Aelfwine wrote:
Here's what I've got with a bit of work; I think I can get more in time.

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Jirel of Joiry. Does create an atmosphere
and [?the] sinister 'corrupt' household of Alaric was
eerie and credible. But I never [sic] find phantasmal
struggles such as that of Jirel with 'Undead' Andred
quite unconvincing — especially when the victims escape!

Dunsany at his worst. Trying so hard for
the shudder. But not for a moment making the
tale 'credible' enough to {pro} make a background for
a strong [?e...]. And the ending lamentable — in
fact [?insulting]. In a world in which a Thangobrind
could even begin to be (let alone Hlo-hlo or [?all the rest])
early 19th century Riviera [?...] is surely utterly
impossible — or vice versa. And what is meant
by selling his daughter's soul.

Cappen Varra. Nomenclature v[ery] bad
Let us have genuine Scandanavian/Norse "bar-
barians" or something invented.

The Athammaus monster wholly unbelievable
[?…] disgusting [?... ... …]. There are lots
of ways of being [?... as] nastily, without all this
[?tooraloo] of nonsense.

Most of these things are overheated & exaggerated
([?...] bigger or [?would be] bigger, [?'...'] is
[?...] than the {ends} purposes warrant)
Also obviously over or ill-written.

Jirel of Joiry 140 - 146 is good but
needs a [?deft] story (and [?explication]) to [?...]
[?valid]. Dunsany's is one of his worst
That final ghastly paragraph!

IMHO Tolkien was very negative a lot of the time. I always think that although I really like (some) of his work, I would have struggled with the man himself.

Well, perhaps, but in this case I think Tolkien is dead on. The Dunsany story, e.g., (which is short and freely available on the web) really is _awful_, and its final paragraph truly execrable.

Aelfwine wrote:
Well, perhaps, but in this case I think Tolkien is dead on. The Dunsany story, e.g., (which is short and freely available on the web) really is _awful_, and its final paragraph truly execrable.

Yeah, I expect it was, but it does seem to be a common theme when he writes about the work of others. Or of course ot may just be that I make more of a mental note of certain types of comment and my memory tends to skip over the others. I'll have a re-read of Letters, etc at the weekend and see if I am imagining it.

This thread is referenced by the Prancing Pony Podcast #201 at about 35 minutes
https://theprancingponypodcast.com/202 ... e-day-for-a-white-wizard/