"Blackwoodian" and "Machenesque" literature

Hello all, I'm working on a "weird fiction"-based senior capstone project and my discussion is leaning increasingly towards the niche occupied by Blackwood, Machen, and occasionally Sarban (who I haven't read yet). I find it interesting that these two (sometimes three) authors are conflated as often as they are, and would like explore their connections -- potentially in terms of the use of space and Rudolf Otto's concept of the "numinous."

I'd be very interested to hear any theories on this sub-genre/niche, or any fiction/non-fiction recommendations.

Here is a list of the works I intend to consult thus far:
Fiction-
The Willows & The Wendigo (Blackwood)
The White People (Machen)
The Events at Poroth Farm (T.E.D. Klein)
Primeval Wood (Richard Gavin)
Yns-Y-Plag (Quentin S Crisp)
Non-fiction-
Haunted Presence (S.L. Varnado)
Closed Space (Manuel Aguirre)
The Weird Tale & The Modern Weird Tale (Joshi)

Works I intend to look into soon:
Sarban (is Ringstones a good place to start?)
Cwm Garon (L.T.C. Rolt)
Five Degrees of Latitude (Michael Reynier)
Midnight Sun (Ramsey Campbell)

Sounds like a very interesting project you are pulling together. I don't know Sarban's work- how did you tie him in with Blackwood and Arthur Machen? The latter two are choice selections, and I'd imagine that they should dovetail quite nicely into a discussion of numinous themes.

Ramsey Campbell's MIDNIGHT SUN is also a great choice, and you remind me that it would be a good idea to re-read it, especially in light of recent discussions here. You might want to look at the Blackwood and Machen threads.

What about Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness and one of its main inspirations, de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis? Just a thought. It sounds like you already have a pretty serious roundup of titles to go on.

Thanks for the response- I've done some extensive googling in the past 24 hours and found multiple instances where Sarban is directly associated with Machen and Blackwood. A few examples:

A blurb for Five Degrees of Latitude: "Sarban meets Blackwood meets late Machen." - Jim Rockhill

A forum post describing the film "Picnic at Hanging Rock":It would appeal to anyone who likes the stories of Machen, Blackwood or Sarban, illustrating the "wild" side of nature: mysterious, very attractive but really dangerous...

A comment on Jeff Vandermeer's blog concerning his upcoming anthology, "The Weird": I only wish there could have been space for Sarban, his work serves as a bridge between the cosmic mysticism of Machen/Blackwood and the psychological ambiguity of Aickman

statements like these really solidified my current approach- it's obviously a distinct niche/subgenre that merits some kind of treatment (whatever that winds up being)

Glad to hear something positive about Midnight Sun since reviews are pretty mixed, and I'll be sure to look into OUR LADY OF DARKNESS (sounds great), De Quincy and the threads you mentioned.

>3 theshaunz: theshaunz

If I were doing such a project I would explore this dichotomy: it appears to me that Machen believes he is describing how the world is, including the numinous, but Blackwood believes that he is writing fiction.

In other words, Machen thinks the events in his stories could actually happen, but Blackwood does not. You cannot access their beliefs, but there might be hints in the stories and in their letters.

If you are going to be writing about the use of space and Rudolf Otto's concept of the "numinous" in Machen's work, I strongly recommend that you read "A Fragment of Life."

>4 bertilak:

An interesting point, bertilak. I'm going to chew on that one for a while. Strictly based on the stories we've discussed here, I'd also venture to say that Blackwood's entities seem to be pure forces of nature, with about as much genuine malice as a hungry grizzly bear, while Machen's entities seem to exist in nature but have a more sinister intent and focused agenda.

>4 bertilak:

I found a similar Blackwood/Machen dichotomy saying something a bit different in a comment on the Vault of Evil forums:
"Machen is a great writer and exquisite artist. But, for me at least, he doesn't really open up and lead you into those nature forces as much as Blackwood does; I read somewhere that Machen was a Christian, and regarded Panistic forces as terror, and thus morally rejected them, and that may be one reason his stories don't stir in the same manner. Blackwood on the other hand was a pagan and welcomed those forces."

