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The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories
Something pushed out from the body there on the floor, and stretched forth a slimy, wavering tentacle...
Perhaps no figure better embodies the transition from the Gothic tradition to modern horror than Arthur Machen. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Welsh writer produced a seminal body of tales of occult horror, spiritual and physical corruption, and malignant survivals from the primeval past which horrified and scandalized late Victorian readers. Machen's "weird fiction" has influenced generations of storytellers, from H. P. Lovecraft to Guillermo Del Toro and it remains no less unsettling today.
This new collection, which includes the complete novel The Three Impostors as well as such celebrated tales as The Great God Pan and The White People, constitutes the most comprehensive critical edition of Machen yet to appear. In addition to the core late Victorian horror classics, a selection of lesser known prose poems and later tales helps to present a fuller picture of the development of Machen's weird vision. The edition's introduction and notes contextualize the life and work of this foundational figure in the history of horror.
Contents:
- The Lost Club
- The Great God Pan
- The Inmost Light
- The Three Impostors
- The Red Hand
- The Shining Pyramid
- The Turanians
- The Idealist
- Witchcraft
- The Ceremony
- Psychology
- Midsummer
- The White People
- The Bowmen
- The Monstrance
- N
- The Tree of Life
- Change
- Ritual.
Perhaps no figure better embodies the transition from the Gothic tradition to modern horror than Arthur Machen. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Welsh writer produced a seminal body of tales of occult horror, spiritual and physical corruption, and malignant survivals from the primeval past which horrified and scandalized late Victorian readers. Machen's "weird fiction" has influenced generations of storytellers, from H. P. Lovecraft to Guillermo Del Toro and it remains no less unsettling today.
This new collection, which includes the complete novel The Three Impostors as well as such celebrated tales as The Great God Pan and The White People, constitutes the most comprehensive critical edition of Machen yet to appear. In addition to the core late Victorian horror classics, a selection of lesser known prose poems and later tales helps to present a fuller picture of the development of Machen's weird vision. The edition's introduction and notes contextualize the life and work of this foundational figure in the history of horror.
Contents:
- The Lost Club
- The Great God Pan
- The Inmost Light
- The Three Impostors
- The Red Hand
- The Shining Pyramid
- The Turanians
- The Idealist
- Witchcraft
- The Ceremony
- Psychology
- Midsummer
- The White People
- The Bowmen
- The Monstrance
- N
- The Tree of Life
- Change
- Ritual.
389 pages, Hardcover
Published April 1, 2018
262 people are currently reading
3205 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Machen
1,055 books983 followersArthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
November 8, 2019
I had previously read two stories (novellas, really) in this volume: "The Great God Pan" and "The White People". I liked those stores and was excited to re-read them. And Machen's reputation among horror aficionados whose opinions I appreciate and respect, especially those who favor a more literary style (as I do), gave me confidence that I might enjoy the remaining stories. I seem to recall that Lovecraft lauded Machen's work, as did Stephen King. Those were good indicators from two pretty good writers, as well.
But as I read The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories, an unanticipated question kept percolating up in my thoughts: When you say "Machen is a great writer," who do you mean? Yes, "Arthur Machen" is the obvious answer. But which one? Which Machen are you referring to? The Arthur Conan Doyle-like page turner of “The Red Hand” (which I wanted to keep calling "The Red Right Hand" - thank you very much, Nick Cave), the writer of “The Monstrance” with powerful echos of M.R. James, the Charles Dickensanian “The Tree of Life,” or the Dunsanian visions of “N”?
Machen is all of these, but with something more, something unique – a subtlety of hand and a careful movement of plot, sweetly lead by his studied use and manipulation of Word and Phrase. I capitalize these, because in Machen’s hands, these elements, these tools, are elevated beyond the banal usage of the terms. They become something special and “new” under his pen (though when one reads his strange mutation of certain terms, one is compelled to say “of course, why did I ever think of this word/phrase in any other way? In any case, I shall never think of it in the same way again!”
For instance, there is this from "The Three Imposters":
". . . I too burned with the lust of the chase, not pausing to consider that I knew not what we were to unshadow."
This is the sort of turn-of-phrase that I love in Machen. And that word: "unshadow," so evocative and full of implication. Given the context of a Russian-doll series of narratives within narratives, the term is especially apropos and lends a certain gravity to the meta-narrative from within the narrative - the meta-narrative "in the shadows" beyond the reader and the explicit words on the page. With one word, Machen pushes us out into the unknown; a sort of literary practical joke aimed at the careful reader.
And these stories do deserve a careful reading. They are not shocking in that Lovecraftian "the entire universe wants to eat us all, oh no, my poor sanity!" way. They are most definitely not the antinatalist murky depths of Thomas Ligotti (though there is a good deal of existentialism throughout these works). They are much more subtle. More careful and deliberate.
But that does not mean they are "straightforward". Far from it! I believe that "The Great God Pan" benefits from what seems like disorganization of thought. Vagaries and jagged connection points lead the reader on a frenetic, dreadful path, allowing each individual to come to their own conclusions, their own "end plot". "The Three Imposters" is mind-blowingly complex. Wheels within wheels, all shot through with decadence and hauntings and rotting bodies and tentacles. It works not because Machen ties off all the ends in a neat little bundle (he does not), but because the readers mind takes the disparate directions and waypoints and makes its own blurred map of what might have happened in the tale. I loved "The White People," but to tell you what it was "about"? Um. No. It's essentially plotless, a labyrinthine meandering through the eyes of a young girl discovering . . . well, she can't tell you all that she's discovered. It's simply not possible. Machen does a wonderful job of using inference and redaction to tease the reader with an intentionally occulted (I use the word exactly) vision of what lies beyond, accessible, but hidden.
You will exit many of these stories in a state of utter confusion, wondering what just hit your brain. But you will feel the impact of something sinister hiding in the veins of the earth or just beyond that hill ahead or in the complex motivations of the seemingly innocent. These stories are insidious!
Even in stories where there is a "traditional" twist ending, there is something in the subtle way that Machen lays his tales out that allows for a "twist" ending that isn't a cheap-shot, like I find in many short stories (especially those written by less-experienced authors). "Ritual," for example, is no exception. It's microfiction, or close to it, so it relies on a twist at the end, but by the time you get there, you're like a frog that's been slowly brought to boil in horror. Your realization comes too late! And even after the twist is revealed, your brain will continue tumbling forward, making suppositions and venturing guesses as to what really happened.
This is what Machen provides, then: a labyrinthine path to uncertainty and, hence, insecurity, where the only thing you are sure of is that you can't trust anything to be what it seems. There is darkness, horror, wonder, and awe, all combined, in this realization; a case study in Schopenhauer's philosophy of Aesthetics and The Sublime. It is a journey worth your while, all the way to the bitter, beautiful end.
But as I read The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories, an unanticipated question kept percolating up in my thoughts: When you say "Machen is a great writer," who do you mean? Yes, "Arthur Machen" is the obvious answer. But which one? Which Machen are you referring to? The Arthur Conan Doyle-like page turner of “The Red Hand” (which I wanted to keep calling "The Red Right Hand" - thank you very much, Nick Cave), the writer of “The Monstrance” with powerful echos of M.R. James, the Charles Dickensanian “The Tree of Life,” or the Dunsanian visions of “N”?
Machen is all of these, but with something more, something unique – a subtlety of hand and a careful movement of plot, sweetly lead by his studied use and manipulation of Word and Phrase. I capitalize these, because in Machen’s hands, these elements, these tools, are elevated beyond the banal usage of the terms. They become something special and “new” under his pen (though when one reads his strange mutation of certain terms, one is compelled to say “of course, why did I ever think of this word/phrase in any other way? In any case, I shall never think of it in the same way again!”
For instance, there is this from "The Three Imposters":
". . . I too burned with the lust of the chase, not pausing to consider that I knew not what we were to unshadow."
This is the sort of turn-of-phrase that I love in Machen. And that word: "unshadow," so evocative and full of implication. Given the context of a Russian-doll series of narratives within narratives, the term is especially apropos and lends a certain gravity to the meta-narrative from within the narrative - the meta-narrative "in the shadows" beyond the reader and the explicit words on the page. With one word, Machen pushes us out into the unknown; a sort of literary practical joke aimed at the careful reader.
And these stories do deserve a careful reading. They are not shocking in that Lovecraftian "the entire universe wants to eat us all, oh no, my poor sanity!" way. They are most definitely not the antinatalist murky depths of Thomas Ligotti (though there is a good deal of existentialism throughout these works). They are much more subtle. More careful and deliberate.
But that does not mean they are "straightforward". Far from it! I believe that "The Great God Pan" benefits from what seems like disorganization of thought. Vagaries and jagged connection points lead the reader on a frenetic, dreadful path, allowing each individual to come to their own conclusions, their own "end plot". "The Three Imposters" is mind-blowingly complex. Wheels within wheels, all shot through with decadence and hauntings and rotting bodies and tentacles. It works not because Machen ties off all the ends in a neat little bundle (he does not), but because the readers mind takes the disparate directions and waypoints and makes its own blurred map of what might have happened in the tale. I loved "The White People," but to tell you what it was "about"? Um. No. It's essentially plotless, a labyrinthine meandering through the eyes of a young girl discovering . . . well, she can't tell you all that she's discovered. It's simply not possible. Machen does a wonderful job of using inference and redaction to tease the reader with an intentionally occulted (I use the word exactly) vision of what lies beyond, accessible, but hidden.
