L. P. Hartley (1895–1972)

I had watched the movie first. Then I got the book. I went into it with a little hesitation since I thought of it as very plot-driven story and therefore "spoiled" by having watched the movie. Boy was I wrong. One thing that comes through much better in the book is the emotional development of the boy even though it's being told from his adult self years later. All of his actions were supported by credible motivations, and there was no feeling that the author put something in "just to make it interesting." And as the plot develops, the boy's thinking gets more complex. For some people the language will be a challenge, but I found I fell right into it and it added a lot to the feeling of distance with the past, as is the boy's past really were a foreign country.… (altro)

Outstanding little collection of macabre stories that should be generally rated higher than it is. Hartley is a highly accomplished writer who wrote the classic non-supernatural [b:The Go-Between|258079|The Go-Between|L.P. Hartley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320480023s/258079.jpg|1553524] as well as many other novels and stories outside the outr�� genres. Every story in this book is a classic tale and Hartley's macabre stories deserve to be better known and anthologized. My favorite is "A Visitor from Down Under" with it's punning title (the protagonist has just returned from Australia). Hartley mixes a wry gallows humor in with the truly horrifying, without the humor blunting the edge of the tale.

I read a lot of stories and after decades I can often not remember the details of a particular story, but I can remember the Travelling Grave, Feet Foremost, and Three or Four, for Dinner like I read them yesterday. I like Hartley so much I invested in the expensive Tartarus Press collection despite owning this Arkham House collection.… (altro)

What can you say about a book that gives you pretty much every macabre story written throughout an author's long career? Hartley wrote lots of stories and novels but for me his strange stories are the best. We have here everything from pure horror to just plain odd stories. To me Hartley almost seems like a bridge between the ghost stories of M.R. James and Robert Aickman. There are examples of both schools in Hartley's work and something in-between. A book to be savored one story at a time.

The book is 500 pages long and beautifully produced by Tartarus Press.… (altro)