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Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 07:03 pm: | |
I've taken the liberty of opening up the "Cold Print" thread.
I shall now leave the floor open for Griff to start our discussion if and when he so chooses.
I'm going to re-read "Cold Print" tonight and will post my own impressions sometime in the next day or so.
Best,
Richard |
John_l_probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 12:45 am: | |
OK well it's late on Sunday night so I hope Griff doesn't mind if I leap in but if I don't do it now I'll never get round to it:
Cold Print was the first of Ramsey’s books that I bought, to take on an Inter-Railing trip around Europe when I was 18. I ended up reading most of the collection sitting next to a mosquito-infested swamp in Sardinia, an environment which lent an even-more otherworldly atmosphere to the already other-worldly proceedings. I love the whole book, and regard all the traditional and perhaps not-so-traditional Lovecraftian tales with tremendous fondness. The title story, which is this month’s tale for discussion, I would say falls into the latter category. ‘Cold Print’ the story offers us some familiar Lovecraftian tropes (lengthy quotes of apocalyptic gobbledegook from an obscure volume, funny unpronounceable names like Y’golonac & Glaaki) while at the same time offering us a few things that definitely aren’t.
As we all know, the central character in many a Lovecraft tale tends to be someone of the academic persuasion, often with an almost obsessive love of obscure and hard to find books. Campbell cleverly plays along with this central concept, with a few radical alterations to make the story very definitely his. While Sam Strutt is a teacher (one of many in Campbell’s work) his is perhaps the least academic of disciplines. Strutt, too, has developed an obsessive interest in books not readily available from the local branch of WHSmith, but his interest has led to (or reflects) a life of voyeurism and sexual desperation. On his first trip to the bookshop Strutt finds himself making his way through a sexual landscape that is anything but erotic. Strutt sees the ‘lips of road ruts’, ‘thrusting askew doors’, and store fronts that ‘gape emptily’ as if reflecting the essential sexual emptiness of Strutt himself. If I have any criticism to make it would be that the ending of the story becomes too routinely Lovecraftian after all that had gone before. But it’s a small complaint about what is a worthy addition to a mythos that has become far-too oversubscribed with sub-par rubbish in the years since this was written. And having just re-read it I can honestly say I enjoyed as much this time around.
Sorry Griff - back to you! |
Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 04:22 am: | |
At last, I've made it to the discussion. I just made myself sit down and read "Cold Print" (for the second time in years, first in the Scream Press edition).
It's even better than I remember and has the hallmarks I associate with Ramsay ever since I started reading him: incredibly strong evocative, near-hallucinogenic imagery from first to last: " . . . disappointing alcoves of men's magazines; . . . cars fitted with caps of snow . . . " This isn't just showy writing, but opens windows into alienated troubled psyches of his characters. I've always believed loneliness--sexual, romantic, social--is a major theme in horror fiction, as I believe it to be here.
But what I take away most is that this a story about the act of reading; what readers try to do in their heads as they read--bring the story to life. The idea here, IMO, is that horror can be conjured out from the human mind by this deceptively harmless act. I liked the ending fine--after all, Strutt has to face the consequences of his reading one way or another.
But I couldn't help thinking that by reading this incredibly vivid, superbly detailed story, I myself was bringing it to independent life, to set it loose from my own mind. Somewhere out there, Y' golonac strides forth, thanks to me . . . and the rest of you.
No wonder our parents didn't like us reading this fiction. Not because of what it would do to our tender minds. But because of how we might make it come true! |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 11:00 pm: | |
So I finally got to sit down this evening and revisit this terrifying story again. I still think this is one of the most frightening stories I have ever read. Great comments above: I want to go inter-railing and read this again, the way John describes it. I read this story the first time on the Island of Malta.
