“The Great God Pan” (1894)

Arthur Machen’s long story involves more or less, or maybe not really, the mythical Greek half-goat “god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs” (Wikipedia). Among other things it set off a trend in horror stories that lasted 20 or 30 years and still recurs today, the gods among us, and nasty. It is thoroughly rooted in a 19th-century literary style I think of as “furniture-moving,” also seen in numerous H.P. Lovecraft stories, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and arguably even William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. In the furniture-moving narrative, most of the themes occur at the edges of the action, with large blocks of narrative devoted to developing them indirectly (“showing”), one at a time. The narrative hangs back a little too much for me here, nibbling at the edges instead of going to the heart. It starts in the first of eight sections with an experiment that drives a woman named Mary mad and results in her pregnancy by the randy ancient god. Mary—a bold choice of name. Each section details some further aspect of the presence of this god on Earth with a cast of rotating peripheral characters and various mysteries and bizarre events associated with them. They tend to be worried men of science and/or authorities attempting to piece together the clues of some enormous and unspeakable horror™. It’s a little confusing, we don’t learn key details until late and are left to surmise a lot of the direct action from the wreckage left behind. At one point, for example, various pleasure-loving aristocrats begin committing suicide in a notably gruesome way. For all of Machen’s pains to keep it subtle the reveal at the end finally spells out the horror specifically. The ever-intriguing mystic and Welsh writer Arthur Machen was attacked as vulgar, verging on blasphemous, to put sex with a god so blatantly into this story. In many ways it’s not that different from vampire stories as the specific miscreant here—known variously (and confusingly) as Helen Vaughan, Mrs. Herbert, and Mrs. Beaumont—basically rampages British society terrifying people and killing them by fear. The objection, in late Victorian terms, was that Pan, even with his Greek origins predating Christianity, is somehow a pagan functionary of the biblical Satan, who has his own goat connections in European medievalism. I associate Pan more with libertines and healthy lustful sexuality, but apparently (and not at all surprisingly) healthy lustful sexuality was considered sinful and evil in 1894. So, for the most part, I’m a little indifferent to the lengthy verbose horror exercises in Machen’s tale. He would get much better by my lights—see “The White People” from 10 years later. But he may be best known for “Pan.” H.P. Lovecraft notably loved this story and in some ways it can produce the same mysterious effect on me as Lovecraft’s stories—often boring as I read, requiring patience I don’t always have, but then penetrating this apathy somehow to produce a sense of unease, sometimes long after reading. I might not be as willing to call “The Great God Pan” essential, as some others do, but yeah, maybe you should get to it—and Machen—sooner rather than later.

Foundations of Fear, ed. David G. Hartwell
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“The True Story of a Vampire” (1894)

The modest Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock published most often as “Eric Stenbock,” along with some other variations, of which the one I prefer of course is “Count Stenbock.” It’s crisp and to the point, no false modesty, and also, as with Lord Dunsany, brings an aristocratic twang of authority that can’t help but impress me. Vampire stories particularly should be written by the wealthy and landed. It suits them—they have the inside track. The tone of the narrator here plays to that. She sounds infinitely sophisticated and world-weary. The Vampire Tales anthology I found it in had it under an alternate title, “The Sad Story of a Vampire,” which actually fits it better. The narrator is an older sister who witnessed the terrible events detailed, including the deaths of her beloved brother and father. The story is set as usual in Central Europe—specifically Styria, a region in southeastern Austria. This vampire has a Northern European look and manner, insinuating his way by luck and circumstances into the placid life of this happy little family. There is no mother, she died giving birth to the younger brother, and the father is rather old, nearing or past 60. The narrator is telling the story in her own old age, when she is known locally as “the Baroness and her beasts” for her eccentric project of caring for stray animals. The story opens, “Vampire stories are generally located in Styria; mine is also.” A sad tone is established at once, even as the information about certain malevolence pulls against it. The story is short and proceeds quickly. The vampire is besotted at first sight of the brother. In due order, the vampire’s health and vigor swing up and down in opposition to the boy’s, who had been a healthy, animal-loving nature boy all his life. He carries on his activities communicating with the wild animals and collecting specimens. They all love him. Birds sit on his shoulder and squirrels gather ‘round his feet, etc. But with the arrival of the vampire—the father found him stranded at the train station—the boy’s health flags. Interestingly, the vampire’s health improves. The father is blind to it all—he kind of likes the guy, who presents himself as a knowledgeable antiquarian, and he invites him to stick around—but the older sister sees plainly what is happening. The visitor’s name is Count Vardalek, recalling the story “The Family of the Vourdalak” by Russian author Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, although a google search of the name mostly produces only results related to this story by Count Stenbock, which is pretty good overall. It doesn’t try to be any more than what it is, the story of an unholy monster that moves in and takes what it wants, including a family’s most prized member. Even the animals must have wept.

