Yet more Gothic gossip.

A thread for any odds and ends that we think might be of interest to the group.

Confirming THIS is the thread to use. ;)

This is more trivia than gossip.

There's a Facebook page "In Search of Pagan Hollywood". It's connected to a book, or has rather has been connected to a book while the book was being written. It's still not published, to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, to celebrate its five-year anniversary the owner/member created a playlist or mixtape of connected tracks (some very loosely - European tangos that create a fitting mood - as far as the Facebook page owner and author is concerned - and who's to argue?)

One of these tracks was a short spoken word piece by "Brother Theodore" (Theodore Gottlieb; November 11, 1906 – April 5, 2001). Someone I knew nothing about until recently, when the magic of the YouTube algorithm delivered a clip of him and Jerry Lewis on an old talk show, not getting along. I still don't know very much about him. But my ears pricked up when he introduced the piece as "a Chinese fairy tale as it was told to me some time ago by my good friend the writer, Clark Ashton Smith." He then tells paraphrased version of CAS's 1930 story "The Willow Landscape".

Did he really become acquainted with CAS? If he was how did they meet? If he didn't really know him, how did he come to know about him? I might be barking up the wrong tree but they did have at least one mutual acquaintance, and that was Harlan Ellison who is an interviewee in the CAS documentary The Emperor of Dreams and also one about Theodore (clips are on YouTube) entitled To My Great Chagrin.

Here's the track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVEka517Wo&list=OLAK5uy_neAoKIwKgcpvtJ39i9A...

Edited for typos

That was nice to hear.

Are you sure it's an original Smith story? I know it for certain and I don't think I've read any CAS. I think it is legit Chinese folklore (longing man enters a miniature fairy tale landscape, lives happily ever after).

I'm not familiar with either of the two (ETA: beyond knowing "of" CAS) so can't tell why they couldn't have met! Their dates seem to overlap sufficiently, at least. Tell more? Was either a walled-in hermit? :)

>4 LolaWalser:

The original version - or CAS's retelling, if that's what it is - is collected in The Door to Saturn, volume 2 of the collected fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith. The series editors, Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, make no mention of this being an old folk tale in their story note. Of course, Chinese folklore may not be within their sphere of expertise!

Now I've looked, I see that they do mention Theodore's retelling. The story (which CAS had originally only managed to sell to The Philippine Magazine) has this "singular distinction" of being selected for performance "by the monologist". But it was a complete surprise when I heard it.

As to why they couldn't have met, I suppose I was thinking about CAS's situation, being isolated in rural California (looking after his elderly parents for much of his life,and never having money to travel). I don't know that he ever left California but by the end of his life he had fans making the journey to visit him (some from as far afield as Japan!).

I had in mind that Theodore was based on the East Coast but looking back at his Wikipedia entry he was in California in the late '40s. Maybe they did become personally acquainted but I don't recall reading about it.

I'll keep in mind to try to find this story--a casual search brings up way too many links to digest. It's not impossible that I've come across the CAS story somewhere BUT I'm sure I've read far more Chinese (and Japanese) tales since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Plus I'm convinced the Chinese did everything first and best anyway. :)

I want to note Max von Sydow's death, but with a different role and scene than what inevitably comes to mind...

"Meaningless cadaver" (The Magician, 1958)

Interesting choice ...

Your post and this context--this group, I mean--has reminded me that I have The Hour of the Wolf around here somewhere, still unseen. Perhaps I'll hunt it out this evening to mark his passing.

How's it going, Paul? Have you battened the hatches?

A colleague picked me up at four this morning to close the last of our operations down. I put my last cell lines into deep sleep... We dropped off our stash of masks and other protective gear with the medics--it's not as bad as in the US but shortages are looming.

Now I'm depressed and don't know what to do.

I used to joke about hoarding ten thousand+ of books in case of a disaster. Damn. Here we are.

>10 LolaWalser:

Having serious problems battening down hatches at the moment.

First having to make repeated visits to crowded supermarkets looking for simple things like a loaf of bread or half a dozen eggs.

Second I have a sinus infection dating back to a nasty head-cold I had over New Year. Took it to the doc; he thought it was a sinus infection, too; BUT ... it involves a mild sore throat, and if you have a sore throat for a couple of months it's routine that they send you to see a specialist--'fast-track cancer something or other'. Specialist said my sore throat down to sinus infection and polyps BUT ... spotted a slight swelling on the base of my tongue which he said was almost certainly healthy tissue but felt I should have a biopsy to be certain. The result has been hours and hours hanging around the local hospital.

Oh well, all over for the time being--all I have to worry about in the near future is finding food ...

Oh no, what bad luck. I hope at least the results were reassuring.

Are deliveries not an option? Do you have anyone nearby to lend a helping hand and bring you groceries? If not, maybe a contact number for people volunteering to do so? Would be best if you could stay home and not go out at all.

>11 alaudacorax:
That all sounds pretty grim. Hope things are okay, and the shops get back to normal. We're told it's panic buying and hoarding, and the supply chain is holding up. Which I hope is true (the second part, that is.

>12 LolaWalser:, >13 housefulofpaper:

Having a crisis of conscience about deliveries at the moment. I'm pretty healthy and robust and active and I really don't want to put more pressure on the system when so many are more vulnerable than I. On the other hand, I'd like to register with my local supermarket as 'elderly' (one of the categories for delivery here and I'm seventy) just in case I actually contract the thing. Easier said than done, though. You have to phone, and either the line is busy, or, believe it or not, I get the message, "The telephone network is busy at the moment. Please try again later." Oh well ...

As for my personal health, I'm pretty sure, as were the consultants, that there's nothing wrong with me other than the sinus infection. I think they are 'belt and bracers' cautious in fear of 'no win, no fee' lawyers. Thanks for your concern, though.

Funny thing about the current situation: I usually think of myself as a pretty solitary individual, these days, but this 'social distancing' has made me realise that I normally find myself in conversation with people practically every day. I suppose it's natural when someone comes across me out in fields and woodland with a pair of binoculars, but I suppose I have that kind of face--complete strangers will strike up conversations in quite busy places in town. Puts politeness and caution at war with each other.

Just read a facebook post by someone who was pulled over by police on the way to work, asked if he was a 'key worker' to be out on the road. Big Brother is watching us! Hope they didn't shove their face in the window like they usually do ...

>14 alaudacorax:

Please be cautious, Paul, the more one ventures about, the more chances of contagion there are--and if you get it, unfortunately you could both suffer yourself and spread it around unawares. Phones are crazy at the moment but I'd keep at it until you manage to get on a list and please don't think of it as an imposition. I've volunteered to pick up groceries etc. for some in my building--we WANT to do this, and not just to help individuals but all of us.

I thought I had successfully posted these pictures already, but I can't see them. Apologies if Librarything is only playing up for me, and you see a double post.

Here are a couple of photos of the best room in my house (it has a chair now!). Even with a new Billy bookcase, I still have to store stuff in boxes here, which spoils the effect a bit. More than a bit.

Excellent comfy chair!

Pictures of my apartment would scare horses. This is from a few years ago, just a random corner:



As you can see (maybe) the books have eaten the sofa.

It's worse now.

The trouble is, the one you want is always behind or beneath. I've got DVDs in (I think it's) five of those big, plastic storage boxes you get in office supplies shops, stacked up in one pile in the spare room. NHS were saying that older people need to be getting more 'load-bearing' exercise. Well, that's mine--I'm shifting those boxes on a regular basis--the one I want ALWAYS seems to be in the bottom box ...

>18 LolaWalser:
And the chair was free! It was my brother's but he and wife with redecorate more than I do, so it had to find a new home.

Your picture manages to make mine look quite minimalist!

>19 alaudacorax:
I started a campaign of photographing the contents of all my stacked boxes. The plan is, at least I'll know what room to look in...

>20 housefulofpaper:

Hand-me-down furniture is the best. (The only good thing about being poor in Manhattan's richest neighbourhood was the ability to gather their fabulous rejects. There was a Salvation Army shop regularly visited even by the better off because it was known as the spot where Ladies Who Lunch unloaded their last season's trinkets--shoes to pianos and everything in-between.)

>19 alaudacorax:

I know exactly whereof you speak. It's a slow and lazy day when I don't shift at least half my weight in books...

Thank you all for sharing pics of your libraries, now mine feels sparse. I hope you all are safe, reading great Literature, and are able to self-isolate with at least the comforts of those you can share with, whether via phone, emails, or good 'ole fashioned letter-writing.

>22 benbrainard8:

Love the profile pic. Palais Garnier, right? AKA the opera with the phantom, so good, sound, Gothic credentials.

Also, hat off to someone with the fortitude to enter 566 books in twenty-four hours!

ETA - Forgot to say - welcome to the group!

Thank you so much, I spent half day yesterday just perusing what other folks are reading, while loading my book data, then realized I could also load my DVDs and music ,too.

Yes , Palais Garnier, from a much too busy, late June-early July 2019, 11-day trip...to London, Oxford, Paris, and The Versailles.

I've also been enjoying reading the various Gothic threads, and especially found some extrapolating about what constitutes Gothic to be fascinating---- Literature, music, art, film...

During this rather solemn time (I work in hospital care/research), I just re-read Camus' The Plague, and realized our time is indeed precious and it should be lived fully.

And nothing is more fulfilling to me right now than taking a nice walk, reading, and enjoying some coffee time. Please enjoy these leisure movements while talking and listening to those like-minded folks. It's a great joy indeed!

Regards from the US Pacific NW.

Hi, Ben, nice to see new faces. Wishing you all the luck and fortitude in dealing with the pandemic firsthand.

Hello from me too, and echoing Lola's wishes.

Thank you both very much.
Sorry, this may seem off topic because I've read it another (recent) thread, but what, in your opinions, are the best Jean Rollin films to get on Blu-Ray/DVD?

From among Rollin vampiire films? I liked "Fascination", and would like films that have similar visuals, especially the architecture and atmosphere.

>27 benbrainard8:

Quickly, off the top of my head:
Shiver of the Vampires (a bit atypical, but the most psychedelic one)
The Iron Rose (again atypical, but very spare and feels like it belongs to a Northern French/Netherlands/Belgium melancholy fantasy tradition - I'm thinking of a vague air that ties together, for example, Bruges-la-Morte and Harry Kumel's Daughters of Darkness and the stories of Michel de Ghelderode.
Lips of Blood
Fascination

>28 benbrainard8:

I hadn't seen your last post; there's nothing else quite like Fascination but I'd still go for the other three I mentioned.

Thank you very much, I'll review all of these and will pick at least two of them. I'm already planning on purchasing Fascination, so figure at least couple more will compliment.

>17 housefulofpaper: & 18

Your photographs both delight me and terrify me. They delight me in a "I am not alone" way, but terrify me because they are so much neater than my piles of books.

This is the top of my filing cabinet.

>27 benbrainard8:

I agree with Andrew's suggestions but would also add The escapees and Night of the Hunted (not vampires, but like Fascination feature pairs of women as central characters) and Grapes of Death--dumb-sounding title but just about the only poetic "zombie" film I have seen, and also (in my estimation) the scariest, perhaps the only truly scary Rollin film.

But, seeing as you're in the States, you may be able to check out a baker's dozen of Rollin films for free--assuming you have a public library card. The American streaming company Kanopy gives public library users in the US and Canada free access to some monthly number of programmes (8 in Canada), and currently they are offering all of these Rollin movies:

The Shiver of the Vampires; Lips of Blood; The Living Dead Girl; Requiem for a vampire; Demoniacs; The Rape of a vampire; Grapes of Death; The Escapees; Two Orphan Vampires; Night of the Hunted; The Iron Rose; Dracula's Fiancée; Killing Car (speaking of atypical, this might be it).

Incidentally, speaking of complementary to Fascination, there's a non-Rollin movie you might want to check out too if you don't know it already, José Ramón Larraz's Vampyres (1974). It too has a couple of female vampires and a setting of a grand manor.

>32 pgmcc:

For some reason I recall that Charles-Valentin Alkan reputedly died under an avalanche of badly housed books. ;)

Is that the guy who foretold the date of his own death, locked himself into his library to be safe, and was then crushed to death by a falling bookcase.

There are times when I feel that could be my fate.

What a way to go? I can imagine worse.

Thank you very much for the additional suggestions, vey helpful and informative.

I've seen The Night of the Hunted (1980) and Vampyres (1974). Sigh, now I've got to decide among all of these which three-four of these films to purchase. I admit my collection of DVDs/Blu Ray are woefully lacking in Horror-Genre, unless you count Altered States (1980), and Jacob's Ladder (1990) as Horror films. My only definite is The Shining (1980), but the literary version of it is far better than it's film counter-part.

So it looks like I've got some online shopping to do. It was fortunate, for some reason I could stream all of the Rollin films on Netflix, this was about 5-6 years ago and I did watch as many as I could.

Another film that I'm waiting to purchase, and I don't even know how to categorize it, is Lars von Trier Melancholia (2011), which I saw two-three times in the theater. It has a wonderful soundtrack, too.

I agree, if you can choose death by book shelves, that's not a bad way to go. And if you're lucky, something you really like in your collection might open up and you can peruse it as you lay there...not bad.

Best to you all.

After reviewing them all, these are the ones I've chosen to purchase within next month-two: Night Of The Hunted, Fascination, The Iron Rose, Vampyres, & The Rape of the Vampire.

>32 pgmcc:
So much neater? I'm not sure "overflowing the available shelving by a huge margin and piled up in boxes from the loft to under the stairs" really deserves such praise!

36>
Another film that you might be interested in, Messiah of Evil. It's more Lovecraft-inflected in content , and early-70's Movie Brat in direction and storytelling style, than in any way Rollinesque. Nevertheless I think of it as having some kind of kinship, a "family resemblance". It used to be very obscure, I got my French DVD through Amazon Marketplace a few years ago, but good digital copies seem to be around now.

I just quickly reviewed this "Messiah of Evil": "A small California village is attacked by zombies in this 1974 thriller", but I've got to admit, I'm so afraid of anything with zombies that I won't watch anything with them. Can't explain it... cannot even get through a relatively tame movie like "World War Z" , my retired boss said, "just pretend it's a cartoon" but I had to stop watching it after the first portion of movie.

Odd that vampires and lycans/werewolves don't bother me, but am completely terrified of anything resembling a zombie (?);

I love looking at the photos of all (your) books, bookshelves, and room decor. Best item I've got in my small reading den is a small wooden sign that says "Go Away, I'm Reading". Nothing more decorative than this...sigh.

Guess my only questions are---do you have time to read all the books or have you finished reading most of them? Do you donate them ever? Culling of the books? And how to categorize them?

Admit that I've never considered a Nook or Kindle, something about having the book in a form that is tangible--the smell of the pages, old bindings, the feel of pages when you turn them...

>38 benbrainard8: - ... do you have time to read all the books or have you finished reading most of them? Do you donate them ever? Culling of the books?

Aaargh!!! Perennial and contentious questions on LT. If you hunt around you'll find yards, metres, furlongs--miles, probably--of threads on those topics. Culling of books especially: for some people ... well, clubbing baby seals has nothing on it ...

>39 alaudacorax: Hear! Hear!

The use of the "c" word in relation to books may require reporting The Society for the Protection of Books.

The Magical Society for the Protection of Books, I might add.

If someone, say a well-meaning spouse, gives you a book that you despise, say, "The Modern Gentleman: A Guide to Essential Manners, Savvy and Vice" .

At first, I placed it under "Horror genre". The I unceremoniously donated it. I guess a good round of donating helps now and again. For books like the one above, anything by Anne Geddes, etc.

But then there are the well-meaning attempts, like when I got The Paris Review online, which has been a complete disaster for me, sigh. I can't even remember where I stash the passwords.

>38 benbrainard8:
Sorry it's taken me a while to respond.
Actually, I understand your aversion to zombies I shared it for along time. They're still a long way from my favourite monster. But between getting into modern horror writing at the height of the zombie boom (as I remember it, the first "Best New Horror" I bought was virtually all zombie stories, with the summary of the year in publishing documenting just loads and loads of zombie novels) and things like zombie walks (in which my brother was a keen participant for a few years) I became fairly well acclimatised.

(it's interesting, though, that the modern cinematic zombie is closer to the folkloric European vampire than the figure from Haitian folklore.)

For what it's worth, the Messiah of Evil zombies are more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers "pod people" than animated corpses.

Thanks for the kind words about my books and the house. I was going to say the camera angle was selective but I did get in some of the cardboard boxes spoiling the effect...

Onto your questions..
I've read about half my books - this includes all the paperbacks hidden away in yet more boxes, in the loft, in the space under the stairs...part of my feels guilty about it but on balance it's good to know I won't run out of new books to read, and/or when the moment is right, an author or particular book will be there.

Culling...yes. Not in any number, although I probably am already past the point where I should have a one-in-one-out policy (I mentioned the loft - those joists are not supposed to be load-bearing. A bare handful of old non-fiction paparbacks and a book about shipwrecks and treasure will be going to the charity shop when the lockdown is over. But I also have some books that have been attacked by mould. A neigbour's tree roots blocked the downpipe at the front of my house and the wall become saturated with rainwater without my noticing. Current situation is, pipe unblocked, brickwork repointed, still letting the wall dry out, second dehumidifier purchased, increased vigilance with dusting and checking for damp spots (microclimates), keeping an eye on some books, and the worst effected quarantined in a box waiting to see what happens. They may have to be destroyed.

Categorising..I do try. It's a sort of approximation of the Dewey library system, but it runs in 3 distinct bands because I had the built-in downstairs shelves made with a small shelf at the top and a larger ones at the bottom - so I don't kill myself by dropping a large book on my head. I'll try to attach a picture (this will be, as it were, the start of the library. All the fiction is in the "continuation" of it upstairs).

>42 housefulofpaper:



So the first three rows in the picture from top left are - immediately deviating from Dewey - periodicals (2 bound volumes of The Strand Magazine that my sister found many years ago, and then small press/weird fiction related volumes), general reference, books about books, THEN we get back on track with Philosophy, Religion, Myth and Folklore, Languages, Science and Technology, Arts, and one volume of history before running out of space. The bottom two shelves repeat the classification. I class facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts etc. as "books about books". These days, I don't think I can afford to add to their number, sadly. The shelf with what looks to be wasted space is where the damp and mould appeared just below some of my most prized books - thankfully they're all ok.

Originally the top shelf was paperbacks but over time they've nearly all been squeezed out by volumes that just about fit up there - Everyman Library size and so on - to maximise the use of space.

Hello and thank you for a great reply. I think I'll break up my answer and f/u, because I was actually reviewing your book shelves yesterday (outstanding collections!).

Well, first to zombies. I think my complete aversion to them might be a combination of things. I do remember reading some books that were scary when I was a teen. Though at time I could take Horror books as a genre, because at same time, I was reading "Dracula", "The Exorcist", and "The Shining", I think the one or two books that I read that had zombies frightened me the most.

Then to combine that with my first job/career, away from home....as a combat medical and Corpsman in the Navy/Marines, I guess I saw too many things as a EMT. Seeing those type of things probably caused me to see the human body in a different way than how many people do. I guess the closest thing I can think of in real-world, is how Cronenberg films are often filmed via his lens as a science-driven director/film-maker. So whenever I've seen films that zombies has protagonists. they frighten me more than they ought to. My retired boss tried to convince me that if I saw "World War Z" but imagine that instead of zombies, I could view it as a pandemic, then perhaps it wouldn't' scare me as much. So I tried watching it, only to completely be in panic during certain scenes...

It's interesting to me that vampires. ghosts. ghouls, Lycans/werewolves, & other types/genres don't have make me frightened. I actually like vampires (vampyres) the most. But perhaps my exposure to severe accidents. incidents. etc. made me particularly afraid of zombies. Or maybe that plus my childhood exposure to them in Literature.

Well, some-day I'll perhaps get over that...it's a bit bothersome.

On a much lighter note, I remember seeing the re-make of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and thoroughly enjoying it!

I'll reply about your library, sorting & classification methods after reviewing your posts and photos some more. I was deeply impressed by the thoroughness of your collection, esp. the depth of it, the Edgar Allen Poe, the Weird Tales collections, etc., etc.).

To your classification and storage systems--

I can see where you'd need these for a collection that large. Fortunately or unfortunately, my collection is little less than 500 books total, and I don't have entire categories (not many historic, religious), while a few categories I've only small amounts of. I keep Art and Architecture books separate from my primary collection, only because those two categories tend to have books that are of large(er) size.

I noticed you've got Folio and I've just had to read up on that. Is a Folio edition only available in England/UK? I'm assuming that they're also in the US, but I've never seen them. Though I'd imagine that they're available here online.

Quite sorry about what happened with the water leakage. I've been great paranoid about the condition of my books, keeping them away from sunlight as much as possible, keeping the two large bookshelves that I've got off the walls.

I think you've built your collection for over an extended period of time and also (just my educated guessing here) that you've lived in the same house for longer (?) time-period. I've been moving a lot through out my life, this is my 26th place, where I'm currently at. So I've always had to purge books throughout my life as I've moved, especially between countries which has occurred twice so far.

But I've got to admit, if costs, space, place, and time were no object---your collection would be one to strive for! I do hope that the ones damaged by water damage can recover. I've only damaged one book in that manner, when I read "The Mummy", by Anne Rice, at a seashore in Japan. To this day, it appears different, so I'm afraid that this wouldn't be good news... perhaps your books will come out better off though. Do you use a dehumidifier in the rooms, too?

Our NW weather is wet but it's not very humid. If I'd remained in Japan, then I'm sure my collection would be smaller, books don't tend to do very well there because of the high humidity.

Ah...I see what you're doing for your classification(s). Because my collection is so small, I can generally get by just keeping a few subsets. I try to keep them separate by genre, and a few of the authors that we've got the most of get their own shelves. We've got nearly all the Murakami, Haruki books, in both in Japanese and in English so e gets nearly an entire shelf to himself.

And when I was reviewing your photos of your books, some of them have stands? Or are those for taking photos of them only?

Thanks so much, sorry I'm bit too wordy here...

I've posted a photo of my (very) small collection & reading space---you'll see the room itself isn't very adorned, is rather plain.

