William Hope Hodgson – 1908
Eerie, suspenseful and even
psychedelic novel by British author William Hope Hodgson. Two campers find an abandoned old house near
a remote village, as well as a ragged manuscript left by its last inhabitant. Comprising the rest of the story, the journal
chronicles its writer's frightening experiences in the house he shares only with
his spinster sister and faithful dog. While
sitting in his study one evening, he becomes disoriented and has a vision of
another world, filled with fantastic and terrifying beasts. After this experience, he begins to see and
hear strange things at night in his vast house.
Unseen creatures in the garden injure his dog and then make designs on
getting into the house, forcing the storyteller to barricade the doors and
windows and keep vigil every night.
Catching a glimpse of the creatures through the window, he sees that
they are as big as men but have pig-like faces.
In one of the most harrowing sequences in the novel, the man and his dog
explore an underground cavern beneath his property as it floods with
water. But probably the most mesmerizing
section involves a long hallucinatory vision the main character experiences in
which he remains frozen as he watches time fly by at an increasingly rapid
rate. The sun and moon zip through the
sky until they become a connected streak in his eyes. The house and grounds decay before his eyes,
and even his beloved dog turns to dust and bone. Eventually, he seems to witness the collapse
of the solar system and the emergence of a new sun, a green one, and the
ushering in of the mysterious world he visited in a previous trance. Little explanation is given for all these
strange events, only implied, and that’s one of the novel’s great
strengths. With its suggestion of a
portal between two worlds, Hodgson’s book was a major influence on future
horror writers, especially H.P. Lovecraft.
No comments:
Post a Comment