- Paperback: 68 pages
- Publisher: Kessinger Publishing Co (17 Jun 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1419171690
- ISBN-13: 978-1419171697
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 18.6 x 0.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,405,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
David Bittacy and his wife have been happily married for decades. Mr Bittacy has another love though. He loves nature. More specifically he loves trees. So when he discovers an artist who paints portraits of trees in a way that captures their individuality... their personality even, he decides to invite the artist to stay at his home. The two men are kindred spirits, both believing that trees have souls... that God is in the trees. Over a long night gazing at the trees that encroach his garden, with the deep wood close by, the two men venture to put into words a philosophical understanding of nature that frightens and disturbs Mrs Bittacy. Their words cause her to catch a glimpse of wild, potent, sentient impressions of the life that is a forest. It jars her deep religious convictions to the core.
Algernon Blackwood is brilliantly adept at this sort of psychological dance, playing the known world and its belief systems off against the limits of human knowledge and understanding. Blackwood's beautifully rich descriptions of nature, and his deft maintenance of disquiet are excellent. There are few writers, short of Mary Shelley in full Godwinian flow, who could keep that disquiet going while exploring a philosophical idea for over 70 pages and still retain the interest of the reader.
Algernon Blackwood is brilliantly adept at this sort of psychological dance, playing the known world and its belief systems off against the limits of human knowledge and understanding. Blackwood's beautifully rich descriptions of nature, and his deft maintenance of disquiet are excellent. There are few writers, short of Mary Shelley in full Godwinian flow, who could keep that disquiet going while exploring a philosophical idea for over 70 pages and still retain the interest of the reader.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This story was first published in 1912, over 40 years before Tolkien described to us the lively trees of The Old Forest east of The Shire, or Treebeard and the Ents and Huorns of Fangorn Forest. In Algernon Blackwood's tale, an old gentleman living on the edge of The New Forest is turning treeish. His wife is helpless to prevent the change and he tries to encourage her to join him on his strange odyssey. There is a beautiful old cedar growing on their lawn between the house and the forest, that guards them from the attempted invasions of the trees, but one tree may not be enough to hold back the huge, roaring forest. He loves the trees and the trees love him. It will take more than one elderly lady and one guardian cedar to keep them apart.
It's difficult to find reasonably priced Algernon Blackwood books to buy from popular retailers but it's very easy to find sites where you can download or print the stories off for free (being out of copyright). There may be a connection between these two facts. Although I consider it a valuable service that these free web sites provide, I do like to buy proper books that can be stored on book shelves and reached for at will. This is a fine short story and I would like to purchase it in a collection of Algernon Blackwood's short stories for a price ranging between two and seven pounds (ie the usual sort of price for such a collection). Blackwood is my favourite author of strange and supernatural tales and I prefer his writing style in particular, to any other author of any genre whatever. For descriptions of wild nature, he has no close rival in my opinion. If you have not read any of this author's work before, I recommend that you try "The Complete John Silence Stories" which is a reasonably priced collection of Algernon Blackwood's short stories, available from Amazon (at the time of writing this review). You could also try the "Best Ghost Stories" - you might strike lucky, however, I have ordered that book several times only to receive emails after a few months, expressing regret that it cannot be supplied. Perhaps if enough people order it, the suppliers might wake up and print some more.
It's difficult to find reasonably priced Algernon Blackwood books to buy from popular retailers but it's very easy to find sites where you can download or print the stories off for free (being out of copyright). There may be a connection between these two facts. Although I consider it a valuable service that these free web sites provide, I do like to buy proper books that can be stored on book shelves and reached for at will. This is a fine short story and I would like to purchase it in a collection of Algernon Blackwood's short stories for a price ranging between two and seven pounds (ie the usual sort of price for such a collection). Blackwood is my favourite author of strange and supernatural tales and I prefer his writing style in particular, to any other author of any genre whatever. For descriptions of wild nature, he has no close rival in my opinion. If you have not read any of this author's work before, I recommend that you try "The Complete John Silence Stories" which is a reasonably priced collection of Algernon Blackwood's short stories, available from Amazon (at the time of writing this review). You could also try the "Best Ghost Stories" - you might strike lucky, however, I have ordered that book several times only to receive emails after a few months, expressing regret that it cannot be supplied. Perhaps if enough people order it, the suppliers might wake up and print some more.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the best stories of the uncanny that I have ever read. I won't try to detail the atmosphere, which must surely be impossible; but suffice to say that one comes back from reading this story with a different perspective on the apparently familiar - and with a deepened sense of love and awe for wild nature. Perhaps the best of Blackwood's several, largely ignored, masterpieces.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Horror > Contemporary Horror
- Books > Horror > Occult
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
