Style
Harrison is stylistically an Imagist and his early work relies heavily on the use of strange juxtapositions characteristic of absurdism. His work has been acclaimed by writers including Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman (who has called him "a Zen master of prose"), China Miéville, and Clive Barker, who has referred to him as "a blazing original". In a Locus magazine interview, Harrison describes his work as "a deliberate intention to illustrate human values by describing their absence."
Many of Harrison's novels include expansions or reworkings of previously published short stories. For instance, "The Ice Monkey" (title story of the collection) provides the seed for the novel Climbers, the novel The Course of the Heart is based on his short story "The Great God Pan". "Isobel Avens returns to Stepney in the Spring" is a short version of the story expanded as the novel Signs of Life; the short story "Anima", first published in Interzone magazine, also forms one of the central thematic threads of Signs of Life.
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“We think it is the richest prose style we know of.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... One’s style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)