The Green Round

by Arthur Machen

Sewn hardback printed and bound by the Atheneum Press in green wibalin cloth stamped in gold,with green and gold head and tailband.
400 numbered copies.
(Out of print).

With an Introduction by Mark Valentine.

Why is studious, bookish, quiet Lawrence Hillyer suddenly reviled and shunned by his fellow holiday-makers at a genteel Pembrokeshire coastal resort? Why is staunch and respectable Mrs Jolly, a landlady of many years seniority, all at once the source of police interest and knowing looks from her neighbours? What weird projectile smashed suburban Mr Horncastle's domed glasshouse from such an improbable distance? What is the inner secret of the Reverend Thomas Hampole's modest little book recounting his rambles in lesser-known London? What draws an eminent nerve specialist to study all this with such deep interest?

Arthur Machen includes within the pages of The Green Round all of the many interests and preoccupations of his writing career. His hero, Hillyer, takes a holiday in West Wales and visits the “Green Round”, a mysterious natural hollow. He soon finds that he has acquired an unwanted shadow, and the novel becomes a study in disclocated parallel realities. With a perceptive new introduction by Machen's most recent biographer, Mark Valentine.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Classics, Weird Fiction, Mystery, Fiction

129 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Arthur 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.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun fair that appears and disappears... a grisly murder... a creepy dwarf... poltergeist-like breakages... sudden feelings of derealization... hallucinations and memory loss... lights in the night... hikers losing one another and their ways in broad daylight... city walks and pagan myths...

SPOILER

None of this is getting explained.
This seems to be Machen's modus operandi. Odd things happen and people talk about them, or in Hillyer's case think/write privately about them. Or people are discussing something and someone else has experienced or read about something similar and we go backwards or to the side. Eventually the characters have somewhere else to be, or run out of things to say, or simply disappear. Don't stay up late reading to get to the reveal, because there isn't going to be one. When the curtain drops, both the lady and the magician will be gone.

[Jim Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shunned by its creator, who openly wrote it due to his state of pecuniary depletion, The Green Round seems a weaker and less cohesive novel when compared to Machen's great masterpiece The Hill of Dreams, but it is an addictive read with its fascinations and in its final moments the lack of cohesion and dramatic significance is revealed to be part of the work's philosophical point. This last Machen novel, once again following the familiar narrative of an ascetic becoming alert to the malleability of reality and the hidden forces it veils, is one ahead of its (and our) time, but perhaps overfamiliar at this stage of his career. Machen had already said and done much with this narrative twice before (thrice if we count Far Off Things), and so he can perhaps be forgiven for having little new to bring to it here, yet the premise of the random and mundane supernatural works as a nice counterpoint to the grand metaphysical meaning of The Secret Glory.

The Green Round is a pleasant discursive distraction delivered by an eminent rambler. By no means essential Machen (The Hill of Dreams and Tales of Horror and the Supernatural would suffice for those of us who prefer his darker fiction), but it is, if nothing else, a sublime way to spend a few hours, and Machen would continue some of its themes in his superior late story 'N'.

[Eric Heiden · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I've never been able to fully buy into his philosophical outlook, I'm still a big fan of the oft-horrifying, occasionally comic and always atmospheric stories of Welsh writer Arthur Machen.

That said, there are some works of his that I haven't enjoyed, and The Green Round is sadly one of them.

The main plot, concerning an occult researcher being stalked and harassed by an invisible, otherworldly being, was very interesting, especially at the end when a theory is presented on why the researcher was chosen by the entity. If the book consisted of just that, I might give it four or even five stars. However, the book doesn't consist of just that.

Writing solely for the money, Machen needlessly pads out what might have made a good short story into a badly fragmented novel, complete with lengthy, numerous plot threads that go nowhere and scenes that needlessly summarize earlier scenes. It's little wonder that Machen himself hated the end result.

It narrowly avoids a one-star rating because, honestly, there are parts where Machen's strengths shine through.

In true Machen fashion, there are many passages where the writing is so descriptive (especially in a sea-side town that appears early on) that the setting all but comes to life.

I also liked the section told from a doctor's point of view as he tries, in his clinical way, to make sense of what's happening to the researcher and his neighbors. In all honesty, he's a more-interesting point-of-view character than the researcher is. The book could have done with more of his perspective and less of the researcher's.

Finally, while this is regarded by many (and Machen himself) as his weakest novel, the first section of chapter three contains what might be the most terrifying scene Machen ever penned. That's right; the scariest thing Machen, one of H.P. Lovecraft's "modern masters" of horror, ever wrote is found in his very worst novel.

If you read it, you'll definitely find some good stuff, but it'll be buried within a bloated, frustrating labyrinth of a book.

[Timothy Jarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very strange late work from Machen. Takes up his familiar themes of a race of impish little people and eldritch places insinuated into the chinks of our world. But the revelations here are as much ecstatic as dread. As ever with Machen, there is some extraordinarily fine prose and some compelling esoteric theories are expounded.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

By this time in Machen's career, 1933, his best writing was behind him. The critics of the day didn't have very much good to say about this, and even Machen himself decsribed it as a 'bad little book'. In away, as an admirer of his, that interested me more.

A quiet and unassuming London academic is studying the truths behind various fairy tales, and for that purpose visits a resort on the South Wales coast. However, despite his best intentions he is treated badly by the locals and forced to leave, each time they see him there is an grotesque and malevolent small dwarf with him, that he doesn't see, and who the locals suspect of various accidents in the area.

The story would be better told in half as much space. Each time the plot gets going, it pauses and Machen goes off on a tangent on what seems, and largely is, irrelevant. The lack of continuity is frustrating, which no doubt accounted for many of the poor reviews.

On the plus side, there is more about the folklore of the region that Machen would usually include, and a biut more humour as well.
Its far from his best, but its not as bad as some would make out..

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Poor Uncle Ernest. What he will say to The Green Round, I do not know. Gollancz told me that Sir Ernest was a man absolutely without religion; but I trust that this is not the case. He will want consolation.”

It’s 1933. The publishers Ernest Benn have retired Arthur Machen at the age of 70 as one of their readers of new manuscripts. As a sweetener they commission a short novel from him for £50, which appears as The Green Round.

The dust cover proclaims it is “a new novel by Arthur Machen” and that it’s one in their series, “a Benn three and sixpenny novel”. It will be the last of his published novels; and as with many of his earlier works it unfortunately doesn’t sell well.

Machen suggested that a potential reader might need a strong personal creed to cope with the novel’s disturbing revelations. Would this – after the passage of nearly a century – be the case with modern readers too, or are we made of sterner stuff? And would this title sell well now?

In a prologue we hear about the seaside town of Porth in West Wales, where odd goings-on are reported in 1929. Porth – possibly inspired by Burry Port in Carmarthenshire (Porth Tywyn in Welsh, meaning something like ‘the port with the sand-dune’) – has received the opprobrium of a letter writer to a London paper for allowing noisy entertainment to take place on the dunes, totally out of keeping for a quiet holiday spot. But locals hotly dispute his claim that this ever happened.

Then there is a particularly brutal murder that occurred just a little way along the coast, shortly before a certain London visitor called Lawrence Hillyer arrives in the town for his nerves. Mr Hillyer is somewhat introverted, an independent scholar without any small talk; his research mostly involves obscure matters – folklore, fairytales, flâneurs – but he begins to have fears for his sanity when he involuntarily spouts random words and phrases such as black cat, coal scuttle, Cardinal, chance. A dose of sea air, away from books but among holidaymakers is advised by Dr Flanagan.

In Porth he finds his composure gradually returning as he earnestly pursues gregariousness; but he also finds himself gravitating towards a certain ‘green round’ in the dunes, ‘a natural amphitheatre, a pleasant turfy, flowery sort of place,’ where he sits and smokes and feels ‘pleased with himself and everything.’ What follows reveals that this green round is not necessarily as pleasant a spot as he had at first expected: witnesses think he’s associating with a sinister personage they believe to be the murderer.

Back in London at his lodgings the very confused Mr Hillyer finds that his troubles have not ceased. Poltergeist activity in the house, odd coincidences that exceed probability, and the sense of malign presence stalking his movements all increase his paranoia; and one incident gets him pondering what is dream, what hyperaesthesia, and what real:

“The figure opposite to me seemed to change into a dreadful and unspeakable and most detestable shape, and then everything was black darkness.”

