Quiet Houses

Quiet Houses

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

Blurb:

Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream...quietly. Because the most terrifying screams are the silent ones.

My Reaction:  
DNF.  I just couldn't get into this one.  I read four or five of the stories, I think, but I gave up in the one about the team camping in and documenting the contents of the hotel.  It wasn't for me, unfortunately.  

The Lair of the White Worm

The Lair of the White Worm
by Bram Stoker


Blurb:

In a tale of ancient evil, Bram Stoker creates a world of lurking horrors and bizarre denizens: a demented mesmerist, hellbent on mentally crushing the girl he loves; a gigantic kite raised to rid the land of an unnatural infestation of birds, and which receives strange commands along its string; and all the while, the great white worm slithers below, seeking its next victim...

My Reaction:(First, let me state that this was another 372-Pages podcast book club selection-- a shared read with Donald.)

I read and enjoyed Dracula at some point in high school, I think.  Possibly middle school. It's been so long, I can't remember exactly when, but I know I found it entertaining and a page-turner (by the period's standards).  I suspect that if I read it now, I'd be nit-picking at it like I do everything else I read these days, but still-- it's considered a classic for a reason.

Keeping Dracula in mind, it's amazing to me that this horrible novel was written by the same person. Admittedly, I read the abridged version, but unless the person doing the abridging purposefully set out to make the book worse, I can't imagine that more pages would improve on what I read.

The blurb makes the book sound better (or at least more interesting) than it is, but it also contains what I'd consider to be spoilers. (Tell me you expected a gigantic kite to appear in this novel!) I briefly considered writing my own blurb, but that would require too much work. It's genuinely not worth the effort.

As is typical of books selected for the 372-Pages podcast, this is an awful book. The writing is atrocious (not merely lacking in style, but frequently self-contradictory and at times almost incomprehensible). The pacing is bizarre-- achingly slow most of the time, but occasionally cramming in major developments in a single stingy sentence. The plot is so Swiss-cheese flimsy that it's almost nonexistent-- more hole than substance. Character development is a joke. As other reviews point out, the book contains several incidents of casual racism, but honestly, even leaving those out, it's still horrible.

I can't understand how anyone actually enjoys reading this book. That's how bad it is. It is certainly no classic!

The Matrix

The Matrix
by Jonathan Aycliffe


Blurb:

After the death of his wife, Scottish scholar Andrew Macleod finds solace in his research. Delving into an ancient text entitled Matrix Aeternitatis, Andrew allows himself to be drawn into an inner circle of evil from which there is no escape. Poised on the edge of the horrific abyss between life and death, Andrew's life will never again be his own.

My Reaction:
(No, not that one.  The "Matrix" in this novel is an ancient-- and evil-- book of magic.)

You'll recognize most of the bits and pieces of this novel-- particularly if you've a penchant for good old-fashioned atmospheric horror and Lovecraftian "weird fiction".  However, recognizing the signs, knowing full well what's coming, and (mentally) shouting at the characters, "Stop, for goodness' sake!"-- that's all part of the fun of this type of book.

If you don't mind predictability, there's plenty to enjoy here.

One thing, though, that I can never understand in books of this type (and it does seem to happen fairly often) is this:  How can a character who has witnessed all sorts of magical, mystical, paranormal phenomena be so certain that none of the "good stuff" could possibly also be true?  No God, or in this case, no heaven.  I guess it's supposed to contribute to the overall feeling of gloom and dread-- no light at the end of the tunnel-- but I find it illogical and strange.

I'd give this 3.5 stars if possible.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

by Laird Barron

Blurb:

Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron’s stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards. 

Barron returns with his third collection, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. Collecting interlinking tales of sublime cosmic horror, including “Blackwood’s Baby”, “The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven”, and “The Men from Porlock”, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All delivers enough spine-chilling horror to satisfy even the most jaded reader.

My Reaction:
In the interest of full disclosure, I should acknowledge right away that I stopped reading after 70%, skimmed the next story ("Vastation"), and stopped even skimming after that. Technically, this is a DNF (did not finish).

I tend to think I'll enjoy short stories more than I actually do. Short stories simply don't (typically) offer the kind of character development and longer-arc story-telling that I like best, and they are frequently (unsatisfyingly) open-ended. There are exceptions, and I'm tempted by short story collections that sound promising-- but even when I enjoy them, I find them more work to read than a novel and requiring more motivation to finish. This collection was no exception.

