Octavia E. Butler against Lovecraft (World Fantasy Award).

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

I don't think the kind of primitive art you sometimes find in painting or sculpting can exist in literature.

Any reason why you don't think it can exist? It probably depends on how we define "primitive" or "outsider," but I think there are definitely works out there on obscure blogs and random manuscripts that aren't likely to ever be published but still have value. It'd be pretty boring if we expected "clear prose" or a "clear narrative" all the time. I don't think there's any imperative to pick things up and read them in linear order, either - some writing can work on a more textural, as opposed to merely textual, level.

[ramonoski]

Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels

EVERYONE HERE is a Ligotti fan. It's just that some of them don't know it yet. Or refuse to admit it.

I for one have never read Ligotti nor any modern fiction. I just heard people here are really nice and could be coaxed into paying my dry-cleaning bills (and so far it's working!) And I probably shouldn't have revealed that

[Druidic]

Quote

Any reason why you don't think it can exist? It probably depends on how we define "primitive" or "outsider," but I think there are definitely works out there on obscure blogs and random manuscripts that aren't likely to ever be published but still have value.--Justin Isis

I think if it can exist we'll find it in some form of poetry. The problem is the difference between "art" and "interesting" can be profound. But you're right: they can still have value.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Justin- that guy is pretty fascinating. I'd find reading lots of that pretty difficult though.

I've had quite a bit of difficulty with Henry James, to the extent of getting a slight headache. I admire things that he does but I really wouldn't have known that the things that made it difficult for me were virtues instead of flaws if he weren't so canonical.

Looking among online erotic writing I've found some very eccentric mixtures of things veering towards outsiderism, because of the fetishes mixed with odd religious and musical references, in a really clumsy way.

I like Lovecraft a lot but I find some of it awkward and the repeated use of words like "unmentionable", "blasphemous", "nameless", "damnable" slide it too close to self-parody.

[Justin Isis]

This discussion reminds me of a quote from Rammellzee's treatise:

"The construction of a dimensional graph consisting and existing in the state of the subconscious where as IKONOKLAST PANZERISM is one of the 13 unseen details. Other instruments of symbolic war are: sectioners, which cut off quadrants of dimension and cause magnetic interference and fusion of mattered space to reverse it. Section sources in RAMMELLs design of Assassins Knowledges of the Remanipulated Square are made of triange grids and rotationdiscs as a base for a base for a projection system based on Ramenergetics. In FUTURAs translation map these SECTIONERS are known and constructed as a formation of dots on front of behind Ikonoklast Panzerism or Bomberism leading attack. In another formation on military crossectioning with Sectioners or Dimension Sectioning, a draft technique that is drafted by firing two electron light beams in different directions magnetically (using the diamone effect) connecting at the end of a quadrant, therefore in the middle where a dot in any color usually bigger than the actual line is the sectioner. From the available map studies to show direction of Ikonoklast Panzerism, Futura's hand movement shows the stroke of painting the disign for Ikonoklast Panzerism. The structure before (unseen) process of that stroke is a tank, at the end of the tank Futura's beginning stroke for the color wave combining with the red shift of light and shows the actual stretching of the camouflage on the tank far behind it, reacting in a way as drawn speed lines so or exhaust far out in second dimension space. CEREBREMIC NEUTRON HARPOON (Thought Lance) holds complete thought processes to constructions and launches outline that can construct any shape energy it wants to construct in any dimension of physical magnetics. Several remanipulators such as dimensional doors, dimension cracks. BOMBERISM: Construction flight base is on the cipher, which files in a spiral cipher. Included in the map and maps are conscious designs stars (misplaced dimensions) the actual firing of electromagnetic black lights (implosion) and bio-magnetic pyramids. Dimensional cracks: the travel of them will lead to other dimensions. THIS IS TO DISPROVE THE OLD MOTHER'S TALE THAT WORDS WILL OR CAN NEVER HURT YOU!"

[dr. locrian]

I doubt I'm the only reader on the sidelines enjoying and learning from this thread. Just terrific, everyone. Thank you.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

When I was reading about oddball Japanese comic books from 70s-80s with macho adventure, philosophical and psychedelic elements it seemed that Mishima was a huge influence. Pretty incredible that comics from that time mostly read by teenage boys portrayed gay sex as acceptable or maybe even cool (Fist Of The Northstar is apparently when homosexuality started leaving the genre).

I've seen Mishima dismissed as naive juvenile macho stuff overreaching itself but I've never read him yet.

[ramonoski]

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

I've seen Mishima dismissed as naive juvenile macho stuff overreaching itself but I've never read him yet.

I suspect a good deal of that comes from looking at photos of the man (I doubt there's any other author who is cut like Mishima, with the possible exception of some of the ancient Greeks [Plato got that name from his buffed-up built, or so the legend says]) and hearing about how books like Sun and Steel are about his manly man training in martial arts and bodybuilding. But he's a lot more complex and nuanced than that.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Hodgson was a very handsome bodybuilder. Some have remarked that unlike many heroic fantasy authors, he looked like he could have went out into The Night Land.

[Druidic]

Quote

Some have remarked that unlike many heroic fantasy authors, he looked like he could have went out into The Night Land.--Robert Adam Gilmour

Actually, he did. He died heroically in the last weeks of WWI. He was a body builder, a pioneer in fact, and once he 'abused' Houdini by trussing him up so well (hey, he was a sailor!) that it took Houdini 45 minutes to escape. Police had to escort Hodgson from the theater after the performance, the audience was so incensed. He also received the Royal Humane Society medal for saving a sailor from drowning. He was a fascinating character by any standards. I'll take him over Mishima. Hodgson knew the Night Land well.