January 10, 2005

Harry Stephen Keeler "a writer reputed to be so bad he's good."

From the page:

Actually, no genre, nor "camp," can much suggest what Keeler is all about. Take some typical Keeler situations: - A man is found strangled to death in the middle of a lawn, yet there are no footprints other than his own. Police suspect the "Flying Strangler-Baby," a killer midget who disguises himself as a baby and stalks victims by helicopter. (X. Jones of Scotland Yard, 1936) ... - A woman's body disappears while taking a steam bath. Only her head and toes, sticking out of the steam cabinet, remain. (The Case of the Transparent Nude, 1958) - Because of a clause in a will, a character has to wear a pair of hideous blue glasses constantly for a whole year. This is so that he will eventually see a secret message that is visible only with the glasses. (The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro, 1929) ... Keeler's plots are so go-to-hell weird, they sound like a certain type of "serious" literature. But they're not!
posted by Skrik 19 years ago
  • He was a genius!
  • Oh, this is just magnificent. 'In one novel, there's a character named Suing Sophie. Sophie goes on transpacific cruise ships, striking up an acquaintance with a single man on board. When the ship gets into port, Sophie bids her male friend farewell by loudly exclaiming, "Yes! I'll marry you!" then rushing off.... You know all this and more about Sophie; before it's over, Keeler probably gets more plot mileage out of Sophie than Flaubert does out of Emma Bovary. The difference is that Sophie does not appear in the action of Keeler's novel at all. Other characters just allude to her.' 'Many Keeler novels are shamelessly padded with undigested inclusions of short stories or novellas that, not surprisingly, Keeler had sold to the pulps long before he started working on the novel... This happens in more than story: A character turns out to be a writer and asks another character to read this story he's written to tell him if it's worth publishing. Sure, I'll take a look at it, he says. And the next chapter is the story.' I've got to find more on this guy! What wondrous stuff!
  • best. link. EVAR!
  • He's got not a single entry at Project Gutenburg. There's much assumedly-legal work to be done.
  • Perhaps never mind: Here's a start.
  • Henry Darger was from Chicago too. Might be something in the water...
  • Damn, Skrik, I just discovered Keeler by accident last week and ordered a copy of one his books. Keeler and Constraint is a great piece on his writing technique. He reminds me more of Raymond Roussel than Ed Wood.
  • Oh man. The Man with the Magic Eardrums synopsis is just...wow. I can't believe the Cohens haven't adapted this guy yet.
  • "At the very end, it is revealed -- so it seems -- that Givney is really Mortimer King, and "King" is a burglar -- who climbs out the window and runs away with the skull and his last two dimes in his pocket." It looks like Paul Auster has read Keeler, for this is the very device his New York Trilogy rests upon.
  • I'm going to have to go book shopping now.
  • Yippee! My copy of Keeler's Matilda Hunter Murder just showed up in my mailbox. Jebus, this thing's 739 pages long.
  • (A Spineless Books link! Excellent!)