This popular book really disappointed me...

[Nemonymous]

There's another poem by Thomas Hardy that may interest you that I posted last year: Corpses at St Pancras Station
des

[Bleak&Icy]

I enjoy following unanticipated pathways of thought: I have found, or rather remembered, a curious link between Hardy and the tradition of the weird tale.

Earlier this evening I spent some time searching through my library for the paperback copy of Jude the Obscure I first read in university. On a sagging shelf in one of my tottering bookcases I found the penguin edition of Hardy's novel Two on a Tower.

When did I buy that? I asked myself. Slowly it came back to me. Years ago, in the domed reading room (that's domed, not doomed, domed) of Melbourne Public Library I read Arthur Machen's non-fiction work Hieroglyphics. For those of you unfamiliar with this marvelous book, Hieroglyphics is Machen's ars poetica, in which he sets out his literary credo. Fiction, according to Machen, should be cosmically minded; it should transcend the banality of everyday social existence and instead explore the state of the solitary soul in communion with the mysteries of the limitless universe. Machen relegates authors like Trollope, Austen, Thackeray, in fact all writers who recreate the spectacle of social manners, to the category of "intelligent insects," devoid of vision.

I recall that Machen was wild in his praise of Hardy's Two on a Tower. I am writing from memory here (I am an alcoholic and my memory is not to be trusted), but I seem to remember Machen describing the novel in the following terms: A story of two lovers, an older woman and younger man, that transcends the limited sphere of social intercourse; the ancient stones of the tower are invested with cosmic energy and the two lovers are vital as planetary bodies. I am writing entirely from memory.

So: If anybody on TLO owns a copy of Hieroglyphics, and you have a moment to spare, and it is not too much trouble, could you possibly find for me the passage in which Machen discusses Hardy's novel, and, as I say, if you can spare the time, could you please post the full quotation is this forum? It would be much appreciated, because Machen's praise was so forceful, that when I read it, over a decade ago, I rushed out and bought a copy of Two on a Tower. But I confess, to this day I still have not read the novel. I am reading it now.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[max_renn]

I'd recommend giving McEwan's macabre short story collections a try. First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets contain some good stuff.

-Adam

[Daisy]

Hello, Bleak&Icy! I have located the passages on Hardy in Machen's Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature and have transcribed them for you here from the Unicorn Press edition (London, 1960), pp. 64 and 123:

In [Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy] you have the contrast of social ranks: the "two" are the lady of the manor and an educated peasant, but how utterly all thought of "society" (in any sense of the word) disappears from those wonderful pages, as you advance and find that the theme is really Love. Why even the accidents are glorified and are made of the essence of the book. The old tower standing in the midst of lonely, red ploughlands far from the highway is at first only the convenient place where the young peasant studies astronomy; but as you read you feel the change coming, the tower is transmuted, glorified; every stone of it is aglow with mystic light; it is made the abode of the Lover and the Beloved, it is seen to be a symbol of Love, of an ecstasy, remote, and passionate, and eternal, dwelling far from the ways of men . . . .

You remember what I said about [Hardy's] Two on a Tower; I praised it for its ecstatic passion, for that revelation of a great rapture, for its symbolism, showing how one must withdraw from the common ways, from the dusty high road and the swarming street, and go apart into high, lonely places, if one would perceive the high, eternal mysteries. I did not say so in so many words, but you no doubt saw that I was indicating that which is, in my opinion, valuable in Mr. Hardy's work, that which makes his books literature. And I am sure he would most decidedly and entirely disagree with me, and if you want to know why I am sure, I refer you to his later books, to his Tess and Jude. You know how the Tess was talked about, how it re-made the author from the commercial standpoint, simply because it contained, with many beautiful things, many absurd "preachments," much pseudo-philosophy of a kind suited to the intelligence of persons who think that Robert Elsmere is literature. If Mr. Hardy had been a conscious artist, if he had understood, I mean, what makes the charm and the wonder of Two on a Tower, he could never have adulterated the tale of Tess with a free-thinking tract, he would never have turned Jude into a long pamphlet on secondary education for farm labourers, with agnostic notes.

[Bleak&Icy]

Hi, Daisy. Thank you so much for taking the time to locate the passages for me. I am exceedingly grateful.

Reading Machen's words for the first time in ten years has made me feel rather nostalgic. I had just moved to Melbourne, a city in which I knew not a single soul (not even my own). I rented a squalid flat in a dubious building in the seedier part of St. Kilda. I was quite idealistic in those days, my head filled with all sorts of fancies. I spent each morning writing furiously, under a haze of tobacco smoke, like Lucian Taylor, the young protagonist in Machen's Hill of Dreams. Late in the afternoon, when my charming neighbours began to get drunk and violent, I would catch a tram into the city and head for the state library. There, in the domed reading room, I would read until closing.

I remember the very night I came across the passage that you transcribed for me, Daisy. It was autumn, the tram tracks were covered with crisp, starshaped leaves. The skeletal limbs of the plane trees lining the streets glowed violet (an innovation of the new mayor, introducing lights into all the trees). My head was full of Machen's pleas for ecstasy in literature. I was utterly alone, surrounded by people. I found a late-night bookshop (one of the reasons I adore Melbourne) and purchased the penguin edition of Two on a Tower. For hours I wandered around the city, looking for gargoyles on the old buildings. I made my way to Chinatown and ordered dumpling soup. As I rode the tram home that night, staring at my pale reflection in the darkened windows, I was too afraid to read the book, lest I destroy the dreams of a towering, mystical love that Machen's words had created in my mind.

Matthew

[unknown]

Quote

should transcend the banality of everyday social existence and instead explore the state of the solitary soul in communion with the mysteries of the limitless universe

I'd say this seems pretty indicative of most Ligotti tales, don't ya think?

[paeng]

I taught Hardy's Jude once and enjoyed the experience. For some time I kept talking about Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but I think I should allude to this work as well.

[bendk]

All this talk about Machen has me intrigued. I must admit that I have only read a few of his most well-known short stories. I do know that he influenced at least one of Ligotti's tales. Perhaps someone who knows a little about him could start a thread on this author.