Before reading ‘The Willows,’ in the first sentence in the foreword of this book, aptly titled ‘Algernon Blackwood: An Appreciation’ Grace Isabel Colbron is able to instantly capture exactly how I feel about Blackwood after having read this first story.

In these days when popularity, for an author, means that his books are read some, but are talked about a great deal more, and that he himself is talked about more than his books, it comes with a shock of pleasing surprise to discover a writer who is read more than he is discussed.

I had never heard of Blackwood before picking up this two-story book, a combination of his best known works, ‘The Willows’ and ‘The Wendigo.’ Now though, I can’t imagine how I could have gone so long without reading him. As Colbron put it, this first story I got my hands on was certainly a very pleasing surprise. Her statement about the popularity of authors ‘these days’ got a laugh out of me too. Especially after I reached the end of the foreword and saw that it was dated to 1915. Apparently people never change.

The foreword, for all its poignancy, could not prepare me for the story however. ‘The Willows’ captures something unspeakable; it is a creeping, forlorn kind of horror that seems to reach out of the page and seep into the world around you. I read it during the middle of the afternoon, lights on, Sun shining brightly, but every time I turned the page the room got a little darker, my fears a little more present. Blackwood turns the deceptively ordinary elements of a storm, the night, a rushing river, and of course the willows surrounding the unnamed narrator and his traveling companion, into the most frightening array of horror ‘monsters’ I’ve ever read. Their harrowing experience on a small island in the Danube really shouldn’t be as terrifying as it is, yet somehow Blackwood is able to turn a couple of nights out in the wilderness into a tale of cosmic inferiority and spiritual retribution. The sense that one has trespassed where humans do not belong is so powerful that it had me looking out my window to make sure my trees weren’t planning an ambush on me. Unfathomable forces hunt the duo on their island where the veil between worlds has worn thin, and the willows, a symbol of these cosmic forces, reign supreme. A sinking sensation of mounting dread takes over as they inch closer and closer to a fate worse than death at the hands of something utterly alien, betrayed by their own thoughts, beacons that the entities use to locate them in the dark. This story is one that far exceeds the sum of its parts. ‘Deeply unsettling’ is maybe the biggest understatement I’ve ever written.

As for what I learned from reading this, I think I picked up a few tricks along the way. For one thing, Blackwood uses the character opposite the narrator, known only as ‘the swede’ as a kind of straight man. While the main character is freaking out about the ominous feelings overcoming him, the swede is as pragmatic as ever, able to sleep through the first night and remain calm even as the narrator verges on a panic that he can’t even understand. Because the narrator puts so much faith in his friend as an unimaginative pragmatist, it’s all the more horrifying when the swede reveals that he’s not only been feeling the same ominous pressure as the narrator and seeing the same inexplicable warning signs, but also believes without reservation that they have trespassed where they do not belong. The roles are reversed all the sudden. Now the narrator prattles both to his friend and to himself about all the plausible explanations for what could be going on. The wind blew the paddles of the boat away into the river, and the hole in the hull stranding them on the island that neither of them noticed all day must have been due to a rock, nothing more. The willows, appearing to creep toward their tent in the night, must be due to some optical illusion, and the unexplained spirals in the sand of the beach are just strange eddy currents produced by the wind. The conflict between the narrator’s denial and his pragmatic foil, ready to accept what he sees and feels as reality, fuels the oppressive atmosphere. Their late night discussion of things beyond human reckoning puts the final nail in the coffin when the swede reveals that he believes the entities surrounding their little island can find them by sniffing out their very thoughts. The more time they spend dwelling on the spiritual, the closer they get to being discovered. It reminded me of scenes where someone hides in a closet, holding their breath to remain unheard. You know its inevitable that they’ll be discovered, but how long can they hold out? It’s just a matter of time. Nobody can hold their breath in, or their terror, forever.

I’ll have to read the next story, and probably this one over again to glean anything more substantial. I think the structure of the story probably adds a lot to the horror of it all, but it’s not easily summarized. There’s a sense that the end is approaching all the time, even if you can’t see it. Especially if you can’t see it. I think capturing that sensation is probably one key to mastering the genre and I’ll have to do some thinking about how.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley