An interesting story, comparable to "La Horla" by Guy de Maupassant about an invisible and one-way untouchable ghostly haunting that seems not to go away until the object of its affection is dead. Professor Guildea is a successful academic who cares only about his research and not a bit about human affection or companionship (he could have done well in 2019) however he strikes a friendship with a priest, Father Murchinson, who becomes his main confidant when mysterious things happen.
Guildea sees a human-looking shadow sitting on a park bench in front of his house (one of the doors to Hyde Park is just in front) and upon checking and finding nothing feels that an invisible presence which seems to be in love with him has moved to his house and has been petting and training his parrot. After discussing and showing signs to Father Murchinson, Guildea goes to Paris to escape but there he is touched by the shadow, erotically, in the midst of his speech and he collapses. Upon return he tells Murchinson that the shadow now follows him everywhere and snuggles against him in the bed and on the stairs. Father Murchinson tells Guildea to give love back to the shadow, but he refuses and one night, while Murchinson also sees a shadow on the same bench, Guildea is dead of a heart attack with a horror expression on his face back in the house.
Although this is a horror story, just barely out of the Victorian age, and a pretty good one at that, I propose another explanation. Hichens was gay in real life and it must not have been easy for him at the time. He did live a long life (died at 86), but he probably felt many small deaths (not orgasms) during his life as a gay man in Victorian England. Guildea is gay and Murchinson is his love object, but he cannot admit that to himself since gay is bad at the time. So he concocts this shadow which replaces the sexual intimacy that he wants to have with Murchinson. However, the stronger the gay love becomes, the more Guildea denies it and pushes it away, leading eventually to his death (symbolically?) because he denies the strongest aspect of his personality. If this is the case, then Hichens should be getting way more credit for this story than he currently is.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen has been described as one of the last Victorian gentlemen, wearing a cape well into the 1930s. H.P. Lovecraft pays great respect to him in his seminal work about the history of supernatural horror in literature (a must read starting point for any horror lover). Apparently this novel, as appreciated and as glorified today for its thematic, narrative and structural value (often imitated) was denounced and the author harshly criticized, condemned, even on the verge of destroying the author's further career, and all of that because of the "hints" of various sexual activities. These hints of "activities" would barely cause a modern reader to pause, were apparently enough for the stuck up, pole-up-the-rectum Victorian literary critics to foam from their mouths in anger and bile, condemning and vilifying the author.
The novel starts with a crazy professor, Raymond, calling his rational friend, Clarke to witness a brain surgery on a 17 year old girl Mary which will enable her to see the supernatural world. It is slightly implied that Mary is having a sexual relationship with Raymond, and that he doesn't care much about her, considering her inferior. I am sure the modern feminists are getting a fit of blinding rage when reading those pages. Nevertheless, the operation is successful, kind of; Mary "sees" and goes mad. Years later there is a girl of 12 or so, Helen, who is sent to live with a rural family by a rich relative, who turns out to be Raymond (we find at the end of the book - don't read this blog if you dislike spoilers), and Helen is the child of Mary and the Great God Pan, which is not like the actual Pan from Greek mythology (if you read the myths), but more like Lucifer or Satan, and the baby is more like the "Rosemary's Baby."
Well, Helen seems to like having sex with Fauns, Satyrs and other forest thingies, even at a tender age, and involves couple of of other country children in her adventure, some of whom go mad, while other disappear in the forest. Eventually she marries a country gentleman (when she is around 19) and makes him sell all his assets and give her the money which she uses to travel around the world and take part in orgies with humans and others, while her country husband becomes a beggar and dies of hunger and fear, eventually.
Helen becomes Mrs. Beaumont later in life and a great staple in London High Life, with the small detail that everyone she fucks commits a suicide afterwards. Several "high born" gentlemen (who don't mind fucking around, apparently) end in this way until the hero of the book, Villiers, with another guy, Austin, who is there just to fill empty space it seems, confront Helen with a noose telling her to kill herself or they will expose her to the police. As improbable as it sounds, she does kill herself, and her body changes forms between female and male, beasts, half-beasts, etc. until finally rests in an amorphous form of black jelly. Now we see where Lovecraft got his inspiration for the Shoggoth.
It is a well written novella with very frequent uses of "unspeakable", "indescribable" and similar Lovecraftian exaggerations of things that today would be considered very mundane compared to the sick psychological horror that causes mental trauma and pathological conditions in the modern readers.
The novel starts with a crazy professor, Raymond, calling his rational friend, Clarke to witness a brain surgery on a 17 year old girl Mary which will enable her to see the supernatural world. It is slightly implied that Mary is having a sexual relationship with Raymond, and that he doesn't care much about her, considering her inferior. I am sure the modern feminists are getting a fit of blinding rage when reading those pages. Nevertheless, the operation is successful, kind of; Mary "sees" and goes mad. Years later there is a girl of 12 or so, Helen, who is sent to live with a rural family by a rich relative, who turns out to be Raymond (we find at the end of the book - don't read this blog if you dislike spoilers), and Helen is the child of Mary and the Great God Pan, which is not like the actual Pan from Greek mythology (if you read the myths), but more like Lucifer or Satan, and the baby is more like the "Rosemary's Baby."
Well, Helen seems to like having sex with Fauns, Satyrs and other forest thingies, even at a tender age, and involves couple of of other country children in her adventure, some of whom go mad, while other disappear in the forest. Eventually she marries a country gentleman (when she is around 19) and makes him sell all his assets and give her the money which she uses to travel around the world and take part in orgies with humans and others, while her country husband becomes a beggar and dies of hunger and fear, eventually.
Helen becomes Mrs. Beaumont later in life and a great staple in London High Life, with the small detail that everyone she fucks commits a suicide afterwards. Several "high born" gentlemen (who don't mind fucking around, apparently) end in this way until the hero of the book, Villiers, with another guy, Austin, who is there just to fill empty space it seems, confront Helen with a noose telling her to kill herself or they will expose her to the police. As improbable as it sounds, she does kill herself, and her body changes forms between female and male, beasts, half-beasts, etc. until finally rests in an amorphous form of black jelly. Now we see where Lovecraft got his inspiration for the Shoggoth.
It is a well written novella with very frequent uses of "unspeakable", "indescribable" and similar Lovecraftian exaggerations of things that today would be considered very mundane compared to the sick psychological horror that causes mental trauma and pathological conditions in the modern readers.
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