Subject: (urth) Charles Williams

From: Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:30:05 +0000

Hello!  Is anyone familiar with the work of Charles Williams?  From a brief
look online, he seems to have some similarities to MacDonald, and I thought
there was a good chance some of you Wolfeans (?) would have some input.
Any suggestions for a novel of his to start with?
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From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:51:06 +0000

Oh goodness, yes!  In terms of sheer intensity and originality of
imagination, I put him up there with Wolfe and Lafferty and Lewis and
Tolkien (as a theological myth-maker).  And I think he possibly veers more
into *weird* fiction (ala Lovecraft, Howard, Hodgson, Machen, etc.) than
the others.  Some of his visionary passages are flesh-crawling in their
numinous grotesquery.  He's not a great prose writer as a novelist and the
passages can come and go as to stylistic excellence.  But overall
incredibly enjoyable to me.  His tone is very middle-to-upper-class English
and and the settings are almost Edwardian - a bit like Chesterton or Sayers
if they were writing weird fiction.  In fact, Williams is one of the early
practitioners of 'Noird' fiction (noir detective + weird), at least in the
novel *War In Heaven*.  In some ways too he's a bit of a prototype for Tim
Powers's version of 'urban fantasy' or 'urban magical realism'.  Lewis has
an excellent essay on Williams's fiction in the collection *On Stories*.

I thought I remembered Wolfe mentioning Williams favourably in an interview
once.  Anyone know?

-DOJP

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello!  Is anyone familiar with the work of Charles Williams?  From a
> brief look online, he seems to have some similarities to MacDonald, and I
> thought there was a good chance some of you Wolfeans (?) would have some
> input.  Any suggestions for a novel of his to start with?
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>

-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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From: Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:54:09 +0000

Interesting! I am a fan of Tin Powers for sure, it would be great to check
out his precursors. I notice that Last Call and The Greater Trumps have
some similarities, for example. Thanks for the input!
On Dec 17, 2012 10:51 AM, "Daniel Petersen" <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> novel *War In Heaven*.  In some ways too he's a bit of a prototype for
> Tim Powers's version of 'urban fantasy' or 'urban magical realism'.  Lewis
> has an excellent essay on Williams's fiction in the collection *On Stories
> *.
>
> I thought I remembered Wolfe mentioning Williams favourably in an
> interview once.  Anyone know?
>
> -DOJP
>
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:02:07 +0000

Yes, those were two novels by each of them that I hadn't yet read, so I
read them both recently, hoping for resonances.  My first impression is
that they each took their own uniquely weird take on the tarot (about
which, though, I know little) with about zero overlap!  That's probably the
best I've read by Powers so far - excellent.  Williams's was a more minor
effort in my opinion but had one of my all-time favourite theological moves
(reminding me very much of the Wolfe's Outsider) and one of the best
freakish visions in the Williams canon - whole novel was worth it for that
alone.

(I was subsequently weirded out to see the tarot feature in Cormac
McCarthy's *Blood Meridian* as well!)

-DOJP

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

>> has an excellent essay on Williams's fiction in the collection *On
>> Stories*.
>>

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From: Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:08:54 +0000

That should have said "Tim" Powers, of course!  I have only read *Last Call
*and *The Anubis Gates*, but I liked them both quite a bit.  I think that
the latter is better, overall, but the former got off to an engrossing
start.  Have you read any of the sequels to *Last Call*?  And what, out of
curiosity, was the treatment of Tarot in *Blood Meridian?  *I haven't read
anything by Cormac McCarthy.

I think I might start with *War in Heaven* by Williams, or possibly *Descent
into Hell *...they seem to be two of his more acclaimed novels.

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Daniel Petersen <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>> Interesting! I am a fan of Tin Powers for sure, it would be great to
>> check out his precursors. I notice that Last Call and The Greater Trumps
>> have some similarities, for example. Thanks for the input!
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:12:45 +0000

Williams pretty much invented modern "urban fantasy."

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> That should have said "Tim" Powers, of course!  I have only read *Last
> Call *and *The Anubis Gates*, but I liked them both quite a bit.  I think
> that the latter is better, overall, but the former got off to an engrossing
> start.  Have you read any of the sequels to *Last Call*?  And what, out
> of curiosity, was the treatment of Tarot in *Blood Meridian?  *I haven't
> read anything by Cormac McCarthy.
>

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:52:44 +0000

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Daniel Petersen
> I thought I remembered Wolfe mentioning Williams favourably in an interview

   JJ: So Lewis and Chesterton would have been among the formative influences
   in your paradigm.

   GW: Oh yes, very definitely.

   JJ: Could you name others, within the area of theology and Christianity.