>46 benbrainard8:
You do have the better of me by owning a proper desk. I've been home-working with an ironing board as an improvised desk for the past month (it does, though, have one advantage - its adjustable height. Some heights may leave no room for your knees, however!)

>45 benbrainard8:
It's mould that attacked my books, rather than their suffering direct water damage. That's why I think they may be beyond recovery. The guidance online (and here) seems contradictory. Some sources say the mould can be simply brushed off, others tell you to remove the affected items before the rest of the collection falls victim too.

Coated art paper, and the insides of dust jackets, have fared the worst. The mould has grown into it, it isn't just sitting on top of the paper.

What I've learned recently is the importance of air circulation (my house, like most British homes, does't have air conditioning) and that sometimes, despite its beaching properties, sunlight can be your friend. I've been lucky with sunny days and unusually low relative humidity for the past month and this has helped with the remedial work (is that the right term?) but it's turned wet today - and predicted to stay that way for the next couple of weeks.

I assume you're looking at the individual cover pictures in my catalog(ue). Most of those images are from Amazon or other Librarythingers. When I have taken my own picture the book is just laid down on a cushion and snapped with my phone.

Folio books should be available worldwide, they're certainly available in the US. for a very long time they operated a membership model but now you can simply order from their website, or look at the secondhand market. They started in 1947 so there is a lot of stock out there. Horror, the weird, fantastique has been a relatively small part of their list. It's ramped up a bit in the last 10 years, which is clearly a commercial decision to court the American market - muscling in on Easton Press.

By the way, take a look at the "How do you display your books" thread at the Folio Society Devotees group, for a collection, and library, that knocks mine into a cocked hat!

I did look at your photo gallery and but hadn't realised that you'd lived in Japan. I assumed you'd been on holiday there - I must have connected it with your comment about your trip to Oxford, London and Paris. My neighbours lived there for some time and really loved it. I would find the climate extremely punishing, I think (also, I don't have the skills or qualifications to get work there).

Actually, I started my collection (in the sense of never throwing anything away, not in the sense - which still doesn't apply to me - of building a coherent/thematic collection well before I bought this house. I've been here for 20 years and only moved once before that (my parents moved house when I was 18). Moving the collection now, would be a traumatic nightmare.

I've been scrolling up to check your posts, and replying in reverse order, I see. I can entirely understand your aversion to zombies. I'm hesitant about saying anything further, after what you've written there. I suppose they present human mortality and physical frailty (or better, vulnerability) in a way the other classic monsters do not - if anything they can promise a kind of non-Christian defeat of death.

Thank you, I've begun looking the Folio Society US web-site. They have a fairly expansive collections, so I've got many items to peruse.

Yes, mould (mold) would be quite a serious problem. I've been reviewing treatments online as I'm sure you've already done. Yes, some may be beyond recovery unfortunately. But I hope you can save those that you most treasure. If you've space, it might be best to remove the ones to another location, though I'm not certain that they'd contaminate your other books. When I said de-humidifiers above, I meant to do you keep them throughout your house? Does it get very humid where you live?

We here in Pacific NW of US are fortunate in that, though rainy, it's really fairly dry in our weather throughout the year. Our homes too, have little air conditioning, only central heating for winter-times, but no air conditioning for Spring/Summer. Like where you live, mould (mold) can be issues if our homes are not ventilated well though, so I've heard. We'll open various windows and keep two-three electric de-humidifiers going during Spring/Summer months. So far, no problems for my items or furniture. But I'm really glad you wrote about your experience, it's given me something to ponder, perhaps to prepare for. One of my co-workers once mentioned that they do make "water detection alarms & sensors" that can be placed for detection of water damage, but that's not the same as mould (mold) prevention.

I've been in the house I currently live in since Year 2005, so that's about 14-year period. It's taken me that long just to acquire the books, CDs, & DVDs/Blu-rays that I've got now. Your collection would be difficult to move, but if you ever happened to relocate, heh....you'd have quite a chore.

Ahh...zombie-fear affliction. Yes, you're correct a "non-Christian defeat of death". That's putting it very nicely. You'd think I'd be more afraid of vampires (vampyres), but the sanguinary appearance(s) of our undead friends have never bothered me. I find them to be the ultimate (early) Romantics--- in some manner of speaking----Gothic and romanticist, in appearance, manner: the traits we both admire and fear in them, yes?

I was reading some other really interesting post(s)------mentioning green apples, being called "arsenic apples" & German actor Hans Walter Conrad Veidt , who I honestly profess...to having never heard of. What films should I watch that he's in? Where would, or should I start? Hm...I see that he's in "Casablanca" so since I've got that on Blu-Ray, perhaps that's a start. But Lola Walser, and others, have a incredible threads/paragraphs on this actor, and now I feel bad and that I should know his work (s).

Yes, I've lived in Japan, twice, and have only visited London, Oxford, Paris, & The Versailles, just this past Year 2019 and only for 11-day period, too short.

RE Japanese literature----a favorite writer is Tarō Hirai, known as Edogawa Rampo, who, as you might know, took his name moniker from the Japanese Katakana pronunciation of Edgar Allen Poe. I especially like the book, "Japanese tales of Mystery & Imagination" (1956), which has some great stories, "The human Chair" and "Caterpillar", and others.

Ironing board as a desk. I've got admit, that's a new one on me. But at least you can adjust it, move it around, and it wouldn't take up too much space. With our new "stay-at-home" policies, our desk has now been taken over as a computer work-station.

Thank you so much, I'll be perusing and review a lot of the threads here.

You all may want to box my ears, but in run thread people mentioned Gothic music. I love modern Gothic music----we're talking Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, etc., etc. This is music between 1970-current. Would it be presumptuous of me to give a "best of/recommended list" of songs? At least in that thread or a new one? Or am I tempting the fates on even thinking about that?

Best and good health.

Off-topic, but I just stumbled across this news item on YouTube. Appearances by John Baxter and Martin Stone.

Thank you, now I've got some to review this weekend. I just finished reading "Encounter" by Milan Kundera, and it was a bit too heady for me, or I'm just to much of a youngster to "get it"....

>48 benbrainard8: - ... Conrad Veidt , who I honestly profess...to having never heard of. What films should I watch that he's in?

Just off the top of my head, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has to be a must-see.

Thank you, I think I'll stream "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "The Man who Laughs", too. I hope that they're available for streaming.

>52 benbrainard8:

As it happens, Cult Cinema Classics uploaded a good copy of the restored version on YT only yesterday:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Fantasy, Horror, Mystery Silent Film

You'll find subtitles under Settings if you want them.

>49 housefulofpaper:

Hey, how about posting the link??
Sorry, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6wtsEl_t3A

>54 housefulofpaper:

I meant to ask but got distracted writing a post!

That's the Baxter of the A pound of paper and the Ken Russell book, I see--I shall watch this with my tea.

There are some more items on YouTube that might be of interest. Well, once you look at one story about book collecting you start to get them recommended of course, but Ray Russell of Tartarus Presss has a Youtube channel (he's R. B. Russell professionally, I suppose to avoid confusing him with the writer of Mr Sardonicus). A few years ago he put up some longish interviews with people such as Mark Valentine and Reggie Oliver. There wasn't much for a long time, but during the current lockdown he's posted some things where we's gone through his collections of books by Arthur Machen, Sarban, and Robert Aickman.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/user/EustonPiretRussell

@benbrainard8 you asked about dehumidifiers. I've got two now and here they are.They're temporarily in one room. I think the shelves are as tidy as I can get them now, until I can redecorate to repair the water damage to the wall. I had a sudden inspiration of placing shelving on wheels in front of the fireplace, where all those boxes are now. Have to investigate that when the lockdown is over...

I would appreciate a list of songs! You may have noticed we batted the idea around a few years ago and we occasionally return to it. Goth as in Bauhaus, Siouxsie etc, as a category of Romantic music, including operas and ballets on Gothic themes, music of the 12th Century even, the time period of Gothic architecture.



This is off-topic, it's not Gothic, but it's pretty melancholy for book lovers. It's the site of what used to be one of the biggest paperback book printers in the UK, Cox & Wyman. Photographed this afternoon.



Is this Gothic? Probably not, but there's not much that is, within walking distance, unless I head into town and the Abbey ruins.

Thank you very much, Lola, I'll look this up and use the link from below, too.

housefulofpaper,

Yes, those are the type of dehumidifiers that I'd in mind. We have similar type, only difference is that ours are a little flat in configuration/design.

Well, I think the general state of Literature, at least in regards to the quality of what we can generally find, is rather melancholy. But at least if someone is persistent, they can generally find what they're looking for, can't they?

Yes, that well is definitely Gothic, I think so. Even the design of the brickwork and the writing font...very interesting.

Well, let's see. About my favourite Goth music. I'd probably start with a few keys songs, from particular albums. Later, when you find them actually read the lyrics. Tell me if I'm close, on mark, or way, way off. I'm open!

Bauhaus--though many people say "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is the obvious choice, I fervently disagree. Instead, listen to the songs 1) MASK (from self titled album) 2) SPIRIT (from any of their compilations or live version 3) STIGMATA MARTYR


Siouxsie and the Banshees: 1) SPELLBOUND (from "Juju") 2) LULLABY (from "Tinderbox" 3) 92 DEGREES (from "Tinderbox")

The Cure--- 1) One Hundred Years, A Strange Day, and One Hundred Years, all from the "Pornography" album/CD; 2) LAMENT, from any of their compilation albums 3) TWILIGHT GARDEN (it might sound little Romantic, but I find it to be very sad, too, and melancholic 4) many of the songs from their albums "Faith" and "Seventeen Seconds", but look for DROWNING MAN on "Faith" album/CD

The Sisters of Mercy , the entire "Floodland" album, but definitely song COLOURS, FLOOD I, FLOOD II, and DRIVEN LIKE THE SNOW; many people also say the must haves are also MARIAN and ALICE (first independent EP)

Joy Division/New Order---entire album "CLOSER" from Joy Division but with a nod to song called THE ETERNAL;
Many people might not think of New Order as Goth, but listen to the album, "MOVEMENT", and especially the songs THE HIM & TRUTH; this is one of the most melancholic albums and if you cannot hear Bernard Sumner channeling Ian Curtis...

Hmm....these should definitely get you started. I've got a lot, lot, lots more. But let's start here, ok? With all of these song, I would definitely read the lyrics, and listen to the songs on headphones.

Tell me what you think----agree? disagree? No comments, which is fine, too, as we're all friends here.

Thank you all so much for your helpful suggestions and links, I've got some more homework for this coming week.

Health, wellness, and cheers to you all.

Ben

Sorry, let's amend the two "One Hundred Years", the third song from "Pornography" by the Cure should have been A SHORT TERM EFFECT

>56 housefulofpaper: - Well, once you look at one story about book collecting ...

Yeah, that link you posted in >54 housefulofpaper: resulted in me mislaying about an hour and a half yesterday morning ...

>59 benbrainard8:

I love Siouxsie and have, I think, all their original albums; also lots of Cure and some Joy Division... but it's been years since I listened to them, truth be told, ever since I had to downgrade from a proper listening system to a small CD player. I've wasted years debating on whether to get a new system or a piano--meanwhile the books have taken over...

Have you seen the music thread here, btw? https://www.librarything.com/topic/123430

>56 housefulofpaper:, >54 housefulofpaper:

I wish my shelves were like Valentine's, but I'm afraid the situation is definitely of Sylvain's type, except even he manages far more order within the chaos--his stacks are so much straighter... Although it's a bit of a relief to notice that Valentine too must resort to double shelving here and there...

This makes me want to memorialize some of my more adventurous bookshop (and other places) finds, before the overwhelming advent of internet shopping: "Ah, and this gem, I acquired in two clicks from Booksnstuffgalore.com"

We used to have to trudge for miles through waist-high snow to get to a bookshop, grasshopper!

Thank you for thread, Lola.

We've been using combination, of CDs & blue-tooth speakers with our wireless devices that all have a Spotify family account on them---which is excellent, you can download entire albums, playlists. etc.

What I wouldn't give for a old fashioned book shop/store right now....

>63 benbrainard8:

Although I have good speakers attached to my computer (possibly better than the CD player's) and have no problem enjoying movies via the computer, I have a strange dislike for listening to music the same way, at least for any great length (songs and excerpts on YouTube is okay; whole albums, operas etc. not so).

I'm still slow to take advantage of everything digital access can do these days. I only just discovered I can burn CDs via iTunes!

Want to see some some higgledy-piggledy sf and other pulp, with layers of dust as they'd appear in a honest-to-god secondhand shop, in a badly shot lurching and careening first-ever handheld phone camera video? Of course you do! :)

MY FIRST VIDEO EVER!!!1!

P.S. Observing the long-standing amateur video convention, there are boobs in it.

>67 frahealee:

I'm glad my post was of interest, and you found all those connections. I have to say, I'm very impressed at how quickly you found the information online!

>66 LolaWalser:

Thank you for that!

Inevitably I suppose, I was looking for titles I own or have owned, even in the same edition...did I find one? I've picked up some 1970s Clark Ashton Smith UK paperbacks. I have all his stories newly edited in hardback. I keep thinking I should release these back into the wild, let someone else discover them. I feel like a dragon jealously guarding its hoard, keeping them in a shoebox in the loft!

A couple of photos of the shelves in my loft, as well. The books are double-banked and in comic bags for protection against changes of temperature. I still try to keep them in order, but when there's no room on the shelves, it's like I've crashing off a melting iceberg, they go where they will...!





-

>70 housefulofpaper:

Aw, thank YOU for watching--I ought to apologise for the seasickness no doubt incurred when I pushed the phone into what I hoped would be a "close-up"... as mentioned before, if there is a way to mess up something to do with cameras, I'll find it.

We share at least two CAS paperbacks I see. Of course I want to reach into that picture and de-bag all the goodies pronto. :)

I think I'll experiment some more with "memorializing" my books, at least those I can get to without excavations. There's something about capturing a gaze dynamically, in movement... maybe it feels more like browsing?

All the bookshops here are still closed. I can't believe people think haircuts are more important...

Yay for books, and I'm very happy to see someone protecting their collection(s).

Is that a Doctor Who book, or few that I see? Ok, just throwing this out here, but what do any of you all think of recent Dr. Who? I loved watching the David John Tennant episodes. And I'm almost afraid to ask how many Dr. Who books there are.

Ok, I watched the videos, very nicely done, and don't sweat the close-up issues. My family convinced me to get a "smart-phone" just last year. I was traipsing around with a flip-phone. My now retired boss joked it looked like a Star Trek communicator.

Sigh, if the books stores don't open up soon, I'll have to put in a 2nd or 3rd online book order, when I'd previously vowed only to do with DVDs/Blu Ray----

Haircuts indeed.....

>72 benbrainard8:

I'm an all-around Who fan, I just love the show in toto for its huge heart, unbeatable imagination, and infinite variety. That said, like almost every fan I have special favourites among the Doctors, eras, type of stories etc.

I love the Thirteenth Doctor and her seasons (IMO Rosa is the best Who story of all time--so far). Years ago I belonged to a Who forum where there were many haters of the idea that the Doctor could be a woman, and although I left well before 13, even by then it was becoming clear that even that place, with at least 80% of the membership being old(er) white men, was changing on that opinion, generally speaking.

I'm not sure how many Doctor Who books there are but I'd guess hundreds. I have about 30 so far, of which only about half are entered, and none read--frankly, I'm not sure I'll ever read them but I can't resist picking them up.

There are many stories independent of the televised episodes (i.e. original to the books).

If you're interested in the Doctor Who universe, you may want to explore the audio stories Big Finish has been producing for many years now: https://www.bigfinish.com/

I think they always have some offered for free, if you want to check them out. Mostly they use actors from the show--even some of the older Doctors like Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy are still recording stories for them in their personas as the 4th and the 7th Doctor, and many, many others.

I really like the new Thirteenth Doctor and I've watched all the episodes. You're right on, they're full of wonder, intelligence, and I'm consistently surprised by some of them--such great story writing.

I nearly cried watching "Vincent and the Doctor" is the tenth episode of the fifth series, with Matt Smith.

Agreed, the stories are wonderful, each Doctor brings something new to the table.

I had to use subtitles to understand Peter Capaldi.

I grew up watching the Tom Baker shows.

And some of the stand alone shows are remarkable. I couldn't sleep for nearly a week after watching the "Blink" episodes.

Well, I've got some books, including a nice one, "Doctor Who: Who-ology". I'd guess there are many of them, including spin-offs.

Do you think that they'll keep on the Thirteenth Doctor, or will the stodgy 'ole white guys continue to throw little streamers? They shouldn't, it's time to evolve (little more please!);

>74 benbrainard8:

Well, I've no idea how the current situation with the pandemic might affect production--I think it's possible there'll at least be some delay--but last I heard there was at least one more season with the 13th Doctor to be had (which would make for the now-standard 3 seasons per Doctor).

No clue who they'll cast after Jodie... However, given that white men had been in the role a vastly dominant 13 times (including John Hurt's War Doctor), I think they'll most probably look for the next candidate among black/PoC actors. (Personally I'd be chuffed for a series of adventures with the fabulous Jo Martin, but that's probably too much to ask for from an alternative-universe storyline).

But this is just guessing--I'd be surprised but not shocked if 14 were another white man.

Vincent and the Doctor is a fantastic episode and I'm not shy to admit it brought me to tears back then too. Blink is deservedly one of the most popular stories ever, it's perfect from start to finish. My second-favourite after Rosa, and number 1 until then, is Heaven Sent. Capaldi/12 is my favourite Doctor actually. Before him, it was Tom Baker.

I didn't watch DW as a kid (I grew up in the Near East and television wasn't part of our entertainment, except on VHS) but discovered the show, the Davies/Moffat version, quite by chance about 15 years ago when I was browsing through the sci-fi offers in the library. Then I borrowed some of the "Classic" series and THAT was when I fell in love with it. Tom Baker in particular through some weird alchemy seemed to have re/created the show just so he could star in it--an icon for all time, one of those rare perfect fusions of an actor and a character.

That said, I by no means wish to diminish others' performances, for me the wonder of the show is precisely in its literal multi-facetedness. Even my least liked Doctor, Peter Davison, has some episodes so terrific I prefer them to some other with my fave Doctors.

Basically, if there is any DW to be had, I'm glad.

Sorry, what is "Near East"? Is that a region in UK?

I grew up without TV after age nine but fortunately was able to see Tom Baker playing the role prior to that, late 1970s. I thought he was a great actor, and noticed & enjoyed his quirky persona, too, wasn't he always taking jelly babies out of his long coat pockets?

Was very fortunate to begin watching it 15+ years ago when Davies/Moffat had been writing their episodes. Also watched all the "Torchwood" shows, many of them were well written.

Yes, let's hope that Jodie Whittaker gets at least another season-two. I've only seen little of Jo Martin, but like you, have a feeling we'll be viewing another fellow in the role.

Well, not sure if I'll purchase many books, but I'm always on lookout for a great picture book, so always keeping my eyes peeled.

Just did online purchase of "Vampyres", "Night of the Hunted" , and "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (Knickerbocker Classics)". Will have to wait on the other vampire movies I'd had as they aren't available just yet ("Fascination", "The Iron Rose", and "The Shiver of the Vampires" or "Lips of Blood").

housefulofpaper ---- how deep is the St. Anne well ?

not sure if I'll purchase many books-----Dr. Who books that is !

"Near East" is what Americans call "Middle East". The former usage is older and still common elsewhere, presumably because it refers to a region colonised by Europe.

Good luck with your movie hauls. Years ago I got a Jean Rollin box with three of his vampire movies, as that was best value.

Collecting Target's Doctor Who is addictive. Best not to begin. :)

There are some photos looking into the well, which is dry now. I couldn't find anything recording its depth.

The Doctor Who books in the picture are novelisations of stories from the 1963-1989 original series plus a couple of spin-off books from, I think, 1979. The number of Doctor Who books is definitely in the hundreds by now. There were three novelisations back in the '60s. In the early '70s these were reissued and new novelisations were produced at the rate of about one a month. By the '80s there was a sufficiently large fandom for the publishers to "fill in the gaps" with novelisations of earlier stories, and also to target the fans with hardbacks rather than paperbacks (hardbacks had hitherto been produced for public and school libraries and you didn't see them in shops). There were also non-fiction books aimed at children, and the traditional "annuals" (large but slim volumes in board covers, usually bought or intended as Christmas gifts). From the 20th anniversary onwards there was also a large "coffee table" type book from the publisher of the novelisations. Most of them were written by prolific anthologist (and, we have discovered, hoaxer) Peter Haining.

From 1989 new stories ("The New Adventures") were produced in paperback from Virgin publishing, under licence from the BBC. The tone was more adult than the TV series (or sometimes, adolescent) - in line with the median age of the fandom at that time. At the time of the 1996 TV movie/failed pilot the series moved back to the BBC and they got "reined in" a bit. Original novels continued when the series came back to air in 2005 but there was no explicit continuity with the 1989-2005 novels. Their continuity was already in conflict with the Big Finish audio dramas (commenced 1999) and the licensed comic strip running in Doctor Magazine. We can blame the Time War...

And here have been a huge number of spin-off books since the series came back, of course. The gaps in the original run of novelisations have been filled (Douglas Adams' stories, and two stories by Eric Saward). Some of the new (2005-) stories have been novelised and published in a pastiche of the 1970s paperback format. (I am missing one..I just remembered I lent City of Death to my niece years ago. She's at Uni now..!)

I have had my reservations about the series under Chris Chibnall - not about casting Jodie Whittaker or the other regular cast members, not about the supposed politics of the programme, but his storytelling.

>72 benbrainard8:, et al

Odd coincidence: I'm just about to go to bed and you've reminded my I was watching a DW episode on Netflix several hours ago. Something about a little lad mistakenly swallowing a jewel the Doctor gave him to hold and growing up a superhero. I switched it off to cook a meal and completely forgot to switch it on again. Watched Derek Jarman's The Tempest instead.

I'm in that sleepy state where I can't make up my mind whether to hunt it up and watch the rest of it or go to bed. Should do the latter, it's 1:30 here.