You will exit many of these stories in a state of utter confusion, wondering what just hit your brain. But you will feel the impact of something sinister hiding in the veins of the earth or just beyond that hill ahead or in the complex motivations of the seemingly innocent. These stories are insidious!
Even in stories where there is a "traditional" twist ending, there is something in the subtle way that Machen lays his tales out that allows for a "twist" ending that isn't a cheap-shot, like I find in many short stories (especially those written by less-experienced authors). "Ritual," for example, is no exception. It's microfiction, or close to it, so it relies on a twist at the end, but by the time you get there, you're like a frog that's been slowly brought to boil in horror. Your realization comes too late! And even after the twist is revealed, your brain will continue tumbling forward, making suppositions and venturing guesses as to what really happened.
This is what Machen provides, then: a labyrinthine path to uncertainty and, hence, insecurity, where the only thing you are sure of is that you can't trust anything to be what it seems. There is darkness, horror, wonder, and awe, all combined, in this realization; a case study in Schopenhauer's philosophy of Aesthetics and The Sublime. It is a journey worth your while, all the way to the bitter, beautiful end.
December 31, 2022
Although Machen is often forgotten among casual horror fans, he was wildly influential to the giants of the industry: H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Guillermo del Toro, among many others. Machen's most noted work was written in the 1890s and his stories of spiritual corruption by ancient evil - often associated with and influenced, at least somewhat, by the English Decadent Movement - were considered outrageous compared with the social conventions of the Victorian Era. Machen's prose style, while ornate in luxurious description but short on characterization, is more easily penetrable than many other works of the period, lending itself well to the general feeling of unease, dread, and dislocation that makes the pieces so memorable.
This Oxford University Press collection, with an exceptional 21 page introduction and 38 pages of explanatory notes, includes the stories:
The Lost Club - 3/5
The Great God Pan - 4/5
The Inmost Light - 3/5
The Three Impostors - 4/5 (the complete novel is included)
The Red Hand - 4/5
The Shining Pyramid - 4/5
The Turanians - 4/5
The Idealist - 3/5
Witchcraft - 3/5
The Ceremony - 4/5
Psychology - 3/5
Midsummer - 4/5
The White People - 3/5
The Bowmen - 3/5
The Monstrance - 3/5
N - 3/5
The Tree of Life - 3/5
Change - 4/5
Ritual -3/5
This Oxford University Press collection, with an exceptional 21 page introduction and 38 pages of explanatory notes, includes the stories:
The Lost Club - 3/5
The Great God Pan - 4/5
The Inmost Light - 3/5
The Three Impostors - 4/5 (the complete novel is included)
The Red Hand - 4/5
The Shining Pyramid - 4/5
The Turanians - 4/5
The Idealist - 3/5
Witchcraft - 3/5
The Ceremony - 4/5
Psychology - 3/5
Midsummer - 4/5
The White People - 3/5
The Bowmen - 3/5
The Monstrance - 3/5
N - 3/5
The Tree of Life - 3/5
Change - 4/5
Ritual -3/5
March 10, 2020
Still effective as the first time that I read the Great God Pan years ago. The following paragraph may well be the microcosm of the novella, or even of Machen's entire oeuvre.
"Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchards, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams and shadows: the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these "chases in Arras, dreams in a career," beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another's eyes. You may think all this strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan."
"Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchards, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams and shadows: the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these "chases in Arras, dreams in a career," beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another's eyes. You may think all this strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan."
February 27, 2020
more to come about this book, hopefully over the weekend.
for now: To say I loved this book would be very much an understatement. I'm a very patient reader and used to this sort of writing style so it didn't bother me a bit; I also love that while quite a lot of plot detail here stays somewhat shrouded in mystery in the telling, the reward (a nice case of the chills caused by a creeping dread or sort of an inward, involuntary gasp) comes once the brain clicks to the "unutterable" reality of what's actually going on in these stories. Okay -- at least what I thought was going on.
this single sentence from The Great God Pan pretty much sums up what you'll find at the heart of the stories in this book:
"I stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned."
more soon.
for now: To say I loved this book would be very much an understatement. I'm a very patient reader and used to this sort of writing style so it didn't bother me a bit; I also love that while quite a lot of plot detail here stays somewhat shrouded in mystery in the telling, the reward (a nice case of the chills caused by a creeping dread or sort of an inward, involuntary gasp) comes once the brain clicks to the "unutterable" reality of what's actually going on in these stories. Okay -- at least what I thought was going on.
this single sentence from The Great God Pan pretty much sums up what you'll find at the heart of the stories in this book:
"I stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned."
more soon.
April 13, 2019
And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that tore me as I went through them, and I cried out because I was smarting all over, and then I found that I was climbing, and I went up and up a long way, till at last the thicket stopped and I came out crying just under the top of a big bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all about on the grass, and here and there a little, twisted stunted tree came out from under a stone, like a snake. And I went up, right to the top, a long way. I never saw such big ugly stones before; they came out of the earth some of them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a long, long way. I looked out from them and saw the country, but it was strange. It was winter time, and there were black terrible woods hanging from the hills all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I had ever seen before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were other hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of them; it all looked black, and everything had a voor over it. It was all so still and silent, and the sky was heavy and grey and sad, like a wicked voorish dome in Deep Dendo. I went on into the dreadful rocks. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men; I could see their faces as if they would jump at me out of the stone, and catch hold of me, and drag me with them back into the rock, so that I should always be there. And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others were like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked songs that they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about in the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks, and they didn't frighten me any more. I sang the songs I thought of; songs full of words that must not be spoken or written down. Then I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones, and I went up to one that was grinning, and put my arms round him and hugged him.
November 4, 2020
Basically a perfect collection to reflect and define one of folk horrors great maestros, and an unsung one at that. THE GREAT GOD PAN, THE WHITE PEOPLE, THE THREE IMPOSTERS, and THE SHINING PYRAMID are now among my favorite mythic horror out there and this, probably the only decent collection of Machens work out there, is essential.
July 9, 2025
I came home from my stroll a little refreshed and lightened. The air was sweet and pleasant, and the hazy form of green leaves, floating cloudlike in the square, and the smell of blossoms, had charmed my senses, and I felt happier and walked more briskly. As I delayed a moment at the verge of the pavement, waiting for a van to pass by before crossing over to the house, I happened to look up at the windows, and instantly there was the rush and swirl of deep cold waters in my ears, my heart leapt up, and fell down, down as into a deep hollow, and I was amazed with a dread and terror without form or shape. I stretched out a hand blindly through folds of thick darkness, from the black and shadowy valley, and held myself from falling, while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed and tilted, and the sense of solid things seemed to slink away from under me. I had glanced up at the window of my brother's study, and at the moment the blind was drawn aside, and something that had life stared out into the world. Nay, I cannot say I saw a face or any human likeness; a living thing, two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they were in the midst of something as formless as my fear, the symbol and presence of all evil and all hideous corruption.A selection of stories from the 1890s through 1930s presented with scholarly flair. Machen's influence on horror writers through the last century is plain to see upon experiencing his work; I now see the direct line from these to H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, T. Kingfisher, T.E.D. Klein, so many more.
The stories are truly a mixed bag, presented in writing order. The very first, The Lost Club, struck me as confused and pointless. Thankfully, the next, The Great God Pan, immediately righted the ship and proved why it's the best known of all his work. Chilling and otherwordly, deeply rooted in both the Welsh countryside and urban London, subtle in its horror. Its opening section outshines the rest of it. The stories to follow repeat several themes and reuse characters. They're stuffed with young, idle aristocratic gentlemen; plots advance largely due to fortuitous chance encounters; and strangers frequently launch into extended accounts of their lives, forming the core stories of interest. The framing stories add little to the true tales. Sudden immersion into horror at a glimpse of something fey or devilish, like the passage opening this review, happens often but is always done marvelously, as is the general characterization of horror as a creeping infiltration of a hideous world thinly veiled from our own.
The highlight of the entire collection is The White People. An excerpt:
It was a very rainy day and I could not go out, so in the afternoon I got a candle and rummaged in the bureau. Nearly all the drawers were full of old dresses, but one of the small ones looked empty, and I found this book hidden right at the back. I wanted a book like this, so I took it to write in. It is full of secrets. I have a great many other books of secrets I have written, hidden in a safe place, and I am going to write here many of the old secrets and some of the new ones; but there are some I shall not put down at all. I must not write down the real names of the days and months which I found out a year ago, nor the way to make the Aklo letters, or the Chian language, or the great beautiful Circles, nor the Mao games, nor the chief songs. I may write something about all these things but not the way to do them, for peculiar reasons. And I must not say who the Nymphs are, of the Dôls, or Jeelo, or what voolas mean. All these are most secret secrets, and I am glad when I remember what they are, and how many wonderful languages I know, but there are some things that I call the secrets of the secrets of the secrets that I dare not think of unless I am quite alone, and then I shut my eyes, and put my hands over them and whisper the word, and the Alala comes. I only do this at night in my room or in certain woods that I know, but I must not describe them, as they are secret woods. Then there are the Ceremonies, which are all of them important, but some are more delightful than others—there are the White Ceremonies, and the Green Ceremonies, and the Scarlet Ceremonies. The Scarlet Ceremonies are the best, but there is only one place where they can be performed properly, though there is a very nice imitation which I have done in other places. Besides these, I have the dances, and the Comedy, and I have done the Comedy sometimes when the others were looking, and they didn't understand anything about it. I was very little when I first knew about these things.This story, told through a young woman's diary and framed by an almost unbearable conversation between two men debating the nature of evil, was absolutely chilling, dreamlike, relentless, in paragraphs that last for pages. If you're any kind of horror fan, you truly ought to read at least The White People and The Great God Pan. They are in the public domain and available via Project Gutenberg, along with much more of Machen's work: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25016
There are a few very short (2-3 page) stories that offer mixed results; the intention is clear in each but they don't all quite hit the mark. The Turanians was the strongest of these. After the 1890s, there are a pair of WWI-era tales, then some of his 1930s work, including N, which was the basis for Alan Moore's The Great When published in the past year.
