# Urth Digest, Vol 98, Issue 9

*The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 13 Oct 2012*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6299>

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### Eric Bourland
*13 Oct 2012, 13:15*

John -- sounds like a good book. I'll find it and come back here with
thoughts. I've been lurking in this group for some months, but paying
attention to the intriguing discussions.

Eric

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Today's Topics:

   1.  Robert Aickman, The Model (jbarach at aol.com)
   2. Re:  Robert Aickman, The Model (Ant?nio Pedro Marques)
   3. Re:  Robert Aickman, The Model (jbarach at aol.com)

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:07:12 -0400 (EDT)
> From: jbarach at aol.com
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Subject: (urth) Robert Aickman, The Model
> Message-ID: <8CF761C48207CBD-F28-3501A at webmail-m058.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> URTHlings --
> 
> Recently 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:
> 
> 
> "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."
> 
> 
> Some 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).
> 
> Has anyone else read The Model?  Thoughts?
> 
> John

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