There were some amusing bits in the Jarman, (and Toyah Willcox, always a bonus in my book) but it was a bit short on the Gothic and on Shakespeare. Then, typical of my usual routine, I spent an hour or two failing to find my copy of The Tempest (the book) and an alternative film version I'm sure I own with Michael Hordern as the Prospero. Oh well, another time. Bookcases--must buy as many bookcases as I can find wall for ...

Edited to force touchstone--apparently LT is reluctant to have two touchstones for one title in one post ...

>80 alaudacorax:

There's a Doctor Who script there ... with Prospero as the Doctor and Miranda as the young female companion whose time on the show is up ...

On casting The Doctor ...

If they'd had any gumption, they could have cast an older woman as The Doctor and a susceptible teenage lad as the eye-candy companion ...

O ... kay, I'm sitting here, in the early hours of the morning ... dreaming up episode outlines for Doctor Who. I probably need help of some kind. Best go to bed ... finally!

I'd like the idea of a older Dr. Who woman with a young male side-kick. And Captain Jack Harkness coming back in, every now and again, to really liven it up.

Ok, I've got to admit that there are just too many serializations out there. It's mind boggling.

It was the Otto Penzler/Black Lizard Publishing that save me on a few occasions, when I came across and bought their Black Lizard anthology: "The Big Book of Ghost Stories", and their vampire archives. Without some of the anthology books/series, it'd be really difficult to find literary treasures.

Hoping to find same with the "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (Knickerbocker Classics)". One reader said it took them nearly a year to finish it. But at least it's there!

Ok, someday a intrepid person will find out the depth of the St. Anne well. I wonder if it's safe for someone to actually go down it...that'd be an adventure.

>82 alaudacorax:

I'm not sure older Doctors will work in the foreseeable future. They cast the 50-something Capaldi and the show tanked. As for casting an older woman; well, Jo Martin must be older than Whittaker (I can't find her birth date), at least in her forties, maybe fifties, so, technically, it did happen... (and she got great reception, although that may be easier to achieve for one-off appearances).

When people were doing imaginary castings back on GB, I always liked the idea of Margaret Rutherford as the Doctor.

General question: how about an OT thread for showcasing our treasures? Would you all be interested and willing to share?

What's OT ? Uhm, I don't know if I've any treasures. But am willing to share, if I've indeed got some.

OT= off topic?

Right--although, confusingly, the abbreviation is the same as for "on topic".

Well, I've been tinkering more with videos but progress in developing the skillz is veeeery slow... on the upside, this did stimulate me to dust some and try to make the mess more presentable, if that's the word...

Got it, sure I'm game. I'm still trying to figure out a lot of simple functions within this "posting", as I've never participated in any online group discussions before. E.g. (don't laugh), I still don't know how to do a simple link....

e.g. putting a link to the U-Tube video of the Bauhaus song, "Mask" that I think you'll find interesting, or at least, most definitely, Gothic.

I guess you call it a "hyperlink" (what's so hyper about that though, really?)

>89 benbrainard8:

I have "Mask" on my Vol.1 Bauhaus 1979-1983 CD.

OK, to link from YouTube, find the video you want, click on "Share", then copy the link in the pop-up.

Then paste the link here.

You may want to consult the tips about HTML--scroll up or down to find what you need:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Html_tips#Creating_Links

Responding to all the recent posts...

The well isn't very deep, certainly not record-breaking. The ground is clay and chalk here and there has been mining/extraction in past centuries. In fact a residential street was evacuated for over a year because unrecorded voids or tunnels under the houses were discovered and declared unsafe.

>82 alaudacorax: Surely the resemblance between Margret Rutherford (in Miss Marple mode) and Jon Pertwee's Doctor hadn't escaped your notice?...

I like the Jarman Tempest very much, and Toyah's performance in it. That plot line in >81 alaudacorax: is a bit how Carole Ann Ford was written out in 1964.

I would be happy to contribute to an OT treasures thread. What are people interested in? "Posh" books? Association copies/signed copies (I don't have many of those)? Just dive into a box of paperbacks, possibly still unread, see what's what?

I have started listening (or in some cases revisiting) the suggestions in >59 benbrainard8: and onwards, although I haven't had time for an extended listen so far. I think I will resurrect the gothic music thread for any thoughts I have.

ok, here goes:

https://youtu.be/4a2YH2ZRw2Q

And the lyrics, below:

Mask - Bauhaus

The man of shadows thinks in clay
Dreamed trapped thoughts of suffocation day
He's seen in iron environments
With plastic sweat out of chiselled slits for eyes

From the growth underneath the closed mouth
You'll catch if you listen
Rack-trapped cubist vowels
From a dummy head expression
From a dummy head expression

The transformation is invested
With the mysterious and the shameful
While the thing I am becomes something else
Part character part sensation

The shadow is cast (repeat)

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Daniel Gaston Ash / David Jay / Kevin Haskins / Peter John Murphy
Mask lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

I'd love to see a separate thread on Gothic music, the one thread that Lola has reference above I tried to follow but honestly got lost, there were so many types of music. Perhaps there could be for Goth, post 1970s, for the 'youngsters'; of course one could argue that only Classical music is good enough to deserve the moniker of Goth. That's another discussion/thread.

I'll be curious to see if my link above works, very first attempt so be gentle with me, ok?

Best,

housefulofpaper

Thank you for the information on the well . It surely does sound intriguing. I'd be at loss of what to think if I saw it in-person. Not much difference to me between such places, and, say, churches, graveyards, caves, Temples, and Shrines (in Japan). I once stayed overnight in a Temple in area called Koya-San, in Wakayama Prefecture to the south of Osaka. When I asked others if they would stay in temples overnight, they all said, "no, too scary".

Perhaps we sometime don't know when we should be reverential, reverential and afraid, or maybe should just be afraid (?);

I'm all up for a offering of treasured items, though perhaps you all would have a far larger amount to contribute. But please do! I'm always curious-- if anything. Just tell me if my questions sound bit too simplistic. I'm open.

>92 housefulofpaper:

Surely the resemblance between Margret Rutherford (in Miss Marple mode) and Jon Pertwee's Doctor hadn't escaped your notice?.

Heh--now no one can unsee it! Although I think she was proposed as the alternative to Troughton or Hartnell...

I didn't have any one sort of "treasure" in mind, whatever one cherishes or would like to commemorate, basically. I was taking pictures of my Fu Manchus--not "posh" by any stretch of the imagination...

In fact, it's fair to say I've got enormous amounts of pure JUNK. Still. It makes me happy.

>93 benbrainard8:

Yep, link works, *game voice* SKILL ACQUIRED *zzinnnngggg*

Ben, feel free to start a dedicated thread if there's a special subject you'd like to cover. I think the "Gothic music" thread ranged far and wide because people were exploring the various instances of "Gothicness", real or supposed--but if you'd like to concentrate on one genre, period etc. just go for it.

I can't comment much as my exposure to Goth pop/rock etc. is very haphazard, but I'm always game to listen.

Incidentally, the "man of shadows thinking in clay" reminds me of Rabbi Löw and his Golem.

It's a very atmospheric song/video and yeah, I think fits well within the discussion.

Thank you very much, I will think about this. Hmm....best topic for a thread.

Goth music post 1970s might be a favorite genre to start with.

Now it's been pointed out to me, Jon Pertwee and Margaret Rutherford could be brother and sister ...

Hello frahealee, That's a very interesting set of observations about World War Z. Now , when I've read your notes, especially about it being a description of someone's reaction to having become ill, that brings into an entirely different scope for me. I've heard that there will be a sequel, I'm hoping it'll do the first movie justice.

You'll see in some of my previous post that my aversion to zombies also has grown out of my experiences as a medical Hospital Corpsman in the Navy & Marines. I supposed that one experiences the true horror of treating patients, esp. as a EMT, it's bit more difficult to view zombies. The decay of the body, versus seeing actual bodies that have been maimed, injured (yes, sometime grotesquely). I'm sure that even though my training helped to shield some of this strong reaction, perhaps subconsciously, parts of it took. As I mention above, ironically, the sanguine portions/observations never seemed to have a adverse effect on me.

I've no preferences, as to vampires, Lycans//werewolves, and ghosts, I find all to be really interesting and intriguing. But after having lived in Japan, I do see ghosts in an entirely different way. If I had to choose among the three, vampires are my favorite, especially in Literature & film.

Frankenstein is a wonderful book and I've re-read it over the years---

I remember being foolhardy enough in an advanced Literature class to attempt an analysis, of what I called "Conversations between Creator and Created".

For that , I analyzed, compared:

Blade Runner, the conversation between Roy Batty and Eldon Tyrell, in the Ridley Scott film adaptation of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, conversation between Dr. Frankenstein and creature
Paradise Lost
portions of the original Promethean/Prometheus (theme of tragic poet Aeschylus')

My professor, Dr. William L. Taylor at Seattle University, was bemused that I'd even attempt this---he gave me an A for effort and noted that my grammatical skills, at the time, were wretched. But he saw my enthusiasm.

I'd like to see a film version of the Promethean story...one that is uniquely original, but true to the ancients, but perhaps that's asking too much.

Best to you.

A short while ago, I found myself listening to a reading of De La Mare's 'The Almond Tree'. It was last of five 'Ghost Stories of Walter De La Mare' on BBC Radio 4 Extra. I'm baffled. This is not a ghost story, surely?

>100 alaudacorax:

I know there's a two-volume three-volume set of all De La Mare's short stories and I've seen several selections of his supernatural stories,but does anyone know if a complete collection of his supernatural short stories exists?

ETA - I should say that I've had a search and can't find one.

>100 alaudacorax:
I've just listened to it. It's a bit too subtle and Jamesian for me to be sure that I understood what it's about after just one hearing.

The blurb on the Radio 4 Extra website summarise the story as "A man recalls the love affair he witnessed as a child, and that will influence the rest of his life.", which would suggest a metaphorical haunting. Only that's not what I took away from the story.

I do have a big (31 story) Tartarus Press collection of de la Mare's uncanny (as they've styled it) fiction. That would allow in non-supernatural fiction but in fact "The Almond Tree" isn't included. On the other hand, it doesn't describe itself as a complete collection of uncanny (let alone 'ghost" or "supernatural" fiction. The book's called Strangers and Pilgrims. It was published back in 2007 and is out of print now. There are a handful of copies on Abebooks, but the prices range from high to astronomical.

>102 housefulofpaper:

Yeah--even with the Kindle version of that three-book 'complete' the prices are rather steep (over £30) and 'The Almond Tree' did nothing to give me a taste for his non-supernatural fiction. All I took from it is some poor kid got himself saddled with a really unsatisfactory pair of parents: depressing, and I'd have switched off if I hadn't been waiting for some supernatural element to turn up. On the other hand, he's said to have written a hundred short stories; I'm getting the impression that a substantial portion were supernatural-themed; so I'm a bit reluctant to shell out for editions of only seven or thirteen stories (which are two I've seen).

I've been intending to hunt up his supernatural tales for a long, long time. I was thinking along the lines of getting a cheap, complete Kindle edition and, if I really liked them, buying nice hardbacks later. Not as straightforward as I'd imagined ...

Anyway, I've dipped deep into the wallet and shelled out 99p for sixteen stories. I'll see what I feel after them ...

French students--comment ça va?

Look what I found--a YT channel with classic horror movies dubbed in French--including such gems as the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies--and in fine resolution, it seems. So, assuming it's not geolocked, maybe it will be of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqlPJOorO4ZQPdwT-JKUdNw

Sherlock Holmes, La Femme en Vert

oooh:

La cité des morts

>104 LolaWalser:

Ta. Subscribed.

>106 alaudacorax:

You're most welcome.

I've just made a group for silent movies in general. I know we talked a lot about them here but it doesn't feel right to digress even more from the group's purpose away from the flimsiest excuses about "Gothic" or horror themes. All are welcome:

https://www.librarything.com/groups/thesilentscreen

Hello, I hope that your son is doing ok in his work/service, and isn't being adversely impacted by the COVID-19 situation. I'm sure that he's reached a level of skill and longevity in his field that hopefully he's not having any difficulties with adjusting, PTSD, etc.

I'm actually with you, there's quite a bit of overlap among the various types of literature, film, & music. But suppose that' part of the joy in discovering things, aspects, and learning. I'm always amazed by what I don't and didn't know. Yes, for me, ghost, vampires, & Lycans are welcome. But zombies, well, that'll take me some time. And of course there are some culturally specific scary things that I've run into....when I lived in Japan, I watched the original "Ringu" movie....whew, it's really scary!

Hope you have a enjoyable weekend. Right now I'm reading a large book of the collected/translated works of Arthur Rimbaud, then onto a book that has a large collection of Lovecraft that I've just bought, looking forward to it.

Best.

Ah, that's very good. My younger brother did exactly same thing, using US Army to foot his medical school bills, then was on "inactive" reserve for a 10-year period. He's now a MD in Arizona. So it's a great way to do that. My own son is 16-going 25, he just applied to complete his last two years of high school at a 4-yr college nearby. He's very STEM oriented.

i really like Ray Bradbury. My boss who'd just retired convinced me to read Asimov, too, and suggested "The Foundation Trilogy".

I'd really like to find someone here in LT land who is brave enough to tackle Gothic in Sci-Fi or even "Speculative Sci-Fi"! Anyone out there?! I mean think of some of the really good, scary films out there, whether the original Alien, or more recently "Event Horizon", which I must admit scared me....And I'm sure that there are many older examples.

Cheers.

>110 benbrainard8:

I'd really like to find some out here in LT land who is brave enough to tackle Gothic in Sci-Fi or even "Speculative Sci-Fi"!

Interesting idea. We talked some about sf movies in the film threads here, but not systematically in relation to Gothic themes, just as the films came up. Quatermass (especially the original serials) and "space vampires" as in Bava's Planet of the vampires or Queen of Blood... I'm pretty sure Alien, or at least Giger's monster was discussed a few times in the past...

>110 benbrainard8:

There's plenty of overlap between horror and science fiction, but teasing out the Gothic is going to be a bit more tricky. And, I would say, subjective.

I would second Lola's nomination of Quatermass (the TV serials over the films, - all four of them - with the caveat that only a third of the original serial still exists); Alien, space vampire films, agreed. Event Horizon. The first decade and a half of David Cronenberg's film career. About half of David Lynch's Dune. What about In the Mouth of Madness? It still strikes me as much "Philip K. Dickian" as "Lovecraftian". Choice episodes of The X-Files. Selected Doctor Who stories but particularly 1975-1977. I've pointed this out before, even the original Star Trek ... the first televised episode has a salt vampire disguised as one of Doctor McCoy's old flames.

>110 benbrainard8:

I've seen "Speculative Fiction" used instead of "Science Fiction". I understand Harlan Ellison, for one, preferred it to Science Fiction. The ideating, I think, both to (try to) step away from being treated as a "genre" writer and also to allow fantasy/non-realistic touches - remembering that a large contingent of "SF" fandom want the S to stand for "Science" and the science to be correct.

Is Speculative Sci-Fi different to this? I don't think I'v seem this exact phrase before, but I haven't been keeping up with the changing fashions in SF since cyberpunk.

>112 housefulofpaper:

Heh, your Star Trek mention reminded me of that episode of Blakes 7--I think second of the first season?--with BRIAN BLESSED as the leader of a cult and Vila going, when he saw his mansion, "the architectural style is Early Maniac..." Somehow "early Maniac" definitely applies to many Gothic residences...

Speaking of B7, Servalan would have made a super Queen of the Vamps. Also, actual vampires in B7, the "mutos".

>114 LolaWalser:

It's the third episode, "Cygnus Alpha". I know the first four episodes quite well because they were novelised in an opportunistic paperback from Sphere books and labelled "from the publisher of Star Wars"!

That's the one. The penal colony moon.

I have just the one B7 novel--maybe I'll showcase it with Sapphire & Steel and Space: 1999 paperbacks one of these days...

Ooo, Sapphire & Steel--now there's some food for Gothicky contemplation...

I was devastated at the end of B7. I just could not fathom how they could do that. I could not think of a future with no hope of Blake's Seven returning. I may even have shed a tear.

>117 pgmcc:

But that kamikaze magnificence to the finale... 'twas a brilliant gesture. Actually, wouldn't you say it was pre-figured somehwat by the destruction of The Liberator? After that, anything could happen...

The note I found in the (library) copy of the book on German Expressionist theatre I was reading the last few days:



I left it in for the next biblionaut after marking the date.

>120 LolaWalser:

Love you already, Dani---you've given me a warm feeling with my breakfast---great start to the day. I knew LT would be a better option that the news channel ...

>120 LolaWalser:
That is fantastic.

>119 LolaWalser: Do you think I did not shed a tear for The Liberator too? :-(((

I'm glad y'all enjoyed the note--Dani did well!

Do you think I did not shed a tear for The Liberator too? :-(((

*sniffles* not just you...

Happy to report that a bat is flitting about over my back garden tonight.

>125 housefulofpaper:

...and @housefulofpaper was never heard from again.

But the bat population registered an uptick.

I've just deleted the first few hundred words of this post---convoluted story that really wasn't interesting---but it ended up with me accidentally discovering Horror Theatre Internet Radio (horror-theatre.com).

It's brilliant. This chap in Atlanta has a collection of over 500 hours of 'very old' radio horror shows. I've just been listening to a mad scientist-type play called 'Beware of Tomorrow', apparently from a series called 'The Mysterious Traveller' which had a narrator-figure with a voice that sounds like a cross between Vincent Price and Valentine Dyall.

Anyway, if you can get it I'd recommend it.

>128 alaudacorax:

I wasn't aware of that site, but as these old shows are either out of copyright or in some sort of grey area, I have managed to hear quite a few over the past ten years or so, mostly via podcasts on iTunes. Not The Mysterious Traveler, though.

>129 housefulofpaper:

I discovered that the linking narrator on The Mysterious Traveler (yes, your spelling is the correct one) was Maurice Tarplin, of whom I'd never heard. I was quite convinced for a while it was Vincent Price doing a Valentine Dyall impression. Great voice, though.

>131 alaudacorax:

In fact, The Mysterious Traveler started just three months after Appointment with Fear so I suppose it's possible Tarplin was doing an impression of Dyall. Perhaps he threw in a bit of Vincent Price for good luck, but this was 1943 and Price had not long got started then. Which throws up the fascinating possibility that Price based some of his horror persona on Tarplin's Mysterious Traveller Traveler.

>131 alaudacorax:

I think it's doubtful that Maurice Tarplin heard Valentine Dyall as The Man in Black. The US was far ahead of the UK when it came to popular drama. The BBC tended towards the highbrow, or at least middlebrow, with the focus on one-off plays.

(Background, for anyone (blissfully) unaware of UK broadcasting history - the British Government tried to keep the radio waves free of music and speech entirely for the first couple of decades of the last century, the airwaves only to be used for radio telegraphy (ships' communication etc.). Commercial radio wasn't permitted to compete with the BBC until the early 1970s; hence the "pirate stations broadcasting from ships in international waters, and Radio Luxembourg broadcasting from, well, Luxembourg.)

The format for Appointment with Fear was sold to the BBC by John Dickson Carr as an export version of the US radio series Suspense. This wasn't the first US series with a "horror host". However the host of Suspense was, at least in the early days, named The Man in Black!

Vincent Price's acting career had been going for a while by 1943, His first professional stage appearance was with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in London, in 1934.

However, he did appear on Suspense, but the only credit I could find online was in 1946. Of course he would have been able to hear the earlier shows on broadcast. Maybe he took some inspiration from the original Man in Black?

In an interview, Dyall said he tried to inject an element of regret into his spoken introduction, as if his Man in Black had "done something foolish" in his past.

I hope that doesn't make me look too much of a know-all. I'll come clean on where I got my information from, anyway:

Wikipedia - entries on Vincent Price, Suspense, Radio telegraphy
"A Date with Dyall", BBC Radio 4 Extra (first broadcast Halloween 2015)

>132 housefulofpaper:

I'm always meaning to read more books on the history of cinema, actor's memoirs, and so forth ... and I forget all about radio.

I often forget how important radio was when I was young; and it must have been a much bigger thing in people's lives in the first half of the 20thC when screen was confined to a weekly trip to the cinema. And the US must have so much more history than we do in the UK, and very different.

And you can listen to radio horror in the dark ...

“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGDsYTbMoc

>134 alaudacorax:

Ha, the Moon was actually framed in the window when I clicked the link.

I visited Deadman's Bottom and Evil Combe this week.

Just come back from a week on Dartmoor and I've so been wanting to write the above sentence for this group (being very careful how I worded it), but I really have nothing interesting to say. There seems to be a sad lack of creepy, old legends. Well, Deadman's Bottom is quite interesting given the evidence of prehistoric cremation and burial, and the possibility an unknown dead man was once found there---https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/dead_bottom.htm---but it was pretty unspectacular (so much so that when I got back to my cottage I realised I'd neglected to photograph it for my holiday journal), and 'Evil' is either an old word for a tin-miner's iron pick or an old word for 'little water'.

I really should have just made something up, shouldn't I? I suppose one can't get away with that kind of thing in the days of the internet. Oh well ...

>133 alaudacorax: I'm not so sure I want to listen to horror radio in the dark...

>138 Julie_in_the_Library:

That's half the fun... I imagine.

>137 alaudacorax:

Love those names.

I'm not doing anything remotely Gothicky. Well, maybe the parallel binge-watch of Buffy and Angel in the evenings counts some...

>139 LolaWalser: I moved out of my parents' house and into a condo by myself for the first time five months ago. (I'm a bit of a late bloomer in certain ways. I'll be thirty in January.) I have never in my entire life lived entirely alone before; even when I had no roommate in college, I always had apartment-mates. I think it'll be a little while before I'm ready for horror in the dark, given the circumstances. Maybe if I invite a friend over to stay...That said, I do see the appeal.

>140 Julie_in_the_Library:

Not to worry, not only do plenty of people in their thirties and forties still live with their parents, it would seem that's a growing trend.

I'm only a qualified horror fan myself... anything "realistically" scary I'd probably avoid altogether or, as with most of modern horror, take in on a brightly-lit morning.

