Here we have yet another of Lovecraft’s heavy influences, and Pelan makes the grand supposition in his brief intro to this tale that it is the closest we’ll ever come to the perfect horror story. Well . . . not quite.
Not that it’s a bad story. No, Blackwood is a very capable writer, and his description of the swampy land where the two main characters wind up is sublime. Perhaps this is the greatest description of anything ever put down in a horror story—or any story, for that matter—but this alone does not fulfill Pelan’s claim.
This is the story of a nameless narrator and his traveling companion, the Swede. They like going to exotic places, and this time they are canoeing down the Danube River. They head off down a forgotten branch, despite a farmer’s ominous warning, where they find themselves in a boggy mess, where islands of hard land are crumbling, and the going is treacherous. The only trees here are willows, so they have to rely on driftwood to make a fire.
And then, they start noticing strange things. Soon, the Swede is making all sorts of mad claims, like the land they’re on is haunted by creatures from another world, and the narrator, who tries to remain skeptical about the whole thing, can’t help but feel paranoid about his surroundings.
The genius in this story is Blackwood’s way with the setting. When these characters first wind up in this strange land, they marvel at its wild beauty, awestruck by everything. Yet when night falls, everything takes on a sinister twist. The very things they fawned over in the day suddenly become menacing. Soon, they are jumping at shadows and deathly afraid of strange funnels in the sandy ground, which they take for the mark of whatever creatures are out there. The Swede suddenly becomes convinced that the only way they’ll make it out of the willows alive is if they offer a sacrifice to the creatures.
The problem with this story is, Blackwood doesn’t know when good enough is good enough. He goes over the top with just about everything. One can easily tell he was being paid by the word.
The other problem is, just about everything supernatural in this tale can be explained away in a rational fashion. The narrator tries to do this, but even when he loses his own senses and gives in to the Swede’s ideas, the reader is very capable of taking up this role. As a result, the reader has no choice but to believe that they are both being melodramatic fools, children caught up in their own fantasy. This thought becomes pretty certain when the Swede comes to the conclusion that if you don’t think about the creatures, they can’t find you.
One more problem: both of these characters are pretty frantic. How is it that neither one of them thinks to sacrifice his companion? It would be only natural. Hell, he wouldn’t have to actually do it. Survival instinct is a part of humanity, just as a moral compass is, but the former always takes precedence over the latter.
And now, for the ever-present SPOILER ALERT: in the above reference to supernatural things being easily explained away, the wording is very specifically chosen. “Just about” does not mean "all." At the very end, they discover a dead body and assume he is the sacrifice the creatures stumbled onto instead of them. This is backed up by the funnel marks all over his body. And in quite possibly the creepiest moment of this tale, the current sweeps his body away, the face staring up at the sky. END OF SPOILERS.
Is this the closest we have to a perfect horror story? No. But if you can get past the overbearing wordiness of it, you’ll find a damned good tale.
[This story was first published in THE LISTENER AND OTHER STORIES and can be read here.]
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