This specific collection is bound in mustard as an homage to The Yellow Book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yel...), a literary journal which was popular during the time of Machen's initial popularity (or infamy), and more generally to scandalous fiction of the period. It's introduction starts with a highly welcome header:
Readers unfamiliar with the stories may wish to treat this introduction as an afterword.This should be a required statement on all editions of classics. The introduction is excellent, as it happens. My one quibble with the edition is this*: the use of asterisks to indicate endnotes. Following the full set of stories, there are pages of notes* organized by story and page order. Upon the appearance of an asterisk in your reading, you can flip to the back, find the reference to the correct page number, and gain more information about the highlighted item. I have no objection to scholarly edification*, but I found this format highly disruptive. The asterisks were not subtle* and they interrupted story flow and enjoyment, crying out, "flip ahead for more information about this thing!" whether I wanted any such thing or not. There were other options: endnotes following each story, or footnotes*, with less obstrusive marks available in either case. There didn't have to be any marks at all; if I felt the need to look for more information about something, I could easily choose my own time to do that. I might seem nitpicky here, but sometimes the asterisks came fast and furious; there were no less than seven in the first paragraph of the first story*. Sometimes they provided valuable information or context, explaining an obscure reference or identifying locations that were part of Machen's own biography. But other times they were literally merely dictionary definitions, or things that didn't require explanation. Like, Benedictine*. At one point, characters drink Benedictine* in a bar. I didn't need an explanation of what Benedictine was, it's still around today! I drank some recently! This was a recurrent irritation, really the only thing marring the experience.
There you go: Machen. Read some of his work.
July 26, 2018
Beautiful writing and chilling tales that focus on atmosphere and slow-building dread.
February 7, 2022
This is a better collection of Machen's stories than the Penguin Classics' The White People and Other Weird Stories, containing as it does all of the great stuff, but with a better selection of lesser known work, and, moreover, it does not butcher the novel The Three Imposters into glistening chunks of short story meat. The Oxford World's Classics edition also sports an excellent introduction and notes (which, to be fair, the Penguin collection also had, being edited by the ever-dependable S T Joshi), by Aaron Worth.
As I've discovered, Machen is not a casual read. There's work to be done to get at the fantastic and the strange and the downright horrific (my reason for being here in the first place), wading through lengthy asides that have little bearing on the story at hand, somewhat irritating amateur sleuthing, conclusions and revelations buried within otherwise innocuous prose. But do the work, go with it, and you'll be rewarded with nuggets of absolutely beautiful writing of Dunsanian heights, and hints at horrors even Lovecraft shied away from.
A superb introduction to Arthur Machen.
As I've discovered, Machen is not a casual read. There's work to be done to get at the fantastic and the strange and the downright horrific (my reason for being here in the first place), wading through lengthy asides that have little bearing on the story at hand, somewhat irritating amateur sleuthing, conclusions and revelations buried within otherwise innocuous prose. But do the work, go with it, and you'll be rewarded with nuggets of absolutely beautiful writing of Dunsanian heights, and hints at horrors even Lovecraft shied away from.
A superb introduction to Arthur Machen.
March 6, 2018
Weird and wonderful...
This is a collection of those stories of Arthur Machen that fit into what would now be thought of as 'weird' tales. Normally when a book is titled after one story with the rest lumped under “and other”, my expectation would be that the title story would be the best of them. And indeed, I loved The Great God Pan. But I was thrilled to find that many of the other stories in this book are at least as good, and some are even better. I've discovered a new favourite horror writer!
The book is edited by Aaron Worth, Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Boston University. He provides an informative introduction, which gives a brief biography of Machen's literary life along with a discussion of his influences and themes, and of his own influence on later generations of writers. Worth also provides copious notes to explain any unfamiliar terms, or allusions within the text to other works, to mythologies, or to the preoccupations of Machen's society. All of this richly enhanced my reading experience, reminding me once again that, great though it is to be able to download so many old stories, a well-edited volume is still a major pleasure.
Machen's stories are set mainly in two locations, both of which he evokes brilliantly. His native Monmouthshire, in Wales, is depicted as a place with connections to its deep past, where ancient beliefs and rituals are hidden just under the surface of civilised life. His London is a place of dark alleys and hidden evils, with a kind of degenerate race living side by side with the respectable people, and often stretching out a corrupting hand towards them. Worth tells us that Machen was sometimes considered to be connected to the Decadent movement – Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, et al – although Machen himself disputed this. But there is a definite air of decadence with a small 'd' about the stories. Many have strong sexual undercurrents (never overtly spelled out – it's the Victorian era) and paganism is a recurring feature. There's also a frequent suggestion that the morally deficient are most likely to succumb to the forces of evil, and will often pay a horrible price for their weakness.
The quality of the writing is excellent – stylistically it compares to the likes of Conan Doyle or HG Wells. There's a good deal of humour in it alongside some effective and occasionally gruesome horror and he's a great storyteller. His descriptive writing is also very good. I particularly liked how he used London pollution effectively to give a strangeness to the city – his skies are purple, grey, dark, red, and the street lamps have to fight to shed their light through the dirty air. His Wales is equally good in what feels like a deliberately contrasting way. There, the air is clear but there are hidden things behind ancient rock formations – old symbols, and sometimes new symbols placed by ancient races.
The Welsh parts have a very similar feel to Lovecraft's ruins – Lovecraft acknowledged his influence – but where Lovecraft opted for ancient malign aliens, Machen's evil is all of earth, earthly. Worth reminds us that this was at a time when Victorian society was having to get used to the ideas that man had evolved from the beast and that the world was far, far more ancient than had previously been thought. Where Wells takes evolution far into the future in The Time Machine, Machen instead suggests that some of the ancient things of earth are still here, unevolved and unchanging. And that sometimes they might even live within us...
The stories range in length from a couple of pages to well over a hundred. I gave every one individually either 4 or 5 stars – I think that's a first for me in any collection. Some of the very short ones are a little fragmentary, but each either tells a tale on its own or adds depth to the world Machen has created. Some are outright horror, some more an evocation of a kind of witchy paganism, some based more in reality. If, like me, you've managed to miss out on Machen up till now, I strongly recommend you make his acquaintance – a great collection.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World's Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This is a collection of those stories of Arthur Machen that fit into what would now be thought of as 'weird' tales. Normally when a book is titled after one story with the rest lumped under “and other”, my expectation would be that the title story would be the best of them. And indeed, I loved The Great God Pan. But I was thrilled to find that many of the other stories in this book are at least as good, and some are even better. I've discovered a new favourite horror writer!
The book is edited by Aaron Worth, Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Boston University. He provides an informative introduction, which gives a brief biography of Machen's literary life along with a discussion of his influences and themes, and of his own influence on later generations of writers. Worth also provides copious notes to explain any unfamiliar terms, or allusions within the text to other works, to mythologies, or to the preoccupations of Machen's society. All of this richly enhanced my reading experience, reminding me once again that, great though it is to be able to download so many old stories, a well-edited volume is still a major pleasure.
Machen's stories are set mainly in two locations, both of which he evokes brilliantly. His native Monmouthshire, in Wales, is depicted as a place with connections to its deep past, where ancient beliefs and rituals are hidden just under the surface of civilised life. His London is a place of dark alleys and hidden evils, with a kind of degenerate race living side by side with the respectable people, and often stretching out a corrupting hand towards them. Worth tells us that Machen was sometimes considered to be connected to the Decadent movement – Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, et al – although Machen himself disputed this. But there is a definite air of decadence with a small 'd' about the stories. Many have strong sexual undercurrents (never overtly spelled out – it's the Victorian era) and paganism is a recurring feature. There's also a frequent suggestion that the morally deficient are most likely to succumb to the forces of evil, and will often pay a horrible price for their weakness.
The quality of the writing is excellent – stylistically it compares to the likes of Conan Doyle or HG Wells. There's a good deal of humour in it alongside some effective and occasionally gruesome horror and he's a great storyteller. His descriptive writing is also very good. I particularly liked how he used London pollution effectively to give a strangeness to the city – his skies are purple, grey, dark, red, and the street lamps have to fight to shed their light through the dirty air. His Wales is equally good in what feels like a deliberately contrasting way. There, the air is clear but there are hidden things behind ancient rock formations – old symbols, and sometimes new symbols placed by ancient races.
The Welsh parts have a very similar feel to Lovecraft's ruins – Lovecraft acknowledged his influence – but where Lovecraft opted for ancient malign aliens, Machen's evil is all of earth, earthly. Worth reminds us that this was at a time when Victorian society was having to get used to the ideas that man had evolved from the beast and that the world was far, far more ancient than had previously been thought. Where Wells takes evolution far into the future in The Time Machine, Machen instead suggests that some of the ancient things of earth are still here, unevolved and unchanging. And that sometimes they might even live within us...