Still, even as a person who wants to like short stories but often struggles with them, I can say something positive about these. First, I appreciate that at least I could more or less understand what was happening in (most of) them. (Parts of the first story were a little disorienting, though, and "Vastation" was definitely out there.) Sometimes it seems that short story writers take pride in being incomprehensible, laboring under the misconception that if the reader has any grasp of what is happening (much less why), it's a sign that the author lacks that ineffable something.

I also found more of these stories to have true conclusions than I've come to expect from modern short stories. Conclusions! A satisfying sense that the story has come to an intentional end rather than just keeling over in mid-stride! Amazing!

Actually, it's funny that I keep seeing reviewers complaining-- or maybe simply commenting-- that these stories lack cut-and-dried conclusions. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but I have the impression that I knew basically where most of the stories/characters were headed, at the end.  (Not-quite-a-spoiler alert: Usually, death or a fate worse than.) In any case, that I at least felt there was a sense of conclusion was good enough for me, I guess!

Then there's the writing itself, which is skillful. It's not quite to my personal taste, but I'd say it's well-crafted (if rather self-conscious).

Now for the negatives. I've already admitted that I'm probably just not the ideal reader for most modern short stories. Well, that's not the only reason I found myself unwilling to keep reading. Unfortunately, I find this style of horror ineffective. I'm not sure whether it's more properly called "cosmic horror" or "the weird"-- or even "Lovecraftian horror"-- but it just doesn't usually work on me.  Some of "the weird" that I've come across (in my limited forays into the genre) have given me distinct moments of "The Creeps", but it's certainly not my go-to genre for all my spine-chilling, goosefleshing needs. At some point, I just find these stories of Infinite Weirdness... boring.

As others have noted, it's impossible to care what happens to most of these characters-- with the exception of "The Redfield Girls". However, unlikable, unsympathetic characters seem to be rather more common than not in this type of story. (Rather like those horror movies that apparently desire you to hate the characters so much that you won't mind seeing them finished off one by one.)

There was also a bit more gore than I like.  I can deal with some of it-- especially if it seems necessary for the story/book, but gross-out/body horror-- while it does gross me well and truly out-- is not what I'm looking for in horror. I'm that weirdo who finds all the gratuitously grody zombie close-ups/zombo-cameos in The Walking Dead uninteresting, if not outright annoying.  ("Look, we get it: Zombies be decomposin'. Now, can we get back to the survival story?!") These stories aren't even that extreme, in the realm of gross horror, but it was gross enough often enough that I noticed I was skimming to sidestep the blood and guts.  Blugh.

...So, anyway... If you love cosmic horror, you should give these stories a try. If you're left cold by the unknowable Blah-Blah-Blah drifting in from some dark corner of the universe (like some sort of scary, gargantuan, blood-feasting jellyfish), maybe it's not worth the effort.

I see that many reviewers particularly enjoyed the last two stories, which I skipped, so I may go back and read them, if/when the mood returns. However, unless there's something unexpected in those last two tales, whatever it is that inspires such adulation from this author's many fans will remain a mystery to me!

I'm rounding up to a 3, but really, this is more of a 2.5 for me.

More Short Stories

This time, it's more audio-format short stories.  All are from the same LibriVox collection-- Short Ghost and Horror Collection 010.


"A Bottomless Grave"
by Ambrose Bierce

Quite an odd story.  Best for fans of satire and those who enjoy a sly smile with their shudders. 


"The Mysterious Head"
by Pu Songling

If "A Bottomless Grave" was odd, "The Mysterious Head" is... really, really odd.  (g)  It's only a couple of minutes long, so I listened to it twice to make sure I wasn't missing something.  I don't think I am... It's simply an extremely strange and sparse story-- reminiscent of the sort of tale a child might write or dictate, if children usually wrote about traders, landlords, and magistrates.

Maybe this story is notable simply on account of its age.  (Pu Songling was born in 1640.)  Perhaps there's some element of cultural divide, as well.  I'm not sure what classic Chinese ghost/horror stories are usually like.  This one, in any case, left me puzzled.


"Luella Miller"
by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

I really enjoyed this one.  Ever heard of an "energy vampire"?  Luella Miller takes it to a whole new level! 

(Confession:  While listening, I had a few uncomfortable, guilty memories of times when I've probably been too willing to let someone else "do" for me, when I could've done for myself.  Simultaneously, I wanted to slap Luella soundly across both sides of the face!)


"The Secret of Kralitz"
by Henry Kuttner

The Lovecraftian tale of a man with a most unfortunate birthright.  It was okay, but fairly predictable.  (The very end, though, I must admit I had not seen coming.  Such a shame when the bill comes sooner than expected, eh, Baron?  I'm sure he thought he had at least a few more years to live it up before facing that.)

Assorted Short Stories

I "consumed" all these in audio format-- and in rapid succession-- so I thought I'd group a few of them together into a single entry.

The first few I found via Forgotten Classics.


"The Night Wire"
by H.F. Arnold

This "weird tale" gave me a shiver or two, but I found the end a bit of a head-scratcher.  I guessed part of the "twist" (as I guess you'd call it), but don't quite know what to make of it!  Such is the very nature of most of these types of stories, I suppose.  Recommended. 


"The Toll-House"
by W.W. Jacobs

(This one was written by the author of "The Monkey's Paw", by the way, which I still remember reading back in middle school... A true classic.)  I think I was somewhat distracted as I listened to this story.  I had to rewind a few times to compensate for divided attention.  It's creepy, to be sure, but I can see why the author is better known for "The Monkey's Paw". 


"The Judge's House"
by Bram Stoker

This was so familiar that I think I must've read it before... An eerie tale that gave me a nightmare about a rat.  (...What kind of recommendation is that?!)   



Then I listened to a couple from a LibriVox collection-- Short Ghost and Horror Collection 010.


"Ancient Lights"
by Algernon Blackwood

I found this story interesting in light of somewhat similar themes from The Willows.  However, whereas the supernatural forces in The Willows feel sinister and outright terrifying, those in "Ancient Lights", while best left alone (just in case), seem somewhat more playful (in a capricious, could-easily-decide-to-torment/kill-you-on-a-whim sort of way).


"Sister Maddelena"
by Ralph Adams Cram

A fairly predictable tale.  Perfectly serviceable in its way, but not something I expect to contemplate or return to, in particular. 

"Another Place"

"Another Place"
from Binscombe Tales: The Complete Series
by John Whitbourn


Synopsis:
This is a spooky tale within a tale.  Mr. Oakley listens to a creepy story about a former (current?) resident of the town to which he's just moved-- a man believed by some locals to be living in a parallel dimension. 


My Reaction:
Cue the Twilight Zone theme song!
This story reminded me strongly of a "homier" episode of that classic program-- and since I've described it as a classic, you know that it's intended as a compliment.  ;o)


I finally remembered to check back at Forgotten Classics.  I've mentioned it before, but that was years ago, so here's a quick explanation/reintroduction:

Forgotten Classics is a podcast produced by Julie D., who selects and reads books aloud, a chapter or so at a time.  (Or, as in this case, she reads a short story or a snippet from a larger work that's not in the public domain.)  Usually, these are classics of literature that may have fallen by the wayside or otherwise been overlooked in favor of the famous classics, but sometimes she features more recently published books.

Julie has a very pleasant, clear voice, and if you didn't know better, you'd think you were listening to a professionally produced audiobook.  (Actually, I prefer her reading style to that of many of the professional audiobook narrators I've come across.)  She chats a little at the beginning and ending of each segment, so it has more of a podcast/book club feeling to it than a traditional audiobook.  I enjoy that "personal touch" aspect of her recordings, and as a bonus, she often recommends other podcasts she's discovered and enjoyed. 


...So, anyway, this was a sample from Binscombe Tales, which is a collection of 26 short stories connected (I assume) by their setting (a fictionalized version of Binscombe, a small village in England) and some of their characters (such as Mr. Oakley, I gather).

I don't think I can go into details without spoiling it... It was a very enjoyable read (erm, listen?) of its kind, though, and I'll certainly be putting Binscombe Tales on my to-read list! 

"Niemandswasser"

"Niemandswasser"
from Cold Hand in Mine
by Robert Aickman


Synopsis:
A strange tale of a German (I guess?  or is he Austrian?) nobleman and the ominous patch of "No Man's Water" in the lake near his home.


My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
I don't know what to make of this story.  It's amorphous, with a plot that drifts along like the shifting thread of a dream.  At various points, I thought maybe it was about to start making sense, but no.  It never truly did.  I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed.  Maybe I'm missing something that would elevate it to greatness, but if it's that subtle, it may not be for me.  Call me lazy, but I don't want to work that hard for my "pleasure reading". 

That said, there were some interesting passages and frightening nightmare-moments.  The sensation of the depth and darkness of the water... The sudden loss of the oars... That horrific image of the woman...

I'm taking a break from this short story collection.  Maybe if I come back to it later, I'll enjoy it more.


Tidbits (with SPOILERS):
-- I am entirely befuddled by Elmo's relationship with Viktor.  "...In Viktor for the first time he had found a friend who actually enhanced (instead of slightly spoiling and diminishing) the experience of boating on the lake, more often than not at night.  Viktor, who was olive-skinned and black-haired, sometimes dressed as a girl for this purpose, and it was as if Elmo had mysteriously, albeit but momentarily, acquired the sister he had so much lacked."  ...Um, what?  I'll admit that I'm conventional in this respect (in that I like men to look like men), but why was Viktor dressing as a girl?

--  "...The hand that the relaxed Victor was gently trailing through the water was, with all quiet around, suddenly bitten half away." ... "One of the doctors with whom Elmo spoke expressed the medical view that the entity which had inflicted the terrible injury had also infected the entire physiology of the victim with some bacillus, perhaps unknown, which had in a measure unbalanced his judgement."

--  "...the imminence of spring, the worst quarter of the year for the sensitive, the period of most suicides, the season of greatest sadness..."  Is that true?  It sounds vaguely familiar... Ok, I looked it up, and it is supported by research-- but of course no-one's sure what's behind the phenomenon.  I enjoy spring itself, but not as much as autumn, because I know it will soon be summer (my least favorite season)-- but I was under the impression that most people enjoy and look forward to summer nearly as much-- if not more-- than spring. Of course, if you're suicidal, you're not experiencing things the way "most people" are, anyway...

--  "'We are most of us two people, your Highness. ... And the two people within us seldom communicate.  Even when both are present together in consciousness, there is little communication.  Neither can confront the other without discomfort.  ... Life, as we know it, could hardly continue if men did not soon slay the dreamer inside them.  There are the children to think of; the mothers who breed them and thus enable our race to endure; the economy; the ordered life of society. ... If any man examines his inner truth with both eyes wide open, and his inner eye wide open also, he will be overcome with terror at what he finds.'"  ...and... "'Women have no inner life that is decisively apart.  With women the inner life merges ever with the totality.  That is why women seem to men either deceitful and elusive, or moralistic and uninteresting.  Women have no problem comparable with the problem of merely being a man.'"  *snort*  Yeah.  Whatever. 

-- So, out there on the lake, in No Man's Water, men are supposed to "encounter the image within them", right?  So... Elmo's image within himself is a lady with "large eyes and a large mouth", which is "open, showing white and pointed teeth, as many teeth as a strange fish"-- not smiling.  ...What in the heck am I supposed to make of that?  Was it Elmo's "inner image" that bit off part of Viktor's hand?  Why did he see the inner image that night/morning when he was about to kill himself?  What does it have to do with Elvira?

--  "The few remains were far beyond identification.  The body had been gnashed and gnawed and ripped, so that even the bones were mostly sliced away and splintered.  And, of course, there was no proper head.  All had in truth to be guesswork. 'There's nothing in that coffin,' men mouthed to each other when, in a few days' time, the hour came for the noble ceremony."  ...So did Elmo's "inner image" somehow gnaw his body, splinter his bones, and eat/destroy his head?

Meh, I give up.  It doesn't make sense to me-- not even the bizarre sort of "sense" that strange/horror stories generally do. 

"The Real Road to the Church"

"The Real Road to the Church"
from Cold Hand in Mine
by Robert Aickman


Synopsis:
A tired, withdrawn, aging-but-not-old woman learns that her residence is located in a spiritually significant place.  Though she scoffs at first-- after all, she's been living there a year and has yet to see or hear anything strange-- she soon begins to wonder if the tale is more than mere mystical gossip.


My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
I don't know what to say about this story...

I gather that all of these stories will be lacking in easy, straightforward explanation; there is even a quote at the beginning of the book to that effect.  (“In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation."--Sacheverell Sitwell)   I think I may be hard (impossible?) to please, as far as "explanations" go.   If there's none at all-- and if I feel unsure what conclusion to draw-- I often feel cheated.  On the other hand, if the explanation is too detailed and precise, I label that a flaw.  It's rare that an author walks the line to my pure satisfaction, though I will usually enjoy some aspects of a story, despite faults.

