The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson in Art

Since William Hope Hodgson's strange novel, The House on the Borderland, first appeared, artists have sought to capture the demented, liminal spirit of the hellish house. Here, it's worth collecting a few of these efforts for comparison. Hodgson's otherworldly house was a product of pure imagination, which earned it praise from weird fiction contemporaries like H.P. Lovecraft.

Depictions of the eponymous house veer toward the decrepit profile given in the novel. Recently, illustrator Richard Corben translated Hodgson's work to the visual medium in his House on the Borderland graphic novel. Corben's house follows the book pretty literally, but also takes the liberty of making the house look exceptionally crooked. Corben's artwork zeroes in on an essential feature of illustrating Hodgson: the house, as a reality spanning nightmare, must reflect its warped realm more than the cliff it seems to occupy.

It's the house and its surroundings, after all, where the supernatural events of the novel unfold. Although visual artists have sought to capture far stranger aspects of Hodgson's story than its house, many images hinge on effectively generating the eeriness and surrealism in the house. The house is ultimately the lever for artistic weirdism that's worthy of the novel, and these are just a few images that come close to that level of justice.

-Grim Blogger

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson in Art

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Weird Fiction and the Great War Fire Bath

The passing of the armistice agreement that ended the First World War should not go unnoticed by folks today, but especially those who enjoy weird fiction, classic and contemporary. The horrors and glories that sprang from Europe's bygone conflagration left a profound mark on weird scribes now acknowledged as masters. While it didn't consume their output, wartime impressions are easily found in stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, and many others. One need only look at stories like Lovecraft's "The Temple," or Machen's "The Bowmen," to uncover specimens directly based on WWI.

The conflict did more than fire the fears and awesome imaginations of early twentieth century horror writers. A tiny handful were taken into the blackness, unable to escape the grim statistics hanging over several generations alive during 1914-1918. Britain's strangest able bodied authors followed a drum beat that led them into some very hot and very modern steel jaws. Lord Dunsany suffered a serious combat injury in 1916. Worse, William Hope Hodgson lost his life at Ypres during the war's last year. On the other side, Hanns Heinz Ewers directly participated in the conflict, placing his intellectual faculties in the Kaiser's service as a spy and propagandist.

The war had titanic consequences for weird fiction and the world, probably more than can be realized by today's scholars, who are increasingly segregated from the trenches and gas clouds by time's veil. The breakdown of older aesthetic models that occurred in the conflict's wake opened a trajectory for this era's supernatural literature. Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, D.F. Lewis, and other ultra-modern innovators would not have emerged without studying the direction Western literature stomped off in after the dust settled. Weird fiction, like most literary legacies, is today a bastard child of the Great War, with participants (present company included) who happily gnaw on the dark, psychic fruits sewn by a real world bloodbath.



-Grim Blogger

Weird Fiction and the Great War Fire Bath

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"Naught Thought" on Nature, Ligotti, and Lovecraft

The blog "Naught Thought" recently featured the first of what seems to be several planned entries dealing with the more mentally taxing aspects of certain weird authors. It contains several well selected quotes from Thomas Ligotti, and centers on that author's horror of Nature, as well as tangential glances at the same theme running through works by H.P. Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson. Anyone who has read Ligotti stories like "Severini" are struck by the claustrophobic terror of the naturalistic scenes. Ligotti's descriptions of humid jungles, animals, and overwhelming greenery make what are ordinary symbols of great Terran vitality appear as monstrous obscenities.

I'm certain I'm not the only one looking forward to further comments on Ligotti from this blogger, who seems well versed in the realm of formal philosophy.

-Grim Blogger

"Naught Thought" on Nature, Ligotti, and Lovecraft

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BBC Radio Production of Major Hodgson Work

Only a few days remain to listen to the complete BBC Radio production of William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland. This is a classic of weird literature beloved by H.P. Lovecraft and many other prominent connoisseurs of the strange. The BBC Radio page here includes the story divided up into compact audio episodes for easy, compartmentalized listening. Given the quality of traditional BBC Radio productions, look for this one to at least have a shot at making it onto CD or purchasable MP3 after some time has elapsed. Then, perhaps, Hodgson will be able to join other greats like M.R. James in the long history of BBC wireless dramas.

The House on the Borderland is a masterpiece shimmering with such eerie brilliance that it demands attention from those genuinely appreciative of the outre. Read it here via Project Gutenberg in multiple text formats. It won't take no for an answer.

-Grim Blogger

BBC Radio Production of Major Hodgson Work

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