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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 1, December 1943
Page 8
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8 FANTASY COMMENTATOR sue of right or wrong, there enters either a stark, primal manifestation of the Unknown that inextricably involves a reaction of sheer terrified horror by its witnesses or else a theme that conjures up borderland nightmares kept under control by established religion. It is obvious even to the casual reader that the explanation of such phenomena is entirely beyond the powers of the author----in fact painfully so. Stories in this second dual category seem a source of worry to Benson, and almost appear to have been written for the purpose of unburdening a mind of a plot whose genesis and rearing have been far less pleasant than parentally dutiful. It is in stories of this type, as exemplified by "Negotium Perambulans..." and "The Sanctuary", that Benson reaches the high-water mark of his power as master of the macabre. And it is scarcely necessary to remark it so because of the subject, because of the skill with which he forces the reader to feel that what-cannot-happen has become what-should-not-happen. This English author's style is so unobtrusive that it is often difficult for the reader to describe it without considerable reflection. Such a characteristic speaks highly for it as a suitable vehicle for the telling of a weird tale. Quiet naturalness is its most distinguishing trait; unlike those of Poe and Lovecraft, it is free from all traces of preciosity, and possesses all the well-tooled, subject-subservient efficiency that a good writer's should. Two small volumes, of pamphlet-thickness and not actually included in the listing of major collections of the author were published in this country soon after the appearance of Visible and Invisible: Spinach and Reconciliation (1924) and A Tale of an Empty House and Bagnell Terrace (1925). Each contained two tales, as given by the titles. "Spinach" tells of a murderer's spirit communicating by a ouija board with the occupants of a summer house, and "Reconciliation" relates the haunting of an old English home by a former resident who had been cheated of ownership by gambling. "A Tale of an Empty House" is a powerful account of the haunting of a disused coastguard tower in an isolated corner of Norfolk; "Bagnell Terrace" touches upon the dark powers of an ancient Egyptian cult, and although it falls a trifle short of the author's earlier classics, it is nevertheless similar to them in both subject-matter and treatment. These four tales were included in the author's next standard-size collection, Spook Stories (1928); this volume (unpublished in this country), despite having run through no less than four English editions, is rather difficult to obtain, and is now out of print. Copies vary in price from two-fifty to five dollars, depending on the edition quoted. Besides the four just mentioned, one other of its twelve stories has appeared elsewhere: "Expiation," which tells of a suicide reenacting his own hanging, was included in A Century of Ghost Stories (1934). Of the stories in E. F. Benson's third anthology, two undoubtedly are outstanding: "And No Bird Sings" and "The Face". The latter story is characterized by Lovecraft as "lethally potent, in its relentless aura of doom". This is by no means an overstatement, for it attains to a level of horror rarely touched. Hester Ward, the main character, suffers anew from a set of recurring dreams which had tortured her during childhood. In these, she finds herself walking along the edge of a sandy cliff; it is dusk, and at length she approaches a copse of trees, through which is visible her destination, a lonely church fronted by a disused graveyard, where some unknown thing awaits her. Here the preferatory dream stops; but on the next night, after a day of uneasy malaise that the dream causes, she dreams again. Standing by the tower of the ruined church, she sees a pale oval light form in the uneasy dusk before her; it resolves itself into a composite face: one half is "soft-curved and beautiful"; the other is horrible, thick and gathered together as by some physical deformity, sneering and lusting. It is a very incarnation of evil, and as it draws nearer, she is unable to move. Then she screams and wakes in distraught terror. At an art exhibit she
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8 FANTASY COMMENTATOR sue of right or wrong, there enters either a stark, primal manifestation of the Unknown that inextricably involves a reaction of sheer terrified horror by its witnesses or else a theme that conjures up borderland nightmares kept under control by established religion. It is obvious even to the casual reader that the explanation of such phenomena is entirely beyond the powers of the author----in fact painfully so. Stories in this second dual category seem a source of worry to Benson, and almost appear to have been written for the purpose of unburdening a mind of a plot whose genesis and rearing have been far less pleasant than parentally dutiful. It is in stories of this type, as exemplified by "Negotium Perambulans..." and "The Sanctuary", that Benson reaches the high-water mark of his power as master of the macabre. And it is scarcely necessary to remark it so because of the subject, because of the skill with which he forces the reader to feel that what-cannot-happen has become what-should-not-happen. This English author's style is so unobtrusive that it is often difficult for the reader to describe it without considerable reflection. Such a characteristic speaks highly for it as a suitable vehicle for the telling of a weird tale. Quiet naturalness is its most distinguishing trait; unlike those of Poe and Lovecraft, it is free from all traces of preciosity, and possesses all the well-tooled, subject-subservient efficiency that a good writer's should. Two small volumes, of pamphlet-thickness and not actually included in the listing of major collections of the author were published in this country soon after the appearance of Visible and Invisible: Spinach and Reconciliation (1924) and A Tale of an Empty House and Bagnell Terrace (1925). Each contained two tales, as given by the titles. "Spinach" tells of a murderer's spirit communicating by a ouija board with the occupants of a summer house, and "Reconciliation" relates the haunting of an old English home by a former resident who had been cheated of ownership by gambling. "A Tale of an Empty House" is a powerful account of the haunting of a disused coastguard tower in an isolated corner of Norfolk; "Bagnell Terrace" touches upon the dark powers of an ancient Egyptian cult, and although it falls a trifle short of the author's earlier classics, it is nevertheless similar to them in both subject-matter and treatment. These four tales were included in the author's next standard-size collection, Spook Stories (1928); this volume (unpublished in this country), despite having run through no less than four English editions, is rather difficult to obtain, and is now out of print. Copies vary in price from two-fifty to five dollars, depending on the edition quoted. Besides the four just mentioned, one other of its twelve stories has appeared elsewhere: "Expiation," which tells of a suicide reenacting his own hanging, was included in A Century of Ghost Stories (1934). Of the stories in E. F. Benson's third anthology, two undoubtedly are outstanding: "And No Bird Sings" and "The Face". The latter story is characterized by Lovecraft as "lethally potent, in its relentless aura of doom". This is by no means an overstatement, for it attains to a level of horror rarely touched. Hester Ward, the main character, suffers anew from a set of recurring dreams which had tortured her during childhood. In these, she finds herself walking along the edge of a sandy cliff; it is dusk, and at length she approaches a copse of trees, through which is visible her destination, a lonely church fronted by a disused graveyard, where some unknown thing awaits her. Here the preferatory dream stops; but on the next night, after a day of uneasy malaise that the dream causes, she dreams again. Standing by the tower of the ruined church, she sees a pale oval light form in the uneasy dusk before her; it resolves itself into a composite face: one half is "soft-curved and beautiful"; the other is horrible, thick and gathered together as by some physical deformity, sneering and lusting. It is a very incarnation of evil, and as it draws nearer, she is unable to move. Then she screams and wakes in distraught terror. At an art exhibit she
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