Sort of in the early stages of research here, but Joshi discusses the authors' philosophies in "The Weird Tale" (albeit from an admittedly biased perspective: "Blackwood’s is, nonetheless, a real philosophy, not a set of prejudices like Machen’s; and yet I am still working under the handicap of viewing Blackwood from what is essentially Lovecraft’s philosophical position"). I'll have to give it a less cursory lookthrough to figure out where I stand on Blackwood's (in particular) approach to fiction

Here are a few excerpts though:
Arthur Machen:
“For literature, as I see it, is the art of describing the indescribable; the art of exhibiting symbols which may hint at the ineffable mysteries behind them; the art of the veil, which reveals what it conceals.”
On the importance of “ecstasy” - “Substitute, if you like, rapture, beauty, adoration, wonder, awe, mystery, sense of the unkown, desire for the unknown…. In every case there will be that withdrawal from the common life and common consciousness which justifies my choice of ‘ecstasy’ as the best symbol of my meaning”

Algernon Blackwood
“In times of trouble, as equally in times of joy, it was to Nature I ever turned instinctively…. This call sounded above all other calls…When I fancied myself in love, this spell would operate-a sound of rain, a certain touch of colour in the sky, the scent of a wood-fire smoke, the lovely cry of some singing wind against the walls or window-and the human appeal would fade in me, or, at least, its transitory character became pitifully revealed. The strange sense of oneness with Nature was an imperious and royal spell that overmastered all other spells, nor can the hint of comely lessen its reality. Its religious origin appears, perhaps, in the fact that sometimes, during its fullest manifesttation, a desire stirred in me to leave a practical, utilitarian world I loathed and become-a monk!”

"Blackwood, unlike Machen or Lovecraft, did not embody his philosophy in vast numbers of essays or letters; although he wrote a number of reviews and some revealing radio talks, he alone of all the writers in the volume restricted himself principally to fictional composition. But to put it this way is somewhat misleading, because Blackwood, even more than Lovecraft, wrote unashamedly philosophical fiction."

on the other hand Joshi, from what I recall, says that Blackwood's prolific output contains quite a few pieces of lesser quality, and that he usually wrote to make a profit. I'll be thinking about your points.

>5 paradoxosalpha: Fragment has made my list!
>6 semdetenebre: From what I've read of these authors I think I'd agree

>7 theshaunz:

For a horror writer, one might think regarding one's subject matter as terror would be an asset!

Somewhat analoguously, it's been argued, I forget by whom, that Lovecraft's cosmic indifference is the more powerful precisely because he, as an atheist, didn't believe humans to have any cosmic significance in the real world either.

>8 AndreasJ: That's a great point. Joshi says of Blackwood, by contrast "Indeed, after reading the whole of Blackwood (and it is something one must do if one is to understand him), one wonders why he even attempted to convey fright in some of his tales, as his predominant message is optimistic in regard to human beings, their souls, and their place in the cosmos. "

I'm also having this discussion on goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/835093-blackwoodian-and-machenesque-fiction) and ligotti.net (http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=6178)

Here's one enormously helpful reply that speaks to a few Blackwood/Machen/Sarban dichotomies:

"Yes, Machen and Blackwood are often grouped together & did indeed share the ability to convey the numinous in their writing. They were both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and they certainly met on a few occasions, but were not closely acquainted.

One key difference between them is the source of their inspiration. Machen's was in classical paganism (Greek/Roman), the alchemists and hermeticists, and later in Celtic Christianity and the Grail cycle.

Blackwood was more drawn to Egyptian and Eastern influences. For example, he clearly had belief in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls, whereas Machen didn't, and was scathing of the popular interest in Eastern religions.

There is reasonable evidence that Sarban read Machen (his daughter thought so, and there were Machen books in his library), though he more specifically quoted de la Mare and H G Wells as influences. However, Sarban said he had not read Blackwood before writing any of his published stories. Even so, others have made the link: John Betjeman compared his "A Christmas Ghost Story" to "The Willows"."

I would look into the occult symbolism, usually manifesting as Pagan/elemental forms. Machen was a member of the Golden Dawn; as such, he was well versed on occult symbolism. Both authors also seem keenly aware of the concept of psychogeography, what some would call 'the spirit of a place' or the genus loci.

>1 theshaunz:

That certainly sounds like a fascinating subject to explore, and, as I'm sure you've already gathered, you've come to the right place for discussion about it. :)

Regarding the works you list: S.T. Joshi is definitely the guy to begin with in any serious study of the work of Blackwood and Machen. To my knowledge, there was little serious scholarship on either author before Joshi entered the field. H. P. Lovecraft's superb essay Supernatural Horror in Literature is also absolutely essential reading in terms of placing Blackwood and Machen in the context of what we like to refer to here as "the weird tradition".

Please keep us posted on how your work is progressing, won't you? I, for one, am keenly interested in seeing what conclusions you come to in your research.

>12 artturnerjr:

I sometimes take it for granted that everyone active on a group like this will have read it, but Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature is, as Art says, an essential treatise on the subject up until about the mid-1930's when the final revision was done. It would provide invaluable input to any discussion involving the tales of Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood.

Art is also correct in singling out Joshi.