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The House on the Borderland
A manuscript is found: filled with small, precise writing and smelling of pit-water, it tells the story of an old recluse and his strange home - and its even stranger, jade-green double, seen by the recluse on an otherworldly plain where gigantic gods and monsters roam.
Soon his more earthly home is no less terrible than his bizarre vision, as swine-like creatures boil from a cavern beneath the ground and besiege it. But a still greater horror will face the recluse - more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.
A classic of the first water - H. P. Lovecraft
Soon his more earthly home is no less terrible than his bizarre vision, as swine-like creatures boil from a cavern beneath the ground and besiege it. But a still greater horror will face the recluse - more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.
A classic of the first water - H. P. Lovecraft
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1908
About the author
William Hope Hodgson
723 books523 followersWilliam Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his poems were published during his lifetime. He also attracted some notice as a photographer and achieved some renown as a bodybuilder. Hodgson served with the British Army durng World War One. He died, at age 40, at Ypres, killed by German artillery fire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,224 reviews
October 9, 2023
Certain writers always manage to find mysterious manuscripts in some godforsaken places…
The House on the Borderland is one such manuscript written by a recluse living in a manor house that is a cosmic junction of time and space…
The house is full of enigmas… At first it sends its owner to some weird planet at the fringe of the universe… Then it makes its master be besieged by a horde of sinister pig-snouted porcine demons… And at last the mansion propels the proprietor to the end of times…
Or probably all those misadventures were taking place just in the manuscript author’s head…
Some persons live in the much stranger world than we do.
The House on the Borderland is one such manuscript written by a recluse living in a manor house that is a cosmic junction of time and space…
I must have been here some ten years before I saw sufficient to warrant any belief in the stories, current in the neighborhood, about this house. It is true that I had, on at least a dozen occasions, seen, vaguely, things that puzzled me, and, perhaps, had felt more than I had seen. Then, as the years passed, bringing age upon me, I became often aware of something unseen, yet unmistakably present, in the empty rooms and corridors. Still, it was as I have said many years before I saw any real manifestations of the so-called supernatural.
The house is full of enigmas… At first it sends its owner to some weird planet at the fringe of the universe… Then it makes its master be besieged by a horde of sinister pig-snouted porcine demons… And at last the mansion propels the proprietor to the end of times…
Long before this, the smoldering edge of the sun had deadened into blackness. And so, in that supremely future time, the world, dark and intensely silent, rode on its gloomy orbit around the ponderous mass of the dead sun.
Or probably all those misadventures were taking place just in the manuscript author’s head…
Some persons live in the much stranger world than we do.
April 7, 2024
In an isolated area of West Ireland, far from big towns or roads and crowds there was a huge unwanted house, that the local people from the nearby little village of Kraighten said was haunted, the time before the dawn of the Twentieth Century, apparently more than a score of years then. Two strangers came to the seldom visited territory, since the natives don't speak English and the the outsiders can't communicate in Gaelic, there is a little problem. But it doesn't matter the two have plenty of food and equipment for their fishing vacation. Finding a small river and the fish are biting, all is good. Sleeping in their tent, nothing to worry about just wait for their driver to come back, in a couple of weeks, fun in the sun, relax, get away from the hectic life of the big city. How wrong can you get! One day following the stream down for a change, in the direction of the sea it vanishes before them. The men look around puzzled, finally see a mist, thick, hiding the surroundings with many rainbows caused by the Sun's rays, and come to a massive pit. Strange rumbling noises are heard, something's wailing below, the men have found the river as it flows to the bottom of the chasm, a hundred feet underneath. Going further around they arrive at an immense, gloomy, desolate and now dead garden of fruit trees. A short distance away the deserted ancient creepy house, that has almost fallen into the pit the two brave young men go inside to investigate, everything's a wreck, dust, debris scattered everywhere in the rooms in what's left of the mansion, that hasn't descended to the bottomless gigantic hole. Digging with their bare hands, the outsiders soon discover under all that dirty garbage a large manuscript that is mostly intact... Reading the pages by candlelight, after going back to camp across the cursed woods in their small cramped tent the fishermen stay up all night, the two can't help it. The tale is that of an unnamed old man, and his sister Mary. He has bought the odd house, very cheaply, doesn't ask many questions and stays away from the locals , they think him mad. His food is brought monthly to his home, the lonely man has his faithful dog Pepper to keep him company. Quiet Mary, is the elderly housekeeper and the years slowly go by without trouble, until unwisely but understandable curious the old man takes a look inside the pit, weird sounds had come from the unseen bottom. With his rifle and dog along in the dark endless tunnel, Pepper is badly bitten by a hideous swine thing , that walks on his hind legs. After many adventures in the pit, the old man runs for his life as a bunch of these creatures from deep under the surface attack him, if only he can get back home, spotting his sister he yells at her to go to the house she complies very quickly, who wouldn't ? Frightening bizarre dream visions of a dying Earth follow, real or unreal ? The old man will not leave he is the bravest man in the world...A novel that is uniquely unusual for the connoisseur only of this type of entertainment...not a warning but a truism...
July 11, 2017
Very interesting, I at first thought that he was influenced by Lovecraft, but Hodgson predates Lovecraft!
Weird, creepy, with some long slow periods, but entertaining and thought provoking. I can see how many artists since have been influenced and of course this may be a generational influence for the genre. The time lapse sequence is DECADES ahead of its time.
Weird, creepy, with some long slow periods, but entertaining and thought provoking. I can see how many artists since have been influenced and of course this may be a generational influence for the genre. The time lapse sequence is DECADES ahead of its time.
April 28, 2011
Have you ever wondered what a place would be like where you were outside of time and space, neither dead nor alive? Where you could observe the mechanisms of the universe and see the death of our planet and sun? Where you could commune with souls of the dead in the black, silent sea of sleep?
Well, it would be full of adverbs. An infinitude of adverbs.
Do you like adverbs? William Hope Hodgson did. Do you like to start sentences with a sudden adverb and a comma? William Hope Hodgson liked that, too.
I wrote a small app to chew up the Gutenberg version of this book and count the adverbs (just the -ly adverbs), and count how often he dangled them*. Here are some of William's favorites - the first number is the total count of how often he used them in this 27 chapter book, the second number is my rough count of how often he dangled them:
slowly - 66, 37
suddenly - 60, 45
presently - 49, 47
gradually - 40, 36
quickly - 39, 19
scarcely - 22, 0
steadily - 20, 10
evidently - 16, 11
curiously - 15, 4
quietly - 14, 9
rapidly - 14, 3
strangely - 14, 2
nearly - 13, 0
cautiously - 13, 9
intently - 13, 6
swiftly - 13, 3
silently - 12, 9
probably - 12, 6
finally - 12, 10
immediately - 11, 6
apparently - 11, 3
dimly - 10, 6
utterly - 10, 0
really - 10, 0
He used many more adverbs than these, of course. He used only 78 times, which should be in first place, but only doesn't slow down the writing much, and doesn't draw attention to itself the way other -ly adverbs do. So I didn't count it. One of my favorites was multitudinously, although he only used it once (not to introduce a sentence, since I know you were wondering).
His total counts for modifying verbs, instead of choosing a different verb that may not have required modification:
***drum roll***
1,277! In a book of 27 chapters! That's 47 per chapter!
And he dangled 524 of them! An impressive 19 per chapter!
If I ever get swept away from this plane before I slough off my mortal coil, and am tranported to a dark place outside time and space, where I can observe the mechanisms of the universe, neither alive nor dead, and can commune with the souls of the dead in the silent sea of sleep, and I see William Hope Hodgson wading in the black, undampening waters there, I'm going to presently, carefully, slowly, gradually-- or perhaps quickly and suddenly-- but really, literally, soundly, thoroughly-- beat him with adverbs. Multitudinously.
*The 'dangling' count was the count of adverbs immediately followed by a comma, colon, semicolon, or question mark. That may have over-counted, but I let him slide on being followed by hyphens, which he did at times. So that helps him a bit. Trust me when I tell you he began many sentences, Adverbly, ...
Well, it would be full of adverbs. An infinitude of adverbs.
Do you like adverbs? William Hope Hodgson did. Do you like to start sentences with a sudden adverb and a comma? William Hope Hodgson liked that, too.
I wrote a small app to chew up the Gutenberg version of this book and count the adverbs (just the -ly adverbs), and count how often he dangled them*. Here are some of William's favorites - the first number is the total count of how often he used them in this 27 chapter book, the second number is my rough count of how often he dangled them:
slowly - 66, 37
suddenly - 60, 45
presently - 49, 47
gradually - 40, 36
quickly - 39, 19
scarcely - 22, 0
steadily - 20, 10
evidently - 16, 11
curiously - 15, 4
quietly - 14, 9
rapidly - 14, 3
strangely - 14, 2
nearly - 13, 0
cautiously - 13, 9
intently - 13, 6
swiftly - 13, 3
silently - 12, 9
probably - 12, 6
finally - 12, 10
immediately - 11, 6
apparently - 11, 3
dimly - 10, 6
utterly - 10, 0
really - 10, 0
He used many more adverbs than these, of course. He used only 78 times, which should be in first place, but only doesn't slow down the writing much, and doesn't draw attention to itself the way other -ly adverbs do. So I didn't count it. One of my favorites was multitudinously, although he only used it once (not to introduce a sentence, since I know you were wondering).
