Customer Reviews

The Dark Domain (Dedalus European Classics)

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Great horror story writers have a unique imaginative inner vision that distinguishes them from other writers. Stories by Poe, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and W. H. Hodgson could have come only from them. Stefan Grabinski is one of the great ones. His work reflects bizarre personal obsessions that recur throughout his tales: the metaphysical meaning of fire; trains as a symbol of the vast, implacable power that machines give man over his surroundings and also of man's relentless journey to who knows where; strange sexual phantoms that emerge from either unplumbed dimensions or from man's own twisted pshyche. These stories are gripping, haunting, and have the power to pull you into Grabinski's warped but somehow universal reality and to keep a part of you there long after you have turned the last page and read the last word. As with the other great horror story writers, Grabinski's inner demons make a connection with each of his reader's inner demons and create an indelible impression.

My favorite of the stories in the collection is "Fumes", but the others are all strangely great and compelling as well. Two other exquisite Grabinski tales are unfortunately not in this book. However, English translations of "The Dark Hamlet" can be found in "The Dedalus Book of Polish Fantasy", and "The White Wyrak" can be found in "100 Creepy Little Tales". I look forward to the day when all of Grabinski's horror shorts are available in English translation.

I read this book in an evening. The stories are intoxicating, grim, beautiful and pensive. Grabinski's world is filled with foreboding, the sensual one step away from the macabre. For me, Dedalus continues to be the most reliable source of the ghoulish and supernatural in literary European fiction. This book is its own reward. (However...I seem to get a little sad after finishing a great read - story collections like this are few and far between. Each story is worth a second, if not a third, fourth or fifth read.)

As for the author: Stefan Grabinski was relatively unknown in his native land, fantasy writing at the beginning of the 20th century was not especially popular amongst the Polish reading public. He died in near obscurity. Thankfully, his works have been revisited by a new generation of readers. Roman Polanski, the controversial filmmaker has been said to be inspired by the Grabinski' horror style. Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish sci-fi author is a big fan of his works.

Reading through this collection, you might see the world with Grabinski-esque glasses - I don't think I'll be able to look at trains, snow drifts, empty houses and watchmakers in the same light. (I also recommend the story collections of Bruno Schulz, they are very comparable to Grabinski's work.)

Once again, Dedalus delivers.

For everyone interested in fantasy in its purest state this is a gemm. This anthology mixes the many themes that cross the polish author's short stories. The pure horror, the ghost story, the surrealist (before its time), really erotic images, all of this with just enough hints of a certain modernism or post-modern that rends the stories an extra quality.

It's a must and will certainly fill a gap on fantasy literature.

The train stories are just amazing - This guy wrote one collection of stories just around trains he worked with the modern concept of speed as a moto for the future society which would be obliterated by it... I wonder if he didn't just get it right...

Every so often, I stumble across a writer who has the power to genuinely thrill, horrify and tantalize.

In my teens in began with my first ecstatic reading of Poe, and with discovery of H.P. Lovecraft following shortly after with comparably potent effect. The stories of Grabinski likewise have the power to engage the reader's imagination and evoke a curious blend of horror and wonder - a skill very few writers have mastered.

Grabinski's tales are suffused with dark symbolism, strange fluctuations of consciousness, and a pervasive sense of surrounding evil. Unlike many other early weird writers, Grabinski's horror taps into the primal sexuality of the subconscious to cultivate a surreal and disturbing morass of disturbing psychological interactions. The only other weird writer comparable to Stefan Grabinski is the similarly underappreciated fiction of Robert Aickman (if you only read one story, read 'The Inner Room' - possibly the creepiest tale in literary history).

Anyone who enjoys the fiction of Poe, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, M.R. James, W.H. Hodgson, and Algernon Blackwood owe it to themselves to check out Stefan Grabinski. Consider yourself lucky to have happened upon one of the lesser known gems of weird horror/fantasy!