The stories range in length from a couple of pages to well over a hundred. I gave every one individually either 4 or 5 stars – I think that's a first for me in any collection. Some of the very short ones are a little fragmentary, but each either tells a tale on its own or adds depth to the world Machen has created. Some are outright horror, some more an evocation of a kind of witchy paganism, some based more in reality. If, like me, you've managed to miss out on Machen up till now, I strongly recommend you make his acquaintance – a great collection.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World's Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
November 7, 2020
A far better-curated anthology of Machen than the Penguin 'White People and Other Tales' release, consisting of basically every major Machen weird tale, along with some short oddities. I'm glad to have finally read 'N', which fits in a trifecta with 'The Great God Pan' and 'The White People' as my favorite Machen.
July 1, 2022
I don't feel safe in Machen. This statement feels true in more than one ways. I do not feel safe in his writing. I do not trust his talent. He's a hobbyist with good vocabulary - or a thesaurus, but obviously we give him the benefit of the doubt because he's an all round educated chap. He delves in many different disciplines and forms of art but in none is he an expert, though he appears submerged in intriguing ideas, no doubt influenced by his company of experts and virtuosos. This resulting mediocrity, in my opinion at least, should be the main reason I do not feel at ease reading his otherwise flowy, agreeable prose. But it runs deeper. Thematically in his stories his obsession becomes to lose control... without actually losing control. He is running in a loophole of reason vs the supernatural, yearning for the latter like a gay clever boy for Oscar Wilde. But he remains a Victorian, so he has to cover things up and render them in a (pseudo)scientific girdle. I do not wish to know why his characters appear so sheltered; I feel I would inexpertly tread onto psychoanalytical territory. The point is that in his case the literature suffers from this tension, and his stories almost invariably appear incomplete, much ado about nothing. Not necessarily his fault but repression itself seems to be his medium. Real loss of control, true stakes are never met, and we get pointless discussions instead, and in an exclusively homosocial - male - circle. And there you have it; that's what makes me feel uneasy. Perhaps some female energy, some magic in between the alchemy, some attempt at describing the experience of losing control and entering a state of ecstasy, would provide Machen with the means of catharsis he dishearteningly lacks in his tales. Instead he merely analyses the aftershocks calm and detached like a failed Holmes. And as a reader, I personally feel smothered by the repetition of this formula. Arthur Conan Doyle always makes me feel safe by reverting to reason. I mean pick one, Machen, PICK ONE if you cannot do both!
June 13, 2024
3.5, maybe. The prose too often gets too in the way of the story and of the atmosphere for me.
November 9, 2020
Wordy, rambling, and not much in the way of horror.
October 31, 2020
This selection of novellas and short stories by Welsh writer Arthur Machen (rhymes with Bracken) is a little different from most current horror tales. The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories has no ghosts or haunts, though it is not devoid of terror. What Machen describes are more ancient forms of existence, such as the faeries and even my ancestors, the Finno-Ugric Turanians, whose manifestations in the present day frequently lead to madness or death.
In this collection are The Great God Pan, perhaps Machen's most famous work, and The Three Impostors, itself a set of what its author calls Milesian tales which are all interconnected. Among the short stories are such classics as "The Red Hand," "The Shining Pyramid," and "The White People." Included is an excellent introduction and detailed notes by editor Aaron Worth.
I must admit that it took me a while to get used to the slow accretion of terror in Machen's stories. It requires some patience and forbearance to get on his wavelength, but it is worth the effort. My only complaint is that his male characters -- his Dysons, Phillipses, and Vaughans -- are all more or less interchangeable, and they do not develop during the telling of the tales. Machen wants you to concentrate on the contact with powerful occult forces that predate Christianity and even Greco-Roman Paganism.
In this collection are The Great God Pan, perhaps Machen's most famous work, and The Three Impostors, itself a set of what its author calls Milesian tales which are all interconnected. Among the short stories are such classics as "The Red Hand," "The Shining Pyramid," and "The White People." Included is an excellent introduction and detailed notes by editor Aaron Worth.
I must admit that it took me a while to get used to the slow accretion of terror in Machen's stories. It requires some patience and forbearance to get on his wavelength, but it is worth the effort. My only complaint is that his male characters -- his Dysons, Phillipses, and Vaughans -- are all more or less interchangeable, and they do not develop during the telling of the tales. Machen wants you to concentrate on the contact with powerful occult forces that predate Christianity and even Greco-Roman Paganism.
Want to read
December 1, 2021[12/1/21, Partial review for now, to be cont'd]
Acquired this to read with GR Literary Darkness group, plan to return to it in 2022. My introduction to Arthur Machen, so far mostly encouraging.
The Lost Club ***
A vignette of six pages, all atmosphere and rather effective. Reminded me of the shorter episodes of Rod Serling's old Night Gallery anthology show.
The Great God Pan *****
The standout so far, I loved this novella without reservation. I'm a sucker for a story that begins with two men warily discussing an experiment they are about to undertake and trying to assure themselves it's safe and nothing to worry about... The pacing is brisk, as the story jumps ahead in time and switches between several narrators, each with partial information, as a number of distinguished young men meet mysterious deaths by their own hand, or is it? And there's a great sting in the ending reveal, which also offers some comeuppance for the earlier casual misogyny/entitlement of one of the characters. Highly recommended.
The Inmost Light **
Didn't work for me. This has the Lovecraftian flaw of extreme vagueness, as a Dr. Black tells of an insatiable curiosity to investigate some dark arts yadda yadda, for which he needs another person and turns to his poor wife nevermind it likely means her sacrificing her sanity or life of both. What exactly does this entail? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, while one knows going in when reading century-old horror that one must negotiate gender roles/expectations of the day, sometimes it's easier done than others. In this story Dr. Black's poor wife is a barely sketched prop who is (of course) terrified and (of course) submits to her husband's wishes, while I longed for her to tell him to fuck off and leave, not before informing him she's been having it off with the gardener for the past two months... Alas none of that happens.
The White People ****
A mixed bag to be sure, with an awkward, clumsy framing device, and an ending that just sort of peters out. But the heart of the story is an almost stream of consciousness diary of a young girl retelling stories told to her by her nurse (who clearly wasn't vetted much when hired), stories of creeping insidiousness that get more alarming as they go. You get 15+ pages without a paragraph break, but get past the initial what the hell is this? reaction and onto its wavelength and it's all uncanny and very effective. I can't imagine much writing like this was being done at the time.
Acquired this to read with GR Literary Darkness group, plan to return to it in 2022. My introduction to Arthur Machen, so far mostly encouraging.
The Lost Club ***
A vignette of six pages, all atmosphere and rather effective. Reminded me of the shorter episodes of Rod Serling's old Night Gallery anthology show.
The Great God Pan *****
The standout so far, I loved this novella without reservation. I'm a sucker for a story that begins with two men warily discussing an experiment they are about to undertake and trying to assure themselves it's safe and nothing to worry about... The pacing is brisk, as the story jumps ahead in time and switches between several narrators, each with partial information, as a number of distinguished young men meet mysterious deaths by their own hand, or is it? And there's a great sting in the ending reveal, which also offers some comeuppance for the earlier casual misogyny/entitlement of one of the characters. Highly recommended.
The Inmost Light **
Didn't work for me. This has the Lovecraftian flaw of extreme vagueness, as a Dr. Black tells of an insatiable curiosity to investigate some dark arts yadda yadda, for which he needs another person and turns to his poor wife nevermind it likely means her sacrificing her sanity or life of both. What exactly does this entail? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, while one knows going in when reading century-old horror that one must negotiate gender roles/expectations of the day, sometimes it's easier done than others. In this story Dr. Black's poor wife is a barely sketched prop who is (of course) terrified and (of course) submits to her husband's wishes, while I longed for her to tell him to fuck off and leave, not before informing him she's been having it off with the gardener for the past two months... Alas none of that happens.
The White People ****
A mixed bag to be sure, with an awkward, clumsy framing device, and an ending that just sort of peters out. But the heart of the story is an almost stream of consciousness diary of a young girl retelling stories told to her by her nurse (who clearly wasn't vetted much when hired), stories of creeping insidiousness that get more alarming as they go. You get 15+ pages without a paragraph break, but get past the initial what the hell is this? reaction and onto its wavelength and it's all uncanny and very effective. I can't imagine much writing like this was being done at the time.
July 18, 2022
3.5*
A good compilation of weird tales. Brilliantly written and reminded me of Lovecraft.
A good compilation of weird tales. Brilliantly written and reminded me of Lovecraft.
August 12, 2024
I found it quite a tough, dense read, but the story 'The White People' was immersive and really fun in a markedly different way to the rest of the stories.
May 9, 2020
The Lost Club -
Just a short horror tale to read. Good for passing your leisure time. But an OK story to read...
The Great God Pan -
Despite the fact that Stephen King stated this story as one of the best best unfortunately I didn't found it much potential. The story confused me. The moment I thought I got the idea of the story plot the moment I left confused again. I had checked double by reading the summary from wiki...
From wiki -
"Clarke agrees, somewhat unwillingly, to bear witness to a strange experiment performed by his friend, Dr. Raymond. The ultimate goal of the doctor is to open the mind of someone so that he may experience the spiritual world, an experience he notes the ancients called "seeing the great god Pan". He performs the experiment, which involves minor brain surgery, on a young woman named Mary. She awakens from the operation awed and terrified but quickly becomes "a hopeless idiot".
Years later, Clarke learns of a beautiful but sinister girl named Helen Vaughan, who is reported to have caused a series of mysterious happenings in her town. She spends much of her time in the woods near her house, and takes other children on prolonged twilight rambles in the countryside that disturb the parents of the town."...
