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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surreal and Spellbinding, 12 Oct 2003
By A Customer
This novel was written in the early part of the 20th century by one the many `forgotten' writers. William Hope Hodgson had the misfortune to be writing excellent works of dark fantasy and horror at a time when the world had little patience for them (around the Great War).The book starts briskly with two travellers finding an old journal in some ruins overlooking a chasm in Ireland. The bulk of the book is the tale recorded in those pages. From the off the book leaps into surreal dream sequences, although the suspicion of the narrator and reader is that they are very far from being hallucinations. Often this is writing on a cosmic scale- planets are witnessed being born and dying, the whole of time inverted. Equally often the horrors are very solid and very real- the most powerful section of the book being a siege on the house by the forces of the `outer darkness'. The book is worth buying for that section alone. Often Hodgson's writing is marred by a slightly sentimental feel concerning emotions, but that is almost entirely missing from this book- the atmosphere is not so much bleak as inevitable. It is always apparent that any attempt to stave off the approach of the outer dark is only a temporary step. A thoroughly enjoyable book: not so much a tale of things that go bump in the night, as a tale that rips the veil of reality aside to a nightmare foundation. This story is not subtle, and not meant to be- the depths inside it, however, are subtle touching on all manner of psychological concepts and ideas not published at the time of writing. A superb book far ahead of its time. Also worth a look are the `Carnacki' stories, `Boats of the Glen Carrig' and `The Ghost Pirates', which continue the Outer Darkness theme. In particular `The Hog', one of the Carnacki short stories.
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by Arthur Machen
by Arthur Machen
by Gustav Meyrink
by Arthur Machen
