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Fandango, v. 3, issue 4, whole no. 12, Summer 1946
Page 6
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TIMEBINDER. In reference to Everett's remarks on giving presents and then not getting the sort of response he wants, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who pointed out that the real way to get a response out of someone was to make him do the giving? At least I have found that it works beautifully, if I'm trying to get set with someone, to make that person render services for me which he or she can easily feel could not be rendered by anyone else. The warm glow of righteous egoboo arising usually makes the character feel quite kindly towards me--and of course I'm not proud; I don't mind someone's going to a good deal of trouble for me. Only trouble is, such a procedure knocks me out of my ego-boo. Ho hum. ---oo0oo--- READER AND COLLECTOR. Robert Butman did not live up to his promising start. Some points taken out of III-6: )p. 13) Butman certainly does not understand the fan field well enough even to mention it. His discussion of the field ranges from half-truths to glaring errors, with a majority of the latter. (p. 21) Butman sounds as though he thought the UAPA, a wholly mundane aj group, was not only HPL's personal club but was a major influence on the development of fantasy in America. Later on the same page, Butman speaks of Machen and Bierce almost as though they were followers of HPL, rather than the reverse. (p. 23) This is a very minor point, but one should reasonably expect an author of a serious piece of scholarship to keep his sources straight. My glossary did not appear in The Outsider. Thru this entire chapter, Butman writes as though H. P. Lovecraft were the influence on modern American fantasy, and this he assuredly was not. If one examines the field of fantasy impartially, he is forced to the conclusion that H. P. Lovecraft was both a slight and a fleeting influence. If he was other than a slight influence, why is it that, outside of stories written by his own most intimate friends, there exist scarcely any stories which can possibly be called Lovecraftian? If his influence was other than fleeting, how does Butman account for the fact that the new Lovecraftian story is today a definite rarity? And how does he account for the further fact that another equally slight and fleeting influence (Unknown) has arisen, flourished, and declined since Lovecraft's death? If Lovecraft were the influence butman imagines him to be, half or more of the fantasy today would bear definite marks of having been influenced by him. Does it? Finding Butman patently in error concerning matters which I am in a position to verify makes it extremely difficult for me to give the rest of his essay any serious consideration. If he is wrong in these things, I think, how can I expect him to be right on these other matters? ---oo0oo--- HORIZONS. For an educated man, old Hard Luck Gardner shows less appreciation, or indeed, knowledge of literature and literate fiction as contrasted against the cheap slop of the pulp magazines than anyone else in FAPA. "Now it is an ascertainable fact," he says, "that book fiction is usually utopian, sociological, and often of a lower grade than the fiction published by the best magazines." Do such bibliophiles as Koenig, Liebscher, Searles subscribe to that statement? And his statement about naming the top 30 stories! Certainly if one has confined his reading to the cheap magazines, his list of favorite stories will reflect this fact, but the more discerning fantasy readre, who has given the hard-cover side of our field a reasonable perusal is not apt to give much tolerance to the pulps. A couple of stories out of ASF, a couple more out of UNK, and perhaps something by HPL or CAS--apart from that, they'll be naming book stuff among their favorites. -- 6 --
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TIMEBINDER. In reference to Everett's remarks on giving presents and then not getting the sort of response he wants, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who pointed out that the real way to get a response out of someone was to make him do the giving? At least I have found that it works beautifully, if I'm trying to get set with someone, to make that person render services for me which he or she can easily feel could not be rendered by anyone else. The warm glow of righteous egoboo arising usually makes the character feel quite kindly towards me--and of course I'm not proud; I don't mind someone's going to a good deal of trouble for me. Only trouble is, such a procedure knocks me out of my ego-boo. Ho hum. ---oo0oo--- READER AND COLLECTOR. Robert Butman did not live up to his promising start. Some points taken out of III-6: )p. 13) Butman certainly does not understand the fan field well enough even to mention it. His discussion of the field ranges from half-truths to glaring errors, with a majority of the latter. (p. 21) Butman sounds as though he thought the UAPA, a wholly mundane aj group, was not only HPL's personal club but was a major influence on the development of fantasy in America. Later on the same page, Butman speaks of Machen and Bierce almost as though they were followers of HPL, rather than the reverse. (p. 23) This is a very minor point, but one should reasonably expect an author of a serious piece of scholarship to keep his sources straight. My glossary did not appear in The Outsider. Thru this entire chapter, Butman writes as though H. P. Lovecraft were the influence on modern American fantasy, and this he assuredly was not. If one examines the field of fantasy impartially, he is forced to the conclusion that H. P. Lovecraft was both a slight and a fleeting influence. If he was other than a slight influence, why is it that, outside of stories written by his own most intimate friends, there exist scarcely any stories which can possibly be called Lovecraftian? If his influence was other than fleeting, how does Butman account for the fact that the new Lovecraftian story is today a definite rarity? And how does he account for the further fact that another equally slight and fleeting influence (Unknown) has arisen, flourished, and declined since Lovecraft's death? If Lovecraft were the influence butman imagines him to be, half or more of the fantasy today would bear definite marks of having been influenced by him. Does it? Finding Butman patently in error concerning matters which I am in a position to verify makes it extremely difficult for me to give the rest of his essay any serious consideration. If he is wrong in these things, I think, how can I expect him to be right on these other matters? ---oo0oo--- HORIZONS. For an educated man, old Hard Luck Gardner shows less appreciation, or indeed, knowledge of literature and literate fiction as contrasted against the cheap slop of the pulp magazines than anyone else in FAPA. "Now it is an ascertainable fact," he says, "that book fiction is usually utopian, sociological, and often of a lower grade than the fiction published by the best magazines." Do such bibliophiles as Koenig, Liebscher, Searles subscribe to that statement? And his statement about naming the top 30 stories! Certainly if one has confined his reading to the cheap magazines, his list of favorite stories will reflect this fact, but the more discerning fantasy readre, who has given the hard-cover side of our field a reasonable perusal is not apt to give much tolerance to the pulps. A couple of stories out of ASF, a couple more out of UNK, and perhaps something by HPL or CAS--apart from that, they'll be naming book stuff among their favorites. -- 6 --
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