Buddy Read: The Web of Easter Island

[Dan]

For January 2021, in addition to the poll winner from mid-December, which I imagine many of us might read, I wanted to offer this unusual buddy read, one I'll be pleasantly surprised if anyone else cares to join me in reading.

Why will I be surprised? Well, there are several reasons:

1) The author is by no means a household name in fiction, not even in the niche of Weird Fiction. He's frankly been long dead and largely forgotten. Even when he hasn't been, his fiction is usually overlooked and misunderstood. He also suffers from being a dead white male, a feature not helpful these days for emerging from obscurity.

2) The book has few raves. Even here on GoodReads, the average from the 46 people who rated it, is an uninspiring 3.24. The 13 reviewers who bother to write anything about the book mostly pan it. The reviews are mixed at best.

3) The book has been out of print since 1948, and even when it was printed, I think the run was for only 3,000 copies total. It was reprinted in the UK in 1961 or 1962, but copies of that paperback are even rarer than the first edition hardback (1948). Even though there's practically no demand for the book, that scarcity means one has to pay at least $60 for one of those used out of print copies in order to read it.

So why am I recommending this book?

1) Donald Wandrei wrote in a unique style. It doesn't work for me in every case, but it never fails to surprise and engage. If you're wondering whether his style might be for you, or not, I recommend obtaining this month's group read. It has his short story, "The Red Brain." His "Raiders of the Universes," straight science fiction, is available for free on Kindle, but I don't recommend this story. If you decide to read it anyway, his uniqueness of style really shows through. Who writes with no dialog the way he does the first half, yet makes the premise so interesting?

2) It's Lovecraftian horror. Some love it. Others don't. The book has high points and low points apparently. From what I've read the highs are very high. I'm buying it for that.

3) This year a company based in India whose services I've used before and been very happy with for other books has begun offering to reprint this book (on demand) for $28.97 plus tax, which for me is precisely $31.00, and includes shipping. The reprinted edition is an exact facsimile of the 1948 Arkham House edition inside beautiful hardback covers. It takes a while for the book to reach its destination once ordered since it comes from India, 3-4 weeks typically, but the quality of the book's publishing is really good: sturdy, and on high quality paper. It's well worth the wait. I've ordered my replica. If you're interested, they are sold on AbeBooks.com. You can search there on "The Web Of Easter Island 1948 [Leather Bound]" if you want to order your copy. Otherwise, you can buy a used original 1948 copy for about $60 and up.

Let's start this strange Weird Fiction read on January 1, 2021.

[Zina]

Sounds fun! I'll join!

[Dan]

Great! I just found out this is Donald Wandrei's only novel. I'm really surprised by that.

[Dan]

I just got my copy of The Web of Easter Island in, a reproduction of the Arkham House original (1948) mailed from India, a photocopy it looks like, in a beautiful, solid leather binding with high quality paper and even a bookmark ribbon like you find in Bibles. No dustjacket.

I read the first two chapters and am into the third. It is astonishingly well-written and an amazing story so far. From the reviews others have written here at Goodreads I wonder if we are reading the same book. Maybe they don't know how to appreciate or perhaps understand classic weird.

This is not a difficult book. The graveyard in these early chapters is treated almost as a character. It seems to be trying to establish a portal into our dimension and in order to release horrors that kill people in gruesome ways, it needs help by unsuspecting people picking up totems. I think the actual true protagonist gets introduced in Chapter 2, a man by the name of Graham Carter, who is investigating these phenomena. I'm wondering, as we observe its progress with increasing horror, if the antagonist is the graveyard itself.

This is truly an incredible book (so far), well-paced, clear in its narrative, and building the suspense through interesting human characters and locale. I wonder if all or most of the books Arkham House was putting out at this time were of similar high quality?

Edit: Did a little research and discovered this was the fourth full length novel to be published by Arkham House, established in 1939. The first is Witch House by Evangeline Walton (1945). Hmm. So many negative reviews, ones that might be again from people who simply don't get Weird. Perhaps a book that's an acquired taste? Nominate it for group read, or are its negatives too high? A later buddy read instead perhaps for the most devoted aficionados?

[Dan]

I just finished Donald Wandrei's novel. Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...