Intimations of Death

by Felix Timmermans, Paul Vincent (Translator), John Howard (Introduction)

A boy’s mother lies upstairs seriously ill, and in every crash of thunder or hollow chime of the clock he seems to hear a portent of her death.—A scholar of the occult finds his marriage threatened by horrifying and otherworldly noises emanating from the cellar.—During a plague outbreak, a gravedigger accidentally prepares one too many graves and becomes obsessed with the thought that the final grave will be his own.—A haunted man, seeking refuge in a monastery, is convinced that Death itself stalks him in the building’s lonely halls.—When a suicide pact goes awry, a man believes the ghost of his vengeful lover has returned to destroy him.

These are the plots of the five tales in Intimations of Death (1910), available at last in English for the first time. Belgian author Felix Timmermans (1886-1947) was highly popular in his lifetime for his humorous tales of rural life, but in this early collection, written after a near-death experience with a serious illness, Timmermans reveals a more morbid side and delivers a collection of psychological horror tales worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. This edition, brilliantly translated by award-winning translator Paul Vincent, includes the macabre woodcut illustrations from the original Dutch edition and an introduction by John Howard.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Weird Fiction

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1910

About the author

Leopold Maximiliaan Felix Timmermans was een Vlaamse schrijver en dichter. Hij was de vader van Lia Timmermans.

Felix Timmermans in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Felix Timmermans in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Felix Timmermans bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Leopold Maximiliaan Felix Timmermans was a Flemish writer and poet. He was the father of Lia Timmermans

Felix Timmermans in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Latasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, thank you, thank you Valancourt Books for this treasure. I had never heard of Felix Timmermans and had forgot i pre-ordered this book. But i'm so glad i did. These 5 tales are so good! these tales are dark and morbid and flirt with death. If you are a fan of Poe, you should buy this book. you will love it.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/201... (don't worry -- absolutely no spoilers)

I don't think I've ever read a book of stories that was so completely morbid as this one. Not that I didn't have a clue from the title that death was going to be on the agenda here, but jeez Louise. Normally I think of the word "intimation" in terms of a hint or an indication, but that's definitely not the case here.

The blurb on the back cover of this book reveals that Felix Timmermans (1886-1947) wrote the stories in this collection "after a near-death experience with a serious illness." It also notes that he

" reveals a more morbid side and delivers a collection of psychological horror tales worthy of Edgar Allan Poe."

The comparison to Poe is beyond apt, not just because of the macabre themes and episodes depicted throughout these stories, but also due to Timmermans' use of landscape and various settings designed to echo the characters' inner torments and mental states. And tormented these people are, from the first story to the last, with no exceptions.

Many many thanks to Valancourt for publishing such a fine book and bringing it back into the public eye; kudos to the translator Paul Vincent who didn't seem to miss a single nuance, and also to John Howard for his informative and excellent introduction. Readers of modern horror may find it a bit tame, but as a lover of the old and especially of the obscure, I loved every dark second of it, and found it to be the perfect book for late-night, book-light-only reading. All that was missing (and pardon the cliché but it works) was the raging thunderstorm outside.

Reader beware -- space yourself between stories and do not read them all at once.

[Silvia Moreno-Garcia]

One time, I had a tumor removed and thought about naming it Vincent Price. This shows two things: my proclivity for over-sharing and my devotion for a certain type of horror film. But before I loved horror films, I loved Gothic short stories.

Poe was the first horror writer I ever read. Then came Lovecraft. Most kids didn’t like Poe and when they assigned him to us they rolled their eyes at his stories. Poe was flowery and went on and on about decay and dead people.

I thought when my mother wasn’t looking maybe I could paint my room black.

Your reaction to Intimations of Death by Felix Timmermans, translated by Paul Vincent from the original Dutch, will depend on whether you thought Poe was pretty cool or fell asleep trying to read “Ligeia.”

