Welcome, once more, dear friends to the second meeting of our most dreadful story club. Though tomorrow may be (for some) a good Friday, this evening we hope to enjoy a most wicked Thursday.
After the previous session, in which we gazed fearlessly into a terrible face of crumpled linen, we paddle our canoe in the direction of Algernon Blackwood and the cosmic, elemental horror of "The Willows".
The story - in which two travelling companions journey into a wilderness, and there find a spot where our world and an (awesome & terrifying) otherworld intersect - is based heavily on Blackwood's own adventures. In the summers of 1900 and 1901 he took two trips down the Danube (the second with his friend Wilfred Wilson) and chronicled his experiences in a two-part essay (imaginatively titled) "Down the Danube in a Canadian Canoe".1
While those "real life" trips must certainly have helped Blackwood create a credible sense of space & place, the almost overwhelming terrors that the narrator and "the Swede" are forced to try and comprehend (and escape from) appear solely the protean products of Blackwood's fertile imagination. Or at least we hope so…
By the way, despite previous statements to the contrary we're not going to be posting a list of "observations" for you to riff off and react to. This is partly because I couldn't figure out how to phrase them so they wouldn't threaten to lead the conversation in slightly tedious directions. The more important reason is that hardly anyone emailed us any!
So, like last time, the stage is yours to say whatever tickles (and terrifies) your various fancies. Crack open the good stuff, dim the lights, kiss your loved ones goodbye (for a few hours at least) and let's get chatting.
Begin.
- Joshi, S.T. in (Blackwood's) Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories (USA: Penguin, 2002), p. 353. [back]
First things first. I’ve gone for the Monastier 2007 Shiraz from Dunne’s. 6.99 a bottle was what lured me to it and so far I’d say my decision has been vindicated (though ask me in the morning).
What are you having yourselves?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:02 pmI wish. I’m still in the dry world of first pregnancy and now breastfeeding. And the worst thing is, my husband no longer works in an off license, so when I go back to drinking I’ll have to buy it! Horrific!
I did sample some dreamy chocolate bailey’s type cream liquer in Superquinn today, though: mmmmm I’d be drinking a pint of that with an umberella in it if I could.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:06 pmhey, do I have to keep refreshing or will new comments pop up?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:08 pmJo, the dry world sounds like a grim and terrible place! As does a pint of cream liqueur, but each to their own.
RE: comments, you’ll need to refresh. Few latecomers to the party tonight I’ve been told but we’ll keep their seats warm.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:12 pmYou’re right, I wouldn’t really drink a pint of it, not all at once anyway :)
March 20th, 2008 at 8:14 pmAlright, I might pop to the kitchen and have a dinner discussion. I was plannign to make it, but I ralise now I’m not!
If no-one else has started rolling the ball I will when I return.
Am here…bit late but of course the boys decide to get hungry just at 8! Have the bottle of Zubrowka Bison Vodka from Tesco…nice bite!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:16 pmI’ll start the ball rolling. I very much enjoyed the attempts of the story’s narrator to grasp what was terrifyingly ungraspable.
His desperation:
The Swede’s vicious retort:
A nice reversal considering the way that the Swede had been set up as the stolid and practical one.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:18 pmsigh… vodka…
So anyway.
I thought the opening of the story was very picturesque - pretty, soothing descriptions of the landscape, nicely written.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:19 pmWelcome, Tim. Zubrowka Bison Vodka? You’re taking it to hard-core places. Fair play!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:19 pmoops.
heh, my anti-spam word is ‘grape’ - rubbing it in!
I don’t know. I found all that a bit, unsatisfying, unconvincing. Perhaps because it was so wordy? It all seemed a bit irrelevant given the inconclusive nature of hte account in the end.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:22 pmIs tea acceptable? It is fairtrade, so that should help me to feel a tinge of moral superiority. I just don’t feel like drinking tonight. I don’t want to open a bottle of wine because I shall never finish it. I have a bottle of rum, but I cannot be bothered to go out to buy cola to go with it…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:23 pmI agree, though I reckon some contemporary readers might find it a little long-winded. For me, though, this careful construction of place was essential to the effectiveness of the horror that later unfolded.
