Weird Fiction discussion

What shall we read as the summer finally begins to cool down and the kids ensconce themselves in the labors of schoolwork? For July and August we read two modern Weird works. Time to go classical for September. Please feel free to nominate up to two good Weird Fiction books originally published before 1990 by the end of the day August 15. That's when I plan to run our next poll.

I would like to read something significant and important to the genre. It seems that The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen might fit the bill. From Wikipedia: "(written 1895–1897; published 1907): novel delineating the dark, mystical spiraling madness, awe, sensuality, horror and ecstasy of an artist. Generally considered Machen's masterpiece."

Arthur Machen is an excellent choice! Unfortunately, The Hill of Dreams is not. It's the only work I've read by Machen and I was acutely disappointed in it. First, it is not in any way Weird fiction. It's not even a ghost or gothic horror story. It's straight, mainstream fiction. I read some mainstream fiction and was ready to reset and enjoy it on just those terms, but for reasons I put in my review (writing craft that showed its seams, overly personal, no real plot, only one fully developed character, depressing and cliche artist angst as its main theme) I didn't like it even then.

Just to be clear, I have to reject this nomination because it is not Weird fiction. Not even close. Not because I dislike it. I'd welcome another Arthur Machen nominated work.

Dan wrote: "Arthur Machen is an excellent choice! Unfortunately, The Hill of Dreams is not. It's the only work I've read by Machen and I was acutely disappointed in it. First, it is not in any way Weird fictio..."

Totally reasonable! I chose it "sight unseen" just because it was called his masterpiece on Wikipedia and I wanted the best of the older masters. After browsing his other books, this seems like a possible choice: The White People and Other Weird Stories

This is mostly unfamiliar territory for me here though. I hope other members jump in and add great suggestions here.

(On a separate note - it does not seem to be listed as a weird tale, just horror, but have you awesome group members read the Viy story -either standalone or included into Village Evenings Near Dikanka and Mirgorod? There was a super bizarro movie called Forbidden Empire loosely rooted in it. The story is horror and mighty weird even if very folklorish )

No problem on The Hill of Dreams suggestion. Given how many people have misclassified its genre here on GoodReads, I was surprised to find it to be something else entirely myself. Lot of ignorance in the fan base apparently. It is not 1. horror, 2. fantasy, 5. weird, 6. gothic, or 7. supernatural in the slightest. It is 3. fiction, 4. classics, 8. European, 9. a novel, and 10. literary.

The S.T. Joshi collection you nominate is an excellent choice! We've read one other and it's on our bookshelf: The Red Brain: Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. I loved Joshi's selections there. The title story was particularly memorable. Made me a brothers Wandrei fan for life. I am sure Joshi can be trusted to have picked Machen's better weird stories for this collection.

I read a lot of 19th century Russian literature in my young adulthood including I am sure a Gogol short story in some anthology. I remember it less well than I should. I liked Lermontov's poetry, and appreciated Tolstoy (very well structured writing: sentences, paragraphs, chapters), Turgenev (good family drama), and Checkhov (deep relationships, subtlety) the most. None of their stories, or any others I can recall reading, ever approached Weird or gothic horror though.

Dan wrote: " I remember it less well than I should. ..." You probably did not read that one haha because it is hard to forget the "Lift up my eyebrows... I can't see!" line and then, as the miscellaneous devil things lift his eyebrows up, "THERE HE IS" :D [they can't see the hero inside the circle he drew around himself; but Viy - with the eyebrows up - can]. Viy means approximately the one who sees.
Of course maybe I was way too young when I read that :D It might have been my first horror story.
Don't mean to suggest it for group reading at this point anyway. Just thought to mention.

Folksies, come on, you sure can recommend cool things to read! If nobody steps in, I will nominate Captain Underpants. Do you want to read Captain Underpants? Then nominate something, or Captain Underpants it is.

We have one nomination and we're now past the time I want to accept more. So The White People and Other Weird Stories wins as the book we're reading for September. I'm actually very happy about that. If I weren't, I'd have nominated something to compete against it.

The reason I am so happy is because I read Arthur Machen's The Hill of Dreams earlier this year and came away from it convinced the book just sucks in every meaningful way. It's not Weird or gothic, and as straight fiction it's pretty pointless, overly self-referential, and needlessly depressing.

But I still hold out hope for Arthur Machen being a writer I might enjoy and wanted to try another of his works. There's no one I trust more than Joshi to choose his best ones. So, I'm really looking forward to reading these selections.