THE DEEP ONES: "Smith: An Episode in a Lodging House" by Algernon Blackwood

"Smith: An Episode in a Lodging House" by Algernon Blackwood

Discussion begins April 8.

First published The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906).



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14471/14471-h/14471-h.htm#chapter7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?53424

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Ancient Sorceries
Medley Macabre
Algernon Blackwood (Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction)

MISCELLANY

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview32
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Blackwood
http://weirdfictionreview.com/2013/01/wfrs-101-weird-writers-19-algernon-blackwo...
http://www.zone-sf.com/mikeashley.html
http://tinyurl.com/omk6exw

I'll be reading from Algernon Blackwood (Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction)

Online for me, handy link above gratefully acknowledged.

Downloaded the Gutenberg version of The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories linked to in >1 gwendetenebre:.

***

That cover reminds me of the opening of "The Beckoning Fair One" (https://www.librarything.com/topic/177336)!

There's a lot of overlap in the contents of the Blackwood short story collections I've found, and I've got this story in a least four different books. Chances are I'll go to Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Tales edited by S. T. Joshi and The Willows and Other Tales of Terror: the Premium Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood edited by M. Grant Kellermeyer (no touchstones) so as to take a look at the notes.

By now it should be Wednesday even in America ...

On one level, Smith's not suffering from Mr. Exposition syndrome is refreshing; as a practitioner of secret arts, he's plausibly secretive, unlike many of his literary congeners. On another, I found the vagueness as to what was going on excessive - I'd liked some more insight into what he was doing and what apparently went wrong. It's a fine line to be sure between explaining too much and too little in a weird tale, but this one is definitely on the too little side.

I did like the touch of the doctor telling the story to a definite audience, rather than being a pure monologue at the reader.

I found the similarities between the entities here and in "The Horla", which we just read last week, to be pretty outstanding. Only the milk and water was missing. Smith’s battle in and out of the magical circle is vividly physical and quite thrilling. Perhaps only Dr. Strange could match it.

Was anyone else reminded of the Tuvan throat singing technique in the following passage?

His head was thrown back a little, and as I looked I saw the expression on his face change swiftly from fear to one of absolute command. He looked steadily round the room and then his voice began to vibrate. At first in a low tone, it gradually rose till it assumed the same volume and intensity I had heard that night when he called up the stairs into my room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY1pcEtHI_w

I liked this tale. Not my favorite Blackwood (by a long shot), but an enjoyable story nonetheless.

I particularly liked this passage, which I found quite vivid and cinematic:

"He drew himself up to his full height. His great shoulders squared themselves. His head was thrown back a little, and as I looked I saw the expression on his face change swiftly from fear to one of absolute command. He looked steadily round the room and then his voice began to vibrate. At first in a low tone, it gradually rose till it assumed the same volume and intensity I had heard that night when he called up the stairs into my room.

"It was a curiously increasing sound, more like the swelling of an instrument than a human voice; and as it grew in power and filled the room, I became aware that a great change was being effected slowly and surely. The confusion of noise and rushings of air fell into the roll of long, steady vibrations not unlike those caused by the deeper pedals of an organ. The movements in the air became less violent, then grew decidedly weaker, and finally ceased altogether. The whisperings and sighings became fainter and fainter, till at last I could not hear them at all; and, strangest of all, the light emitted by the circle, as well as by the designs round it, increased to a steady glow, casting their radiance upwards with the weirdest possible effect upon his features. Slowly, by the power of his voice, behind which lay undoubtedly a genuine knowledge of the occult manipulation of sound, this man dominated the forces that had escaped from their proper sphere, until at length the room was reduced to silence and perfect order again.

>7 gwendetenebre:

Was anyone else reminded of the Tuvan throat singing technique in the following passage?

I was not, but that YouTube clip was cool as hell! Guy's got a didgeridoo in his throat! :D

(Interesting, too, that we both glommed on to the same part of the story)

>9 artturnerjr:

Yeah - I thought that Blackwood's having Smith use "the occult manipulation of sound" to subjugate the entity (and here AB creates yet another powerful, invisible supernatural creature) was a novel touch, especially for 1906.

In actual fact the "vibration of God-names" is a specific technique used in modern ceremonial magic, and was taught in the 19th-century Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Blackwood was a member, though not a particularly active or advanced one, so far as I know.

>6 AndreasJ:

Some more detail on Smith's intent, or the way in which his evocation had gone amiss, might have been interesting. But Blackwood really did furnish about the level of information that a curious neighbor would get from a working occultist of Smith's type. I quite liked the formula he used for non-answers:

"That, of course, is a perfectly proper question."

My own usual reply in such circumstances is: "I couldn't say."

>11 paradoxosalpha: Some more detail on Smith's intent, or the way in which his evocation had gone amiss, might have been interesting. But Blackwood really did furnish about the level of information that a curious neighbor would get from a working occultist of Smith's type.

I quite agree; hence my first "level". I just wish Blackwood would have found a way to let us understand a little more without turning Smith into the magician equivalent of a Bond villain.

Another instance of "the occult manipulation of sound" by Smith:

"But long before the impulse could translate itself into an act, or even before it had been properly weighed and considered by the mind, I heard a voice close beside me in the air, a sort of hushed whisper which I am certain was Smith speaking, though the sound did not seem to have come to me through the door. It was close in my very ear, as though he stood beside me, and it gave me such a start, that I clutched the banisters to save myself from stepping backwards and making a clatter on the stairs.

"'There is nothing you can do to help me,' it said distinctly, 'and you will be much safer in your own room.'

>13 gwendetenebre:

That is interesting, isn't it? Not "in my head" (telepathy), but "in my very ear" (actual audible sound). Would've given me a start, too! :D

An enjoyable story.

I liked Smith being characterized as more of a nuisance sorcerer than a menace to the neighborhood. Still he is creepy at times: whispers in your ear when he's not present and takes your books not to mention his extra dimensional visitors getting loose at times.

I liked the line between vagueness and explicit exposition that Blackwood walked though I did find the usual diagrams on the floor bit disappointing until I reminded myself it was fresher when Blackwood did it.

I liked the wry humor found in this line:

…and at the same time awakened my sense of horror—whatever that may be in a medical student—about as deeply and permanently as these two emotions were capable of being stirred at all in the particular system and set of nerves called ME.

Ah, medical students!

>15 RandyStafford: the usual diagrams on the floor bit

It's uncreative because it's true. There really were magicians operating that way at the time, and Blackwood knew a few of them.

>16 gwendetenebre:

I was put off by the "particular system and set of nerves called ME." But you're right, "my sense of horror—whatever that may be in a medical student" is pretty hilarious.

>7 gwendetenebre:

Following "The Horla "with this story was a nice coincidence.

I didn't think of Tuvan throat singing (I didn’t think Blackwood had implied the unique thing about it, namely the creation of overtones by one singer) but this did immediately think of some Steve Ditko style smoke, that could have been a frame from an early Doctor Strange story: “The door yielded at once, and I burst into a room that was so full of a choking vapour, moving in slow clouds,”.

This is from Blackwood’s first short story collection (Kellermeyer suggests the unnamed narrator is Marriott from another story in that collection, “Keeping his Promise”). It’s fairly conventional in structure, and it’s concise in comparison to many of his later works. In some ways is reminiscent of an M. R. James story. There’s also a resemblance to Arthur Conan Doyle’s mummy story “Lot No. 249”.

The entities that Smith summons or conjures reappear in various guises in Blackwood’s later fiction - the aliens or transdimensional beings of “The Willows”, the Faery Folk of “May Day Eve”, for example.

On finishing the story, I was reminded of Wakefield's "A Black Solitude" (Nov 2014 discussion) and preferred that to this Blackwood effort. The discussion here heightened my appreciation, though. There are certainly aspects which we'd now consider tropes or cliched description, but it helps to know there is an accuracy to the description and events. And there certainly were new aspects of conjuring or communing to be had: the "vibration of God-names" mentioned in >11 paradoxosalpha: is a key example.

Overall, like the de Maupassant, being acquainted with such a genre touchstone is in itself important. As a reader, there was a bit too much description for me, which diluted any effect the story would have. So while I agree Smith was not "Mr Exposition" a la >6 AndreasJ:, but Blackwood himself drags the story down a bit. I recall Wakefield did better in that respect.

I also wanted to note the similarity to M.R. James in the setting: a learned man of the academy, sitting round a fire and relaying a grisly story to an audience in a darkened room. I liked that aspect, the medical slant was also done well.