Extollager
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 9,064
I wrote, about Williams's Descent into Hell, "I find myself giving up on understanding what he is saying" -- I meant this happens sometimes as I read. It's not that the book in general is confounding. Also, certainly one must acknowledge that Williams is serious about conveying experiences outside the ordinary, also about giving an unusual and searching perspective on "ordinary" matters such as conventional social situations. Being serious about evoking them, he must use language in a way that will challenge us, all the more since so much of what we are used to reading nowadays is trite. (One of the effects of reading Williams may be to make one ashamed of wasting so much time reading things not much more valuable than the texts printed on cereal boxes.)
People like our much-missed J. D. Worthington, who read supernatural horror fiction as a specialty, must not miss Williams's material about a succubus conjured unconsciously by a prominent historian. The evocation of the haunted suburban hill is not done to be scary but it is disturbing.
People like our much-missed J. D. Worthington, who read supernatural horror fiction as a specialty, must not miss Williams's material about a succubus conjured unconsciously by a prominent historian. The evocation of the haunted suburban hill is not done to be scary but it is disturbing.