quick reads

After a long time spent away from an active participation in 'organised fandom', of any kind, I thought I'd dip my toe back into it by trying out some recent publications.

The Lovecraft Annual for 2023 is the first of the Annuals I've read in a long time but I quickly found myself losing patience with all the footnotes and references from/to previous published articles. Nothing wrong with that? Well all of them seem to refer back to S.T Joshi and most of them are articles that can only be found in obscure (dare I say 'eldritch'?) fanzines from another continent 40 years ago (i.e early 80s issues of 'Crypt of Cthulhu', whatever that might be!).

This may feel like quibbling. Joshi is, after all, pretty much the world's foremost HPL scholar. But surely there are other viewpoints out there which essayists can rely upon to back up their arguments?

The most accessible article was one on the world of HPL t-shirts, which I was surprised to find is an extremely wide field. It was fun, although mainly due to the slogans and juxtapositions the t-shirts themselves throw up rather than anything about the essay itself (written in a very academic tone) per se.

I confess I skimmed through most of the Annual and turned instead to another purchase, the latest issue of The Watsonian, dedicated to not Sherlock Holmes but his esteemed colleague and biographer.

Alas, this too proved far from the meaty read I was hoping for, consisting largely of articles about (and a rather tedious email-interview with the star of) a new dramatised podcast featuring (yawn) a modern-day Holmes and Watson. Apparently this show is very popular. What can I say, if others enjoy it, fine, but this is not for me. There wasn't much else in the issue to grab me neither.

Am I going to have to join the Sherlock Holmes Society of London again and start reading the Sherlock Holmes Journal? (ha ha) In terms of Lovecraftian scholarship, a perusal of Amazon seems to suggest that most recent works dwell on his racism (yawn) so it might be a while before I dip my toes back into those waters again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

second helpings

Image
Incredibly there is at least one HP Lovecraft/Cthulhu-themed cookbook on the market now. Has the world finally gone mad? What recipes can such a book contain? HPL was hardly a "foodie" and that goes double for his characters - gaunt, frail, monastic library-dwellers for the most part. Presumably it has fun (citation needed) with various fish and squid-based dishes. If Cthulhu does still lie sleeping it's for the best he remains ignorant of this insult. Perhaps there are some banana pudding recipes for any (white) apes of the Jermyn family line? The plethora of Sherlock Holmes cookbooks at least makes sense. Aside from a wide variety of dishes actually set out in the saga itself these dishes themselves are often a part of the domestic Victorian scene which, now vanished, come alive in Watson's pages. One such cookbook purports to be written by Mrs Hudson herself. For kitchen-confident buffs of the great detective recreating an authentic 221b dinner table would be a rar
Read more

the boredom of Bond

Image
Now that I've finished the Penguin Modern Classics omnibus 'Quantum of Solace ' I can now say I have read every James Bond story (by Ian Fleming). In some ways the last story proper 'The Living Daylights' is a case of saving the best for last. But it's not just one of the best-written Bond tales - it's one of the most realistic in the way it compresses the danger and excitement of Bond's job role into a few short, tense moments surrounded by hour after hour of boredom. Arriving in Berlin to act as sniper-cover for an escaping agent, Bond is told this agent's window for escape is between 6-7pm on one of three consecutive nights. As per sod's law he eventually makes his attempt on the third night, making for a combination of long boring stretches of daytime, tense excitement for an hour or two, then more tedium: "The next day, and the next night watch, were duplicates of the first [...] the rest was a killing of time and a tightening of the
Read more

Beryl's bank

Image
A foreign colleague of mine was confused recently by my reference to "the Bank of Mum and Dad". Very soon after, I picked up 'The Beryl Coronet' to read and was met with a classic example of that very 'bank'. Arthur Holder is marked by his own father Alexander Holder as something of a disappointment. Cleverly, this colours not only Holder Sr's perception of Arthur's apparent role in the theft of the Beryl Coronet itself, but also colours our perception of it, as readers. Sherlock Holmes, of course, sees through this almost immediately and is able to store (one can hardly say 'restore') Arthur in his father's affections. Still though, can Holder Sr be blamed for this? It does look as if all Arthur ever did was hold out his hand and expect money every time - which he usually got. 'The Bank of Mum and Dad' is a popular destination of first financial resort - and the Holder branch obviously gave better terms than most. "I have n
Read more