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The Dark House
Robert Stonehouse's mother disappeared, and they said she was dead. But at night afterward the door of his room would open, and his mother would be there. She stood out -- remote, stern and wonderful -- and stood on the threshold of his darkened room, till the vision and his adoration became an agony and he lay with his face hidden in his arms, waiting for the touch of her hand that never came. . . .
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
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29 people want to read
About the author
I.A.R. Wylie
59 books8 followersIda Alexa Ross Wylie, known by her pen name I. A. R. Wylie, was an Australian-British-American novelist, screenwriter, short story writer, and poet. Between 1915 and 1953, more than thirty of her novels and stories were adapted into films.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 22, 2017
I skipped through a few sections of The Dark House which seemed to me unhinged and almost incomprehensible, but was always drawn back by incredible passages, by tragic characters, by the pain of failure and the hope of love. There are many parts of this book that are just gorgeously written and emotionally evocative. Some pages literally took my breath away.
Yet apparently nobody knows about this book, published (I think) in 1922. I found no reviews on amazon, Goodreads or Google. I have no idea how I found it, but am so happy I did. It is available on amazon, in kindle format, for free.
Here are a few of the many sentences that I found so moving ...
... She threw her hallowed picture of them on the screen of the dripping dusk so that they seemed to live on.
... "We'll take care of her together. We won't let her die before we've made her very, very happy."
... And still he was afraid, and sometimes he suspected that she was afraid too. It was as though inexorable forces were rising up in both of them, essentially of them, and yet outside their control, two dark antagonisms waiting sorrowfully to join issue.
... The past stood at their elbow like an importunate and shabby ghost.
... For the first time he became aware of something definitely abnormal in himself, as though a dead skin had been stripped off his senses and he had begun to see and hear with a primitive and stupefying clearness.
... He had stood resolutely aloof from life, and now it was dragging him down into its warmth with invisible, resistless hands.
Yet apparently nobody knows about this book, published (I think) in 1922. I found no reviews on amazon, Goodreads or Google. I have no idea how I found it, but am so happy I did. It is available on amazon, in kindle format, for free.
Here are a few of the many sentences that I found so moving ...
... She threw her hallowed picture of them on the screen of the dripping dusk so that they seemed to live on.
... "We'll take care of her together. We won't let her die before we've made her very, very happy."
... And still he was afraid, and sometimes he suspected that she was afraid too. It was as though inexorable forces were rising up in both of them, essentially of them, and yet outside their control, two dark antagonisms waiting sorrowfully to join issue.
... The past stood at their elbow like an importunate and shabby ghost.
... For the first time he became aware of something definitely abnormal in himself, as though a dead skin had been stripped off his senses and he had begun to see and hear with a primitive and stupefying clearness.
... He had stood resolutely aloof from life, and now it was dragging him down into its warmth with invisible, resistless hands.
December 12, 2020
Sometimes I find a path which leads to a book I never would have found otherwise. In this instance, I had just finished watching John Ford’s 1928 silent epic, FOUR SONS, which tells of a German family during World War I. The movie was adapted from a short story written by Ida Alexa Ross Wylie (I.A.R. Wylie), an Anglo-Australian writer who eventually ended up working in Hollywood as a screenwriter. While I didn’t find the story I was looking for, I did find this full novel. The title is a bit deceiving, as it has nothing to do with horror or the supernatural, but everything to do with finding one’s inner strength through trial and tribulation.
…I think I’ve lived in that dark house all my life, and I’ve gone about in it, blustering and swaggering and being hard and strong because I was so desperately afraid – of life, of caring too much, of failing.
A young boy finds himself on the edges of polite society because his father, a failed doctor, is unable to pay debts and settle down properly. After his mother’s death, his father remarries but the boy does not accept the new stepmother. Instead, there is another female in the household, Christine, who was a close friend to both parents and who promised to look after the young boy as the dying mother’s deathbed request. The father continues down the long slope of failure and ends up dying, a frightening figure to the child rather than a true father figure. There is no bond between the boy and the stepmother, so Christine spirits him away to a life of struggle, both barely living above the poverty level.
As the boy becomes a young man, he is full of pent-up anger and fear, never accepted by his schoolmates for being so poor. He is a wretched, uncouth Caliban crouched on the outskirts of their lives, pining for his lost Kingdom. Together, Christine and he forge a plan to scrimp and save so he can become a doctor. In focusing on one goal, he loses touch with his wilder side, becoming a well-known throat specialist with a lack of empathy for any of his patients. Here is the self-made man of the 20th-Century.
What men called “Fate” was the shadow of themselves. They imposed their characters upon events, significant or insignificant, willingly or unwillingly. Beyond that there was no such thing as Fate at all.
When I started reading, I thought it was one of those Edwardian novels full of florid imaginings and wordiness. But the more I turned the pages, the more I could not get the characters out of my mind. Wylie’s writing is both exquisite and exhaustive and autobiographical. For though the protagonist is male, it is the author’s story being told. Wylie’s father was a philandering failure, her mother died, her father remarried, and she was raised by her mother’s sister, named Christine. Somehow Wylie became a prolific author who wound up in Hollywood, the land of sunshine and oranges far from the dank, Georgian houses of England, already closed in the weariness of their sad old age.