Although someone once theorised to me about this along the lines that the really fervent fans of horror, gore etc. are the ones most deeply traumatised by horror and therefore need strong stuff to exorcise their fears.

I'm back in the UK after a week in France - the Vosges and a day trip to Strasbourg, again. There wasn't really anything Gothic about my trip either. Strasbourg presented a friendly face of good food and a love of comic books (the Francophone Bandes dessinées (BD)), while the grapes were being harvested in the vineyards around Barr. There may have been a story involving Druids or Bandits connected to a rock formation in walked to in the trees of one of the lower slopes (I took care not to get lost, this time), but I didn't hear any specifics. The moon rose above a church in Mittelbergheim as I walked my host's dog in the evening, but it was far more beautiful than spooky.

The journey back was in the back of a car, rather than by train across the rather flat middle of France, and we did speed though what the original 18th Century Gothic writers would have surely considered Sublime scenery. Heading north and then west too us through France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and finally (Northern) France again. We stopped briefly at Ostend. The sea was pretty rough but "sublime" might be pushing it. Daughters of Darkness was filmed in Ostend...Nah, it was all lovely really, and I can't pretend otherwise...

I thought this might be of interest: a list of Fantastique books at the back of a 1970s French (or Belgian? probable, given the sheer amount of Jean Ray in the list) paperback.

There are no names that I haven't heard of or read about on this first page, although I have to confess to recalling no details about either Claude Seignolle or A. Pieyre de Mandiargues.

I own, and have read, an English translation of Sortiléges (Spells). One of the stories was discussed over in The Weird Tradition group. Ghelderode was a Belgian author and dramatist.

Re. the majority of Jean Ray titles in the list, "Harry Dickson" is a character with an interesting history. His origin is in German counterfeit Sherlock Holmes stories. Over time enough changes were made to avoid legal problems. When Ray was hired to translate the stories he declared them so bad that he would simply write new ones, which he did with the proviso that the original German magazine cover image would match the new tale. The stories he wrote were apparently much more in the Pulpy, Weird Crime style than the Holmes stories, which explains why they're in this list.

I've got a couple of Paul Féval books but haven't read them yet. Apparently they also take a relaxed view about copyright (or at least about appropriating other authors characters).

-

Another eclectic mix of authors on the next page. Yet another Belgian is Thomas Owen. He was a prolific author although little seems to be available in English. I have a collection of selected stories from Tartarus Press. He was a friend of Jean Ray and also the Spanish film Director José Ramón Larraz, who cites him as an influence in more than one interview. Some Francophone authors that I don't know in the list, and probably not available in translation. Interesting that there is, or was, a "Prix Jean Ray".

Donald Wandrei stands out in the list as an American, and one of the Weird Tales crowd (indeed, he set up Arkham House with August Derleth to keep H P Lovecraft in print and it went on to republish him and other WT authors, as well as new ones, and furnished titles for the paperback explosion of the 60s and 70s, in the US and UK.

Robert Bloch of course began his career as a Lovecraft acolyte but is best remembered now for Psycho.

Evangeline Walton was also a Weird Tales author. Her Witch House was republished by Centipde Press a few years ago. Ethel Mannin's Lucifer and the Child was republished by Swan River Press just this year.

One would assume that Kingsley Amis and Isaac Bashevis Singer would have preferred not to be included in a "genre" list.

-

Two names stand out (for me) here. Arthur Machen is an author who has dipped below the radar several times since he started writing in the late 19th Century. Having been around for his latest resurrection (mainly due to the Tartarus Press) after near oblivion in the 190s it's a surprise to see popular paperback editions from the '70s and '80s. And Dennis Wheatley of course who was still massive in the UK in the 1970s but has almost disappeared now. I wondered how well known he was overseas - he didn't seem to have made much impact in the US (judging by The Weird Tradition's lack of interest/lack of access to his works). The Haunting of Toby Jugg, at least , made it across La Manche.

-

>142 housefulofpaper:

Seething with envy. Feeling entombed for a century now...

>143 housefulofpaper:

Tell us if you discover new favourites. I don't recall Seignolle, or the female authors; most of the others are familiar...

I was going to post this as an aside to the post in Folk Horror but there's really no excuse for it there, so under gossip it goes:

Aside: Speaking of which, and not to digress too much, but since I mentioned immigration and you music, I've been listening this week to six CDs with the overall title "London Is The Place For Me", a compilation of the 1950s/60s ++? Caribbean and African musicians' output in Britain (well, London primarily)--calypso, reggae etc. The texts are surprisingly often political, about the problems of the immigrants, racism, work, rationing, colonialism... but, you know, set to a dancy beat. :) Sample titles: Birth of Ghana, If You're Not White You're Black, Mix-Up Matrimony, I Was There (at the Coronation), I Am A Stranger etc. It seems CDs 7 & 8 have just been issued.

(My favourite: Patricia Gone With Millicent :))

https://honestjons.com/shop/artist/London_Is_The_Place_For_Me

>144 LolaWalser:

I remember calypso being a big thing when I was a boy---records in the hit parade and so on. It's an odd thing, though, that most of my adult life, when I've heard radio or television playing old records, or 'nostalgia shows' for different years, it's been as if pop music started with the Beatles and the Stones---everything before the mid-sixties seemed to have just been forgotten about. I did see a documentary within the last year or two about the birth of British rock and roll and they featured performers and songs I hadn't heard since childhood, but there was a much wider range than that in the charts in those days--including calypso, of course.

>145 alaudacorax:

For me these CDs were a complete revelation. All I knew about even the existence of some Jamaican (et al.) "scene" in the UK (I imagine it wasn't just in London?) came from a couple of movies... Dearden's Sapphire and All night long... some glimpses in old TV...

I came across a link to the British Library's Flickr account last night on the NANOWRIMO forums. I went to look for some inspirational images to help me solidify my Nano idea into an actual plot (no luck yet, but it's only October 4) and found two albums that I knew I had to share with you all:

Ghosts and Ghoulish Scenes from The British Library

Myths and Creatures Images from the British Library

The images are all high-quality scans, and come complete with attribution, source, and copyright status information. I ended up staying up an hour later than I meant to just scrolling through the different albums; it's all so fascinating. And if anyone ever needs a map, they need look no further. There are more albums of maps on this flickr than I've ever seen in one place. :D

I tried to add some example images in this post, but I can't get the image location by right-clicking. I'm guessing that's to do with it being on flickr. But go take a look. There's some absolutely fascinating stuff there. (Just make sure you've got nothing in your oven or on your schedule for a while before you click the link. This page is as much a black hole as TV Tropes, maybe more, depending on the person. :D)

>147 Julie_in_the_Library:

That was great, thanks.

It reminded me of the graphic and other collections on Gallica.fr I was exploring recently--I started with vintage animation and ended with the collection of Gothic novels:

https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/litteratures/le-roman-gothique?mode=desktop

(I think the site is switchable to English if needed... oh yes, upper right corner)

>148 LolaWalser: ooh, that looks interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Interesting. By coincidence, I've just, in the last day or two, installed a piece of software that should (haven't thoroughly explored it yet) let me use at least the flickr links for a slide show of desktop backgrounds. Not sure that I actually want Gothic images rotating on my desktop, but that's by the way ...

Happy Friday the thirteenth, everybody!!!

Think I'll get a bottle of wine to go with dinner on a tray and a horror film this evening.

>151 alaudacorax:

I saw your message this morning just as the rainclouds cleared and some late autumn sunshine made everything look considerably less gothic and gloomy. I thought maybe I wouldn't be in the mood for a horror film today.

Of course it's dark now, it was dark by 5:00 pm and I am, in the event, watching a horror film. It's the recent remake of Suspiria. The film cropped up in a recent discussion and reminded me that it's set in Freiburg im Breisgau (but not filmed there). It's the only German city I've visited to date, so I feel an (entirely spurious) connection!

The new version is set in Berlin.

I had the pleasure of having M R James on-line tonight telling me his story of The Mezzontint, courtesy of Nunkie Productions with Robert Lloyd Perry in the role of M R James. Nunkie has been doing a series of these on-line sessions during the pandemic. Probably not as scary as the horror stories you have been watching, but a lovely cosy horror tale.

>152 housefulofpaper:

I failed to watch a horror film last night.

I tried to watch Blood for Dracula (https://www.librarything.com/topic/316858#7311805) last night but only got about half an hour in. I mean to watch it right through---I thought the mise-en-scène, at least, terrific. Last night, though, the simplistic, totally uninspired dialogue and 'bad local amateur dramatic society' delivery were driving me up the wall. Probably because I didn't get that bottle of wine--you really need at least half a bottle before you start watching this ...

>154 alaudacorax:

simplistic, totally uninspired dialogue and 'bad local amateur dramatic society' delivery

Ha, yes. I think some of the girls were probably, er, erotic artistes (and dubbed), and Joe Dallesandro... has abs? Although I wondered if his deadpan delivery wasn't something deliberate, it reminded me of Warhol's movies... not that this, apparently, had anything to do with Warhol except associatively, thanks to Dallesandro's casting.

But if you stop at half hour you're missing all the gore and the sex, ergo the movie. :)

>155 LolaWalser: - But if you stop at half hour you're missing all the gore and the sex, ergo the movie.:)

Oh well ... but it's going to have to be a full-size bottle of wine, not a half-size ...

I would very much like to kill somebody connected with YouTube ... bloodily and painfully.

I've been listening to one of 'Nunkie's (Robert Lloyd Parry—mentioned several times in this group) clips on YT. This was a real discovery: Randalls Round by Eleanor Scott. I thought it was tremendous.

But ... having listened to it, I lay back in my chair and closed my eyes to think it over ...

... only to have a clip of Trump's last election rally start automatically. What the hell, YouTube? Are you trying to get disembowelled with a garden fork?

Some background ... I was able to play a clip by Tuba Skinny and then go into my kitchen, wash some dishes, and prepare and cook a really good meal, took me perhaps half an hour, and YouTube's 'autoplay' fed me a succession of Tuba Skinny clips all the way through till I was ready to sit down with my meal and go on to something else. I'd also opened my first bottle of wine in weeks, if not months, drinking the first glass while washing and chopping and stir-frying and so on (and I have really big wine glasses). It was looking to be a really blissfull evening. I wasn't even fazed by being completely unable to bear another five minutes of Blood for Dracula's appalling dialogue and delivery (obviously not far enough into the bottle of wine), which was why I was listening to Nunkie.

And then YouTube puts on the farting duck? I mean, what the hell have I done to make YouTube's algorithms think I'd want to watch that? Completely shattered my mood.

>157 alaudacorax:

It's a sod. I'd really like to move on, but my wine's all gone and all my brain seems to want to do is compose paragraphs and paragraphs of really sour LT posts ...

>158 alaudacorax: I feel your pain.

>159 pgmcc:

Ha! You got here before me. I just logged-in to delete >157 alaudacorax: & >158 alaudacorax:. Too much wine last night ...

>160 alaudacorax: Too much wine = honest feelings. :-)

Of course, I hope your >150 alaudacorax: post is not taken too literally by the Guardian Algorithms of the Interweb.

>157 alaudacorax:

Awk! I hope you've recovered... funnily enough I had a similar experience today--was watching a lovely video about a flock of flamingos in Kazakhstan, only to have it ruined at the end with a frame-in-frame thumbnail teaser with the orange mofo. Great way to ensure I won't be subbing, Reuters! :)

sigh, double...

Those frame-in-frame thumbnails, popping up nearly half a minute before the end of the clip, sometimes covering up something important. They certainly don't make me want to clip on the whatever-it-is. Do they disappear if you pay for Youtube Premium (not that I have any intention of doing so).

I don't have Premium either, so no idea... but speaking of YT, they recently sent out an e-mail about changing stuff so they can (as far as I could make out) stick you with even more ads. When/if the adblocker goes, so go I...

>165 LolaWalser:
Despite my better instincts I can't keep away from it. The TBR pile grows and grows, but I'm watching video essays to update my dinosaur knowledge, or finding uploaders with huge stashes of 40-year-old British television that they want to share...

Last weekend an old school friend who now lives in North Oxfordshire, posted some photos of a longish walk he took in the countryside. He included the ruined Norman Church at Bix Bottom, i.e. the location used in The Blood on Satan's Claw for the murder of Cathy (and harvesting the skin from her back) and the Squire's despatching of the Beast at the end of the film.

He had no idea that the site had any Gothic or Folk Horror connection.

>167 housefulofpaper:

the murder of Cathy (and harvesting the skin from her back)

There should be plaques! National Trust, are you listening?! :)

>166 housefulofpaper:

Same. Except most recently, it was a channel with hundreds of old French cinema. I had about 120-130 in my Watch Later for several weeks... then they zapped him. He (I'm fairly sure it was the same person) resurfaced a week or so later and I added them all again (taking the pains to order them all chronologically, 1930s through 1970s). This time I managed to see about eight--but today they were all gone. Tons of Jouvet, Rosay, Berry, Fresnay, Simon, Meurisse... stuff it's hard to find in any form. I hope this YT Robin Hood manages to return soon.

YT doesn't even leave the trace of the deleted channels anymore, they disappear from the subscription list. Very upsetting; one could at least search for similar, once upon a time.

Just been delighted to discover there's a new issue of the Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies online. I was afraid it had become moribund.

There are some really tempting-looking articles in it, too. Though I'm probably going to need a dictionary or Wikipedia to get through 'Gods of the Real: Lovecraftian Horror and Dialectical Materialism' ...

You know when you have to tick the cookery books to complete your LibraryThing login?

I think it was a bit mischievous of LT to chuck Blood and Chocolate in there ...

>170 alaudacorax:

Ha! This will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a91_uGPR9_o

This is probably coals to Newcastle, but just in case... two Sherlock Holmes TV rarities I don't recall were mentioned here (apologies if this is incorrect, in which case I've failed to search properly...)

The quality of this one is poor but it's Peter Cushing! as Holmes in 1984, with John Mills as his Watson:

Sherlock Holmes: The Masks of Death – 1984 TV Movie Starring Peter Cushing and John Mills

Anton Diffring shows too, Russell Hunter (who I know from Callan) has a cameo and, prize for the "most out of left field" appearance IMO, Ray Milland.

This next one, from 1990, I haven't watched yet but (speaking of actors from Callan) Holmes is... Edward Woodward! Odd, huh? Cast includes Peter Jeffrey and Warren Clarke...

Sherlock Holmes in The Prince of Crime; AKA - Hands of a Murderer - starring Edward Woodward

>172 LolaWalser:

I knew of the Peter Cushing TVM but I haven't ever seen it. I wasn't even aware of the Edward Woodward film. Thank you, that might be my Christmas Day viewing sorted (I'm in "Tier 4" which is essentially back to Lockdown, and will be Home Alone as a consequence).

On the subject of unlikely Holmeses, I haven't seen this one yet, but Roger Moore! as Holmes, with Patrick Macnee as Watson, John Huston as Moriarty, Charotte Rampling as Irene Adler:
Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K3Nwdg9x3w

>173 housefulofpaper:

Wow, clearly there are oodles more Holmes interpretations than I ever imagined. Thanks for the link. The uploads I linked I noticed only a few days ago in my recommendations--possibly because I'd started watching some eps with Geoffrey Whitehead. Now, those were produced by the same chap who did the Ronald Howard series in the fifties--even the music is the same. Patrick Newell, much slimmer than in The Avengers, plays Inspector Lestrade looking very much like a copy of the 1950s actor (not all the names stayed with me). Anyway, that's another interesting bit of televisual Sherlockiana...

>174 LolaWalser: - Wow, clearly there are oodles more Holmes interpretations than I ever imagined.

Yep. Not sure I've ever seen or ever heard of any of them. I'd be particularly intrigued to see the Woodward and Moore versions.

>175 alaudacorax:

If it weren't an odd choice for this group, we could synchronise some viewings and have us a Very Sherlock Christmas...

Merry Christmas or midwinter festival of your choice, everybody!!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all

Colorized video. 1897. Snow fight (Lumiere)

>179 LolaWalser:

Merry Christmas, Lola.

Astonishingly clear footage---look at the faces.

I remember snowball fights like that. And almost crying with the pain when our fingers thawed out in front of the fire later. When we were kids, though, we would've 'ad that cameraman, and those two chaps looking-on. Oh lord, it's just dawned on me---no kids! Hmm. I'd assumed it was staged, but ... would all the local kids have been in school in 1897?

It's been cleaned up, colourised (and set to rather annoying music, IMO) by the Youtuber, but you can see and compare the original item here:

https://catalogue-lumiere.com/bataille-de-neige/

Judging by the photos I've seen snow once in my childhood, on a visit to Troodos. I have no memory of it myself, although I am actually clutching a snowball. Incidentally, I'm in the company of an English boy, Simon, who has an arm around me. We were frequent playmates. Naturally he went down in family history as my first "boyfriend". I'm under four, he's about seven.

Then nothing (snow-wise) until high school and our annual skiing trips to Slovenia and Italy.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all, from the rainy NW.

My (now retired) boss had lent me Murder by Decree , 1979, with Christopher Plummer as Sherlock, and told me it was one of his favourites---he said he's a fan of James Mason. My boss had grown up in L.A., and described to me the way the movie theaters would throw all-out productions of new releases, e.g. Lawrence of Arabia.

Out of curiosity, do you all like the BBC Sherlock that have Benedict Cumberbatch? I'm just curious if they're as popular in England/UK as they seem to be here the States.

And, I've been perusing, wow, there are so many. What's a good starter--any of the older BBC productions? Any particular actors that really stand out in either Sherlock or Watson roles?

I hope you all are safe and well.

>182 benbrainard8:

Don't think I've seen that one either, though I have some vague idea of it. But that's an impressive cast list. Another one I'm really tempted by.

I did watch some of the TV series---after some previous discussion here, if I remember correctly. Entertaining but they didn't prompt me to stick with them. Perhaps I'll get around to the rest sometime, but I'm much more interested in all these films so far.

I have to make a confession (possibly I've made it here before). I vaguely remember reading and enjoying the Sherlock Holmes stories as a youngster. However, I've bought a 'complete' in recent years and read through it, and I really wasn't very impressed. Couldn't really believe in him. That's probably why I haven't seen most of these films, although I've seen all the Basil Rathbone ones. But screen is different to page so I must get round to watching them.

No snow here. Heavy rain last night but clear blue skies over Christmas and again today. I don't think we've even seen an early morning frost yet.

That naturally leads to worries about Global warming, but I read recently somewhere that the traditional Dickensian snowy Christmas is due to Dickens' memories of unusually bad winters in his childhood. They were the after-effects of the Mount Tambora eruption that also caused the "Year Without a Summer" and there's the Gothic tie-in, because that was the summer the Shelleys, Byron snd Polidori were holed up in the Villa Diodati inventing Frankenstein and the modern literary vampire.

Sherlock Holmes, though. Asked for recommendations I would veer towards the faithful adaptations of the original stories, but >183 alaudacorax: opens up the field of looser adaptations and reimaginings.

On the faithful adaptation side, can I suggest a couple of audio versions?

In the 1950s and '60s Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley played Holmes and Watson on BBC Radio. Shelley is a bufferish Nigel Bruce-style Watson. Hobbs had a distinctive reedy tone to his voice which I think matches Doyle's description of Holmes' voice.

Some (maybe all) episodes have been uploaded to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfyM1wvboD8&list=PL6YhtbHzsDtS0hEeqHjvvyBLI2...

And then the BBC radio series from the 1990s that succeeded in adapting all the novels and short stories. Holmes was played by Clive Merrison and Michael Williams played Watson. This followed the Jeremy Brett TV series in "rehabilitating" Dr Watson as a strong character in his own right, and one not unwilling to butt heads with Holmes at times.

The TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and the two films with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, took the same approach.

It looks as if some of these are saved at Internet archive (Archive.org).

Basil Rathbone is still many people's favourite Holmes and although some distance from the Watson of the stories, Nigel Bruce is an effective foil to Rathbone's Holmes (sorry, can only think in clichés today it seems).

The series started quite faithful to the stories but when it moved Universal the rest of the films were set in the (1940s) modern day, Rathbone sported a weird centre-parting hairstyle, and the films were essentially WWII propaganda with elements of Universal's horror series and Film Noir. You can spot bits and pieces from the stories being reworked.

Peter Cushing played Holmes in Hammer's version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and for BBC television in the late '60s. And finally in the TV Movie The Masks of Death in 1984 (the writer and director are ex-Hammer personnel, I see from IMDb).

I think some of the TV episodes are lost, but there was a Region 2 DVD release about 10 years ago.

The Cushing version of the Christmas story "The Blue Carbuncle":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAPWPDL9aMU

Peter Cushing actually took over as the BBC's Sherlock Holmes when Douglas Wilmer left after one series. His episodes were almost impossible to see for decades, but the surviving ones are now out on DVD. Nevertheless all I could find on YouTube was this clip from a 1987 "Food and Drink", where footage of Wilmer as Holmes (and Nigel Stock as Watson - he stayed on to work alongside Peter Cushing) are cut into footage of presenter Chris Kelly - or rather he's cut into a scene they shot 2 decades earlier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3SZLSAu-uE

I saw from the comments that there has been a Region 1 release, but the Region 2 BFI set is superior.

I saw this play, but in Guildford rather than in London.

Jeremy Brett is many people's definitive Holmes, and the Granada TV series was probably more accurate than any before it (for example, Holmes only wears a deerstalker in the country, never "in Town").

He had two Dr Watsons of course - it was David Burke in the first series. Edward Hardwicke is just a little bit more towards the Nigel Bruce end of the Watson scale (who's be at the other end? Jude Law I suppose).

As television, the series is showing its age a bit now. And the last stories and TV movies are compromised by various issues - a reduced budget, arguably the best stories having already been done, but chiefly by Jeremy Brett's failing health. For one story he was hospitalised I believe, and Charles Gray (as Mycroft) had to take over as the lead. But one thing the production team did that ought to make the later stories attractive to this group is to ramp up the Gothic and/or fin de siècle elements - at least that's how i remember it, although looking at IMDb the very last series seems to be reining those Gothic tendencies back in.

Not sure whether this will work... I just did a search on "sherlock holmes" in the group and up came 34 links:

https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=sherlock+holmes&searchtype=ta...