I like the fact that it wasn’t a typical space for horror - no Gothic castles, or crumbling mansions in evidence. Of course the fact that they’re on a disintegrating island helps create a certain feeling of confinement in what would otherwise be a vast, open environment.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:23 pmYes surprised by the reversal and how he used imagery that didnt have a defined shape in order to try to explain how terrifying it was…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:25 pmYeah hard-core but have food intolerances and migraines from wine so its the easiest option:-)
March 20th, 2008 at 8:26 pmRe reversal of roles - yes that struck me too…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:27 pmYes, I liked the change from benign to hostile environment.
And the idea of wilderness, one you could starve in, was good.
What didn’t work for me so well was the fact that the Swede was so clued in but didn’t leave - I didn’t buy the idea so much that they would be noticed if they left, when they were moving round anyway. If the force/entity whatever could find their porridge oats, why not them!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:27 pmIthaca, tea is always acceptable (said he like Aunt Augusta).
Jo, an interesting point about the inconclusiveness. I get what you mean but given the delicate and ambiguous nature of the horror I guess I feel too emphatic and ending would have been out of place.
When I first read it I was convinced that the body they thought they saw rolling in the waters earlier was “the Swede” (seen, by way of time distortion, in their future) and that the frantically waving figure might have been the narrator. Doesn’t seem to have been Blackwood’s intention however…
Whadya think?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:28 pmDid anyone feel terrified?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:28 pmThe beginning was a bit long winded but agree that it was necessary to set up the story…and the wind again (as in the dream sequence in the last story) I think is one of the things that sets the atmosphere quite well…and then the absence of it sets the eerie tone in which the characters are left with hearing the minute noises that really set the paranoia levels high!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:31 pmHmm, I need to read it again - I’ve been a bit confused by the body and the figure in the boat.
But it was a strange boat, not theirs… it seemed they thought the boat man wasn’t real - but then who was the body. Was it a second body, not the one they thought was an otter? It msut have been, or there would have been no sacrifice.
Again, I found there to be a lot of repetition of action that weakened the impact. Horror - calm - terror (hmm, dinner) - more horror!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:31 pmJo, I seem to remember (though I could be wrong) that their decision not to leave was based more on practical concerns - night falling, the river’s ferocity and so on.
RE: the entity(s) finding their gear/food and not them…not sure. There’s an established folk tradition of fairies and otherwordly beings pinching stuff so maybe this was a case of that!
My feeling was that the entities couldn’t really do anything to the two of them. They could prevent them from leaving, and terrify the bejaysus out of them, but nothing more physical. I think.
The “sacrifice” spoken of in the story seems to have been something one had to do voluntarily - i.e a suicide.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:34 pmFustar said:
“I like the fact that it wasn’t a typical space for horror - no Gothic castles, or crumbling mansions in evidence. Of course the fact that they’re on a disintegrating island helps create a certain feeling of confinement in what would otherwise be a vast, open environment.”
Maybe it was nothing more than the sort of panic that I believe people sometimes feel in remote places but then maybe not. Perhaps they were in a haunted place, but haunted by what? That is one of the things I liked about the story - one cannot be sure that he was describing a supernatural event.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:35 pmWouldn’t say that I felt terrified but I certainly felt gripped…couldnt stop reading.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:36 pmHadn’t thought of the time distortion issue but thought that they were simply hallucinations of some nature meant to show the beginning of their slipping into a different realm
No Jo, I didn’t feel terrified, but I think that Blackwood did convey a sense of awe…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:36 pmTim, I actually found that distant (but huge) ‘gonging’ noise really freaky! There’s a nice contrast between the violent, chaotic horror of the wind scenes and the holding-one’s-breath, silent, listening horror of the ‘gong’ bits.
The latter reminds me of those moments when one stood at the top of the stairs (as a child) straining to hear and identify the creaking and groaning of house sounds!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:38 pmI wondered what the sacrifice would turn out to be and speculated that perhaps one would have to kill the other before the survivor could leave the island.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:40 pmYes, it was definitely otherworldy. The idea of humans being tiny and insignificant to the greater forces. I wasn’t sure where the ascending bonze beings came from, or came in?
But what about the little roundy whorls on the ‘victim’? The body had been attacked and burnt hadn’t it?
I think the fear came from the idea of the hostility - being in a place where you were neither significant nor welcome.