...Anyway, we're probably not meant to expect much in the way of explanations, but sometimes that leaves me with nothing to say...

So... In the end, Rosa sees her soul, looking as her body looks now-- no younger, no older-- being borne by the men she's "loved and left" in years past, then passed over to a new group of "porters".  Rosa's soul tells her that they will see one another again, "one day", and that until then, Rosa should "forget and live".  Rosa goes back inside with intentions of packing the next day and re-entering the world (in this case, London).  "It was impossible to know where she would go thereafter."

Somehow, parting from her soul was her way of letting go of the past and preparing herself to move on-- to continue living instead of hiding away from the world for the rest of her days.  I get the idea of letting go of the past, forgetting mistakes and regrets.  I can see why that might lead some readers to describe this story as having a hopeful, relatively upbeat ending-- EXCEPT.  Except for the fact that Rosa's now separated from her soul... ?  I mean, how can you be you without your soul?  Seeing your soul depart seems pretty creepy and ominous to me-- decidedly not uplifting, if you're still alive.  I mean, how would that even work, assuming you believe in the existence of the soul?  It's just a head-scratcher for me. 

Not a fave. 


Tidbits:
--  "Conventions are, indeed, all that shield us from the shivering void, though often they do so but poorly and desperately."

--  As always, the mention of Sweden causes a perking of the ears... "At one period, Rosa had lived in Stockholm with an actual Swede (far and away the worst year of her life-- or more than a year: it had all ended in her breakdown), but the language of Sweden (and never would she forget the pitch of it) seemed to have nothing whatever in common with the language of Mrs Du Quesne and her friends." ... and later... "...that big, fat Oskar had been actually killed, Scandinavian-style, in a fight, and a fight that was at least partly about her."  I had no idea it was the Scandinavian style to be killed in a fight over a woman!  This is all very interesting.

-- "He always professed a special concern with such things, and could certainly talk without end about them, though perhaps without much meaning either."

--  "She had always found life to move by contraries, usually pretty ones, though sometimes not; and, as often before when she had been depressed, now found herself surprised that she looked as well as she did.  She had long ago learned that it was when she had been feeling more confident that the sight of her appearance came always as something of a shock.  Life evens things up or down; in small matters and in large (even though Rosa would have hesitated to distinguish between the two)."

--  "She had long ago made a decision to defer talking to herself for as long as she could."  (Ah, one of my pet peeves!  The popular insinuation that speaking aloud when there's no-one to hear but yourself is somehow undesirable.  What's the problem with soliloquies, pray tell?  I like 'em.)

--  "'...Mrs. Hughes, your whole life has been a quest for perfection.  You have always been concerned only with perfection, and as in this world there is no perfection, you are sad.  Sadness can be a very special-- shall I say, concession?'"  ...Hm.  No offense to Mrs. Hughes/Rosa, but is drifting from man to man for most of your adult life really a "quest for perfection"?  I guess you could argue that she was searching for the perfect man, but...

-- "'We control nothing of importance that happens to us.'" A fatalist, eh?

"The Swords"

"The Swords"
from Cold Hand in Mine
by Robert Aickman


Synopsis:
When a young man working as a traveling salesman happens upon a shabby tent on the edge of a small fair, he finds a bizarre and life-altering show already in progress.


My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
The subtitle of this collection is "strange stories", and you couldn't ask for more accuracy.  Strange, indeed! 

The author provides no outright explanation or summing up of the weird events described in this story (and which I won't bother detailing).  I expected the revelation that "Madonna" is a mannequin of some sort-- a dummy-- a life-size doll stuffed with sawdust or somesuch.  A lifeless thing that has been spelled or built into a faithful imitation of a woman.  Something that can be ordered around without back-talk, wounded without bleeding, dressed up (or undressed) and used with no risk of recrimination.  Maybe that's what we're meant to infer, but it's left entirely up to us to draw what conclusions we will.  No tidy ending, here.

(Incidentally, "Madonna" reminds me very much of certain characters in a Swedish drama that Donald and I have been watching-- Äkta Människor (Real Humans).  The program is set in an alternate reality in which "hubots"-- extremely lifelike and highly functioning robots that look and sound like humans-- exist alongside the "real humans", fulfilling their every wish on command.  Of course, there are complications...)

