Customer Reviews

Complete John Silence Stories (Dover Horror Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you haven't read this volume yet, you're in for a rare treat! A little background:

In 1906-07, Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) wrote a short story cycle telling of the adventures of psychic detective/ghostbuster John Silence, a sort of Sherlock Holmes meets H. P. Lovecraft meets Hermann Hesse. (That may sound strange, but Blackwood was truly inspired and it works brilliantly.) All but one of these stories were then published in a book titled John Silence--Physician Extraordinary (1908), which went on to be a huge hit, undergoing many reprintings. The omitted story, "A Victim of Higher Space", was published years later, but until now never in the same book as the other John Silence stories.

John Silence--Physician Extraordinary having been out of print for about 30 years, Dover Publications deserves our gratitude for recently bringing that collection back into print -- and including the heretofore separated story to assemble The Complete John Silence Stories (1997), consummately edited and introduced by the eminent horror literature scholar S. T. Joshi.

This is a publishing milestone and belongs on the bookshelf of every fan of classic detective fiction or classic horror fiction. John Silence and his adventures speak with a fresh, thrilling voice undiminished with the passing of nearly a century since it was first committed to paper. H. P. Lovecraft put it well long ago, in his Supernatural Horror in Literature, where he wrote that "these narratives contain some of [Blackwood's] best work, and produce an illusion at once emphatic and lasting."

A perfect book to read during this autumnal season, the John Silence stories, first published in book form in 1908, are as atmospheric and scary as they come. Silence is a sort of early-20th-century ghostbuster, for want of a better term; a doctor of the supernatural; a practitioner of the supernatural arts; a healer of the psychically troubled. These five stories deal with a "traditionally" haunted house, a French town full of shape shifters, an Egyptian fire elemental, devil worship, a nontraditional werewolf, and multidimensional space. All of these stories are just dripping with mood and sensuous atmosphere, and all become pretty chilling. Most horror books don't give me the slightest shiver ("The Haunting of Hill House" being a notable exception), but I found this volume to be both eerie and beautifully written. I only wish that Algernon Blackwood had created more stories treating of John Silence, a truly fascinating character.

S. T. Joshi, who edited and introduced these short stories by Algernon Blackwood rightfully classifies them as 'weird fiction' rather than ghost stories. Blackwood was a pantheist and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, eventually branching out into Buddhism and Rosicrucianism, and his stories reveal a deep, mystical appreciation of Nature, with a capital 'N.' The author was an avid camper and spent many happy summers in the backwoods of Canada communing with his incomprehensible, dangerous, and beautiful mistress.

Nature serves as his haunted domain in some of the John Silence stories, most notably "The Camp of the Dog," and also in two of his most anthologized stories, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo."

You will need to equip yourself with two reading gears in the John Silence stories (not the author's best work by any means): a leisurely course through his descriptions of nature and the awesome terror of his hauntings; and a fast forward through the mystical, occult blah-blah whereby John Silence tries to explain away the terror and awe.

John Silence serves as both a psychiatrist and an exorcist in these stories, and the hapless, bumbling narrators are always falling about in awe of his occult powers. However, the good physician is a bit schizophrenic about the occult. In this book's first story, "A Psychical Invasion" a potential client tries to explain why she has come to him:

"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism---"

"Oh, please--that dreadful word!" he [Dr. Silence] interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience."

And yet John Silence is always reading minds, performing magical rites, and defending ordinary mortals against the powers of Darkness.

All of these stories will send a chill down your spine, as long as you skip lightly past the mystical, rather pompous blather of the main character:

"A Psychical Invasion"--A young author who takes a mind-expanding drug accidentally puts himself in touch with an ancient evil. John Silence and his cat and his collie spend a night in the author's haunted house on Putney Heath and are attacked by dreadful, occult forces.

"Ancient Sorceries"--A masterful portrait of a shy misogynist who escapes from a noisy trainload of English tourists, only to find himself in a very strange, sleepy little French village. As the narrator is leaving the train, a Frenchman leans out and mutters a half-understood warning that ends in: "á cause du sommeil et á cause des chats." Beware of sleep and cats. Blackwood slowly builds a powerful, eerie atmosphere around the narrator as he tries to decide whether to escape, or to stay forever in the mysterious village.

"The Nemesis of Fire"--This story has some genuinely frightening moments as fire elementals and an ancient Egyptian curse haunt a peaceful, English countryside. Blood is drunk, faces are blasted to ruin, and you'll need to employ your fast-forward gear through quite a few explanatory paragraphs.

"Secret Worship"--As dusk falls in the hills of the Black Forest, a silk merchant revisits the school where he spent his childhood with the Moravian Brothers (just as the author did). Lots of atmosphere and a slow build to a terrifying climax: "And then the room filled and trembled with sounds that...were the failing voices of others who had preceded him in a long series down the years." Blackwood is not very specific in his descriptions of the Other World. His glancing images and sounds leave much to the reader's horrified imagination.

"The Camp of the Dog"--A jolly campout on an island in the Baltic Sea slowly turns terrifying as a mysterious canine dogs the footsteps (sorry) of a young woman.

"A Victim of Higher Space"--A mathematician learns how to peer into the higher dimensions of space-time and is horrified by what he discovers.

John Silence is a Blackwood fictional character who is part Sherlock Holmes, part Sigmund Freud, and part Exorcist. He appears in many, but by no means all, of Blackwood's stories. When he does appear his involvement in the stories is usually minor; for his real role is to provide a unifying framework around the stories. Using his extraordinary psychical gifts, John Silence is able to "solve cases" which defy others.

His methods bear a striking resemblance to his role models (Holmes and Freud), and consist of asking a few penetrating questions. There is also similarity to the proposed solutions: Sherlock's solutions often as not devolve to Moriarty; Freud's to the subconscious and suppressed memories. With Silence the answer always lies in the "supernatural."

The name "John Silence" was obviously carefully chosen. Perhaps it is intended to signify an extraordinary man who, out of necessity or convenience, hides behind a commonplace and quiet persona. While John Silence's solutions always involve the supernatural, it is readily possible to give the stories alternative and "ordinary" explanations. In fact, the essence of Blackwood's art lies in this duality: there is an "ordinary" reality, and there is the greater reality which lies behind it.
Take my favorite story, "Ancient Sorceries:" Arthur Vezin, a mild, forty-something Englishman on vacation in France, on sheer impulse, decides to make an unscheduled stop in an ancient and remote town. There Vezin comes under the influence of a coquettish young woman. She inveigles him into participating in certain secret rites, which results in his fleeing the town in terror. Upon his return to England Vezin consults with John Silence, who reveals the true, "psychic" explanation. It seems this town was an ancestral home of Vezin, whose long ago ancestors were heavily involved in witchcraft. "Living forces" of these ancestors tried to reclaim him.

OK, that was Silence's explanation; here is the "ordinary" explanation: Vezin represents a type of repressed individual known as a "defended" personality. Such individuals are unable to deal with their sexuality, and have great difficulty in forming successful romantic relationships. While on his French trip Vezin runs into a young woman of such great sexual "powers" that she overwhelms his defenses. Thoroughly "freaked out" by his feelings, Vezin breaks off the relationship and flees to the security of his England.

While I am a huge Algernon Blackwood fan, I am not especially a John Silence fan. The reason is that I find Silence's solutions anticlimactic and trite. As stated, in Blackwood's art one is never quite sure at what level of reality the events unfold. Silence's explanations point to the supernatural world, but this is only after we have read the main part the story and formed our own conclusions. (As an aside, it is tempting to speculate to what extend Blackwood's characters reflect the author's personal turmoil.)

New topic. This collection contains a story rarely published, "A Victim of Higher Space." In 1905 Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. This resulted in considerable speculation on the reality and meaning of spaces of dimension higher than three. Both "The Willows" and "A Victim of Higher Space" seem to have been inspired by this idea. In "The Willows" the concept enters only tangentially (though it is incomparably the better story), but it is the very essence of "A Victim of Higher Space." In some ways the latter reminds one of Abbott's "Flatland," but less scientific. (Rev A, Feb 2004)

I am delighted that Dover has brought back into print these stories by Blackwood. But if you're expecting John Silence to be another Carnacki or Sherlock Holmes you will be disappointed. Dr. Silence is a near mythic one dimensional character who merely serves as the vehicle for resolution in the stories. The stories become increasingly more sophisticated and interesting as the book progresses. "A Psychical Invasion" was nearly unreadable for me, dull & plodding, it reminded me of Dion Fortune's lesser efforts at fiction. But I hung in and was amply rewarded by my patience. You will find Blackwood comfortable with the supernatural as a plot device, considering his esoteric interests and membership in AE Waite's reorganized Golden Dawn. Blackwood's greatest gift as a "ghost" story writer was his ability to create landscapes with a naturalists eye for detail and underlying threats to human dominion of the setting. Character development is not his forte. But that is a minor criticism of one of the best writer's of sheer terror of the 20th century. His story "The Willows" must rank among the best short stories ever. Reading these stories in the right setting is a guarantee for some delicious shivers.

The John Silence stories are not among Blackwood's more inspired creations. Even the best of them tend to conclude with a pompous "explanation" of the supernatural events, as Blackwood attempts to propagandise for his personal brand of mysticism. This is all very well, but if you don't happen to share Blackwood's beliefs it's no more than an irritation, and even if you do it might well bring you down to earth with a bump after some of his fine atmospheric writing in the better tales. It's a pity that S T Joshi, who made much the same observations in his excellent "The Weird Tale", couldn't have persuaded Dover to bring out, instead, Blackwood's truly astounding collection, "Incredible Adventures", from which Silence's tiresome explicitness is almost entirely absent.

John Silence is, if not the first occult detective, certainly one of the best.

Blackwood (better known for 'The Willows' and 'The Wendigo') was a master of the horror genre - praised by Lovecraft, amongst others.

Silence predates the trenchcoat era, but stalked majestically nonetheless. Calm and collected, Silence was just as often a framing device for some of Blackwood's most disconcerting stories (in, for example, 'Ancient Sorceries') as he was the protagonist. Blackwood is a worthwhile read for any horror afficianado, and the John Silence stories are some of his most accessible (more ghosts, less scary plants).

The slow, gothic pace of the stories may be a little ponderous for modern readers, but a visit to the good Doctor Silence is always worth it...

John Silence is unusual in that he barely appears in several of the stories. "A Psychical Invasion" is a haunted house tale; "Ancient Sorceries" involves a strange town; "Secret Worship" has a man ignore warnings about his old school and visits; "The Nemesis of Fire" involves mysterious fires at an old estate; "The Camp of the Dog" is a werewolf story; "A Victim of a Higher Space" has a man slipping into other dimensions. The first four are excellent, the werewolf tale too predictable, while the final story is so idiotic it keeps the collection from getting five stars.

i love blackwood at his best. this is not it. one great story, otherwise this detective doesn't work for me. if it only had been more crime-like, i might have liked it. these explanations, investigations, plots, are just not good enough. probably his worst work.