Experience teaches that LT search is VERY iffy so this is probably not a complete list. With that in mind, note the oldest post is houseful's from 2012:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/130460#3166371

>182 benbrainard8:

If you haven't seen any of the older Sherlocks, I'd recommend to take in the Granada 1980s production with Jeremy Brett. In terms of "faithfulness" they have probably not been bested. Brett's performance is one for the ages and the only one where Holmes is given some psychological depth and seems like a real person.

If you don't mind B&W movies, the Rathbone series is great fun although, as houseful notes, veeres away from the original quite a bit.

>183 alaudacorax:

I've bought a 'complete' in recent years and read through it, and I really wasn't very impressed. Couldn't really believe in him.

I get this. No wonder Conan Doyle was exasperated to be forced to write on and on for such a character.

I'm sure I've said this before here, so it's probably in one of the links Lola found in >190 LolaWalser:, but I was initially very impressed and entertained by the Benedict Cumberbatch Holmes, but had a concern that Stephen Moffatt and Mark Gatiss were burning through the source material (getting from adaptations of A Study in Scarlet to "The Final Problem" in the space of three TV movies) at such a pace that they would find themselves with nowhere to go very quickly. And I think that concern was largely borne out.

The later episodes got a bit of a rocky reception and I found myself comparing and contrasting Sherlock and the Doctor Who stories running at roughly the same time (Stephen Moffatt being the show runner on both programmes and evidently working through a small number of themes in his work at this time) rather than being 100% caught up in the story - which would be preferable I think, at least on a first viewing.

Sherlock takes the discussion away from the straight adaptations of Doyle's stories and I think I have to disagree with Lola's assertion that the Jeremy Brett series is the only version to try to give Holmes any psychological depth. I would say that most of the screen Holmes since Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes - unless they have made a point of fidelity to the source material - have made that either the point of the story or an important element of it. The Seven Percent Solution (Holmes needs psycho analysis); Young Sherlock Holmes formative events in adolescence & first love & events that put him on his career path as a Consulting Detective); Mr Holmes; Sherlock; the two Robert Downey Jr films (arguably, there are more character tics than depth there; they are Guy Richie films after all); even Roger Moore in Sherlock Holmes in New York . Even the two early 21st century BBC movies written by Alan Cubitt (a Hound of the Baskervilles starring Richard Roxburgh and an original story starring Rupert Everett), as I remember it, played up Holmes' obsessional nature and drug dependency to "explain" his character and behaviour.

Touchstones have stopped working!

Okay, you've all prompted me to have a Sherlock evening, à la >176 LolaWalser:.

I've just started with The Blue Carbuncle, the Cushing and Stock one somebody linked above.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not about the story, really, it's about Peter Cushing. Not sure if it's that he was a better actor than really given credit for, or simply down to his sheer screen presence. You just surrender your critical faculties and go along with him.

An odd little thing I noticed, with poor old James Beck from Dad's Army as the cornered and really amateurish villain in Holmes and Watson's digs: if I were a baddy, I really wouldn't want Nigel Stock glaring at me across the room like that. He played Watson ever so slightly Nigel Bruce-ish, but the man had a definite seam of steel running through him.

Now onto The Masks of Death.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
The Seven Per Cent Solution (1976)
Sherlock Holmes in New York (TVM) (1976)
Young Sherlock Holmes(1985)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (TVM) (2002)
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (TVM) (2004)
Sherlock (TV) (2010-2017)
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
Mr Holmes (2015)

I forgot the US counterpart to Sherlock, Elementary (2012-2019)

Thank you all, I've put the Basil Rathbone Hound of the Baskervilles, 1939, and two BBC 3-DVD collection with Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock, it appears to have year of release 1964-1965 and a second series, 1968, into my Netflix queue. The Jeremy Brett (1984-1994 as Sherlock Holmes in the 4 Granada T.V. series, approx. 41 episodes) isn't available on Netflix but I can hopefully rent it on Prime so will keep on my radar.

Perhaps luckily or unluckily, I've never read the books---I'll have to judge them on their merits alone.

Radio series sound interesting, too, thank you all for the information!

Seattle and it's areas are next to the Puget Sound, so we get a lot of snow in our respective mountain ranges (Olympics and Cascades)----at my 900-1100 ft. elevation where I'm at, we get a lot of rain, and sunset at 4:30 p.m. daily. We do enjoy these times though---- great weather for day hikes/walks, reading, & movie watching :)

Best to you all.

>195 benbrainard8:

Douglas Wilmer played Holmes in 1964-65 and Peter Cushing took over in 1968, so it sounds like you'll be able to watch both actors' take on the role!

>191 housefulofpaper:

I wondered whether to mention Robert Stephens but in my recollection the film is too much of a farce-fantasy, plus I'm not fond of Holmes being in love. In any case, it's not difficult to qualify my opinion as I haven't seen everything you mention. But of those I did, comparisons only strengthen my impression of the uniqueness of Brett's performance (obviously tho', it's not binding for anyone else!)

Brett's achievement in projecting a Holmes with an inner life (inner demons, it seems) is all the greater as they stuck to the script and didn't invent something to latch this on (love, trauma etc.), as is usually the case.

>193 alaudacorax:

Too bad about the poor technical quality.

>195 benbrainard8:

There are a few of the Brett episodes in good quality on YouTube... just in case.

>197 LolaWalser:
Ah, right. Given some psychological depth by the actor's performance, not (necessarily) by the script.

Your observations (love, trauma, etc.) do apply to all the examples I gave!

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes might have been stronger if the studio hadn't lopped an entire sub-plot/episode out of it - it would have made for a very long film, though.

>198 housefulofpaper:

Yes, I think we talked about that... I do love that film--I'm not a "purist" by any means...

I think I'll stick on a Brett eppy or two now... but before I go--I probably mentioned this before, but not sure if I linked it--for the Holmesian who has SEEN EVERYTHING, here's a Russian version from 1979 (English subs provided):

Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон

Just watched the The Masks of Death.

A bit sad at seeing Peter Cushing so aged since The Blue Carbuncle and at seeing Ray Milland simply looking unwell.

Quite distracted at continually hearing nightingales at the Graf's country estate. I couldn't make up my mind if they'd been added to the soundtrack or the place was actually full of them.

Big BUT ... too many holes in the writing.

And that's enough for tonight, I think.

Happy New Year, everybody!

And sod off, 2020---close the door on your way out.

Happy new year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all!

Happy New Year!

A suitably wintry image from a New Year's Day walk. Suitably Gothic too, I hope.

>206 housefulofpaper: Nice.

Oh yes, dix points for Gothic-ness.

(whyyyyydoesitdoublewhyyy)

Thanks to you both. It's a real shame there's no way to show you the photos uploaded to Facebook by the person who walked to Bix Bottom and thereby visited the abandoned church from Blood on Satan's Claw. He's put up some more photos of walks around the Oxfordshire countryside and produced a couple you'd swear were stills from a forgotten 1970s Folk Horror classic. A church, shot from a low angle against an overcast white winter afternoon sky that's already blurring into the rising evening mist, and a sinister-looking farm building, roofline sagging with age and all the ground-floor windows boarded up.

He's listed the route of his walk as "Nuffield to Mongewell via Grim's Ditch". I mean, even the names...

That is a gorgeous photo.

A late Christmas present! Some short clips from missing episodes of the Peter Cushing/Nigel Stock Sherlock Holmes TV series have been found. Presented here colourised and interwoven with an interview Cushing gave for Dutch TV in 1971.The whole thing's about nine minutes long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRAIhq0GG8&feature=emb_logo

Hi everyone,

I've mentioned the Rural Gothic virtual conferences I've been attending here before, and I know that some of you have expressed interest, so I thought that I'd mention that there's another one coming up the weekend of February 6 and 7, this time focused on queer themes.

Times are not listed yet, but past conferences have run from 10 am est to about 6 pm est or so, with a long break at dinner time in the UK that falls around lunch time here on east coast time US.

The schedule of speakers isn't out yet, though I imagine it will be soon. I've enjoyed the two conferences I've already attended enough to buy my ticket without seeing the schedule first, but if you want to wait, the schedule should eventually be posted at the link for the tickets that I'm including here. Tickets are £10. I'm not sure exactly what that comes out to in US dollars, but it's something around $12, I think.

I'll reiterate just to be safe that I am not affiliated with the con or The Folklore Podcast in any way, and do not benefit monetarily from any of you buying tickets.

I do benefit socially from you guys attending, in that I get to interact with you and talk about shared interests at the con, and recommending things that people end up enjoying gives me a great feeling inside, but those are the only benefits on my end ;).

I hope to see you guys there!

Link to buy tickets

Is this or is it not a case of demonic possession?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UUjJysUMTw

There's a brilliant comment down below, somewhere, where someone says, "Yeah, it's all fun and games until your parrot starts summoning Satan ..."

At the best of times I find a talking animal at least slightly unnerving. That takes it to another level.

Hello All. Sorry this might seem off-off topic, but have any of you seen movie based on the Stephen King book, Doctor Sleep , Ewan McGregor? It has quite a few scary elements and some of the meanies/protagonist have qualities, that are, let's say vampiric.

Having not read book, I can't vouch either way for it. But the movie is scary and not bad for a sequel, to The Shining, directed by Kubrick.

>216 benbrainard8:

hi Ben! Nothing is off topic in Gossip! Have not seen, have not read, any of that, will now make space for others who did... :)

>216 benbrainard8:

It's in here, somewhere :) ...but I haven't watched it yet (or read King's book). I gather it aims to be a sequel both to King's novel and to Kubrick's film, somehow.

Thank you, wow, those are a lot of items to sort/get through.

Reading online, many reviewers said it was indeed meant to satisfy two primary goals:

1) to be a sequel to Kubrick's film version of "The Shining"
2) to be a film rendition of King's book, "Doctor Sleep". King wrote it as a sequel, with Danny Torrance, the young boy in the first book, being a primary character

I enjoyed the film version, Scottish-American actor Ewan McGregor is very effective in the role of Danny Torrance, and Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson, is very effective in her role as a main protagonist.

Being that only a few of many Stephen King books have (arguably?) been made into great films, this received high reviews.

The speaker and topic lineup for this weekend's Rural Gothic: Queer Horror virtual con is up, for anyone who is interested or deciding if they want to buy a ticket:

https://thefolklorepodcast.weebly.com/rural-gothic-queer-horror.html

I think this is suitable for a Gothic Gossip thread. Lost my heart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yB51vdkZAE

>220 Julie_in_the_Library:
I realised I'm almost out of memory space on my Mac for new apps and I don't already have Zoom so I had to pass on this.

>221 alaudacorax:
It certainly seems to jibe with the concerns about man's place in the world as expressed in late-19th Century, post-Darwin Gothic.

I've got my own little Gothic thing going on at the moment. My boiler has stoped working and suddenly I'm in a cold draughty cell!

>222 housefulofpaper:

Oh my god. What a time to have your heating go. Never mind, it will be practically tropical tomorrow ... the Met Office is giving seven or eight degrees.

Old Nunkie can be quite addictive ... well, I suppose I should say 'young Nunkie'—sounds a bit odd, that, though. Anyway, listened to 'just one' of his stories over my tea, and found myself still listening some four hours later. Trouble is, they're stories I wouldn't have chosen to read, as I've read most of them quite recently ... like I said—addictive!

>224 alaudacorax: The performances, in person or online, are great. He really brings the characters to life.

Do you remember over a year ago I asked whether there was an original of the figure of a sinister figure with a pet buzzard or vulture, a figure which pops up every so often in various places, and for which several of us acknowledged a feeling of recognition? And yet it doesn't seem to have a documented lineage or to be recognised as a trope.

I have to sadly confess to being no closer to an answer, if there's one to be had. But I do have a further example:



This is the character down only as "Mad Scientist" from the very first Max Fleischer Superman cartoon and - as I found him described online - his "vulture henchman".

This article was in my email from Tor.com the other day, and as soon as I saw the title, I knew that I had to share it with all of you:

Five Off-Beat Gothic and Horror Books for Fans of the Classics

Tor.com also has an ongoing blog about the weird tradition, if I'm remembering correctly from another email from a while back. I'll see if I can dig up the link, if anyone is interested.

Found it! Reading the Weird

>227 Julie_in_the_Library:

Three titles I had never heard of . Intriguing, although Kassandra and the Wolf looks to be a tough read; and only one title that I've read, namely Ray Bradbury's From the Dust Returned.

I remember devouring it almost in one sitting - in my head this was quite recently, but I've been able to check, and it was December 2006!

To be honest, it's quite a light read. It's probably closer in spirit to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book or even The Addams Family than it is to Angela Carter or Carmen Maria Machado (who I have to confess I haven't read, but I'm judging by following the link in the article).

Caught up on a BBC documentary about Stonehenge - a symbol of the Gothic, or more precisely the Druidical, in Gothic's 18th-century early days.

It's about the discovery that the bluestones (the smaller, inner circle) were not only quarried in West Wales and not from nearby (this has been known for a century) but they could have stood as a monument in their own right before being moved - stolen? and re-erected in Wiltshire.

The site is at Waun Mawn in Pembrokeshire's Preseli Hills. The remains of a matching stone circle ("remains" being filled-in holes in the ground that are of different density to the surroundings even after thousands of years).

>227 Julie_in_the_Library:

Reminded yet again about how much I have NOT read. Still got most of Daphne du Maurier's novels to catch up on. In fact, I can only definitely remember reading Rebecca.

>230 housefulofpaper:

Tsk-tsk, you English, pinching our stuff again ...

>232 alaudacorax:

Your comment gave me a flashback to school music lessons, must be over 40 years ago now. Having to sing "Men of Harlech" and suffering a "are we the bad guys?" moment...

>233 housefulofpaper:

Ah well, we've all got to get used to being bad guys now—I just spent a half-hour watching a YouTube video on identity politics ...

I really dislike facebook (and any other social medium whose purpose is to mine information about you for the advertising industry). However, it's my family's preferred method of communication, so it's one of the few places online where I use my real name. I have every possible privacy setting turned on, though, and I put a lot of effort into stopping these buggers tracking my doings.

So, how the devil could I sign in to facebook this morning to find it recommending me the 'M. R. James Appreciation Society'? It SAYS 'Because you may be interested in Books & Literature' (and, as far as I can remember, they could only get that from snooping into my private messages to family members), but it's obviously been nosing more closely than that into my business.

I really, REALLY dislike you, Mark Zuckerberg.

The Little Book of Curses and Maledictions for Everyday Use ... you've been warned, Z ...

>235 alaudacorax: I once booked tickets for the theatre and was asked, “Do you want to see where your facebook friends are seated for the show?”

Worrying!

>235 alaudacorax:
you made me check what's come up on my Newsfeed (I try to avoid Facebook as well, but it's the preferred mode of communication for everyone I know for at least the past year).

News of a new fast food place in Utica has been brought to my attention. It's only 3,400 miles (one way) but I don't think I'll be popping in for lunch. So the algorithm is still getting me wrong (this follows the ads for cheap dentistry, Agas, and Russian wives).

>236 pgmcc:
Stone me! Big Brother is definitely watching us ...

>237 housefulofpaper:
I'd be happy with that—you've obviously got 'em bamboozled ...

>235 alaudacorax: All I can say, is amen to all this. I had a Facebook account, for three-week period, a few years after it started, which I believe was around 2007-2008. I shut it off and haven't looked back.

And I love teasing all the algorithms, so I put Amazon account in my name but only my wife and son use it---so they probably think I'm a cross-dressing gamer Geek, and typing random things into Google, like "where did three kittens that lost their mittens go?".....

>239 benbrainard8:

Hah-hah!

Christmas presents are my problem: I'm still getting recommendations for kid's toys and female beauty products. Though why on earth, just a couple of days ago, an offer of bulk packs of Christmas tree baubles ... ?

Google parts definitely talk to each other about what I search, watch (on YouTube), and yes, write in Gmail. It's creepy and infuriating but I simply can't keep watch all the time, I don't think privacy ought to be the reward of extreme paranoia.

Firefox doesn't seem much better. At least I'm not on Facebook.

There is a slight improvement in that YouTube doesn't recommend me anymore incel garbage on every Doctor Who, feminist etc. video I go to. It took diligent negative feedback on dozens of vids to achieve that.

>241 LolaWalser: - It took diligent negative feedback on dozens of vids to achieve that.

Which tells me you rarely delete your watch history; which, in turn, tells me Google has a really detailed character profile on you.

The one which really creeped me out was YouTube suddenly recommending me a pop group from my home village, which is quite obscure, half the UK away, and with hardly any of the family still living in it. Obviously some interaction, there, between Google and facebook, despite my best efforts—deleting YouTube and browser history every night before bed, etc.

I don't think I'm heading for a tin foil hat ...

>242 alaudacorax:

And then there's Amazon ...

>243 alaudacorax: Shshshshsh! They'll hear you!

>242 alaudacorax:

Which tells me you rarely delete your watch history; which, in turn, tells me Google has a really detailed character profile on you.

It's true, I keep a lot of my Watch History for easy access, but I also have lots of playlists so... but how did you know, what is the connection?

Google! Feh! I hope they are enjoying the heady mix of SpongeBob SquarePants and Alain Badiou's seminars on my page...

Amazon-- I didn't think it was possible to hate them more, and then they stuck those "Sponsored" links on top of searches.

I walked to Mapledurham. It was spur of the moment decision with no preparation, and in the end I didn't push on just a bit further to find the Black Sabbath Watermill, but here's the house.



And the countryside looking a bit creepy. Or is it only because I'm thinking of Blood on Satan's Claw?

>245 LolaWalser:

YouTube put ads in the middle of two songs that I tried to listen to today...

>246 housefulofpaper:

WOW. Did you actually wander around looking for the exact spot in the movie?! Because that's what it looks like to me!

>248 LolaWalser:

I wasn't so intrepid, and still a few miles to the south of the location. But this is the edge of the Chilterns, so it's exactly the same geography of gentle hills.

>245 LolaWalser: - ... but how did you know, what is the connection?

Damn! I have a feeling I came to the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons. I now have a sinking realisation I don't know what's going on.

I clear my history when I finish with YouTube, and I clear my browsing history when I shut down my computer—including cookies, cache, active logins and form & search history—the lot. Leaving negative feedback doesn't work for me, I'd assumed because I always clear my watch history; but now I'm wondering if the negative feedback is actually stored on my browser rather than YouTube and deleted when I clear that. The irony, here, is that I don't use Chrome, the Google browser, or Google itself; I use Firefox and DuckDuckGo, which are supposed to be a lot more private. Perhaps I don't need to be ticking all those boxes when I'm deleting browsing history? I'm going to have to do some research on this as I may have been cutting off my nose to spite my face ...

>250 alaudacorax:

Well, you certainly take care! I empty the cache only every blue moon, otherwise I don't bother, although I use Duckduckgo--when I remember...

>250 alaudacorax:, >251 LolaWalser:

Apologies for making this thread look like one of my Linux forums ...

Okay, I figured out that if I don't delete my YT watch history I can make my YT recommendations much more sensible.

I figured out that I can carry on deleting all my browsing stuff every night without affecting my YT preferences.

I figured out that nobody can see what videos I am 'liking' because I've always had that list locked, and nobody can ever see my watch history in any circumstances ...

... except, presumably, Google/YouTube! I'm not really comfortable with that, but, since I don't use a Google browser or search engine, they can't make much use of it for advertising and annoy me, so I suppose I must just shrug my shoulders on that one.

I will be interested to see if the changes to my YT account affect the quality or nature of the crud Facebook keeps offering me.

>235 alaudacorax:

Another facepalm moment! It finally dawned on me why Facebook recommended me the 'M. R. James Appreciation Society'. It was because I'd added Nunkie's (>153 pgmcc:, and so on) facebook page to my 'Likes', wasn't it? It seems so obvious—now! It seems my paranoia really was getting the better of me ...

>253 alaudacorax:
Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not all after you.

>253 alaudacorax: There is a Firefox add-on that will block Facebook from gathering data from you when you're not actually on Facebook: Facebook Container

"Facebook Container isolates your Facebook activity from the rest of your web activity in order to prevent Facebook from tracking you outside of the Facebook website via third party cookies."

If you have Firefox, go to "add-ons"and search for it by name in the search box and it should come up. Fair warning, though, it will block you from seeing Instagram pics. )Or, at least, I'm assuming that's why the instagram photos on Tumblr don't show up for me.)

>246 housefulofpaper: Great photos! I'm into landscape photography, but I've never had any training or anything, so I'm not that good yet. I mostly just take pictures with my phone while I'm out walking or hiking. I'm doing a photography workshop through my public library later this month, though. There's some beautiful nature around here, and now that it's getting warmer again, I'm hoping to get more practice in soon as well.

>255 Julie_in_the_Library:

Many thanks, Julie. Don't think I've ever come across that. I'll give it a try.

These 'world' days keep sneaking past me unnoticed. Apparently yesterday was 'World Sleep Day'. There's got to be a Gothic connection there, somewhere (or horror, at least); but I can't think of it, offhand.

ETA - Or fantasy ... I can imagine Lovecraft writing something under that title.

>257 alaudacorax:

Somebody, sometime, just has to have written a story or script where everyone in the world falls asleep at the same time ...

>258 alaudacorax:

The only thing that comes to mind is a panel from an issue of The Mighty Thor where the whole population of Earth is put into suspended animation and swept off the Earth and kept save in - I suppose - a parallel dimension (although it looks like they're just being ushered into near-Earth orbit like geese going to market). This is to keep them save from some cosmic punch-up, I think.

Wait! - The Matrix!

>259 housefulofpaper:

Ah. Now you've reminded me that I failed to watch Iron Man the other night. I've never seen any of these Marvel films and I was curious, so I thought, 'get hold of the first one and see how it goes'.

Quarter of an hour in and I was bored stiff ...

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 94% critics rating, so I suppose I should make the effort to get it watched this weekend. First quarter-hour is poorly done, though. As if someone was not very good at making films, but had a shipload of money with which to make them.

>260 alaudacorax:

... and didn't spend any of it on a good script-writer, just decided to do the job themselves ...

>260 alaudacorax: Out of all the MCU films, and distinct among the stand-alone, would The Winter Soldier.

Its fun seeing some seasoned actors playing baddies. And when the pandemic started, I purposely looked for a mask that would give me the look of one the primary baddy characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI

Note that my co-workers joking obliged and now I've got some awesome black "masks".

>260 alaudacorax:

Save yourself, that superhero stuff is all junk. I get bored just hearing "superhero"...

Today! I received my Criterion Céline et Julie vont en bateau! Three DVDs.

>262 benbrainard8:

haha! I've opted for political sloganeering. My fave mask sez "Vive la Commune". No doubt scary to some... :)

>263 LolaWalser:
Oh, I'm conflicted now...6-year old me wants to leap to the defence of super heroes, especially the Marvel versions, but 53-year old me has to admit to not having bothered to watch all the MCU films.

I'd cautiously second the vote for The Winter Soldier as a political conspiracy thriller (with Superheroes), and Doctor Strange, Into the Spider-Verse and... Howard the Duck (the unexpurgated version) from 1986...just for the "WTF" experience of watching it for the first time.

I lost my taste for superheroes somewhere around 12 years of age, although I remained attached and mildly interested in Wonder Woman... but I think my inner six-year-old must be alive and well or I have no excuse for enjoying my Godzillathon as much as I did! I loved those Showa era oldies in particular, although I was blown away by the models they built for Godzilla Vs. Biollante.

Won't bother with the CGI era, though...

>265 LolaWalser: Won't bother with the CGI era, though...

Hear! Hear!

When you have computer technology that can make anything appear to happen it takes all the wonder away from the film. You get the spectacular image, but you do not get the wonder of "How did the do that?" With CGI you know the used computer tools. Without CGI people had to be much more imaginative and ingenious to create good images on screen. (Of course, some of the results were dreadful.)

We haven't enjoyed the newer MCU films as much as the X-Men movies, people will often forget that the X-Men are also,in the MCU.

Out of all the movies, I enjoyed The Winter Soldier, and any of the X-Men films where German/Irish actor Michael Fassbinder is playing Magneto (such a tortured baddy he is!).

But fully agree that many of the pre-CG films are usually more plot driven.

Special mention to Unbreakable and Split (2016), which are very interesting plot-wise, but this could be an M. Night Shyamalan thing. I'd really like to see him tackle a vampire film, even a remake.

>266 pgmcc: I've only enjoyed a few recent movies that have a relatively large amount of CGI. It's a poor substitute for great story, plot, and preferably a wonderful book from which the film or show are based.

The only films that even come to mind are perhaps few of the recent Planet of the Apes films, where there were arguments re whether or not Andy Serkis could be nominated for his role as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

My favorite film with a lot of CGI would probably be Ex Machina but that's only because it's a well written script by Alex Garland:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ex+machina&docid=608046324119907342&amp...

I bought the soundtrack which is also very good.

But most CGI laden, esp. comic badge superhero films are rather flat.

>268 benbrainard8:
I loved Ex Machina. I watched it in the cinema and immediately ordered the DVD. I thought the story captured the reality of the Silicon Valley billionnaire's self-centredness. I must watch it again soon. I do not recall the music, I just know I really enjoyed the experience and found the story logical in its conclusion.

But most CGI laden, esp. comic badge superhero films are rather flat.

I have to agree. I have stopped watching superhero films. I get very little from them. Where there is some humour, then fine, but the plots tend to be fairly trite.

I do, however, enjoy other films with CGI if the CGI is not the star, but simply a tool to provide an interesting backdrop to the story. E.g. Guardians of the Galaxy. Entertainment fodder. Just sit back and enjoy.

>266 pgmcc:

Once upon a time I had high hopes for CGI, but what it ended up being is just blaaah.

>268 benbrainard8:

I was trying to remember when was the last time I enjoyed a superhero movie--Deadpool, I guess...

>270 LolaWalser: I was trying to remember when was the last time I enjoyed a superhero movie--Deadpool, I guess...

But that was a Valentine's Day love story. :-)

>269 pgmcc: I'm glad to hear someone liked this movie, I too saw it in a movie theater, then bought the Blu-ray.

For soundtracks, I've only a very few, but like ones that can strike a particular mood. Among soundtracks I've purchased:

2001:A Space Odyssey (1968)
Ex Machina
Solaris (2002), the remake with George Clooney, Directed by Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron
Blade Runner (1982), the original and Blade Runner 2049
Inception
Interstellar , though it gets annoying bombastic at times
The Crow
The Matrix, the Rob Dougan Clubbed to Death, Kurayamino Variation

Special note on Clubbed to Death Kurayamino Variation only because it's got a interesting background: "Clubbed to Death" is an instrumental composition by Australian music producer Rob Dougan, originally released on Mo'Wax records in 1995. It featured in the 1997 film Clubbed to Death and was given renewed attention in 1999 due to its inclusion in the film The Matrix. It was re-released with new remixes in 2002. The subtitle Kurayamino variation is based on the Japanese for "of the darkness" (暗闇 の kurayami no). The song samples "It's a New Day" by Skull Snaps. The short strings introduction is an excerpt from the first movement of Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, and the piano solo is improvised around Elgar's theme.

So a rather slim collection.

>272 benbrainard8:
I have a vinyl of the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack.

My original Blade Runner soundtrack is a cassette tape. They appear to have made quite a mess of the selection. I recall getting the CD as well and discovered there were some tracks mislabelled. I recall there was some dispute with Vangelis regarding what he would allow on the album.
My Blade Runner 2049 is a CD. While I think 2049 did not add any remarkable new tracks, it paid homage to the original soundtrack and did not do it any disfavours. It was also great atmosphere music.
I also have The Matrix on CD.

I have not watched any version of Solaris. I read the book and found it very slow. It made me slow to watch the films. I should really watch the George Clooney version, at least to listen to the soundtrack. :-)

I liked the Inception film but I did not take particular note of the music. I must listen closely the next time I watch it. That film had and additional little connection for me. If you remember the bridge in Paris where they played with mirror images, etc. It is the bridge with the road on one level and the Metro on an elevated level. My wife and I were on that bridge a week before we saw Inception.

I've got a gatefold double LP of music for Tarkovsky's Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker. The Composer is Edward Artemiev. Licensed to a Dutch label in the last days of the USSR, it seems. How it made its way to a branch of HMV or Our Price in Reading, Heaven alone knows.

My first film soundtrack (setting aside Disney cover versions) would be Star Wars - another gatefold and this one included a big fold-out poster, and a separate sheet with musicological notes on each track.

I'm not sure what soundtracks I have. There will be quite a few on cassette (2001: A Space Odyssey is on cassette). Soundtracks aren't my first choice for orchestral music. I've got three decades' worth of classical music CDs (which include a lot of music subsequently used in film soundtracks). Recent purchases have tended to be obscure or short-run reissues of old film soundtracks. Blood on Satan's Claw or Psychomania for example.

I semi-regularly listen to Sounds of Cinema on BBC Radio 3 and that sort of keeps me abreast of current trends in film composing.

>272 benbrainard8:
I second you on the original Blade Runner; the music captivated me the very first time I saw the film.

>274 housefulofpaper:
Oddly enough I was quite blown away by Stalker but have no memory of the music. I'm due for a rewatch of that, I think.

So, as to my recent disappointments with superhero movies, I'm going to take it from recent posts that I should have a look at Deadpool and Ex Machina, right?

Back on film scores, I've always had a weakness for Basil Polidorous' music for the Arnie Conan the Barbarian. As the years have past, I've gradually realised a lot of it is derivative (listen to the score for Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, for instance), but I still like it.

>275 alaudacorax:

Umm ... I've just realised how daft it sounds to be bigging-up the Conan music in the same paragraph I'm mentioning Prokofiev's glorious Alexander Nevsky score ... oh well ...

>274 housefulofpaper:
At the end of the last century (doesn't that sound more grandiose than saying in 1999) I told a colleague I was going to a concert in the National Concert Hall featuring music by Mozart, Vivaldi, and a few others. His reply was, "Nah! I could not spent a whole evening listening to telephone ring-tones."

>275 alaudacorax:
... I should have a look at Deadpool and Ex Machina, right?

I would say, "Yes!". Deadpool is the type of superhero movie I like; it does not take itself seriously.

>278 pgmcc: I've got to admit that Ex Machina is about as far from being a MCU movie as we can get. But it's a really good movie, and it'll give you something to think about... I really enjoyed it.

Deadpool has a lot of inside jokes about MCU, even making fun of X-Men. It's fairly gross and hilarious.

Hi all, I’ve missed you.

My only Gothic gossip (aside from the fact that I’m in California and somehow survived the live-action adaptation of Byron’s ‘Darkness’ last September) relates to the film CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

I took a Great American Road Trip™️ last October, on a really bizarre research grant, and passed through Salt Lake City. I essentially derailed my schedule by a day because I had to creep around the Great Salt Lake looking for that spooky pavilion from the movie, which I had been told was still standing. I HAD TO SEE IT. I wound up spending about five hours driving before realizing that the huge stupid thing is RIGHT OFF THE HIGHWAY BY THE PARK ENTRANCE. Literally—you can’t miss it, even from the road. Blame the oversight on a chaotic election, a plague, and the vagaries of Google Earth. Or whatever.

Anyway: I have pictures! Shitty pictures, but pictures nonetheless! I don’t know how to post them because I am only semi-fluent in LT Talk mechanics after my lengthy absence. Advice?

Hope everyone is as well as possible during these ridiculous times. Vive le gothique!!

>280 veilofisis:

Hi, good to hear from you!

A quick message about uploading photos because I am about to go into a work call (into year 2 of working from home...)

I always follow the instructions pinned by the Green Dragon group, and copy and paste the code from there into a blank message box, then paste the web address of my picture (previously uploaded to my junk drawer) into the middle of the code.

>279 benbrainard8: I re-watched Ex Machina a couple of nights ago. Still enjoyed it. I remember when I saw it first my humorous reaction as Ava walked off into the lift while ignoring Caleb, was, "Typical". I am sure that is not PC but it was what popped into my head at the time.

Yes, Deadpool is fairly gross but it is totally hilarious. The mocking of X-Men is a big part of its attraction for me. I cannot take the superhero movies too seriously and unless they have some tongue-in-cheek elements I get bored. Having said that I did find "Spiderman: The Multiverse" to be good.

>280 veilofisis:

Hi again! And I forgot to say--congrats on the upcoming degree and new school and all. Yes, please, pictures--the easiest is to upload them first somewhere online--you can use the Member Gallery or the Junk Drawer here on LT, on your Profile page (upper right)--and once you have the pic up there, right-click on it, and choose "Copy Image Location". Then the HTML for showing it in threads goes like this:

(img src="yourlinkhere.jpg")

BUT, use angular brackets. Also, you may want to preview first how large the pic appears and if it's too large (usually the case), you can resize it by adding into the string above a width or height measure, for instance:

(img src="yourlinkhere.jpg" width=350)

The "350" is just an example, go up or down as needed.

Just discovered this absolutely wonderful quote from the late Sir Terry Pratchett and I've got to share it somewhere, so ...

If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.

A confession: on first seeing it, it took a few seconds before it hit me.

>284 alaudacorax:
I feel endorsed by a great.

The internet is such a time-stealer ...

Why is 'dark academia' 'dark'?

I kept coming across this phrase and, being a member of this group, I suppose I was vaguely thinking about M. R. James or similar, or Oxbridge/Ivy League students with pentagrams and such.

So I spent half hour researching it ...

... and I still don't know why 'dark'.

I do know that I'm really, really not interested ... and disappointed ...

I was, though, reminded that I've been meaning to read Donna Tartt's The Secret History since reading the reviews (almost thirty years ago?!) Don't know how much bearing that book has ...

>206 housefulofpaper: this puts in good mood to watch The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) which I just received yesterday in mail. see thread up around 195.

After watching, so this is the first of 14-15 films where Basil Rathbone would play Sherlock Homes, with Nigel Bruce as Watson. I found the portrayal to be entertaining, and I'm sure at the time it was quite popular, and even scary for new viewers.

I read that it was re-released in full format (80 minutes) in the U.S., in 1975 to theaters, due to its being out of circulation for a long period of time.

Critic and online reviewers generally note that Nigel Bruce plays a "jovial, somewhat bumbling Dr. Watson, the comic foil to Sherlock."

It does have generally creepy scenes of the moor, landscape, and a cave or two.

Overall, I'd give the film a middle score, know there will be a lot more versions to watch. It will be interesting to compare them. Ironically, the only other version of Hound of the Baskervilles I've seen is the "Sherlock, The Hounds of Baskerville (TV Episode 2012)", and they couldn't be any more different.

>246 housefulofpaper: Oh and these very much too. What a great place to be attacked by a large wolf-like creature. Sorry if I'm spoiling what might perhaps be cheery, happy scenery.

>288 benbrainard8:

Ha ha. Not at all. Actually, the overall impression I got was of a very elaborate "1970s British Televsion World" experience. Possibly at a money-no-object Chinese amusement park. A hint of folk horror in the juxtaposition of overcast skies, farmland, electricity pylon, and some crows hanging about. The familiarity of Home Counties countryside from location filming for any number of shows based in or around London. Mapledurham itself doesn't look quite real, as it's not a proper village - it was just housing for estate workers and a church. If I'd ventured on a little bit further I'd apparently have found a statue of Pan!

>289 housefulofpaper: - ... statue of Pan!

Intrigued by that. I must have read at least a handful of creepy stories from around Edwardian times about statues of Pan, and I've got this long-standing hope of unexpectedly bumping into one during my walking and bird watching. Can not find a good photograph of it or much info, sadly, so, rather disappointed (found one photo but very poor and not sure they've got the right statue—so, if you're ever round that way with a camera again ...)

>287 benbrainard8:

I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but this is one of those cases where I find the film better than the book—I find Conan Doyle's text ... disappointing. 'Films', not 'film', actually, as I like the Rathbone and Cushing versions. I'm sure I've watched others, but I can't remember them offhand.

291 >290 alaudacorax:

Pan's obviously got something none of the other old gods have as he captured the imaginations of a lot of writers and other artistic types back in Victorian, Edwardian days. Something else for me to read up on ...

I'm watching a BBC T.V. film called Byron, 2003 this weekend, where does he fit into Gothic Literature?

(after watching it April 30th, 2021), well it was ok. I think anyone that has read a lot of Byron and already knows about his life might have found this BBC T.V. production to be perhaps a bit mediocre. But for someone like me, who only read Don Juan (1819), his other famous works for university Lit. and isn't as well acquainted it's not a bad start. It was nice seeing the inestimable actress Vanessa Redgrave CBE.

HUGE question.

Of course, Byron was the model for the title character in Polidori's The Vampyre, which P. also apparently based on an idea by Byron (still haven't got round to properly reading up on this stuff). And Byron was present at the conception of Frankenstein's monster.

All sorts of entanglements between the Romantics and the Gothic, though. I find it quite fascinating reading about this stuff—how the Romantics were both indebted to and trying to distance themselves from the Gothic, for example—they wanted their stuff to be respectable and the Gothic wasn't. That makes it sound as if the two genres are more clearly separated than they really are, though ...

Thank you, I guess I shouldn't read too much into the overlap of Romantic Age literature period and Gothic literature.

I found this rather generic description of Gothic Literature that at least helped to get the time-period more squared away in my head:

"Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a genre of literature and film that covers horror, death and at times romance. It is said to derive from the English author Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Early contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. It tends to stress emotion and a pleasurable terror that expands the Romantic literature of the time. The common "pleasures" were the sublime, which indescribably "takes us beyond ourselves." Such extreme Romanticism was popular throughout Europe, especially among English and German-language authors. Its 19th-century success peaked with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and work by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens, and in poetry with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Also prominent was the later Dracula by Bram Stoker. The name Gothic spread from the Goths to mean "German". It also draws in Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, where many of the stories occur."

And Byron was writing in early time period, in the early-to mid 1800s. So that's more specific writing/Literature period, the Romantic.

I only remember fragments of the movie, Ken Russell's Gothic (1986), which was interesting.

I seem to remember Jourdain writing about Byron in the group, she quoted a fantastic poem of his... I'll look for the link.

Aha!:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/115303#2685212 (first mention)

The reading thread, for Byron's "Darkness", etc.:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/115900#

And the reading thread for Byron's "Manfred":

https://www.librarything.com/topic/123692#2945410

>297 LolaWalser: Thank you so much, I've got some extra to enjoy before I watch this film.

>297 LolaWalser: Goodness, what a dark work, Byron's Darkness

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43825/darkness-56d222aeeee1b

>298 benbrainard8:

Have you seen other Ken Russell's films? The Devils is my favourite. Gothic is better than its reputation, I'd say.

>299 benbrainard8:

Beautiful, though, no?!

>300 LolaWalser: I've only read about The Devils (1971), but haven't been able to muster up the courage to watch it. I could barely get through Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm (1988) it gave me nightmares.

>301 LolaWalser: Yes, very beautiful. I was saddened to read that Byron died so young, at around age 36.

>302 benbrainard8:

Ahh, okay! :)

>303 benbrainard8:

Yeah, and fighting for Greece's independence. He really was a Romantic character incarnate.

>295 benbrainard8:

I should have mentioned Punter and Byron's The Gothic in my last post. I found this an excellent first introduction to the topic. It seems overly expensive at the moment, looking at a couple of Amazons, but I think it's worth it.

The problem I have with that Wikipedia entry talking about how the Gothic "expands the Romantic literature of the time" is that The Castle of Otranto is earlier than the dates given for Romanticism in that Movement's own Wikipedia entry (granted, there isn't a strong editorial control over the disparate entries (and that's the whole point of the thing!)).

Not so long ago I was comfortable with the idea that the Gothic was a sub-category of Romanticism. I'm not so sure now - by the time Romanticism had got going, Gothic fiction was commercially successful but no longer critically regarded. And the Romantic movement was sort of moving away from both supernaturalism and the celebration of the sublime in nature (but never entirely letting go of either) to celebrate the individual, as well as its on-off affair with revolutionary politics. William Wordsworth is the exemplar here, I think.

It's tempting to simply replace "Romanticism" with "the Counter-Enlightenment" and say the Gothic was an element of that movement, but for the fact that the Counter-Enlightenment as used by Isiah Berlin is concerned with currents of thought in 18th century German culture.

Despite the arguments for earlier examples of Gothic thought or imagery before Walpole's novel - the "Graveyard school" of poetry, elements of Jacobean drama, even Shakespeare and Spenser, my preference is to stick with Otranto as the origin. I think of it like Rock 'n' Roll - we know from contemporary reports (if not from being there at the time) how revolutionary it felt. And yet the elements of it can be found earlier - the music in country, blues, rhythm & blues; the fans had their parallel in bobbysoxers 10 years earlier, etc.

>305 alaudacorax: Thank you all, I'm finding this all very informative and interesting.

I'll add The Gothic (2004) by David Punter & Glennis Byron to my B&N list, it looks interesting.

It's easy to get confused quickly in the matter of time-lines/time-periods. I'm barely able to keep up.

>307 benbrainard8:

It's easy to get confused quickly in the matter of time-lines/time-periods. I'm barely able to keep up.

If it's English/British history, I'm okay from the Tudor period onwards. Vaguer on US history, and French and German. Poor on every other country in the World - just a dim sense of the broad flow of events.

Here's a new set of special UK postage stamps from Royal Mail - Classic Science Fiction. Six novels have been chosen to represent the genre (all, I suppose, by British authors...although isn't Doris Lessing South African? - Nope. "Persian-born South Rhodesian novelist, in England from 1949" says my ancient The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979, this edition 1981).

I would hazard the opinion that the 1st class stamps are the most "Gothic-y" titles.

Oooh, that triffid one...!

but who sends snail mail nowadays... I bought a set of Star Trek stamps from Canada Post couple of years ago and it's still unopened...

sorry, double trouble again...

>310 LolaWalser:

Well, I paid for my 2021/22 television license by posting a cheque a couple of weeks ago; and I sent my sister a birthday card today - with the Frankenstein Monster on the envelope :)

>312 housefulofpaper:

Actually, thinking about it, no - I decided she was more of a Time Machine person.

>311 LolaWalser:

I know! Damned doppelgangers, right? They're pests.

>309 housefulofpaper:

I used to collect stamps when I was a kid. I've no idea what happened to them all, but you've suddenly got me wondering what they'd be worth if I still had them—the price of my own holiday cottage, perhaps? We can but dream.

I don't think I've ever read anything by Doris Lessing. I seem to remember trying to read something with 'gold' in the title and just not being able to stick with it. With Arthur C. Clarke on the other hand, I find from my catalogue (don't care how LT spells it) that I finished it the day before I started it. I suppose sci-fi is tricky like that. Whatever happened I have no memory of the book and haven't read anything by him since. Ah, I wrote a review ... it seems I have a history of finding ACC forgettable.

>310 LolaWalser:
I really like that Day of the Triffid day stamp, too. It has a nostalgic, 'Weird Tales' feel to it—takes me back to childhood reading of sci-fi and fantasy comics and anthologies, I suppose.

I really like the Frankenstein one. I find it quite moving and I'm sure the artist had read the book and really got into it.

I assume these are from book covers—or were they commissioned for the stamps?

>315 alaudacorax:

The illustrations are all original commissions.

The Frankenstein illustration is by Sabina Šinko and the one for The Day of the Triffids is by Mick Brownfield (who I've seen credited for a lot of Retro Sci Fi spot illustrations in Radio Times, over the years. I think he's done similar work for the Folio Society too).

I've read all of these except the Doris Lessing (the Canopus in Argos series with their text-only covers looked rather too daunting when I was spending my pocket money in W H Smith 40+ years ago).

>312 housefulofpaper:
Those of us working in the postal industry salute you. We also like people who buy stamps but may not use them. (Looking at you, >310 LolaWalser:.)

>315 alaudacorax: Stamp collecting is experiencing a resurgence. Look through your attic; that collection could be worth two holiday cottages. :-)

Ahh, the post office, as one of my colleagues in New Orleans put it, used to be my "church" (commenting on how often and regularly I went).

I used to follow stamp issues avidly, co-ordinating them with what I was sending/to whom; not only that, I'd make trips to secure specific postmarks from interesting branches. The years I spent in the French Quarter all my outgoing mail had the special "Vieux Carré" postmark. There was an old lady I'd wait as long as necessary until I got to who made the best, clearest imprints.

A tad maniacal, me? Nevaaa...

Hello all. I watched the movie "Let the Right One In", 2007, in Swedish with English subtitles. I'm assuming that this has been discussed in a thread somewhere , can anyone point me to it? I found it to be very good, very unsettling, and rather frightening.

Curious to know if you all liked or disliked it, under what genre of vampire film it might fall under... I believe there was an American remake of the film.

Heh, perhaps it comes under the "friendship", buddy genre. An American Werewolf in London, 1981, and The Lost Boys, 1987, occurred to me in a rather oblique, happenstance way. But this film was so European/Scandinavian that the others wouldn't instantly occur to anyone to have similarities. "Let the Right One In" is also about bullying, bad/absent parenting, etc.

It made quite an impression on me, it's one of those films I'd known about for a long time, but was afraid to watch it because I'd seen a few photos of scenes and they creeped me out. Ever since accidently watching the T.V. version of Salem's Lot, 1979, have had a strong aversion to "kid vampires".

But this Swedish film was rather sweet and melancholy in many ways to me. And a few scenes may have been unintentionally funny, too.

>319 benbrainard8:

I remember loving that movie but it's been a while. I don't recall discussing it here before, although it may have been mentioned... good subject.

>319 benbrainard8:, >320 LolaWalser:

Ah! ... I think I may have got wrong ideas on this one. So it's NOT a children's film (facepalm). And 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. I should watch this one.

>321 alaudacorax:

Definitely not a children's movie. I watched it again last night--as good as I remember. I would try to see it before anyone says more, Paul, it shouldn't be spoiled.

Thank you both, so my initial good impression wasn't unwarranted.

I wish there more films like it, or at least that had a "similar vibe". I want to read the book now.

Please tell me your impressions after having watched or re-watched it.

>323 benbrainard8:

We should put everything in spoiler tags... Paul don't peek! :)

Where would you say the horror "places" for you? I was struck by how Eli's previous caretaker must have been taken by her when he was very young too--that he must have loved her a long time to love her that much. So Oskar is his replacement--who knows which one of how many. Although, we have no idea what happens next and it doesn't seem likely that a 12 year old boy could handle such a task easily or for long.

As a story of friendship, it might be better if Oskar were turned so that they could remain on the same level... although two 12-year old vampires without human help probably wouldn't last long either. If Oskar stays with her, he forfeits normal life. He ages and ends up like her old caretaker. And yet it seems impossible that he would abandon her.

I wondered whether we were supposed to imagine Eli exerting some supernatural influence or if it is just emotion, friendship, that binds them to her.

"Something something bats"....

The conversation about Let the Right One In has pricked the conscience of this lurker. I have both the book and the Swedish film on my shelves and have never read or watched them. I even have Harbour, the author’s next book, also unread.

>326 pgmcc:

Coincidentally, just received the film in the mail. Must get it watched this weekend; then I can finally read >324 LolaWalser:!

>325 housefulofpaper:

Now I've got this image of Van Helsing carrying a cricket bat and set of stumps and looking purposeful. Never thought of it before, but I bet Dracula wouldn't have approved of cricket ...

>328 alaudacorax:

Though he could have worn his box over his heart, I suppose ...

>328 alaudacorax: but Dracula was so strong, wouldn't he be an excellent cricket player? Sorry, I don't know about the sport to be sure either way.

>326 pgmcc:

I didn't know there was a book... my general preference is for books over movies, and in that order. Too late now!

>331 LolaWalser: My preference is also to read the book first. Not having read the book yet explains why I have not watched the DVD.

In general I find the original Scandinavian screen adaptations better than the Hollywood versions. I felt that about "The Bridge" series and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". The Scandinavian sequels to TGWTDT were not, however, brilliant.

>325 housefulofpaper:
I have a suspicion the Dracula article was commissioned just to enable that juxtaposition on the cover. The Book Collector was started with funds from Ian Fleming and a few years ago it came back into the Fleming family's hands. It's had an occasional air of what I can only describe as "Tory Bumptiousness" since the takeover.

The article looks at visual representations of Dracula but after taking in the first pictorial covers, that both show him climbing down his castle wall (as an aside, Stoker says Dracula's climbing down like a lizard, so presumably head-first, but his cape is spread out behind him. How does that work? Unless vampires magically defy gravity (as in Coppola's film) or there's a constant updraft, I suppose) there's a fairly random selection of modern-ish versions. The Heritage Press edition (which actually reprints Felix Hoffman's illustrations for the LEC edition), pen and ink illustrations by Charles Keeping for a 1980s edition, and an edition with woodcuts by the American wood engraver Barry Moser. I've just looked on Abe Books and trade editions of the last two can be had for just a few pounds.

I knew variations on Dracula/Bat/Cricket (and Cricket stump/stake) must have been made innumerable times bt I was sure I'd seen one of them. I remembered:

From Michael Bentine's 1964 sketch comedy It's a Square World









and the punchline is, "In six easy lessons, I can turn you into a first class bat."

I couldn't find it on YouTube, but it was included in a sort of superior clip show in BBC4's Timeshift strand (not currently available on the BBC iPlayer either, sadly).

Would Dracula play cricket? The move version certainly wouldn't be happy playing a traditional game under the summer sun, but maybe his history as a military commander would make him an effective captain?

Before I forget - today is the centenary of the costume ball at the Overlook Hotel, as per the caption on the photo that the camera slowly moves in on at the end of The Shining.

>334 housefulofpaper:

Somewhat pricking my conscience. I've STILL never seen that film. What's more, I finally managed to dig up my copy of Punter & Byron's The Gothic yesterday, and the book version is one of their 'key works' that I've STILL not got round to reading. I will ... I will ...

>335 alaudacorax:

You may well not thank me for this but...the European and US cuts of the film are different, the US cut being longer but the European cut apparently representing Kubrick's final thoughts on the edit. Commercially available tapes and discs in the UK, as well the the version appearing on televsion, has always been the European cut, naturally enough. But the HMV-exclusive Blu-ray (this range seems to be a straight "porting over" of what's available from Warners in the States) is the US cut. So you have two options to choose between. Or you could watch both. You also could keep a weather eye on the Horror Channel in case the TV mini series ever turns up on there again (laughs evilly, switches computers, goes back to work...)

>336 housefulofpaper:

Um ... I foresee paralysis by indecision ... yet again ...

Just seen the born on this day list refresh for 9 July on my home page, and there's a bumper crop of Gothic/Horror writers: Ann Radcliffe (1764), Matthew Gregory (1775), Mervyn Peake (1911), Dean Koontz (1945), Thomas Ligotti (1953), Mark Valentine (1959).

>338 housefulofpaper: That is one impressive list of birthday people.

Tried Mervyn Peake, once. Can't remember which book. Read about a thousand or so chapters, then is it stopped making sense. Eventually realised I'd quite a while back skipped a few dozen chapters without noticing. Gave up at that point ...

>338 housefulofpaper:, >340 alaudacorax:

On the other hand, The Monk is sitting balefully beside me as I write, morosely waiting for me to finish Mansfield Park so he can dare me to have yet another crack at him ...

>338 housefulofpaper:

Come to think of it, I really must pay my respects to Mrs Radcliffe. Happy Birthday, ma'am!

Thomas Ligotti has come as a bit of a surprise. One of those writers I've long been meaning to get hold of it—can't remember why—I'd somehow connected him in my mind with Lafcadio Hearn (another one I still haven't got round to)—a Victorian. Got my wires crossed somewhere.

>342 alaudacorax:
I really owe the Reading branch of Waterstones a vote of thanks for occasionally getting in interesting (and rare in the UK) books. They had a Ligotti collection back in 2006 or 2007. This was when they also had a collection of Lovecraft's favourite stories (he had made and circulated at least two lists amongst all his correspondents), which was my introduction to Arthur Machen and M. P. Shiel.

Ligotti is someone I need to revisit, after reading that one collection I've only read anthologised pieces since then (and that's despite having bought three more Ligotti books. Lots of books are looking balefully at me. Don't surf the Net, they're saying. Don't weed the garden. Don't log back into work. Read!!)

>340 alaudacorax: I really enjoyed the first two books of Gormenghast. The lack of sense probably attracted me to it. :-)

>341 alaudacorax:

I read The Unfortunate Fursey and The Return of Fursey, and enjoyed their humourous approach to the supernatural, albeit with clear social messages underneath. Having read a humourous supernaural duology I decided to read some serious horror with the intention of writing a comparative piece. As I read the opening pages of The Monk I could not stop laughing at the antics of the aunt and her niece, and the behaviour of the two "gentelmen" when they saw the ladies. I found humour through to the middle of the book and felt I still needed a total-horror story. That was when I turned to Melmoth The Wanderer, a book in which I found many layers of history, Maturin's life story, sectarian bias in the context of the 1798 uprising that would still be very much in the minds of the Anglo-Irish in Dublin at the time the book was written, and I could go on ad nauseum.

No, of course I have not written that comparative piece on Fursey and The Monk yet. :-)

Neither have I written the article on Melmoth The Wanderer for which I took notes and did research. If only these papers would write themselves when I think of them.

>342 alaudacorax: I enjoy Ligotti's work but I consider it much more brutal than Hearn's stories, or anyone else's stories for that matter. Standout Ligotti stories for me include, Teatro Grotesco and The Shadow at the Bottom of the World.

I have not read any Radcliffe although I obviously have Udolpho sitting on my shelves awaiting attention. Dean Koontz is also an author whose work I have not managed to reach to date.

Swan River Press publications of Mark Valentin's stories are the extent of my reading of his work.

>338 housefulofpaper: Thank you for posting the list of birthday people. You prompted me into a quick review of reads and non-reads. So many books, so little time.

>345 pgmcc:

I really should have side-stepped The Monk a couple of years back and come back to it after I'd rest the read of Punter & Byron's key works ... but I just haven't got that kind of brain! Frankenstein follows it, which I really like anyway—one of those books I see new things in every time I go back to it; then Melmoth the Wanderer, which you've really heartened me about; then a stack of books that I genuinely look forward to reading or rereading. So I've been quite stupid about things.

>341 alaudacorax:

Incidentally, I started rereading Jane Austen under the impression that I'd previously read all her stuff; was somewhat surprised to find I'd never read Mansfield Park and was equally surprised to find myself not particularly enjoying it. As a Jane Austen, it's a bit too dark for me and doesn't have (for me, anyway) her usual level of humour. But ...

Is Mansfield Park somehow modelled on a Radcliffe-type Gothic horror? I don't mean a parody, as with Northanger Abbey—I don't see the humour in it for a parody. But it seems to me to be modelled on a Gothic novel.

I can't really explain myself without running through the plot with lots of spoilers. However, Austen seems to have put in lots of the elements of a Gothic ... hang on, that's wrong ...

It seems to me that she's using the elements of an Austen romance, but darkening them and using them as symbols of the elements of a Gothic horror. I don't know if I'm making much sense. The unfortunate things that happen to Lizzie Bennet are funny; their equivalents happening to Fanny Price are pretty much abusive, Emily St Auburn style, but in a very different setting.

Ah! A bit deflated. I just did an online search for 'is mansfield park a gothic novel' and I'm not by any means the first to think along these lines. Oh well ...

ETA - 'Emily St. Aubert'

>349 alaudacorax:

Just in case anyone's interested, I just downloaded and read this, free online:

Hall, Lynda A. “Addressing Readerly Unease: Discovering the Gothic in Mansfield Park.”Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal28(2006): 208-16.

It's excellent and I wish I could have written it. It even has an explanation that makes sense to me of why I'm feeling uncomfortable with the book. I wouldn't recommend reading it until you've read the novel first—spoilers. I've just found myself 'spoilered' with only about a quarter to go ...

Dusk outside. Caught a movement out of the corner of my eye; looked at the window; there was a bat flapping about just on the other side of the glass. Just for a few seconds, but I've never seen that in my life ... outside of an old-style horror film.

Have you let the bat in?

>351 alaudacorax:
That's marvellous. I'm not even sure there are bats near me this year. I haven't been out in the garden at dusk this summer. That's when I sometimes saw them in previous summers. Never up against the window like Hammer's bat on some fishing line.

>350 alaudacorax:
I haven't read any Jane Austen yet, despite having all the little Oxford hardbacks and the Folio Society Northanger Abbey. I had a sort of plan to read everything in order about 30 years ago...it seemed almost reasonable when I was in my early '20s and "everything" excluded most of the rest of the world. But I started going off on tangents and literary by-ways soon enough. Anyway, yes, with some embarrassment I have to confess to not having read any Jane Austen (oh, and I was going to read all the "Horrid novels" before approaching Northanger Abbey, as well...).

>345 pgmcc:
I read The Monk in the '90s and haven't revisited it since, but my memory of it is that it seemed arch in some way. Knowing and not really morally serious. A bit like Vathek but not really. Vathek seems to be written from the heart and a bit of a burlesque at one and the same time, but The Monk is superficial by comparison. That said, the most recent film version with Vincent Cassel (I'm aware of three versions, one by a surrealist colleague of Bunuel, one starring Paul McGann and Sophie Ward - I only caught the end of that film on a satellite channel probably 20 years ago and haven't seen it available in any format since, and this French-Spanish one from 2011) was faithful to the plot of the novel, played absolutely straight, and I thought effective as a horror story.

>346 pgmcc:
I think the two Swan River Press collections are representative of Mark Valentine as a fiction writer. It misses out on his occult detective character The Connoisseur, which are very good stories but more than occasionally bear the influence of fin de siecle decadent fiction so heavily, that one could be forgiven for assuming they'd been commissioned by The Chap magazine. I've enjoyed his collections of non-fiction from Tartarus Press too (bookish, antiquarian) and am continually grateful for his editorship of Wormwood (Tartarus' literary journal).

>351 alaudacorax: and onwards:

It was only a little pipistrelle—wouldn't have had a chance of being hired by Hammer. There are a few to be seen round here and I might look out of the window at twilight and see one over the trees; but I've never, ever seen one approach a window before. I've been puzzling over why. You see them chasing moths around street lamps, after all, so why not a window that moths often bump against on evenings? Probably a post for a completely different group.

>352 pgmcc:

Now you've got me wondering. People have pet gerbils and hamsters and such; I wonder how tameable a bat would be? I quite like the idea of a pet bat. Light levels might be problematic, of course ...

>355 alaudacorax:

This was unnerving, in a "they're watching everything you're doing" kind of way. This popped up in my YouTube recommendations the very next time I went to the site after reading your comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_O2s9PFjaQ

>356 housefulofpaper:

Aaaaw ...

I hadn't realised about their intelligence. Interesting. I actually have a book about bats here but haven't got round to reading it yet (and I've had it nine months!)

That Enzo, (Jamaican Fruit Bat, was he?) could have nailed a part with Hammer. He reminded me of that 'see what your god has done to me' scene in the Coppola Dracula.

I've finished Mansfield Park ... and I never really warmed up to it.

I can't help thinking of Northanger Abbey. I can remember that, when I was younger, I didn't particularly care for it; but I saw it in a whole new light once I got into Gothic literature and I really enjoyed it last time I read it.

But that's a quite different kind of Regency romance–Gothic novel hybrid to Mansfield Park (can you call Austen 'Regency romance' or should that be kept for her later imitators?) In Mansfield Park I don't think the combination really works—or not very successfully, at least.

Perversely, I'm rather looking forward to a second reading, but one from an academic, Gothic literature studies point of view. I feel I need that to really get at the bones of it. Not any time soon, though.

All the reading I've been doing on this, plus my reading of Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic, has got me really interested in how much influence Radcliffe had on Austen and, also, how much both might have influenced Sheridan Le Fanu—I'm thinking particularly of Carmilla and Uncle Silas, here (because those are the ones I remember most clearly, so the connections are jumping out at me!)

Today I found a post from Archbishop Marsh's Library informing people that a day of events is to be held on October 29th celebrating the writing of Melmoth the Wanderer which was mostly written in Marsh's Library, the place where Charles Maturin spent his writing hours.

I have e-mailed for information and will bring any more information I obtain from my enquiries back to this forum. I am assuming it is an on-line event, but I will be better placed to give you more precise information when I hear back from the organisers.

>359 pgmcc:

That looks fascinating, as does the website for Archbishop Marsh's library, the only exhibitions already open to view, etc. I shall be delving into that. Thank you!

>359 pgmcc: >360 housefulofpaper:

I got a response on the Melmoth the Wanderer event. Apparently they are only at the planning stage but will let me know details as they work them out.

The e-mail address provided in the advertisement, which I see is also on the Marsh's Library home page, is Christina.Morin@UL.ie. That is for Dr. Christina Morin, Head of English, University of Limerick. Dr Morin has a very impressive resumé with regards to the Gothic.

>358 alaudacorax: - In Mansfield Park I don't think the combination really works—or not very successfully, at least.
Changed my mind. I've been thinking it over and rereading bits, and reading some lit. studies online, and I think I was too harsh on it. Really must reread before too long. In the meantime, I've knocked my rating up half a star.

I've just been watching a few YouTube videos before bed and was somewhat startled to find one YTer talking about the Gothic elements in Sense and Sensibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKxNYZja4eg
In fact, she made perfect sense. She points out that the history of Mrs Eliza Brandon that Colonel Brandon relates to Elinor is straight out of a Gothic novel. Also, one could argue that a lot of Marianne's daft behaviour is because she is seeing herself as a Gothic heroine. Gothic was the literature of sensibility, after all.

She notes that Austen was writing S&S, and Northanger Abbey, in the 1790s (though not published till years later), when the Gothic novel was at its height. Austen knew all about the Gothic, and was reacting to it, consciously trying for a new and different kind of novel, but unable to resist playing with the Gothic on occasion.

I'm starting to feel that, when I've finished rereading all of Austen, I should rereread them ...

>362 alaudacorax:

After I've read all of Radcliffe ...

>363 alaudacorax:

And Northanger Abbey's 'horrid novels' ...

There's a three-hour programme on now on BBC Radio 3 Extra, called A Date with Dyall, all about The Man in Black himself. It dates from 2015. At the moment it's a discussion programme with Jonathan Rigby in charge, but they are running a few of the original shows later.

A bit irritating as I have things to do; but no doubt it will be on the iPlayer eventually.

>365 alaudacorax:

And now they've put on a dramatisation of The Monkey's Paw from the old 'Fear on 4' series. I've got to switch it off or I'll get nothing done ...

Anybody aware of this: a copy of Mary Shelley's manuscript for Frankenstein.

https://www.spbooks.com/75-frankenstein-9791095457459.html

I'm drooling over it; but, unless I were to win the National Lottery or something ... £180 would buy several feet of the books on my wish lists.

It seems both she and Shelley had pretty untidy handwriting. It looks very like mine when I scribble something down in a hurry.

>367 alaudacorax:
No, I hadn't heard of that company before. I don't think I'd want the manuscript though (thank goodness, says my credit card). There's a definite frisson on seeing an original manuscript in real life (the British Library's Gothic exhibition of a few years ago comes to mind) but I think trying to read a couple of hundred pages of the Shelleys' handwriting would become more pain than pleasure. I rarely see handwritten letters or memos in real life - in work or anywhere else any more - and I'm out of practice at reading it. Sometimes I can't even read my own handwriting.

I do have the book that includes a transcription of the manuscript and pulls out all of Percy's editorial interventions, The Original Frankenstein, edited by Charles E.Robinson.

>368 housefulofpaper:

I think it's covetousness rather than common sense. There'd be a frisson in having it around to look at it occasionally; but I pretty much know I'd never actually sit down and read it through.

ETA - Well, I doubt I'd ever actually sit down and read it through.

>359 pgmcc:, >361 pgmcc:

I knew Christina Morin and Archbishop Marsh's Library rang bells. She reviewed The Cambridge Companion to Dracula in the last Irish Gothic Journal (#18) (still haven't got my head used to the new name), and mentioned Stoker studying in the library as a teenager. It wasn't a positive review; but I can't, now, remember if I read it before or after I bought the book. In fact, she has two reviews in there.

>370 alaudacorax:

By the way, In that issue of the Irish Gothic Journal, does everyone else get those chunks of text in that horrid second font? And, if so, does anyone know what to do about it? I found 'Text Selection Tool' in the dropdown boxes, but it doesn't seem to do anything for me, unless I'm missing something obvious again.

>371 alaudacorax:

I keep forgetting about online journals. i think subconsiously I either want a shorter online article or articles (or maybe the same material broken into east-to-digest chunks); or a print edition. It might be why I don't do ebooks either.

Anyway, I had a look at the current edition and the text seems fine to me (MacOS High Sierra, Safari version 13.1.2, if that's of any help).

>372 housefulofpaper:

Hmm ... I've just checked again and today the text is, as you said, fine. Weird ...

>275 alaudacorax:, >276 alaudacorax:

I found the entire Conan the Barbarian music on YouTube and listened to it a couple of times. I owe the late Mr. Poledouris an apology; my use of 'derivative' was too sniffy by a long way. I was wrong to say so: all composers have influences and borrow stuff. That is one excellent soundtrack. Very sorry, Mr P.

The 1974 BBC documentary The Dracula Business has finally disappeared from the BBCiPlayer. Whilst that's a shame, it's only fair to acknowledge that it had a good long run: it originally went up as a tie-in the British Library's "Gothic: Terror and Wonder" exhibition in 2014/15.

This documentary was written and presented by journalist Daniel Farson (Bram Stoker was his grand-uncle) and includes a trip to Transylvania, a vox-pop in London's science fiction bookshop Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed, and filming José Larraz's Vampyres. (On the off-chance I looked on YouTube. Somebody uploaded it last year! I'm surprised it's been there this long...)

Some good news: I looked at Kim Newman's Twitter feed and there's advance news of a second volume of Short Sharp Shocks coming from the BFI later this year. All that amateurish screen-shotting and clumsy plot summarising I did for the first volume, and I never thought to see if there was a trailer for it. There was, and here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrHTR--3fg

>374 alaudacorax:
I'm listening to the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack now. I think I hear quite a large Russian influence (not just Prokofiev), maybe some Carl Orff too. But that doesn't take anything away from it. It's very atmospheric.

