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Can Sucj Things Be?
Prepare yourself for the shocking, the strange, and the terrifying in Ambrose Bierce’s 1893 story collection Can Such Things Be? One of the greatest masters of horror brings you 25 tales of the supernatural and the unexplained. Whether in stories of ghosts sending desperate warnings to their human counterparts, psychics attempting to bridge unknown dimensions, howling werewolves, or a robot who takes on a life of his own, Bierce plumbs the depths of fear and fascination. Spooky thrills and mind-bending mysteries await all who dare to open the cover of Can Such Things Be?
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1893
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About the author
Ambrose Bierce
2,409 books1,296 followersdied perhaps 1914
Caustic wit and a strong sense of horror mark works, including In the Midst of Life (1891-1892) and The Devil's Dictionary (1906), of American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce.
People today best know this editorialist, journalist, and fabulist for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his lexicon.
The informative sardonic view of human nature alongside his vehemence as a critic with his motto, "nothing matters," earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."
People knew Bierce despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, to encourage younger poet George Sterling and fiction author W.C. Morrow.
Bierce employed a distinctive style especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.
Bierce disappeared in December 1913 at the age of 71 years. People think that he traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on ongoing revolution of that country.
Theories abound on a mystery, ultimate fate of Bierce. He in one of his final letters stated: "Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"
Caustic wit and a strong sense of horror mark works, including In the Midst of Life (1891-1892) and The Devil's Dictionary (1906), of American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce.
People today best know this editorialist, journalist, and fabulist for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his lexicon.
The informative sardonic view of human nature alongside his vehemence as a critic with his motto, "nothing matters," earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."
People knew Bierce despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, to encourage younger poet George Sterling and fiction author W.C. Morrow.
Bierce employed a distinctive style especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.
Bierce disappeared in December 1913 at the age of 71 years. People think that he traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on ongoing revolution of that country.
Theories abound on a mystery, ultimate fate of Bierce. He in one of his final letters stated: "Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"
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July 9, 2016
December 26th, 1913, Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce disappeared into the Mexican desert, never to be seen again, and so it was that, in appropriately mysterious manner, one of the premiere American horror authors passed on into the undying realm of night. Bierce was the preeminent innovator of supernatural stories between the death of Poe and the rise of Lovecraft--and to be quite honest, I'd place him head and shoulders above either of them.
While those authors tended toward a dour, indulgent, overwrought style, Bierce preferred a lighter touch, built upon precise, carefully-constructed prose and driven by a deeply morbid wit, somewhere between Nietzsche and Alexander Pope. What may be most interesting about his tales is that, despite their simplicity, they often require quite a bit of thought from the reader: when you reach the end, you know something terribly unnatural has occurred, but piecing together precisely what happened requires a moment of reflection, where the discrete details of the story come together to imply something much more grandly dark than the apparently simple narrative would seem to contain.
To me, the sheer mirthlessness of Poe and Lovecraft denies their stories a certain depth--they are not capturing the whole human experience, but concentrating obsessively on one particular part, as befits the natures of such odd, affected men--men who we imagine to be just as off-putting as the strange, damaged characters in their stories. Bierce's aberration if of a different sort: that of a deep cynic who turns to laugh at the world, at its every aspect, life and death, joy and horror. In missing this from their stories, other horror authors reject a large part of the palette with which horror and madness can be painted.
Chambers dabbled effectively in this laughing tief, as well--but with more uneven results, as his horror career slowly transformed into a series of bland drawing-room romances. Dunsany also has a sense of wit, and of the humor of desperation, but none has so devotedly focused the breadth and depth of their talent on the intersection of the amusing and terrifying as Bierce.
Some of the stories in this, the last of two such collections Bierce published, are similar, but there are also those inexplicable and masterful standouts which differ in both their approach and the effect they achieve from any other horror author. In the end, there is no mistaking Bierce's handiwork, it is in every line: in every carefully laid comma and semicolon, every aphoristic turn, touch of frontier Americana, vivid picture of awful war, and wryly bitter observation.
While those authors tended toward a dour, indulgent, overwrought style, Bierce preferred a lighter touch, built upon precise, carefully-constructed prose and driven by a deeply morbid wit, somewhere between Nietzsche and Alexander Pope. What may be most interesting about his tales is that, despite their simplicity, they often require quite a bit of thought from the reader: when you reach the end, you know something terribly unnatural has occurred, but piecing together precisely what happened requires a moment of reflection, where the discrete details of the story come together to imply something much more grandly dark than the apparently simple narrative would seem to contain.
To me, the sheer mirthlessness of Poe and Lovecraft denies their stories a certain depth--they are not capturing the whole human experience, but concentrating obsessively on one particular part, as befits the natures of such odd, affected men--men who we imagine to be just as off-putting as the strange, damaged characters in their stories. Bierce's aberration if of a different sort: that of a deep cynic who turns to laugh at the world, at its every aspect, life and death, joy and horror. In missing this from their stories, other horror authors reject a large part of the palette with which horror and madness can be painted.
Chambers dabbled effectively in this laughing tief, as well--but with more uneven results, as his horror career slowly transformed into a series of bland drawing-room romances. Dunsany also has a sense of wit, and of the humor of desperation, but none has so devotedly focused the breadth and depth of their talent on the intersection of the amusing and terrifying as Bierce.
Some of the stories in this, the last of two such collections Bierce published, are similar, but there are also those inexplicable and masterful standouts which differ in both their approach and the effect they achieve from any other horror author. In the end, there is no mistaking Bierce's handiwork, it is in every line: in every carefully laid comma and semicolon, every aphoristic turn, touch of frontier Americana, vivid picture of awful war, and wryly bitter observation.
January 18, 2023
Lovecraft nos habla de Ambrose Bierce en ‘El horror sobrenatural en la litaratura’: ”Prácticamente, todos sus cuentos son de horror, y aunque muchos tratan sólo de horrores físicos y psicológicos, dentro del orden natural, hay un número considerable que incorpora lo malignamente sobrenatural. Es el gran creador de sombras.”
Poco se puede decir de Ambrose Bierce que no se haya dicho ya. “Bitter” Bierce (el amargo Bierce), como lo bautizaron los ingleses, es uno de los mejores cuentistas de la literatura norteamericana, y por extensión mundial, a la altura de figuras como Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain o Jack London. Bierce es conocido por su sarcasmo caústico, su misantropía y su descarnado humor negro, pero también hay que tener en cuenta que revolucionó la manera de acercarse a las historias de terror.