Vampire Tales: The Big Collection, pub. Dark Chaos
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Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

Ten years after Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain went ahead and wrote another novel with Tom Sawyer and Jim the slave, narrated by Huck. I didn’t even know this existed until recently. It’s very short, under 200 pages, and another parody of European romantic literature. This time the target is specifically Jules Verne, who was only seven years older than Twain and alive at the time. Full disclosure, I have never read Verne, not even when I was a kid and slogging through Robert Louis Stevenson adventure books for kids, so I can’t speak to how well Tom Sawyer Abroad works that way. It looks more to me like Twain put his favorite characters in a balloon and that was supposed to be enough. They step into the thing in a carnival passing through Missouri, it breaks loose, and here we are. It is reminiscent to me in many ways of the Wizard of Oz story too, but that came later. Twain’s balloon is a finely tuned machine, much like a steamboat. It ranges up high for cooler temperatures and can practically scud along at ground level. But it takes even Tom Sawyer some time to figure out all the controls. There’s also a mad scientist on the scene, and food and water to last for months. That’s handy, because they’re crossing the Atlantic before Tom figures out how to control the balloon. They end up over the Sahara Desert for retellings of stories from Arabian Nights along with raft loads of American innocence. It’s supposed to be funny but it’s not really, and the treatment of Jim is at least as bad as in Huck Finn. I enjoyed Tom Sawyer Abroad more than I expected but I didn’t expect much. It’s certainly for completists only. I like Huck’s voice, which is more or less Twain but with more dialect. Are we seeing Twain run out of ideas as he approaches the age of 60? Or was this the only thing he could get publishers and/or the reading public to go for? It’s his second book with “Tom Sawyer” in the title, his third book with “Abroad,” and the umpteenth parodying European literature. At least there is no plot point about babies being switched at birth. Tom Sawyer Abroad does have the virtue of being short and quick and who knows? Maybe some will like the chance to hang out more with Tom, Huck, and Jim. I’ll admit it was probably what I liked most about it. But then there’s the problem of Jim’s continuing mistreatment, which is unfortunate enough to torpedo the whole fragile vessel. File under I read it so you don’t have to.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

I admit I enjoyed this short novel by Mark Twain for the usual reasons, including that it has a lot of fun with European culture, but I believe it may be the fourth novel or story I've read by Twain that uses the plot device of babies switched at birth. So, to start, I'm not sure how much Twain has to say about European literary cliches. It's set in a Missouri town on the Mississippi River. It also has a pair of Italian twins who claim to be disinherited noblemen, which doesn't seem entirely improbable. The problem with the babies switched at birth story is it involves a lot of uncomfortable detail about race, with the story set in 1850 reminding us that Twain was raised in a slaveholding society and never quite transcended it all the way. One of the babies is white, of old First Families of Virginia (FFV) stock, and the other is Black. Or "so you say," as we go down the hatch of "passing" and mulattos and octoroons. Twain uses none of these words, but does tell us the Black baby's mother is 1/16 Black, which makes the baby 1/32 Black, and aiyiyi, I don't want to know anymore. It's all about explaining how such a switch could happen credibly but it's fatally flawed at conception except as a measure of racism. Everyone who reads this should know it's incredible and ridiculous to assign someone a social identity based on a solitary great-great-great-great-grandparent But here we are, "if you ain't white you Black." All this was in the air Twain breathed. He mocks it, gently, but he is obviously steeped in it. He rejects slavery but in the tepid way many of us reject capitalism nowadays, if we do. At any rate, as charming as Twain's tale here is generally—and it's not bad for Twain fans—it didn't really seem good enough to me to transcend its nagging problems. It was serialized, but a note by Twain at the end (not in all editions) talks about the way he came to write it. He originally had the Italian twins physically conjoined and it was mainly about them. But evidently David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson and his fingerprinting ways, along with Roxanne the slave and her baby-switching ways, just demanded the attention, and thus Puddn'head Wilson. That probably accounts for some of the lack of focus here, and certainly for the fleeting sensation I had that the Italian twins were conjoined. Twain has obviously had practice at this as the story is put together really well. If you like baby switching stories, don't miss this one.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over (Library of America).