And are the areas he studies – links between the legend of the Seven Sleepers, Tannhäuser’s Venus, Thomas of Ercildoune, and Earthly Paradises – responsible for him somehow discovering the way into occlusum Reginæ palatium, ‘the forbidden palace of the Fairy Queen’?

“It is possible that those who find their way to the Queen of Fairyland are liberated from these dreams and monsters and delusions, and behold with a rapture of delight the real world. But it is agreed on all hands that such are forced to return, and the fairy gold is dust and ashes in the morning.” — Chapter III.

Machen’s account is deliberately confusing: it leaps forward in time but also backtracks on itself, has multiple points of view and several tones of voice, with passages that are mostly allusive. It also has an oddly antiquated language which would have fitted in well with fin de siècle fiction, less so with novels written between the wars.

The ‘green round’ as a portal to and from Faërie is also reminiscent of the Roman amphitheatre at Caerleon, where Machen’s visionary The Hill of Dreams (1907) was largely set, and where its young protagonist had transcendental visions of the Otherworld. If it feels as though the author is revisiting old themes then luckily Hillyer’s solution to his dosturbing hauntings mayn’t be as drastic as the protagonist in the earlier fiction.

The Green Round isn’t exactly in the horror genre though it hints at it; it introduces aspects of the supernatural that I feel sit a little awkwardly with the philosophical musings that accompany them; but as a short novel it’s a quick read even if its loose structure fails to entirely satisfy.

Having said all this, I’m still pleased to have read Machen’s late offering: he builds up the mystery well, despite the fact that what soon becomes evident to the reader inevitably takes narrators and bystanders alike a while to recognise; and the atmosphere, whether in the metropolis or at the seaside, relates firmly to the tradition of ghost stories by the likes of Dickens, Gaskell, Stevenson, and M R James.

Finally, the first edition copy I borrowed from the library used a serif typeface with the letters s and t ligatured; this was a style often used between the fourth and eighth centuries in Europe, a feature which only added to the archaic feel of the novel and which I appreciated. And who can fail to be affected by the melancholy of passages like this?

‘For the burden of life is made up of an infinite number of little things. The great sorrows, the terrible losses, the horrible defeats, the remorse for grievous misdoings: these are in the pack, but there is much more. It is piled up with the trifles that we suppose we have forgotten.’ — Chapter IV.

[BAG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ni S. T. Joshi, ni Mark Valentine ni el traductor al español, Alberto Salazar, la consideran una buena novela. Los motivos son el carácter ensayístico de la obra, las repeticiones, que no termine de dar una explicación a los poltergeist... No comparto estas opiniones. Green Round me parece una novela extraordinaria, adelantada a su tiempo, con una variedad de fuentes narrativas y puntos de vista que la enriquecen y la hacen muy entretenida. De lo mejor que he leído de Machen. En la traducción española (Aurora dorada), que es fluida y muy agradable, hay que lamentar las múltiples erratas que podrían haberse evitado con una última corrección de pruebas.

