Arthur Machen, Thoughts?

[Extollager]

If you click here

https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/bitstream/handle/2104/8049/Geoffrey_Reiter_phd.pdf?sequence=1

you will be taken to the pdf of a 200+-page paper on the development of Machen's thought as reflected in his career as a fiction writer. At a glance it looks excellent, and I've printed out a copy and may get to it before too long. Right now I intend to put it aside lest I be drawn away from some other things I want to focus on.

An opportunity to read and discuss this highly readable paper is now available:

Arthur Machen: Man Is Made a Mystery 1: Great God Pan, White Powder, Inmost Light, Black Seal

 

[Extollager]

I ran across an article by Machen in a 1907 issue of The Academy. Machen refers to America in uncomplimentary terms: "home of every fraud, of every poisonous adulteration, of every monstrous crime, of every crazy and driveling superstition; it comes from ... the lips of a thousand quacks and charlatans." There, Machen says, we learn what "Demos" will do if he gets the chance. The country will be ruled by the "Meat Packing Trust, and good Mr. Rockefeller, and an entirely corrupt judicial system, and a bribed legislature.... and lynch law and grilled negro."

The Academy and Literature

 

[John Thiel III]

He's looked it all over, and finds little to comment in this country and presumably the continent. King of America could reply, "Are your stories lilly white?"

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I took a break from fiction to start John Gawsworth's biography of Arthur Machen, a book that remained unpublished for some 70 years until it was discovered in Gawsworth's archives at an American university. It's cool to live at a time when there's so much material about Machen, whether about him or by him. To date I only knew him for his fiction, in the old Chaosium volumes edited by Joshi.

 

[Extollager]

Yes indeed. And much of that material is staying available to readers with much interest but without a lot of money.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Finished John Gawsworth's biography last night; it's remarkably readable. The first chapters made me think this was going to be a dud, but then it grows rich in interesting details. It's just a pity it says nothing about Machen's life after 1933. Learned a lot, but two takeaways I liked was the affinity between Machen and James Branch Cabell, which Mark Valentine has written about here:

James Branch Cabell

And learning that the fantasy writer Sylvia Townsend Warner was Machen's niece.

 

[BAYLOR]

Finished John Gawsworth's biography last night; it's remarkably readable. The first chapters made me think this was going to be a dud, but then it grows rich in interesting details. It's just a pity it says nothing about Machen's life after 1933. Learned a lot, but two takeaways I liked was the affinity between Machen and James Branch Cabell, which Mark Valentine has written about here:

James Branch Cabell

And learning that the fantasy writer Sylvia Townsend Warner was Machen's niece.

Back in 2018 the was talk of a film adaptation of Arthur Machen's novel The Hill of Dreams. seeing that no film has been made , I guess the project novel got off the ground.

 

[Extollager]

Here's Machen's little work "The Holy Things" with a little editorial commentary.

The Holy Things with Commentary

The Holy Things by Arthur Machen The sky was blue above Holborn, and only one little cloud, half white, half golden, floated on the wind’s way from west to east. The long aisle of the street was sp…

darklybrightpress.com

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Back in 2018 the was talk of a film adaptation of Arthur Machen's novel The Hill of Dreams. seeing that no film has been made , I guess the project novel got off the ground.

Remarkably I never read the "Hill"; it's not in the old Chaosium volumes. Nor The Secret Glory and The Green Round. It's something I want to correct after reading the "Life".

 

[Extollager]

I'm not fond of The Hill of Dreams, and The Secret Glory seems terribly self-consoling, but I read The Green Round again every few years.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

My copy of Mist and Mystery arrived yesterday and at a first glance there isn't overlap with Joshi's edited book of nonfiction.

 

[Extollager]

Like I said -- this is a golden age of availability of Machen's writing.

By the way, that same Darkly Bright Press is going to be issuing an annotated edition of The Terror.

 

[BAYLOR]

Like I said -- this is a golden age of availability of Machen's writing.

By the way, that same Darkly Bright Press is going to be issuing an annotated edition of The Terror.

I have a collection of his stories which contains both the shot and long versions of the Terror.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I have a collection of his stories which contains both the shot and long versions of the Terror.

Perhaps the Chaosium editions?

The Terror is one of my favorite stories by Machen; the premise is simply yet very well explored by him.

I'm slowly reading Mist and Mystery at night before turning off the light. I'm astonished at how much he resembles Nabokov in pet peeves and attitudes towards literature: both despised psychoanalysis; and realist fiction; were strongly against judging authors for their ethics; were attracted to the supernatural but probably didn't believe it; thought literature existed to give "bliss" (Nabokov) or "ecstasy" (Machen); were fascinated by what lies beyond the surfaces of the ordinarily perceived world.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

After listening to this interview on the Hermitix Podcast I've been on a bit of a Machen binge the past few weeks- I re-read some stories (The Three Impostors, Shining Pyramid," "The Red Hand") and am now reading The Hill of Dreams for the first time. So far enjoying it. I plan on checking out N next though I haven't come across a free online edition yet so might have to pay for a e-text.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I've also been looking for "N", which wasn't included in the Chaosium editions. Right now I'm eyeing two possibilities:

British Weird: Selected Short Fiction 1893 - 1937

James Machin (ed.), British Weird - Handheld Press

British Weird, an anthology of classic Weird short fiction by British writers, first published between the 1890s and the 1930s.

www.handheldpress.co.uk

or

Collected Fiction, Volume 3: 1911-1937

Arthur Machen: Collected Fiction (3 VOLS) : Hippocampus Press, specializes in classic horror and science fiction

Hippocampus Press Arthur Machen: Collected Fiction (3 VOLS) - Three volumes, sold as a set. Individual volumes available at Ziesing Books, Amazon.com and elsewhere. Edited by S. T. Joshi Cover artwork by Matthew Jaffe Cover design by Daniel V. Sauer, dansauerdesign.com ISBN...

www.hippocampuspress.com

 

[Extollager]

You can read "N" online here:

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800651.txt

 

[Extollager]

"N" refers to a couple of paintings -- "Sherry, Sir?" is one of them.

'Sherry, Sir?' de William Powell Frith y las Bodegas Williams & Humbert - La Sacristía del Caminante

La pintura 'Sherry, Sir?' de William Powel Frith ilustra desde 1939, la imagen comercial de la casa boeguera jerezana Williams & Humbert.

www.lasacristiadelcaminante.com

"Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time" is the other, as I recall.

Scene in the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey, 1834 - Edwin Henry Landseer - WikiArt.org

‘Scene in the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey’ was created in 1834 by Edwin Henry Landseer in Romanticism style. Find more prominent pieces of genre painting at Wikiart.org – best visual art database.

www.wikiart.org

I love the genial, ruminative way the story starts. The painting references -- both works a bit kitschy -- work perfectly as helping to characterize the gents who are reminiscing. But they also introduce (subtly) ideas of beauty and the remote (in time) that relate to the story's development.

We read of a Mr. Hampole. I believe his name derives from an authentic English mystic, Richard Rolle of Hampole. Here's the Penguin Classic I have (image found online).

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Well, I finished Mist and Mystery and I maintain that someone needs to write about the Machen/Nabokov affinities. Machen even skewers Marinetti's Futurism! Nabokov, despite being considered an innovative writer, famously despised most avant-garde art movements, finding modern paintings and sculptures sheer artless, easy-to-make drivel.

Both were political reactionaries; socialism didn't win their hearts! Machen also shows he wasn't fond of feminism, which is unfortunate - but at least it gives rise to one of the book's funniest articles, an excoriation of a 1910s feminist French novel that I swear looks like something cooked up by woke culture last week. Bad art never changes.

 

[Extollager]

Your remarks about Machen and Nabokov are intriguing, but I have read next to nothing by VN -- a reading of Pnin was so long ago that I remember little about it except that the college president who wanted to students to "learn" by listening to recordings hit me as humorously prescient of what I was encountering at the time. But on my to-be-read-soon shelf is Speak, Memory, and I do want to get to that. The only other work by him that I have is Nabokov's Dozen, a book of short stories.