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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The Daylight Might Suit You Better To Hear What I Have To Tell...",
By
This review is from: ANCIENT SORCERIES - and Other Stories: The Empty House; A Haunted Island; Keeping His Promise; A Case of Eavesdropping; The Nemesis of Fire (Paperback)
Anyone with a name like Algernon Blackwood was born to tell ghost stories, and that's exactly what this writer did in the early 20th century. A master of building suspense and with a deep interest in the threefold relationship between mankind, spiritualism and the naturalistic world, Blackwood wrote hundreds of short stories throughout his writing career and could boast H. P. Lovecraft himself as an enthusiastic fan.
Like most great writers, Blackwood's gift was not in what was *in* his stories, but how he *told* them. In all cases, a person (often isolated in an atmospheric environment) gradually becomes aware of strange disturbances which gradually escalate into the unexplainable. In is in the reactions of the protagonists themselves that the real fear is to be derived, as well as the creepy supernatural situation that cannot be neatly explained and wrapped up at the end of the story. All the narrator can do is describe, not explain, and it is in this very sense of "unknowing" that Blackwood excels. I've never had an experience with the supernatural myself, but one thing that sticks out in *other* people's retellings of such things is their careful remembrance of details, and a sense that they had no idea what was really going on. This is what Blackwood captures in his own tales. The problem with short-story writers is that often their work is split up over several anthologies, resulting in some doubling up when it comes to trying to collect their entire body of work. This collection has a somewhat eclectic mix of tales, (that *don't* include Blackwood's most famous works "The Willows" or "The Wendigo") and it might be a better idea for serious readers to get Complete John Silence Stories and Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood instead. You'll get more stories and less chance of overlapping this way. As such, "Ancient Sorceries and Other Stories," contain the following tales: "The Empty House": Jim Shorthouse and his elderly aunt gain possession of the key to a haunted house and propose to spend the night there. They only last a few hours. "A Haunted Island" is about a solitary man studying for exams on a deserted island, only to feel a strong sense of foreboding whenever he enters his bedroom. Opting to sleep downstairs, he becomes even more perturbed by the sight of two Indians circling the island in their canoe, who seem to want something from the room he's just vacated. "Keeping his Promise:" Another young student is studying diligently when his work is interrupted by a knock on the door. His old school chum Fields, whom he hasn't seen in years is at the door, completely dry despite the heavy rain outside. "A Case of Eavesdropping:" Once again Jim Shorthouse experiences (or in this case, overhears) a traumatic event from the past when the inhabitants of the room adjacent to his boarding house begin to argue in German. These four initial stories make great use of Blackwood's use of architectural space: particularly dark rooms and stairwells; the impossibly mundane that is infused with mystery and confusion. Likewise, don't expect any "clear" answers here, as Blackwood's skill is in keeping things back from the reader, whilst simultaneously drawing them in with his effective use of mood and setting. This may be frustrating for readers who are used to plenty of blood and gore and a neat wrap-up at the end; but that's not what Blackwood is trying to achieve, and not what should be expected here. The final two stories are John Silence mysteries: the psychic-detective who listens, explains and solves mysteries that have a supernatural bent. In the first "Ancient Sorceries," Silence interviews a repressed forty-something man who impulsively gets off a train in order to stay at a strange village in rural France. Charmed by a beautiful young woman and loosing his sense of time's passage, the man is acutely aware that things are not what they seem in the sleepy community - but what happens when the "curtain" is drawn back and he glimpses the true lives of the inhabitants? Lastly, the longest story of the collection is "Nemesis of Fire," in which Silence is called to an English farmhouse that seems to be surrounded by a haunted wood and several spontaneous combustions. Instantly realizing the source of the disturbance (but keeping it from the reader for a while longer) Silence sets up an experiment in order to deal with the spirit at large. This story amplifies what is best about Blackwood: his portrayal of the natural world and its primal, dark, dominant relationship over mankind. It's sure to have you eying the shadows and trees in your backyard a little suspiciously. I've only recently discovered Algernon Blackwood, but am intrigued and rewarded enough by this collection to seek out further works. However, be careful not to get this particular volume mixed up with the similarly titled: Ancient Sorceries and Other WEIRD Stories. It's a completely different collection, and all things considered, the preferable one.
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