However, despite its technical flaws, there is something really appealing about this messy story. There is no way an Arthur Conan Doyle reader would have tolerated the kinds of ambiguity this weird story ends on. The authorial technique really makes this into a hot mess of a story, with not everything explained. What remains after that is less a real mystery than a drama, all of which takes place oddly off-screen. Machen gives us unabashedly mystical elements with a scientific explanation half-attempted of human brains being changed into devils' brains, which makes the homocide justified. Machen has to finally resort to a letter written by another character altogether to convey the solution of the crime to the reader.įlawed as the story may be, there are a lot of fun elements to it. So how then is Machen to get the details to us readers if there is no Watson to chronicle it? That's the tortured part. He certainly has no interest in how it turns out. In fact, Salisbury is so the opposite of Watson that once he has finished the mission he is assigned in Machen's novel as Doyle's facilitator, he wants nothing further to do with Doyle, or the case. Read the story if you don't believe that can be done. To the extent Salisbury helps Doyle it's accidentally on purpose. Salisbury has no intention of chronicling Doyle's exploits. This is really odd, like a key part of the story is being omitted.ĭoyle does have a partner named Salisbury, but Salisbury is no Watson. Unlike with Holmes' methods, the reader is never let in to see how Doyle makes his deductions, only that he does. Machen's sleuth, named Doyle ironically enough, likewise is super-powered, it seems, in deductive reasoning. Machen sets his mystery in the same London of the same period and has a sleuth solve a crime. Machen didn't get the memo, and his concept is therefore quite different. Holmes finds out about it, deduces the facts of the case in a remarkable manner, proceeds to solve, and eventually brings the criminal to justice, setting the formula for the sleuth solved mystery in granite. By the end of a Sherlock Holmes story, every detail makes perfect sense. It is fun to note the similarities and differences between the two takes of the same genre. Written in 1894 it is contemporaneous with Arthur Conan Doyle's mysteries starring Holmes and Watson. I needed to read it twice all the way through to fully grasp it. Holmes finds out about it, deduces the facts of the case in a remarkable manner, p This was a rather tortured fantasy and mystery story combined. This was a rather tortured fantasy and mystery story combined. Black then acted according to her wishes and killed her.Įxcellent and compelling, with some truly atmospheric descriptions of London.more He discovers, due to unintentional assistance from a friend Salisbury, and what he terms 'acting on the theories of improbability' that she underwent a process of transformation whereby her soul was extracted into the confines of an opal, being replaced by that of a demon. Black had a wife who mysteriously disappeared for an extended period of time, and was then witnessed staring demonically out from a window at the back of her house by Dyson himself. Black who lives on the outskirts of London. Here, he discovers the strange story of Dr. He is to all effects, an occult investigator. He discovers, due to unintentional assistance from a friend Salisbury, and what he ter Excellent short featuring the character of Dyson who occurs in a number of Machen's short stories.
Excellent short featuring the character of Dyson who occurs in a number of Machen's short stories.
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