![]() ![]() ![]() Machen gives us unabashedly mystical elements with a scientific explanation half-attempted of human brains being changed into devils' brains, which makes the homocide justified. Machen has to finally resort to a letter written by another character altogether to convey the solution of the crime to the reader.įlawed as the story may be, there are a lot of fun elements to it. So how then is Machen to get the details to us readers if there is no Watson to chronicle it? That's the tortured part. He certainly has no interest in how it turns out. In fact, Salisbury is so the opposite of Watson that once he has finished the mission he is assigned in Machen's novel as Doyle's facilitator, he wants nothing further to do with Doyle, or the case. Read the story if you don't believe that can be done. To the extent Salisbury helps Doyle it's accidentally on purpose. Salisbury has no intention of chronicling Doyle's exploits. This is really odd, like a key part of the story is being omitted.ĭoyle does have a partner named Salisbury, but Salisbury is no Watson. Unlike with Holmes' methods, the reader is never let in to see how Doyle makes his deductions, only that he does. Machen's sleuth, named Doyle ironically enough, likewise is super-powered, it seems, in deductive reasoning. Machen sets his mystery in the same London of the same period and has a sleuth solve a crime. Machen didn't get the memo, and his concept is therefore quite different. ![]() Holmes finds out about it, deduces the facts of the case in a remarkable manner, proceeds to solve, and eventually brings the criminal to justice, setting the formula for the sleuth solved mystery in granite. By the end of a Sherlock Holmes story, every detail makes perfect sense. It is fun to note the similarities and differences between the two takes of the same genre. Written in 1894 it is contemporaneous with Arthur Conan Doyle's mysteries starring Holmes and Watson. I needed to read it twice all the way through to fully grasp it. ![]() This was a rather tortured fantasy and mystery story combined. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.Īround 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.Īt the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. Arthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |