Tuesday, 10 October 2006

Fœtid Historical Romances & Their Effect on Expectations

After endless hours spent reading this:

"I don't understand you, and we are both a trifle annoyed, and that is the reason why you must go away.  And remember to be early at Mr. St. Clair's [tea]; we must make it a success."

"And the Leighs?" [says the narrator].

"They will come; and now go and repent of your having been cross to Fred Vincent's wife" [says Fred Vincent's wife, inexplicably referring to herself in the third person].

[The narrator] looked at her reproachfully.

"Oh, but you were, and you would have liked to be still more unpleasant.  Good-by."

This elicited a giggle:

"Yes; I am asked to go South on a Government commission to study the outbreak [of yellow fever] they have had.  I think I shall go.  I saw it once before, and for some reasons, no one else is quite as well fitted for this not over-pleasant task" [says the narrator].

"It is risky" [says the narrator's poet-friend].

"Very."

"I would n't go.  What 's the use?"

"It is a simple duty.  I should like to go away for a while, and it fits in nicely."

"Darn duty."

I laughed, as if darning duty mended matters, and we parted.

See what I've been reduced to?  After burning, Miriam-like, through five such novels the past five days, I'm increasingly tolerant of bad puns, witless cutting insults and the nimble plotting of the club-handed.  Before you can say "Spelling," I'll find Desperate Housewives clever, watch ER religiously and argue the literary merits of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. 

Works outside the canon may be, as my betters have argued, of historical import—but sometimes neglected works have been abandoned with good reason.  I dread the day someone says "I read X, Y or Z on the strength of your article," as I'm a man of peace and can do nothing to arrest the pummelling I've earned.  I mean, I could plead professionalism: "You don't understand!  Appreciative criticism isn't appreciated in academia!  Not the face!  Not the face!"

But why heap humiliation on hospitalization?

Oct 10, 2006 9:00:19 PM | Academia, Books, Commonplace, Dissertation, Evolution, Literary Theory, Literature

3 Comments

Rich Puchalsky

So who are the good writers from the period you study that are generally no longer read?

I'd say that James Branch Cabell is one of the best fantasy writers to have written so far, and he's close to fitting the criteria (American, wrote in the 1910s although he did his best work in the 1920s, once was read and now is not).

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Wednesday, 11 October 2006 at 06:52 AM

Scott Eric Kaufman

So my own blog ate my earlier response to this ... I feel betrayed.

That said, my earlier comment wasn't too substantial, amounting to "if there are 'good' lost writers from my period, I haven't found them." Seriously, I've found pockets of decent prose—Mitchell even produced some himself—but if you scroll down to "The Case of George Dedlow," you'll see that it's the content more than the literariness of the prose which compels interest. The holds for many of the other working scientists on the tail-end of gentlemen scholardom—Huxley and Holmes spring to mind, but neither would be considered "lost" so much as "under-read."

I should reiterate what I linked to Miriam saying: many unknown authors of interest, not so many of talent. (At least, not the sort of talent which would warrant continued interest.) On your recommendation, I've picked up a copy cheap editions of Cabell. I'll probably get around to reading them sooner than later, since the ones I grabbed have pictures, and we all (he says, nodding to the right sidebar) know how I feel about the funny books.

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Wednesday, 11 October 2006 at 07:01 PM

Rich Puchalsky

Cabell's best book is, in my opinion, The Silver Stallion, so start with that one if possible.

The other under-read fantasists that I know of in the 1890-1910 period are British. William Morris is known for other things, of course, but he wrote some fantasies in the 1890's, supposedly the first to be set in wholly imaginary worlds -- probably more interesting as influences than as reads to a contemporary reader, though. George MacDonald's Lilith was published in 1895, though he did most of his writing earlier. Lord Dunsany's first four books, and probably his best, were published by 1910. Dunsany is the one who comes closest to Cabell evaluatively, I'd say, though it's possible that I just don't see a lot of what's in MacDonald's books because I have the wrong background for him.

And yes, I only know much about fantasy and SF. It's gone from being an adolescent preference to being a life-is-short-so-I-might-as-well-specialize thing.

Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Wednesday, 11 October 2006 at 08:47 PM

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