I really enjoyed the Lovecraftian references here, but what I enjoyed most about this tale in particular, is that we are discovering a writer who is distancing himself from Lovecraft in a sense, and finding his own unique voice. Forgive me if I am incorrect but this story to me feels like a trial run for 'The Doll Who Ate His Mother´ If memory serves me correctly, I believe that a victim with similar oval puncture wounds is described in Doll as well? In any case, this story chills the blood and succeeded in producing several moments of nervous laughter as well, particularly in the section after the first visit to the bookshop. I think by the way, that the book shop feels most menancing in the weak yellow daylight filtering in through the windows the first time around - with the leering rictus (rictii?) of the pinups etc. For effect of course, having the protagonist then return to the shop, succumbing to his obsession, chills the blood.
Most memorable for me is the supposed passage of the twelfth book- the black incantation- which I must admit makes the reader feel like the protagonist in a sense- the text infecting not only the protagonist, but also us, the reader-the text opening an additional narrative door.
The ambiguity of the monster is of course terribly effective, despite the clues we are given as to its appearance. That final line of course, the hand and muffled scream and the mouths makes this a classic. (And the protagonist turning around to face his monster only to close his eyes before the image is scarred into our minds is a terribly effective narrative device.)
In the introduction to Alone With The Horrors, Mr.Campbell writes that this story was a rewrite of several other pieces-('The Successor' was one of them) which just proves that rewriting and rethinking a tale, and moving it on from several directions can be a very effective way to work.
This story also proves how spoilt one can become when reading Mr. Campbell's short fiction. The descriptive passages, particularly of the city, the cold, the snow,the motes of dust in the yellow light- all are really powerful and vivid, however had this story been written by Mr. Campbell today I could very well imagine that we would linger a little longer on these descriptions as the story effectivly moves forwards to its chilling conclusion.
PS people waiting for mails will get them this week. Tom: DVD in the mail this week as well. ;-) |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 01:51 pm: | |
'Cold Print' is a chilling, subversive and bleakly comic take on Lovecraftian themes. As S.T. Joshi has noted, it derives its power from linking two concepts of 'forbidden books': occult texts and pornography. It's the first Catholic Lovecraftian story: "For those who read of evil and search for its form within their minds call forth evil..."
'Cold Print' brings together two obsessive readers and book collectors: one a sadistic schoolteacher and the other a worshipper of an obscure (but very real) alien entity. The sexual images under the surface of Sam Strutt's thoughts parallel the images of occult power under the surface of reality in the 'Revelations of Glaaki'. The link serves both to enrich the meaning of Lovecraftian imagery and to challenge the elitist assumption of much 'occult' fiction that knowledge, and the power arising from it, is naturally the property of a chosen few. Leiber's OUR LADY OF DARKNESS made similar connections, with a similar subversive intention – but 'Cold Print' predates that novel by eight years!
Another important aspect of the story is that, together with 'The Interloper', it displays Campbell's anger at the sadistic Christian Brothers who made a routine of physical pain and humiliation a central aspect of his education. The idea of a schoolteacher who reads S&M porn in the staffroom is grimly funny, and we can see that Strutt, however pathetic he appears to us, might be regarded by his victims with helpless terror and revulsion.
The cold urban realism of the story's details is both a challenge to reader expectations and a pointer to the way Campbell's fiction was developing. The old woman's face in the window is a memorable image of isolation. Campbell is reminding us of the social and psychological roots of fantasies of power and domination, in a way that Lovecraft could never have done. As T.E.D. Klein said back in the 1970s, 'Cold Print' is "the kind of story Lovecraft might have written if... he'd been far, far more honest with himself." It's a gauntlet thrown down to pompous traditionalism in the weird fiction field, and a scary, profane, bitter 'fuck you' to authority in general. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 02:06 pm: | |
As a reasonably on-topic follow-on from that, it's interesting to note that Dublin poet Liam Maguire (1929–2006) was also educated by Christian brothers, and that one of the lay teachers in his school killed a Romany boy by beating him over the head with a chair leg. The teacher was prosecuted and acquitted on the grounds that Romanies have unusually thin skulls.
