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Frozen Hell by John W Campbell Jr. Written in the 30s and never released in it’s full, unedited form until recently. A cutback version saw publication as Who Goes There which was the inspiration for movies The Thing From Another World and John Carpenter’s The Thing. I’ve been on a serious early/mid 20th century sci fi kick for some time and I’m a massive fan of The Thing so this should hopefully be right up my street.
I’m currently reading The Invention Of Tradition, which is a collection of essays from the 80s (I think – possibly the 60s). After an incredibly dry and academic introduction that had me doubting I was going to manage the whole book (various uses of “inculcate” and “promulgate”) it livens up a bit. The first chapter basically tore down the Scots (deconstructing the myths of highland culture, kilts, tartan), the second went for the Welsh (the fabrication of Druidic culture in the 18th century or so, mostly) and I’m just at the third, which is going for the royal family and their pageantry. It’s like an academic version of an insult comedian or roast.
That’s a pretty cool topic! And it does make a lot of sense that most traditions would’ve been invented later than their supposed origin.
(And I say that as someone living in a city whose famous “gothic” cathedral was actually mostly built in the late 19th century.)
Yeah, the romantic movement did that in a lot of regions in the 1800s. Same in Germany (the middle ages were basically invented in the romantic period here), and this was also a time of a massive nationalist movement (there was no Germany at the time, mind you, just several dukedoms that spoke the same language). That national sentiment was also tied to a democratic movement, interestingly, so quite different from the re-invention of Germanic paganism by the nazis.
That’s a pretty cool topic! And it does make a lot of sense that most traditions would’ve been invented later than their supposed origin.
(And I say that as someone living in a city whose famous “gothic” cathedral was actually mostly built in the late 19th century.)
Yeah, a lot of it is perfectly reasonable, like the Welsh eisteddfod. Do they bear any relation to what the old bards actually did? Probably not. But they’re as much about promoting what the country wants itself to be now as anything and that’s perfectly reasonable.
The clan tartan thing is much funnier though, because it is all pure bollocks made up by a combination of royal-wannabes and clothing manufacturers.
