DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantasy Fan, v. 1, issue 6, February 1934

Transcribe
Translate

Fantasy Fan, v. 1, issue 6, February 1934

Page 88

February, 1934 THE FANTASY FAN     89

THE WEIRD WORKS OF
M. R. JAMES

by Clark Ashton Smith

The four books of short stories written by Montague Rhodes James, Provost of Eton College, have been collected in a single but not overly bulky volume under the imprint of Longmans, Green & Co. One can heartily recommend the acquisition of this volume to all lovers of the weird and supernatural who are not already familiar with its contents.
James is perhaps unsurpassed in originality by any living writer; and he has made a salient contribution to the technique of his genre as well as to the enriching of its treasury of permanent masterpieces. His work is marked by rare intellectual skill and ingenuity, by power rising at times above the reaches of mere intellection, and by a sheer finesse of writing that will bear almost endless study. It has a peculiar savour, wholly different from the diabolic grimness of Bierce, or the accumulntive atmospheric terror and rounded classicism of Mached. Here there is nothing of the fverish but logical hallucinations, the macabre and exotic beauty achieved by Poe; nor is there any kinship to the fine poetic weavings and character nuances of Walter de la Mare, or the far searching, penetrative psychism of Blackwood, or the frightful antiquities and ultrn-terrene menaces of Lovecraft.
The style of these stories is rather casual and succinct. The rythms of the prose are brisk and pedestrian, and the phrasing is notable for clearness and incisiveness rather than for those vague, reverberative overtones which beguile one's inner ear in the prose of fiction-writers who are also poets. Usually there is a more or less homely setting, often with a background of folkore and long past happenings whose dim archaism provides a depth of shadow from which, as from a recessed cavern, the central horror emerges into the noontide of the present. Things and occurences, sometimes without obvious off-hand relationship, are grouped cunningly, forcing the reader unaware to some frightful deduction; or there is an artful linkage of events seemingly harmless in themselves, that leave him confronted at a sudden turn with some ghoulish specter or night-demon.
The minutiae of modern life, humor, character-drawing, scenic and archaelogical description, are used as a foil to heighten the abnormal, but are never allowed to usurp a disproportionate interest. Always ahere is an element of supernatural menace, whose value is never impaired by scientific or spiritualistic explanation. Sometimes it is brought forth at the climax into full light; and sometimes, even then, it is merely half-revealed, is left undefined but perhaps all the more alarming. In any case, the presence of some unnatural but objective reality is assumed and established.
The goblins and phantoms devised by James are truly creative and are presented through images often so keen and vivid as to evoke an actual physical shock. Sight, smell, hearing, taction, all are played upon with well nigh surgical sureness, by impressions calculated to touch the shuddering quick of horror.
Some of the images or similes employed are most extraordinary, and spring surely from the demonic inspiration of the highest genius. For instance, take the unnamable thing in The Uncommon

Saving...

February, 1934 THE FANTASY FAN 89 THE WEIRD WORKS OF M. R. JAMES by Clark Ashton Smith The four books of short stories written by Montague Rhodes James, Provost of Eton College, have been collected in a single but not overly bulky volume under the imprint of Longmans, Green & Co. One can heartily recommend the acquisition of this volume to all lovers of the weird and supernatural who are not already familiar with its contents. James is perhaps unsurpassed in originality by any living writer; and he has made a salient contribution to the technique of his genre as well as to the enriching of its treasury of permanent masterpieces. His work is marked by rare intellectual skill and ingenuity, by power rising at times above the reaches of mere intellection, and by a sheer finesse of writing that will bear almost endless study. It has a peculiar savour, wholly different from the diabolic grimness of Bierce, or the accumulntive atmospheric terror and rounded classicism of Mached. Here there is nothing of the fverish but logical hallucinations, the macabre and exotic beauty achieved by Poe; nor is there any kinship to the fine poetic weavings and character nuances of Walter de la Mare, or the far searching, penetrative psychism of Blackwood, or the frightful antiquities and ultrn-terrene menaces of Lovecraft. The style of these stories is rather casual and succinct. The rythms of the prose are brisk and pedestrian, and the phrasing is notable for clearness and incisiveness rather than for those vague, reverberative overtones which beguile one's inner ear in the prose of fiction-writers who are also poets. Usually there is a more or less homely setting, often with a background of folkore and long past happenings whose dim archaism provides a depth of shadow from which, as from a recessed cavern, the central horror emerges into the noontide of the present. Things and occurences, sometimes without obvious off-hand relationship, are grouped cunningly, forcing the reader unaware to some frightful deduction; or there is an artful linkage of events seemingly harmless in themselves, that leave him confronted at a sudden turn with some ghoulish specter or night-demon. The minutiae of modern life, humor, character-drawing, scenic and archaelogical description, are used as a foil to heighten the abnormal, but are never allowed to usurp a disproportionate interest. Always ahere is an element of supernatural menace, whose value is never impaired by scientific or spiritualistic explanation. Sometimes it is brought forth at the climax into full light; and sometimes, even then, it is merely half-revealed, is left undefined but perhaps all the more alarming. In any case, the presence of some unnatural but objective reality is assumed and established. The goblins and phantoms devised by James are truly creative and are presented through images often so keen and vivid as to evoke an actual physical shock. Sight, smell, hearing, taction, all are played upon with well nigh surgical sureness, by impressions calculated to touch the shuddering quick of horror. Some of the images or similes employed are most extraordinary, and spring surely from the demonic inspiration of the highest genius. For instance, take the unnamable thing in The Uncommon