Posted by Dan Gunter on September 12, 1999 at 15:29:45:
In Reply to: Re: Huysmans/Vance posted by David Pierce on September 11, 1999 at 21:32:17:
The comment on Huysmans is insightful. I think that Huysmans must have exerted some influence on Vance, if only through Huysmans' influence on people like Smith and Lovecraft. I'm pretty sure that Lovecraft knew Huysmans. Certainly Lovecraft knew "The King in Yellow," which bears the marks of Huysmans' influence. Smith probably knew Huysmans as well: highly likely given Smith's early years as a poet. I will hazard a guess that the "end of time" theme in Smith's Zothique stories and in the Dying Earth works may derive from the fin-de-siecle mood of Huysmans, Chambers, Wilde ("Dorian Gray"), and perhaps Lafcadio Hearn, as well as others about whom I remain in blissful ignorance.
I suspect that the judgment of time will be that "A Rebours" and "La-Bas" (sorry about the absence of accents) are superior to all of Vance's works. (I can't discuss other Huysmans works for the simple reason that I haven't read them.) And perhaps that judgment will be accurate. But I'll continue to read and reread Vance with greater pleasure than I read Huysmans: Huysmans may be a superior stylist and more important aesthetician, but Vance is the better story-teller. "A Rebours" and "La-Bas" are brilliant, but not page-turners!
: J.K. Huysmans seems more like the kind of author Jack would rave about: Huysmans' synesthesia of detail is more skillfully presented on every page than the best of Vance's phenome-jazz (this statement begs argument)! And here may lie a clue to Jack's public endorsement of Anderson. Maybe Jack discerns highly specific truths in some works quite different from his own. Would like to know about their friendship.
: : Would anyone care to offer an insight on why Jack Vance has so publicly acclaimed works by Poul Anderson? I've read a few of Anderson's early books and thought they were okay, sort of fun, and then tried some of the ones Jack recommends, but found them impenetrable (the language wasn't difficult, but the plots unfolded tediously). Obviously, Anderson is erudite, but why Vance's enthusiastic endorsements of his books when Vance never blurbs book covers and claims he doesn't read sf? What am I missing? Are some of Anderson's books really good, and my senses simply can't apprehend this fact after a life-long addiction to adventure fiction that has no doubt numbed me to subtlety? Input & Anderson recommendations appreciated.