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Loading... A Voyage to Arcturus and the Haunted Womanby David Lindsay
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Contains
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by the critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the greatest novel of the twentieth century. Lindsay's descriptive prose is simply beyond compare. The Haunted Woman is a tense, atmospheric novel that questions the nature of reality. Isbel Loment is leading an ordinary, if uneventful, existence. She is engaged to a rather boring man and is just passing through her own life. Everything changes when she and her fianc rent a remote house in Sussex. In the house Isbel discovers rooms that appear to exist in different realities from her own. Her discoveries in this house will change both her life and her destiny forever . It was Lindsay that discovered the authentic use for other planets in fiction . . . It's a remarkable thing -C. S. Lewis I read A Voyage to Arcturus with avidity, it is a work of philosophy, religion, and morality- J. R. R. Tolkien No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)808.83876Literature By Topic Rhetoric and anthologies Anthologies & Collections Fiction Genre fiction Adventure fiction Science and Fantasy FictionLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.25)
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Wikipedia in English
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"A Voyage to Arcturus" (1920) carries a similar tone as (but a lot more accessible than) C.S.Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet" series…only a little more spiritual and metaphysical than religious. If only I'd read it 50 years ago. Today it seems just a little too contrived--with no real answers. I admit to coming away with a sense of confusion: who is who? and why is what? I give this tale a 3.5 stars.
Here I'll admit I had to take a couple of weeks away from this dual book to read a couple of "real" Sci-Fi books before daring to read another Lindsay story....but I'm glad I did read it.
Unlike "A Voyage to Arcturus" "The Haunted Woman" (1921) is much more accessible; this story may be characterized as a 'fey' "Returns of the Day". Ultimate love is found and lost in a phantasmic game of emotional hide and seek. Such a story could not be written today because our interpersonal sensibilities are not so restricted and defined as in the early 1920's when this was written. Not to mention the restrictions dictated by social class--which all appear so artificial to us today. But then, one has to wonder if maybe it isn't so much more restricted as "different". I can't help but feel that the people of 100 years from now will find our love stories and their conventions stilted and childishly humorous. In any case the fey aspect of the story is merely the excuse--or framework--for the actual love interests and has no other role to play than to set the scene. In fact, for me, the question of "what/who does Judge see" when he looks into the face of the musician on the hillside is the most intriguing and captivating question of the entire story. More so, even, than the fate(s) of the protagonists.
This story gets 5 stars...for being an interesting peek into the middle-to-upper class social conventions of early 19th century England, being a fairly quick read, and creating a background world that's left open for us to interpolate. (