Charles Williams

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 17 Dec 2012, 16:12 · from 2012-December.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 08:12:45 -0800
Subject: (urth) Charles Williams
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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.
>
> 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:
>
>> 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:
>>
>>> 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:
>>>
>>>> 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?
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>
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>
>
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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