(urth) Lupiverse(es)
David Stockhoff
dstockhoff at verizon.net
Sat Mar 17 08:53:03 PDT 2012
The Victorians link the older, anonymous tales with the modern writers.
We would have little today without them---not Wilde, Dunsany, Lewis, or
Tolkien. I don't see much of them at their worst in Wolfe, but at their
best---without a doubt.
On 3/17/2012 6:06 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> Photogen and Nycteris is definitely one of the very best. Lilith and
> Phantastes are certainly meandering and oblique novels - but I think
> they're very powerful, undiluted fantasies - he taps into some deep
> mythopoiea and faerie in these in my opinion - lots of great
> individual scenes and elements too - plenty of creatures and not a
> little horror also - he's always struck me as a phantasmagorical Poe.
> I'd like to see whether their's a connection to Wolfe at all, either
> overtly or unintentionally.
>
> -DOJP
>
> On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 4:08 AM, David Stockhoff
> <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> Just for the record, I can't find the "dull" MacDonald story I
> thought I was looking for, and I can only guess it's buried among
> the many ebook collections of his fiction on my old hard drive.
>
> But /Lilith /certainly fits the bill, and /Phantastes /is not far
> behind. No worse than William Morris, though.
>
> /Photgen and Nycteris /is one of my favorites, along with several
> others I can't locate at the moment.
>
> On 3/16/2012 4:32 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
>> I plan to read it to my daughter when she's old enough---in a
>> year or two. That's why I collected all the MacDonald I have,
>> though there was a selfish motivation as well.
>>
>> I have to apologize for shocking everyone, however. It wasn't The
>> Golden Key I was thinking of at all. Had I read that as a child I
>> might recall it more clearly than I did in fact---probably as
>> much as Curdie---but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
>>
>> I am not sure which story it was that struck me as stilted and
>> dull, only that the protagonist was a girl. But I shouldn't
>> venture to opine until I get back home and find the physical books.
>>
>> Auden is amazing---no, not dull at all. But then he never wrote
>> stories for children, or did he?
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
>> <mailto:danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
>> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>
>> *Sent:* Friday, March 16, 2012 3:30 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>>
>> I really enjoy the edition where it's printed as its own small
>> book, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and an afterword by W.
>> H. Auden. (And I'll side with Auden over Stockhoff as to the
>> story and its author's worth - but maybe the Stock finds Auden
>> dull as well? [If so only further proving my theory that he is
>> inhuman.])
>>
>> You know, I actually first read that edition aloud to my daughter
>> when she was 5 or 6 and that was the go that really bowled me
>> over. David, do you know of any bairns you can read it aloud to?
>>
>> (Does anyone have experiences reading Wolfe aloud? I've never
>> done that, I don't think. Lafferty gains whole new dimensions
>> when you do it with him - I wonder what it would be like with
>> Wolfe. I picture it being more of a reading to fellow adults
>> scenario, rather than to children.)
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Antonin Scriabin
>> <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com <mailto:kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> The Golden Key was a favorite of mine growing up. I wish I
>> could find my copy!
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 3:09 PM, Daniel Petersen
>> <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
>> <mailto:danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the
>> BEST! You have no soul! You are not human, you are
>> machine!
>>
>> (To be honest, it was on a second read that it blew me away.)
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 5:11 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF
>> <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Golden Key: THAT's the one. Dull, dull, dull, dull,
>> dull.
>>
>> ;)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com
>> <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>>
>> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net
>> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>>
>> *Sent:* Friday, March 16, 2012 10:19 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>>
>> Try some of his short stories and novellas:
>>
>> Photogen and Nycteris (aka Day Boy & Night Girl, aka
>> Son of the Day, Daughter of Night)
>> Light Princess (aka Little Daylight)
>> Golden Key
>> Translations for Novalis
>>
>> Lewis and MacDonald never met. But Lewis credited
>> MacDonald's fiction as an important element in his
>> conversion. He (and the reception of his children)
>> were important in the publication of Alice in
>> Wonderland. Although he was a pastor for a time, his
>> sermons and theology got him in trouble and he was
>> eventually pushed out.
>>
>> J.
>>
>> On 3/16/2012 8:09 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> I'm not sure which of MacDonald's books I consider
>>> stilted and boring, although I encountered those as
>>> an adult. But I loved the Curdie books my mom read
>>> to me when I was four or five.
>>>
>>> On 3/15/2012 10:51 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
>>>> Phantastes was a beautiful book! Never besmirch the
>>>> name of MacDonald! heh heh...
>>>>
>>>> As someone who was raised in a relatively
>>>> a-religious family, I usually just ignored the
>>>> obviously religious bits of Lewis/Tolkien/whoever
>>>> else. But as I got older, I found that the
>>>> non-"preachy" manner of fictional Christian works
>>>> actually worked to explain why faith was
>>>> interesting and attractive. After all, here was
>>>> some fantasy that might be real on a certain level,
>>>> or at least a number of people thought so.
>>>>
>>>> That's a perspective I've had trouble explaining to
>>>> friends who had that "betrayal" reaction to Narnia.
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> *From:* David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>>>> <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>>>> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>>>> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:42 PM
>>>> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>>>>
>>>> On 3/15/2012 10:32 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>>> > Wasn't MacDonald a good half century older? And
>>>> he was one of those mollified Presbyterians.
>>>> > But is it fair to criticise didacticism which
>>>> didn't pretend to be anything else? I mean, neither
>>>> MacDonald nor Lewis, that I know of, tried to
>>>> present their books as doctrinally free. At least
>>>> MacDonald was overt as to their didactic nature. It
>>>> isn't Lewis's fault if the Narnia books got popular
>>>> that they were pushed everywhere as mere children's
>>>> books without a caveat that they were had a
>>>> religious undercurrent. Maybe the real issue is
>>>> that they are popular because that undercurrent
>>>> pleases people, just as Praise of Empire pleased
>>>> others, and those who take exception to that way of
>>>> writing resent the popularity.
>>>>
>>>> Well, if it's boring, it's boring. And it depends
>>>> on what you mean by "didn't pretend"---as with
>>>> Lewis, most of his readers were children. If you
>>>> have no idea what you might be reading, you can't
>>>> know whether it's pretense or not.
>>>>
>>>> Certainly Lewis wasn't responsible for whatever
>>>> marketing got his books in my local library and
>>>> into my hands. But I doubt they were and are
>>>> popular because they are religious: rather, they
>>>> probably are popular because they are accessible,
>>>> imaginative (sometimes magical, as you said),
>>>> action-packed, well-written, comforting (Aslan
>>>> always appeared to set things right), and morally
>>>> nonthreatening. Girls read them as much as boys
>>>> did, and no parents objected to them.
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