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The Hill of Dreams
by Arthur Machen
(Tartarus Press, 2006; $55.00; ISBN: 1872621937 .)
Review by William P Simmons
 A
storyteller of startling imaginative power and lyrical poetry, Arthur
Machen (born Arthur Llewellyn Jones, 1863-1974) approached weird fiction
with a mystic's belief and a craftsman's devotion to form, weaving tales
of decrepit pagan influences and the conflict between external appearance
and inner truths (among other themes) into his dark art. His thematic
preoccupation with hidden realities have influenced innumerable authors
of the fantastique, including H.P. Lovecraft, who ranked "The White
People" as the second greatest weird tale, surpassed only by Blackwood's
"The Willows."
Essayist, journalist, actor, and occultist (a member of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn), Machen's most inspired period came after
receiving an inheritance, allowing him to devote his time to writing
rather than earning his daily bread. Toil and tragedy were no strangers
to Machen's life -- a shadow-tinged dream world where a late night walk
could bring him face-to-face with characters from the pages of his own
works and rambles through pagan ruins could transport him into fits
of exquisite wonder. Perhaps best known for his scandalous late-Victorian
story "The Great God Pan" (1894) and the episodic novel The
Three Imposters (1890) (containing "The Novel of the White
Powder" and "The Novel of the Black Seal"), Machen was
at his most personal and revealing in the semi-autobiographical novel
The Hill of Dreams (1907).
Released by Tartarus Press in time for its centenary next year, this,
the most accomplished novel of the field's greatest dreamer, looks
as exotic as its story reads. Including the three original illustrations
by Sidney Sime, this reprint of the earlier edition (also from Tartarus)
includes a rousing introduction by Machen himself, and special introductions
by fantasist Lord Dunsany and author/critic Mark Valentine (whose own
lyrical prose approaches Machen's evocation of the wondrous in the seemingly
everyday). Published in 1907, during one of his major spurts of creativity,
The Hill of Dreams is an adventure in the senses -- a celebration
of feeling and instinct, of dreaming wide awake in a world opposed to
anything outside the daily grind and banal mechanics of cold logic --
itself little more than an illusion shared by the majority. An intense,
passionate read, the novel hides within its strangely simplistic seeming
'plot' a deeper story -- and a subtext -- of universal significance.
Traditional plot -- a narrative device moving the action of a story
through an accumulation of events that lead to a crises -- is spare
herein, largely bypassed by the central character's emotional stimulus
as he struggles between Fay and reality, whatever that may be.
Emotions and sensations, the stuff of raw experience, is Machen's emphasis.
Nothing less than a journey inward through the realms of spirit and
discovery, Hill of Dreams re-invents itself anew with each reading.
Lucian Taylor, a young man teetering perilously between the hazy realms
of fantasy and reality, recreates those twilight visions and fancies
experienced by Machen himself as a youth. These sensations, filtered
through Lucian, promise salvation while threatening damnation. Wonder,
awe, mystery -- they are the waters of streams, boundaries of land,
and whisp of the air. Within the natural world and the secrets it conceals
is the suggestion of a greater reality. "An interior tale of the
soul and its emotions," the resulting passion inside Lucian follows
him as he becomes a writer and moves to London. Nature, and his deeply
felt affinity with its secrets, conflict with his cultural fear that
he may be damned, until his yearning for dream proves tragic.
At once both a reaffirmation and broadening of the Pagan devotion he
had explored earlier in his career, The Hill of Dreams explores
a natural mysticism and sense of ancient vitality both threatening and
ecstatic. As dangerous as it was potentially liberating, the weird essence
of wonder and dark miracles found in a life devoted to/controlled by
history, wonder, and the occult -- nourished by strange byways of existence
and art unfelt by the common herd of Man -- Machen's approach to paganism
in this manifesto is at turns awe-inspiring and cautionary. Warning
without preaching, loving without completely embracing the allure of
the mystical that feeds the mortal mind through ecstatic experiences
gleaned primarily from visions and art -- the very instrument of terror
and pathos -- this novel is an essential work in the Machen cannon.
Whereas "The Great God Pan" was a horror story devoted to
deviant sexuality, suggesting the dangerous wonders of the infinite
as the sexual union with Nature resulted in the birth of a femme
fatale who infiltrated British society through the paradoxical pleasures
and corruption of sexual enticement, the poetic wonders experienced
by the young visionary (Machen himself, thinly veiled) are nourishing
at the same time that they separate the artist/seer from the everyday
walk of common life. Such an existence is both lonely and an invitation
to madness. Beauty, and the gift of knowing, of touching such beauty,
has a price. And if the Great God Pan is the primal power of nature
unveiled -- a terrible, savage, awesome terror-- than the mystical experience
inherent in Dreams is both a spiritual baptism and introduction
to social isolation.
In this novel, Machen points an accusing finger at the suppressing
nature of organized religion through which most men define their realities,
including Christianity, which failed to offer an experience of
the infinite which they spent so much time talking about. This was a
theme he explored through most of his life, yet nowhere is its message
of angst and disdain more noticeable than in Hill of Dreams.
Also apparent is Machen's favored belief that there are truths hidden
within the exterior crust of the natural world. The surface layers of
reality are exposed as deceitful symbols whose purpose is to hide from
humanity the terrors which constitute true reality. The modern
Shaman, revealing the secrets of, and opening the gates to, the magical
otherworld is the storyteller. Machen and the young conflicted poet
he depicts in this journey through personal hell and salvation the archetypal
questor in search of truth, searching for the infinite in hopes of experiencing
personal transformation through art. Nature is a flimsy screen behind
which the cosmos hides paradoxically dangerous yet transforming wonders.
In Hill, Machen's ideas and approach, much like the authentic
religious experience he himself sought, were symbolic forms signifying
still greater mysteries. The young, maddened dreamer of the novel is
caught in a sleepwalking 'between' world, a life which is only partially
perceived. The attention paid to the illusion of the senses and logic
-- the mechanisms by which most men attempt to measure the world and
their place in it -- represents the materiality that Machen, unlike
such authors as Lovecraft, embraced. He attacks such materiality by
emphasizing the limitations of scientific logic. The infinite, and an
accompanying interest in secret truths beneath "illusions"
of reality, are expressed with consummate power here. Journey: the
very word leads one to contemplate a proposed destination. Each road
has an end, each map leads to something of definite value or definition
... or does it? Better yet, must it? Not in Machen's fascinating universe
of introspection, subversion, and paradox. For Machen, as well as for
the young hero of Hill of Dreams, the journey towards the sublime,
the movement towards inexplicable nightmares and truths too horrible
to behold, are the very sum of narrative. And each journey digs deeper
inward. The process of wonder leads to transformation ... but never
to a decisive answer.
In the final analysis, Arthur Machen in Hill of Dreams successfully
merges appearance with internal mystery, suggesting the
different truths singing beyond each. He suggests a flaw in our observational
abilities to interpret truth vs. image, symbol vs. meaning. His words,
inspiring awe and terror, are a testament to the lasting value of the
horror story, emphasizing the powers lurking within the fringes of experiences
too horrible and, at times, too beautiful for the mortal mind
to comprehend without the filtering lens of art.
Review by William P Simmons.
Elsewhere in infinity plus:
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