Algo a destacar de la obra fantástica de Bierce, es su capacidad para dotar de verosimilitud a lo que nos está narrando, aunque nunca lleguemos a saber si se basa en hechos reales o leyendas. Puede que te esté hablando de extraños fenómenos, como desapariciones o muertos que se levantan de sus tumbas, que te consta que no pueden suceder, pero siempre te queda una pequeña duda. Bierce no se plantea dar explicaciones racionales, simplemente te cuenta, con su particular estilo periodístico, cómo suceden las cosas.
Historias como la fascinante ‘Un habitante de Carcosa’, nos hablan de la legendaria Carcosa, y servirían de inspiración tanto a Lovecraft como a su círculo más íntimo, evocando su atmósfera, donde la desolación y las civilizaciones ancestrales recuerdan a la mitología de Cthulhu.
De entre los cuarenta y dos relatos incluidos en '¿Pueden suceder tales cosas?', se pueden destacar los siguientes, todos ellos obras maestras: ‘La muerte de Halpin Frayser’, ‘Suceso en el puente sobre el río Owl’, ‘Una carretera iluminada por la luna’, ‘El maestro de Moxon’, ‘Un vigilante junto al muerto’, ‘El hombre y la serpiente’, ‘El dedo corazón del pie derecho’, ‘El engendro maldito’, ‘Los ojos de la pantera’, ‘Soldadesca del pueblo’, ‘Algunas casas encantadas’ y ‘El clan de los parricidas’.
En resumen, una obra imprescindible de un autor imprescindible.
Poco se puede decir de Ambrose Bierce que no se haya dicho ya. “Bitter” Bierce (el amargo Bierce), como lo bautizaron los ingleses, es uno de los mejores cuentistas de la literatura norteamericana, y por extensión mundial, a la altura de figuras como Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain o Jack London. Bierce es conocido por su sarcasmo caústico, su misantropía y su descarnado humor negro, pero también hay que tener en cuenta que revolucionó la manera de acercarse a las historias de terror.
Algo a destacar de la obra fantástica de Bierce, es su capacidad para dotar de verosimilitud a lo que nos está narrando, aunque nunca lleguemos a saber si se basa en hechos reales o leyendas. Puede que te esté hablando de extraños fenómenos, como desapariciones o muertos que se levantan de sus tumbas, que te consta que no pueden suceder, pero siempre te queda una pequeña duda. Bierce no se plantea dar explicaciones racionales, simplemente te cuenta, con su particular estilo periodístico, cómo suceden las cosas.
Historias como la fascinante ‘Un habitante de Carcosa’, nos hablan de la legendaria Carcosa, y servirían de inspiración tanto a Lovecraft como a su círculo más íntimo, evocando su atmósfera, donde la desolación y las civilizaciones ancestrales recuerdan a la mitología de Cthulhu.
De entre los cuarenta y dos relatos incluidos en '¿Pueden suceder tales cosas?', se pueden destacar los siguientes, todos ellos obras maestras: ‘La muerte de Halpin Frayser’, ‘Suceso en el puente sobre el río Owl’, ‘Una carretera iluminada por la luna’, ‘El maestro de Moxon’, ‘Un vigilante junto al muerto’, ‘El hombre y la serpiente’, ‘El dedo corazón del pie derecho’, ‘El engendro maldito’, ‘Los ojos de la pantera’, ‘Soldadesca del pueblo’, ‘Algunas casas encantadas’ y ‘El clan de los parricidas’.
En resumen, una obra imprescindible de un autor imprescindible.
June 28, 2023
A nice collection of ghost stories. Eerie, rather than scary. Author writes well and with a sense of humor. It was a bit much going through the entire book at once. Maybe better to take the stories a few at a time, because they all merged together.
December 20, 2021
The work of Ambrose Bierce could sometimes be as mysterious as the author himself, who disappeared at age 71 possibly on a tour of Mexico, and his ultimate fate has been one of the great unsolved mysteries of the literary world. How fitting that the end of his life should mimic that of his characters in this stunning 1893 collection of horror shorts.
"Can Such Things Be" consists of 24 stories with the running theme of mysterious deaths or disappearances, with a few exceptions of course. A Union officer is found hacked to death after having evidently tussled with a Confederate soldier already long since dead. While on a moonlight walk, a man loses his father who is never seen again. A man who has a fear of consulting his pocketwatch at the hour of 11 o'clock drops dead when he accidentally does so. A drifter in Napa Valley settles down in a random churchyard but is later found dead by law enforcement near the tomb of his mother. And so on.
There are a few random stories that don't fit the theme but still contain supernatural elements, such as a fairy-tale about a boy who receives three fleeting visits by the fickle embodiment of Happiness. One of these could essentially be classified as science fiction, about a man who invents a robot (here called an automaton) with artificial intelligence, but it's a sore loser at chess.
Also included in this collection is the famous story "The Damned Thing," which every lover of horror should read at least once.
These stories certainly position Bierce as one of the progenitors of weird fiction. Many of these works have a distinct rural Americana vibe, and he does a great job of capturing the primal psychological awe of what lurks in the woods. He is a satirist so though his stories all have a serious tone, the prose is spiced with whimsy. Bierce is notorious for his "sting" endings, which are mostly effective, but sometimes seem a bit contrived and overly confusing. There were times when I finished a story and had no idea what just happened.
The likes of M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Gertrude Atherton, Oliver Onions, and others would also take up this style. So if you are a fan of the work of these writers and have not read Bierce, I can only ask "Can such things be?"
"Can Such Things Be" consists of 24 stories with the running theme of mysterious deaths or disappearances, with a few exceptions of course. A Union officer is found hacked to death after having evidently tussled with a Confederate soldier already long since dead. While on a moonlight walk, a man loses his father who is never seen again. A man who has a fear of consulting his pocketwatch at the hour of 11 o'clock drops dead when he accidentally does so. A drifter in Napa Valley settles down in a random churchyard but is later found dead by law enforcement near the tomb of his mother. And so on.
There are a few random stories that don't fit the theme but still contain supernatural elements, such as a fairy-tale about a boy who receives three fleeting visits by the fickle embodiment of Happiness. One of these could essentially be classified as science fiction, about a man who invents a robot (here called an automaton) with artificial intelligence, but it's a sore loser at chess.
Also included in this collection is the famous story "The Damned Thing," which every lover of horror should read at least once.
These stories certainly position Bierce as one of the progenitors of weird fiction. Many of these works have a distinct rural Americana vibe, and he does a great job of capturing the primal psychological awe of what lurks in the woods. He is a satirist so though his stories all have a serious tone, the prose is spiced with whimsy. Bierce is notorious for his "sting" endings, which are mostly effective, but sometimes seem a bit contrived and overly confusing. There were times when I finished a story and had no idea what just happened.
The likes of M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Gertrude Atherton, Oliver Onions, and others would also take up this style. So if you are a fan of the work of these writers and have not read Bierce, I can only ask "Can such things be?"
November 4, 2011
Oh, Ambrose Bierce, you did have such a way with words. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories fantastical and ghostly in nature. My only complaint, if any, would be that if I left them alone for too long it would take me several minutes to get back into Bierce's writing style. I mean I know it was published before the turn of last century, I don't expect it to be modern and breezy ... it just takes a minute to shift those mental gears is all.
Some of my favorite quotes from this collection:
"Now that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your trumpery science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me wearing this damnable watch, and you have the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of being knocked down."
What an incredible way to tell someone to stop bothering you!
He looked at me and made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip quivered and he seemed unable to close his mouth. His hands, also, were shaking, and he thrust them, clenched, into the pockets of his sack-coat. The courageous spirit was manifestly endeavoring to subdue the coward body. The effort was too great; he began to sway from side to side, as from vertigo, and before I could spring from my chair to support him his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly forward and fell upon his face. I sprang to assist him to rise; but when John Bartine rises we shall all rise.
I hope to be able to steal that line some time ... "When so-and-so rises we all shall rise."
His health having been perfect during all that time, he had been unable to discern any validity in whatever may or might have been urged to lure him astray from his counter and it is related that once when he was summoned to the county seat as a witness in an important law case and did not attend, the lawyer who had the hardihood to move that he be “admonished” was solemnly informed that the Court regarded the proposal with “surprise.” Judicial surprise being an emotion that attorneys are not commonly ambitious to arouse, the motion was hastily withdrawn and an agreement with the other side effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have said if he had been there - the other side pushing its advantage to the extreme and making the supposititious testimony distinctly damaging to the interests of its proponents.
The line about 'judicial surprise' actually had me laugh out loud.
Last one:
I remember - and tell it here because, singularly enough, I recollected it then - that once in looking carelessly out of an open window I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of unthinkable calamity.
You see why I love it?
Okay fine so some of the stories tended to rest on the idea of "wouldn't it be weird if X?" where at the conclusion when X is revealed the story just kind of ends. I suppose at that point in the development of the tales of the supernatural that was a common enough way to do it, but I'm accustomed to a little more meat.
Still! Free stories from a master wordsmith. Can't beat that.
Some of my favorite quotes from this collection:
"Now that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your trumpery science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me wearing this damnable watch, and you have the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of being knocked down."
What an incredible way to tell someone to stop bothering you!
He looked at me and made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip quivered and he seemed unable to close his mouth. His hands, also, were shaking, and he thrust them, clenched, into the pockets of his sack-coat. The courageous spirit was manifestly endeavoring to subdue the coward body. The effort was too great; he began to sway from side to side, as from vertigo, and before I could spring from my chair to support him his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly forward and fell upon his face. I sprang to assist him to rise; but when John Bartine rises we shall all rise.
I hope to be able to steal that line some time ... "When so-and-so rises we all shall rise."
His health having been perfect during all that time, he had been unable to discern any validity in whatever may or might have been urged to lure him astray from his counter and it is related that once when he was summoned to the county seat as a witness in an important law case and did not attend, the lawyer who had the hardihood to move that he be “admonished” was solemnly informed that the Court regarded the proposal with “surprise.” Judicial surprise being an emotion that attorneys are not commonly ambitious to arouse, the motion was hastily withdrawn and an agreement with the other side effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have said if he had been there - the other side pushing its advantage to the extreme and making the supposititious testimony distinctly damaging to the interests of its proponents.
The line about 'judicial surprise' actually had me laugh out loud.
Last one:
I remember - and tell it here because, singularly enough, I recollected it then - that once in looking carelessly out of an open window I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It looked the same size as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail seemed out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of unthinkable calamity.
You see why I love it?
Okay fine so some of the stories tended to rest on the idea of "wouldn't it be weird if X?" where at the conclusion when X is revealed the story just kind of ends. I suppose at that point in the development of the tales of the supernatural that was a common enough way to do it, but I'm accustomed to a little more meat.
Still! Free stories from a master wordsmith. Can't beat that.
April 5, 2020
Me gustaría empezar esta reseña intentando esquivar ese cliché manido que aparece siempre que se aborda una antología. Todos sabemos cual es, es una perogrullada, carece de contenido, y no aporta nada que el sentido común del potencial lector no haga si es lo suficientemente no imbécil como para caminar, hablar y dominar sus esfínteres. En vez de eso, voy a empezar con una analogía tan inspirada como el que decidió ponerle un palo a un caramelo y llamarlo chupachups. Imaginemos una gráfica, estoy seguro de que en estos días cualquiera se ha topado con alguna, de todas las formas, pendientes, puntos de inflexión y colores. Ahora, imaginemos que cada punto del eje X, es decir, el horizontal, es un cuento; el eje Y sera la calidad, una variable subjetiva condicionada exclusivamente por el criterio del lector. Si empezamos a colocar los relatos en la gráfica observaremos una preciosa parábola de manual, con un pico de calidad agudo como una aguja justo al principio que abruptamente se deja caer hasta convertirse en una linea continua que discurre paralela y de puntillas sobre el eje X; esta casi linea recta tiene ciertos dientes de sierra, pero discretos, nada destacable ni que afee particularmente la por otro lado homogénea linea. De repente, casi al final, lo que parecía a todas luces un encefalograma plano cobra vida, y la linea se sacude y sube de nuevo, salvaje, frenética: una tremenda vorágine de calidad que sacude al lector, hasta ese entonces algo aburrido.
