BotM September: A DREAMER'S TALES by LORD DUNSANY

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > BotM September: A DREAMER'S TALES by LORD DUNSANY

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

In this thread, we choose one work of ~~literature~~ absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of ~~literature~~ complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren:

For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM the moderation team. :siren:

Past Books of the Month

[for BOTM before 2019, refer to archives]

2019:
January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
February: BEAR by Marian Engel
March: V. by Thomas Pynchon
April: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout
May: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
June: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
July: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
August: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
September: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
October: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
November: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
December: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

2020:
January: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
February: WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin
March: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Benvenuto Cellini
April: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
May: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Dame Rebecca West
June: The African Queen by C. S. Forester
July: The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
August: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, by Howard Pyle
September: Strange Hotel, by Eimear McBride
October:Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談)("Ghost Stories"), by Lafcadio Hearn
November: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) , by Matthew Hongoltz Hetling
December: Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Drury Clark

2021:

January: The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
February: How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart
March: Carrier Wave by Robert Brockway
April: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian
May: You Can't Win by Jack Black
June:Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
July:Can Such Things Be by Ambrose Bierce
August: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Current:

A Dreamer's Tales by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany

Book available here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8129

html edition: https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/adta/index.htm

About the book

quote:

When people ask me about �a book that changed my life,� one of the several hundred honest answers I can give them is A Dreamer�s Tales. (Then they look blank, which is too bad.) I was about twelve when I picked it up, one of those nice little leather-bound books the Modern Library used to do, and from the first sentence I was a goner. . . .

I described this moment also in the first essay in my first book of essays, The Language of the Night, how I stood with the book in my hands there in the living room, silent upon a peak in Darien.
. . .
People who are impatient with long sentences and verbs ending in � eth may have trouble with Dunsany�s narrative. The bang-pow violence and chop-and-whack prose of much contemporary fantasy doesn�t prepare readers for a mannered but vivid, clear, and subtle style, and they may miss the detached amusement, the cool wit that almost always underlies his gorgeous fancies and flourishes. For example: the narrator, who is describing a palace built over a precipice of amethyst, tells us, �At this moment a female slave came out by a door of the palace and tossed a basket full of sapphires over the edge.�

Dunsany was Anglo-Irish, but surely in this he is entirely Irish, this understanding that a proper king in a proper palace is not going to keep old, used sapphires around. Out they go at sunrise, dumped into the amethyst ravine in whose depths �the golden dragons still played in the darkness� � a fine symbol of the prodigal spirit of this writer.

On the map of literature, I see Dunsany as a small, walled city in a desert, with opal walls and spires of bronze, and strange little streets, and a great gate made from a single tooth. The lord of the city is a generous host. It is not on the beaten path, but it is worth visiting.

-- Ursula K. LeGuin, http://www.ursulakleguinarchive.com/UKL-Review-Joshi-LordDunsany.html

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Like 3/4ths of Dunsany's books are public domain and available online with an easy search. There are good editions of two of them here: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks?query=dunsany

Another thing I really love about Dunsany:

He's not following any pattern. Idle Days on the Yann especially just violates every supposed "rule" of storytelling there is. There's no beginning, no end, not really, you just get a chunk of story, like a random chapter excerpted from some un-recorded whole. There's no real conflict, just a series of scenes. There's no plot and little suspense.

Just some characters drifting through scenery.

And that's all you need.

quote:

It interests me to hear of your first perusal of A Dreamer's Tales. Mine was in the fall of 1919, when I had never read anything of Dunsany's, though knowing of him by reputation. The book had been recommended to me by one whose judgment I did not highly esteem, & it was with some dubiousness that I began reading Poltarnees-Beholder of Ocean. The first paragraph arrested me as with an electric shock, & I had not read two pages before I became a Dunsany devotee for life. It was such a discovery as I shall never experience again, for I am too old for such emotional effects now. Thank Pegana I came across Dunsany when I did!

Yr obt Servt
H P L

(Howard Phillips Lovecraft)

quote:

Jorge Luis Borges, compiling a list of thirty-three �prologues� to his seminal story �The Library of Babel,� included Dunsany�s story �Idle Days on the Yann� alongside works by Kafka, Henry James, and Voltaire. . . �Idle Days on the Yann� often anticipates the imaginary travelogues of Italo Calvino.

About the Author

quote:

Few things troubled the sunny complacency of Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the eighteenth Baron Dunsany, but the prospect of being considered a dilettante and a small talent stood foremost among them. He had reason to hope that it would be otherwise. After knocking around for the first few years of the twentieth century, engaging in the typical pursuits of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy�hunting, soldiering, cricket, and an unsuccessful run for Parliament�he�d tried his hand at writing. He had to pay to put out his first book, in 1905, a sui-generis work of invented, quasi-Oriental mythology titled �The Gods of Pega�na,� but he had no trouble finding publishers after that. W. B. Yeats, then the leader of the Irish Renaissance, described him as �a man of genius,� and produced his plays at the Abbey Theatre. Most of Dunsany�s plays were popular, and his verse was once such common currency that young Amory Blaine, the hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald�s �This Side of Paradise,� takes to reciting it to the accompaniment of graphophone music during his �decadent� phase at Princeton.

By the nineteen-thirties, however, Dunsany�s sort of writing had fallen drastically out of favor, and his reputation�unlike that of Oscar Wilde, another passion of Amory Blaine�s freshman year�has never recovered. He became estranged from Yeats, and when the poet co-founded the Irish Academy of Letters, in 1932, Dunsany was offered only an associate membership. Full membership, he was told, was reserved for those who wrote about Ireland and the Irish. Dunsany�s settings tended to be imaginary, the bejewelled domains of scimitar-wielding warriors, kings, beggars, thieves, and prophets answering to pagan pantheons that bore scant resemblance to the Celtic legends that Yeats loved. Dunsany was upset, and the Irish poet and literary gadfly Oliver St. John Gogarty would later joke that the Academy had been �founded to keep Dunsany out.� Gogarty, like Dunsany, saw it as a personal snub. (Dunsany was admitted as a full member only years later.)

. . .

The journey to obscurity, when it starts from a vantage as eminent as Dunsany�s, is often as idiosyncratic as the path to glory. How did a writer of talent�a writer whom Yeats compared to Baudelaire, and who once had five plays on in New York at the same time�wind up nearly, if not quite, forgotten? Dunsany continued to write and publish stories, poetry, memoirs, and novels until his death, in 1957. He never felt that he got the recognition he deserved, something he attributed to the vagaries of literary fashion, especially the ascendancy of such �frightful nonsense� as the verse of T. S. Eliot. He became, as Mark Amory, in a 1972 biography of Dunsany, says, �an Edwardian survival out of tune with the times.� If not for contemporary advocates of fantasy fiction, who see him as a pioneer of the genre, a new selection of his tales, �In the Land of Time,� from Penguin Classics ($14), would surely never have appeared. It is too easy, however, to blame Dunsany�s disappointments on the fickleness of public taste. Modernism happened for a reason, and so did Dunsany�s slow drift to the margins of literary renown.

quote:

Dunsany, however, the vain, antlike struggles of his characters notwithstanding, seemed to regard his own life as a most amusing game, made of equal parts theatrics and sharpshooting. He wrote with a quill pen in the tower of the castle that his family had occupied since 1190, and carried a gold-handled walking stick given to him by the Nabob of Rampur during a visit to India. He pursued big game in Africa, at a time when an ambitious expedition into the bush required having seventy-two African bearers and hiring a guide who, he wrote Beatrice, was sought �by the police of so many countries.� While staying with the Maharaja of Gwalior in the nineteen-twenties, he insisted on shooting a tiger face to face, instead of from the top of a stone tower thoughtfully provided for that purpose.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/12/06/minor-magus

Pacing

:justpost:

Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law.

Please post after you read!

Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion.

References and Further Materials

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rewild-dunsany-estate-ireland

https://deepcuts.blog/tag/lord-dunsany/

Suggestions for Future Months

These threads aren't just for discussing the current BOTM; If you have a suggestion for next month's book, please feel free to post it in the thread below also. Generally what we're looking for in a BotM are works that have

1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both

2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read

3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about.

Final Note:

Thanks, and we hope everyone enjoys the book!

# ? Sep 7, 2021 00:18

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 30, 2024 15:09

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Light month this month since I think a lot of us are still working through Proust and this should be similar enough yet different enough.

My favorite story in this collection is https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/adta/adta08.htm

# ? Sep 7, 2021 00:27

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Aww, I was hoping more people would be reading this one. It's really great! Try it!

# ? Sep 16, 2021 19:27

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

I've been having some health issues and haven't been able to focus on reading lately. Really want to get to this one before the end of the month.

# ? Sep 16, 2021 21:15

AngusPodgorny: Jun 3, 2004; Please to be restful, it is only a puffin that has from the puffin place outbroken.

I was reading Book of Wonder anyway, so I switched over to reading A Dreamer�s Tales. I can see why Lovecraft was a fan, because they share the same love of long-lost civilizations and ruin. They also have the same evocative descriptive style.

But I can see why Lord Dunsany fell out of favor, because his stories don�t really follow a normal narrative structure. They�ll be something like �this is what always happens, and it happened again� or �this is something that happened, and I don�t know why.� Since the stories are only like 4 pages or something (I read on a Kindle so I have no real idea), he�s not telling another story within the framework; that�s all there is. So while they�re enjoyable as short mood pieces, the stories themselves don�t really stick with me when they�re over.

My favorite story so far has been the talking cork etc. He does have a fondness for anthopomorphizing things.