After that there's more of God Pan and those sexual activity. God Pan a fallen angel and he did something to Mary. Anyway not reached my hype. But ok to read. Giving myself 3 out of 5 by rating...
The Inmost Light -
Through Salisbury Dysen get know of Mr. Black and Mrs. Bkack. Mrs. was dead but she was not normal human being but known as a good hearted and kind wife to Mr. Black. Dysen wanted to know the details of the cause about her death and he found out Mr. Black too was dead. There's something about that Opal linking with Mrs. Black's death...
Very good short tale that was...
The three impostors -
It is really difficult to read Arthur Machen sometimes if you what it means. This one I have read cost a while to finish. Nonetheless to say didn't enjoy it. Dysen meet someone in the London and explore the city to hear more stories from them. Though there's some eerie incident to read but the description ruin it all. Maybe this was not just my story to read, but despite the fact his work thoroughly praised by H. P Lovercraft and Stephen King sometimes it really difficult to dig in to his work. Better luck next time for me...
The Red Hand -
Dyson and Phillips are after the murder of Dr. Thomas Vivian. The murder of Vivian's was a mystery and they have to solve it, that's pretty much about the story, they found some clue but couldn't solve the real reason of the murder scene and the ending was kind of mystical. Quite a read I would say...
The Shining Pyramid -
This one is something that you should think of. Occult investigator Dyson called out by his friend Mr. Vaughan as he couldn't find out the mystery of those indescribable symbols that appears outside of his home. Meanwhile a girl named Annie Trevor been disappeared and there's no clue about where might she gone. All this made a conclusion in the end as there's something going on with that Shining Pyramid. Fairly good horror to read...
The idealist -
Living in Fulham, England Symonds lived in his occult private world that no one can divined. He needs to go home and it's getting dark out there at night. While reaching his own home he needs to do something or say create something. Quite a story that somehow difficult to understand...
Witchcraft -
Bit of a weird story, you almost could not understand anything of it despite the fact where that lady named Mrs. Wise done something for Miss Custance in the cottage to favour her needs of something! It was a picture but the very illustration of it didn't pleased the young lady Miss Custance...
The Ceremony -
Find it difficult to understand. A young little girl had her dear of grey stone. Later she found another girl named Annie Dolben who happened to be performing a ceremony in honour of that stone and it continues by her joining too...
Psychology -
Mr. Dale with a pencil on his hand and a little scraps of paper and whatever comes in his mind he jotted that down. He observes the outside from his home, later a friend met him in his home named Mr. Jenyns and discuss about the fact of the psychology about a novelist...
Midsummer -
Leonard was hoping to find something that he longing for. Om the woods he waits for the thing he desired and when it finally came he knew about them instantly. Confusing read for me...
The White People -
Written in the late 1890s this short was really good as the early horror fiction. According to Wikipedia - The story has since been described as an important example of horror fiction, influencing generations of later writers...
Two man discussing the fact of what is evil and not. With the matter a Green Book appeared which was a girl's diary. She lives with her nurse. The nurse who happened to know many stories about secret world of folklore and black magic. In that diary the girl hints many unnatural things such as "nymphs", "Dôls", "voolas," "white, green, and scarlet ceremonies", "Aklo letters", the "Xu" and "Chian" languages, "Mao games", and a game called "Troy Town" and in the it end with fact of Witchcraft matter. But the girl's fate was not a pleasant story to know. It was of course devastating for her. So in the the conversation between those two ended by discussing the topics from that Green Book. I vote it as an OK horror fiction to read from my point of view...
The Bowmen -
Not much to say. Based on the 1st World War an English soldier calling help before death and he gets what he wanted...
The Monstrance -
Like The Bowmen story this one too begin with the scenery of 1st World War and then came Karl Heinz’s diary in which he written down about his days and how strange he was feeling to himself. He saw an old Priest and he couldn't believe if he is real or not and there's something about this priest that didn't seem quite right to him...
N -
Three old man sitting together recounting the events of London before the past of the town. They found a book named London Walk: Meditations in the Streets of the Metropolis. And thus the story going on. There's discussion of mysterious place, also discussing the thing there's maybe exist or not. Didn't find it much horror but an OK story for me...
The Tree of Life -
In Machen’s 1936 tale “The Tree of Life,” Teilo Morgan had a few boyhood years of health in the Welsh hills, but he’s stricken by sudden illness and becomes an invalid and recluse. Teilo’s father had been a rakehell before he discovered the young girl he took to himself and on whom he fathered the boy. Years later, an elderly clubman remembers him mourning his innocent son’s plight; “’He used to talk about his sins finding him out.’”
Teilo suffers mental impairment as well as ruined physical health. At his father’s direction, the boy’s tutor “teaches” him in such a way that learning is a delight, even if riddled with error. However, when the father dies, it turns out that the boy’s mother has no proof of marriage, and she and her son end up in a London slum. Later, Harry Morgan, who inherits the property, tracks them down, not in time to save the mother’s life, but bringing Teilo back to Wales, and instructing the estate agent, Captain Vaughan, to keep him in the illusion that he is lord of the property and to encourage him in his fanciful notions about agricultural improvement. Teilo loves thinking of clever innovations that will benefit everyone in the area, e.g. relating to growing pineapples, and talking his ideas over on Vaughan’s weekly visits. Vaughan plays his role right up to Teilo’s death, conjuring vivid images of the land round about, which Teilo relishes. (One thinks of the dog in Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary.”) The story ends with a strong affirmation of Vaughan and Morgan’s compassionate deception, voiced by a major who has listened to the story...
CHANGE -
This one I liked truly. Terrific, scary horror short fiction. Must read I say...
Ritual -
Another horrifying, scary and disturbing short horror from Arthur Machen...
Just a short horror tale to read. Good for passing your leisure time. But an OK story to read...
The Great God Pan -
Despite the fact that Stephen King stated this story as one of the best best unfortunately I didn't found it much potential. The story confused me. The moment I thought I got the idea of the story plot the moment I left confused again. I had checked double by reading the summary from wiki...
From wiki -
"Clarke agrees, somewhat unwillingly, to bear witness to a strange experiment performed by his friend, Dr. Raymond. The ultimate goal of the doctor is to open the mind of someone so that he may experience the spiritual world, an experience he notes the ancients called "seeing the great god Pan". He performs the experiment, which involves minor brain surgery, on a young woman named Mary. She awakens from the operation awed and terrified but quickly becomes "a hopeless idiot".
Years later, Clarke learns of a beautiful but sinister girl named Helen Vaughan, who is reported to have caused a series of mysterious happenings in her town. She spends much of her time in the woods near her house, and takes other children on prolonged twilight rambles in the countryside that disturb the parents of the town."...
After that there's more of God Pan and those sexual activity. God Pan a fallen angel and he did something to Mary. Anyway not reached my hype. But ok to read. Giving myself 3 out of 5 by rating...
The Inmost Light -
Through Salisbury Dysen get know of Mr. Black and Mrs. Bkack. Mrs. was dead but she was not normal human being but known as a good hearted and kind wife to Mr. Black. Dysen wanted to know the details of the cause about her death and he found out Mr. Black too was dead. There's something about that Opal linking with Mrs. Black's death...
Very good short tale that was...
The three impostors -
It is really difficult to read Arthur Machen sometimes if you what it means. This one I have read cost a while to finish. Nonetheless to say didn't enjoy it. Dysen meet someone in the London and explore the city to hear more stories from them. Though there's some eerie incident to read but the description ruin it all. Maybe this was not just my story to read, but despite the fact his work thoroughly praised by H. P Lovercraft and Stephen King sometimes it really difficult to dig in to his work. Better luck next time for me...
The Red Hand -
Dyson and Phillips are after the murder of Dr. Thomas Vivian. The murder of Vivian's was a mystery and they have to solve it, that's pretty much about the story, they found some clue but couldn't solve the real reason of the murder scene and the ending was kind of mystical. Quite a read I would say...
The Shining Pyramid -
This one is something that you should think of. Occult investigator Dyson called out by his friend Mr. Vaughan as he couldn't find out the mystery of those indescribable symbols that appears outside of his home. Meanwhile a girl named Annie Trevor been disappeared and there's no clue about where might she gone. All this made a conclusion in the end as there's something going on with that Shining Pyramid. Fairly good horror to read...
The idealist -
Living in Fulham, England Symonds lived in his occult private world that no one can divined. He needs to go home and it's getting dark out there at night. While reaching his own home he needs to do something or say create something. Quite a story that somehow difficult to understand...
Witchcraft -
Bit of a weird story, you almost could not understand anything of it despite the fact where that lady named Mrs. Wise done something for Miss Custance in the cottage to favour her needs of something! It was a picture but the very illustration of it didn't pleased the young lady Miss Custance...
The Ceremony -
Find it difficult to understand. A young little girl had her dear of grey stone. Later she found another girl named Annie Dolben who happened to be performing a ceremony in honour of that stone and it continues by her joining too...
Psychology -
Mr. Dale with a pencil on his hand and a little scraps of paper and whatever comes in his mind he jotted that down. He observes the outside from his home, later a friend met him in his home named Mr. Jenyns and discuss about the fact of the psychology about a novelist...
Midsummer -
Leonard was hoping to find something that he longing for. Om the woods he waits for the thing he desired and when it finally came he knew about them instantly. Confusing read for me...
The White People -
Written in the late 1890s this short was really good as the early horror fiction. According to Wikipedia - The story has since been described as an important example of horror fiction, influencing generations of later writers...
