Arthur Machen (1863–1947)

Esta es una de las historias menos conocidas de Arthur Machen; apenas se cita, y sin embargo es una joya imprescindible.

Los hechos que se cuentan en ‘El terror’ transcurren en el año 1915, en plena Primera Guerra Mundial, cuando el mundo civilizado estaba amenazado por Alemania. Machen juega con los rumores que corrían por tierras inglesas en aquella época, donde era difícil saber lo que estaba sucediendo realmente en el frente, y las noticias llegaban a destiempo. Y si esto pasaba show more en las ciudades, en las zonas rurales todavía se acentuaba más esta falta de información.

En la región de Meirion, nombre ficticio que le da el narrador, se suceden diversos crímenes inexplicables, brutales y sin motivo aparente, que parecen producto de un loco. Al mismo tiempo también son destruidas algunas fábricas de municiones, y es entonces cuando se empieza a pensar que es cosa de los alemanes, que están infiltrándose en el país. Pero los hechos extraños no paran aquí, porque algunos animales parecen haber enloquecido y actúan de manera irracional. La gente empieza a ver y oír cosas fantásticas, alucinantes casi, y no se sabe si tiene algo que ver una cierta sugestión colectiva. La población no sabe qué pensar de todo ello, y las noticias no llegan, hay orden de controlar toda la prensa.

La grandeza de esta breve pero intensa novela, radica en la maestría de Machen a la hora de construir su historia, donde el lector va asistiendo al desarrollo de los acontecimientos cada vez con más angustia por saber lo que realmente está pasando y saber cuál es la naturaleza del terror, hasta llegar a un final sorprendente.

Ciertamente, ‘El terror’ podría enmarcarse dentro del llamado horror cósmico, por lo que de terror primigenio tiene, aunque no tiene mucha relación con la obra de Lovecraft propiamente dicha. Tampoco es que sea una historia de miedo al uso, sino que está más cerca del relato de misterio. El terror aún así está presente, pero se trata de un terror sugerente, que trascurre en lugares idílicos, a la luz del día, en contraste con otro tipo de historias más oscuras.

Los puntos fuertes de ‘El terror’ radican en la estructura de la narración, donde se van desvelando los sucesos paulatinamente, como si de las capas de una cebolla se tratase, así como la sensación de extrañeza que logra transmitir al lector, y la resolución final del terror, redondo, pero aún así dado a múltiples interpretaciones, donde la crítica a la incongruencia de la guerra, la barbarie del hombre y su incapacidad de comprensión del mundo que le rodea, quedan patentes. show less

Why did no one tell me of Arthur Machen before?

Granted, they may have tried, but I most certainly wasn't listening. I can possibly vaguely remember his name lumped in together with writers of "weird fiction" listed as inspirations of HP Lovecraft or other writers I enjoy. I probably jotted it down at some point and thought, "I'll have to look into that guy," and then never did.

If so, I regret that, but at least I found him now.

And if you're into body horror, Lovecraft, de-evolution, stories show more where visions make people go head-lollingly mad, David Cronenberg, female sexuality as monster, that one Stephen King story where the beer makes a guy into a blob, stories where unethical scientists make bad decisions, and disjointed narratives, this book is for you.

I'm moving on to his "The White People" now. show less

What could have been an interesting addition to the canon of cosmic horror is considerably vitiated by the attempt at a dubious rational explanation of the 'terror' in the title, to which is appended a rather pompous and nasty bit of class conservatism for Machen's lower middle readers.

This does not make the book not worth reading on two accounts. First, the way the horror is built up may be sly and overly sarcastic but its incidents are imaginative even if they retrospectively appear as show more just clues in a disappointing detective story lengthened out beyond its capacity to sustain our interest.

The second is more interesting. The book is set in the summer of 1915 (though published in 1917) when the full horror of the Western Front had not quite set in, while total war was still a business opportunity for industrialists and when all but the young victims could see 'business as usual' ahead.

War is always dreadful to our average Englishman but clearly all the fault of the Germans whose propensity for cruelty and evil is taken for granted as just cause for some of the more weird attempts to explain the terrible events taking place across the country.

However, Machen, perhaps still a little innocent in his conservatism, captures almost satirically the limitations the rising new warfare state is placing on the free-born Englishman, the mounting paranoia of the population and the typically flaccid English acceptance of 'orders'.

There are hints of cynicism here as the yellow journalist in Machen makes fun of the well-known rumours of his day - those Russians with snow still on their boots allegedly seen marching down from Scotland or the Angel of Mons (a myth he perhaps innocently created himself).

Newspapers are silenced without protest (Machen was a Harmsworth journalist and propagandist himself), pathways blocked by sentries without explanation, deaths covered up for reasons of state security (actually to avoid 'panic') - the acceptance of the power of the State unquestioned.

This may be what it is to be British when it comes down to it. A strutting belief in one's freedom in peacetime shifting into an unquestioned submission before the liberal and rather dictatorial warfare State that got the population into the fix of war in the first place. Plus ca change probably.

The ideal of English freedom is probably one of the most touching cultural delusions in the Western world ... matched only by an equally touching delusion that all is well in God's Heaven (God being an Englishman) because the United Kingdom is (ho, hum!) a 'democracy'.

This is what is so fascinating about the book. A failed scientific romance presented like a Conan Doyle mystery and an inadequate tale of cosmic horror become a story of the flaccidity of the British bourgeoisie in the face of world war. We cannot decide whether this is satire, cynicism or stupidity.

One more thing in the book's favour is that Machen, when he is not being sardonic, is still a good writer. He captures the world of rural Wales in his period well. Wales is his territory and it will have been sufficiently foreign to his London readership to become his Miskatonic Valley. show less

Stephen King has said that this is a horror story that has haunted him all his life. The influence on his novels and others (including H. P. Lovecraft) is undeniable, but despite all the apologists, it is hard to see this story as anything other than an expression of fear and othering of women, especially women who assert their independence. There are two female characters, neither of which gets to speak for herself. One is a meek victim who is violated without much sense of guilt or show more remorse; consider these words by the doctor who performs brain surgery on her without her consent, causing her to literally lose her mind: "As you know, I rescued Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was a child; I think her life is mine, to use as I feel fit."

The other woman never actually appears on the page, but is only talked about. She victimizes men, with their consent, at least at first. She also terrifies every man in the piece, but she didn't particularly terrify me. Helen is a woman of independent means, who does what she wants when she wants, who indulges her own pleasures, and who cannot be controlled; therefore, she must be destroyed.

I often find that these Pan-inspired stories are seething with misogyny. Compare with Harvest Home. show less