Apart from the bizarre sideshow and the narrator's even stranger private interactions with "Madonna" (can't help it; must put her name in quotation marks; blame it on Madonna the singer), the most striking thing in the story is the constant and unfailing undercurrent-- no, it's not subtle enough to be an undercurrent-- flood of sordid details.  The world of this story is filthy-- both literally and figuratively.  From the uncle who sends his young nephew to stay in seamy hotels (possibly run by said uncle's former "lady friends") to the description of our narrator vomiting into an old-fashioned, flowered washstand basin, it's one nasty image or insinuation after another.  (The one exception that comes to mind is the "roundabout"-- carousel-- which is "pretty... with snow-queen and icing sugar effects in the centre; and different colored sleighs going round", run by an equally pretty girl.)  Otherwise, the world is "dingy", "off-color", "chipped", "broken or defective", and populated almost completely by the vulgar and the unsavory.

Curious about other readers' interpretations of the story-- and I haven't found much, so far, at least partially because I'm avoiding spoilers for the rest of the collection-- I came across a horror cinema blogger's thoughts on the subject.  He describes "The Swords" as "a melancholy but pointed social criticism of the way men use and violate women as if they were bloodless, fleshy objects. It illustrates how this attitude is enculturated through communal forces, and also how such an attitude's grim results-- loveless, violent, queasy, and crushingly lonely-- may dispirit or shame a young male like the story's protagonist, but only for a brief beginner's moment: 'After the first six women, say, or seven, or eight,' the narrator tells us, 'the rest come much of a muchness.'"

Interesting take... Unsettling oddity of a story.

"The Shunned House"

"The Shunned House"
by H.P. Lovecraft


Synopsis:
Our narrator investigates the strange history of a local house.  What is the origin of its troubled past?  Will it remain shunned forever?  


My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
This was a shared "stopgap" read with Donald. 

Strengths:
The build-up to the narrator's first-hand account of his time in the house.  The creepiness of the house's history.  The faux-historical atmosphere of "this really happened".  The totally bizarre and unexpected nature of the discovery under the cellar. 

Weaknesses:
The pseudo-science.  The fact that I still am not completely sure what in the heck was under the house. 

I mean, really.  What was that?!  It had a physical body, apparently... but it was huge.   I was expecting it to be some version of a vampire-- and maybe that's what it was meant to be-- but it's a very odd vampire.  More of a cross between/among vampire, demon, and subterranean giant than a New World Dracula.  The vampire/demon mix is creepy as all get-out, but the ground-dwelling giant aspect was so weird that it weakened the denouement (for me, at least). 


Not Lovecraft's best, by all accounts, but interesting enough-- especially considering that it's just a long short story.  I might be more critical if I'd invested more time in reading it.  

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Shadow Over Innsmouth
by H.P. Lovecraft


My Blurb:
A young man on a sight-seeing vacation chances upon a strange seaside community in 1920s Massachusetts.  Innsmouth, as it's called, has rather a sinister reputation, locally, and our narrator is about to find out why...


My Reaction:
This was my first time reading H.P. Lovecraft.  I remember one of my high school friends reading something of his and recommending it, though, and then Donald read this one and suggested it...   So I gave it a try, too, and yes, I found the story interesting.  Based on this, I may read more, at some point.

It's been a week or two since I read the novella, but I didn't feel like bothering with blogs while on vacation, so I'm just getting around to this now.  As a result, my reactions are a bit dim.  (Memory like a steel trap?  Not for some a great many things, apparently...)  I rely on a few random notes for the rest of my "review".


Spoilery Random Notes:
-- "'I guess they're what they call "white trash" down South-- lawless and sly, and full of secret things.'" I hadn't realized that term had been around so long.  Now I wonder when exactly it did originate...

--  At some point, at least parts of what was happening in Innsmouth became clear-- as must have been intentional.  The bus driver has "odd, deep creases in the side of his neck", for example, and I made a note-- "Gills, perhaps?"... Then there's a longer physical description of the man-- "narrow head, bulging watery-blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears... long thick lip and coarse-pored, greyish cheeks seemed almost beardless".  My note: "Yep.  Dude's a fish."  ...And so he was.  ;o) Well.  Sort of.

--  Of the bus driver's skin:  "...in places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease."  Aw, the poor guy's got ick.

--  A bit odd that the "charm" stones are marked with "somethin' on 'em like what ye call a swastika nowadays".  Yes, I know the symbol has been around a long time, etc., etc.  But still.

--  "A wave of almost abnormal horror swept over me..."  Well, sir, can I trouble you to tell me what degree of horror is normal, then?

--  One complaint-- There were an awful lot of maplike details, attention to road names and intersections, etc.  That sort of thing is always hard for me to visualize.  I don't even bother trying, honestly, unless I get the impression that it's critical to the plot.  Maybe that's a "woman thing", but I tend to have a decent sense of direction and good spatial reasoning... so I suspect that it's mostly just boring writing.

-- My big question:  If the narrator is now turning into a fish-frog-man and is starting to think longingly of going out to sea... If he thinks it's so great, now, why did he write of his earlier experiences with horror and disgust?  Or are we to assume that he's written it over a period of time and has only recently begun to undergo a mental change?  (I can't recall if there's any indication of how long the writing has taken him...)  Anyway, it seemed strange that he'd be rational (well...) throughout the whole thing, then suddenly in the last paragraph or two go, "Oh, what the heck!  Everybody into the pool and all hail cthulhu!"

-- I got my free copy of this e-book from manybooks.net.  It was free, so I shouldn't complain, but there were quite a few typos.  Be prepared to do a little deciphering. 

The Willows

The Willows
by Algernon Blackwood


Blurb:
Two men who are traveling along the Danube by canoe (in the early 1900s, one presumes) decide to camp for the night on an eroding island in a peculiar swampland covered in scrubby willow bushes.  They soon realize that there is something sinister about this mysterious place, and they begin to doubt they will be allowed to leave it alive...


My Reaction:
I enjoyed it!  There were some slow spots... places where the story seemed to bog down, slightly... but nowhere near as much as in The Damned, which is the only other thing by this author that I've read.  (Yet.  I'll definitely be putting him on my mental "Read More" list.)  If you love long short stories or novellas (not sure how to classify this...) with tons of eerie atmosphere but not a lot of gore, this is for you.  The setting is powerful and ominous.  I think it's of the type that will stay with you long after you've finished reading.  From the very start, there's an uneasy feeling, and the goosebumps get to come out to play on at least a few occasions. 

I really love these old-fashioned "ghost stories" (to use the term loosely).  They usually manage to be extremely disquieting without resorting to graphic descriptions of blood and guts, which suits me fine. 


More Specific Comments:
(Warning:  May contain spoilers!)

--  Apparently "sumpfe" means "marshes" in German.  I'm sure that little tidbit will come in handy, at some point in the future.  ;o)

--  The willow wilderness-- a beautifully wild, desolate, forbidding landscape-- reminds me somewhat of the Everglades.  It and the river are definitely characters in their own right-- and the narrator even says something to that effect. ("...at length we had come inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage.")

--  I'm unfamiliar with the part of the world where this is set, so the place names meant nothing to me. Fortunately, none of it really matters.  It could be set anywhere, really.

--  I was of course amused when the narrator's traveling companion turns out to be someone he always refers to as "the Swede".  Evidently they've been on "many similar journeys" together, yet he still calls him "the Swede".  The Swede is initially described as being "devoid of imagination".  It's a familiar stereotype of Scandinavians in literature of this era, and pausing to think about that, the word "phlegmatic" supplied itself in my mind.  Sure enough, later on in the story, that very word pops up.  To be fair, however, the Swede turns out to break out of the narrator's early pigeon-holing.

--  Of the Danube:  "...uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is its hurrying speed."  Odd.  A quick Internet search isn't turning up anything about this, and I've never heard of it before...

--  I was struck by the narrator's perception of the "otherworldly" aspects of the willow swamp.  The sound of the wind on the water makes him think of "the sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, driving along through space", for instance.  Then there are passages like this one: "And it was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild yet kindly elements.  They made me think of a host of being from another plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a mystery known only to themselves."  The Swede refers more than once to a "fourth dimension".  The combined effect was that it seemed as likely as anything else that the Things tormenting the travelers might be some sort of extra-terrestrial beings.  (Of course, it's never really explained what they are; the reader is free to speculate.)

--  "I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed."

-- The incident of the otter?  Totally surreal and creepy-- especially when they discuss it later in the story.

--  "'But you're quite right about one thing,' he added, before the subject passed, 'and that is that we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to think about it, because what one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens.'"  ~shiver~  But really, who hasn't had that thought or feeling before?  It's superstitious.  It's illogical.  But it's still there...  The old "jinx". 

--  "Even the tourists would have been welcome."  Ha ha, very funny.

-- Interesting that using "located" instead of "found" (as in "have not found us") was supposed to be an American turn of speech.  