I also thought the claustrophobia and fear of being in a tent while strange stuff is going on outside was good - that was the scariest bit for me - the pressure, the wind, the not knowing. But then nothing was revealed, it was all unknown, the vague shapes.. it seemed a little too lazy for me. But then I was always frustrated by the inconclusive, XFiles style ending :)
March 20th, 2008 at 8:41 pmOh, yes, Ithica, that struck me too - there seemed to be quite a few moments where they were going to have crazed and paranoid standoffs, like Mr Burns and Homer in the chalet
March 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pmHo! While that’s a pretty hilarious summary I think that it actually describes pretty well what having that experience might actually be like. One has a bizarre and terrifying experience at night that seems absolutely real. The following morning, when all is light and birds are twittering (and you’re cooking the breakfast), that conviction starts to fade and the sense of having imagined something returns.
Of course, that doesn’t seem to be the case for the Swede. He appears to have remained convinced of the reality of his experience throughout.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pmSorry, Ithaca
March 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pmI suppose the contrast between the awe and beauty and terror and hostility was pretty good.
If it had been you out on the sand at night, would you not have awakened your big Swedish mate for comfort! Perhaps I just didn’t identify with the author.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:46 pmAye silence is great for getting the imagination going! It’s why I listen to so much music;-)
I liked the way that he used the imagery of the entities as well- with undefined shape and lines with the initial sighting and then to the description of the holes…so your mind is left to imagine what type of creature would leave these. Probably slightly spoiled with the proliferation of sci fi films these days but can imagine the type of effect this would have had when first written!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:46 pmI suppose the point was that it wasn’t necessarily horror-y like we’re used to - just other
March 20th, 2008 at 8:48 pmtss, not author, narrator
March 20th, 2008 at 8:49 pm@Jo- I think I would have definitely woken up the camping buddy! Maybe I have been camping too much near beaches in the States and using those types of canoes- but I could identify with the story. Being out in the middle of nowhere in Maine and knowing the isolation stays with you!
March 20th, 2008 at 8:51 pmJo, you’re touching on an important point! My brother used often complain, when we were younger, about the X-Files constant forestalling of a definitive truth. I used to agree. Now I’m a bit older and a bit less sure of myself I feel differently! Having rewatched the whole show recently I found the most annoying episodes to be the ones where they chucked ambiguity out the window.
In other words, I guess I now appreciate open-endedness and a sense that things can never be definitively answered. If I didn’t, I’d be busy being a Right-Wing Christian!
Re: the bronze beings - I took their appearance to indicate that the “entities” that were pressing against our reality could be visualised differently depending on the individual imagination.
That may be key actually, for I don’t remember any scene where it was suggested that the narrator and “the Swede” were witnessing/experiencing the same thing.
The same force may have been acting on them - but their conceptions of it (and understanding of it) seemed quite different.
Ithaca, Was that a deliberate bluff though? Weren’t we supposed to think that one would kill the other or that one would walk into the river and drown himself. It nearly happened with the Swede?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:53 pmAye agree that it wasn’t really a ghost story as in a haunting but more of a unexplainable supernatural tale
March 20th, 2008 at 8:53 pmI think that is a mature view, about the open-endedness. It’s realistic, anyhow.
Tim, even imagining you on your camping tips in the wilderness makes the story more real for me.
I used to get scared just going out to close the door on the hens when I was younger. So being on a deserted beach would probably be enough to scare me, wind or willows notwithstanding ( I wonder if Kenneth Graham had read it?).
March 20th, 2008 at 8:57 pmWe’re getting into Mills & Boon territory here!
“He fluttered open those deep icy blue eyes and leaned in to embrace me…”
Lord save us!
Another drop of Shiraz needed to cool me down…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:58 pmI liked the way that the experience seemed to be different for each of the characters since it left you feeling a bit unbalanced on what was actually going to happen. If they were both visualising the same thing they could act against it but when you weren’t sure what each of them was experiencing you didnt know what they were going to do next…especially with the Swede since I wasn’t sure if he was actually possesed at one stage or had just gone over the edge into madness.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:58 pmHaha- yes when I first started reading it and realized it was two guys the subtext for the modern reader is not good!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:00 pmI think being open ended did help…might have even been better if there wasn’t the body at the end and that way it would have left it more in the mind than having the physical proof that there was ’something’ out there.
Yeah- being isolated in Maine with only a radio as communication was an experience! They would have waited a few days of no contact before coming to look for you so not exactly a comforting thought when you are canoeing down rapids!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:05 pmVeering away a little (from gay romance!) I found this passage particularly striking RE: the whole idea of multiple overlapping realities etc:
I don’t know how many of you have read Lovecraft, but I think the influence Blackwood had upon him is absolutely transparent here.
We’re moving away from terrestrial horrors (horrors we can understand or classify in some way) to something altogether outside of time, space and our comprehension.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:06 pmhee, How many Swedes does it take to screw in a tent?
I like how he was big in stature and calm and authoritative, even when afraid, and the narrator seemed like the little dog yapping at his tail.
The Swede is unexplained too - I’d like to know how he was such an authority on matters of the mystic universe. It seemed a bit coincidental, that he would arrive in this place, with such bizarre goings on, and have thought all about it all his life.
However, I like your points about them having diverse experiences, that’s not the right word, but yes, it makes more sense.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:07 pm“If it had been you out on the sand at night, would you not have awakened your big Swedish mate for comfort!”
“We’re getting into Mills & Boon territory here!”
What Jo’s comment suggested to me wasn’t exactly Mills and Boon, but lets not go down that route!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:07 pmfústar, I think that made it less horrific for me. That it wasn’t a bogeyman, or a manifestation of our subconscious in the way the gothic stories often are.
But because of that I wasn’t so convinced by the moment when whatever it is comes looking for them.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:10 pmIt’s a different kind of horror, ’tis true, and one that thrived in the early 20th century (though it’s now particularly associated with Lovecraft).
Another perfect summary of it comes from “The Swede” towards the end:
This could be seen as an attack on Victorian, scientific ways of classifying and understanding (while getting a dig in at established religion too). There’s a (horrific?) sense of utter powerlessness and hopelessness here.
Of course, twist that slightly another way and you’ve got a powerful sense of awe.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:17 pmThe awe makes more sense to me. Though I would certainly think the fear is an appropriate response. But the menace doesn’t fit for me. If whatever the primal forces are, are so unconcerned with and unaware of humanity, why would they need their sacrifice?
It’s very windy tonight, isn’t it?
March 20th, 2008 at 9:21 pmSorry had some chastisement to dole out there…kids are so much fun!
Think that the idea of a sacrifice was good in the fact that you thought that they were going to turn on one another- so at least it brought in another possible twist…although as I said earlier I dont think that having the sacrifice at the end was particulary effective.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:30 pmGood point, Jo! Perhaps a clue lies in this extract:
Hard to interpret this, but it’s notable that “The Swede” is really the only one who continually alludes to sacrifice - and, indeed, tries to sacrifice himself.
Perhaps these unknowable beings are eternal and are just attracted to the idea of death and mortality in a cold and distant way…
P.S: Yes it is windy! It was pretty bleak for our last get-together too!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:31 pmHaven’t read much Lovecraft that I recall- problems with anthologies that I would have read 20+ years ago is that I just can’t remember until I happen to re-read one!
On a seperate note- went into Chapters today and they had a few copies of The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories…6.99 and in the Irish Section of course;-) Not sure if that was the one mentioned somewhere previously but it had the cover that was over on Sineads page.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:33 pmHmmm not windy out here at all but eerily silent…possibly in the eye of the storm! Would like to think that its the get-togethers that cause it but the weather in the last few weeks has been just dreadful…with a few days of respite.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:36 pmDoes anyone think it might have been a better story with more editing, tighter action?
Does the 48 hour stay, the repetitive stuff I mentioned before make it more realistic, make us feel the atmosphere of the wilderness and isolation or does it just lessen the tension.
I enjoyed the descriptive beginning but found it destracting once they were on the island.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:40 pmTIm,
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories is pretty flexible with its interpretation of “English” so it could really go anywhere! Worth getting though, for that price.
The cover is a very famous (much reproduced) ghost photograph - see here.
As for Lovecraft, he’s an odd one. In some ways he’s not a particularly ‘good’ writer (as that notion is commonly understood) but he is incredibly imaginative, brutal and original.