"Rothschild's Fiddle" (1894)

It's short and even obvious in some ways, but Anton Chekhov loaded a tremendous amount into this story. Yukov, the main character—Rothschild is important too, but in a supporting role—is a 70-year-old coffin maker who is self-centered and profoundly unhappy with his lot. He is full of regrets for all the things he wishes he had done, such as working harder and saving more money, but they are also things he still doesn't want to do. In addition, he's a detestable anti-Semite. Rothschild is one of his particular targets for abuse and hatred. Rothschild plays the flute in a mostly Jewish orchestra. When the orchestra needs a violin player, Yukov is invited. He takes the work for the money but he is unpleasant company so he is not asked often. Yukov is worse to his wife of 52 years—he has even forgotten they had a child who died as a baby. He is never kind to her and often abusive. In the story she takes sick and dies, and then, of course, Yukov begins to see the error of his ways and find himself full of more regrets. It's hard to feel much sympathy for him, but Chekhov stays close to him, faithfully grinding through his feelings and revelations. Somehow Yukov's epiphany—even as his own death suddenly closes on him—becomes quite moving and believable. He has thoughts like, "If it were not for hatred and malice people would get immense benefit from one another," and somehow they are convincing. Perhaps more so to the other characters in the story, such as Rothschild, than the reader. But Rothschild gets to hear the music Yukov makes in this redemptive state (his only response: "Vachhh!" and tears), and he also receives the violin as a gift after Yukov's death. Chekhov was in his mid-30s when he wrote this, but his approximation of an embittered man passing into his old age and facing death seems uncanny and on the nose. Is it partly because he made Yukov so unlikable? Possibly. His poor wife never gets to see a lot of these fruits (after 52 years!), as it's her death which sets them in motion. And Yukov does not get so many of them himself, as he dies shortly after her. It sounds like a matter of weeks, if not days. I don't think we're intended to learn a lesson here about letting go of our own regrets and their causes before it's too late. Ultimately it's just a story of a sad old man coming to his sad old end, full of surprising pathos and beauty.

Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

"The Black Monk" (1894)

This story by Anton Chekhov seems to have a certain unwillingness to commit to its own reality, which is what I think I like about it. On the one hand it's almost ridiculously straightforward about a man, Kovrin, who is succumbing to mental illness, a carefully constructed tale of woe verging on tragedy. On the other hand, the delusion that defines Kovrin's madness, the encounters with a mysterious monk in black, are so seductively believable I have a hard time writing them off as the workaday madness of so much fiction—the cheap device. Certainly that's how the story appears to work. His madness makes no sense. Kovrin is an orphan but much beloved by a creative, interesting, and somewhat kooky family, into which he eventually marries. We see the seeds of Kovrin's delusion when he is fascinated by a legend whose source he cannot recall, about a monk in black who has wandered the world for centuries. Not long after, Kovrin sees him in a strange vision, and not long after that the monk engages Kovrin in conversation, telling him he has been uniquely chosen. "I exist in your imagination, and your imagination is part of nature, so I exist in nature," he explains himself to Kovrin, who is continually questioning his reality. 'You are a phantom, an hallucination," Kovrin says. "So I am mentally deranged, not normal?" "What if you are?" the monk soothes him. "Why trouble yourself?" The classic words of a devil's imp sitting on your shoulder. Meanwhile, as the years go by, the view from outside Kovrin is increasingly clear. His life is going to hell. He is cold and alienating to his wife, who at one point catches him talking to empty air. As she confronts Kovrin, the monk soon disappears. She and her father attempt to "cure" his mental illness and he improves some, but grows increasingly bitter and paranoid, believing they are betraying his genius for mediocrity. Things get worse and they never get better. Kovrin is curious in that he doesn't deny his mental illness but indeed seems to prefer it. The illusion of the monk in this story is the most interesting part. No one denies what it is, but Kovrin likes having him around—it's a bit like the "we need the eggs" joke—and the reader tends to agree. Is it angel or demon? It doesn't seem to matter much. I'm not sure whether it's just the monk's soothing words but something about him is attractive. At story's end I'm pretty much in perfect sympathy with Kovrin, even though he is insane.

Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov