The BURIED Book Club discussion

As a Polish interwar chronicler of supernatural horrors lurking in the cusp of modernity (horror isn't coming from outside of society, from nature, but from the very progress and hope of technological society itself), Stefan Grabiński is actually reasonably known -- several collections of stories in print, most of them actually finding a (minimal, but appreciative) audience.

But what of his four novels?!

Nate D wrote: "But what of his four novels?!"

Wow - I really wish his novels were available in English - they sound really promising based on the content of the short story collections.

Looks like Centipede Press will be publishing a large collection of his short stories (many of which currently untranslated) - I know, I know, it's not a novel - sometime in the future as part of their MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALE collection. Which means it will be a nice, very large book, and will also be incredibly overpriced. *sigh*

I was going to extend hopes that they would eventually pass the title on to their much more reasonable Millipede Press divisio, but it seems that's been discontinued for ages.

But still, anyway, much as I love a great story collection, they'll nearly always pale before the greater development and cohesion offered by novel (or even novella) length works.

Yes - I find that Centipede does manage to publish a lot of stuff I'd like to own, but almost never at a price I'm even close to willing to stomach. My wife did buy me the Michael Cisco box set they put out last year, which was awesome. I hadn't paid any attention to Millipede in quite a while - sad to hear it is no more.

And yes, I'm particularly partial to the long-form myself as well.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has this to say about his novels, which might explain the lack of English translations so far:

"Grabiński's later career was almost exclusively devoted to novels, none translated into English, which marked his growing attraction for the occult and religious fantasy. Salamandra ["The Salamander"] (1924) – his debut as a novelist – contains a vivid account of a Sabbath and other arcane practices, yet by and large suffers from an incoherent and overwrought narrative and seems overloaded with details, apparently aimed at proving the author's unquestionable expert knowledge by exposing the entire spectrum of his sources and interests, ranging from hypnosis to demonology and magic rituals. None of Grabiński's novels are in fact a match for his short stories, which after a period of disregard and obscurity were rediscovered and reprinted, and are steadily being translated into English [...]"

(http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...)

Of course that is just the opinion of the two sci-fi critics who wrote that entry. Also, Miroslaw Lipinski is translating a 'novelette' called 'Passion' which appeared as the title story in Grabinski's final collection published in Polish. Lipinski's FB page says he was still working on the translation as of last July and that when done it would appear in a limited edition printing.
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stefan...)

So you might get your wish yet, Nate.

Hmmm, okay, that all may shed some light. That said, I'm still very curious. Consensus burials are still burials and are not guaranteed to be just. I'll be holding out hopes for Passion.