# ? Sep 16, 2021 22:35

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

AngusPodgorny posted:

But I can see why Lord Dunsany fell out of favor, because his stories don�t really follow a normal narrative structure. They�ll be something like �this is what always happens, and it happened again� or �this is something that happened, and I don�t know why.� Since the stories are only like 4 pages or something (I read on a Kindle so I have no real idea), he�s not telling another story within the framework; that�s all there is. So while they�re enjoyable as short mood pieces, the stories themselves don�t really stick with me when they�re over.

Yup, but that's precisely why I like him so much. So many modern fantasy writers, they're following a script to one degree or another; even someone trying to break the mold is usually just reacting to someone else's mold, GRRM going "grimdark and realistic" or whatever, and it all ends up being so predictable.

But Dunsany is there at the start of things, opening like a flower, look at this beautiful flower, toss it aside; it was just a flower, but what wonder in that flower

# ? Sep 16, 2021 22:52

Crashbee: May 15, 2007; Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.

Really enjoying this, you can see how lots of authors used Dunsany as a jumping-off point. The Unhappy Body is also the first story I've read that can be summed up with a meme

Crashbee fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Sep 17, 2021

# ? Sep 17, 2021 22:19

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

But Dunsany is there at the start of things, opening like a flower, look at this beautiful flower, toss it aside; it was just a flower, but what wonder in that flower

Less poetic than that, but I'd say they feel more like dreams than stories, they run on their own logic we cannot always understand. I've spent some time in hospital recently and this book was a great escape.

# ? Sep 18, 2021 17:22

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

anilEhilated posted:

Less poetic than that, but I'd say they feel more like dreams than stories, they run on their own logic we cannot always understand. I've spent some time in hospital recently and this book was a great escape.

Oh no! Hope you're feeling better or will soon, but glad the book helped!

# ? Sep 20, 2021 00:03

AngusPodgorny: Jun 3, 2004; Please to be restful, it is only a puffin that has from the puffin place outbroken.

Idle Days on the Yann was more like a fantasy travelogue than a story, so inspired me to start reading the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which has been in my pile of things to read for a while but I was never quite in the mood for.

# ? Sep 23, 2021 06:13

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I feel like this whole ocean problem could be resolved using a human chain and ropes instead of offering up hot women as a bribe.

# ? Sep 24, 2021 15:39

Commandante: Oct 1, 2009

anilEhilated posted:

Less poetic than that, but I'd say they feel more like dreams than stories, they run on their own logic we cannot always understand. I've spent some time in hospital recently and this book was a great escape.

I'll second this, they really do feel like dreams I felt like I kind of "woke up" after finishing a story and found myself trying to construct a wider narrative than was presented.

# ? Sep 25, 2021 01:24

Asterite34: May 19, 2009

Read through this on a slow couple days at work and, yeah, I can see how Dunsany is something of an "author's author," who became beloved by a certain strain of writer. It's pleasantly soporific, induces a bit of a hypnotic trance, all elaborate sentence structure and evocative imagery while actively eschewing plot structure in the normal sense. It really is dreamlike, and you can see how a lot of genre literature that could be described as "fantastical" can trace its inspiration back to this through some route or another.

# ? Sep 26, 2021 17:40

Tree Goat: May 24, 2009; argania spinosa

the goodness of the stories were directly proportional to their literal or metaphorical distance from perfidious albion, op. except for the one where it's mentioned that many of the inhabitants of london have or will die unmourned and unwanted by both heaven and hell for crimes that stain their being in ways that even the beasts of the field can detect

# ? Sep 27, 2021 02:09

DreamingofRoses: Jun 27, 2013; Nap Ghost

I guess the call of the ocean being a Thing is just an archetype in that area of the world because that part of Poltarnees gave me major Lord of the Rings flashbacks.

Edit: one of the things I like the most about these stories is that the words sound good, if that makes sense? Like just the vocabulary feels pretty to me while I�m reading it.

DreamingofRoses fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Sep 27, 2021

# ? Sep 27, 2021 10:52

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Suggestions for next month?

# ? Sep 27, 2021 10:59

Mokelumne Trekka: Nov 22, 2015; Soon.

I'm reading The Day of the Triffids for October, might be a fun BotM for spooky season

# ? Sep 27, 2021 18:36

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

How about some Robert Aickman -- Cold Hand in Mine perhaps?

# ? Sep 28, 2021 13:07

Crashbee: May 15, 2007; Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.

I've been meaning to read The King in Yellow, if that's not too similar to this month's book.

# ? Sep 28, 2021 15:04

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Really thought I'd be able to get this one in by the end of the month, but life has really been kicking me in the balls these days. Sorry, Hieronymous. :sigh:

Edit: My suggestion, as ever, is Ann Petry's The Street.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Oct 1, 2021

# ? Oct 1, 2021 02:44

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 30, 2024 15:09

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Unless someone changes my mind in the next 24 hours, next month's book will be We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Thanks to Bilirubin for the suggestion!

# ? Oct 1, 2021 09:37

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > BotM September: A DREAMER'S TALES by LORD DUNSANY