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I found a couple of his in the thrift shop - "The Illustrated Man" and "The October Country", and as I hadn't read him since I was about 13 years old I picked them up and tried him again.
As a kid I loved him. And as an adult? I remembered the ends of the stories as I read them. The stories - the endings, especially, formulaic, occasionally predictable, twist endings, ironic, surprising (not often) - the plotting, the themes, that's not the main thing with him. 13 was the right age to fall under his spell for sure. But what's impressive is his use of adjectives, his evocations of mood, his descriptions, his intonation of charms, whispered, spoken, sung, the rhythm of his words, poetry almost, yet managing no meaning above the fantasies, images and moods he creates...
Surprisingly well written kids books I'd say, filled with imagination. But for adults, well...tastes change.
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Which reads well, and points you off in a thousand other directions - excellent sources and references. Scott could write - although a little out of fashion, and his take on the paranormal is done with all the credulity the age of reason could afford - more reason and compassion 200 years ago than you'll find now by a long shot now anywhere in the world. I liked, but it's an idiosyncratic little read, the pinch of salt that should be taken with Aleister Crowley and Montague Summers.
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A long read in many voices, a relief, after so many years of the internet, an abundance of stories, interpretations, many voices, very good.
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Picked it up in a free bin at the dump, needed some easy reading to get back in the habit of novels and longer reads.
Good, after it's fashion - while I'm wary of Castaneda - most of his writings, passed off as true, were later called into some question (amazing they weren't questioned at the time) - but, like a lot of writers his fiction is a means of expressing a deeper metaphysical or metaphorical truth. And despite the queer circumstances of his later life (read the Wiki here and The NY Times and Salon on his legacy), it was worth giving him the chance - don't judge the book by it's author, as it were. Vaguely inspiring.
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My foray into Victorian eroticism, merely rounding out my reading, why not? Everyone else is reading "50 Shades of Bullshit", my eroticism can be a little more literary.
It isn't, the prose and style is better, by a long-shot, but it suffers the gross repetition of ideas - a Victorian "Gentleman" has furnished and soundproofed a torture room wherein he rapes and converts to decadence some poor girl that has spurned his advances. The first volume is good - for the genre, he's no Nabokov or De Sade by a long shot, but he's thorough and realizes his elaborate fantasies upon the reluctant-come-enthusiastic victim.
Standard rape fantasy, where the woman (women) learn to enjoy themselves despite their noble inclinations...fodder for both men and women. I have some criticisms, the word "Bubbies" for "Tits" or "Breasts" for example, makes me laugh, and some of his "depravities" are not particularly to my taste, but it does have something...
You can read the book yourself online here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Way_of_a_Man_with_a_Maid