His total counts for modifying verbs, instead of choosing a different verb that may not have required modification:
***drum roll***
1,277! In a book of 27 chapters! That's 47 per chapter!
And he dangled 524 of them! An impressive 19 per chapter!
If I ever get swept away from this plane before I slough off my mortal coil, and am tranported to a dark place outside time and space, where I can observe the mechanisms of the universe, neither alive nor dead, and can commune with the souls of the dead in the silent sea of sleep, and I see William Hope Hodgson wading in the black, undampening waters there, I'm going to presently, carefully, slowly, gradually-- or perhaps quickly and suddenly-- but really, literally, soundly, thoroughly-- beat him with adverbs. Multitudinously.
*The 'dangling' count was the count of adverbs immediately followed by a comma, colon, semicolon, or question mark. That may have over-counted, but I let him slide on being followed by hyphens, which he did at times. So that helps him a bit. Trust me when I tell you he began many sentences, Adverbly, ...
February 9, 2017
Read, write, and study books for long enough, and you'll eventually start to recognize how stories work. You'll find yourself saying things like "Oh, this character's going to die soon because the author just resolved the ongoing tension they had with the hero" or "Ah, the mysterious stranger must actually be the orphan child of the Baron that people keep talking about". To people who don't know how to do it, it seems like a magic trick, but the only thing you need to do is pay attention to details and to ask yourself "where is this story going to go next?", and it becomes surprisingly obvious.
Anyone who has read one of those endless 'Cthulhu collections' which contain one story by Lovecraft, two by the editor, and the rest by nameless authors knows that horror stories are particularly prone to follow certain patterns. If the character finds a big, carven stone gate in a cave, you can bet he's going to go in there and discover some weird, ancient stuff. If the old farmer won't let him see the barn, you know there's something bad in there.
And at first, reading The House on the Borderland, one of the all-time classic works of supernatural horror, I thought I had things pinned down pretty well. We ease into a familiar old 'evil creatures' story for the first third, with our main character getting more and more weirded out by all the strange things happening around his old house. However, if you'd asked me to predict the rest of the book based on the beginning, I wouldn't have come anywhere close.
Suddenly we're wrapped up in time and dimensions, in a kind of grand metaphysical horror that seems to be completely removed from everything that happened before, and it's only at the end that it all finally comes back around and the reader is able to piece together just what has been going on.
Usually, early, influential works in a genre are fairly straightforward--often, they are fumbling, as the author tries to figure out what it is they are trying to say. Hodgson's story, on the other hand, is more wild, imaginative, and unfettered than any modern horror tale I've read. It really stretches the limits of the reader's comprehension, and leaves behind many intriguingly incomprehensible images.
It is sometimes a bit slow-going, though nothing like the plodding repetition of his other well-known book, The Night Land . Indeed, the whole setup of House on the Borderland plays much better into Hodgson's habits as a writer. Hodgson was a weird dude, and he's at his best writing unstable, unsettling characters rather than idealized heroes and saccharine romance.
There is also the problem that some of the horror elements seem a bit silly. Of course, if you saw them in real life, in the flesh, they would be terrifying, but Hodgson isn't always able to bring home to the reader the pure weirdness of it, to shake us up enough that we are able to see it with fresh eyes. That's something every great horror author must be able to do in order to be effective, particularly in the early parts of the story, where seemingly normal but odd things are slowly building to a head. However, many of the ideas and images Hodgson gives us are perfectly unsettling on their own, without any need for an intermediary.
If I was ever concerned that the supernatural elements I put into my period horror stories are 'too strange for that era', I clearly need not worry. No one is going to out-weird Hodgson any time soon--nor, I think, do any other living writers provide much of a threat to his well-earned reputation.
Anyone who has read one of those endless 'Cthulhu collections' which contain one story by Lovecraft, two by the editor, and the rest by nameless authors knows that horror stories are particularly prone to follow certain patterns. If the character finds a big, carven stone gate in a cave, you can bet he's going to go in there and discover some weird, ancient stuff. If the old farmer won't let him see the barn, you know there's something bad in there.
And at first, reading The House on the Borderland, one of the all-time classic works of supernatural horror, I thought I had things pinned down pretty well. We ease into a familiar old 'evil creatures' story for the first third, with our main character getting more and more weirded out by all the strange things happening around his old house. However, if you'd asked me to predict the rest of the book based on the beginning, I wouldn't have come anywhere close.
Suddenly we're wrapped up in time and dimensions, in a kind of grand metaphysical horror that seems to be completely removed from everything that happened before, and it's only at the end that it all finally comes back around and the reader is able to piece together just what has been going on.
Usually, early, influential works in a genre are fairly straightforward--often, they are fumbling, as the author tries to figure out what it is they are trying to say. Hodgson's story, on the other hand, is more wild, imaginative, and unfettered than any modern horror tale I've read. It really stretches the limits of the reader's comprehension, and leaves behind many intriguingly incomprehensible images.
It is sometimes a bit slow-going, though nothing like the plodding repetition of his other well-known book, The Night Land . Indeed, the whole setup of House on the Borderland plays much better into Hodgson's habits as a writer. Hodgson was a weird dude, and he's at his best writing unstable, unsettling characters rather than idealized heroes and saccharine romance.
There is also the problem that some of the horror elements seem a bit silly. Of course, if you saw them in real life, in the flesh, they would be terrifying, but Hodgson isn't always able to bring home to the reader the pure weirdness of it, to shake us up enough that we are able to see it with fresh eyes. That's something every great horror author must be able to do in order to be effective, particularly in the early parts of the story, where seemingly normal but odd things are slowly building to a head. However, many of the ideas and images Hodgson gives us are perfectly unsettling on their own, without any need for an intermediary.
If I was ever concerned that the supernatural elements I put into my period horror stories are 'too strange for that era', I clearly need not worry. No one is going to out-weird Hodgson any time soon--nor, I think, do any other living writers provide much of a threat to his well-earned reputation.
September 4, 2018
The cover and interior illustrations are by John Coulthart, accompanied by a newly commissioned soundtrack by Jon Mueller. Not stopping there, Alan Moore contributed a new introduction, while Iain Sinclair is looking after the afterword. Everyone who participated in this project has a passion for Hodgson’s cosmic masterwork. As an added bonus, the book will be fully signed by all contributors.
The book is signed by:
John Coulthart
Iain Sinclair
Alan Moore
with a facsimile signature by William Hope Hodgson
The accompanying CD is signed by Jon Mueller
The package is also accompanied by several postcards and the whole package is wonderfully and strikingly produced.
Contents
vii - "Fear of a Porous Border:William Hope Hodgson's Liminal Masterpiece" Alan Moore
005 - "The House on the Borderland" William Hope Hodgson
167 - "An Aberrant Afterword: Blowing Dust in the House of Incest" Iain Sinclair
197 - Acknowledgements
CD - Track Listing
I. From That Strange Source of Light
II. The Speed of My Passing Spirit
III. Then a Door Opened Somewhere Ahead
The book is signed by:
John Coulthart
Iain Sinclair
Alan Moore
with a facsimile signature by William Hope Hodgson
The accompanying CD is signed by Jon Mueller
The package is also accompanied by several postcards and the whole package is wonderfully and strikingly produced.
Contents
vii - "Fear of a Porous Border:William Hope Hodgson's Liminal Masterpiece" Alan Moore
005 - "The House on the Borderland" William Hope Hodgson
167 - "An Aberrant Afterword: Blowing Dust in the House of Incest" Iain Sinclair
197 - Acknowledgements
CD - Track Listing
I. From That Strange Source of Light
II. The Speed of My Passing Spirit
III. Then a Door Opened Somewhere Ahead
April 18, 2020
"...I had, indeed, penetrated within the borderland of some unthought-of region—some subtle, intangible place, or form, of existence."
This may be a hallucinogenic narration of cosmic horror that transcends time and space. Or is it a diary of madness? Take a journey to the borderland and explore the terrain. The Sea of Sleep awaits.
This may be a hallucinogenic narration of cosmic horror that transcends time and space. Or is it a diary of madness? Take a journey to the borderland and explore the terrain. The Sea of Sleep awaits.
July 9, 2018
You will never forget the books as long as you live. Incredible visions inside. I don't know what the author took but it was very strong stuff. Incredible book!
June 23, 2021
Unique weird fiction story involving a recluse and his sister, Ireland, a towering house overhanging an abyss. Also, pigs.
Side effect : the reading thereof can trigger wild hallucinatory imagery and time travel.
And here's a link to the full text on Wikisource
My opinion on the matter:
'Geier Reach Sanitarium' - Cliff Childs
Literary Siblings :
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
The Game-Players of Titan
Ubik
The Color Out of Space
L'Herbe rouge
Micromegas ? :D
Twin soundtrack :
Hastur 1 & 2 - Cryo Chamber
Side effect : the reading thereof can trigger wild hallucinatory imagery and time travel.
And here's a link to the full text on Wikisource
My opinion on the matter:
'Geier Reach Sanitarium' - Cliff Childs
Literary Siblings :
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
The Game-Players of Titan
Ubik
The Color Out of Space
L'Herbe rouge
Micromegas ? :D
Twin soundtrack :
Hastur 1 & 2 - Cryo Chamber
September 20, 2021
"Miré a uno y otro lado, y vi más y más. Las montañas rebosaban de seres extraños: Dioses-bestias, Horrores tan atroces y deformes, que la cordura y la decencia se niegan a todo intento de descripción. Y yo…, yo me sentí invadido de un horror, una náusea y una repugnancia insoportables; sin embargo, a pesar de todo, estaba sumamente maravillado. ¿Había entonces, en definitiva, en los antiguos cultos paganos, algo más que una mera deificación de hombres, animales y elementos? "
"Y pasó el tiempo, y la noche se apoderó del mundo, envolviéndolo en un sudario de tiniebla impenetrable.
No era en el firmamento la noche que conocemos nosotros. Incluso las pocas estrellas dispersas habían desaparecido definitivamente"
Indudablemente esta obra es una piedra fundamental en el Horror Cósmico. Posee muchos dotes en términos sensitivos, de atmósfera, etc.
Por otra parte debo decir que es extremadamente aletargado y me resultó un tanto agónico culminar su lectura .
"Y pasó el tiempo, y la noche se apoderó del mundo, envolviéndolo en un sudario de tiniebla impenetrable.
No era en el firmamento la noche que conocemos nosotros. Incluso las pocas estrellas dispersas habían desaparecido definitivamente"
Indudablemente esta obra es una piedra fundamental en el Horror Cósmico. Posee muchos dotes en términos sensitivos, de atmósfera, etc.
Por otra parte debo decir que es extremadamente aletargado y me resultó un tanto agónico culminar su lectura .
March 20, 2024
Ed ecco un esempio perfetto di weird, dove si mescola horror, gotico, fantastico e fantascienza con aspetti originali. Si esplora l' immaginifico e si percepisce la totale libertà di espressione dello scrittore, senza barriere di genere. Un racconto figlio del suo tempo.
Hodgson, insieme a Poe e Lord Dunsany, è stato tra le molte influenze e fonte di ispirazione di Lovecraft, lo notiamo sotto molti aspetti già in questo racconto. Abbiamo, guarda caso, un manoscritto ritrovato che narra degli strani accadimenti circa il rudere di una vetusta villa irlandese. Uso dello pseudobiblium.
Dove HPL utilizza il sogno per penetrare i reami al di là dello spazio e del tempo, Hodgson utilizza un luogo fisico, una vecchia casa, fulcro di congiunzione di forze cosmiche malevoli, che permette di penetrare il piano astrale e viaggiare senza corpo tra lo spazio e il tempo.
E così ci troviamo su pianeti sconosciuti nei bui recessi dell'universo, dove divinità mostruse attendono, oppure, superare le barriere fisiche e percepire il trascorrere degli eoni, osservare la morte delle stelle e la nascita di nebulose oscure.
Il protagonista si rende conto di essere assolutamente limitato nel poter comprendere ciò che vede, altra caratteristica riscontrabile nella filosofia lovecraftiana.
"Che cosa significa tutto ciò? Non riuscivo a dare una risposta nemmeno dal profondo della mia immaginazione."
La soluzione, quindi, è al di là di qualsiasi possibilità di concezione da parte della limitata mente umana.
Troviamo anche un richiamo ai miti antichi e perduti:
"Divinità. C'era dunque, dopotutto, qualcosa nei vecchi culti pagani qualcosa di più della semplice divinizzazione di uomini animali ed elementi. Quel pensiero mi attanagliò.".
Sono tutte caratteristiche che ritroviamo nei racconti del Solitario di Providence.
La prima parte del romanzo narra delle terribili presenze ibride scaturite dall' Abisso sotto la Casa, si percepisce angoscia e paura, tipico del gotico e dell' horror. Nella seconda parte però Hodgson si perde in una lunga sequenza di eventi astronomici e temporali che deragliano dal tema, si dilungano e non aggiungono molto al racconto, anzi, sembrano del tutto estranei all'insondabile, etereo mondo presentato nella prima parte e che meritava forse un maggiore approfondimento.
-----------------------------------
And here is a perfect example of weird, where horror, gothic, fantasy and science fiction mixes with original aspects. The imaginative is explored and the writer's total freedom of expression is perceived, without literary genre barriers. A story born from his time.
Hodgson, together with Poe and Lord Dunsany, was among Lovecraft's many influences and sources of inspiration, we can see it in many aspects already in this story. We have, coincidentally, a discovered manuscript that tells of strange events surrounding the ruins of an ancient Irish mansion. Pseudobiblium.
Where HPL uses dreams to penetrate the realms beyond space and time, Hodgson uses a physical place, an old house, the fulcrum of conjunction of malevolent cosmic forces, which allows one to penetrate the astral plane and travel bodiless between space and time.
And so we find ourselves on unknown planets in the dark recesses of the universe, where monstrous deities await, or overcome physical barriers and sense the passing of the eons. See the death of stars and the birth of dark nebulae.
The main character realizes that he is absolutely limited in being able to understand what he sees, another characteristic found in Lovecraftian philosophy.
"What does all this mean? I couldn't give an answer even from the depths of my imagination."
The solution is beyond any conception of the limited human mind.
We also find a reference to ancient and lost myths:
"Divinity. There was therefore, after all, something in the old pagan cults, something more than the simple deification of men, animals and elements. That thought gripped me.".
All characteristics that we find in the stories of the Providence Solitaire.
The first part of the novel tells of the terrible hybrid presences that emerged from the Abyss under the House, one perceives anguish and fear, typical of Gothic and horror. In the second part, however, Hodgson gets lost in a long sequence of astronomical and cosmic events that derail from the theme, dwell and do not add much to the story, on the contrary, they seem completely extraneous to the unfathomable, ethereal world presented in the first part and which perhaps deserved greater depth.
Hodgson, insieme a Poe e Lord Dunsany, è stato tra le molte influenze e fonte di ispirazione di Lovecraft, lo notiamo sotto molti aspetti già in questo racconto. Abbiamo, guarda caso, un manoscritto ritrovato che narra degli strani accadimenti circa il rudere di una vetusta villa irlandese. Uso dello pseudobiblium.
Dove HPL utilizza il sogno per penetrare i reami al di là dello spazio e del tempo, Hodgson utilizza un luogo fisico, una vecchia casa, fulcro di congiunzione di forze cosmiche malevoli, che permette di penetrare il piano astrale e viaggiare senza corpo tra lo spazio e il tempo.
E così ci troviamo su pianeti sconosciuti nei bui recessi dell'universo, dove divinità mostruse attendono, oppure, superare le barriere fisiche e percepire il trascorrere degli eoni, osservare la morte delle stelle e la nascita di nebulose oscure.
Il protagonista si rende conto di essere assolutamente limitato nel poter comprendere ciò che vede, altra caratteristica riscontrabile nella filosofia lovecraftiana.
"Che cosa significa tutto ciò? Non riuscivo a dare una risposta nemmeno dal profondo della mia immaginazione."
La soluzione, quindi, è al di là di qualsiasi possibilità di concezione da parte della limitata mente umana.
Troviamo anche un richiamo ai miti antichi e perduti:
"Divinità. C'era dunque, dopotutto, qualcosa nei vecchi culti pagani qualcosa di più della semplice divinizzazione di uomini animali ed elementi. Quel pensiero mi attanagliò.".
Sono tutte caratteristiche che ritroviamo nei racconti del Solitario di Providence.
La prima parte del romanzo narra delle terribili presenze ibride scaturite dall' Abisso sotto la Casa, si percepisce angoscia e paura, tipico del gotico e dell' horror. Nella seconda parte però Hodgson si perde in una lunga sequenza di eventi astronomici e temporali che deragliano dal tema, si dilungano e non aggiungono molto al racconto, anzi, sembrano del tutto estranei all'insondabile, etereo mondo presentato nella prima parte e che meritava forse un maggiore approfondimento.
-----------------------------------
And here is a perfect example of weird, where horror, gothic, fantasy and science fiction mixes with original aspects. The imaginative is explored and the writer's total freedom of expression is perceived, without literary genre barriers. A story born from his time.
Hodgson, together with Poe and Lord Dunsany, was among Lovecraft's many influences and sources of inspiration, we can see it in many aspects already in this story. We have, coincidentally, a discovered manuscript that tells of strange events surrounding the ruins of an ancient Irish mansion. Pseudobiblium.
Where HPL uses dreams to penetrate the realms beyond space and time, Hodgson uses a physical place, an old house, the fulcrum of conjunction of malevolent cosmic forces, which allows one to penetrate the astral plane and travel bodiless between space and time.
