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The White People and Other Stories: The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 2 (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) |  | Author: Arthur Machen
Publisher: Chaosium
Category: Book
List Price: £14.95
Buy New: £5.25
as of 16/3/2010 04:21 MDT details
You Save: £9.70 (65%)
New (13) Used (9) from £3.95
Seller: paperbackshop1
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 136917
Media: Paperback
Edition: paperback / softback
Pages: 292
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 1568821727
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781568821726
ASIN: 1568821727
Publication Date: July 18, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Machen matures his own style March 10, 2010
Matteo Dei
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the second of a three-volumes collection of Machen's weird tales by H.P. Lovecraft's main editor S.T. Joshi. Perhaps the commentary in the introduction is too Lovecraft-centred, but the comprehensiveness and general care of this edition is worthy of mention. The tales are presented in chronological order, and cover approximately the period 1895 - 1920, i.e. the second half of Machen's golden decade and the years as journalist at the "Evening News".
Among all the works, "The White People" (published 1904) clearly stands out head and shoulder as the best tale, not only of this book but of Machen's entire production, and alone justifies the purchase of this collection. It is a masterpiece of the horror genre, considered by Lovecraft as the second-greatest horror story ever written, extraordinary for originality, subtleness and evocative power. The tale features at its core a fragment from a young girl's diary, where she recollects half-consciously her initiation to a world of paganism and black magic through her nurse's teachings and tales. Machen recreates the erratic and fluid writing style of a child with tremendous realism. This, as well as the magistral use of the allusion as a stylistic device, causes an enormous build-up of tension, utterly fascinating the reader and nailing him/her to the text until the end. The reticent and allusive character of the author's style may well give way to different interpretations of the story and compel the zealous reader to repeated readings to find his/her own explanation of the events. (I personally find the interpretation from Joshi/Lovecraft plausible but unsubstantiated).
The book's opening story, "The Red Hand" (p. 1897) follows very closely the style and themes of the early years' works, such as "The Shining Pyramid" and "The Three Impostors", being structured as a detective story with a horror undercurrent.
"Ornaments in Jade" (p.1924) is a collection of intriguing prose-poems, whose personal and subjective style recalls the lyricism of "The Hill of Dreams", Machen's semi-biographical novel, and whose allusive stories remind the forbidden atmosphere of "The White People".
"A Fragment of Life" (p.1904) describes the spritual waking of a middle-class clerk in London, giving up a life of common principles and mundane preoccupations for the re-birth of his soul and unknown quests. Interesting for the originality of the concept but tedious, except from a few highlights, and with an abrupt ending.
"The Angels of Mons" (p.1915) is a collection of First World War-era, propaganda-boosting short stories, one of which achieved enormous, albeit misplaced, public attention.
"The Great Return" (p. 1915) describes the supernatural effects of the return of the Holy Graal to the descendants of the ancient Christian-Celts of Wales.
"The Coming of the Terror" (p.1917) is a rarely seen abridged version of the novel "The Terror", which features a long series of inexplicable and violent murders and phenomena in WWI Britain. The moral message attached to the story shows Machen's profound disapproval for the lack of the spritual dimension in the XX century man. A few terrifying scenes show the author at his best, although the ending is weak and disappointing.
 Not Lovecraft! March 16, 2009
T&F Club (Glasgow, UK)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Had been looking for Machen's work for years, and recently ordered this and one of the other anthologies.
They are good, but some can be a little hard going. Considering they were written 115 years ago though, they've held up pretty well.
If you're looking for 'Cthulhu Mythos' though, you might be a little disappointed.
Different size June 30, 2008
Paulo Jorge Morgado (LISBOA)
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
I ordered the 3 books in this series and, oddly enough, this one is narrower than the other two... Apparently it was miscut by about 0,5cm further to the right edge of the book! I wonder if all the books in this release suffer from the same mutilation.
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