(no subject)

[camwyn]

Finished Secrets Of Eskimo Skin-Sewing. Also downloaded and re-read William Hope Hodgson's The House On The Borderlands. Early cosmic horror stuff, with what I consider to be a lovely section in which, through the wonders of sped-up time and disembodiment, the viewpoint character watches the billions of years' worth of events that lead into the end of all things. Homestuck fans, I don't know if Hussie ever read this book, but part of that chapter involves the final death of stars by being pulled into, and devoured by, an unthinkably supremely enormous green sun.

This and Arthur Machen's work were a major surprise to me the first time I read them, because I'd read a massive amount of HP Lovecraft before that. Turns out pernicious racism isn't baked into the cosmic horror genre, who knew. (Some of Machen had some pretty bad depictions of Irish characters, though.)

I do kind of wonder if Hodgson had a bad background with pigs, though. The parts of The House On The Borderlands that weren't the sweep of uncounted aeons had sickly pale swinish bipeds that made horrible pig noises as the enemy, and he had another story in.... I think his Carnacki the Ghost-Finder stuff?... called The Hog. I mean, some horror writers use arachnids as their oogie boogies, some of 'em do snakes, some have toad issues, there's always the writers who go after rats, but freaky weird evil pale-skinned anthro-pig things are kind of a standout.

Comments

[filkerdave]

I started reading The House on the Borderlands many years ago. I don't know if I ever finished it. I should see if I can get it from the local library.

[camwyn]

If you're cool with eBooks, Project Gutenberg has it, too.

[filkerdave]

Very cook with them. Back in my road warrior days I stopped buying physical books.

[ymfaery]

...

You wouldn't happen to know if this was published before or after Animal Farm, do you?

[camwyn]

Hodgson was killed by an artillery shell in World War I, so well, well before Animal Farm.

Worth noting, his book The Night Land contains a description of a post-multiple-apocalyptic fortress surrounded by the 'Air Clog', a barrier fueled by telluric energies and generated by human-made machinery, impenetrable to attacks or even non-hostile passage of anyone or anything not entitled to enter the Redoubt within. The book was published in 1912, so the Air Clog may very well be the first example of a technologically derived (as opposed to magically derived) force field in English language literature.

[derien]

So, Eor thinks skin-sewing sounds creepy, and he wants to know what it's about but doesn't dare do a search for fear he'll get serial killer stuff. I'm thinking that it's actually just stitching hides together to make clothing, but he wonders why they call it skin-sewing instead of hide or leather.

[camwyn]

It's making clothing and household items out of furs, and non-hairy leather to a lesser degree. The first chapter goes into detail about how to prepare various animal skins starting from removing any remaining flesh with an ulu knife, and how to make sure the hair stays on. She mostly refers to them as skins rather than hides, so I guess that's how her mother's people referred to them.