   GW: The problem with this it is hard to see where to stop. Later you say,
   "Gee, I should have included so and so," and you didn't think of that
   person at that time. J.R.R. Tolkein, just to start with. Charles Williams,
   not as much as the others, but to some extent. David Lindsay's A Voyage to
   Arcturus, which is really strange, and I think very theologically
   oriented. Much of the theology I disagree with, but I thought it was
   marvelous as a work of fiction. It is a marvelous example of someone's
   expressing his theological beliefs in a novel.

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

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From: Fernando Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:57:48 +0000

I would definitely start with /War in Heaven/, which does indeed seem to 
have influenced Powers and Blaylock. The two best of his novels are, in 
my opinion, /Descent into Hell/ and /All Hallows Eve/, but they are much 
less accessible than /War/.

Williams' poetry is worth a look, but many people find it impenetrable. 
It's certainly old-fashioned.

Fernando

On 12/17/2012 10:30 AM, Antonin Scriabin wrote:
> brief look online, he seems to have some similarities to MacDonald, 
> and I thought there was a good chance some of you Wolfeans (?) would 
> have some input.  Any suggestions for a novel of his to start with?
>
>

-- 
=============================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea                http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea
Carter Professor and Chair
Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
Colby College                     Editor, Carus Mathematical Monographs
5836 Mayflower Hill               Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901              http://www.maa.org/maareviews

Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face.

Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face ...

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:04:07 +0000

Fernando Gouvea wrote:

>  I would definitely start with *War in Heaven*,
>

Several good reasons to start here, including it's Williams's first novel.
There is a definite development of the density of his novels as they go
along.

> The two best of his novels are, in my opinion, *Descent into Hell* and *All
> Hallows Eve*,
>

Not surprisingly, these are his last novels and quite dense.

> It's certainly old-fashioned.

If by "old-fashioned" you mean "early 20th-century modernist," I must
agree. There is a strong kinship between Williams' poetry (I refer to the
Arthurian poetry, which is all I have read) and Eliot's work. (Eliot, by
the way, praised Williams's novels and wrote an introduction to at least
one of them.)

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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From: Fernando Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:34:56 +0000

On 12/17/2012 12:04 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> Fernando Gouvea wrote:
>
>     I would definitely start with /War in Heaven/,
>
>
> Several good reasons to start here, including it's Williams's first 
> novel. There is a definite development of the density of his novels as 
> they go along.

I think the first is actually /Shadows of Ecstasy/, though it was 
published only later. And probably should have remained in the drawer.

>     The two best of his novels are, in my opinion, /Descent into Hell/
>     and /All Hallows Eve/,
>
>

And also the ones that read better if the reader understands Williams's 
rather strange theological ideas. That said, /Descent/ is a wonderful 
study of the notion of damnation.

>     Williams' poetry is worth a look, but many people find it
>     impenetrable. It's certainly old-fashioned.
>
>
> agree. There is a strong kinship between Williams' poetry (I refer to 
> the Arthurian poetry, which is all I have read) and Eliot's work. 
> (Eliot, by the way, praised Williams's novels and wrote an 
> introduction to at least one of them.)

I think that's a good description, though there are some late-Romantic 
things there as well. What's most old-fashioned about it is that it is 
intended as narrative, rather than as an exploration of the personal, 
which is where most poetry seems to be these days.

Fernando

Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
   -- Walt Kelly, "Potluck Pogo"

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From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:53:04 +0000

I haven't read the rest of Powers's 'Faultlines' trilogy, but I greatly
look forward to it - everybody says they peter out a bit, but I'm just
excited to see what the heck he's going to do with time, space, ghosts, and
so on.  Wonderfully inventive and playful imagination in usually crisp and
enjoyable prose.

Blood Meridian has an extended tarot reading scene by circus performers
round a campfire that seems to suggest a lot philosophically (incredibly
dense novel).  I read an academic paper that very convincingly argued that
one of the main tarot predictions came true in detail late in the novel,
bringing the novel out of strict realism, the paper argued, and into
romance and myth.

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: Williams pretty much invented modern "urban fantasy."

Yes!  And this only recently dawned on me.  And Lewis's essay brings this
out very effectively.

 GW: The problem with this it is hard to see where to stop. Later you say,
   "Gee, I should have included so and so," and you didn't think of that
   person at that time. J.R.R. Tolkein, just to start with. Charles
Williams,
   not as much as the others, but to some extent.

Thanks, Gwern!  Knew I'd seen that.

And for the record, I LOVE *some* of Charles Williams's poetry, especially
in the Arthurian cycle.  I mean, heck, at one point both Merlin and
Lancelot are werewolves!  (Lots of things in this cycle remind me of Wolfe
too.)

-DOJP

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 4:08 PM, Antonin Scriabin

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From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:51:14 +0000

> McCarthy's *Blood Meridian* as well!)

Agree with all the Williams recommendations (our uni library had 
his complete set of novels).  Sidetracking onto other tarot novels (this 
has happened before, I think), Calvino and Eco.

Cheers, David Duffy.