{"id":48361,"date":"2021-06-14T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T02:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=48361"},"modified":"2021-06-14T05:57:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T02:57:00","slug":"robert-aickman-biography-forthcoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2021\/06\/14\/robert-aickman-biography-forthcoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Aickman biography forthcoming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The journal Wormwoodiana<\/em> No. 36<\/a> will ship shortly, and now has a table-of-contents. The same post has news that an estate-approved biography of acclaimed British supernatural\/weird writer Robert Aickman is…<\/p>\n

essentially finished, and we now need to explore the best way of seeing it published<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aickman was also a key leader in the post-war restoration of the extensive but neglected British system of inland canals. The restoration was a magnificent success, and now offers a vast network for off-road walking and cycling in leafy surroundings. The system also supports a thriving narrowboat hire industry, especially in the Midlands, bringing affluent tourists and their cash to all sorts of out-of-the-way rural places. Lovecraft the-conservationist-and-walker would be been very pleased that his beloved British Isles had seen such a remarkable and suitable transformation, and that it had been led by a weird author whom he would have deeply admired.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Portrait of Robert Aickman by Ida Kar, National Portrait Gallery<\/a>. Here newly shadow-lifted and colourised. The painted step and can on the shelf above are traditional painted British canal-ware.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you can’t wait for the biography, there are said to be two published auto-biographical books, The Attempted Rescue<\/em> (1966) and the posthumous The River Runs Uphill: A Story of Success and Failure<\/em> (1986). But how much they have to say about the writer rather than the conservationist, I don’t know.<\/p>\n

For those who want a quicker overview and a clear focus on the weird writing, the recent 30-minute audio documentary \/ appreciation “The Unsettled Dust: The Strange Stories of Robert Aickman”<\/a> (2017) is available at Archive.org. <\/p>\n

Incidentally, perhaps some Aickman specialist can tell me this: what exactly was his connection with the English West Midlands? Certain small certain factors I’ve casually noticed in the past suggest he had some sort of connection with the Wolverhampton -to- Burton-on-Trent arc of Staffordshire, just above Birmingham on the map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The journal Wormwoodiana No. 36 will ship shortly, and now has a table-of-contents. The same post has news that an …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-books","category-podcasts-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}