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  1. Xoic
    That's it for the Gravesian period. There's more in the book, but I'm not so interested in this part—I'm eager to get ahead to the Jungian stuff. I've now taken pictures of the rest of the book, including the Bibliography (wow, a lot of listings...
  2. Xoic
    Lovecraft had impressed on Leiber that science fiction, fantasy and horror are all capable of being true art, rather than mere pulp-style pablum. Then Leiber discovered Robert Graves, a powerful poet who had written a science fiction novel called...
  3. Xoic
    I had a dream last night involving a Shadow figure and an Anima figure who was a beautiful witch all dressed in black with black hair. Lol, I guess I've been thinking so much about this stuff that it made it into my subconscious. She did this...
  4. Xoic
    Progress Report on my reading of Witches of the Mind (which is structuring this blog thread so far). Last night I set up the camera (had to finagle the tripod so I could have it leaning out over the tabletop and pointing straight down, not an...
  5. Xoic
    And now I'm wondering if Fafhrd's rather sudden desire to scale Stardock wasn't some form of needing to go back home (it's not far from Cold Corner) and challenge his mother's power directly. As I recall the entire village had been destroyed and...
  6. Xoic
    More on Mor/Mara I just realized, Fafhrd's mother Mor (which I believe is supposed to mean mother in some Nordic-esque Nehwonian barbarian-language) has her own gigantic form. Not as obviosuly as the rest, but it's definitely there. It's simply...
  7. Xoic
    Food-related problems Leiber loves to place the Twain at a fire or more usually a small brazier, huddling for warmth and often cooking something. Frequenlty the food or drink is very bland or downright bad. But often one of them, usually the...
  8. Xoic
    Probem-solving, part deux I already mentioned that sometimes. one of the Twain will peer silently at a problem for a moment, and it's clear they're pondering a solution. More occurred to me just now that connects up with that device. Often a...
  9. Xoic
    I can now see that even Vlana, Fafhrd's greatest love, was also an Anima figure (which is why he fell so deeply and powerfully in love with her so fast), as was his mother Mor and his Cold Corner girlfriend Mara. Note the similarity in names:...
  10. Xoic
    Getting some ideas together. Spoilers follow for Sea Magic and The Snow Women— Leiber is a horror writer, so many of his Anima figures (I mean the ones he invented for the Lankhmar series, not his own) are terrifying fe-monsters, like the...
  11. Xoic
    Returning to Witches of the Mind. This is still chapter 1, about his Lovecraftian period, in my own words. This is like almost random notes, with no real connection to each other: Leiber's writing in the thirties was very derivative, of...
  12. Xoic
    And here's the meat and potatoes of why I made this thread. These are the devices the title refers to. Really it's more like a meat medallion and one of those little grape-sized baby potatoes. I really wish there were more, but there isn't. This...
  13. Xoic
    New one: [MEDIA] Looks like he agrees with me about Truby. I was blown away by his ideas on Character Web but pretty underwhelmed by the rest of it, and puzzled about his irrational hatred for Three Act Structure. His Seven Act is just a...
  14. Xoic
    This just occurred to me, as I was re-reading the above posts. Leiber said horror writers would mine the latest discoveries in science, or whatever the new trends are (spiritualism, occultism, what-have-you). Furthernmore, he said Arthur Machen...
  15. Xoic
    earthiness noun earthiness noun (DIRECTNESS) quality of being open and direct, often in a way that refers to sex and the human body: I like the earthiness of her writing. This essentially Mediterranean music combines earthiness with an age-old...
  16. Xoic
    knavery Other forms: knaveries The quality of acting like a villain or a rascal is knavery. You'll know that knavery happened last night if you wake to find toilet paper strung from the branches of your trees. The noun knavery comes from knave,...
  17. Xoic
    Here's a quote from another of Leiber's essays in Fafhrd and Me called My Life and Writings, one of his autobiographical pieces that originally appeared as an 8 part series in his column for Fantasy Review. This isn't about Lovecraft, but about...
  18. Xoic
    He also made it clear that many of Lovecraft's stories were based on actual events that transpired in his neck of the woods, or sometimes in news reports of happenings elsewhere. "In passing, it is to be noted that Lovecraft, like Poe, was...
  19. Xoic
    New thoughts The witch in her tent was like a forboding of Stardock. A tent is shaped somewhat like a mountain, and both have interior spaces which are inhabited by the woman (human-sized avatar) who is a more relatable Anima figure that can be...
  20. Xoic
    And here's why all this fishing and sea language can carry so much symbolism so easily—because as I already mentioned the sea is the perfect metaphor for the unconscious. Jung at times described the conscious part of the mind as analogous to an...
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