And so we find ourselves on unknown planets in the dark recesses of the universe, where monstrous deities await, or overcome physical barriers and sense the passing of the eons. See the death of stars and the birth of dark nebulae.
The main character realizes that he is absolutely limited in being able to understand what he sees, another characteristic found in Lovecraftian philosophy.
"What does all this mean? I couldn't give an answer even from the depths of my imagination."
The solution is beyond any conception of the limited human mind.
We also find a reference to ancient and lost myths:
"Divinity. There was therefore, after all, something in the old pagan cults, something more than the simple deification of men, animals and elements. That thought gripped me.".
All characteristics that we find in the stories of the Providence Solitaire.
The first part of the novel tells of the terrible hybrid presences that emerged from the Abyss under the House, one perceives anguish and fear, typical of Gothic and horror. In the second part, however, Hodgson gets lost in a long sequence of astronomical and cosmic events that derail from the theme, dwell and do not add much to the story, on the contrary, they seem completely extraneous to the unfathomable, ethereal world presented in the first part and which perhaps deserved greater depth.
June 9, 2016
This is a story about an ancient manuscript found by two men on a camping trip. The manuscript actually is the story. I'm not going into the plot itself as the description already does that, but I did want to mention a few things.
The story was a bit slow to start out, and there was a long sort of boring out of body experience. Even though I found this part a bit long winded, I can see the seeds of Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos within.(Lovecraft has said that William Hope Hodgson was a big influence on him). After the protagonist returns to his body things go bat-shit crazy. There are some phenomenally scary scenes and wild things going on.
Then, another long interval (another OOB experience?) that was just weird. I enjoyed this section because it really delved into space. The amount of knowledge displayed by this author about our solar system and how it works is amazing since this book was written in the early 1900s.
All in all though, I enjoyed this story. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Lovecraft.
The story was a bit slow to start out, and there was a long sort of boring out of body experience. Even though I found this part a bit long winded, I can see the seeds of Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos within.(Lovecraft has said that William Hope Hodgson was a big influence on him). After the protagonist returns to his body things go bat-shit crazy. There are some phenomenally scary scenes and wild things going on.
Then, another long interval (another OOB experience?) that was just weird. I enjoyed this section because it really delved into space. The amount of knowledge displayed by this author about our solar system and how it works is amazing since this book was written in the early 1900s.
All in all though, I enjoyed this story. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Lovecraft.
October 11, 2023
Two buddies take a fishing trip in a remote area of Ireland near an old decrepit house. While exploring, they come across an old manuscript filled with unimaginable horrors.
Cosmic horror is the central theme running throughout this pulse-raising book. The manuscript that the two feverously read features an old recluse who spins fantastical stories about his time at the house. Some interactions with things that go bump in the night are familiar within the genre, while others are quite innovative for the time and are brought to a fever pitch: exploring cellars with a lantern, visiting the moors at night, and gloomy caverns that descend into chasms.
|| "It was not Halloween. If I were telling a story for amusement's sake, I should probably place it on that night of nights; but this is a true record of my own experiences, and I would not put pen to paper to amuse anyone."
I felt I was walking the unlit corridors with the recluse and pepper (his dog), twisting around corridors and pondering what evil lay ahead. There is a keen sense of foreboding the author implies, which just amplifies the subtle scares and magnifies the twists and turns. Overall, I just think it is so ahead of its time! Do you like Gothic elements? It has it. Do you like other worldly creatures crashing the party? Call the Ghostbusters. Do you like decaying mansions and those who lift trap doors to find out what’s beyond? Yep, this has it.
Oh, and the cosmic horror elements just put it over the top! I do not want to give much away, but it has the most ingenious visual of variable space and time. Very Lovecraftian.
Add it to your Halloween repertoire. You will not be disappointed.
|| "Then, at least, I should have known my danger, and been able to meet it; but to wait like this, through a whole night, picturing all kinds of unknown devilment, was to jeopardize one's sanity."
📝 | Extra | 📝’s
❖ I had a dog named Pepper. I’m so glad he did not endure the same fate as in this book. (fair warning)
❖ That ending was just incredible. Very Shirley Jackson-esque.
❖ Is there a better fear-inducing visual than those walking the grounds of an old house with a candle? I think not!
🎵| Soundtrack |🎵
❖ VOLA – These Black Claws
❖ Starset - Otherworldly
❖ Gojira - Stranded
❖ Electric Wizard - House on The Borderland
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4 out of 5
Cosmic horror is the central theme running throughout this pulse-raising book. The manuscript that the two feverously read features an old recluse who spins fantastical stories about his time at the house. Some interactions with things that go bump in the night are familiar within the genre, while others are quite innovative for the time and are brought to a fever pitch: exploring cellars with a lantern, visiting the moors at night, and gloomy caverns that descend into chasms.
|| "It was not Halloween. If I were telling a story for amusement's sake, I should probably place it on that night of nights; but this is a true record of my own experiences, and I would not put pen to paper to amuse anyone."
I felt I was walking the unlit corridors with the recluse and pepper (his dog), twisting around corridors and pondering what evil lay ahead. There is a keen sense of foreboding the author implies, which just amplifies the subtle scares and magnifies the twists and turns. Overall, I just think it is so ahead of its time! Do you like Gothic elements? It has it. Do you like other worldly creatures crashing the party? Call the Ghostbusters. Do you like decaying mansions and those who lift trap doors to find out what’s beyond? Yep, this has it.
Oh, and the cosmic horror elements just put it over the top! I do not want to give much away, but it has the most ingenious visual of variable space and time. Very Lovecraftian.
Add it to your Halloween repertoire. You will not be disappointed.
|| "Then, at least, I should have known my danger, and been able to meet it; but to wait like this, through a whole night, picturing all kinds of unknown devilment, was to jeopardize one's sanity."
📝 | Extra | 📝’s
❖ I had a dog named Pepper. I’m so glad he did not endure the same fate as in this book. (fair warning)
❖ That ending was just incredible. Very Shirley Jackson-esque.
❖ Is there a better fear-inducing visual than those walking the grounds of an old house with a candle? I think not!
🎵| Soundtrack |🎵
❖ VOLA – These Black Claws
❖ Starset - Otherworldly
❖ Gojira - Stranded
❖ Electric Wizard - House on The Borderland
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4 out of 5
August 29, 2019
I hesitated at first to give this 5 stars, but I waited about four months after reading it to write this review only to find that I had still remembered much of the novel vividly and was still thinking about it. That is a mark of a truly great work of art.
There is something about it that captures feelings of primal fear in me, as though Hodgson had been peeping at my nightmares when he wrote this. His writing captures a fundamental uneasiness that comes when one looks at a perfectly symmetrical human face, or a photoshopped Slenderman in the background of an otherwise boring picture of a schoolyard. The whole thing feels familiar and yet so alien, just like your dreams.
In other words, this book was the first to scare the shit out of my jaded and desensitized adult self in decades.
Even the agonizingly long psychedelic trip across the universe and time that happens inexplicably in the middle of the story is like a neverending nightmare you try to wake from, but your sleep paralysis holds firm. Sure, it gets boring and insufferable. But it is very disorienting and adds to the unease of the reader.
This is true horror scifi, and ahead of its time. I would be remiss to not give it my highest recommendation, because whether or not it ends up being your cup of tea, everyone should read it once.
There is something about it that captures feelings of primal fear in me, as though Hodgson had been peeping at my nightmares when he wrote this. His writing captures a fundamental uneasiness that comes when one looks at a perfectly symmetrical human face, or a photoshopped Slenderman in the background of an otherwise boring picture of a schoolyard. The whole thing feels familiar and yet so alien, just like your dreams.
In other words, this book was the first to scare the shit out of my jaded and desensitized adult self in decades.
Even the agonizingly long psychedelic trip across the universe and time that happens inexplicably in the middle of the story is like a neverending nightmare you try to wake from, but your sleep paralysis holds firm. Sure, it gets boring and insufferable. But it is very disorienting and adds to the unease of the reader.
This is true horror scifi, and ahead of its time. I would be remiss to not give it my highest recommendation, because whether or not it ends up being your cup of tea, everyone should read it once.
March 9, 2015
I can see why this was taken up by the psychotropic vanguards/bores but don't let that put you off. This is a borderland experience that dismisses any self-conscious aggrandising notions of bursting though those doors of perception. Indeed, any doors are, as someone else said about this, representations in allegiance with Platonic Form.
The plot bookends the central bulk of the narrative; a manuscript relayed through a mystery editor. The manuscript is found by two Victorian guys on a fishing trip, in the ruins of a house that are placed on a craggy outcrop, overseeing an abyss. One reads the manuscript to the other. Then the transreal fun begins.
Things happen, many of them spooky and beholden to classic horror, some swine flavoured and raging with terror and absurdity, but mostly the preternaturally cosmological drifting of the senses which is a pleasure to fathom and glide alongside. For those willing to invest their space and time in a ride through pure imagery as the outpourings of a recluse's soul, this is it. The vistas on offer, if you wish to surrender, transcend the surreal, pulling this away from its horror roots and into the realm of slipstream fiction.
