Arthur Machen Recommendations

[Piranesi]

I wish to introduce a friend to Arthur Machen's fiction. In order to do that I've been searching for a good collection of his tales but there are so many to choose from and I'm only familiar with Tales of Horror and the Supernatural from Tartarus - out of print, unfortunately. The collection I'm looking for must include "The White People", for I'm sure my friend will love that uncanny tale as much as I do. Any recommendations?

[curatorialentity]

I would say if you don't know if your friend will like Machen or not, you might try starting with the Penguin edition. It's pretty cheap, offers a nice sampler.

[Michael]

Probably has been posted already but there's a Complete Works of Arthur Machen on Kindle

Amazon.com: Delphi Works of Arthur Machen (Illustrated) (Series Four 4) eBook: Arthur Machen: Kindle Store

 

Amazon.com: Delphi Works of Arthur Machen (Illustrated) (Series Four 4) eBook: Arthur Machen: Kindle Store

It'll say "series 4" but have no idea what that means since I bought it and it's all his works (including stuff like his Casanova bio) for like 3 bucks. That'd be my starter rec if they have e-books

[Druidic]

Your friend may like Machen, even love his work, but don’t be too disappointed if his/her initial reaction is less than overwhelming. Machen is a bit of an acquired taste. When I first read Machen, his stuff left me absolutely cold. Years later I revisited his stories and found them to be haunting, sometimes even brilliant and, very often, darkly poetic. Amazing the difference a few years can make--but I was ready for Machen by then!
As August Derleth once wrote to me, “Things don’t change. People do.” So true.

[Murony_Pyre]

". . . . . tell you? ha! who
can tell another how
to manage the swimming?

he was right: people

don’t change. They only stand more
revealed. I,
likewise"

-Charles Olson, Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2

[Sand]

At the New Statesman, a thoughtful review by lead reviewer John Gray of a trilogy by M. John Harrison. But more widely, it quietly argues for a new understanding of "a recognisable tradition of what might be described as hermetic doubt" and cites Machen, Charles Williams and Meyrink as among those who wrote in this way. This seems to me a striking insight.

Doubt - especially as exemplified in Machen's often-overlooked later work, such as "N", "Opening the Door" and "The Green Round" - is exactly what he is writing about. 'At the last - what do we know?' is the phrase he uses that sums this up. The "hermetic" part of the phrase also resonates, though, as showing the source of the inspiration of these writers: what is now called the Western Mystery Tradition.

It's always bothered me that terms such as "weird" or "horror" or even "supernatural" fiction just don't work for Machen, Williams (or Lindsay, Blackwood or de la Mare, etc): they showcase only the most surface aspect of their work, but don't honour what lies within. I doubt that "hermetic doubt" will catch on as a critical or genre term, but it ought to. It works very well.

(Thanks to Richard Rogers of the Friends of Arthur Machen for noticing the review).

[Robin Davies]

Thanks for the link and I agree with your comments. The article was very interesting to me because M. John Harrison has been my favourite writer for about 40 years and Blackwood and Machen would be in my top five. Having said that, I'm rather ashamed to admit that Nova Swing and Empty Space are the first Harrison books that disappointed me.

Harrison’s work has always been challenging and baffling – but in a good way. As a fan of Robert Aickman, David Lynch and The Prisoner I’m used to being baffled “in a good way”. But something feels very wrong about his two latest novels. Or more precisely something has broken down in the communication between Harrison’s work and my brain. He’s a ferociously intelligent writer and maybe he’s just lost me – his work is now all sailing so far above my head that I can’t even catch a glimpse of the old sparkle of literary genius that I used to love. He expects the reader to work hard but with these two books I just can’t seem to do the heavy lifting, I can’t fill in the gaps, I can’t get any traction on the events or the characters. It all seems too random. In a world where anything can happen nothing has weight or significance, nothing matters, there's too much quantum weirdness and jargon.

Empty Space seems a bit better than Nova Swing but, with the exception of Anna Kearney, the characters are just flickering bits of “code” which is a major failing for a writer who takes pride in humanizing the SF/fantasy genre. In fact it’s only in the realistic sections of the narrative (particularly the moving final chapter of Empty Space) that the book really grips and engages. In the space opera sections Harrison’s prose, normally so supple and evocative, seems to have lost its power and ends up as a scattering of seemingly random disconnected images and events. Stuff happens but none of it grips, thrills, moves or illuminates. Revisiting Light confirmed my view that that book made more effort to engage the reader in a flow of events, to lock the reader’s imagination to concrete images and events. It was challenging but gave enough to make the reader want to rise to the challenge. These latest two books don’t.

I had thought I was alone in these feelings but I noticed some reviews of Nova Swing on Amazon which also found it vastly inferior to Light. Of course Light itself was controversial and some people won’t “get” any of Harrison’s work if they require conventional storytelling. But the fact that I’m not alone in finding Nova Swing and Empty Space distinctly different from (and worse than) his other work (which varies from good to utterly magnificent) suggests that maybe, maybe, my disappointment is not entirely my fault.

For those who haven’t encountered Harrison’s work before (and if you have any interest in imaginative fiction you definitely need to check him out) I would recommend starting with The Course of the Heart, Signs of Life, the awesome short story collection Things That Never Happen or Climbers. Light is also brilliant but as for its two sequels… well, here is where my 40-year love affair with Harrison’s work may be starting to break down...

... but to end on a positive note, all may not be lost because I thoroughly enjoyed his recent short stories In Autotelia, Cave & Julia (available as a Kindle Single) and Getting Out Of There.
Getting Out of There - Nightjar Press

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by Piranesi

I wish to introduce a friend to Arthur Machen's fiction. In order to do that I've been searching for a good collection of his tales but there are so many to choose from and I'm only familiar with Tales of Horror and the Supernatural from Tartarus - out of print, unfortunately. The collection I'm looking for must include "The White People", for I'm sure my friend will love that uncanny tale as much as I do. Any recommendations?

I second the Penguin edition...

The White People and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics): Arthur Machen, S. T. Joshi, Guillermo del Toro: 9780143105596: Amazon.com: Books

 

The White People and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics): Arthur Machen, S. T. Joshi, Guillermo del Toro: 9780143105596: Amazon.com: Books

Other than this collection, I think you're better off finding a nice used book. Machen is in the public domain, meaning that almost all of the books now available are shoddy "print on demand" books that have been culled from Project Gutenberg. You're about as well off printing and stapling your own copy at that point. Depending on how much you want to spend, you can still get the latest Tartarus edition of Tales of Horror and the Supernaturalfor under a $100. Older editions will run much less.

[Piranesi]

Thank you for your recommendations. I was hesitant about the Penguin edition for two reasons: firstly, the cover illustration strongly disagrees with me (that creature is decidedly not Pan); secondly, ”The Terror” may have some merits but it’s not exactly Machen at his best. But, since these are minor faults, I bought this volume for my friend who is now happily reading it.

[Murony_Pyre]

Quote Originally Posted by Piranesi

Thank you for your recommendations. I was hesitant about the Penguin edition for two reasons: firstly, the cover illustration strongly disagrees with me (that creature is decidedly not Pan); secondly, ”The Terror” may have some merits but it’s not exactly Machen at his best. But, since these are minor faults, I bought this volume for my friend who is now happily reading it.

Lucky friend, I'd say.