--  I have to admit, when the Swede starts talking about how "our thoughts make spirals in their world", he kinda lost me... Um, what?  And you know this... how?  

--  "'It is a question wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our chance of escape.  Above all, don't think for what you think happens!'"  Creepy...

--  Sand-shoe.  I wondered if those might be sandals of some sort, but it turns out that they're canvas shoes with rubber soles.  So... Keds?

--  "...moving all over upon its surface--  'coiling upon itself like smoke'"... Shuddery.  Reminded me of the Smoke Monster on LOST... and the smoke-coil ghost in Ammie, Come Home. 

--  It seems this is a book I loaded from Project Gutenberg instead of Amazon (though there's a free copy there, too).  Eighty-four percent of the ebook was the actual text.  The last 16% was Project Gutenberg mumbo-jumbo.  Not a big deal, but a bit of a shock when you think you have several pages of story left-- and then it's just... over. 

The Damned

The Damned, by Algernon Blackwood

Blurb:
An English brother and sister go to stay a while at the home of a widowed friend of the sister's.  While there, they sense that something is terribly wrong about the place-- yet find it difficult to pinpoint the cause of their unease. 


My Reaction:
Well... It's not awful, for this kind of thing, but no, I would not recommend this book to many people.  Only those rare few who like horror stories where nothing really happens... and those who can't get enough theologically-themed psychobabble.  (I suspect that such people are rare.)

Before reading this short novel, I knew nothing of the author and only selected this book because I found it in my first in-depth browse of ManyBooks.net  (which I do recommend, incidentally).  It was free-- and short-- so why not?  Well, I'll tell you why not:  It's pretty dull and repetitive.  Anyway, I'll go into a few more details of my (mostly) dislike below-- with spoilers.  Otherwise... I'll give another of his books a chance.  One with higher ratings.  If that one fails to impress, he's off my to-read list for the time being. 


Possibly Spoilery Comments:
--  I lost count of the (many, many) times that the narrator (the brother) complains (for lack of a better word) that "nothing happens" at the so-called haunted house.  Argh!  Look, man; we know nothing's happening!  ...And unlike some few readers/reviewers, I find myself on the side of the many who don't think that repeatedly stating that "nothing happening" is part of the indefinable "horror" makes up for the fact that... nothing happens.  I mean, really?  I like old-fashioned tales with more atmosphere and less gore/monsters jumping around corners, but you gotta give me something. 

--  "The desire for violence came over me.  If only she would say a definite thing in plain King's English!"  Ha!!  We can relate, narrator.  

--  Toward the end of the book:  "There was no climax in the story sense.  Nothing ever really happened."  (Cue the nervous laughter edged with hysteria.)

--  Couldn't help but notice the frequent disparaging use of the word "suburban".  Struck me as odd.  I am not particularly impressed by disdain for the suburbs.  Sorry.

--  "Wellingtonias" (aka giant redwoods or sequoias) and "monkey trees".  Funny plant names I don't recall seeing before.

--  The "coincidence" of this particular spot having been cursed by the awful thoughts of so many different groups of people... Hm.  Mighty big coincidence, there. 

--  Ohmygosh, the anti-religion psychobabble!!  ...When I come right down to it, that's what I disliked most about the story-- and you can't exactly look past it, because that's the gist of the whole thing.  I keep reading that Blackwood was not against the idea of God-- just the evil that man (and man-made religion) does in the name of God.  Particularly the "intolerant" idea of damnation for those who don't believe ABC or XYZ.  ...And I get that.  I mean, obviously some people have done and still do awful things in the name of God-- things that God condemns.  But on the other hand, I can't go along with this New Age-y idea of all religions being equal or true... I just can't.  So.  That was a bit detrimental to my enjoyment of this book.  ;o) 

--  Still, when it wasn't being preachy (ironic!) and long-winded, there were times when it was creepy or suspenseful enough that I didn't want to read it when alone in the house-- or at night, in bed.  The episode that takes place in the middle of the night?  Very creepy-crawly.  (A pity that most of the story was so analytical that the eerieness was blunted, if not completely smothered out of existence.)

--  Mabel's belief that she was hopelessly damned reminded me uncomfortably of the journals of L.M. Montgomery, where she writes about her own (reverend) husband's frequent obsessive conviction that he himself was preordained for damnation.  ~shudder~  So, yes.  When you stop to consider that that part of the book, at least, has some basis in reality... That is truly horrifying.