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04-05-2017 | #1 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Stories without Characters
I thought it would be interesting to see what recommendations people have for stories which feature no obvious characters, with Ligotti's own 'The Red Tower' being a notable example.
What are your favourite character-less stories and why do they still manage to work so well? | |||||||||||
11 Thanks From: | bendk (04-05-2017), dr. locrian (04-10-2017), gveranon (04-06-2017), miguel1984 (04-06-2017), Mr. Veech (04-06-2017), njhorror (04-06-2017), qcrisp (04-06-2017), Robert Adam Gilmour (04-05-2017), Speaking Mute (04-08-2017), ToALonelyPeace (04-06-2017), waffles (04-05-2017) |
04-06-2017 | #2 | |||||||||||
Mannikin
Join Date: Dec 2015
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Re: Stories without Characters
"The Black Mould" by Mark Samuels comes immediately to mind, as do several pieces from the "Notebook of the Night" section of Noctuary.
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5 Thanks From: | Arthur Staaz (04-06-2017), dr. locrian (04-10-2017), miguel1984 (04-06-2017), njhorror (04-06-2017), Raul Urraca (04-06-2017) |
04-06-2017 | #3 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Sep 2014
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Re: Stories without Characters
Don't some Machen stories have no proper characters? Might be wrong.
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My gallery...
http://robertadamgilmour.blogspot.com |
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04-06-2017 | #4 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Stories without Characters
"The Bowmen?" It's been a while since I read it, so I could be wrong. | |||||||||||
"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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04-06-2017 | #5 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Sep 2014
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Re: Stories without Characters
Maybe "The Great Return"?
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My gallery...
http://robertadamgilmour.blogspot.com |
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04-06-2017 | #6 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Stories without Characters
'The Black Mould' is a particular favourite of mine. It was certainly my favourite story in 'The Man who Collected Machen' collection. | |||||||||||
4 Thanks From: | Arthur Staaz (04-06-2017), dr. locrian (04-10-2017), miguel1984 (04-06-2017), ToALonelyPeace (04-06-2017) |
04-06-2017 | #7 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Stories without Characters
If I remember correctly, 'The Bonfire' by Kunikida Doppo, struck me as being more about the beach on which it was set than the human figures that pass like shadows across it.
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“Absolutely candid, carefree, but straightforward speech becomes possible for the first time when one speaks of the highest." - Friedrich Schlegel
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04-06-2017 | #8 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Aug 2012
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Re: Stories without Characters
Unsure if something like Bruno Schulz' "a treatise on mannequins" would apply, as there is a narrator that has been pre-stablished by the tales before it and he is adressing an audience, yet the core of the story is the proto-Ligottian discourse on mannequins that has no characters or plot per se. Speaking of Ligotti, his own "profesor nobody's little lectures..." piece strikes me as similar, considering how in the pre-Subterrarean editions the professor ended each segment addressing the class.
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04-06-2017 | #9 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Stories without Characters
Borges, "The Library of Babel"
Magdalena Tulli, Dreams and Stones (a fantastic novella about a city that grows organically; denizens of the city and their activities are described, but they are not so much characters as parts of the dreaming, growing city itself) Ligotti, "The Spectral Estate" (one of my favorites) The middle section ("Time Passes") of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. There are some characters involved, but this section is mainly a description of changes in a family's unoccupied house over a period of years. Within the context of the novel, this is quite powerful. | |||||||||||
5 Thanks From: | dr. locrian (04-10-2017), Druidic (04-07-2017), miguel1984 (04-06-2017), Speaking Mute (04-08-2017), ToALonelyPeace (04-06-2017) |
04-06-2017 | #10 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Threadstarter
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Re: Stories without Characters
'The Spectral Estate' is one of the few (I assume) Ligotti stories I've never come across. Naturally I'm immediately intrigued. | |||||||||||
Thanks From: | Druidic (04-07-2017) |
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