[....] "Opening the Door" ....dates from 1931. It is not, I tell you honestly, Machen's masterpiece, but it is a fine example of his art of suggestiveness, of his ability to demonstrate the interconnection of the mundane and the marvelous, and the reason I chose it is that when so little of Machen's work is currently [2000] in print it seems pointless to republish yet again "The White People" or "The Great God Pan," which are (deservedly) the most anthologized of his stories. My choice was also determined, I have to admit, by the desire to offer a small rejoinder to S. T. Joshi. In his otherwise excellent volume, The Weird Tale (a critical study of Machen and five other classic horror writers), Mr. Joshi declares that all the Machen fiction worth reading dates from his first decade of work. This, in my opinion, is far too dismissive of Machen's later period- a period that not only produced such tales as "N" or "Out of the Earth" or "The Exalted Omega" or, indeed, "Opening the Door," but one in which Machen's prose, always breathtakingly good, actually got better. [....] Don't look for sudden shocks or punchline endings. It offers no quick thrills, no instant frissions of horror. It will, however, leave the careful reader with a lingering sense of something beyond this world, a feeling that, however briefly, the veil that separates the natural from the supernatural (or, in Machen's phrase, the Actual from the Real) has been lifted, that a door has indeed been opened. Peter Atkins in My Favorite Horror Story (2000)
Machen is one of the greats. Good reading.
Thank you Mr Windy love listening to your stories her in the UK
Always love your readings, Windy. Great stuff!
Thanks so much for this one. I've been reading some of Machen's later work, but missed this one somehow, and it is quietly wonderful.
Fascinating! Very entertaining, though as usual for me, I don't completely understand it!
Wow, never seen this one from the great Machen!! He is such an inspiration to me☺️
[....] "Opening the Door" ....dates from 1931. It is not, I tell you honestly, Machen's masterpiece, but it is a fine example of his art of suggestiveness, of his ability to demonstrate the interconnection of the mundane and the marvelous, and the reason I chose it is that when so little of Machen's work is currently [2000] in print it seems pointless to republish yet again "The White People" or "The Great God Pan," which are (deservedly) the most anthologized of his stories. My choice was also determined, I have to admit, by the desire to offer a small rejoinder to S. T. Joshi. In his otherwise excellent volume, The Weird Tale (a critical study of Machen and five other classic horror writers), Mr. Joshi declares that all the Machen fiction worth reading dates from his first decade of work. This, in my opinion, is far too dismissive of Machen's later period- a period that not only produced such tales as "N" or "Out of the Earth" or "The Exalted Omega" or, indeed, "Opening the Door," but one in which Machen's prose, always breathtakingly good, actually got better.
[....] Don't look for sudden shocks or punchline endings. It offers no quick thrills, no instant frissions of horror. It will, however, leave the careful reader with a lingering sense of something beyond this world, a feeling that, however briefly, the veil that separates the natural from the supernatural (or, in Machen's phrase, the Actual from the Real) has been lifted, that a door has indeed been opened.
Peter Atkins in My Favorite Horror Story (2000)
It sounds like some may just translate body and soul. Thanks Windy.