If I was a publisher, I should like to print some of her books. Meanwhile, I will continue to search for her other work, preferably in bound volumes.
Book Season = Winter (lightless eyes)
…I think I’ve lived in that dark house all my life, and I’ve gone about in it, blustering and swaggering and being hard and strong because I was so desperately afraid – of life, of caring too much, of failing.
A young boy finds himself on the edges of polite society because his father, a failed doctor, is unable to pay debts and settle down properly. After his mother’s death, his father remarries but the boy does not accept the new stepmother. Instead, there is another female in the household, Christine, who was a close friend to both parents and who promised to look after the young boy as the dying mother’s deathbed request. The father continues down the long slope of failure and ends up dying, a frightening figure to the child rather than a true father figure. There is no bond between the boy and the stepmother, so Christine spirits him away to a life of struggle, both barely living above the poverty level.
As the boy becomes a young man, he is full of pent-up anger and fear, never accepted by his schoolmates for being so poor. He is a wretched, uncouth Caliban crouched on the outskirts of their lives, pining for his lost Kingdom. Together, Christine and he forge a plan to scrimp and save so he can become a doctor. In focusing on one goal, he loses touch with his wilder side, becoming a well-known throat specialist with a lack of empathy for any of his patients. Here is the self-made man of the 20th-Century.
What men called “Fate” was the shadow of themselves. They imposed their characters upon events, significant or insignificant, willingly or unwillingly. Beyond that there was no such thing as Fate at all.
When I started reading, I thought it was one of those Edwardian novels full of florid imaginings and wordiness. But the more I turned the pages, the more I could not get the characters out of my mind. Wylie’s writing is both exquisite and exhaustive and autobiographical. For though the protagonist is male, it is the author’s story being told. Wylie’s father was a philandering failure, her mother died, her father remarried, and she was raised by her mother’s sister, named Christine. Somehow Wylie became a prolific author who wound up in Hollywood, the land of sunshine and oranges far from the dank, Georgian houses of England, already closed in the weariness of their sad old age.
If I was a publisher, I should like to print some of her books. Meanwhile, I will continue to search for her other work, preferably in bound volumes.
Book Season = Winter (lightless eyes)
May 21, 2011
I did enjoy this story but just could not decide the year is was set in. At first when I started reading the book I thought it could of been set in the 18 hundreds, however when I had read a bit more I think it was set later. That is why I have only give it 3stars
April 4, 2013
I will admit that the Title pulled me into opening the book. After fifty-some-odd pages I realized that this book was not aligned with the horror genre but was a unique mixture of romance and psychological.
The author has a very powerful vocabulary and uses her words to paint a vivid mental canvas. There were several instances where I had to pause and digest the layout for proper visualization.
The main character development was sharp and graceful.
The inner struggle was evident in nearly every decision he made. The portion of text involving the gypsy was a scenario rarely encountered and masterfully composed.
While I have not read any of her other works of literature I have queued them up with high hopes. A book like this does not surface very often and when it does rarely will it make the splash it deserves. For free I'd say it is a treasured experience that echoes from the grave of years passed.
The author has a very powerful vocabulary and uses her words to paint a vivid mental canvas. There were several instances where I had to pause and digest the layout for proper visualization.
The main character development was sharp and graceful.
The inner struggle was evident in nearly every decision he made. The portion of text involving the gypsy was a scenario rarely encountered and masterfully composed.
While I have not read any of her other works of literature I have queued them up with high hopes. A book like this does not surface very often and when it does rarely will it make the splash it deserves. For free I'd say it is a treasured experience that echoes from the grave of years passed.
May 15, 2011
Finished at 11pm after going to bed early. Not bad for a free book from ManyBooks.net.
October 19, 2019
This is a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman that explores the male protagonist's life as he struggles with his troubled childhood. If you'd swap the male protagonist for a female one—without even having to swap the gender of his love interests, and without changing the name of his guardian—one could mistake it for the life story of the author.
Its plot and writing style reminded me of Thomas Wolfe's fiction, albeit with a simpler tone. It is a good character study that shows remarkable depth, especially shedding light on how men and women are more psychologically similar than one would expect.
Its plot and writing style reminded me of Thomas Wolfe's fiction, albeit with a simpler tone. It is a good character study that shows remarkable depth, especially shedding light on how men and women are more psychologically similar than one would expect.
March 15, 2020
I love love loved this, I was very impressed.
August 1, 2020
This is probably the book I've spent the most time thinking about after finishing it. Robert is a very interesting character and the events in his life that the author chooses to show us give the reader a lot to dissect in regards to his psyche. Overall I think this book is an excellent commentary on the roles that other people play in our lives and the roles we play in others' lives. This has been my favorite book for a while now; it's a shame more people haven't read it.
December 2, 2011
So far this is an interesting book about a young boy in a Victorian setting.
February 2, 2014
the dark house is one of the most starkly beautiful and strange books i have read recently
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews