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3.25 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:My recent read of T. Kingfisher's 2019 horror novel The Twisted Ones, which is by way of a sequel (set many years later) to Arthur Machen's 1904 novelette “The White People,” led me to seek out this classic horror work (which is free online here at Project Gutenberg). Cotgrave's friend has taken him to visit a recluse named Ambrose, who has unusual views on the nature of sin. Real evil, Ambrose argues, is when men improperly or in an unnatura...
Curious Younger Fellow: "Tell me, what is True Evil?"His Esteemed Elder, A Worldly Raconteur: "True Evil is the striving towards a higher place - but choosing a different path to get there; it is the attempt to ascend to Godhood without being godly. A true sinner may have committed no sin but in his striving; a man may murder but not be a true sinner. Stones may blossom stone flowers, flowers may sing strange songs to you, your furniture may rearrange itself on its own accord; all of these are h...
If you start reading this are all like, "WTF, Miriam, why did you recommend this boring pseudo-philosophical masturbation?" persevere till you get to the nested "Green Book" narrative. Then you can just tell me I'm weird. Or, alternatively, just skip the frame narrative. I didn't quite how they worked together, anyway. Maybe Ambrose belongs to some longer work I haven't read.I'm glad I went ahead and read this despite not very much liking Machen's The Great God Pan. Thanks for the rec, long dead...
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The influences this story has had on weird literature and horror in general are very visible, from Lovecraft's 'Necronomicon' to 'Navidson records' in House of Leaves and most probably 'Pan's Labyrinth'. And even to a seasoned reader, Machen's delightful narrative in its misdirections still offers a reading experience that yearns for more.In structure, The White People, essentially, is a discussion on the nature of evil; with an atmospheric meta narrative suggestive of illusions, witchcraft and
Dazzling, psychedelic novel about surreal world placed in an Celtic sanctuary.
I reread this work, originally written in the 1890s and published in 1904, in preparation for teaching my course on H.P. Lovecraft. In Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft writes that "Machen's narrative, a triumph of skilful selectiveness and restraint, accumulates enormous power as it flows on in a stream of innocent childish prattle." It is a fascinating story. Two men discuss the nature of evil and then consider the diary of a (now dead by her own hand) young girl, which contains her...
"Machen writes of a strange borderland, lying somewhere between Dreams and Death, peopled with shades, beings, spirits, ghosts, men, women, souls."
Among Arthur Machen's few, yet indispensable and highly rereadable, acknowledged major works of dark fiction along with The Great God Pan, The Three Impostors and (on the fringes of genre) The Hill of Dreams.The White People is his most subtle of these and sees him revisiting the abstract attempts at narrative he essayed with his classic The Great God Pan. A young girl toys with magic and delights in her darkling activities, but the real purpose of the very thin narrative is for Machen to evoke
Arthur Machens the White People allows us a peek into an otherworld that at once revolts and captivates. The greater part of the story is told from the perspective of a young girl as she records her exploration of a forbidden landscape. She has come into esoteric knowledge that allows her to enter into an enchanted dimension that is both full of wonder and dread. The world that she traverses as it is described so simply and powerfully by Machen held me spellbound, and stayed with me long after I...
Machen's classic story is almost unique in the weird fiction canon, pre-empting modernist techniques and chronicling a hallucinatory travelogue through parts strange and fearful.The whole story is full of a dreamlike unease, and evokes in the reader an almost indescribable mixture of dread and wonder. It thoroughly deserves to be read by everyone, irrespective of their relationship to the horror genre.
There’s not much to add to what others have written about Machen and this story of his. It’s a classic and progenitor to the Weird Fiction of the early 20th Century. Folks like Lovecraft and Blackwood would never have been able to do what they did without him and his work. The White People is bookended by two friends having a conversation about what really is good and evil, saints and sinners. The main body is a reading of a lost but found “green book” detailing the other side what lives in the
I actually read this as a part of this book-- The White People and Other Weird Stories -- but I'm not sure if I'll read the other stories within, so I'm stopping with this one for now. I picked up this dense, surreal, pseudo-philosophical (?) horror tale after reading The Twisted Ones, and I'm even more impressed how T. Kingfisher used Machen's story as the basis for her creepy folkloric horror novel. The story itself is full of disturbing images and even more disturbing implications, but it's d...
There are books which show you the supernatural with grotesque images/depictions and then there are ones which hint at them, tease it endlessly, before giving the readers a small glimpse to the myriad fantasy world of supernatural. Arthur Machen has succeeded quite succinctly in the second, which is quite remarkable for its era.My Rating - 3.5/5
One of the most beautiful and terrifying stories in the English language, in my opinion. Hallucinatory and dreamlike, and shot through with both a yearning for and terror of darker, more superstitious ages. I can't think of anything to compare it to.
