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Book recs?
OK, I figure there's a wide enough variety of people who read my journal one way or another that I might get some interesting responses to this.
I'm vaguely working on a comic project that's set in a neo-Victorian/Edwardian wonky world -- 'vageuly' meaning I've got the three characters that showe dup when I was doodling that I've linked to earlier in this journal, and a few vague ideas for setting knocking about my brain, but nothing has really jelled yet.
So -- I"m looking for recommendations for books, comics, art, movies, and whatnot that you think fits the parameter of "Victorian/Edwardian weird," either period or modern, I don't care. I wish I could be more specific, but I can't really pin down what it is I'm talking about - even 'Victorian' and 'Edwardian' don't do more than describe a vague flavor. The book The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases - which I gleefully recommend to all of you - is a perfect example. As is the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ebony14, I may be asking to borrow yours. :) Maybe H. Rider Haggard, too, since I haven't read any of him - I'm looking in part for the sort of world where you'd get retired British colonels sitting around the fireside telling tall tales about their hair-raising exploits with savages and cannibals in the depths of Africa, and where'd you'd get languid Bohemians lounging around in opium dens and drinking absinthe in Parisian bars and cafes.
There's probably some elements of steampunk in the world taking shape in my head, too, so steampunk would work, in the Castle Falkenstein mode. I also just spent a happy half hour downloading pictures of the Japanese Visual Kei band Malice Mizer, because the Elegant Gothic Lolita look is a part of it, and I'm going to raid my mother's bookshelves for Georgette Heyer and P.G. Wodehouse when I'm home this week because the rather-ceremonial world of the British upper class is central to bits of it -- and parts of this thing extend up into the 1920s and 30s in the Bohemian set.
So, I know that's rather vague and broad, but I'm looking for vague and broad because I'm planning on stuffing my head full of these bits and pieces over the next few weeks to see what pops out, because I've got these three characters and a sort of late-19th-century city with a very large city of the dead nearby, and there's no real framework yet on which to hang them.
Ah. Thunder. I should get off the computer now; the wiring in this complex tends to be wonky during storms.
I'm vaguely working on a comic project that's set in a neo-Victorian/Edwardian wonky world -- 'vageuly' meaning I've got the three characters that showe dup when I was doodling that I've linked to earlier in this journal, and a few vague ideas for setting knocking about my brain, but nothing has really jelled yet.
So -- I"m looking for recommendations for books, comics, art, movies, and whatnot that you think fits the parameter of "Victorian/Edwardian weird," either period or modern, I don't care. I wish I could be more specific, but I can't really pin down what it is I'm talking about - even 'Victorian' and 'Edwardian' don't do more than describe a vague flavor. The book The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases - which I gleefully recommend to all of you - is a perfect example. As is the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics -
ebony14, I may be asking to borrow yours. :) Maybe H. Rider Haggard, too, since I haven't read any of him - I'm looking in part for the sort of world where you'd get retired British colonels sitting around the fireside telling tall tales about their hair-raising exploits with savages and cannibals in the depths of Africa, and where'd you'd get languid Bohemians lounging around in opium dens and drinking absinthe in Parisian bars and cafes. There's probably some elements of steampunk in the world taking shape in my head, too, so steampunk would work, in the Castle Falkenstein mode. I also just spent a happy half hour downloading pictures of the Japanese Visual Kei band Malice Mizer, because the Elegant Gothic Lolita look is a part of it, and I'm going to raid my mother's bookshelves for Georgette Heyer and P.G. Wodehouse when I'm home this week because the rather-ceremonial world of the British upper class is central to bits of it -- and parts of this thing extend up into the 1920s and 30s in the Bohemian set.
So, I know that's rather vague and broad, but I'm looking for vague and broad because I'm planning on stuffing my head full of these bits and pieces over the next few weeks to see what pops out, because I've got these three characters and a sort of late-19th-century city with a very large city of the dead nearby, and there's no real framework yet on which to hang them.
Ah. Thunder. I should get off the computer now; the wiring in this complex tends to be wonky during storms.
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I'm heading out of town for a week at the moment, but I shall do my best to remember your kind offer and contact you when I get back.
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http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius.html
I HEAVILY recommend it.
And yes, Heyer is great, although it's Georgian and Regency.
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What I'm thinking of in Heyer, even though it's earlier than the broad period I'm looking at, is that sense of formality and ceremony in the British upper classes that lasted right through into the 20th century (and then got lampooned mercilessly by Wodehouse. Plus, y'know, any excuse to read it. :) My mom's got a bunch of the books on audiotape, and I listen to a lot of books-on-tape when doing art or cleaning fossils and such, so I shall plunder her collection.
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As far as Victorian science - why the heck not? I don't know what direction this thing is going to want to take, and Victorian science stuff may well come in handy.
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"Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that." ;)
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If you want video, I'll recommend _Tipping the Velvet_ which was a 3-part BBC miniseries about Victorian lesbians - yes, that's the Bonnie in me talking ;)
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WHich reminds me - I've got this *wonderful* book of photographs called something like "Women in Pants" which is a book of vintage photos full of ... women in pants. Some of them are obviously lesbians and 'serious' cross-dressers, and others are sorority pranks and party things (fake weddings were all the rage for a while, apparently), others are working women who wore pants to make the job easier, and others are just ... women who wore pants, for whatever reason.
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Actually there's faint echoes in Mary Poppins, of all things, too -- the turn-of-the-centruy ambience and the idea that what we think of as Reality is really just this thin cover hiding the deeply inexplicable. I wonder if the Green Knowe books fit the bill as well? It's been dog's years since I read them, and, well, any excuse for reading them is good, IMHO.
I'll have to dig up the Gormenghast books, too. I haven't read them in years and years, and there's elements of that sort of thing in part of this idea, too. *makes list* Oh - and Lewis Carroll, too. Duh. :)
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The only reason I commented really, is because my cousin named his 2nd son Fitzgerald Wodehouse Wilson. They call him "Fritz," and of course, the "Wodehouse" is from their favorite author...
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I'm glad you commented though, because every time I see my copy of The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases (http://www.lambsheadguide.com/), I think, "I should recommend that to
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