{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6298", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6298, "subject": "Robert Aickman, The Model", "messages": 5, "voices": 3, "first": "2012-10-11T23:07:12+00:00", "last": "2012-10-13T18:15:25+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<8CF761C48207CBD-F28-3501A@webmail-m058.sysops.aol.com>", "from": { "name": "jbarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2012-10-11T23:07:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Robert Aickman, The Model", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "URTHlings --\n\nRecently I read Robert Aickman's The Model, a book which is blurbed by (among others) Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, and Gene Wolfe. Wolfe says about it:\n\n\n\"The late Robert Aickman was up to something, and quite consciously. He did not title his little book The Model for nothing. What he has done (and knew he had done) is discover a new wonderland. I would bet that the number of peple who have done that is less than one tenth the number who have discovered actual islands, inhabited or treasure; we must now add Aickman to that short list. He has told us what I think none of us had realized before -- that czarist Russia can be just as viable a wonderland as, say, Baghdad under the Caliph. And he has not merely told us; he has proved it by leaving us a model.\"\n\n\nSome aspects of the book reminded me strongly of Wolfe (e.g., Aickman often implies things, rather than saying them outright, and you have to be paying attention as you read to catch what's really going on or being said), and I wondered about the possible influence of Aickman on Wolfe. Certainly Wolfe himself has written at least one story set in something like the wonderland he says Aickman discovered (\"The Death of Koschei the Deathless: A Story of Old Russia\"), and certain elements in \"Queen of the Night\" (the carriage journey, for instance) remind me a bit of what happens in The Model (though The Model is much less creepy and graphic).\n\nHas anyone else read The Model? Thoughts?\n\nJohn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-12T02:51:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Robert Aickman, The Model", "in_reply_to": "<8CF761C48207CBD-F28-3501A@webmail-m058.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting, thank you for sharing. \nAickman has been on my list of authors to explore, but I haven't yet found anything by him that is in convenient form for me (no collected works, no series, no omnibuses...)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<8CF764DFB8E6A87-1C9C-3446E@webmail-m126.sysops.aol.com>", "from": { "name": "jbarach at aol.com", "address": "jbarach at aol.com" }, "date": "2012-10-12T05:02:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Robert Aickman, The Model", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is a two volume collection of his \"strange stories,\" but it is rare and expensive. Nor does it include The Model, which seems like a good starting place.\n\nJohn\n\n\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: entonio at gmail.com\nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thu, Oct 11, 2012 5:52 pm\nSubject: Re: (urth) Robert Aickman, The Model\n\n\n\nInteresting, thank you for sharing. \nAickman has been on my list of authors to explore, but I haven't yet found \nanything by him that is in convenient form for me (no collected works, no \nseries, no omnibuses...)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2012-10-12T22:54:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Robert Aickman, The Model", "in_reply_to": "<8CF764DFB8E6A87-1C9C-3446E@webmail-m126.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm a huge Robert Aickman fan, and definitely recommend him as of\ninterest to Wolfe readers.\n\nAs John Barach says, he's a writer who implies things rather than\nsaying them outright. Often very strange and unsettling things - a lot\nof his stories are anthologised as 'horror'. This makes The Model\natypical, as far as I can recall, as I remember it as more dreamlike\nthan actually unpleasant. But it's years since I read it.\n\nA crucial distinction between the two writers is that generally\nWolfe's mysteries *seem* solvable, even if none of us can agree on the\nsolution. Whereas a lot of Aickman's stories very deliberately *don't\nadd up*. You think you can see where it's heading, you're picking up\non all the clues, then something outright surreal happens and suddenly\nit's over.\n\nFor that reason I would suggest 'Mute' as one of Wolfe's more\nAickman-like stories. Maybe it has an explanation that I just didn't\npick up on, but for me its mystery was the essence of the story.\n\nI wouldn't have thought Aickman's writing could translate at all to\ncinema, but Jeremy Dyson and Mark Gatiss made an enjoyable stab at it\nin their short film version of The Cicerones, which for a long time\nwas very hard to get hold of but I'm delighted to say you can now\nwatch here:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZefDTNt2u4" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5D2ACB35-47FB-41C6-9E54-6D36EE40AA68@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-10-13T18:15:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Robert Aickman, The Model", "in_reply_to": "<8CF764DFB8E6A87-1C9C-3446E@webmail-m126.sysops.aol.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Are those the Tartarus books? I was quite close to getting them once, but then some reviewers who complained of poor and small type put me off. That would seem to be a problem with latter Tartarus volumes, and the reason I didn't get any Oliver Onions Stuff either. I must say I have no complaints about the ones I do have (Arthur Machen, Walter de la Mare, LP Hartley), and my eyesight leaves a lot to be desired.\n\n\nNo dia 12/10/2012, ?s 06:02, jbarach at aol.com escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There is a two volume collection of his \"strange stories,\" but it is rare and expensive. Nor does it include The Model, which seems like a good starting place.\n\nJohn\n\n\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: entonio at gmail.com\nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thu, Oct 11, 2012 5:52 pm\nSubject: Re: (urth) Robert Aickman, The Model\n\nInteresting, thank you for sharing. \nAickman has been on my list of authors to explore, but I haven't yet found \nanything by him that is in convenient form for me (no collected works, no \nseries, no omnibuses...).\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }