The Best of Weird Tales in 1923: "The Basket" by Herbert J. Mangham

Tonight I want to tell you about another story from the anthology The Best of Weird Tales: 1923. Titled, "The Basket," this story was also in the first issue of Weird Tales.

Some summary: it's about a guy who stays at a boarding house who is extremely indeterminate. He doesn't tell anyone anything about who he is. He isn't very unique in terms of his physical appearances. And, he's a kind of random, unassuming sort of guy. Without spoiling the story for you, he simply "goes away" in the end. I won't tell you how.

I find this story extremely interesting. The protagonist is so anonymous. That is what I think his main characteristic is: anonymity. This is so interesting when one considers that specificity of character, setting, and time are what some would say defines the "novelistic" style. Sure, this is a short story, but it's still written in the "novelistic" or "realistic" style, if you will.

The first story from this anthology that I looked at is titled "The Grave," and it relates the story of a soldier in World War I who was buried alive and who tries to stay alive; and the main aesthetic effect of that story is confusion. He didn't know anything: was he going to be rescued? How many days had passed? Was the battle still raging?

Here you have a story where a character shows up, he's shrouded in mystery, and he disappears. And so, it's similar to the previous story in that the thematic preoccupation is "cognition" or "knowledge". The story depicts a protagonist who knows nothing; in the second story, we, as readers, know nothing.

I'm seeing a thematic preoccupation in Weird Tales with the unknown. Could these stories be thought of as thematically focused on unknowns?

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 4): Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

So, this afternoon I begin teaching *The Hobbit* in my history of the novel class. I feel like this is an important moment because that book is what got me into reading and writing in the first place. I purchased a copy of it from a book fair in the 7th grade on a whim. I'd read novels before that, but none of them stirred me the way this one had. After *The Hobbit* fantasy literature had become one of the major obsessions in my life.

***

Realism and Mythology

Where does *The Hobbit* fall in the history of the novel? Well, I think *The Hobbit* represents an important innovation in the history of a novel. In *The Hobbit* you have a mixture of two styles: realism and mythology. For me, *The Hobbit* (along with a lot of other texts--particularly Robert E. Howard's Conan stories) inaugurates a tradition of literature that combines realist conventions with mythological conventions.

What do I mean by "realism"? In terms of literary art we can perhaps mythologize the beginning of realism in the first book we looked in my history of the novel class, namely, Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe.* We can think of realism as both a style and a thematic content.

The Style of Realism

In terms of style, we have a slow narrative pace. Defoe spends a lot of time in his novel talking about the surface texture of the world. He refers to measurements and the quantities and the texture of the sea. I'm not saying this sort of reference didn't take in past literature. I am suggesting, though, that the way Defoe refers to the surface texture of the world is unique here. He just describes it baldly and not through allusion or simile: "e.g. the wine-dark ocean". He does not use the flourished style of the epic poet; rather, he uses the "journalistic" style of a natural philosopher or surveyor.

The Thematic Content of Realism

In terms of content, we have a narrative focused on a "normal guy." Robinson Crusoe is a middle class guy who attempts to make a fortune through an entrepreneurial enterprise. He gets stranded on the island and has to survive. Thus, we hear nothing about gods and goblins but a lot about how he gets his food, what he wears, the weather, his attempts to build a shelter. Sure, there are elements where he talks about his spiritual thoughts; and yet--these thoughts suggest less the epic mode and more the introspective, inner-focused psychologizing of later Victorian novelists.

Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

To a large extent Bilbo Baggins is a perfect parallel to Robinson Crusoe. Bilbo is "well to do" but he's not royalty or aristocracy. He lives in a comfortable, secure environment; Crusoe begins his life in England to parents who are going to set him up in law. In terms of style, the first part of *The Hobbit* hews pretty closely to the realism pioneered in *Robinson Crusoe*. What do the first passages relate? Dinner plans. What the dwarves and company eat, drink, and talk about. To a large extent the first chapter of *The Hobbit* ("A Unexpected Party") is more a "novel of manners" suggestive of Jane Austen's works than any epic poem or adventure fiction.

There is an important moment, however, when the dwarves begin singing their song about the coming of Smaug. Here we have the epic mode entering into the narrative. These passages are versified. There are strange, lyrical syntaxes and rare words are used. Dragons show up and exaggerated emotions are evoked. When the dwarves start singing about the desolation of Smaug we have left the novel of manners and moved into the epic.

Conclusion

I'm going to write more about *The Hobbit* as I spend time on it in class. I have this week and next set aside for it. But here's my hunch at this  point: the aesthetic power of *The Hobbit*--why it is an important "stop" on the journey of the history of the novel--derives from its "mixture" of two distinct narrative registers, the mythological and the realistic.

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 2): Robinson Crusoe, Realism, and Deviations from Realism

I came across a couple passages from Robinson Crusoe recently that gave me pause. A little context: Robinson has been stranded on the island for some time now. In the first passage Robinson is admitting to having no spiritual thoughts at all. To an extent, he is surprised at himself, at his non-spiritual viewpoint. That he thoughtlessly applies himself to gathering materials for a shelter and food and thereby thinks nothing of the divine importance of his being stranded is strange to him:

"I began to be very easy, applied myself to the works proper for my preservation and supply, and was far enough from being afflicted at my condition, as a judgment from Heaven, or as the hand of God against me; these were thoughts which very seldom entered into my head" (91).

Of note here is Robinson's acknowledgement that he was not looking into things. Upon remembering his experience, he finds it strange that, taken up by more basic, economic concerns--where will he sleep, what will he eat--he thinks very little of the spiritual dimension to his fate, being stranded, alone, on an island.

A few paragraphs later, spiritual questions erupt within him. Consider this passage:

"After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry the gun (for I never went out without that); so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, and looking out to sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. As I sat here, some such thoughts as these occurred to me:

'What is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced, and what am I, and all other creatures, wild and tame, human and brutal, whence we are?'" (93).

This passage is an interesting counterpoint to the first passage I cited. Robinson is moving along, organizing for his survival on the island. He is struggling with the "material" realities of his misfortune; and then, out of nowhere, spiritual questions flame up. They are basic questions about reality: what is the earth? What am I?

What has happened is that the immanent world has become strange to Robinson.

I find this so intriguing because often Robinson Crusoe is often cited as being unique, an innovation in fiction, for its shedding of "imaginary" plot devices like mythology, literary citatons, folklore, etc.. In this novel the material, "immanent" world--the surface texture of the world, if you will--has become a theme. 

Here, after the surface texture of the world is considered, a desire to look beyond it is betrayed. What is this world? What am I? What are those things?

We have here, in this early example of the English novel, stirrings of subsequent realism and deviations from it.

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 1): Robinson Crusoe and Reality

Introduction: So, I decided to try and "thread together" my professional life (teaching, literary scholarship) with my hobby/obsession (creative writing, weird fiction). And so, I'm starting a new post series, "The Weird History of the Novel." This will basically be a running commentary on the class I'm teaching this semester at Case Western Reserve University, "The History of the Novel." Though the class is an introduction to the history of the novel, this post series will have a thematic "slant" to it.  

Meta-comment/Blogging comment: Sorry for the crappy banner. Doing hand-drawn ones is taking up more time these days than I have. ::sigh:: I did, however, want to highlight this series as something I'm returning to. And, I've been told banners "brand" series and kind of make a commitment to your blog readers that this is an issue/line of thought you aim to return to.

Anyhow...

***

I started re-reading Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe this morning. I'm starting my history of the novel class with it. This novel (along with a press of coffee) made me start thinking about "realism" and how "realism" is just as important for the weird genres as "deviations" from realism. Let me explain.

Robinson Crusoe is often cited as being an example of realism because, unlike the literary works that preceded it, it cites no mythology or legends nor does it overtly cite any previous literature; it's completely new, completely novel. Thus, it's considered one of the first true novels.

I like this way of defining the novel. Very often people define the novel in terms of what it is: a long narrative; lots of description; characters who come from the middle class. It's useful, though, to consider what novels aren't. In the case of Robinson Crusoe, the suggestion is that novels are realistic; that is, they represent the world as it is, devoid of mythology or the obfuscations of legend.

Hmm. It's true that some literary historians describe the first novels as a reaction against non-realistic literary genres like the romance. And yet, to say that the novel is necessarily preoccupied with the "realistic" is to set oneself up to argue that science fiction novels, fantasy novels, supernatural horror novels, aren't novels at all. I'm not sure what's at stake in this claim. For now, I'll table it.

But it's interesting. If we accept Robinson Crusoe as an example of one of the earliest novels, then we can use it to frame the novel not just as another media vehicle (e.g. the play, the song), and not just as another literary genre (e.g. the epic poem, the sonnet). In other words, we can begin to define the novel in terms of a discrete theme.

What is that theme? Reality.

Is it useful to think of the novel, the earliest novels, like Robinson Crusoe, as being thematically preoccupied with the real? Is the novel, by its very nature, preoccupied with a kind of reality principle?