[Antonio Ippolito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Machen: The green round
Tra i precursori del fantasy contemporaneo, Machen ha avuto da noi una vita editoriale complicata, vicina a farne un autore fantasma: nel ’77 Fanucci ebbe la preveggenza di pubblicare “I tre impostori”, poco dopo, nell’82, Mondadori pubblicò niente meno che negli Oscar “Il gran dio Pan”, integrato da alcuni racconti tra i più importanti. Dopo quel periodo di interesse, però, rimase poco diffuso; solo negli ultimi anni ci sono state nuove edizioni del “Gran dio Pan”; finalmente la prima pubblicazione italiana del “Cerchio verde”, ultima opera significativa dello scrittore gallese apparsa agli inizi degli anni ’30, colma una vera lacuna.
“Il cerchio verde” è un romanzo breve che sorprende. L’inizio è quasi prosastico, e molto moderno: sulle pagine delle “lettere dei lettori” di vari quotidiani inglesi compare una polemica su quanto la moderna architettura stia spazzando via antiche cappelle, giardini, vicoli di mattoni, insomma i luoghi canonici della romantica vecchia Inghilterra, che a qualcuno sembrano irrimediabilmente malsani oltre che “inutili per lo svago dei lavoratori” (è la chiave per il pensiero di Machen, reazionario sul piano estetico e non solo). La diatriba era nata da un lettore che aveva trovato il suo “locus amoenus”, ovvero le “Tane”, un ambiente di dune marine dell’immaginaria cittadina di Porth nel Galles, trasformato in volgare dancing con annesso luna-park. Questa vicenda prende un fascino ironico quando lo stesso lettore, su invito del sindaco di Porth, deve ritirare la sua denuncia: le fascinose, labirintiche “Tane” sono in realtà, incomprensibilmente, intatte: del dancing non c’è traccia.. Ma nessuno ormai gli dà retta; la polemica è stata scatenata.
Si trova in villeggiatura a Porth, però, anche il protagonista: Hillyers, studioso di rarità erudite e argomenti occulti, che vive come un eremita nella metropoli, Londra; senza quasi amici e senza frequentare nessuno, dèdito ai suoi studi notturni, fino a che, vicino all’esaurimento, non è stato mandato dal medico appunto a Porth per recuperare la salute dei nervi. La cura prevede di leggere i quotidiani ogni giorno e parlare del più del meno con altri esseri umani, senza badare ai malintesi causati dalla sua goffaggine.. Anch’egli ama la solitudine delle “Tane”, a dire il vero percorse da molti solitarii amanti del paesaggio, attratti dai prati di timo selvatico e in particolare dal “cerchio verde”, una conca tra le dune dove ci si può sentire isolati dal mondo. Ma ben diversamente sconvolgente sarà la sua esperienza nel “Cerchio verde”, rispetto a quella dell’anonimo mittente della lettera al giornale. Già a pochi chilometri dalla ridente località balneare si vive in fattorie isolate in mezzo a selvagge brughiere: qui avviene un feroce delitto, e il nostro Hillyers, che pure non si è mai mosso dalle dune, viene raggiunto nel “cerchio verde” da una delegazione di gente del posto che accusa con veemenza del delitto lui e un suo non precisato compagno, a loro dire anch’egli presente nel “cerchio verde” fino a poco prima; non avendolo potuto cogliere sul fatto, lo scacciano da Porth a furor di popolo.
Una volta tornato a Londra, grazie alle energie recuperate durante la villeggiatura Hillyers riesce a indagare per cercare di capire cosa sia successo, perché sia stato preso di mira dall’ostilità popolare, e soprattutto cosa significhino i fatti misteriosi, ma inequivocabilmente sgradevoli e anche pericolosi, che ormai avvengono dovunque lo portino le sue peregrinazioni per Londra. E a questo punto il romanzo, fin qui un po’ cronachistico, un po’ disperso in polemiche e sarcasmi contro la contemporaneità, la frivolezza dei giornali, i triti modi di dire della sig.ra Jolly, affittacamere padrona di casa di Hillyers, la superficialità velata di razzismo dei suoi co-inquilini, decolla davvero: un susseguirsi di densi capitoli, ognuno visto da un comprimario differente e ben diverso dagli altri, illumina la storia da tutti i lati; leggeremo il diario di Hillyers, ma anche la relazione del suo medico curante (un positivista, per cui la Regina delle Fate e gli effetti di un incontro con essa, oggetto di tanti studi di Hillyers, non sono che disturbi psichiatrici), e un poscritto di un suo compagno di studi universitari, che invece crede come lui in una realtà più profonda di quella apparente, e narra a sua volta episodi altrettanto inquietanti legati a escursioni nelle brughiere, veri racconti nel racconto.. Gli indizi su chi o cosa sia il “compagno segreto” che segue come un’ombra Hillyers nei suoi vagabondaggi, il dubbio che i vari incidenti abbiano un filo conduttore oppure no, vengono sparsi da Machen in modo che la loro interpretazione rimanga all’intelligenza del lettore.
Soprattutto, capitolo dopo capitolo, troviamo una serie di dense riflessioni, che costituiscono quasi un testamento spirituale dello scrittore gallese: all’inizio del cap.3, un serrato confronto tra gli stati d’animo del sogno e quelli che l’anima dovrà provare subito dopo la morte; poi una toccante analisi della felicità perfetta non come ottenimento di qualcosa, ma come liberazione dalle scorie spirituali accumulate durante la vita; poi una disquisizione su come accertarsi che un sogno sia sogno, e non realtà, che non arriva a conclusioni certe:
“se l’abbazia di Westminster si trasforma in una nuvola che cala su di voi a togliervi il respiro e soffocarvi, non appena vi svegliate tremanti e ansimanti sapete che era solo un sogno e che siete al sicuro. “Credo quia impossibile”, usando la vecchia massima in un senso nuovo.
Eppure: questa prova potrebbe condurci a strane conclusioni. “L’impossibile, la contraddizione in termini deve essere un sogno”: dove finiamo se permettiamo a questo assioma di segnare il confine tra sogno e veglia? Finiamo con il lasciare da parte le definizioni di spazio e tempo che abbiamo azzardato, e ci trascinano in pozzi senza fondo di assurdità e contraddizione: pensate al segno sulla carta che ci dicono essere una linea, qualcosa che è lunghezza senza ampiezza e quindi per sempre invisibile all’occhio della carne. Pensate anche ad Achille nel suo vano inseguimento della tartaruga: e vedete in che orrida assurdità la certezza della matematica ci conduce. Se il credere in assurdità e contraddizioni mostruose è il segno sicuro del sogno, allora cosa facciamo ogni giorno? Che mondo è quello in cui abitiamo?”
Credere o non credere a fate e folletti? (e ricordiamo che “fairy” non è affatto un termine “gentile” come il nostro “fata”..). I dubbi del protagonista sembrano riflettere quelli dell’autore, da un lato sempre aperto a vedere tracce di occulto nel reale:
“I miracoli non appartengono alla mappa della modernità; la nostra incredulità verso di essi è una delle fughe dal dubbio a cui ho alluso. Vediamo qualcosa che non capiamo; e concludiamo che c’è un trucco da qualche parte. E normalmente, a meno che siamo fortemente colpiti dall’evento inspiegabile, non ci preoccupiamo oltre, nemmeno per scoprire quale potesse essere il trucco.”
D’altra parte, disincantato sulla possibilità di una definitva “crescita interiore”:
“permettetemi di notare questo. È possibile che coloro che trovano una loro strada per raggiungere la Regina del Regno delle Fate siano liberati da questi sogni, mostri e illusioni, e contemplino in rapimento estatico il vero mondo. Ma è opinione concorde che costoro siano costretti a tornare, e che l’oro delle fate sia solo cenere e polvere al mattino”.
Eppure, dopo una digressione sul calcolo delle probabilità, e come questo possa portarci a vedere miracoli dove non ce ne sono, non rinuncia a difendere il valore di derte esperienze:
“ma c’è una sola regione dove il calcolo delle probabilità non può entrare. Questa è la terra dove la Regina delle Fate tiene corte, dove dànno oro che diventa foglie morte, cenere morta. Non c’è una lista di coloro che sono scesi in quella valle: solo indizi e dicerie che passano da un’epoca all’altra. Quelli che hanno visitato la regione incantata sono o incapaci oppure riluttanti a dare, al loro ritorno, un qualsiasi resoconto preciso delle loro esperienze. Ma se ne può concludere che una certa trasformazione o trasmutazione del mondo viene effettuata, sia all’interno sia all’esterno” (la scelta di queste precise parole ci ricorda che Machen si interessò anche di alchimia).

Uno dei motivi profondi del fascino di Machen è che il fantastico non era per lui solo il modo di esprimere metaforicamente un’angoscia cosmica, come per Lovecraft e tutti gli scrittori di fantastico successivi: Machen fu un mistico e un esoterista vicino alla società segreta Golden Dawn (il fondatore e satanista Aleister Crowley aveva incluso opere di Machen tra le letture per gli adepti!), apprezzato da Wilde e Stevenson e altri esoteristi come Conan Doyle (proprio il padre del razionalissimo Sherlock Holmes.. cratura che cercò di rinnegare); in quegli inquieti anni ’90, Machen credeva fermamente a quello che scriveva. Ma la fede espressa nel “Gran dio Pan” e nelle “Creature bianche”, quarant’anni dopo è scossa.
Quest’opera è un ricco intreccio, dove, come dice uno dei protagonisti, non tutti i fili rientrano nella trama; diversi restano, volutamente, sciolti. È un’opera di narrativa fantastica da meditazione, dove non manca nemmeno un libro maledetto.. anche se non ha un ruolo centrale.
Per apprezzare appieno il percorso di Machen, è interessante confrontare quest’opera con qualcuna dei suoi anni più intensi, come appunto il racconto “Le creature bianche”: gioiello dove la fede nel satanismo viene prima dottamente esposta dal protagonista Ambrose, che la dimostra “non malvagia” nel senso comune del termine; poi illustrata dalla lettura del diario di una ragazzina di campagna che in un vertiginoso flusso di coscienza racconta la scoperta del regno proibito, che le sarà fatale.
L’influenza di Machen andò oltre il genere fantastico: fu amato da Borges, quindi considerato anche un precursore del “realismo magico”, nonché da altri scrittori contemporanei come Javier Marìas. Le sue descrizioni di vagabondaggi nelle brughiere così come nelle metropoli hanno fatto nascere studi sulle relazioni tra mente e paesaggio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychog... .