And before we write that off as a relic of the benighted past, let's remember that only a few years ago, a Chief of Police in England claimed that the reason why so many black suspects died 'accidental' dealths in custody was that their windpipes were unusually weak, so that 'restraint' that would not injure a white person often caused a black person to choke to death. (And what did the Government have to say about that vicious little joke? You've guessed it: not a word.) |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 09:27 pm: | |
Again, after "The Scar" last time, we're looking at an early work. And again we can see the development of Ramsey's work. The felicity of his later work isn't here yet, but once again there are signs of the writer Ramsey would become pushing through the soft membranes.
I'm not a Lovecraft fan, but I am one of Ramsey's fans. It's the Ramsey-isms I like in this tale, subtly slipping out from beneath the shadows of Lovecraft's Lodeof Ole B'lucks* etc. In a world not magic with snow but instead veiled by it, Ramsey's urban touches of the grotesque and weird -- the image of the girl giving birth to newspapers was especially nice -- and the shadow behind the frosted (of course) glass are great.
Strutt's a strange creature. Very hard to like. I don't know if it's a trait typical of Lovecraftian characters. By the end of the piece I was half cheering the monster. But in a short story, such characters can carry the tale and he does so here without a problem.
I enjoyed it.
* Fully acknowledge I'm being a bit nasty, and sniping with the confidence of ignorance here. Cheap of me. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 01:44 am: | |
Re-reading "Cold Print" was tremendously rewarding for me. It was, I believe, the second or third Ramsey story I'd read; after having spent what my parents thought was an obscene sum on a special order of Arkham House's Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. (A volume that also introduced me to the work of Karl Edward Wagner, Fritz Leiber, and Frank Belknap Long.)
This most recent reading of "Cold Print" really made me squirm. However I don't think this discomfort was due to Ramsey's grim imagery, at least not entirely.
I found Strutt utterly reprehensible from page one. He was fleshed out by Ramsey very well, and was hardly an "evil" character. But his sleaziness and, as John astutely pointed out, his repressed sexuality seemed to mutate him into a twisted, pathetic soul. I recall Ramsey once saying how he admired Nabokov's notion that characters do not have to be likable, merely interesting. Perhaps this was Ramsey's intention with Strutt. Even his name has a quasi-sexual ring to it.
The imagery of the station and the bookshops were pure Campbell. In fact, the scene where Strutt is browsing for his caning books and such reminded me of the first time I read this story and thought "This is *evocative* stuff." That trademark skewed, almost hallucinatory prose is beginning to bloom in this tale.
The sickly, almost rotting ambiance of the bookshop was like a dead husk, inside of which perversion and strange secrets seethed.
The wedding of Lovecraftian themes with a sexual undercurrent was very unsettling to me, but in a postive way. I don't mean this in a prudish way ('cause I ain't no prude, believe you me!), but it was an incredily honest tale that touched upon secrets both carnal and cosmic. Surely this must have been one of the first Mythos tales to do so. I'm wondering what the reaction of HPL readers would have been at the time. (Perhaps Ramsey can comment on this?)
There is a wonderful interplay between the secrets of the occult and the secret sexuality of "civilized" men and women. On some level, this interplay must have affected me deeply, for I found myself addressing these same themes in my own story, "The Pale Lover", which I wrote some fifteen years after I read "Cold Print."
This was a joy to revisit. In fact, I'm going to read the tale again tonight and may have more impressions to share.
Best,
Richard |
Griff (Griff)
Username: Griff
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 05:21 pm: | |
I've leant this book to someone and have to get it back.
Damnation. |
Griff (Griff)
Username: Griff
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 05:25 pm: | |
'lent' even. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2008 - 06:23 pm: | |
Or even loaned.
:-) |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 01:21 pm: | |
If you have the COLD PRINT collection, you can read this story without the 'Oxford commas' or 'list commas' inflicted on it by Arkham House on its first appearance, taken off for COLD PRINT and recurring, like stigmata, in the AH edition (and for all I know, the UK edition as well) of ALONE WITH THE HORRORS.
Not that I'm obsessed with this issue. Not at all. |
John_l_probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 06:56 pm: | |
Ah- the Oxford comma. Not quite as rare as the Cambridge Red Admiral or the Bradford Fritillary, but still quite treasured by collectors and do you know this is the first entomological wordplay I have ever indulged in? |
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