You have to ignore some of his noxious racism to enjoy him of course!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:45 pmI do think that some editing would have been helpful…at some stage in the second day I found I was glossing over sections because it was getting repetitive so had to re-read them. Maybe for the intended audience at the time it was acceptable to draw it out- and to try to extend the sense of awe compared to the mundane elements of the story.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:48 pmIt had the opposite effect on me though, I felt it devalued the sense of awe rather.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:51 pmI think it’s fair to say that the pace lessens the tension, but I’m not sure that’s a deficiency on the part of the story.
As I said before, I think the function of the story is less about cranking up fear to the max and more about how the narrator is compelled to make sense of things.
The lulls in the tension are those moments when he feels that he has returned to a daylight world of sense and logic. Then night falls, and doubts and fears creep back in.
That’s the rhythm of the tale for me - so I suppose one could argue that the drawn out nature of it is appropriate.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:58 pmThanks for that link!
Lovecraft sounds like a lot of hard-core SciFi writers that have great ideas but can’t quite get it down in words.
Have to run folks- till next time!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:59 pmTill next time, Tim. Check back in tomorrow - when hopefully those fashionably late (i.e. understandably busy) folks will have chipped in their tuppenceworths. Thanks for all the thoughts.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:03 pmI don’t think I was just looking for the thrill though. I felt it was the impact overall that was lessened. It made it all seem, just less, somehow.
I take your point about the reality of night and day. But even the moments when he was viewing the entities seemed drawn out, the days made more sense to me.
I wonder what the rough drafts were like :)
I’d better go too, I need to make cupcakes! If this were face to face, I would have brought some :)
Thanks guys, will check back in tomorrow.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pmCheers, Jo. When and if this builds into a face-to-face situation we’ll hold you to those cupcakes! Mmmm.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:09 pmSorry I missed the party. I’ve come front-loaded with Bass,a nice syrah {the name escapes me} and some Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew ale.
I liked the repetition, because it lent the impression that this story had played out many, many times, and that there could only be one possible outcome. Perhaps the mysterious boatsman was a previous lodger on this strange isle, warning our narrator and the Swede from the other side, wherever - and whatever - that is. Parallels one could draw to contemporary abduction narratives, funnel-shaped scoop-marks and all, merely add to this sense of cyclic inevitability, since it happens still to yokels in cornfields with no one else to witness these events, leaving them no options but to hawk their self-published messages from the Space Brothers to the rest of the world. Accounts surveyed on Greetings Earthlings would suggest that the veil’s worn thin enough to drive a Buick, or at least a cigar-shaped flying object, through with little difficulty.
The narrator’s presumptive guilt for the price of survival may be a bit picayune when one’s just encountered a hostile Elder Race, but is terrifying nonetheless. The disassociative manner in which he refers to his old, presumably close, friend suggests - suggests! - that he may have killed the Swede, or at least didn’t try very hard to prevent his suicide. The narrator reminds us, like Joseph Conrad’s Marlowe {another river-traveler}, that the true horrors reside not in other dimensions or farflung jungle colonies, but in the human heart.
Anachronistic reading? You bet.
As it stands, I love this paceless, plodding and prolix tale. It’s of its time, and it’s of all times.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:46 pmGoodnight everybody. I have not been around all evening, but it was interesting reading your comments.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:55 pm‘Night, Ithaca. I’ll stay here and grapple with Niall.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:02 amFustar has expertly steered us back into Mills and Boon territory, I see…
March 21st, 2008 at 12:12 amNiall, RE: Abduction narratives - A most interestin’ angle - and one we haven’t yet addressed. The sense of the experience being overwhelming and shattering makes me think less of “yokels” and more of someone like Whitley Steiber. His “aliens” would feel right at home with Blackwood’s entities - in their unfathomableness and ambiguous malevolence. You’ve also made me feel guilty about how often I don’t update Greetings Earthlings…
I think you’re on to something with the Swede (as I suggested above). He seems so utterly doomed that it’s hard not to think that his will not be a happy ending.
The repeated reference to both bodies (if they were different) “turning over and over on the waves like an otter” struck me as memorable. What did you make of that connection?
March 21st, 2008 at 12:15 amShut up and get back in that tent!
