Algernon Blackwood

BOOK REVIEWS It is always difficult to review essay collections, since they will inevitably vary in quality. Too often, though, contributions to recent collections I've read bear the hallmarks of under-developed conference papers hastily knocked into shape, or transitional pieces of work not quite fully worked out from the midst of the research process, or are merely summaries of already published work. If this collection has representatives in all of these categories, the work of Donna Coates or Debra Cohen nevertheless reminds the reader of what the essay can do best—sharp, illuminating work presented with intelligent economy. Roger Luckhurst Birkbeck College, University of London Algernon Blackwood Mike Ashley. Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001. xiii + 395pp. $28.00 U.K. edition Starlight Man: The Extraordinary Life of Algernon Blackwood. London: Constable, 2001. LIKE HIS psychic detective, Dr. John Silence, hailed on prepublication posters as "the most mysterious character in Modern Fiction ," Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) has remained a mysterious figure in literary studies of modern fiction. Mike Ashley's meticulously researched biography, Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life, brings illumination to much in Blackwood's life, though some aspects of it, particularly the literary context and standing of his work, remain shadowy. Blackwood's obscurity in mainstream literary criticism is at first glance curious, since he has always been recognized by devotees of the supernatural as preeminent in that genre. In 1927 H. P. Lovecraft referred to Blackwood's work as "some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age." E. F. Bleiler more recently confirmed Blackwood's position as "the foremost British supernaturalist of the twentieth century." On further investigation some of the reasons for the neglect become clear. Although his earliest reviewers found his work difficult to classify, he was eventually labelled as a ghost-story writer, a label Blackwood decried for its unfair restrictiveness and one that was to haunt him throughout his career. Also, some reviewers dismissed his work because of its seemingly occult content. However, Blackwood's aim was much larger and more profound than as a writer of ghost stories. Like a significant number of his idealistinfluenced late-Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries, Blackwood 195 ELT 46 : 2 2003 saw himself as trying to extend the boundaries of reality in his fiction. "My fundamental interest, I suppose," he wrote," is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty." Blackwood did write some classic ghost stories early in his career, particularly, but he subsequently developed an extraordinary range of stories and novels. Predominant were nature tales, in which nature is a powerful living force, though it can either destroy or heal. Nature can also serve as a metaphor for, or projection of, the psyche, as in two of his most famous stories, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo." He also wrote more directly psychological stories, dealing with various passions and obsessions, notably dual personalities and idees fixes. Many of his tales would more accurately be labelled psychical than psychological since they treat phenomena not observable by the five senses. They include prevision, thought-transference, and survival of personality stories . A much smaller number of tales treat fantasies of escape from mundane reality or are thrillers which realistically trace the pursuit or development of evil. Some tales specifically focus on atmosphere, spirit of place or mystical vision, although Blackwood always excels at evoking atmosphere. Most of his thirteen novels are of two kinds: adult novels about children or mystical Odysseys. He deserves to be viewed not simply as a supernatural writer, but as a versatile psychological and mystical short story writer and novelist; he was one of the first of the moderns to articulate the imaginative potential of the new psychology, psychical research and more esoteric mystical ideas. Henry Miller, for one, recognized Blackwood's talent when he hailed Blackwood's 1921 novel The Bright Messenger as "the most extraordinary novel on psychoanalysis, one which dwarfs the subject." Mike Ashley's biography does not attempt to set this kind of critical context, but is, rather, a nostalgic act of recovery, as Ashley makes clear in his introduction...