William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918)

Carnacki can be described as the Sherlock of the occult world. This collection of 9 stories brings us tales of weird supernatural phenomena, some of which are genuinely perplexing while the rest are a result of devious human enterprise. All these stories were published in The Idler Magazine between 1910-1912.

The stories are decently engrossing, though a little repetitive in style. You will find quite an odd assortment of tools being used by Carnacki to detect/fight the ghostly phenomena: pentacles, chalk and garlic circles, human hair barriers, vacuum tubes, cameras,... Some arcane references he makes include vowel-intensive names such as Aeiirii, Saiitii, and the Saaamaaa Ritual. These make the reading experience quite different from modern horror stories. The combination of supposedly traditional rituals along with modern scientific methods is quite unique considering the time period in which these stories were published.

The stories follow a preset format.
- Carnacki sends notes of invitation to four friends, asking them to come to dinner.
- After dinner, Carnacki lights his pipe, everyone settles into their favourite chairs, and he tells the tale without interruption.
- Each of Carnacki's tales tells of an investigation into an unusual haunting, which Carnacki is charged to identify and to end.
- He always uses evidence to draw his final conclusions, so that in some stories he decides the haunting is real, while in others it is staged or faked by an adversary for various reasons. So you won't know till the end if the haunting was genuine or man-made or sometimes, a combination.
- After the tale is complete, Carnacki answers a few questions from his guests and then dismisses them with the phrase, "Out you go!"

Every story is written in first person. One of the four invited friends, Dodgson, serves the actual narrator of the story, though his role is quite minimal as Carnacki soon takes centre-stage and begins his own narration. You might equate this with Watson's recounting of Sherlock's adventures but there are two crucial differences.
1. Watson was a part of Sherlock's adventures. Dogdson merely narrates what Carnacki recounted and has no direct role to play in the paranormal adventures.
2. Unlike in Sherlock where Watson is the narrator and Sherlock the 3rd party, here Carnacki himself recounts his adventures. So the stories have more of a personal touch but sometimes sound pompous and abrupt.

If this were written in the modern era, I might have rated it a 3 because of the repetitive tropes and the simplistic writing. But keeping in mind that this would have been a trendsetter a century ago, and that I can't use modern sensibilities to judge old fiction, I'll go with a 3.5 star rating. Do give it a try if you want to try out a really different kind of horror anthology.

Trigger warnings: brutal animal cruelty in a couple of the tales.… (altro)

DNF at 20%. This is a personal reflection more than a review.

I fully respect the history and influence of this book and absolutely cannot imagine what it must have been like for HP Lovecraft and others to have read this at the time, as well as the more recent effect on a young and impressionable Terry Pratchett.

This is one of those books I want to love, but just can't. It falls perfectly in that period that has moved out of the verbose and decadent gothic sensibility into the weird and cosmic I genuinely love the descendents of, but can't find the enjoyment in the strangely long-winded in text, yet terse of emotion and description of the time. Saying pale pig faced people are coming to get me is a scary concept and the idea must have been wild at the time, but when the writing of it happening is not conveying the character's feelings in a way that is accessible for me and the events of the action ate bracing, while the manner it is described is dry and instructional it just doesn't move me.

I understand that this is vastly a me problem and I DNF'd early, so maybe it gets wild and visceral later, but I don't care. I want to and personally feeling it is a failing of myself that there is so much are out there that I can intellectually enjoy the idea of and respect, but utterly fail to be moved by. The neurodivergences play their part, but I'm just a fussy bugger. It's funny, I read a book I don't enjoy and I question whether I even know how to read or whether I even enjoy reading, but then I find something I like and I'm up in the wee hours reading and then reaching for that book first thing upon waking.

Ultimately, for historians of fantasy and horror, especially cosmic and weird tales this is essential reading. Many thoroughly enjoy this, from the virulently racist Lovecraft to the gorgeously progressive and loving Pratchett. If you love Lovecraft and Wells, and their drier offerings still do it for you then I do think you'll love this. If the ponderous and bland of prose, regardless of the excitement and nightmares of the content, fail to keep you entertained maybe you won't. All I know is this wasn't my cup of tea in actuality, despite being a full mug of coffee in theory. Does that work even in the slightest? I truly don't care.… (altro)