March 21st, 2008 at 12:17 amSteiber’s a better comparison, and you’re right to take me to task for being cute, when I should have been accurate.
My misguided cocktail has caught up to me, and I must away for some rest. I’ll endeavor to say something incisive in the morning.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:27 amShut up and get back in that tent?
fústar, you’re a stern taskmaster!
How appropriate that my anti spam word is now ‘frankie’ !
Love the alien, crop circle angle. And the idea that the Swede is really the sacrifice - which would suggest that the experience had driven the narrator maaaaad.
Ach, you’re cleverer than me…
March 21st, 2008 at 8:14 amMorning Jo,
“Frankie” is of innocent origins - it’s the name of one of our cats (and a more gentle soul you couldn’t find).
The Swede does, of course, try to offer himself as the sacrifice but is presented (just in time) from doing so by the narrator:
Then, after the narrator drags him back to the tent he says:
…and promptly falls into a deep sleep. This begs the question - Does he know about the other sacrifice (one presumes he means the body they later discover) before he attempts to commit suicide or does the realisation only strike him at that moment?
Not sure why that strikes me as important…it just does!
March 21st, 2008 at 11:51 amThe repeated reference to both bodies (if they were different) “turning over and over on the waves like an otter” struck me as memorable. What did you make of that connection?
I’m rather pedestrian here, - I assumed it meant that they’d missed their chance to escape when the body tumbled and rolled like a Taytos wrapper down the river, and could only expect more of the preceding events, but with less island to hide on, this time. I feel like I’d push the story into cramped corners if I tried to make literal sense of the changing appearances of the dead and their strange yellow eyes. As it stands, I’m not at all married to the abduction angle, just struck by how these stories are often of their time - rather like sleep paralysis described as witches, succubi and old crones sleeping on your chest in one era, but as lying shackled to a metal table aboard a flying saucer in another.
Anyway, I rate the repetition as a smart and effective writer’s tool, lending pacing and rhythm to a narrative easily written off as meandering and overflowing with description and blind alleys. It works really well in Gaddis’ _The Recognitions_, as well, his alter ego in the novel overheard saying “I’d like to do for fiction what Bruckner did for music.” Maybe I just listen to too much techno.
This is one of my favorite bits:
At the moment we touched the body there rose from its surface the loud sound of humming — the sound of several hummings — which passed with a vast commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some living yet invisible creatures at work.
Just… eeeyuh! I can see the film in my head with sickened fascination.
March 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pmNot sure why that strikes me as important…it just does!
Maybe that aligns you firmly with the Swedes of the world. Let’s hope you stay attuned to crepuscular realities and maintain your saintly demeanor when our little boat encounters too much storm on haunted Lough Ree someday in the future. I’ll bring me own tent, though.
March 21st, 2008 at 8:38 pmaarrgggh!! I can’t believe I missed this. I got my dates confused. Fume. Will have to keep my eyes peeled for the next date.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:22 amThe question of length (ooer..) and its importance (ooer…again) is pretty interesting.
This from S. T. Joshi’s introduction to American Supernatural Tales:
He goes on (later) to effectively blame Stephen King (and why not?) for the death of the short story vehicle:
I find myself nodding the head in agreement. I can think of very, very few novel-length pieces of horror that come close to matching the effectiveness of the best the short story has to offer.
Where then does that leave “The Willows” - clocking in, as it does, at just under 20,000 words (2 1/2 times as long as the James story we discussed last time)? Does its length only dilute the horror and dampen the effect?
I don’t think so - but only because of the nature of the story. I think it was pretty essential to give a detailed description of the environment, the passing of time, the narrator’s changing emotions as night rolled into day and into night.
The pace serves the rhythm of the horror/awe on show. It wouldn’t work in many cases but it serves its purpose here, I reckon.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 amEmbarr, I was wondering where you were! I’ll have to be a bit more emphatic and bossy about scheduling next time.
Our next selection should be announced in the next few days. Keep the eyes peeled.
We’ll probably try and keep it to every 2nd Monday from now on. Helps people remember it and it’s not a night when people generally have much on.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 amDoes its length only dilute the horror and dampen the effect?
Nah. It cleaves to Poe’s single-sitting rule quite nicely. I certainly wouldn’t elide anything from The Willows, but I think I’d like it a little less without the repetition.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm