The White People and Other Stories: The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 2 (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I was vary impressed by Chaosium's first collection of Machen's work, which was THE THREE IMPOSTERS AND OTHER STORIES. "The Three Imposters" was a narrative of interwoven tales describing a paranoid man's encounter with three people who are not who they seem. Each is an excellent story in its own right, but the whole is greater than the sum. Considering the success of the first volume, I decided to try the second.

If you don't know Arthur Machen, he wrote "weird" stories in the late Victorian - Edwardian period. They all have a distinctly British flavor that reminds me of M.R. James. Most of his stories are set in his homeland of Wales, where something of charm and magic remains beneath the hills. By necessity he began to write for a newspaper later in life, and a fictional account he wrote for the paper on spectral guardians for British troops in WWI became the "Angel of Mons" stories you can still read about today.

THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER STORIES is an eclectic collection of Machen's weird stories, his poetry, and some of his later writings for newspapers. Despite being a fan of Lovecraft, I have always wondered what HPL meant when he consistently referred to a protagonist hinting at things unknown (to others), dropping outlandish names and meaning more than is said. Well, he borrowed this technique from Machen's "The White People", a story made to look like a young girl's diary. Her journal is just a collection of thoughts and experiences, and many things are hinted at as reminders to herself which we will never understand, but these brief glimpses are horrible enough. Machen's poetry collection, "Ornaments in Jade", also struck me as weirdly beautiful but also indecipherable. More is unsaid than said, hinted at than revealed. I felt that it relied on some code, a common frame of reference, that has been lost over the course of a hundred years. Perhaps his contemporaries felt the same way.

There are other interesting compositions in this volume. "The Red Hand" brings back the investigating protagonists from "The Three Imposters," with a not-too-dissimilar plotline. "A Fragment of Life" seemed to be a glimpse into the everday life from a time long ago. It is almost novel length and simply describes the common affairs of a couple in turn-of-the-century London. If this sounds uninteresting, you'll have to read for yourself how a masterful author makes common situations uncommon. Finally, there are a series of stories written from Machen's journalistic days. Besides a group that are all related to the "Angel of Mons" category, there are a few others that describe other supernatural phenomena and are written in the first-person. They are so straight-forward and sincere that sometimes it is difficult to remember they are meant to be fiction.

Machen's overarching theme is that the material, everday world is merely a shadow of reality and that true living must penetrate that shadow to see the glories beyond. This is something he truly believed and it is evident in all of his stories. The reason these stories continue to frighten and thrill is that we desire to see what is beyond the veil, but we are also afraid of what we will find.

I often find myself drawn to the explicit- gore and carnage, ala Bentley Little and Richard Laymon, so the sublety of Machen's writing was quite a departure for me. The style is quite beautiful- this is a talented writer whose prose will sweep you away with its pure visual beauty.

You will not grasp the entire sequence of events first in these tales, you may have to read them a second time, but that is a pleasure given the author's pleasing style. Perhaps it is time to take a break from the overt that is so prevalent in books and films today, and return to a kinder, gentler time where what is not said can be even more horrifying than what is thrown in your face. This is Machen.

H. P. Lovecraft considered "The White People" the second greatest weird tale ever written, following Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows." With this second of three marvelous editions of "the Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen," S. T. Joshi has proved himself to be Machen's finest editor. The book's fascinating Introduction is full of information and relates Machen's attempt to escape the stylistic influence of Robert Louis Stevenson:

"I was to start afresh, then, from the beginning to turn over a new leaf, both as regards matter and manner. No more white powders, no more of the calix principis inferorum, no more hanky-panky with the Great God Pan, or the Little People or any people of that dubious sort; and--this was the hard part--no more of the measured, rounded Stevenonian cadence, which I had learned to use with some faculty and more facility."

What makes me volume especially enticing for me is that it includes the exquisite prose poems that were published as "Ornaments in Jade" -- they are quite beautiful and strange. Arthur Machen is an artist of the finest form, combining intelligence and art, an interesting outlook on life and the supernatural. The three books in this wonderful series, impeccably edited by the magnificent S. T. Joshi, are a treasure trove indeed!