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The Damned (1914)

by Algernon Blackwood(Favorite Author)

3.44 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1592248829 (ISBN13: 9781592248827)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Wildside Press

review 1: This longer story (or is it a novella?) would be a great exhibit of Blackwood's mastery of nameless dread if one could just ignore the denouement. Like in his better work, such as "The Willows," Blackwood is able to conjure all shades of terror from subtle impressions and details, made all the more intense because of the inability to define it or explain it away. The atmosphere through the middle of the tale is therefore classic Blackwood. The problem arises when an explanation begins to surface and the story becomes more or less an advertisement for the Theosophical Society or what might be termed "New Age" thought today. The society is not mentioned by name but their motto- "There is no religion higher than Truth"- is the motto of the benevolent community that takes cust... moreody of the cursed house and exorcises it abruptly through their practice of tolerance and compassion, and their generous faith in universal salvation. You see, the apparent haunting of the house is after all just the psychic residue of lots of mean, intolerant dogmatists of various creeds(Druid, Roman, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant) who have occupied the site throughout history. Some might accuse me of throwing a spoiler into my review by revealing all this, but the neat explanation is really not what makes this story worthwhile- it's a bit like when some editor decides to append a glib moral to a bewildering and surreal fairy tale. For readers unfamiliar with Blackwood's horror fiction, you'd better start with his better work, such as "The Willows" or "The Wendigo."
review 2: This was alright. The point of the book I think was that horror is not always one that peaks to the point of ultimate terror, but sometimes there are several layers of the haunted area which are fighting for complete control. Yet they cannot have it, and in the end, only the seeming ascension of something that is about to happen occurs, however nothing really happens. I know, sort of confusing isn't it? The book is about a brother and sister, Bill and Frances who visit a friend of theirs, Mabel(a widow)at her home called the Towers. I gather it was quite the estate with lovely gardens and a large house. However, Mabel's late husband was a very religious man who spoke of damnation all the time and from what I gather is that he scared Mabel into these beliefs, and her fear in these beliefs allowed the supernatural "minerals" buried beneath the soil to come "unearthed" where some occurrences that could not be rendered as normal would come to pass. Another theme of this book is the power of belief, and how the simple act of believing in something that was fed to you over a period of time could have so much power as to burst forth and scare you. Which sucks, cause sometimes I wonder if ghosts are real and then I freak out at everything -_- less

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