THE DEEP ONES: "Tainaron: Mail from Another City" by Leena Krohn
KeskusteluThe Weird Tradition
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1semdetenebre
"Tainaron: Mail from Another City" by Leena Krohn
Discussion begins March 8, 2023.
Written in 1985. First English publication in Tainaron: Mail from Another City (2004).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63343
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
ONLINE VERSIONS
No authorized online versions found to date.
ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS
No authorized online audio versions found to date.
MISCELLANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leena_Krohn
https://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/leena-krohn/
https://weirdfictionreview.com/2013/01/wfrs-101-weird-writers-18-leena-krohn/
https://tinyurl.com/yc2dkpck
Discussion begins March 8, 2023.
Written in 1985. First English publication in Tainaron: Mail from Another City (2004).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63343
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
ONLINE VERSIONS
No authorized online versions found to date.
ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS
No authorized online audio versions found to date.
MISCELLANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leena_Krohn
https://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/leena-krohn/
https://weirdfictionreview.com/2013/01/wfrs-101-weird-writers-18-leena-krohn/
https://tinyurl.com/yc2dkpck
2AndreasJ
This is a pretty long work and I doubt I shall manage to finish it by Wednesday (not that I finished last week's much shorter story by last Wednesday ...).
It doesn't, however, seem to be the longest one we've tackled: howlongtoread.com estimates it as 38,272 words, which is just about 75% of the length of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and also shorter than The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and At the Mountains of Madness, all of which we've done. It seems likely to be our longest non-HPL work, however.
It doesn't, however, seem to be the longest one we've tackled: howlongtoread.com estimates it as 38,272 words, which is just about 75% of the length of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and also shorter than The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and At the Mountains of Madness, all of which we've done. It seems likely to be our longest non-HPL work, however.
3paradoxosalpha
Yes, I am sure I won't have it finished tomorrow, despite having nominated it myself. My reading bandwidth is really dominated right now by Perhaps the Stars.
4RandyStafford
Certainly an unusual story. No attempt is made to explain Tainaron's presence on Earth which is where it seems to be
I can't say I loved the tale, but I don't regret spending time on it.
Some of the scenes were striking: the ignored prince, the living conveyor built that shows up in the city once a year, the birth and death of the city's inhabitants, and the surveyors whose use of their bodies as instruments means the city's stats will change. It can't be mapped anyway. The pyre of suicides was enigmatic.
Yet, there are several things Krohn could have used to make the narrator's experience even more mysterious and exotic. The city's residents seem to often speak English and their food is not that exotic for the most part.
I'm note sure how I expected it to end, but the narrator sort of going native didn't really surprise give the hints of alienation when describing her old life and what I took to be an old lover never answering her letters. And she is happy about paying the Queen of Bees a happy memory.
Of course, we have no idea if her human body is capable of undergoing an insect-like metamorphosis in the odd environs of Tainaron.
I can't say I loved the tale, but I don't regret spending time on it.
Some of the scenes were striking: the ignored prince, the living conveyor built that shows up in the city once a year, the birth and death of the city's inhabitants, and the surveyors whose use of their bodies as instruments means the city's stats will change. It can't be mapped anyway. The pyre of suicides was enigmatic.
Yet, there are several things Krohn could have used to make the narrator's experience even more mysterious and exotic. The city's residents seem to often speak English and their food is not that exotic for the most part.
I'm note sure how I expected it to end, but the narrator sort of going native didn't really surprise give the hints of alienation when describing her old life and what I took to be an old lover never answering her letters. And she is happy about paying the Queen of Bees a happy memory.
Of course, we have no idea if her human body is capable of undergoing an insect-like metamorphosis in the odd environs of Tainaron.
5AndreasJ
Certainly unusual!
It's one of those stories that leave me with a feeling that I'm missing something, that there's some key that would make sense of it all that passes above my head.
I don't think we're given any reason to believe the inhabitants speak English? Finnish, if anything.
The ending struck me as out of left field - if it was foreshadowed before the final letter, that too went above my head.
It's one of those stories that leave me with a feeling that I'm missing something, that there's some key that would make sense of it all that passes above my head.
I don't think we're given any reason to believe the inhabitants speak English? Finnish, if anything.
The ending struck me as out of left field - if it was foreshadowed before the final letter, that too went above my head.
6RandyStafford
>5 AndreasJ: Quite right, Finnish. Or some other language the narrator knows. Krohn presents plenty of distancing weirdness, but it's interesting what she doesn't estrange in the details of Trainon.
