrative choices that are frankly baffling. I did enjoy all the stuff with The Breakers, though. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.243.211 |
What is wrong with M.J. James is that he thinks anyone who hasn't been to university is mentally defective. What is wrong with Clark Ashton Smith is that he has the prose style of a legal secretary. For years I thought his actual name was 'Clark, Ashton & Smith'. What is wrong with Lord Dunsany is that he is shit. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.243.211 |
What is wrong with me is that I can't hit the right keys to save my life. That should have been 'M.R. James' of course. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.202.32 |
Is that Montague Joel James, M.R. James's long lost brother and writer of miserablist, non-antiquarian ghost stories?  I like Lord Dunsany, so I fear Joel and I will never see eye to eye on this one (he has a unique style that you either love or hate, I think). Blackwood wrote some very powerful stories, but he also write some forgettable, pedestrian fare ('The Terror of the Twins', for example). | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Lord Dunsany - "shit", Joel? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
I've never liked Dunsany either. Curious perhaps for a Lovecraft freak. Some short stories are ok, but omg do I hate those airy fairy tales! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
"If you go the the Land of Late, watch out for the Slumberer at the Gate." Stuff like that. Page after page after page of it. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.175 |
I find most of Gaiman's novels overrated. It's a kind of writing that tries desperately to be witty. And the stories tend to deflate as well. For example, Anansi Boys, still don't get why it got awards, the first line was something like "It began, as all things do, with a song.". God, I hated that ! In contrast, several of his short stories are well put together, and they stay focused. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
Lord Dunsany is king! Have you read his novels. Almost as great as Blackwood's novels, in my book. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.60.173 |
No Des, I haven't. I confess I lost my appetite after that old Dover edition of his best tales. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.219.237 |
KIng of Elfland's Daughter, The Charwoman's Shadow etc, are unmissable for any Fiction fan, I'd say. - i.e. Dunsany And Jimbo, The Fruit Stoners, The Centaur, The Prisoner of Fairyland etc - Blackwood | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
I vastly prefer Dunsany's novels to his short stories. They were mostly produced later in his career and have a dry wit and sense of irony lacking from his earlier work. The Charwoman's Shadow is genuinely enchanting, witty and rather ironical in tone, not vastly dissimilar to the tone of some of James Branch Cabell's novels. It is, in fact, a superb fantasy novel. Dunsany was one of those rare writers who got better as he got older, in my view... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.151.150 |
Ooh! I read a Dunsany short once. It was sort of airy fairy, which I like. I was surprised to find in that book I'm reading of Susan Hill's that she loves the James Bond books and the Enid Blytons, but can't get into Austen or Joyce. What I liked though was that she said she appreciates great books and happy for them to be considered great even if she herself is unable to read them. I think I hold to that view myself. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.12.129.13 |
Anansi Boys won awards coz it were a grate book. Me says so. Seriously, I really liked Anansi Boys, even if China Meiville did cover the same sort of storyline much better with King Rat. I find Gaiman is completely effortless to read and normally has a lot more going on than is immediately evident. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.188.26 |
OK Rhys (and others), how about The Curse of the Wise Woman? That's one I nearly bought a couple of times but didn't on account of it was by Lord Dunsany. Did I miss something non-shit? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
I have that novel, but I'd need to re-read it, for my memory to catch up. To hear someone like Joel calling Dunsany 'shit' was a shock. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.48.177 |
I think it's a matter of taste, that's all. I also know people who can't stand Tolkien, and while some consider Lovecraft's style to be the very pinnacle of good horror fiction, others find it juvenile and crude. Dunsany was unique; there was nobody quite like him, and those who imitated usually failed miserably. I've always loved his writing, so I guess I'm just wired that way. Some may call it 'airy-fairy' - I would call it full of wonder, wit, and almost boundless imagination. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
> ...how about The Curse of the Wise Woman? That's one I nearly bought a couple of times but didn't on account of it was by Lord Dunsany. Did I miss something non-shit? Joel: I haven't read that one, though I've heard it said that it's his best novel and resembles the work of James Stephens (The Crock of Gold, etc). It's out of print, but my local university has a copy in the basement of the library. I might try reading it, but probably won't, as I'm not currently in a Dunsany mood. I will say, however, that if you've only read his early stories (collections such as The Gods of Pegâna and the other books of crypto-Biblical pseudo-myths that immediately followed it) then I think you might be pleasantly surprised by his later work, which displays a dry wit and a sense of self-mocking irony. If, however, you already know his later stuff (such as the 'Jorkens' tales) and still don't like his work, then there's no help for it: in your eyes he always will be shit. Fair enough. Recently I confessed in an email to you that I wasn't really such a fan of Machen and that in fact I've barely read the man, and that as a Machen enthusiast and specialist I'm a fake. However, Dunsany is a writer I genuinely am familiar with. I've sampled the full range of his work. As he grew older he slowly acquired a sense of wry realism and developed an ironic sensibility and started to mock towards his own grandiosity. He was never a match for James Branch Cabell, however. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.175 |
> I also know people who can't stand Tolkien I'm one of them. The LOTR movies were so much better than the interminable books ! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Des, sorry, I have a weakness for cheap shock-effect comments. But I read a whole collection of Dunsany stories in the expectation that I would like them as much as Lovecraft did – and even my 16-year-old fanboy self revolted at the effete posturing and pastel whimsy. Thirty years on I am considerably less patient with that kind of thing. Rhys, of the Jorkens stories I've only read 'Two Bottles of Relish', which is good. But I just meant Dunsany as a fantasy writer. BTW what were you saying on another thread about not giving your enemies ammunition?  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
> BTW what were you saying on another thread about not giving your enemies ammunition? Ha! Well I never follow my own advice... Plus if I'm willing to be a fake once, who's to say I'm not faking my own fakery in this instance too?  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
"pastel whimsy" can be good for the soul as well as for the colour of the stools. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
If your stools are pastel-coloured I recommend a change of diet pronto! Is that what Joel meant by saying Dunsany was shit? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
No, he means bar stools. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.151.150 |
'Some may call it 'airy-fairy'' Huw - I hope you realise I meant that as praise! Rupert is airy fairy. A lot of quietly creepy things are. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.90 |
Is that Rupert the Bear or Rupert Everett? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.151.150 |
Bear! Of course. Actually, maybe it's both of them! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.48.177 |
"'Some may call it 'airy-fairy'' Huw - I hope you realise I meant that as praise! Rupert is airy fairy. A lot of quietly creepy things are." Tony, I did sense that you meant it in a good way! I should have used another word, as it came across like I was complaining about calling Lord D. airy-fairy. I know what you mean, don't worry - it's one of the things I really like about Dunsany's writing (although I like it less in authors who lack his talent). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.180.105 |
That's it exactly. There's got to be some special something inside an author for them to be able to do it. |