Urth Digest, Vol 98, Issue 9 The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 13 Oct 2012 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6299 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. ============================================================================== 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 -----Original Message----- From: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] On Behalf Of urth-request at lists.urth.net Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 4:32 PM To: urth at lists.urth.net Subject: Urth Digest, Vol 98, Issue 9 Send Urth mailing list submissions to urth at lists.urth.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.urth.net/listinfo.cgi/urth-urth.net or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to urth-request at lists.urth.net You can reach the person managing the list at urth-owner at lists.urth.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Urth digest..." 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------