Two man discussing the fact of what is evil and not. With the matter a Green Book appeared which was a girl's diary. She lives with her nurse. The nurse who happened to know many stories about secret world of folklore and black magic. In that diary the girl hints many unnatural things such as "nymphs", "Dôls", "voolas," "white, green, and scarlet ceremonies", "Aklo letters", the "Xu" and "Chian" languages, "Mao games", and a game called "Troy Town" and in the it end with fact of Witchcraft matter. But the girl's fate was not a pleasant story to know. It was of course devastating for her. So in the the conversation between those two ended by discussing the topics from that Green Book. I vote it as an OK horror fiction to read from my point of view...
The Bowmen -
Not much to say. Based on the 1st World War an English soldier calling help before death and he gets what he wanted...
The Monstrance -
Like The Bowmen story this one too begin with the scenery of 1st World War and then came Karl Heinz’s diary in which he written down about his days and how strange he was feeling to himself. He saw an old Priest and he couldn't believe if he is real or not and there's something about this priest that didn't seem quite right to him...
N -
Three old man sitting together recounting the events of London before the past of the town. They found a book named London Walk: Meditations in the Streets of the Metropolis. And thus the story going on. There's discussion of mysterious place, also discussing the thing there's maybe exist or not. Didn't find it much horror but an OK story for me...
The Tree of Life -
In Machen’s 1936 tale “The Tree of Life,” Teilo Morgan had a few boyhood years of health in the Welsh hills, but he’s stricken by sudden illness and becomes an invalid and recluse. Teilo’s father had been a rakehell before he discovered the young girl he took to himself and on whom he fathered the boy. Years later, an elderly clubman remembers him mourning his innocent son’s plight; “’He used to talk about his sins finding him out.’”
Teilo suffers mental impairment as well as ruined physical health. At his father’s direction, the boy’s tutor “teaches” him in such a way that learning is a delight, even if riddled with error. However, when the father dies, it turns out that the boy’s mother has no proof of marriage, and she and her son end up in a London slum. Later, Harry Morgan, who inherits the property, tracks them down, not in time to save the mother’s life, but bringing Teilo back to Wales, and instructing the estate agent, Captain Vaughan, to keep him in the illusion that he is lord of the property and to encourage him in his fanciful notions about agricultural improvement. Teilo loves thinking of clever innovations that will benefit everyone in the area, e.g. relating to growing pineapples, and talking his ideas over on Vaughan’s weekly visits. Vaughan plays his role right up to Teilo’s death, conjuring vivid images of the land round about, which Teilo relishes. (One thinks of the dog in Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary.”) The story ends with a strong affirmation of Vaughan and Morgan’s compassionate deception, voiced by a major who has listened to the story...
CHANGE -
This one I liked truly. Terrific, scary horror short fiction. Must read I say...
Ritual -
Another horrifying, scary and disturbing short horror from Arthur Machen...
September 3, 2018
I did not finish. A real yawner. Not worth the time.
While I respect that this was a forefather of the horror genre, and bridged the gap between Poe and Lovecraft and the early masters of the genre, I could not get engaged in the stories. A lot of words, dialogue, but nothing was said. Most of them seemed plotless, with only a hint of a vagueness of something ever-so-slightly scary / morbid or terrible. I do not think these stories would scare a third grader. Not even the so-called great story of The Great God Pan.
In addition, the writing style was terrible, with paragraphs going on for pages and pages. I also did not like have the footnotes collected in the back of the book; they should have been at the "foot" (hence the label 'footnote').
There are thousands of books and stories. Billions of words, find something else to read.
While I respect that this was a forefather of the horror genre, and bridged the gap between Poe and Lovecraft and the early masters of the genre, I could not get engaged in the stories. A lot of words, dialogue, but nothing was said. Most of them seemed plotless, with only a hint of a vagueness of something ever-so-slightly scary / morbid or terrible. I do not think these stories would scare a third grader. Not even the so-called great story of The Great God Pan.
In addition, the writing style was terrible, with paragraphs going on for pages and pages. I also did not like have the footnotes collected in the back of the book; they should have been at the "foot" (hence the label 'footnote').
There are thousands of books and stories. Billions of words, find something else to read.
August 9, 2023
The Great God Pan, an absolutely dislocating story, not a modern horror by any means but disturbing and off-putting in its own right, especially upon reflection of what measures are taken to resolve the prevailing situations at the end of the tale.
Femme fatale of the most maddening type with Helen Vaughan, and the pseudo-science and mysticism mix was an interesting nugget!
Her appearances and precipitations gave off Whitechapel Vibes™️ - definitely written like traps and hidden-things then outright telling, giving a creeping and itching tone, and casting doubt on the characters within.
The White People, a tale recounting black magics and countryside mire and shades, I found I’m in two minds about it:
A) It definitely reads like the story of original sin, with Eve (The Diarist and Cotgrave) and the Serpent (Ambrose), posing the question of what does a sinner actually look like if you remove the artistic expressions and religiously fuelled hate, and more importantly that’s saints are defined by goodness (Embracing Naturalism) and sinners by badness (Breaking/Refusing Naturalism) - and how the line between beauty and horror is less a line and more of an experience with reality over some designated imperial fact;
“…if you think that you will be comforted by having it explained; you miss the point if you think that this has been about the arrival, not the journey.”
From this I took it literally; answers aren’t themselves forms of peace or temperance, but can be curses in their own ways too, especially with an unreliable narrator as the diarist is, with her head and mind swimming with fairytales and folklore, and that what we are supposed to feel, or have learned, from the story can only be found throughout the story rather than neatly wrapped in a bow at the end of the story.
B) Also reads along with a feeling of the Divine Feminine, if in a grotesque way, and the empowerment of womanhood, especially within a more sexually liberating context, but also mixed and muddled with the flavours of mysticism and arcane practice. Though, in the same vein, the same woman that take such power in their hands are burned as heretics, and even still the same woman whom the diarist trust, her Nurse, may herself be implicating and manipulating the diarist into participating with some form of ritual in the form of a sacrifice or fetish rather than an initiate to their coven by the end of the tale.
Like a darker and more perverse spin on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carol (If that man and anything he wrote or touched could stand to get anymore perverse somehow)
These two stories stood out to me the most, though the rest, and there are quite a lot rest, have each their own merits, and are equally nuanced and cleverly written to take you on one hell of an anti-modernist rabbit hole you’ll be stuck in !
Femme fatale of the most maddening type with Helen Vaughan, and the pseudo-science and mysticism mix was an interesting nugget!
Her appearances and precipitations gave off Whitechapel Vibes™️ - definitely written like traps and hidden-things then outright telling, giving a creeping and itching tone, and casting doubt on the characters within.
The White People, a tale recounting black magics and countryside mire and shades, I found I’m in two minds about it:
A) It definitely reads like the story of original sin, with Eve (The Diarist and Cotgrave) and the Serpent (Ambrose), posing the question of what does a sinner actually look like if you remove the artistic expressions and religiously fuelled hate, and more importantly that’s saints are defined by goodness (Embracing Naturalism) and sinners by badness (Breaking/Refusing Naturalism) - and how the line between beauty and horror is less a line and more of an experience with reality over some designated imperial fact;
“…if you think that you will be comforted by having it explained; you miss the point if you think that this has been about the arrival, not the journey.”
From this I took it literally; answers aren’t themselves forms of peace or temperance, but can be curses in their own ways too, especially with an unreliable narrator as the diarist is, with her head and mind swimming with fairytales and folklore, and that what we are supposed to feel, or have learned, from the story can only be found throughout the story rather than neatly wrapped in a bow at the end of the story.
B) Also reads along with a feeling of the Divine Feminine, if in a grotesque way, and the empowerment of womanhood, especially within a more sexually liberating context, but also mixed and muddled with the flavours of mysticism and arcane practice. Though, in the same vein, the same woman that take such power in their hands are burned as heretics, and even still the same woman whom the diarist trust, her Nurse, may herself be implicating and manipulating the diarist into participating with some form of ritual in the form of a sacrifice or fetish rather than an initiate to their coven by the end of the tale.
Like a darker and more perverse spin on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carol (If that man and anything he wrote or touched could stand to get anymore perverse somehow)
These two stories stood out to me the most, though the rest, and there are quite a lot rest, have each their own merits, and are equally nuanced and cleverly written to take you on one hell of an anti-modernist rabbit hole you’ll be stuck in !
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2024
Arthur Machen’s horror stories are absolutely worth a read, but are certainly, for better and for worse, of their time. The opening story in this collection, “The Lost Club,” is pretty underwhelming. It’s not bad, but while there’s horror to be found, it’s only there if you take a few moments to really stew over what you just read. It’s fine for what it is, but it hardly gets the reader excited for what’s to come.
It does, perhaps, do a good job of setting the reader’s expectations for what’s to come. I found that as a rule, Machen is not an author you can rush through – his horror is subtle, and can take a moment to sink in. I’m not convinced it lands for me, in 2024, as much as it might have in its time – horror has come a long way since the turn of the 20th century, as this collection demonstrates.
This said, Machen’s horror can in fact be quite impactful as you consider the implications of what little he writes, and what he suggests might exist based on what he hasn’t written. Indeed, after the relatively tame open, I thought this collection was largely a tremendous read.