This is the first book in a long time that I've wanted to turn back to Chapter One and start all over again as soon as I'd finished.
Grand.
The plot bookends the central bulk of the narrative; a manuscript relayed through a mystery editor. The manuscript is found by two Victorian guys on a fishing trip, in the ruins of a house that are placed on a craggy outcrop, overseeing an abyss. One reads the manuscript to the other. Then the transreal fun begins.
Things happen, many of them spooky and beholden to classic horror, some swine flavoured and raging with terror and absurdity, but mostly the preternaturally cosmological drifting of the senses which is a pleasure to fathom and glide alongside. For those willing to invest their space and time in a ride through pure imagery as the outpourings of a recluse's soul, this is it. The vistas on offer, if you wish to surrender, transcend the surreal, pulling this away from its horror roots and into the realm of slipstream fiction.
This is the first book in a long time that I've wanted to turn back to Chapter One and start all over again as soon as I'd finished.
Grand.
July 7, 2019
Well, that was odd.
I'm using odd as a fairly neutral term, here. This story was bizarre, but not in a way that was thought-provoking or funny. AS a whole the story never really went anywhere. (Seriously, why even include a lost Love if she only gets a couple paragraphs?) It had mildly interesting bits, and the swine-things were creepy. The cosmic descriptions were too long and got boring, but otherwise, it was okay, I guess.
The strange, isolated house, the mysterious crevice, and the atmosphere of dread and suspense surrounding them were the strongest part.
I read this because it was a major influence on Lovecraft and some other fantasy authors I like, so in that sense I'm glad to check it off my to-read list. I've also read a couple of Hodgson's Carnacki stories and they were a bit better although still on my "waste of a good concept" list. What's up with early horror writers narrating everything post facto so there's no suspense?
I'm using odd as a fairly neutral term, here. This story was bizarre, but not in a way that was thought-provoking or funny. AS a whole the story never really went anywhere. (Seriously, why even include a lost Love if she only gets a couple paragraphs?) It had mildly interesting bits, and the swine-things were creepy. The cosmic descriptions were too long and got boring, but otherwise, it was okay, I guess.
The strange, isolated house, the mysterious crevice, and the atmosphere of dread and suspense surrounding them were the strongest part.
I read this because it was a major influence on Lovecraft and some other fantasy authors I like, so in that sense I'm glad to check it off my to-read list. I've also read a couple of Hodgson's Carnacki stories and they were a bit better although still on my "waste of a good concept" list. What's up with early horror writers narrating everything post facto so there's no suspense?
April 4, 2024
There's something queer about this place...
THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND by William Hope Hodgson
No spoilers. 4 stars. This tale is very strange... Like taking LSD and going on a very bizarre trip (at times). A frightening trip...
Tonnison and Berreggnog found a nice-looking fishing spot in Western Ireland and had a driver drop them off with their camping gear for a little vacation...
An untamed river running past the outskirts of a little village allowed the men to swim and fish in the morning...
That evening...
They ate their catch and smoked around the campfire before retiring to their tent to sleep...
The next day...
After breakfast, they decided to hike along the river and see where it would lead them...
The river ended at a massive pit with waterfalls spilling from it. Perched atop the pit were the ruins of an ancient house...
Searching through the ruins, they came upon an old, crumbling diary, which they picked up to take back with them to their camp...
Tonnison told his partner: There's something queer about this place...
Suddenly...
They heard strange wailing, and they had a sense they were not alone. It was coming from the woods, and it rustled the leaves in the trees...
They hurriedly returned to camp, and after dinner by lantern, they read the diary they had found...
This was truly a good book to read into the night, but a pep talk is needed before starting, encouraging readers to stick with it to the end.
There are two interludes that ramble on. Both could have been shortened considerably (especially the second one) to prevent boredom. You can skim through both, and still, the story won't be ruined. At 85%, the story of the diary picks up again and is a page-turner.
If you like this novella, try DAGON by Fred Chappell.
THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND by William Hope Hodgson
No spoilers. 4 stars. This tale is very strange... Like taking LSD and going on a very bizarre trip (at times). A frightening trip...
Tonnison and Berreggnog found a nice-looking fishing spot in Western Ireland and had a driver drop them off with their camping gear for a little vacation...
An untamed river running past the outskirts of a little village allowed the men to swim and fish in the morning...
That evening...
They ate their catch and smoked around the campfire before retiring to their tent to sleep...
The next day...
After breakfast, they decided to hike along the river and see where it would lead them...
The river ended at a massive pit with waterfalls spilling from it. Perched atop the pit were the ruins of an ancient house...
Searching through the ruins, they came upon an old, crumbling diary, which they picked up to take back with them to their camp...
Tonnison told his partner: There's something queer about this place...
Suddenly...
They heard strange wailing, and they had a sense they were not alone. It was coming from the woods, and it rustled the leaves in the trees...
They hurriedly returned to camp, and after dinner by lantern, they read the diary they had found...
This was truly a good book to read into the night, but a pep talk is needed before starting, encouraging readers to stick with it to the end.
There are two interludes that ramble on. Both could have been shortened considerably (especially the second one) to prevent boredom. You can skim through both, and still, the story won't be ruined. At 85%, the story of the diary picks up again and is a page-turner.
If you like this novella, try DAGON by Fred Chappell.
August 9, 2017
I am a great "fan" of H.P. Lovecraft...yet in most cases when I read books or works from authors that are credited as influences on him, I'm not that taken. The same is true here.
The young men arrive in the village where they aren't exactly welcomed...and eventually find themselves in the sinister house in the sinister place reading the sinister manuscript. Apparently the writer had at some point suffered a very bad experience with pork... The book does manage to build a certain amount of darkness and despair into the atmosphere, but in the end it left me cold and I skimmed my way through it.
I don't know, possibly I'm a bit jaded...still, it's not horrible (wait a minute...given the type of book this is it might have been striving to be "horrible" in one sense, do you think?)...anyway, I've read worse. I'll go 2 stars instead of 1.
The young men arrive in the village where they aren't exactly welcomed...and eventually find themselves in the sinister house in the sinister place reading the sinister manuscript. Apparently the writer had at some point suffered a very bad experience with pork... The book does manage to build a certain amount of darkness and despair into the atmosphere, but in the end it left me cold and I skimmed my way through it.
I don't know, possibly I'm a bit jaded...still, it's not horrible (wait a minute...given the type of book this is it might have been striving to be "horrible" in one sense, do you think?)...anyway, I've read worse. I'll go 2 stars instead of 1.
December 22, 2008
Here's how I feel about William Hope Hodgson generally:
Writing as he did at the beginning of the 20th century, Hodgson's creativity in the realm of supernatural horror is impressive given what few authors preceded him in the genre. Although he wrote many stories that partook of elements common to supernatural fiction of his era (i.e.,most of his short stories, including the Carnacki stories), he also broke new ground. Moving beyond the ghost stories which had, for the most part, made up the genre before him, he created landscapes and creatures that feel not just super-natural but really extra-natural, coming from a completely different reality, either unrestrained by morality or subject to a construction so alien as to be unknowable, that is just recognizable enough to be terrifying. Hodgson's landscapes and creatures are very similar to the Cthulian creations of H.P.Lovecraft, a later admirer of Hodgson, in that they are gigantic in their physical and temporal dimensions. His universe is far older and larger than human and earth-centered histories allow, and subject to forces and intelligence completely removed from human concerns or anthropomorphized deity.
If Hodgson worked merely as a set designer or painter of still images he would have been difficult to match. However, he wrote narrative prose and this choice of medium is his downfall. Hodgson couldn't write a human character to save his life and the pacing of his stories is excruciatingly slow. Although female characters in stories from this era and genre are typically pretty flat, Hodgson's are so flat as to be almost unrecognizable as human. His male narrators are almost unidentifiable emotionally, never demonstrating much fear or empathy for others. The inaccessibility of his characters robs Hodgson's stories of much of the fear that the other elements enable.
Finishing a Hodgson novel is an exercise in endurance. The good elements are very good and the bad are horrible.
The House on the Borderland:
The creatures, the demons in the mountains, the cavern, the trapdoor were excellent. The protagonist was bizarre and uninteresting.
Writing as he did at the beginning of the 20th century, Hodgson's creativity in the realm of supernatural horror is impressive given what few authors preceded him in the genre. Although he wrote many stories that partook of elements common to supernatural fiction of his era (i.e.,most of his short stories, including the Carnacki stories), he also broke new ground. Moving beyond the ghost stories which had, for the most part, made up the genre before him, he created landscapes and creatures that feel not just super-natural but really extra-natural, coming from a completely different reality, either unrestrained by morality or subject to a construction so alien as to be unknowable, that is just recognizable enough to be terrifying. Hodgson's landscapes and creatures are very similar to the Cthulian creations of H.P.Lovecraft, a later admirer of Hodgson, in that they are gigantic in their physical and temporal dimensions. His universe is far older and larger than human and earth-centered histories allow, and subject to forces and intelligence completely removed from human concerns or anthropomorphized deity.
If Hodgson worked merely as a set designer or painter of still images he would have been difficult to match. However, he wrote narrative prose and this choice of medium is his downfall. Hodgson couldn't write a human character to save his life and the pacing of his stories is excruciatingly slow. Although female characters in stories from this era and genre are typically pretty flat, Hodgson's are so flat as to be almost unrecognizable as human. His male narrators are almost unidentifiable emotionally, never demonstrating much fear or empathy for others. The inaccessibility of his characters robs Hodgson's stories of much of the fear that the other elements enable.
Finishing a Hodgson novel is an exercise in endurance. The good elements are very good and the bad are horrible.
The House on the Borderland:
The creatures, the demons in the mountains, the cavern, the trapdoor were excellent. The protagonist was bizarre and uninteresting.
June 12, 2012
This book is two stories, jointly and severally independent of each other, spliced together haphazardly in the middle and left trailing off into nothing doing at the end, almost as if Hodgson had ‘ tinkered, tailored, soldiered, spied’ to his content, and finally got so bored of the whole melange he just left the tangled mess of shards on the floor and walked.
The first part sees an ageing recluse, ensconced in a ‘haunted’ house (every village in Ireland has them), battling a horde of swine –men-thingies who dwell in pits and channels underneath the house. If there is any mention of Lovecraft being influenced by this book, this must be this section that did it: in ‘The Lurking Fear’ Lovecraft somehow manages to come up with the novel idea of a haunted house on a hill, underscored by by tunnels and channels and overridden by whitish monkey-thingies. Now, where have I read that before?....
Whereas Lovecraft comes up with an ingenious explanation of the origin of his thingamadgits, Hodgson sees no reason to go into such details. Who, what, where, when....these trifling questions are not to bothered with. Swine men, I tell you. What more do you want to know? One interesting snippet here: why is the protag’s sister so frightened of him at one point?
The second part is a psychedelic journey into time travel, which begins promising and turns stale, a little like a houseguest who’s outstayed their welcome. The sun, the moon, the stars, the orbs.....for over half the book, planets seem to be whizzing around in some macabre dance: again, to no discernible purpose.
And then.....Nothing. The end.
I understand this book has its die-hard fans. And, its not necessarily a bad read. Just a little too all over the place, don’t know whats goings, suspect Hodgson doesn’t either, loose endy for me.
The first part sees an ageing recluse, ensconced in a ‘haunted’ house (every village in Ireland has them), battling a horde of swine –men-thingies who dwell in pits and channels underneath the house. If there is any mention of Lovecraft being influenced by this book, this must be this section that did it: in ‘The Lurking Fear’ Lovecraft somehow manages to come up with the novel idea of a haunted house on a hill, underscored by by tunnels and channels and overridden by whitish monkey-thingies. Now, where have I read that before?....
Whereas Lovecraft comes up with an ingenious explanation of the origin of his thingamadgits, Hodgson sees no reason to go into such details. Who, what, where, when....these trifling questions are not to bothered with. Swine men, I tell you. What more do you want to know? One interesting snippet here: why is the protag’s sister so frightened of him at one point?
The second part is a psychedelic journey into time travel, which begins promising and turns stale, a little like a houseguest who’s outstayed their welcome. The sun, the moon, the stars, the orbs.....for over half the book, planets seem to be whizzing around in some macabre dance: again, to no discernible purpose.
And then.....Nothing. The end.
I understand this book has its die-hard fans. And, its not necessarily a bad read. Just a little too all over the place, don’t know whats goings, suspect Hodgson doesn’t either, loose endy for me.
November 27, 2023
“I read, and, in reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible, that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown.”
This sort of goes beyond Gothic to weird. It was published in 1908 and apparently has influenced the likes of Lovecraft and later horror writers. It is set in the west of Ireland in a remote and wild area. There is a story within a story. I might say plot within a plot, but I can’t because there isn’t a plot. It involves two fisherman on an expedition to the west of Ireland. There find the ruins of a house in a very remote spot, near a ravine and what seems to be a pit: there are overgrown gardens too. They do a bit of exploration and both feel the atmosphere to be oppressive and distinctly creepy. They find an old manuscript. Beating a hasty retreat they return to their tents and read the manuscript overnight. The manuscript takes up the bulk of the novel.
The manuscript is written by the previous owner of the house and describes his time there. There are plenty of gothic tropes, large castle like house with several floors, a creepy cellar, a trap door in the cellar with who knows what beneath, a faithful old dog. The manuscript is in the first person. There are virtually no characters in the book: the two fishermen, the narrator, an aged sister and the dog. The dog, Pepper, was pretty much the most well-rounded character.
It all happens thus and there may be a few spoilers. The narrator starts to explore his surroundings, including the pit. He also has what appears to be a hallucinatory experience. Then creatures start to appear from the pit: pig creatures (yes, it’s all unutterably silly) and they attack the house (and the dog).
‘Then all at once, something caught my vision, something that came ‘round one of the huge buttresses of the House, and so into full view. It was a gigantic thing, and moved with a curious lope, going almost upright after the manner of a man. It was quite unclothed, and had a remarkable luminous appearance. Yet it was the face that attracted and frightened me the most. It was the face of a swine.’
The second part of the manuscript consists of the narrator standing in his room whilst time passes very quickly: years, centuries and millennia and he watches it all and describes it in great detail. Lots of stuff about stars and solar systems. There is a comic version of this as well. It’s been dramatized for radio and a Doom Metal band called Electric Wizard wrote a song about it.
This was certainly a change in direction from Victorian Gothic fiction and certainly influenced later fiction and it has several modern horror tropes. Principally the “Don’t open the door” feeling in the reader. It’s all very disjointed. It’s unbelievable, but it’s meant to be. It’s also a complete mess and feels half finished. One of my least favourite forays into weird fiction.
This sort of goes beyond Gothic to weird. It was published in 1908 and apparently has influenced the likes of Lovecraft and later horror writers. It is set in the west of Ireland in a remote and wild area. There is a story within a story. I might say plot within a plot, but I can’t because there isn’t a plot. It involves two fisherman on an expedition to the west of Ireland. There find the ruins of a house in a very remote spot, near a ravine and what seems to be a pit: there are overgrown gardens too. They do a bit of exploration and both feel the atmosphere to be oppressive and distinctly creepy. They find an old manuscript. Beating a hasty retreat they return to their tents and read the manuscript overnight. The manuscript takes up the bulk of the novel.
The manuscript is written by the previous owner of the house and describes his time there. There are plenty of gothic tropes, large castle like house with several floors, a creepy cellar, a trap door in the cellar with who knows what beneath, a faithful old dog. The manuscript is in the first person. There are virtually no characters in the book: the two fishermen, the narrator, an aged sister and the dog. The dog, Pepper, was pretty much the most well-rounded character.
It all happens thus and there may be a few spoilers. The narrator starts to explore his surroundings, including the pit. He also has what appears to be a hallucinatory experience. Then creatures start to appear from the pit: pig creatures (yes, it’s all unutterably silly) and they attack the house (and the dog).
‘Then all at once, something caught my vision, something that came ‘round one of the huge buttresses of the House, and so into full view. It was a gigantic thing, and moved with a curious lope, going almost upright after the manner of a man. It was quite unclothed, and had a remarkable luminous appearance. Yet it was the face that attracted and frightened me the most. It was the face of a swine.’
The second part of the manuscript consists of the narrator standing in his room whilst time passes very quickly: years, centuries and millennia and he watches it all and describes it in great detail. Lots of stuff about stars and solar systems. There is a comic version of this as well. It’s been dramatized for radio and a Doom Metal band called Electric Wizard wrote a song about it.
This was certainly a change in direction from Victorian Gothic fiction and certainly influenced later fiction and it has several modern horror tropes. Principally the “Don’t open the door” feeling in the reader. It’s all very disjointed. It’s unbelievable, but it’s meant to be. It’s also a complete mess and feels half finished. One of my least favourite forays into weird fiction.
July 30, 2017
Dos amigos están de excursión por tierras irlandesas, cuando en uno de sus paseos tropiezan con los restos de una mansión. Investigando entre las ruinas, se encuentran con un manuscrito algo deteriorado. Al regresar a su tienda, han de atravesar el bosque que rodea la mansión, y es entonces cuando sienten la maldad que esconde el lugar. Al regresar, leen el manuscrito, que resulta estar escrito por el que fue habitante de la mansión. Los sucesos que nos relata están llenos de visiones cósmicas y horrores sobrenaturales.
‘La casa en los confines de la Tierra’ (The House of the Borderland, 1908), del inglés William Hope Hodgson, con magníficas ilustraciones de Sebastián Cabrol, fue una de las narraciones precursoras del llamado Horror Cósmico. La narración de cómo se va desintegrando la Tierra y el Sol a través de los eones es maravillosa, increíble. No me extraña que Lovecraft admirase esta novela en concreto. En mi opinión, se trata de una obra maestra.
