![]() ![]() In "The Experiment," Mary is a sort of daughter and a sort of bride to Raymond in "The Inmost Light," we have another married couple. "The Experiment" in "The Great God Pan," and "The Inmost Light," are also, like "A Fragment of Life," about familial relations. "Fragment" could be the positive expression of something that two, at least, of the remaining stories will deal with in a negative way. This supposed "fragment" concludes with the evocation of love and joy. This is the story of a young married couple who, at first, accept the conventional notions and structures of life, but gradually become who they, really, are, something far more wonderful, which has been obscured by the norms of a commercial, bland, materialistic society. If we entertain this idea - that the four stories might belong together for more than the sake of convenience - we'll see that the placement of "A Fragment of Life" first may be intentional. Nor do I see The House of Souls thus - not exactly and yet we might want to consider the possibility that there is a greater unity here than would be suggested by the notion that this book is simply a collection of Machen's weird stories. It has, it seems to me, a sublime horror that most or all of the rest of the story doesn't attain, and it doesn't need the rest in order to be complete.Īgain, so far as I know, the four stories of The House of Souls were written as independent works and were not from the beginning conceived as the four parts of a greater whole, sort of like parts of a symphony. ![]() So far as I am aware as of now, the first chapter of "The Great God Pan" wasn't written, or ever published, as a complete story in itself - or was it? but I believe that the "experiment" of reading "The Experiment" as just that will be rewarding. ![]()
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