(urth) Charles Williams

[Antonin Scriabin]

That should have said "Tim" Powers, of course!  I have only read *Last Call
*and *The Anubis Gates*, but I liked them both quite a bit.  I think that
the latter is better, overall, but the former got off to an engrossing
start.  Have you read any of the sequels to *Last Call*?  And what, out of
curiosity, was the treatment of Tarot in *Blood Meridian?  *I haven't read
anything by Cormac McCarthy.

I think I might start with *War in Heaven* by Williams, or possibly *Descent
into Hell *...they seem to be two of his more acclaimed novels.




On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Daniel Petersen <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, those were two novels by each of them that I hadn't yet read, so I
> read them both recently, hoping for resonances.  My first impression is
> that they each took their own uniquely weird take on the tarot (about
> which, though, I know little) with about zero overlap!  That's probably the
> best I've read by Powers so far - excellent.  Williams's was a more minor
> effort in my opinion but had one of my all-time favourite theological moves
> (reminding me very much of the Wolfe's Outsider) and one of the best
> freakish visions in the Williams canon - whole novel was worth it for that
> alone.
>
> (I was subsequently weirded out to see the tarot feature in Cormac
> McCarthy's *Blood Meridian* as well!)
>
> -DOJP
>
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Interesting! I am a fan of Tin Powers for sure, it would be great to
>> check out his precursors. I notice that Last Call and The Greater Trumps
>> have some similarities, for example. Thanks for the input!
>> On Dec 17, 2012 10:51 AM, "Daniel Petersen" <
>> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Oh goodness, yes!  In terms of sheer intensity and originality of
>>> imagination, I put him up there with Wolfe and Lafferty and Lewis and
>>> Tolkien (as a theological myth-maker).  And I think he possibly veers more
>>> into *weird* fiction (ala Lovecraft, Howard, Hodgson, Machen, etc.) than
>>> the others.  Some of his visionary passages are flesh-crawling in their
>>> numinous grotesquery.  He's not a great prose writer as a novelist and the
>>> passages can come and go as to stylistic excellence.  But overall
>>> incredibly enjoyable to me.  His tone is very middle-to-upper-class English
>>> and and the settings are almost Edwardian - a bit like Chesterton or Sayers
>>> if they were writing weird fiction.  In fact, Williams is one of the early
>>> practitioners of 'Noird' fiction (noir detective + weird), at least in the
>>> novel *War In Heaven*.  In some ways too he's a bit of a prototype for
>>> Tim Powers's version of 'urban fantasy' or 'urban magical realism'.  Lewis
>>> has an excellent essay on Williams's fiction in the collection *On
>>> Stories*.
>>>
>>> I thought I remembered Wolfe mentioning Williams favourably in an
>>> interview once.  Anyone know?
>>>
>>> -DOJP
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>>> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello!  Is anyone familiar with the work of Charles Williams?  From a
>>>> brief look online, he seems to have some similarities to MacDonald, and I
>>>> thought there was a good chance some of you Wolfeans (?) would have some
>>>> input.  Any suggestions for a novel of his to start with?
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>
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