Walter de la Mare Strangers and Pilgrims

[Frater_Tsalal]

Quote Originally Posted by James

Did Champagne get round to reading that de la Mare book?

Do you mean me, James? If so, yes, I did... didn't you see me rate it on Goodreads/Facebook? I thought it was pretty enjoyable, though to be honest in some ways I liked the Grabinski book I was reading at the same time better (The Dark Domain).

Quote Originally Posted by Frater_Tsalal

Do you mean me, James? If so, yes, I did... didn't you see me rate it on Goodreads/Facebook?

I might have done. My memory is terrible due to my current meds.

I like Grabinski, but I like de la Mare even more. Tonight I am reading the de la Mare stories 'What Dreams May Come' and Music, which are the only stories from the Tartarus Strangers & Pilgrims book's contents I haven't reread a few times over.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Well, it probably doesn't help that I post a lot on Facebook and Goodreads, so as a result sometimes things get swamped.

I think the reason why I liked the Grabinski more was a preference for his prose style and the fact that he seemed very sex-obsessed. But I certainly look forward to reading more of de la Mare's work in the future. In particular I liked "A:B:O.", "Out of the Deep," "Winter," "The Green Room," "All Hallows," "The Game at Cards," and "A Revenant." The only one in particular I didn't care for was "Crewe," which I felt rambled on for awhile and didn't amount to much of a pay-off (actually, I kind of felt the same way about "A Recluse").

I think Walter had one of the finest prose styles in the English language, but it's hard to compare de la Mare's prose style with Grabinski's because I have only read a translation of the latter's.

Glad you enjoyed The Green Room, which never seems to get the praise it deserves. I consider Crewe and A Recluse to be examples of the perfect ghost story, but they at least are somewhat established as classics. The Green Room rarely gets noted.

[Al de Baran]

I just received my copy of Behold, This Dreamer! today. I was lucky to find a first American edition (1939) in very good condition.

One thing that struck me right away among the epigrams that accompany the first part, "Dream and Imagination", is an uncredited quotation from Novalis:

"Our life is no dream, but it should and perhaps will become one".

Since Novalis is a favorite of mine, I'd say the book is off to a very good start.

[Knygathin]

Quote Originally Posted by James

... I'm still looking for more modern writers similar to Walter de la Mare, Robert Aickman and Shirley Jackson.

You might try David Lindsay's novel The Haunted Woman. Few, if any, other authors have cast such a powerful spell on the reader, as when we are led into a secret room, and looking out its window are transported back to an enchanted landscape of the 1700s.

[Gnosticangel]

Anybody in London planning on attending this event? For lovers of de la Mare's poetry, it sounds interesting, would love a report.

Forthcoming Event

A Talk by William Wootten

"Walter de la Mare and the Poetry of Enchantment"

Tuesday, 28th November 2017 at 6PM

Home - The Official Walter de la Mare Society Website

I seldom venture outside the Midlands. Would otherwise love to go.

[Sand]

Thank you for raising the question of 'The Almond Tree'. Forrest Reid devotes quite a few pages to this story in his study of de la Mare, and R L Megroz looks at it too in his study. They both say that what the author is trying to do is present the breakdown of an adult relationship filtered through the perception and imagination of a young boy, as he tries to make sense of what he sees and hears and is told.

It’s a sensitive study of how our imperfect understanding affects what we think we know, and how a child uses their highly creative powers of invention to construct stories to fill in the gaps. We can if we wish apply the same lessons to ourselves. The actual events in the story (of birth and death) are not its point – the way we see things, is. And even when outer events are dramatic, it's implied, it is our inner life that has a stronger call on us.

Incidentally, Reid (a good friend of de la Mare) argues that the story suffers because it is told in the first person. We can believe in the Count who tells it, he says, and we can believe in the boy: but we can’t quite believe the Count was that boy. Also, very practically, he adds that a boy would not remember some of the detail the Count says he does.

Of course, it could be (I would add) that the unreliability of the Count’s memory is another subtlety in the story - was it really quite like that, or is that just how the Count makes sense of it now? A reflection then on the complexity and ambiguity of memory.

I'm puzzled why the BBC adapted it as part of their series of adaptations of de la Mare's ghost stories. Only adds to the confusion about which of de la Mare's stories are ghostly.

Top ten de la Mare ghost stories:

Seaton's Aunt
All Hallows
Crewe
A Recluse
The Listeners
Winter
Mr. Kempe
Out of the Deep
The Green Room
A:B:O

I found a reading of Bad Company, which is a more conventional de la Mare ghost story, but worth checking out:

Pseduopod 315: Bad Company - Pseudopod