Supernatural Fiction Readers discussion

I thought I'd add this thread as I am currently reading the Tales of Horror and the Supernatural collection from Tartarus Press. The White People is quite possibly the single most disturbing and frightening horror story I have ever read as well as being one of the beautifully-written. The poetic flow of the prose is stunning.

Any thoughts or comments on Machen?

I've read the first two volumes of his stories in Chaosium's series. Although I do admire his prose style, I don't find it as sublime as I do some of his contempraries such as Lord Dunsany and Algernon Blackwood.

His effectiveness in delivering a supernatural story is, in my opinion, somewhat variable. I didn't enjoy his stories as much as I was hoping and expecting to. But when he is on top form, he is up there with the best.

I particularly enjoyed his amateur supernatural investigator character Dyson who features in "The Three Impostors" and "The Red Hand".

My acquaintance with Machen is a lot less than Simon's; I've only read two of his short stories, the often-anthologized "The Great God Pan" and the one published in the U.S. in 1917 as "The Coming of the Terror" (included in Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy --though it's supernatural fiction, in the way our group defines that, rather than fantasy-world "fantasy"). The latter is actually a shortened version, created by the American magazine editors, of his 1916 novella The Terror (originally titled The Great Terror); but Machen himself declared that they did their abridgement "with a skill that was really remarkable," and it's probably just the right length for a concentrated scare.

Personally, I hold the heretical opinion that "The Great God Pan" is overrated. It's basically an exercise in existential terror, with a pagan god so monstrous that the very sight of him convinces viewers that the universe is so hostile and bereft of meaning that the only possible option is suicide. (My apologies if anybody thinks that's a spoiler, but the whole structure of the story foreshadows that revelation to the point where I think any reader would guess it ahead of time.) This one was clearly an influence on H. P. Lovecraft, and we can see Pan as an adumbration of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. But for a reader like myself, who has a view of the universe as meaningful and ultimately benevolent even in the face of radical and powerful evil, Pan doesn't have much power to terrify; he's pretty much a weenie. (Lovecraft, true, tacks an "existential horror" moral onto many of his works, but his nasties are capable of more tangible menace that gives his tales a "situational horror" impact for fans like myself. Machen doesn't provide that here.) "The Coming of the Terror," though, set in an isolated area of Wales against the paranoid backdrop of World War I, is quite an effective tale of uncanny horror (or, at least, I found it to be so). IMO, it's by far the superior work of the two.

I think that "The Great God Pan" is overrated too, although possibly for different reasons. I just felt that it had dated poorly. To quote my own review:

Apparently deeply shocking and contraversial in it's time, there were angry reviews and morally outraged critics in the media, today it feels overly restrained and coy.

I'd agree that the Great God Pan is not as effective as I was expecting it to be. As mentioned above, it was the White People that made me a convert, up until that point I had read a few stories and been left impressed but not bowled over, The White People succeeded where some of his other stories fail, I think.

Scott

"The Three Impostors" is my favourite of Machan's stories too.

Regarding some of Machen's work, I see what you are saying about needing to make allowances for the time in which they were written and how much more shocking they might have seemed at the time. But that's precisely why I prefer both Blackwood and Dunsany, you don't need to make allowances for the time in which they were written. Sure, you can tell they both wrote a long time ago now (less so with Dusnany I think) but they have lost none of their effectiveness.

Where Dunsany is concerned, I think his forte is short stories. While I loved King of Elfland's Daughter, I have to admit that well-developed characters is not its strong point. For a novel of his with better developed characters, try The Blessing of Pan.

I searched your bookshelves for what Blackwood you had read and noticed you had rated one of his collections five stars. You can't then have as negative a view of him as you post above suggests, surely?

I find Machen atmospheric, and I like his light, dreamy touch. I have never felt I had to see everything to be scared or creeped out. I liked how we never saw the threat but only its aftermath in The Great God Pan, so I would say I like the story. I don't find it overrated.
Whereas Lovecraft is overly melodramatic to me, I think Machen's more restrained tone in The Great God Pan worked a lot better for me.

I'll admit that Lovecraft IS melodramatic. For instance, he clearly loved to italicize the last lines of his stories for effect, and did it often enough that it's practically a trademark.

I haven't read many of these books.
I started reading The White People the other night and I fell asleep, no lie! I do plan on finishing it.

I have read The Great God Pan and thought it was just ok.

I have read quite a bit of Lovecraft over the years and do agree that he can be quite melodramatic. For the most part, though, I find his work to be engaging, imaginative and atmospheric.

I've just started reading The Hill of Dreams - simply wow! Beautiful, beautiful prose poetry. Utterly loving it.

I love how "The White People" is written in those huge, breathless blocks of text - it forces you to have to take it as a constant rush of juvenile thought from the girl...

So here's a question - I recently re-listened to the LibriVox reading of "The White People" (which is pretty well done) and something occurred to me:

I know that one of the readings of the story is that the child was being groomed for some monstrous fate that required her familiarity with these obscure rites. Some posit that the goal of this grooming was impregnation, seemingly hinged on a particular reading of the line "Yes. She had poisoned herself--in time." - the "in time" being before the monstrous birth occurred - although this could just as easily be read as sacrifice.

But the interesting thing was that on re-listening to it, I wondered if anyone else picked up a subtle, 4-steps removed implication of certain sexual aspects to some of the rituals as hinted at. Of course, it's all abstracted to the point where it can never even be nailed down but certain little details (it seems as if the nurse and the man who followed them in the woods slip off for an assignation, leaving the narrator to e3ncounter the beautiful white lady, there's also the nurse sweating and making "peculiar motions" with the doll in order to animate it while hidden in the hedges, and the general air of "secrets that shouldn't be shared" being imparted to children) make me feel there might be something there.

Machen doesn't seem to have been a member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn long enough to have been initiated into some of the sex-magick secrets, but probably was aware of them ("The Great God Pan" certainly indicates some dislike of the mixing of sex and occultism) and, of course, "pagan survival" always implies a certain level of saucy ribaldry that God-fearing Christians could only fret about and secretly envy (although Machen was more spiritually open than that reductive stance).

Anyway, just wondering if anyone got this feeling while reading it.