Machen is another one of those authors who was extremely influential on Lovecraft. He is best known for his weird fiction, and last weekend I read his book The Three Impostors, published in 1895. Lovecraft had some mixed feelings about this book, calling it "a work whose merit as a whole is somewhat marred by an imitation of the jaunty [Robert Louis] Stevenson manner." Stevenson's book New Arabian Nights was apparently a model for Machen.
However, Lovecraft also said that this book contains "certain tales which perhaps represent the high-water mark of Machen's skill as a terror-weaver."
The Three Impostors is structured as a series of short stories loosely connected by different bits of narrative. If I were to oversimplify things, I would say we have two "good guys," Dyson and Phillipps, and three "bad guys," the Impostors. The point of view switches back and forth, with Dyson or Phillipps meeting one of the Impostors, which inevitably leads the Impostor to tell him a story.
This style has some similarities to the old Greek and Roman Milesian Tales, with many different stories provided by several different narrators.
The version of the book I read includes two stories which are often omitted, "The Decorative Imagination" and "Novel of the Iron Maid." Editor Lin Carter doesn't know why those two stories are frequently missing from the collection, but he likes the book enough that he wanted to include it in its fullest version.
Machen's style is somewhat challenging, not the kind of thing you would use for light reading. Not only does he have somewhat wordy descriptions (though they are almost always very well-written), he uses huge paragraphs and frequently jumps around his perspective. The book requires and rewards consistent and close attention to detail, but it can also lead to some confusion.
I have the feeling that the confusion is actually deliberate on Machen's part. One of the book's central themes is deception, and having to go back and re-read a part because you missed something keeps you on your toes and a little bit uneasy.
Machen's frequent long descriptions range on the flowery, but I think whereas some authors try this style and fail, Machen succeeds. Important details are repeated when they are especially applicable to the current action. Some of the descriptions, both of characters and circumstances are more or less subtly creepy, as appropriate.
The tone is deeply literary, almost journal-esque in a lot of places. Some passages read not as an author attempting to entertain or as a character simply describing something, but as a character trying to convince himself that what he has actually seen is real.
Another fascinating element of the book is the way Machen plays with science and scientism. "Give superstition a Greek name, and believe in it, should almost be a proverb," he writes. At the time, movements like Mesmerism were using scientific language to give themselves a false sense of legitimacy among the public.
Each story has its own well-crafted rise in tension, and the overall thread of the story has its own "meta"-tension, I suppose you could call it. A large part of most of the parts and stories is mundane, but Machen expertly raises the tension when it is appropriate. The mix of the mundane and the weird is another aspect that influenced Lovecraft.
If I had to point at flaws, I would note that the repeated meetings of Dyson and Phillipps with the Impostors strains my sense of credibility. The ending is a little abrupt, as well.
All in all, it was a fun book, very challenging but rewarding. I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for something to barely pay attention to, but for the person who is interested in the authors who influenced Lovecraft and is willing to give this book the attention it demands, I say go for it.
Read it free here.
For the embedded video, I made separate chapters for each part of the book. The starting times are as follows:
18:08 Prologue
20:35 Adventure of the Gold Tiberius
22:45 The Encounter of the Pavement
23:50 Novel of the Dark Valley
25:10 Adventure of the Missing Brother
26:36 Novel of the Black Seal
29:24 Incident of the Private Bar
32:11 The Decorative Imagination
33:10 Novel of the Iron Maid
34:43 The Recluse of Bayswater
35:18 Novel of the White Powder
38:03 Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell
38:59 History of the Young Man with Spectacles
39:53 Adventure of the Deserted Residence
No comments:
Post a Comment