Timmermans plays with some of the same elements Poe plays with. There’s the houses and landscapes that reflect the interior state of the characters, the portents of doom, the heightened emotions. The running thread connecting the stories is death. It gets repetitive after a while, so I don’t recommend reading this in one sitting, like a gluttonous child. Which is what I did. Because I’m bad like that.

Never having heard of this author, I had no idea what to expect. The longest story is probably the most interesting one. A man with a love of mysticism decides to live his life following the principles of an esoteric book. He marries a woman who he thinks is his perfect half, but the principles of mysticism apparently include celibacy and she’s quite put off by the situation. A friend comes to visit. He gets along with the pale, frustrated and lovely wife. There is a foreboding, flooded cellar. Roger Corman would have had a blast adapting it.

There’s also an effective concluding piece about a man and a woman who decide to commit suicide so they can be together in death. She drowns herself. He survives. Guilt and glee mix together leading, as you might imagine, to tragedy.

And that is this rub with a book of this age and type. You’ll either jump into it with a loud “oh yeah!” or be left puzzled by the taste of previous generations. It’s definitely a good read for any fan of Gothic horror or someone interested in the history of horror fiction.

Curiously, there seems to be somewhat of a fin de siècle horror revival going on right now with the release in the span of a year of Of Kings and Things: Strange Tales and Decadent Poems by Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939 and now Timmermans (which, by the way, has a perfectly lovely cover and interior illustrations). Oh, and Valancourt also has The Travelling Grave and Other Stories in its catalogue, if you’re in need of more macabre, vintage fiction, albeit this one from a British writer.

[Joost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timmermans heeft het zwaar. Zijn muzeum in Lier is eind augustus defintief gesloten. Tot mijn spijt, want ik had graag eens wat meer van hem willen zien. Felix T. is vooral bekend geworden door zijn vitalistische en optimistische roman Pallieter. In de jaren daarvoor schreef hij vanuit zwartgallige gedachten en daar is dit boek een voorbeeld van.
Deze verhalenbundel uit 1910 bevat zes karakteristiek neoromantische novellen over spoken, geesten, dood, etc. Het kan niet anders dan dat Timmermans heeft zich laten inspireren door romatische auteurs als Edgar Allen Poe.
Het ene verhaal dat de bundel absoluut de moeite waard maakt, is het verhaal over de kelder. De ik-verteller kijkt terug op een huwelijk die in een onvermijdelijk drama eindigt. Een stoïcijnse, maar ook naïeve en doodgoede ik-verteller drukt zich in fraaie Vlaamse archaïsme en mooispraak uit. Helemaal 1910 dit boek.
De overige verhalen zijn vanuit hedendaags perspectief vooral traag en redelijk voorspelbaar voor wie de meeste horrorklassiekers al eens gezien heeft.

[Quinten Struyven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mystiek en spookachtig alsof je in een raar dorpstoneel bent terecht gekomen. Ik vind dat dus echt goed!

[Chris Cangiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fine short collection of dark, eerie and morbid tales by a lesser known (certainly by me) Belgian writer which all concern characters coming to the realization that they and/or their loved ones are being stalked (in one form or another) by Death. Some of the tales are more psychological in their telling and others touch more heavily on the supernatural, but all of them share a wonderful lyricism (Timmermans was a poet and kudos to the translator Paul Vincent for preserving the dark beauty of his prose), a strong evocation of place, and Death characterized as a definite physical presence in the stories. Highly recommended and thanks to Valancourt for bringing Timmerman to my attention and reissuing this book.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kudos to Valancourt for what must be the first ever English translation. This brief collection is nugget from a lost world, a European cosmopolitan culture innocent of trench warfare, only a generation removes from rural life.

[Stijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used great descriptions that even for its time, are still nicely readable. The stories talked more about religion than I wanted it too, the ones without are for me also the better ones. Where the fear and unknown is more prominent.

[Jeff Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Closer to a 3.5.

[K. P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timmermans is a great find! The narrative is Poe like, but the atmosphere haunts like old Europe.