I'm facing the first serious test to my resolve here at FictionFast2006 in the form of S.T. Joshi's really excellent (I was about to say "fantastic" but that would, in this context, quite confuse matters) study of The Weird Tale.
This is a quite serious work of literary criticism, comparing, contrasting and attempting to establish this genre as something worthy of same. As he discusses very intelligently the work of Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft, Joshi also includes very effective synopses and a selection of excerpts that are like the most seductively persuasive description of the contents of the dessert cart ever given by a suave and unctuous waiter in a fancy-ass bistro. And I, the diner on a diet, consider myself a tough customer until I come against a real test.
Now, of the writers he discusses in this book I've not read any but my beloved Lovecraft, but clearly this needs remedied post haste (I've always had a mind to, but had more of a "someday when I get around to it" attitude), and so already I've surfed over to Amazon and bought some collections of Lord Dunsany's and Algernon Blackwood's short fiction (edited and compiled by Joshi)... And now, as I prepare to go home from work and having just completed the final chapter, all about Lovecraft, I'm sorely, sorely tempted to crack into the stories Joshi singled out for particular attention like "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward."
So there's a little bit of internal wiggling/dithering going on; does re-reading count as cheating on my fiction fast?
I have to be strong. Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment