Thread: Brian Evenson
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Old 03-21-2017   #31
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Re: Brian Evenson
Quote Originally Posted by nihilsum View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies View Post
Quote Originally Posted by nihilsum View Post
With those types of stories I'm typically on the fence of enjoying being bewildered and being disappointed that something more climactic and coherent didn't happen. I felt the same about "Seaside Town", another one that could compared to Aickman.
That story was the highlight of the Aickman's Heirs collection for me. I haven't read any of Evenson's other work though. Is that story typical of his work?
Yes, I think so. Though that story is obviously channeling the spirit of Robert Aickman, the weirdlord of endings that make no sense, thus its inclusion in Aickman's Heirs, along with other stories like Black Bark and Click that are in "A Collapse of Horses". But Evenson also excels at writing more linear weird/psychological horror fiction that I guess it can be compared to Poe or Kafka in some ways but these are only simple name-drops.
Kafka definitely seems to be an influence. That hit me after reading "The Window."
"In a less scientific age, he would have been a devil-worshipper, a partaker in the abominations of the Black Mass; or would have given himself to the study and practice of sorcery. His was a religious soul that had failed to find good in the scheme of things; and lacking it, was impelled to make of evil itself an object of secret reverence."

~ Clark Ashton Smith, "The Devotee of Evil"
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