‘La casa en los confines de la Tierra’ (The House of the Borderland, 1908), del inglés William Hope Hodgson, con magníficas ilustraciones de Sebastián Cabrol, fue una de las narraciones precursoras del llamado Horror Cósmico. La narración de cómo se va desintegrando la Tierra y el Sol a través de los eones es maravillosa, increíble. No me extraña que Lovecraft admirase esta novela en concreto. En mi opinión, se trata de una obra maestra.
July 25, 2022
"Había algo en ellos, una especie de vitalidad indescriptible y latente que sugería a mi dilatada conciencia un estado de vida en la muerte, un algo que no era vida en absoluto."
Una relectura fascinante. Esta vez percibí y aprecie muchos más cada detalles y elementos de la trama.
Las descripciones del autor eran visualmente alucinantes, y la forma en la que mueve al lector por la trama sin perderlo o confundirlo es admirable.
Los escenarios que crea durante historia y el cómo los maneja sin disminuir la atención o lo trepidante de la historia la hacen aún más adictiva y de aplaudir.
Manejar recursos cósmicos, oníricos, góticos, sobrenaturales y terrenales de la forma en la que lo hace el autor en una historia medianamente corta, sin duda, enamora.
Con respecto a los personajes, cada uno cumple totalmente con su rol, intimidar, desesperar, confundir, relatar y empatizar.
Los elementos que sitúa en la historia y el cómo los lleva y traslada de lo terrenal a lo fantástico es asombroso, no pierde el hilo en ningún momento.
Las batallas, asedios, los viajes, el paso del tiempo, la locura dentro de la historia y cada paso por el que nos iba guiando sin perder la línea, demuestra una habilidad atmosférica única. Y no se espera menos de un autor con una habilidad para crear atmósferas y escenarios que muy pocos autores poseen.
La casa como un gran recurso, incluso diría que un poco adelantado a su época, sorprende, y este detalle lo pude ver y apreciar en esta relectura.
No es por nada que Lovecraft haya alabado esta historia, es hermosa en muchos sentidos.
Y si ya han leído a el maestro de Providence, podrán apreciar, en ciertas ocasiones, una pluma que recuerda al gran hombre que se inspiró de Hodgson, Lovecraft.
Una relectura fascinante. Esta vez percibí y aprecie muchos más cada detalles y elementos de la trama.
Las descripciones del autor eran visualmente alucinantes, y la forma en la que mueve al lector por la trama sin perderlo o confundirlo es admirable.
Los escenarios que crea durante historia y el cómo los maneja sin disminuir la atención o lo trepidante de la historia la hacen aún más adictiva y de aplaudir.
Manejar recursos cósmicos, oníricos, góticos, sobrenaturales y terrenales de la forma en la que lo hace el autor en una historia medianamente corta, sin duda, enamora.
Con respecto a los personajes, cada uno cumple totalmente con su rol, intimidar, desesperar, confundir, relatar y empatizar.
Los elementos que sitúa en la historia y el cómo los lleva y traslada de lo terrenal a lo fantástico es asombroso, no pierde el hilo en ningún momento.
Las batallas, asedios, los viajes, el paso del tiempo, la locura dentro de la historia y cada paso por el que nos iba guiando sin perder la línea, demuestra una habilidad atmosférica única. Y no se espera menos de un autor con una habilidad para crear atmósferas y escenarios que muy pocos autores poseen.
La casa como un gran recurso, incluso diría que un poco adelantado a su época, sorprende, y este detalle lo pude ver y apreciar en esta relectura.
No es por nada que Lovecraft haya alabado esta historia, es hermosa en muchos sentidos.
Y si ya han leído a el maestro de Providence, podrán apreciar, en ciertas ocasiones, una pluma que recuerda al gran hombre que se inspiró de Hodgson, Lovecraft.
December 21, 2015
La historia nos sitúa en Kraighten, una escondida área en el Oeste de Irlanda donde un par de tranquilos excursionistas pasan sus días pescando y paseando. Un día de repente se topan con las ruinas de un antigua caserón en una extraña zona con un pozo, donde indagando un poco encuentran un viejo manuscrito escondido entre los escombros, huyendo rápidamente del lugar por las siniestras sensaciones que les provoca. Esa misma noche comienzan a leer el libro, un extraño relato sobre las siniestras vivencias de un extraño ermitaño, su perro Peppers y su hermana Mary en ese solitario y temido caserón ruinoso.
Utilizando a nuestros excursionistas como excusa para presentarnos la historia a través del manuscrito, Hodgson nos narra esta historia que deambula entre el horror y la ciencia ficción. La novela se divide en dos partes bastante diferenciadas, una primero con un ritmo narrativo más elevado donde las dosis de misterio, terror y acción son mucho más elevadas en presencias de extrañas seres-cerdo; y una segunda parte más confusa y onírica, transportándonos en una odisea durante miles de años-luz a través del universo para presenciar la destrucción del sistema solar.
Una gran historia envuelta dentro de otra gran historia, una novela oscura y sobre todo inquietante donde se respira una atmosfera opresiva y llena de incomprensión. Pese al paso de los años, su narración es más que perfecta y cuesta despegarse de sus páginas. Cabe decir que las ilustraciones de Cabrol en esta edición de Hermida editores hacen que meterse en la historia sea todavía más sencillo, sumergiéndonos en un mundo lleno de tinieblas, en un ambiente lleno de intrigas, misterios y oscuridad.
Utilizando a nuestros excursionistas como excusa para presentarnos la historia a través del manuscrito, Hodgson nos narra esta historia que deambula entre el horror y la ciencia ficción. La novela se divide en dos partes bastante diferenciadas, una primero con un ritmo narrativo más elevado donde las dosis de misterio, terror y acción son mucho más elevadas en presencias de extrañas seres-cerdo; y una segunda parte más confusa y onírica, transportándonos en una odisea durante miles de años-luz a través del universo para presenciar la destrucción del sistema solar.
Una gran historia envuelta dentro de otra gran historia, una novela oscura y sobre todo inquietante donde se respira una atmosfera opresiva y llena de incomprensión. Pese al paso de los años, su narración es más que perfecta y cuesta despegarse de sus páginas. Cabe decir que las ilustraciones de Cabrol en esta edición de Hermida editores hacen que meterse en la historia sea todavía más sencillo, sumergiéndonos en un mundo lleno de tinieblas, en un ambiente lleno de intrigas, misterios y oscuridad.
October 23, 2021
An astonishing piece of strange fiction! The novel’s outlandish and terrifying vistas and vast scope are awe-inspiring and reminded me of several works from David Lindsay’s dizzying, existential fantasy A Voyage to Arcturus, and Jean Ray’s Malpertuis, to Walpole’s spectacularly doomed edifice, The Castle of Otranto, all of which seems to occupy that same dream-like subconsciousness as that of Hodgson’s novel. As with Lindsay’s epic, The House on the Borderland is a daunting read, due to the enormous scope and sheer strangeness that it presents to its reader.
Reading the beautiful hardcover edition from Swan River Press, I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Moore’s insightful foreword and can see the influences of the novel in his work (particularly his early Green Lantern stories) as well as the excellent re-printed afterword by Ian Sinclair who ties the novel into the counterculture of the sixties as well as pose some truly interesting theories regarding the plot of the novel.
As I finished the book, it is the pressing aura of solitude and loneliness that lingers most heavily in my mind after the last pages. Rightly considered a masterpiece of weird fiction, Hodgson’s work is imbued with a strangeness and aura that is wholly exceptional and should be experienced by everyone with an interest in uncanny fiction.
Reading the beautiful hardcover edition from Swan River Press, I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Moore’s insightful foreword and can see the influences of the novel in his work (particularly his early Green Lantern stories) as well as the excellent re-printed afterword by Ian Sinclair who ties the novel into the counterculture of the sixties as well as pose some truly interesting theories regarding the plot of the novel.
As I finished the book, it is the pressing aura of solitude and loneliness that lingers most heavily in my mind after the last pages. Rightly considered a masterpiece of weird fiction, Hodgson’s work is imbued with a strangeness and aura that is wholly exceptional and should be experienced by everyone with an interest in uncanny fiction.
October 9, 2021
This is lost-manuscript novel, a dark story of extra-dimensional curiosities and the beasts who roam there. An inspiration for everyone from Lovecraft to Zelazny, it's a very chilling read, certainly one Hodgson's best. It's the quintessential cosmic-horror novel. (I've never used the word "quintessential" before, I was saving it for this.) Happy Halloween!
August 23, 2022
¿Ya puedo decir que me gustan los clásicos?
Ha estado bien, pero ahora entiendo por qué tanta gente se queja de mis comas. Este autor usa muuuuchas comas.
Ha estado bien, pero ahora entiendo por qué tanta gente se queja de mis comas. Este autor usa muuuuchas comas.
October 29, 2012
Hodgson's influence on Lovecraft, and many other writers of weird fiction, is apparent from the start. Borderland opens with a couple of guys on fishing trip in the wilds of Ireland. The setting reminds me a bit of Blackwood's The Willows, with its forbidding wilderness, but also of Dracula's opening, with its nearly alien town folk, who seem to know the land is diseased, bad. Soon a ruined house (mansion?) is stumbled across, and part of a manuscript (I love evil books and manuscripts). But all of this merely brackets the real story -- which is captured in the manuscript.
And what a weird story! Whatever sins Hodgson commits with his prose, he makes up for with a Grade A imagination. Swine things that walk upright, a siege, a brave dog, a yawning pit, and then an out of body experience that seems to last forever (five or six chapters worth). It also reminds me of the ending of 2001 (which I don't like). AND THEN, it shifts again, back to the house, and another poor dog, and a big swine thing. I'm not totally sure what's going on here. It doesn't totally mesh, though I did pick up on Paradise Lost, and Dante's Divine Comedy. So is it a religious allegory? Maybe, but if so, it's a muddy one. My advise to not try and figure it out, and enjoy the genuine weirdness of Hodgson's creation.
And what a weird story! Whatever sins Hodgson commits with his prose, he makes up for with a Grade A imagination. Swine things that walk upright, a siege, a brave dog, a yawning pit, and then an out of body experience that seems to last forever (five or six chapters worth). It also reminds me of the ending of 2001 (which I don't like). AND THEN, it shifts again, back to the house, and another poor dog, and a big swine thing. I'm not totally sure what's going on here. It doesn't totally mesh, though I did pick up on Paradise Lost, and Dante's Divine Comedy. So is it a religious allegory? Maybe, but if so, it's a muddy one. My advise to not try and figure it out, and enjoy the genuine weirdness of Hodgson's creation.
February 5, 2022
Forse più fantascienza che horror. C'è un pò di tutto nelle allucinazioni del protagonista: spazio, tempo, stelle e sistema solare, catastrofi e orrendi personaggi che cercano di distruggerlo e riesce persino a rivedere la sua amata persa da tempo! Il libro scorre bene, ma risente dell'età. Comunque, per i suoi tempi, Hodgson era sicuramente all'avanguardia. Tutto sommato, una lettura interessante con infinite interpretazioni psicologiche.
August 18, 2011
William Hope Hodgson's first published novel, "The Boats of the Glen Carrig" (1907), is a tale of survival after a foundering at sea, replete with carnivorous trees, crab monsters, bipedal slugmen and giant octopi. In his now-classic second novel, "The House on the Borderland," which was released the following year, Hodgson, remarkably, upped the ante, and the result is one of the first instances of "cosmic horror" in literature, and a stunning amalgam of sci-fi and macabre fantasy. An inspiration for no less a practitioner than H.P. Lovecraft, the book really is a parcel of malign wonders. Once read, it will not be easily forgotten. I myself read the book for the first time some 20-odd years ago, and it has stayed with me ever since; a recent repeat reading has served to remind me of just why.
"House" takes the form of a found manuscript that had been written by "an old man" (we never learn his name, although he is one of the spunkiest, toughest, bravest old men imaginable) living in a very mysterious house in a desolate area of western Ireland. A recluse, living only with his elderly sister and his dog, Pepper (an animal who proves to be one of the gutsiest, loyalist pets you've ever encountered), he writes of the increasingly outre experiences he has recently undergone in this strange abode. We learn of his bizarre vision of a larger but identical house on some distant planet, watched over by the hideous gods and goddesses of Earth's past. In the manuscript's most exciting section, he tells of his battle with the "Swine Things" that besieged his home, and of his subsequent exploration of the great Pit from which they had emerged. In a segment that takes up almost half of his history, the recluse tells of his incredible voyage through time, space and dimensions, a journey that almost makes me wish that I had read this book in college, while under the influence of some psychotropic substance. This mind-expanding section boasts a sequence in which time superaccelerates, and Hodgson's descriptions here will surely bring to mind (and manage to outdo) the forward-traveling segment of the 1960 film "The Time Machine," with its rapid-fire sun/moon transitions. Hodgson's description of the last days of our planet and solar system, with a dead sun hanging ponderously in the sky over a frozen Earth, are almost as effective as H.G. Wells' in his "Time Machine" novel of 1895, with that author's dead, oily sea and (come to think of it) some crab monsters of his own. The recluse's cosmic journey after Earth's demise, and his visit to the Green Star and the "celestial orbs" (Hodgson's conception of heaven and hell?), are as mind-blowing, surely, as the "star gate" sequence in 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and perhaps more meaningful. And any book that manages to rival Wells' and top George Pal and Stanley Kubrick in the cosmic spectacle department can't be all bad, right?
I used the expression "perhaps more meaningful" just now, and that "perhaps" might represent, for many readers, a significant drawback of "The House on the Borderland." For, although we are shown glimpses of many mystifying wonders in the recluse's tale, Hodgson does not deign to explain one of them. The origin of the Swine Things, the meaning of the counterpart House on another planet, the cause of the hermit's cosmic journey, the reason for the destruction of the House and many other conundrums remain mysteries by the book's end; not just open to interpretation, but practically demanding some sort of explication on the part of the reader. I'm not usually a fan of such open-ended stories (for example, the writers on the hit TV series "Lost" had better tie up every last loose end or I am going to be mighty P.O.'ed!), but here, it works somehow, only adding an aura of cosmic inscrutability to an already awe-inspiring affair. Hodgson writes simply in this novel, forgoing the pseudo-archaic 18th century English of "Boats" and the hyperadjectival, baroque language of 1912's "The Night Land," but still seemingly can't resist the urge to play with the language a bit. For example, I've never read a book with so many unnecessary commas, as in this sentence: "For, a time, I mused, absently." But again, this affectation works, only increasing the strangeness quotient of the book. Not for nothing was "The House on the Borderland" chosen for inclusion in Newman & Jones' excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books." Read it today for the awe and the shudders, and then tell me in the year 2030 how well YOU remember it....
"House" takes the form of a found manuscript that had been written by "an old man" (we never learn his name, although he is one of the spunkiest, toughest, bravest old men imaginable) living in a very mysterious house in a desolate area of western Ireland. A recluse, living only with his elderly sister and his dog, Pepper (an animal who proves to be one of the gutsiest, loyalist pets you've ever encountered), he writes of the increasingly outre experiences he has recently undergone in this strange abode. We learn of his bizarre vision of a larger but identical house on some distant planet, watched over by the hideous gods and goddesses of Earth's past. In the manuscript's most exciting section, he tells of his battle with the "Swine Things" that besieged his home, and of his subsequent exploration of the great Pit from which they had emerged. In a segment that takes up almost half of his history, the recluse tells of his incredible voyage through time, space and dimensions, a journey that almost makes me wish that I had read this book in college, while under the influence of some psychotropic substance. This mind-expanding section boasts a sequence in which time superaccelerates, and Hodgson's descriptions here will surely bring to mind (and manage to outdo) the forward-traveling segment of the 1960 film "The Time Machine," with its rapid-fire sun/moon transitions. Hodgson's description of the last days of our planet and solar system, with a dead sun hanging ponderously in the sky over a frozen Earth, are almost as effective as H.G. Wells' in his "Time Machine" novel of 1895, with that author's dead, oily sea and (come to think of it) some crab monsters of his own. The recluse's cosmic journey after Earth's demise, and his visit to the Green Star and the "celestial orbs" (Hodgson's conception of heaven and hell?), are as mind-blowing, surely, as the "star gate" sequence in 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and perhaps more meaningful. And any book that manages to rival Wells' and top George Pal and Stanley Kubrick in the cosmic spectacle department can't be all bad, right?
I used the expression "perhaps more meaningful" just now, and that "perhaps" might represent, for many readers, a significant drawback of "The House on the Borderland." For, although we are shown glimpses of many mystifying wonders in the recluse's tale, Hodgson does not deign to explain one of them. The origin of the Swine Things, the meaning of the counterpart House on another planet, the cause of the hermit's cosmic journey, the reason for the destruction of the House and many other conundrums remain mysteries by the book's end; not just open to interpretation, but practically demanding some sort of explication on the part of the reader. I'm not usually a fan of such open-ended stories (for example, the writers on the hit TV series "Lost" had better tie up every last loose end or I am going to be mighty P.O.'ed!), but here, it works somehow, only adding an aura of cosmic inscrutability to an already awe-inspiring affair. Hodgson writes simply in this novel, forgoing the pseudo-archaic 18th century English of "Boats" and the hyperadjectival, baroque language of 1912's "The Night Land," but still seemingly can't resist the urge to play with the language a bit. For example, I've never read a book with so many unnecessary commas, as in this sentence: "For, a time, I mused, absently." But again, this affectation works, only increasing the strangeness quotient of the book. Not for nothing was "The House on the Borderland" chosen for inclusion in Newman & Jones' excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books." Read it today for the awe and the shudders, and then tell me in the year 2030 how well YOU remember it....
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