After a slow start in “The Lost Club,” the reader is treated to the collection’s headliner, The Great God Pan, which is absolutely a highlight of the book. The title speaks to one of my favorite examples of what fascinates me most in Machen’s writing, a consistent association between the ancient Mediterranean and long lost, rightfully forgotten, thoroughly dangerous knowledge. The Greek god Pan’s name derives etymologically from words related to shepherding, yet in Machen’s time there was a false (if understandable) conflation between his name and the prefix pan-, meaning “all”. Thus, in the story, “to see the great god Pan” is to see everything, including the true nature of the universe – and I just really enjoy that idea. The story’s good besides, and its lineage shows in all sorts of newer horror stories (my favorite of which is Iosefka’s fate in Bloodborne).
Other highlights of the collection include The Three Imposters, a full-blown novel of many smaller stories, several of which I thought were Machen’s most unsettling, and “The White People,” which inspired me to read more of Machen after I found myself quite impressed with the story’s conclusion (and, upon rereading, impressed with many smaller moments along the way). Machen’s writing is also consistently richly detailed, even when its intent to unsettle doesn’t quite land (as I felt was the case in “N”). Most of these stories are held back to some degree by the backwards notions from Machen’s regarding other cultures and races, but that unfortunately just comes with the territory.
In all, however, with asterisks for its content, for its density, and for its ability (or lack thereof) to shock a modern reader, I would highly recommend this collection. At its finest, Arthur Machen’s writing remains deeply compelling even over a century later, and at its worst, it remains a noteworthy relic of its time.
It does, perhaps, do a good job of setting the reader’s expectations for what’s to come. I found that as a rule, Machen is not an author you can rush through – his horror is subtle, and can take a moment to sink in. I’m not convinced it lands for me, in 2024, as much as it might have in its time – horror has come a long way since the turn of the 20th century, as this collection demonstrates.
This said, Machen’s horror can in fact be quite impactful as you consider the implications of what little he writes, and what he suggests might exist based on what he hasn’t written. Indeed, after the relatively tame open, I thought this collection was largely a tremendous read.
After a slow start in “The Lost Club,” the reader is treated to the collection’s headliner, The Great God Pan, which is absolutely a highlight of the book. The title speaks to one of my favorite examples of what fascinates me most in Machen’s writing, a consistent association between the ancient Mediterranean and long lost, rightfully forgotten, thoroughly dangerous knowledge. The Greek god Pan’s name derives etymologically from words related to shepherding, yet in Machen’s time there was a false (if understandable) conflation between his name and the prefix pan-, meaning “all”. Thus, in the story, “to see the great god Pan” is to see everything, including the true nature of the universe – and I just really enjoy that idea. The story’s good besides, and its lineage shows in all sorts of newer horror stories (my favorite of which is Iosefka’s fate in Bloodborne).
Other highlights of the collection include The Three Imposters, a full-blown novel of many smaller stories, several of which I thought were Machen’s most unsettling, and “The White People,” which inspired me to read more of Machen after I found myself quite impressed with the story’s conclusion (and, upon rereading, impressed with many smaller moments along the way). Machen’s writing is also consistently richly detailed, even when its intent to unsettle doesn’t quite land (as I felt was the case in “N”). Most of these stories are held back to some degree by the backwards notions from Machen’s regarding other cultures and races, but that unfortunately just comes with the territory.
In all, however, with asterisks for its content, for its density, and for its ability (or lack thereof) to shock a modern reader, I would highly recommend this collection. At its finest, Arthur Machen’s writing remains deeply compelling even over a century later, and at its worst, it remains a noteworthy relic of its time.
June 8, 2025
okay i am home so time for the actual review lol. let me preface this by saying that i liked this so much i literally plan to buy a copy of it so i can reread whenever i want in the future, and also that i now want to read any of his stories that weren't in this collection & his autobiographical works as well.
this was particularly interesting to read having just finished a collection of ~20 lovecraft stories. certainly it was a collection of lovecraft's writing that was more heavily influenced by dunsany than by machen (that was more of the cthulhu pantheon), but even still i could see which of machen's ideas had made their way into lovecraft's writing, which was very fun. with lovecraft fresh in mind i think the thing i found most interesting in comparison with this collection is the difference in tone? yes, much of machen's work was horror, and yes it was the horror of redaction -- the unspeakable, unnamable, that eldritch horror which is so horrifying it cannot be described for which lovecraft is so infamous -- that has since become so popular in horror as a whole. and yet the actual tone of the writing could not be more different.
there's something very light and playful about machen's writing, the way the stories are arranged, the word choices. even in the lighter, more dreamy of lovecraft's writing i always got the feeling that he was looking down on the reader, a kind of innate sense of superiority that permeated the vast majority of lovecraft's work. a lot of this i think genuinely comes from their vastly different belief systems-- machen, for all that he was a devout christian, was fascinated by the world around him, with the occult, with alchemy, with the recently discovered "deep history" of earth. his writing is filled with genuine wonder, love of the welsh country of his youth & the london city of his adulthood (poverty-stricken though it was). this is not to say that there was never any condescension in machen's writing -- it certainly showed itself on a few occasions when describing more lower-class citizens, especially those who were not white -- but contrasting those instances with lovecraft, who for all that his work revolved around the occult & sublime dreamscapes seemed to so heavily disdain anyone who actually still possessed that sense of whimsy, it is noticeable indeed. the source of so much of machen's horror is, at least for me, in choices of callous human cruelty ("I rescued Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation ... I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit," says the adoptive father in the opening of "the great god pan," moments before he performs experimental brain surgery on a young girl to test if by doing so whether it will allow her to see into the realm of the gods; the abhorrent glee with which professor gregg watches a disabled boy experience horrible seizures in "the novel of the black seal" so that he can use said boy to access the fae worlds under the hill) & the terrible fates that befall all involved as a result. there is, of course, woven in and around these casual human evils the horror of satanism, and the fae, and creatures from the dark ages, but those, too, are powered by the love machen has for his native country. lovecraft was a nihilist, and frankly i think a miserable man, and most of his horror is based on the idea that we live in a cold, uncaring universe, and things outside that universe that are more vast & unknowable & hungry than we can imagine, for some reason, hate & wish to play with us. also he hates humor & fun (yes i am still angry about "the silver key")
anyway
one last thing & i will stop talking about lovecraft: dyson as a character cracks me up, bc he shows up so frequently throughout this that it feels as though he is in some ways machen's randolph carter (or, perhaps more accurately, randolph carter is lovecraft's mr. dyson?). except that instead of being yog-sothoth's special princess he is just some random guy who stumbles upon weird & fascinating mysteries -- unexplained disappearances, unusual relics, etc etc -- & somehow manages to sherlock holmes his way to an answer, even if we as the reader don't always get the whole picture. it was extremely fun & i loved him.
moving on!
god okay actually. one more thing & i swear i'm done. that issue i had with lovecraft where even when i was enjoying the writing it felt like they took me forever to read? not an issue here. this was a joy to read. it was very accessible, with lyrical but very clear prose. the novellas do require careful, thoughtful reading, to keep track of all the moving parts, and you do have to be comfortable with horror & fantasy mystery that will leave you with as many questions as answers in the end; but the writing itself is very easy to follow. the structure of the novellas was also just extremely fun & interesting; the further i got into "the great god pan," the more pieces i put together, the more fun i had. "the three impostors" was WILD, and i absolutely need to reread it at least once bc there were so many interlocking parts that i absolutely missed some of them, & the slow realization towards the end of it was so, so good. it also featured one of the scenes that gave me genuine irl goosebumps, which as usual was a delight. the only issue i had with the writing itself was that he wrote some...extraordinarily long paragraphs. they're not a constant plague, thank god (i have ADHD bro i need line breaks), but there was one paragraph that literally spanned 15+ pages without a break. thank god i read this on actual physical paper, bc i think if i had to read an ebook of that i would black out
one last note: i was too excited to actually get to the stories when i first cracked this open to read the introduction, but i finished this at work today & wanted to sit with it a bit before i wrote my review to gather my thoughts, & so i went back & actually read the introduction. this was 100% worth reading, altho idk if it worked better for me that i read it last. there's a lot of stuff i missed in my reading that i learned from this that made me enjoy several of the shorter pieces more in retrospect.
all that said, i'm excited to read more of his work in the future, and to come back to this again later
just remembered another thing i wanted to add: the notes in this are a mixed bag. sometimes they'd give me very cool info, good context or history behind a line or a reference, & then other times i would check out a note & it would be like "architectural terms" after a series of what was obviously -- try not to perish from the shock of it -- architectural terms. idk man. i think you can trust your reader, someone who is able to follow along with "the three impostors" & all its arabesques, to be able to use their brains enough to gather context clues from the sentence around it & discern that a term they perhaps had not heard before was, in this case, obviously an architectural one. just throwing that out there
this was particularly interesting to read having just finished a collection of ~20 lovecraft stories. certainly it was a collection of lovecraft's writing that was more heavily influenced by dunsany than by machen (that was more of the cthulhu pantheon), but even still i could see which of machen's ideas had made their way into lovecraft's writing, which was very fun. with lovecraft fresh in mind i think the thing i found most interesting in comparison with this collection is the difference in tone? yes, much of machen's work was horror, and yes it was the horror of redaction -- the unspeakable, unnamable, that eldritch horror which is so horrifying it cannot be described for which lovecraft is so infamous -- that has since become so popular in horror as a whole. and yet the actual tone of the writing could not be more different.
there's something very light and playful about machen's writing, the way the stories are arranged, the word choices. even in the lighter, more dreamy of lovecraft's writing i always got the feeling that he was looking down on the reader, a kind of innate sense of superiority that permeated the vast majority of lovecraft's work. a lot of this i think genuinely comes from their vastly different belief systems-- machen, for all that he was a devout christian, was fascinated by the world around him, with the occult, with alchemy, with the recently discovered "deep history" of earth. his writing is filled with genuine wonder, love of the welsh country of his youth & the london city of his adulthood (poverty-stricken though it was). this is not to say that there was never any condescension in machen's writing -- it certainly showed itself on a few occasions when describing more lower-class citizens, especially those who were not white -- but contrasting those instances with lovecraft, who for all that his work revolved around the occult & sublime dreamscapes seemed to so heavily disdain anyone who actually still possessed that sense of whimsy, it is noticeable indeed. the source of so much of machen's horror is, at least for me, in choices of callous human cruelty ("I rescued Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation ... I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit," says the adoptive father in the opening of "the great god pan," moments before he performs experimental brain surgery on a young girl to test if by doing so whether it will allow her to see into the realm of the gods; the abhorrent glee with which professor gregg watches a disabled boy experience horrible seizures in "the novel of the black seal" so that he can use said boy to access the fae worlds under the hill) & the terrible fates that befall all involved as a result. there is, of course, woven in and around these casual human evils the horror of satanism, and the fae, and creatures from the dark ages, but those, too, are powered by the love machen has for his native country. lovecraft was a nihilist, and frankly i think a miserable man, and most of his horror is based on the idea that we live in a cold, uncaring universe, and things outside that universe that are more vast & unknowable & hungry than we can imagine, for some reason, hate & wish to play with us. also he hates humor & fun (yes i am still angry about "the silver key")
anyway
one last thing & i will stop talking about lovecraft: dyson as a character cracks me up, bc he shows up so frequently throughout this that it feels as though he is in some ways machen's randolph carter (or, perhaps more accurately, randolph carter is lovecraft's mr. dyson?). except that instead of being yog-sothoth's special princess he is just some random guy who stumbles upon weird & fascinating mysteries -- unexplained disappearances, unusual relics, etc etc -- & somehow manages to sherlock holmes his way to an answer, even if we as the reader don't always get the whole picture. it was extremely fun & i loved him.
moving on!
god okay actually. one more thing & i swear i'm done. that issue i had with lovecraft where even when i was enjoying the writing it felt like they took me forever to read? not an issue here. this was a joy to read. it was very accessible, with lyrical but very clear prose. the novellas do require careful, thoughtful reading, to keep track of all the moving parts, and you do have to be comfortable with horror & fantasy mystery that will leave you with as many questions as answers in the end; but the writing itself is very easy to follow. the structure of the novellas was also just extremely fun & interesting; the further i got into "the great god pan," the more pieces i put together, the more fun i had. "the three impostors" was WILD, and i absolutely need to reread it at least once bc there were so many interlocking parts that i absolutely missed some of them, & the slow realization towards the end of it was so, so good. it also featured one of the scenes that gave me genuine irl goosebumps, which as usual was a delight. the only issue i had with the writing itself was that he wrote some...extraordinarily long paragraphs. they're not a constant plague, thank god (i have ADHD bro i need line breaks), but there was one paragraph that literally spanned 15+ pages without a break. thank god i read this on actual physical paper, bc i think if i had to read an ebook of that i would black out
one last note: i was too excited to actually get to the stories when i first cracked this open to read the introduction, but i finished this at work today & wanted to sit with it a bit before i wrote my review to gather my thoughts, & so i went back & actually read the introduction. this was 100% worth reading, altho idk if it worked better for me that i read it last. there's a lot of stuff i missed in my reading that i learned from this that made me enjoy several of the shorter pieces more in retrospect.
all that said, i'm excited to read more of his work in the future, and to come back to this again later
just remembered another thing i wanted to add: the notes in this are a mixed bag. sometimes they'd give me very cool info, good context or history behind a line or a reference, & then other times i would check out a note & it would be like "architectural terms" after a series of what was obviously -- try not to perish from the shock of it -- architectural terms. idk man. i think you can trust your reader, someone who is able to follow along with "the three impostors" & all its arabesques, to be able to use their brains enough to gather context clues from the sentence around it & discern that a term they perhaps had not heard before was, in this case, obviously an architectural one. just throwing that out there
February 17, 2020
When I saw the remake of Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, there was mention of Arthur Machen in the movie. It was said he wrote about fairies as frightening little creatures, much like the twisted malevolent little shits in the movie.
At the time I dismissed Machen as a small player in the world of horror/weird fiction. This was ignorance on my part simply because he didn’t have the name recognition like a Poe or Lovecraft. But there are many wonderful writers out there that unfortunately aren’t heard of much these days, and Machen is one of them. It turns out that Stephen King thinks The Great God Pan is one of the best horror stories in English. Also Lovecraft was a big fan of The White People.
These are two amazing tales in this collection, with their eeriness and sense of otherworldliness.
The Welsh author evokes a sense of mystery and danger with his lovely depictions of the woods and meadows of Britain.
There are other wonderful stories in this collection, including The Shining Pyramid, The Three Imposters, and N.
Of course there’s a few tales that are more forgetful.
After finishing this book, I took a peak at the Penguin edition of Machen’s works. Although I haven’t read its stories, imagine my surprise when I noticed that the Forward was written by non other than Guillermo Del Toro. No wonder he included Machen’s ideas in his movie; he’s a fan.
You might be too after reading his works.
At the time I dismissed Machen as a small player in the world of horror/weird fiction. This was ignorance on my part simply because he didn’t have the name recognition like a Poe or Lovecraft. But there are many wonderful writers out there that unfortunately aren’t heard of much these days, and Machen is one of them. It turns out that Stephen King thinks The Great God Pan is one of the best horror stories in English. Also Lovecraft was a big fan of The White People.
These are two amazing tales in this collection, with their eeriness and sense of otherworldliness.
The Welsh author evokes a sense of mystery and danger with his lovely depictions of the woods and meadows of Britain.
There are other wonderful stories in this collection, including The Shining Pyramid, The Three Imposters, and N.
Of course there’s a few tales that are more forgetful.
After finishing this book, I took a peak at the Penguin edition of Machen’s works. Although I haven’t read its stories, imagine my surprise when I noticed that the Forward was written by non other than Guillermo Del Toro. No wonder he included Machen’s ideas in his movie; he’s a fan.
You might be too after reading his works.
Read
September 3, 2020I tried to find courage in the sweet air that blew up from the sea, and in the sunlight after rain, but the mystic woods seemed to darken around me; and the vision of the river coiling between the reeds, and the silver grey of the ancient bridge, fashioned in my mind symbols of vague dread, as the mind of a child fashions terror from things harmless and familiar.
The Lost Club * * *
The Great God Pan * * * *
The Inmost Light * * *
The Three Impostors * * * * *
The Red Hand * * * *
The Shining Pyramid * * * * *
The Turanians * * * *
The Idealist * *
Witchcraft * * *
The Ceremony * * * *
Psychology * *
Midsummer * * * *
The White People * * * *
The Bowmen * * *
The Monstrance * * *
N * *
The Tree of Life * * *
Change * * *
Ritual * * *
The Lost Club * * *
The Great God Pan * * * *
The Inmost Light * * *
The Three Impostors * * * * *
The Red Hand * * * *
The Shining Pyramid * * * * *
The Turanians * * * *
The Idealist * *
Witchcraft * * *
The Ceremony * * * *
Psychology * *
Midsummer * * * *
The White People * * * *
The Bowmen * * *
The Monstrance * * *
N * *
The Tree of Life * * *
Change * * *
Ritual * * *
June 4, 2020
I don't know why Arthur Machen isn't more well known in Britain, this book alone shows just how influential he has been on horror and fantasy in general. The influences on Lovecraft in particular are very obvious, but the stories are just as good (and Machen is definitely less problematic). As with any short story collection, it can be a bit hit and miss, but the hits are so good, it makes it worth it. Particular highlights for me were The Three Imposters, The White People, Change, and obviously The Great God Pan.
April 16, 2023
Introduction by Aaron Worth ✔
THE TALES:
The Lost Club 3⭐
The Great God Pan 5⭐
The Inmost Light 3.75⭐
The Three Impostors 5⭐
The Red Hand 3.5⭐
The Shining Pyramid 3.5⭐
The Turanians 3.25⭐
The Idealist 3.5⭐
Witchcraft 3⭐
The Ceremony 4⭐
Psychology 3⭐
The White People 3.5⭐
The Bowmen 3⭐
The Monstrance 4⭐
N 3.5⭐
The Tree of Life 3⭐
Change 3⭐
Ritual 4⭐
THE TALES:
The Lost Club 3⭐
The Great God Pan 5⭐
The Inmost Light 3.75⭐
The Three Impostors 5⭐
The Red Hand 3.5⭐
The Shining Pyramid 3.5⭐
The Turanians 3.25⭐
The Idealist 3.5⭐
Witchcraft 3⭐
The Ceremony 4⭐
Psychology 3⭐
The White People 3.5⭐
The Bowmen 3⭐
The Monstrance 4⭐
N 3.5⭐
The Tree of Life 3⭐
Change 3⭐
Ritual 4⭐
February 28, 2020
Una maravillosa selección de relatos que beben de las tradiciones antiguas y retratan escenarios en que éstas se mezclan con el mundo racional de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX en Reino Unido. Los ecos de poderes antiguos y reinos olvidados parecen resonar distantes, para luego provocar efectos dramáticos en las aparentemente predecibles vidas del hombre moderno. El misterio está siempre presente, aunque no lo veamos, y sus terribles maravillas justo doblando la esquina.
October 27, 2018
4 1/4 stars
October 22, 2024
Arthur Machen 🤝 the usage of the word ‘queer’
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