As mentioned in a previous post, I started working to relaunch my old podcast recently. Last night the first new episode in three years went live.
In this episode we look at Cotard’s Syndrome a psychological affliction where the sufferer believes themselves to be dead, missing organs or simple non-existent. We’ve got some publishing news from Gray Friar Press, Dark Regions Press, Tartarus Press and the new Phantasmagoria Journal. Then it’s into the catacombs beneath Paris, and a secret workshop in the dome of the Pantheon with UX and arguably secret society urban explorers and preservationists.
Author Richard Gavin speaks on the ideas behind his bleak tale In The Shadow Of The Nodding God from his collection Omens published by Mythos Books, and gives a reading of his vignette Notes On The Aztec Death Whistle. In addition to Omens, Richard has two other collections of short stories available - Charnel Wine & The Darkly Splendid Realm are available from Dark Regions Press.
Music this time
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
WESTERING
RASPUTINA
PAIN TEENS
CELTIC FROST
PHALLUS DEI
FAITH & THE MUSE
SLOPPY SECONDS
GOATVARGR
GOD BULLIES
ABANDONER & ANGEL OF DECAY
MALARIA!
Posted in Projects
Tagged Cotard's Syndrome, macabre fiction, podcast, Richard Gavin, small press, Spookatorium, Untergunther, UX, weird tales
I’m reading Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Published in 1794 this tale, most succinctly summarized on Wikipedia this way -
“The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel.”
I’m at about the half way point of this 620 page beast and one thing keeps occurring to me. What would a modern editor have done with this book?
Udolpho, the rotting castle referenced in the title, doesn’t come on the scene until just over 200 pages in. The language is overwrought, and the repetition of words is legion. I wake up in the morning and the first words in my head are “melancholy countenance” because they appear so frequently in these pages.
This book is 217 years old, and I am quite enjoying it. Even with all the “flaws” that modern editing and writing pound the desk about, the book has survived and influenced those that followed across genres. I wonder how temporary fiction of today will appear on the spectrum of history? What role does the trim the fat, clean as a whistle, approach to editing play in that?
This is only one example of many. The books that have wriggled into the collective unconscious often disregard the gospel. Many predate any gospel. (here is another post on the matter). That isn’t to say history won’t preserve the reduced fat storytelling of the current day, but In 217 years whose tendrils of influence will be visible in the literary canon?
Will it be those that wrote beyond the rules or never needed the rules to begin with? Story existed before, and has persevered through, different schools of thought on form. It existed before we started building fences and genre’s and check lists about how story should be conveyed. It existed before writing. Not a revelation by any means, but a reminder worth considering.
Posted in Rumination
Tagged Ann Radcliffe, books, editing, gothic literature, legacy, reduced fat storytelling, The Mysteries of Udolpho, writing
I spent yesterday re-animating the old Spookatorium Podcast site. I produced 26 episode of this from 9/06 – 10/08. I had been thinking a lot lately about bringing it back and now there it is.
I’m still formulating the first new episode, but in addition to what the show was, I’m looking to incorporate some of the authors and stories that have come to mean so much to me. We’ll see how it shakes out. The plan is to set a more realistic schedule. The last time I did this I started out weekly, it was too much. This incarnation will likely just be a monthly show.The feed is in place now to listen to the archived shows. Once I have the new content up I’ll hassle with getting it on iTunes. Stay tuned.
I had a great conversation with my wife last night that helped clarify some things I’ve been mulling over rather unproductively of late. Looking at teachings on writing, and at how those I respect craft their tales – there is a chasm there.
When the Braveheart speech of writing tutors invariably ends with “Show, Don’t Tell” and the classic tales of Lovecraft (to name only one) are nearly all telling and tone there is a gap. Focus on the specific, and concrete creates a structure that does not always lend itself to the ineffable. It surely can be done. The best writers find that sweet spot were illustration and intuition harmonize, but the weight placed on specificity does claim its share of artistic casualties.
I had traded some of the surrealism and emotional impressions in my writing across this table in favor a more quantifiable mode of story telling. I am taking it back. It’s difficult to maintain and keep cohesive, but I realized last night that I need that to fulfill my intentions accurately. It is a simple, and perhaps obvious revelation but one I needed to have validated.
She recommended I read Poe’s The Philosophy of Composition. We got home from dinner and I was presented her heavily underlined copy of The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. I read the essay, and of the valuable things within it, the following was my biggest takeaway….
“I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect… I say to myself, in the first place ‘of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one should I, on the present occasion, select?’… I consider whether it can best be wrought by incident or by tone – whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse or by peculiarity, both of incident and tone… for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effort.” – E.A. Poe
I haven’t written fiction in a couple of months. Something derailed my enthusiasm that really shouldn’t have been a surprise. Here’s hoping I have the clarity to not let that happen again.
I’ve kept a Wiki using Connected Text to manage my writing projects for the last couple of years. It’s been useful, but lacking – likely due to my unwillingness to learn it inside and out. As my inspiration has returned, I’ve been weeding through all that info. I decided to rebuild the whole thing in Google Sites: a) for back up and b) for more access away from my desk.
The process has been really helpful to the creative side, going over things I’d forgotten, reviewing old notes, and getting them organized in a ways they can feed each other. You could argue this is a more caustic form of procrastination than not doing anything – I wouldn’t fight you that much on it. It is however showing me ways fragments of things once on life support may yet live again. It’s gotten the gears grinding on how that thing in the corner may be more a novella than the short story it is today.
Anyway – it feels good, to feel good about the process again.
Posted in Rumination, Writings
Tagged Connected Text, creativity, Google Site, inspiration, organizized, writing
I have finally introduced myself to the weird fiction of Fritz Leiber via the collection, The Black Gondolier & Other Stories. It has impressed the hell out of me. The title piece alone has been a revelation. Edited by John Pelan & Steve Saville it was originally released by Midnight House as a limited hardcover. Though this has since gone OOP, the editors reissued it digitally through E-Reads. It’s available from all the usual suspects.
Leiber stirs character, atmosphere, insight and entertainment in to a roiling cauldron of delicious poison. He makes it look easy, the stories are fluid and seamless. Even in the instances where the endings are visible on the horizon they are not a disappointment because they are inevitable. His authenticity, and the natural course of the prose validate the things you encounter along the way.
He stitches his underlying themes together in a way that is never overbearing, and for me was perhaps his most enviable trait. Leiber’s genius is no secret, he was awarded every prestigious honor through his life that was out there. I’m just late to the celebration.
While there were stories I preferred over others here, I enjoyed them all. I wouldn’t hesitate to call The Black Gondolier a masterpiece. Supernatural dread, conspiracy, and awkward friendship drape each other in this tale that remains relevant and powerful. Without going into details, Leiber infuses the world with a logic that other authors might leave open to the unknowable. Whether the logic of the enlightened or the mad, it informs the tale and makes this a potent classic I will re-read over and over both for entertainment and study.
Other highlights: The Dreams Of Albert Moreland, Lie Still, Snow White, Spider Mansion, The Dead Man, The Secret Songs and others.
More Please.