>370 alaudacorax: >360 housefulofpaper:

I obtained more information from Christina Morin regarding the event on 29th October to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Melmoth the Wanderer. (Published in 1820 but the celebration was delayed due to the insufferable virus.) Apparently the plan is for it to be an in-person event in Marsh's Library. That probably means it is not a realistic proposition for you unless you are willing to take a few days in Dublin. On the good news side, there could not be a more fitting venue for the event than Marsh's Library as that is where Maturin spent a lot of his time reading and writing. Also, for me at least, it is a good location as I can get there easily and it is a place I like to visit.

I will do my best to give a fitting report of the day.

By the way, I came across a YouTube video presentation by Dr. Morin in which she talks about Maturin and his influence on Gothic literature and the place of his works in relation to the work of other Gothic authors. I am tempted to acquire her book on Maturin but I think I will refrain until I can acclimatise myself to the price tag of £67.33.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZf4trVHziM

>376 pgmcc:

'Watch latered' that. Thanks.

And 'ouch' on that price tag. A hazard of reading literary studies is that I constantly see reference to other books that I'd like to own. It's annoying how often one I'm particularly tempted by will turn out to be a hardback around that price (or, perhaps, I should have said 'fortunate' rather than 'annoying', given my TBR pile). I'm curious to know why it happens.

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! It's just dawned on me what day it is.

>376 pgmcc:, >377 alaudacorax:

I've just listened to that YouTube clip.

I was quite intrigued by what Dr Morin said about the wide literary influence that Melmoth has had. Now I'm quite looking forward to reading it (it's next-but-three in my really complex reading schedule) and looking more into that.

I was partly-tempted by learning her own book is available digitally, but really dislike reading non-fiction digitally, so don't think I'll bother.

I do have to say, though, that by the end of the clip I was twitching every time she said 'um'.

>379 alaudacorax:
Yes, the “ums” got to me too.

Having looked at the contents page of her book it appears to me that while she looked at many aspects of the book she did not comment on the sociopolitical context of the book. The book was published in 1820, just twenty-two years after a major rising in Ireland. Maturin’s audience was the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy and they would have been in constant fear of further risings. Maturin’s popular sermons were constantly criticising the Roman church’s theology which would serve to keep his audience self-righteously condemning Catholicism and its followers. It would also keep Maturin’s church superiors happy and secure what pittance he earned as a curate.

I ramble, but I think not addressing this aspect of Melmoth misses a key rationale behind Maturin’s arguments in the story.

By the way, when you read the book watch out for a storyline that Wilde stole for one of his own works. It is further evidence that Wilde was familiar with Melmoth the Wanderer

>380 pgmcc:

Very interesting. Yes, I'm surprised she should not treat all that. I've never read the book but I've picked up somewhere (probably The Gothic) that religion is very important to reading it.

>379 alaudacorax:

And now I've checked I see that Punter & Byron mention Melmoth's wide influence; so I should have known that already. Anyway, as I said, greatly looking forward to reading it.

>381 alaudacorax: Word of warning, Maturin obviously believed in repetition to make a point. I found he tended to make a point with a story and then added additional iterations within the story to make sure the reader got the point. It might have been his Irish nature coming out; to be sure, to be sure.

I enjoyed it all but believe some people may not have my endurance. I am looking forward to hearing what you think of it. I know very few people who have read it. People I have met are often aware of it and are meaning to read it, but I have met precious few who have read it.

I'm at that stage of life where I think of something happening "just a few years ago" and a moment's reflection corrects it to "actually decades ago" *sigh*

I read Melmoth the Wanderer nearly 30 years ago, when the Folio Society reprinted it. As I remember it, it took some stamina to keep reading. Not as much as the last quarter of Clarissa, though...

Certainly, M. R. James' comment about Melmoth being "a long, a cruelly long book" rang true when I first came across it. I think I'm saying I'm not going to be rereading it before I've worked my way through Mrs Radcliffe's books and the "Horrid Novels" :)

Dr Morin's talk did remind me that I want to read Sarah Perry's Melmoth before much longer. Again, this seems like a recent purchase but the book came out in 2018.

>383 housefulofpaper:

2018 is only moments ago. I am with you on that.

>324 LolaWalser:

Just looking back over this thread and realised I'd forgotten to read your spoiler after watching the film.

Yes, I took it as a sort of Greek tragedy sort of thing, a circle being completed with the old caretaker symbolising Oskar's older self—his fate, in other words, and a circle being completed, leaving the reader viewer to belatedly see a grim inevitability to it.

Déja vu: I'm sure I've said this elsewhere.

>385 alaudacorax:

What I find fascinating is that the film ends on a practically heart-warming note, the two outcast kids happily escaping together, and then you think, "ok, but what next...?" ... and suddenly it's less cheery.

Came in to announce discovery of another Lee-Cushing film I'd never heard of, "Arabian Adventure". Kino Lorber has a description here but don't be misled by the wrong cover (they are showing a Bogarde-Lockwood movie for some reason).

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/arabian-adventure

Sounds like a kids movie maybe? But with Capucine! I'm so there...

>387 LolaWalser:

It's directed by Kevin Connor, who directed the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations for Amicus in the mid-'70s, and continued in the same vein with two more films for different production companies, first Warlords of Atlantis and then Arabian Adventure.

Edited to add - so perhaps moderate your expectations of an unexpected treasure!

>388 housefulofpaper:

ha, but I'm a pushover when it comes to Lee & Cushing. Anything to complete my collection... :)

Have you seen it?

>389 LolaWalser:

No, not yet. I did pick up the DVD for a few ££s. I'm tempted to rummage through boxes in the loft until I find it. It should have a different feel to the other films I mentioned, simply because it doesn't have a Victorian or Edwardian setting (before heading off to hidden continents, or the Earth's core, or Atlantis).

Talking of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I followed a link to a blog post that claimed that Fritz Leiber got into what would now be called a flame war in the pages of fanzines (the blog said in the '60s but if it's true I would expect it to be earlier) when he pointed out to ERB's fans that he took a lot of ideas from Theosophy. ERB supposed to be straight-ahead, rational and "manly", apparently, and in opposition to the weirdo stuff that counter-cultural types are interested in. You wouldn't think so from the covers his books got in the 1970s.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Leiber probably knew more of such things than the average Burroughs fan...

I haven't read much of Burroughs (recently, so that it would matter; as a kid I did go through a good chunk of the Tarzan series), but even just in the first example that comes to mind, in The Princess of Mars, he has John Carter "sleep-port" to Mars in a mystick cave, which I think is a fairly recognisable spiritualist device.

>391 LolaWalser:

No doubt about that, but the way the story was told seemed off. It was almost as if Leiber was just a fan himself, and not a respected writer with a 25+ year professional career behind him (although I'd have to concede that the world of SF fandom was uniquely close to the professional world from the earliest days of the pulps, so maybe it happened just that way).

Well, Burroughs did sort of kick off the whole pulp thing, didn't he? Hard to imagine there were any boys of Leiber's vintage and earlier who didn't grow up as fans!

>386 LolaWalser: That's exactly how I felt, first being glad the two were "ok", but then thinking more upon it...a deep feeling of foreboding.

If only Hollywood would get the hint and make more films like that, but that's for another thread.

We've begun watching American Horror Story, Season 1:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1844624/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt

It's some very unsettling stuff but also humorous, so we're off balance watching it. Astonished to see it's now it's 13th season.

Jessica Lange is really quite good and it has a wide array of actors, some you'll know, others perhaps not.

>394 benbrainard8:

I think there is an American remake? But I don't feel much like seeing it...

>395 benbrainard8:

Huh. Never heard of that.

>396 LolaWalser: I've never watched the American remake of Let the Right One In, either.

A spider just ran across my keyboard; and I notice that it's well into the witching hour. Fairly Gothic, I reckon.

I've just ordered myself a stash of books, about ten of them. Let me know which I should read 1st. Note that I've never read any of them:

The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother, by Horace Walpole,
The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, Bonamy Dobrée, Terry Castle
The Phantom of the Opera: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, by Gaston Leroux, Alexander Teixeiros de Mattos
Vathek (Haunted Library of Horror Classics), by William Beckford, Joe Lansdale, Leslie Klinger, Eric Guignard
The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, Christopher MacLachlan
The Dreams in the Witch House: And Other Weird Stories, by H. P. Lovecraft, S. T. Joshi
Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Maturin, Douglas Grant, Chris Baldick

I look forward to also reading the various threads/comments that you all have written on these books and the authors---I know I've seen them mentioned, discussed, and referenced often.

For some heavier reading, because The Matrix is based upon it--- it's been said/written the entire cast was asked to read it by the two directors, the Wachowskis:

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean 0 Baudrillard, Sheila Faria Glaser

And something I've been trying to purchase for the past 2-3 years but that was always out of stock:

5 Albums, by Bauhaus

I'm really looking forward to receiving them but I don't know where I'll find the shelf space, as I'm already doubling up on my book shelves. But I promised myself that I'd finally make one shelf for horror and Gothic works only. It'll be a lot of fun !

and to celebrate, I'm watching and listening to this right now (I enjoy the lyrics particularly):

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bauhaus%2c+Exquisite+Corpse%2c+video&vi...

>399 benbrainard8:

Although it's not necessary to go in strict chronological order, I can't see any reason not to start with The Castle of Otranto.

>400 housefulofpaper: because it's described as "first of its genre" and the 1st Gothic novel... it'll be my first read, just in time for our lovely NW change into Fall and Halloween.

I found this two-pound coin in my change today.

Obviously the skull is a reference to the play Hamlet, and only indirectly calls to mind memento mori or other such Gothic themes and imagery.

And yet...I recently finished reading an essay in The Cambridge History of the Gothic which discussed the influence of Shakespeare, and this play in particular, on Walpole's Gothic writing. Not only because Walpole lived in the century that turned Shakespeare into the national poet, but also because the themes that Shakespearean drama explores are mirrored in Walpole's own life.

>402 housefulofpaper:

Neat. Don't remember seeing one of those.

Help.

I'm trying to remember a book that I meant to read at some point. I think it's by an Irish writer and is claimed to be, but perhaps not widely accepted as, the first Gothic novel. It would, therefore, pre-date The Castle of Otranto (1764). I'm sure it's been mentioned in this group; but I can't remember any keywords to search for it.

>404 alaudacorax:

Is it Longsword?

>405 housefulofpaper:
That is what came to mind for me too. The Swan River Press connection shines through.

>405 housefulofpaper:, >406 pgmcc:

That's the one! Thanks, both.

Stupidly, I'd actually tried searching LT for 'broadsword' ... it rang bells. But 'longsword' never crossed my mind ...

Hmm. Surprisingly few editions about—a couple of print on demands and some suspiciously cheap leatherbounds from India; and Swan River seems to be sold out (one copy in the USA which is asking twice the price for postage as the book!)

And it's not on Project Gutenberg.

Oh well ... it wasn't going to be in my next forty-two and a half reads, anyway ... I shall keep an eye out for new printings or editions.

Friday and yesterday, 10/02, I finally managed to re-watch the BBC Count Dracula (1977), available now on Prime for streaming.

This version of Dracula, while dated, has some fairly interesting scenes and it follows the story better than most cinematic versions of the book. And I guess, more importantly, Louis Jourdan looks the part. There are some good sections of dialogue, and it has more accurate portrayal of the R. M. Renfield character. Too bad BBC wasn't able to afford to give it higher film quality, because if they had, I'd really consider purchasing it. I don't know all the actors in this version but they seem to hold their own.

Spent today assembling three shelves for DVDs & CDs. After clearing space, was able to make one full shelf dedicated only to Gothic/Goth genre. It looks small, but it contains some of the key books, Blu-Ray and DVDs, which is enjoyable. And better alleviates the double-shelving I'd lapsed into.

>409 benbrainard8:

Pictures or it didn't happen! :)

jk--but don't hesitate to share shelvies if you're so inclined.

>410 LolaWalser: I've put in next to my Palais Garnier photo. :)

>376 pgmcc:

The agenda for the Symposium on Melmoth The Wanderer being held in Archbishop Marsh's Library on Friday, 29th October has been released. I present it below for those interested.

Organised by Christina Morin and Jason McElligott

9.00-9.30 Coffee and Registration

9.30-9.45 Opening Remakrs - Jason McElligott (Marsh's Library) and Tina Morin (UL)

9.45-10.30 Marine Galiné (Reims), 'The Anxiety of Motherhood in Melmoth the Wanderer'

10.30-11.15 Jim Kelly (Exeter), '"The pollution of my own cathedral": The Revelations of Charles Robert Maturin'

11.15-11.45 Tea/Coffee

11.45-12.30 Claire Connolly (UCC), 'Liquid Melmoth'

12.30-1.15 Katie Mishler (UCD/MoLI), '"A noctuary of terror": Melmoth's Labyrinth and the Spectral Legacies of Charles Maturin'

1.15-2.00 Lunch

2.00-2.45 Julia M. Wright (Dalhousie), '"Thy Heart is Sunk": Storm and Sensibility in Maturin's Bertram'

2.45-3.30 Raphaël Ingelbien and Benedicte Seynhaeve (KU Leuven), 'Romantic Bardolatry and the Role of Shakespearean Allusions in the Characterization of Melmoth'

3.30-3.45 Move from Marsh's Library to St. Patrick's Cathedral

3.45-4.45 Public readings from Melmoth the Wanderer

The beautiful Lady Chapel of St Patrick's Cathedral is the spacious location for these readings from one of the scariest Irish novels ever published. Excerpts will be read by:

Joseph O'Connor, acclaimed novelist and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick
Marie Gethins, award-winning short fiction writer and current PhD student at the University of Limerick
Darryl Jones, Professor of Modern British Literature and Culture at Trinity College Dublin and expert on all things gothic
Madeline Potter, specialist in Irish gothic literature and theodicy
Christina Morin, senior lecturer in English at the University of Limerick and author of Charles Robert Maturin and the Haunting of Irish Romantic Fiction.
This event is open to those attending the symposium, members of the general public, and visitors to St Patrick’s Cathedral. Pre-booking is not essential, but to assist with seating arrangements the organisers should be grateful if you would consider booking in advance here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/170413651820

4.45 – 5.00 Move from St Patrick’s Cathedral back to Marsh’s Library

5.00 – 6.00 Launch in Marsh’s Library of the exhibition ‘“Ragged, livid & on fire”: The Wanderings of Melmoth at 200’

A first chance to see the new exhibition about the unusual 16th and 17th century books that Maturin used as background for his masterpiece Melmoth the Wanderer.

Found a great description of The Picture of Dorian Gray which is rated in this article as the second best horror novels:

"There are no real villains in Oscar Wilde’s first and only novel. The lurking danger of this book is our capacity for vanity and how it can literally and metaphorically disfigure us, how obsession with retaining beauty will inevitably lead to its destruction. Even Wilde’s central monster, Dorian himself, is more tragic idiot than conniving mastermind, a youthful dope consumed by a pathological belief that the only thing worth having is beauty at any cost. His descent would almost be funny if it wasn’t so chillingly believable."

here's the original article:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/28/top-10-horror-novels-halloween-gab...

Sunday morning, not long out of bed and sitting down to my wake-up mug of tea. Logged in to facebook to check on the family; to be confronted with this:



Bit of a shock to the system first thing. Didn't know the chap could smile, let alone grin like that. Slightly unnerving.

It was part of Nunkie's (Robert Lloyd Parry) post for his next reading, of 'The Call of Cthulhu'. Not sure about his accent for Lovecraft, though ...

>413 benbrainard8:

Very jarring article... "dope, funny"... miles away from my reading. Dorian didn't trade with the devil just for beauty but immortality. Who wouldn't be tempted by the promise of eternal youth? All the more since he's a shallow character to begin with.

Then the question of villainy. To me, both Lord Henry and Dorian are sinister figures, amoral and narcissistic to the point of pathology, and the latter is unquestionably "the villain" in the traditional sense (the character who deliberately commits evil acts). Wilde was limited in what sort of misdeeds he could hint at, let alone show. Even the unexpurgated version, which makes Dorian's homosexual escapades more clear, is very restrained in comparison to, say, underground libertine literature when it comes to Dorian's crimes. But I think we can safely assume Wilde (like Stevenson when it came to Mr. Hyde) meant the acts to have been truly vile and depraved, and not the relatively anodine jilting of a mistress and some drunken orgies.

>415 LolaWalser: I agree, it's as if the article is trying to "lighten" up the true nature of the book. Though it might be an interesting article, doesn't mean we have to agree with it. I find the movie versions to be more in tune, so to say. But I need to see the older cinematic versions. Will be interesting to contrast the various cinematic treatments of the book.

Yes, let's treat the book with bit more reserve, seriousness. It's quite a stark piece of literature.

Another recent purchase.


Although it's an "illustrated history", the organisation of the contents is thematic. I mean it opens with broad and rather abstract concepts, and then the focus narrows to more specific subjects. It reminded me of the way Roget organised his thesaurus (although they tend to be on a simple alphabetical basis now), or the Dewey decimal system.





From the chapter on "Ruins":


"West":

>417 housefulofpaper: Such a beautiful book.

Your mention of Roget's thesaurus reminded me of a college friend who was studying Scholastic Philosophy. He was writing a dissertation on humour. He told me that most jokes have a victim and that his favourite bit of humour was a piece of graffiti: "Roget's thesaurus rules, reigns, sovereigns, domains..."

Unfortunately, these days, when you mention Roget's thesaurus to younger people, they look at you as if you had two heads. So goes the loss of general knowledge as the generations march on.

By the way, I like your book stand.

>400 housefulofpaper: I finished The Castle of Otranto last night. I find it...interesting. I especially like the imagery it presents. I can see why many readers give it lower points for actual writing skill, but it gets high points for creation of setting that finds it's way into many authors "down the road". It sometimes reminds me of reading a Grimm's Fairy Tale book, but at same time there are so many nods and references to Shakespeare, that it prompts me to go back and re-read some of the Immortal Bard's works, esp. Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth etc.

>417 housefulofpaper: That is a gorgeous book! I love books about genre and genre history, and that looks like an amazing one.

>419 benbrainard8: I read The Castle of Otranto fairly recently, as well. My take is that on a basic, prose level, the writing isn't anything special (or even very good, tbh), especially by today's standards, but that the book still has a lot of value in the context of its role in literary history generally and the gothic genre and its offshoots more specifically.

I did note that it felt, to me, very much like a tragedy in the classic/literary sense of the term, which somewhat surprised me. I wasn't expecting that.

I do wonder if the novel might have struck me differently if I hadn't had such difficulty reading it.

Certain historical formatting elements, such as not setting dialogue in its own paragraph and changing paragraphs for new speakers, plus the tiny font size in my copy, definitely put me at a greater distance from the story than I might have been otherwise.

It's entirely possible that the prose style is such that I couldn't have achieved real immersion regardless, but I do wonder.

Gothic: An Illustrated History is an interesting read. Of course it can't cover everything (on a selfish note, I should hope not, since I have also bought the three volumes of the Cambridge History of the Gothic!) and the illustrations often don't immediately reveal their relationship to the subject - why a poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, or abandoned buildings in Detroit? But each chapter does put forward an argument rather than simply offer a bland survey of the subject, and the illustrations all have their place.

Regarding "not covering everything", as an example, it's only just occurred to me that there's nothing about Gothic music or the whole Goth subculture.

>418 pgmcc:
you can't see part of the bookstand that would have spoiled the mood of the picture because it's striped like a deck chair :)

>419 benbrainard8:
Yes, the essays about Walpole in The Cambridge History emphasise his borrowings from Shakespeare, and also discuss how he identified with the power and family dynamics in the history plays and tragedies (as the son of the Prime Minister, and as somebody who loved and respected both of his parents, but also someone whose paternity was subject to rumour).

>420 Julie_in_the_Library:
A US edition of Gothic: An Illustrated Historyis due to be published by Princeton University Press next month.

My understanding is that most books were printed using type with a comfortably large point size until the Victorian era - the era of the democratisation and industrialisation of printing. Below is an image of the title page of the 2nd edition, from Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination - the book that accompanied the British Library's exhibition in 2014/15 (apologies for the distortion in the image, the page wouldn't lie flat). I think this would make for an easier reading experience than what you describe (even when I was in my teens and my eyes worked liked magnifying lenses, I preferred a decently sized typeface/point size.).



As I said about reading Mrs Radcliffe's first novel, coming back to writing of the 18th century after a long gap, I also found it hard to fully immerse in the story - for me, it was the relative lack of dialogue and being told what characters are thinking and feeling by the omniscient narrator.

>418 pgmcc: heh, now I know why I wouldn't let my spouse donate my Roget's International Thesaurus, Seventh Edition. She asked why anyone would want such a hefty paperback (over 900 pages), and I begged to keep it. Accept no substitutes. I'm sure there's an electronic version somewhere, online, etc. But I couldn't help myself.

>422 housefulofpaper: thank you for mentioning this, I've put Gothic: An Illustrated History for pre-order, looks like it's out next month in the U.S.

>423 benbrainard8:
As I said above:
"Roget's thesaurus rules, reigns, sovereigns, domains..."

:-)

>421 housefulofpaper:

it's striped like a deck chair

How chic!

>420 Julie_in_the_Library: after I read the second story in this version, "The Mysterious Mother", I'm thinking of re-reading "The Castle of Otranto", but this time aloud to myself. I've often found it easier to read Shakespeare, 16th-18th centuries/y Literature aloud. Perhaps this sounds a bit silly, but it's always helped me to "visualize" the story in a better manner. It also helps me to remember which characters are which, though I note Walpole sometimes has the character(s) themselves mis-identify who is who.

Yes, the prose style is bit difficult and abrupt. When the Frederic the Marquis of Vincenza pops up, my head nearly spinned off (what outta where did he come from?!). I'd to go back to find him....and felt a bit out of whack.

But I completely forgive Walpole, because the imagery in the story is, as most our Gothic thread writers know, fairly awesome and let's use the modern word, "trendsetting".

Time for a new thread, I think..