THE DEEP ONES: "All Hallows" by Walter de la Mare

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THE DEEP ONES: "All Hallows" by Walter de la Mare

2semdetenebre
toukokuu 19, 2023, 3:22 pm

>1 semdetenebre:

I believe the audio version is narrated by none other than "Withnail" himself!

3semdetenebre
Muokkaaja: toukokuu 28, 2023, 10:30 am

It really takes a while to get going, but it's worth it. The old man's description of the regenerative powers of All Hallows reminds me of the haunted house in Robert Marasco's Burnt Offerings: "Decay—stress—strain—settling—dissolution: I have heard those words bandied from lip to lip like a game at cup and ball. They fill me with nausea. Why, I am speaking not of dissolution, sir, but of repairs, restorations. Not decay, strengthening. Not a corroding loss, an awful progress. I could show you places—and chiefly obscured from direct view and difficult of a close examination, sir, where stones lately as rotten as pumice and as fretted as a sponge have been replaced by others fresh-quarried—and nothing of their kind within twenty miles."

In the Hippocampus Press collection Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill, HPL notes in an an October 3, 1933 letter to Clark Ashton Smith, "About de la Mare - I agree that most of his stuff is too subtle, whimsical, & humanity-riddled to form vital weird literature, & have indeed removed my recommendation of his "Out of the Deep" from the new Fantasy Fan version of my historical sketch. However - the fact remains that he now & then pulls a veritable masterpiece in which the subtlety all serves the right end, & which as a whole takes rank with the best of Machen & James. Such triumphs are "Seaton's Aunt, "Mr. Kempe", "All Hallows", & "A Recluse". He is not, of course, primarily an out-and-out weirdist - so that I never grouped him with the "Big Four" - Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany, & James. As you say, some of his less direct tales often produce the most potent effects of strangeness in the long run - through their oblique references to monstrous abnormalities about which the reader can imagine what he pleases."

Of the four de la Mare stories that Grandpa mentions, we've covered "All Hallows" and "Seaton's Aunt". The other two might be worth nominating in the future.

4RandyStafford
kesäkuu 3, 2023, 11:45 am

Found this one to be quite memorable with its idea of a structure repairing itself to further some evil end. That penultimate scene with "some light shining fitfully from within" the church on the beach evoked something like a cosmic menace.

I suppose one could see some kind of metaphor here. Maybe the church is reminiscent of post-World War one institutions reforming for some other, perhaps less noble, purpose. However, I don't think de la Mare really intends anything metaphorical or any social commentary.

I was struck by the ending bit with All Hallows forgetting to wind its clock. Maybe it's implying that, in the haunted building, there's no point in keeping track of time. Or, maybe, some unearthly rate of time passage is implied since that would mean the story occurs over a time period of almost eight hours which seems a long time for all the events.

5papijoe
kesäkuu 15, 2023, 5:42 pm

It’s it’s interesting how this is much like an M.R. James story, yet James could never approach the deep emotional and spiritual currents that drive it.