Mike
and Rita Tortorello's first of their Dunsany Lost Tales chapbooks
concentrated upon the early fables of London and faery of less fixed
abode. This second veers more toward Orientalism and artistic
adoration. As will be the case with the third – out now – each
feature elaborate prose of no elaboration; Dunsany's signature style.
While
the majority of Lost Tales Vol. 1 were gleaned from the pages of
London's straight and worthy 'Saturday Review,' Vol. 2 takes those
from Dunsany's immediately subsequent commissions in the more
sceptically leftist, transatlantic 'Smart Set.' Under the new
joint-editorship of its young literary intellectuals, George Jean
Nathan and H.L. Mencken. the magazine gained renewed cache, and
star-making of its new overseers, if not actual stemming of falling
sales. Still, with a roster of first-timers of the same
post-Edwardian generation who'd go on to become household names, it
afforded Dunsany a major fillip for further networking.
To
the half-initiated, like myself, he presents himself a simple,
objective storyteller, only one bearing a visionary soul. As an
instinctive Leftist, that Dunsany was a baronet with all the contacts
and privilege one of his class had to hand, I'll admit to the
harboured baggage of personal prejudice this ignited. I also observe
the work that followed, which he, at least unwittingly, influenced.
Of Tanith Lee and Ursula Le Guin I've earlier referred.
The
Chinese folk tales here,
summoned in 'The House of the Idol Carvers' and 'Cheng Hi and the
Window Framer,' also surely resonated with the young Mervyn Peake,
whose Bright Carvers and Glassblowers would find their own
sub-cultural home with what might otherwise have been a dumbfounded
British readership, had they not already coveted the Eastern sojourns
of Dunsany himself, Ernest Bramah, or those more seemingly authentic
by the Japanese scholar, Lafcadio Hearn.
His
Protestantism is tactfully portrayed as faery fable, where portrayed
at all. ('The Loyalist' and 'Researches Into Irish History').
Although, admittedly, it may have touched greater sensitivities in
their day. It is not an issue he ever impresses upon the reader,
however; being only more concerned – and adept – at the sheer joy
of creation.
Latterly,
I read how he also a
campaigned
for animal rights; about his opposition to the
docking of
dogs' tails, and subsequent presidency of the West Kent branch of the
RSPCA.
Thus, in the context of his time and popular adherences, can I at
least give him the benefit of the doubt.
But,
in the end, it is his aesthetic sense that prevails; his sense of
wonder – by his own admission – and big-hearted idealism that
broadens the appeal and elevates him over and above more reactionary
voices of contemporaries.
ALBERTINE'S
WOOERS
Out
now – Swan River Press's Dreams of Shadow and Smoke: Stories of
J.S. Le Fanu. Featuring new, and very good, tales by Mark Valentine,
Angela Slatter, Derek John, Lynda E. Rucker, Gavin Selerie, Peter
Bell and others. Currently awaiting this publisher's third release in
as many months, Brian J. Showers appears to be on a roll...Also featuring a new
Peter Bell tale is the upcoming issue (no. 28) of the tri-annual Supernatural Tales.
See here: http://suptales.blogspot.co.uk/...
Still available is Rebecca Lloyd's debut collection from Tartarus
Press, Mercy, while Lloyd's 'Gone to the Deep' features in
Tartarus's current Strange Tales anthology, Vol. IV.