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years back I reread the core Arthur Machen works and came away believing that “The White People” may be the greatest short work of dark fantasy I’ve ever read. THE GREEN ROUND wasn’t among the books I read though, and I’ve been meaning to get back to it ever since. Glad I did! It’s a later work by Machen and a milder tale than PAN or THE THREE IMPOSTERS or even THE HILL OF DREAMS. Without spoilers, it’s the story of a reclusive man – I learned the word “claustrophilic” here -- immersed in the study of folk tales about humans captured by the Queen of Fairy. The resulting, quiet horrors are told through a series of voices assessing the protagonist, which allows Machen to go on for pages telling us his thoughts on the survival of death, poltergeists, parallel worlds, and more. I’m not complaining though because Machen’s musings are terrific.

[EL LIBRERO DE JUDE · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro no comienza de la mejor manera.
Nunca esperas que al comenzar la introducción del libro te encuentres con una lista de las fallas que tiene y que te digan que tal vez no te va a gustar. Eso mengua las ganas de continuar y predispone la opinión final del lector.

Afortunadamente encontré muchos elementos interesantes en la historia que me ayudaron a disfrutarla y a entender un poco los puntos negativos que se le otorgan.

Comparto la hipótesis de que Arthur Machen dejo los huecos en su historia a propósito, sobre todo cuando investigué un poco sus conocimientos en disciplinas sobrenaturales.

Y no, no es ni de cerca lo mejor que he leído del autor, pero tampoco creo que sea una novela que debería permanecer oculta.

[Albert Kadmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

No suele gustarme cuando en una introducción alguien dice que estamos frente a una historia fallida. Es ciertamente complicado medir lo que se aprende o no de una novela, creo en este caso que aunque no se resuelvan todos los misterios de la narración, lo importante es la atmosfera que se genera, de realidades daimonicas, así como esa protopsicogeografía. Tiene pasajes bellísimos y divagaciones sobre el poder del sueño impactantes. Se puede ver que a mí sí me ha funcionado.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Ernest Benn Limited] (1933). HB/DJ. 1/1. 218 Pages. Purchased from Barrie Nesbitt (bandmbooks).

A strange and unsettling, semi coherent, non-linear novelette which conflates many of the author’s career preoccupations.

Even the dust-jacket blurb is peculiar.

It’s a much-maligned work. In my view, flawed but superb.

The marvellous Tartarus Press published a beautiful Limited Edition (400) hardback in May 2000. Their eBook remains available.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid initial premise, but Machen doesn't seem to have a solid plan of what to do with it once he has it set up and the novel suffers from padding. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Chris Purser · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this story.

[Sem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some wonderful moments but - what a mess.

[Brenda Galvão · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tendi foi nada

[j.e.rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He suffered from a delusion; and it was the most extraordinary delusion that I've ever come across. His delusion was that he thought he was going mad."

[Javier Iglesias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unas palabras sobre esta lectura en mi blog personal:

https://diariosoluble.blogspot.com/20...

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baffling