i read a short piece there recently by Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt, in which it is claimed that there is no tradition of the supernatural or the strange in Dutch literature. I don't know if anyone here ever visits the site of Tor books ( i try not to, because i always feel like i'm being sold books there, which is of course the case, but sometimes i succumb, as witness the following). ![]() Take the trouble to learn French or Spanish or Italian, etc, and suddenly a whole world of obscurity will become normal, accessible and available.Įven this is no guarantee. There are tens of thousands of such examples. Andrei Platonov has been hugely neglected in the West until recent times and yet the Russians have known for decades that he is one of the best (and strangest) writers of the 20th Century. What on earth is 'obscurity' anyway? Pramoedya Ananta Toer is almost completely unknown in the West, but he is very well known in Indonesia. Fantasy has a little more historical depth due to the literary esteem that's been assigned to mythology and folkore, but when it comes to looking at fantasy consciously written as fantasy prior to the 20th century, there doesn't seem to be much interest. or even a prescription to read well known and available works like Mary Shelly's The Last Man. This strikes me in keeping with what Robert Adam Gilmour said about the obscurity of being widely known but rarely read - I've seen plenty of SF fans discuss and debate the history of genre, but it never translates into a push to see more translations from earlier, non-English contributors like Yevgeny Zamyatin, J.H. ![]() There are always fans in any form of media who look at influences, but it seems more intrinsic to Weird Fiction than other corners of genre fiction. James, might never have been forgotten, but it's hard for me to see how Lovecraft's popularity, and Supernatural Horror in Literature specifically, hasn't contributed to a surge in their readership. Machen, Blackwood, and to lesser extant, M.R. The growing interest in Belgian Fantastique, for example, seems to me to owe quite a bit to tracing back Ligotti's influences. I might be quibbling over terms, but I think Weird Fiction has more of a "cult of history" than "obscurity". The logic, plots, and characters are on par with Radcliffe, but I think they're all far more enjoyable. If you haven't read any of the 18th century Gothic writers, I'd recommend starting with Lewis, Waldpole, Reeve, Brown, etc. I haven't read enough about her to know if she explicitly plagiarized other authors, but her descriptions were infamously based off of contemporary travelogues, and it gives her writing the cut and paste character you'd expect from plagiarism. who develop setting and atmosphere through detailed descriptions of natural landscapes, architecture, technology etc., but Radcliffe doesn't have the knowledge and sense of phrasing or pacing to pull it off. I love the prose of authors like Tolkien, Lovecraft, Melville, Hardy etc. ![]() I read a really beautiful excerpt of her writing once. I hate the idea of Scooby Doo endings but if the castles are still real, I can make do. The landscapes aspect definitely appeals, setting is one of the most important things for me. If you think that the only thing separating Scooby Doo from immortal greatness is more fainting, sentimental romance, use of the word "sublime", and slowing the plot to a glacial crawl in order to praise sublime French and Italian landscapes, then Ann Radcliff is definitely the way to go.
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