The Darkly Bright site has published a fairly long essay by me with this title. Recommended to the open-minded, the curious, and the readers of "The Great Return," The Terror, "Dr. Duthoit's Vision," "N," etc.

[darklybrightpress.com]

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Darkly Bright site has published a fairly long
> essay by me with this title. Recommended to thopen-minded, the curious, and the readers of "The Great Return," The Terror, "Dr. Duthoit's Vision,"
> "N," etc.
>
> [darklybrightpress.com]
> r-writings-by-arthur-machen/


Dale: The link to your essay is herewith reposted. Just wondering what your opinion is of the stories of John Metcalfe, and/or his novel THE FEASTING DEAD? If by chance you have read only the latter and his famous tales "The Bad Lands" and "The Smoking Leg", let me recommend the other stories in TSL to you heartily. As an exquisite stylist with certain affinities to the Machen reader. I wouldn't be surprised if Metcalfe had read THE HILL OF DREAMS. He has a tragic vision, compromised by a vaguely satirical sense of pathos.

jkh

Kipling, if I've read any Metcalfe, I suppose it was one or both of the stories you cited. A book titled The Feasting Dead would not now attract me, though perhaps you will tell me of specific stories different from the emphasis on horror suggested by the title.

Thank you for your comment, which it might seem to you that I'm spurning when I add that to associate another writer's work with The Hill of Dreams is not, for me, a recommendation. I've read that one two or three times, I suppose, but I don't like it (though I might like passages about wanderings in Wales). While I have lots of Machen -- much of it simply printed from internet sources -- I don't have The Hill; I had a copy once but donated it to the library.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
> Thank you for your comment, which it might seem to
> you that I'm spurning when I add that to associate
> another writer's work with The Hill of Dreams is
> not, for me, a recommendation. I've read that one
> two or three times, I suppose, but I don't like it
> (though I might like passages about wanderings in
> Wales). While I have lots of Machen -- much of it
> simply printed from internet sources -- I don't
> have The Hill; I had a copy once but donated it to
> the library.

Metcalfe has a story ("Lure") in The Smoking Leg and other stories, which is reminiscent of and in fact quite similar to The Hill of Dreams, but much superior to it. I don't know if it's accessible, but feel certain that you would appreciate it as exemplifying Metcalfe's style-- and an antidote for the things you don't like about Machen's novel. Another short story writer known for his macabre pieces is William Fryer Harvey, and after reading a large collection of his tales I thought all of them good, but the ones dealing with the supernatural were better than most of the others. With Metcalfe I didn't get that impression. Yes, I understand that the his Arkham House novel of psychic vampirism, The Feasting Dead, wouldn't be your cup of tea. It suffers from a lack of finish, with its abrupt and justly criticized ending. But it's not a bad attempt in the vein of James's The Turn of the Screw, for all that. Thanks for your insight on that classic, by the way. I enjoyed rereading your essay on the later Arthur Machen writings.

jkh

Glad to read that!

Today I talked over the phone with an elderly friend, a reader of Lovecraft back in the day but much more a devotee of The Lord of the Rings. We agreed that lately we read nonfiction more than fiction. However, I did start the 16th Aubrey and Maturin novel this evening.

Rudyard Kipling, Machen (mostly later work), Tolkien, Dickens, some others -- these I expect to keep reading (rereading, actually). But this forum could be a good place for mentions of worthy things new to me, you, and/or others. A while back I read The Rector of Maliseet, a novel I'd never heard of with supernatural suggestions, and liked it pretty well. Machen himself put me on to The Silence of Dean Maitland -- no supernatural elements there in the usual sense, but a good read.