¿Es esta, tal vez, una forma excesivamente retorcida y rimbombante de decir que toda antología de relatos tiene cuentos mejores y peores y tiende, por ende, a la irregularidad? Por supuesto. ¿Por qué decirlo así, pues? Porque aporta exactamente lo mismo pero recalca lo exasperante que resulta leerlo sistematicamente en cualquier reseña. Y que estoy confinado en mi casa y me aburro, cada quien que elija su opción mas probable.
Ahora vamos a dar identidad a los puntos arriba mencionados, al menos a los más llamativos. ¿Cuál es ese primer pico de calidad que hace más vergonzosa la llaneza de la curva a lo largo de todo el libro? La muerte de Halpin Frayser, un relato de fantasmas atípico, visceral e inquietante como pocos, decir algo mas seria destrozarlo: hay que descubrirlo. Continuemos por el valle, aquí encontramos relatos de todo tipo, abundando los de fantasmas, apariciones, crímenes y venganzas desde el mas allá, ambientados algunos de ellos en la guerra de secesión y teniendo por protagonistas a soldados. De aquí pocos destacan, son relatos intercambiables, anodinos, bien escritos pero sin la garra y mala uva que hace a Bierce un escritor de terror tan interesante. Solo salvaría Un suceso en el puente sobre el rió Owl, sorprendente, Un vigilante junto a un muerto, negrísimo. El resto, como digo, no son malos relatos, pero parecen escritos siguiendo una formula: que lo que debería estar muerto parece no estarlo. ¿Pero Julio, acaso no es esa la esencia del cuento de fantasmas? En efecto, pero ahí es donde entra en juego elementos como la atmósfera, el contexto, la insinuación, la tensión, la sorpresa, elementos que dan empaque al cuento y hacen de una aparición un suceso terrorífico, y no un tramite que se ve venir desde el momento en que lees el nombre de los personajes implicados. Siguiendo la recta encontramos ya los mejores cuentos, todos ellos colocados en las ultimas 100 paginas, mas o menos. Aquí encontramos una vuelta de tuerca al ente invisible y salvaje en El engendro maldito; imposible no compararlo con el cuento de James O'Brian, ¿Qué fue eso?, pero que gracias a su brevedad provoca, a mi juicio, un efecto mayor en el lector que el de O'Brian. Aunque la parte científica sobra, pero ese es un pecado que muchos escritores de terror de esta época cometen, y es que explicar lo inexplicable no hace más que asesinar el terror. Destacables son también La ventana sellada y El desconocido, dos relatos que no tienen nada que ver uno con el otro, siendo el primero inclasificable y el segundo uno de fantasmas al uso, pero que tienen la cualidad de ser la lectura idónea para acojonar a los amigos en una noche cerrada junto a una luz trémula. Hay que detenerse también en Un habitante de Carcosa, mas por su influencia posterior que por su originalidad, especialmente leídos los anteriores cuentos. Pero sin duda el mejor Bierce lo encontramos en El clan de los parricidas, una verdadera maravilla de la literatura morbosa y siniestra, un conjunto de casos de crímenes contados con una ironía, sangre fría y utilizando unos eufemismos para enmascarar lo sórdido que en mas de una ocasión uno no sabe si sentir pena y asco o sonreír, no de alegría, mas bien como sonríe alguien que ve a su mas odiado enemigo morir por una caída tonta. Eso es Bierce, tan desagradable como satisfactorio, un pesimista que entendía perfectamente que el ser humano no es mas que un chacal tan mal maquillado con civilización y moral que aun puedes ver rastros de su animalidad sanguinaria.
¿Es recomendable esta antología? La verdad es que si, pese a la gran cantidad de relatos insípidos contenidos los que brillan lo hacen con una fuerza que hacen que sea un crimen el no leerlos, especialmente si te gusta el terror. Bueno, creo que si te gusta el terror ya los habrás leído, y posiblemente sea eso lo que haga que el resto de la colección te resulte aun más aburrida. Puede ser, pero deberíais ser vosotros mismos lo que los descubráis, y a ser posible, de noche y con poca luz.
¿Es esta, tal vez, una forma excesivamente retorcida y rimbombante de decir que toda antología de relatos tiene cuentos mejores y peores y tiende, por ende, a la irregularidad? Por supuesto. ¿Por qué decirlo así, pues? Porque aporta exactamente lo mismo pero recalca lo exasperante que resulta leerlo sistematicamente en cualquier reseña. Y que estoy confinado en mi casa y me aburro, cada quien que elija su opción mas probable.
Ahora vamos a dar identidad a los puntos arriba mencionados, al menos a los más llamativos. ¿Cuál es ese primer pico de calidad que hace más vergonzosa la llaneza de la curva a lo largo de todo el libro? La muerte de Halpin Frayser, un relato de fantasmas atípico, visceral e inquietante como pocos, decir algo mas seria destrozarlo: hay que descubrirlo. Continuemos por el valle, aquí encontramos relatos de todo tipo, abundando los de fantasmas, apariciones, crímenes y venganzas desde el mas allá, ambientados algunos de ellos en la guerra de secesión y teniendo por protagonistas a soldados. De aquí pocos destacan, son relatos intercambiables, anodinos, bien escritos pero sin la garra y mala uva que hace a Bierce un escritor de terror tan interesante. Solo salvaría Un suceso en el puente sobre el rió Owl, sorprendente, Un vigilante junto a un muerto, negrísimo. El resto, como digo, no son malos relatos, pero parecen escritos siguiendo una formula: que lo que debería estar muerto parece no estarlo. ¿Pero Julio, acaso no es esa la esencia del cuento de fantasmas? En efecto, pero ahí es donde entra en juego elementos como la atmósfera, el contexto, la insinuación, la tensión, la sorpresa, elementos que dan empaque al cuento y hacen de una aparición un suceso terrorífico, y no un tramite que se ve venir desde el momento en que lees el nombre de los personajes implicados. Siguiendo la recta encontramos ya los mejores cuentos, todos ellos colocados en las ultimas 100 paginas, mas o menos. Aquí encontramos una vuelta de tuerca al ente invisible y salvaje en El engendro maldito; imposible no compararlo con el cuento de James O'Brian, ¿Qué fue eso?, pero que gracias a su brevedad provoca, a mi juicio, un efecto mayor en el lector que el de O'Brian. Aunque la parte científica sobra, pero ese es un pecado que muchos escritores de terror de esta época cometen, y es que explicar lo inexplicable no hace más que asesinar el terror. Destacables son también La ventana sellada y El desconocido, dos relatos que no tienen nada que ver uno con el otro, siendo el primero inclasificable y el segundo uno de fantasmas al uso, pero que tienen la cualidad de ser la lectura idónea para acojonar a los amigos en una noche cerrada junto a una luz trémula. Hay que detenerse también en Un habitante de Carcosa, mas por su influencia posterior que por su originalidad, especialmente leídos los anteriores cuentos. Pero sin duda el mejor Bierce lo encontramos en El clan de los parricidas, una verdadera maravilla de la literatura morbosa y siniestra, un conjunto de casos de crímenes contados con una ironía, sangre fría y utilizando unos eufemismos para enmascarar lo sórdido que en mas de una ocasión uno no sabe si sentir pena y asco o sonreír, no de alegría, mas bien como sonríe alguien que ve a su mas odiado enemigo morir por una caída tonta. Eso es Bierce, tan desagradable como satisfactorio, un pesimista que entendía perfectamente que el ser humano no es mas que un chacal tan mal maquillado con civilización y moral que aun puedes ver rastros de su animalidad sanguinaria.
¿Es recomendable esta antología? La verdad es que si, pese a la gran cantidad de relatos insípidos contenidos los que brillan lo hacen con una fuerza que hacen que sea un crimen el no leerlos, especialmente si te gusta el terror. Bueno, creo que si te gusta el terror ya los habrás leído, y posiblemente sea eso lo que haga que el resto de la colección te resulte aun más aburrida. Puede ser, pero deberíais ser vosotros mismos lo que los descubráis, y a ser posible, de noche y con poca luz.
December 25, 2013
Los cuentos de "Bitter Bierce" o "Gringo Viejo", como me gusta llamarlo, son la combinación perfecta entre humor negro, amargura y horror gótico. Aplaudo esta reedición, yo ya lo tenía y en general todos los relatos valen la pena, y mucho. Por ejemplo:
El Engendro Maldito: Un muy buen relato de terror sobrenatural en la línea de clásicos como "El Horla" de Maupassant y "Qué fue eso" de Fitz-James O'Brien. Excelente.
Una noche de verano: humor negro e ironía con un final tragicómico.
La alucinación de Staley Fleming y Un Naufragio Psicológico: En el primero, queda patente que los muertos tienen muchas formas de vengarse, sino lean las "Meditaciones" de Denneker. No olvidemos que Bierce era aficionado al espiritismo, tan de moda en su época, y a las "Meditaciones" recurre nuevamente en el segundo para explicar un extraño caso de ¿transmigración? ¿reencarnación? Imposible saberlo.
La elocuencia de los fantasmas: relatos de fantasmas en la América profunda del siglo 18. Excelentes.
Un diagnóstico de muerte: a veces los muertos vuelven para anunciarnos nuestra propia muerte aunque no nos conozcan.
El funeral de John Mortonson: Un delirio total, pero así era Bierce.
La ventana sellada: relato trágico, la historia de un ermitaño que pierde a su esposa de una de las maneras más brutales que creo haber conocido alguna vez. Brillante atmósfera y final descolocador.
Un habitante de Carcosa: Una experiencia parapsicológica con un médium contada en un estilo periodístico, como "El Engendro Maldito". Relato clásico de Bierce y que forma parte de los Mitos de Cthulhu, y que fue usado por RW Chambers para su "Rey de Amarillo".
El Engendro Maldito: Un muy buen relato de terror sobrenatural en la línea de clásicos como "El Horla" de Maupassant y "Qué fue eso" de Fitz-James O'Brien. Excelente.
Una noche de verano: humor negro e ironía con un final tragicómico.
La alucinación de Staley Fleming y Un Naufragio Psicológico: En el primero, queda patente que los muertos tienen muchas formas de vengarse, sino lean las "Meditaciones" de Denneker. No olvidemos que Bierce era aficionado al espiritismo, tan de moda en su época, y a las "Meditaciones" recurre nuevamente en el segundo para explicar un extraño caso de ¿transmigración? ¿reencarnación? Imposible saberlo.
La elocuencia de los fantasmas: relatos de fantasmas en la América profunda del siglo 18. Excelentes.
Un diagnóstico de muerte: a veces los muertos vuelven para anunciarnos nuestra propia muerte aunque no nos conozcan.
El funeral de John Mortonson: Un delirio total, pero así era Bierce.
La ventana sellada: relato trágico, la historia de un ermitaño que pierde a su esposa de una de las maneras más brutales que creo haber conocido alguna vez. Brillante atmósfera y final descolocador.
Un habitante de Carcosa: Una experiencia parapsicológica con un médium contada en un estilo periodístico, como "El Engendro Maldito". Relato clásico de Bierce y que forma parte de los Mitos de Cthulhu, y que fue usado por RW Chambers para su "Rey de Amarillo".
June 15, 2019
A pretty good and varied group of preternatural tales. They vary in length, tone and content, the stories are rarely funny but many of the characters have a good sense of humour.
From your average ghost story to psychic connections, the macabre and the mundane. I listened to most of them on a decent Librivox version.
From your average ghost story to psychic connections, the macabre and the mundane. I listened to most of them on a decent Librivox version.
April 19, 2015
Everybody was already dead. Strangled in most cases. Perhaps I am too used to 20th century fiction as, although I read all the stories, none of them made any impression. There was no suspense, I could easily guess the outcome and many of the stories just seemed to stop.
June 19, 2009
I hae a large sized paperback of this. It's a great collection of short horror tales really. Good stuff.
October 18, 2014
Despite his reputation as "bitter Bierce," many of the stories in this collection were extravagantly morose and melancholy. The most obvious writer to compare him to is Poe, although Bierce is no where near as horrifying as Poe. Many of these stories are only mildly scary. The emphasis is on psychological duress via devices like doubles, mirrors, ghosts, shadows, weird watches and such. Not every story is a gem, as Bierce's writing sometimes lacks the polish of Poe (it can be very garbled and strangely worded), but many of them are. What I particularly enjoyed was that so many of the stories veered from desperately trying horror to parody of horror, and it seems clear to me that Bierce was in on the joke. Almost all of these stories, while certainly melancholy and gloomy, are so overwrought and gimmicky that there is a certain dark humor and a lot of laugh out loud moments in Bierce's execution of his material. These grim but hilarious stories keep the collection from being a one trick pony. The other writers Bierce reminded me of were James (stylistically, Bierce can sometimes be very precise) and Crane (at least in some settings and diction). There were some duds, and some that seemed to harp on the same devices and tropes, but overall a good and worthwhile read.
March 17, 2022
Strange, darkly sardonic, compact and tricky short stories
Though I knew the name of Ambrose Bierce and the name of his most famous book The Devil's Dictionary, that was about it. Never read anything by him, just knew his name was associated with other early practitioners of creepy tales of the supernatural and the bizarre like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, but what I didn't know what his very adventurous real life as a Civil War veteran and extremely sharp-tongued journalist and all-around critic of human affairs.
So these stories really took me by surprise - they are very terse, spare, bizzare, disorienting, sardonic, darkly humour, and often end with a sudden one-liner that demands the reader actually think back to the stories events to understand what has gone before. Because I was listening to them in audiobook while fighting jet lag in bed at 3am in Japan, I don't think I could really give them their fair due of reflection, which is not the fault of the author. He expects you to untangle the puzzle after reading the final line, so be prepared to do that if you want to get the full effect.
I think I'll have to revisit these in print someday, but I can certainly tell he was a skilled and very unique and unusual stylist, and that's no mean feat.
Though I knew the name of Ambrose Bierce and the name of his most famous book The Devil's Dictionary, that was about it. Never read anything by him, just knew his name was associated with other early practitioners of creepy tales of the supernatural and the bizarre like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, but what I didn't know what his very adventurous real life as a Civil War veteran and extremely sharp-tongued journalist and all-around critic of human affairs.
So these stories really took me by surprise - they are very terse, spare, bizzare, disorienting, sardonic, darkly humour, and often end with a sudden one-liner that demands the reader actually think back to the stories events to understand what has gone before. Because I was listening to them in audiobook while fighting jet lag in bed at 3am in Japan, I don't think I could really give them their fair due of reflection, which is not the fault of the author. He expects you to untangle the puzzle after reading the final line, so be prepared to do that if you want to get the full effect.
I think I'll have to revisit these in print someday, but I can certainly tell he was a skilled and very unique and unusual stylist, and that's no mean feat.
Read
July 7, 2017Ambrose Bierce is best known for disappearing never to be found, the Devil's Dictionary, and Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge iirc, amazing short story about a bloke being hanged. This is a collection of rather macabre short stories in that sort of vein. Redolent of the 19th century West, vivid scars of the Civil War. They're of varying quality, but very similar feel, and I suspect would have a lot more impact read single in a magazine. Lot of mysterious stories that stop abruptly and end with people looking at each other with wild surmise, lot of ghosts all doing roughly the same thing. An interesting period piece but not one I'm likely to return to, though anyone with a love of Americana or western weird might get more from it.
August 19, 2013
I love gothic literature. while this was not technically gothic it had the same feel to it. The words, the descriptions, the content-all worked together to create really compelling stories and an extremely enjoyable reading experience.
February 24, 2016
I think this would've been better to read rather than listen to via Audible. Some of the stories are excellent; others aren't.
February 9, 2017
This was a good grouping of stories. May of the stories are in other editions. So caveat emptor.
March 22, 2017
As is the case with most anthologies, this one is a mixed bag. Most of them are ghost stories or urban myth-type tales. I think it would be fun to adapt some of them for reading around a campfire the next time we go camping.
I became interested in this series when I read The King in Yellow. I'm not sure if they were intended to be the same character or if Mr Lovecraft just made them so. He's mentioned even less in this book than he was in Chambers' book.
What I find most interesting is the way he's depicted in the two different works: If The King In Yellow/Hastur/Hati is supposed to be some generic diety-that-other-people-worship (ie. people other than the reader) then the way he is depicted can say a lot about the way different people view the concept of God, religion, and spirituality.
In "The King in Yellow", the diety is meant to be unfathomably scary because he transcends human experience. In "Can Such Things Be", he's actually the LEAST scary supernatural figure in the book! He's a personal diety: a figure of wisdom and guidance, and he condecends to help this lowly shepherd boy.
Very interesting stuff!
-The Death of Halpin Frayser: 3/5.
This one is a bit creepy! But it's also the story is told in non-chronological segments, so it can be a bit confusing. Mr Frayser has had a pretty colorful life. Like he's one of those free-spirit, poet people but he's not particularly talented so people have kinda taken advantage of him in the past.
The only person who really supported his interest growing up was his mom. And now he's finally kinda coming back to his neighborhood in this really creepy forest
There's a whole bit with these detectives talking about how his mom got remarried and the marriage went downhill.
No resolution to this one, we don't even see the detectives get their man, but it is very atmospheric and the slow unraveling (such as it is) works pretty well.
-The Secret of Macarger's Gulch: 2/5. This one seemed like a pretty standard ghost story, guy stays in a haunted house overnight sort of thing. The haunting is manifested as a dream where he learns about the early life of the house's previous inhabitants.
-One Summer Night: 2/5.
-The Moonlit Road: 4/5. Another supernatural-mystery story told non-chronologically and from 3 different POV. Also involves family drama, amnesia, and a murder-mystery spanning 20 years.
-A Diagnosis of Death: 2/5. A guy named Hawver is admitting to his doctor friend that he thinks he's going to die because of an apparition he saw earlier that day, he doesn't get much sympathy
-Moxon's Master: 2/5. This story is basically an excuse to muse on the possibility of sentient non-biological life (AKA artificial intelligence). I suppose it's a polarizing idea, but at this point it's been played over in stories so. many. times.
If an automaton is truely sentient, why would it automatically be violent? And if they are why the heck don't they make these beings tiny so they can't hurt anybody? Comon guys! You're supposed to be scientists!
-A Tough Tussle: 3/5.
"I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave and intelligent man. But what would you have? Shall a man cope, single-handed, with so monstrous an alliance as that of night and solitude and silence and the dead -- while an incalculable host of his own ancestors shriek into the ear of his spirit their coward counsel, sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, and disarm his very blood of all its iron? The odds are too great -- courage was not made for so rough use as that. "
The most interesting aspect of this story is how Byring keeps trying to talk himself out of feeling fear, but you can't rationalize himself out of fear once you feel it. Byring says it himself; humans aren't programmed that way.
-One of Twins: 2/5. This is one of those twin/dopplgager/vague telepathy type stories. A part of me thinks "Good for you Mr Bierce! Not every pair of twins has to be these totally creepy mirrors of each other."
But the other part of me thinks that it was probably supposed to be creepy, and the author just wrote it kinda badly.
-The Haunted Valley: Wow, racism, superstition and sexual harassment all in one story! I actually feel bad for Ah Wee.
-A Jug of Sirup: Killer Intro! The rest is meh.
-Staley Fleming's Hallucination: Death Omens a la "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" sans Sirius Black.
-A Resumed Identity: A man comes watches the sunrise over a landscape and has an intense flashback where he remembers his past life (?)
-A Baby Tramp: "Beware of the gaping gamin. The little fellow will grow up."-Victor Hugo
-The Night Doings at "Deadmans"
-Beyond The Wall
Well that was stupid, but also incredibly tragic in a way I can appreciate. It really highlights the kind of love people wrote about and were inspired by in books I've read from 1700-1800. Like, idealizing a romance that is unattainable because you realize an actual attachment wouldn't be fulfilling: once you get what you want, you won't want it anymore.
But this story kinda turns that whole scenario in its head because IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU MR DAMPIER! Friggin selfish scumbag. Couldn't do a nice thing for someone else if their life depended on it :P
Ok maybe that was a little harsh, but really if this book weren't so intent on being all spooky and creepy, it could be really poignant and meaningful.
We don't know what other people are going though, and we don't always know the difference our actions may make on someone who's suffering.
-A Psychological Shipwreck
I donno...this one was really confusing. A guy meets a girl on a boat, and they become friends and she's got a fiancee that he's friends with. And they read this book about soul mates or something and then she drowns, and he wakes up. I dunno...
-The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
The plot is pretty straightforward, but the way he tells the story is all wonky. These really immature guy talks about how he dumped this girl he was with because he found out she had a physical defect: an amputated middle toe. He explains that he thinks that an external (physical) defect in a woman is associated with an internal or moral defect of the person. He goes on to say that he heard that his former love had gotten married, so it sounds like everything turned out for her. Another guy in the group goes, "Yeah, but I heard her husband slit her throat." and the group just goes "Huh that's weird."
Then they go picking on this guy who was listening to their conversation. Then one thing led to another and they end up going to have a Duel in the Dark (to the death...with knives...). But like, they never actually do any thing because when they get there one of them is already dead. (I think it was the guy who dumped his girlfriend, but I'm not sure). They notice a set of footprints leading away from the body: and that the prints lack a middle toe on the right foot.
The story ends with the big reveal "It was Gertrude!" and afterward explains that Gertrude was the name of the girl who was missing a middle toe and was jilted by this guy and later killed by her husband.
Say whut?
Honestly, it doesn't bother me that he's a bit long winded in his descriptions: it's a short enough of a story to where it doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) upset the punchline ending. But the way he tells this story is convoluted to the point of being anticlimactic. If you get to the big reveal at the end ("It was Gertrude") and you have to ask "Who the heck is Gertrude." (because you've never once used that name before....) maybe you need to call your editor and re-organize your story a bit more.
The whole way this story is told is weird like that. For example, when they first walk in the room where the body is...we don't know he's dead yet because the narrator goes into this big long explanation of how his body was positioned up against the wall, the orientation of each of his limbs, the curve of his shoulders, the shape of his mouth, and then his eyes...completing his monologue with the ominous "He was dead!"
Well no shit, Sherlock!
(I'm actually surprised he didn't wait to make this *shocking* proclamation until AFTER his painfully dull description of advanced rigor mortis....or maybe he could have monologued a whole funeral ceremony for the dead guy, and end with shoveling dirt in the guy's face and THEN have their big reveal: "He was dead")
-John Mortonson's Funeral
The story itself is kind of humorous, though I'm not sure it's supposed to be or not.
-The Realm of the Unreal
The guy in a car almost runs over this other guy, then gives him a ride even though he really doesn't like him. He tells us a story of when he met the guy the first time and he got hypnotized into thinking his girlfriend came to visit, when she was really back home...and he and the guy went walking and found what looked like a dead body.
What freaks me out even more than the hypnotists practical jokes is the fact that he would just keep walking home after finding a dead body on the side of the road, and not tell the police or anything.
-John Bartem's Watch
This guy's ancestor was assassinated by George Washington and co. for being a British loyalist. and the guy carried around his dead ancestors watch all the time and he's really anal about it. He freaks out when his friend asks him the time because he doesn't want to look at the watch before 11pm (even though technically every time except 11pm is "before" 11pm) because that's the time his ancestor was killed.
His friend decides to do a little experiment with the guy's psychosis, but it backfires massively because the guy ends up dying.
The friend believes that the guy may have possessed the same soul as his ancestor and that he'd been reliving the trauma of his ancestor's last hours, as he waited for his execution. Pretty freaky.
-The Damned Thing
-Haita the Shepherd: 4/5. Color me impressed! I read this because its supposed to be the first featuring Hastur (aka "The King in Yellow") but he's presented as just a regular diety. Not trying to take over the world or anything. (I guess its kind of like religious extremists would do...)
The ending paragraphs were really beautiful, I wasn't expecting it to be that metaphorical.
-An Inhabitant of Carcosa
I saw even the stars in absence of darkness.
This guy talks about his experience of dying and waking up in a land far away and trying to make it back home. It's pretty sad. At the end, we find out he's relaying all this through a medium/psychic, which is why all the descriptions of everything are all psychedelic and dreamlike. He has no memory of his actual death, only of being sick earlier and the journey through a psychedelic landscape.
-The Stranger
An Arazona ghost story. Very much the kind of thing you'd like to hear around a campfire.
I became interested in this series when I read The King in Yellow. I'm not sure if they were intended to be the same character or if Mr Lovecraft just made them so. He's mentioned even less in this book than he was in Chambers' book.
What I find most interesting is the way he's depicted in the two different works: If The King In Yellow/Hastur/Hati is supposed to be some generic diety-that-other-people-worship (ie. people other than the reader) then the way he is depicted can say a lot about the way different people view the concept of God, religion, and spirituality.
In "The King in Yellow", the diety is meant to be unfathomably scary because he transcends human experience. In "Can Such Things Be", he's actually the LEAST scary supernatural figure in the book! He's a personal diety: a figure of wisdom and guidance, and he condecends to help this lowly shepherd boy.
Very interesting stuff!
-The Death of Halpin Frayser: 3/5.
This one is a bit creepy! But it's also the story is told in non-chronological segments, so it can be a bit confusing. Mr Frayser has had a pretty colorful life. Like he's one of those free-spirit, poet people but he's not particularly talented so people have kinda taken advantage of him in the past.
The only person who really supported his interest growing up was his mom. And now he's finally kinda coming back to his neighborhood in this really creepy forest
There's a whole bit with these detectives talking about how his mom got remarried and the marriage went downhill.
No resolution to this one, we don't even see the detectives get their man, but it is very atmospheric and the slow unraveling (such as it is) works pretty well.
-The Secret of Macarger's Gulch: 2/5. This one seemed like a pretty standard ghost story, guy stays in a haunted house overnight sort of thing. The haunting is manifested as a dream where he learns about the early life of the house's previous inhabitants.
-One Summer Night: 2/5.
-The Moonlit Road: 4/5. Another supernatural-mystery story told non-chronologically and from 3 different POV. Also involves family drama, amnesia, and a murder-mystery spanning 20 years.
-A Diagnosis of Death: 2/5. A guy named Hawver is admitting to his doctor friend that he thinks he's going to die because of an apparition he saw earlier that day, he doesn't get much sympathy
-Moxon's Master: 2/5. This story is basically an excuse to muse on the possibility of sentient non-biological life (AKA artificial intelligence). I suppose it's a polarizing idea, but at this point it's been played over in stories so. many. times.
If an automaton is truely sentient, why would it automatically be violent? And if they are why the heck don't they make these beings tiny so they can't hurt anybody? Comon guys! You're supposed to be scientists!
-A Tough Tussle: 3/5.
"I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave and intelligent man. But what would you have? Shall a man cope, single-handed, with so monstrous an alliance as that of night and solitude and silence and the dead -- while an incalculable host of his own ancestors shriek into the ear of his spirit their coward counsel, sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, and disarm his very blood of all its iron? The odds are too great -- courage was not made for so rough use as that. "
The most interesting aspect of this story is how Byring keeps trying to talk himself out of feeling fear, but you can't rationalize himself out of fear once you feel it. Byring says it himself; humans aren't programmed that way.
-One of Twins: 2/5. This is one of those twin/dopplgager/vague telepathy type stories. A part of me thinks "Good for you Mr Bierce! Not every pair of twins has to be these totally creepy mirrors of each other."
But the other part of me thinks that it was probably supposed to be creepy, and the author just wrote it kinda badly.
-The Haunted Valley: Wow, racism, superstition and sexual harassment all in one story! I actually feel bad for Ah Wee.
-A Jug of Sirup: Killer Intro! The rest is meh.
-Staley Fleming's Hallucination: Death Omens a la "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" sans Sirius Black.
-A Resumed Identity: A man comes watches the sunrise over a landscape and has an intense flashback where he remembers his past life (?)
-A Baby Tramp: "Beware of the gaping gamin. The little fellow will grow up."-Victor Hugo
-The Night Doings at "Deadmans"
-Beyond The Wall
Well that was stupid, but also incredibly tragic in a way I can appreciate. It really highlights the kind of love people wrote about and were inspired by in books I've read from 1700-1800. Like, idealizing a romance that is unattainable because you realize an actual attachment wouldn't be fulfilling: once you get what you want, you won't want it anymore.
But this story kinda turns that whole scenario in its head because IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU MR DAMPIER! Friggin selfish scumbag. Couldn't do a nice thing for someone else if their life depended on it :P
Ok maybe that was a little harsh, but really if this book weren't so intent on being all spooky and creepy, it could be really poignant and meaningful.
We don't know what other people are going though, and we don't always know the difference our actions may make on someone who's suffering.
-A Psychological Shipwreck
I donno...this one was really confusing. A guy meets a girl on a boat, and they become friends and she's got a fiancee that he's friends with. And they read this book about soul mates or something and then she drowns, and he wakes up. I dunno...
-The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
The plot is pretty straightforward, but the way he tells the story is all wonky. These really immature guy talks about how he dumped this girl he was with because he found out she had a physical defect: an amputated middle toe. He explains that he thinks that an external (physical) defect in a woman is associated with an internal or moral defect of the person. He goes on to say that he heard that his former love had gotten married, so it sounds like everything turned out for her. Another guy in the group goes, "Yeah, but I heard her husband slit her throat." and the group just goes "Huh that's weird."
Then they go picking on this guy who was listening to their conversation. Then one thing led to another and they end up going to have a Duel in the Dark (to the death...with knives...). But like, they never actually do any thing because when they get there one of them is already dead. (I think it was the guy who dumped his girlfriend, but I'm not sure). They notice a set of footprints leading away from the body: and that the prints lack a middle toe on the right foot.
The story ends with the big reveal "It was Gertrude!" and afterward explains that Gertrude was the name of the girl who was missing a middle toe and was jilted by this guy and later killed by her husband.
Say whut?
Honestly, it doesn't bother me that he's a bit long winded in his descriptions: it's a short enough of a story to where it doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) upset the punchline ending. But the way he tells this story is convoluted to the point of being anticlimactic. If you get to the big reveal at the end ("It was Gertrude") and you have to ask "Who the heck is Gertrude." (because you've never once used that name before....) maybe you need to call your editor and re-organize your story a bit more.
The whole way this story is told is weird like that. For example, when they first walk in the room where the body is...we don't know he's dead yet because the narrator goes into this big long explanation of how his body was positioned up against the wall, the orientation of each of his limbs, the curve of his shoulders, the shape of his mouth, and then his eyes...completing his monologue with the ominous "He was dead!"
Well no shit, Sherlock!
(I'm actually surprised he didn't wait to make this *shocking* proclamation until AFTER his painfully dull description of advanced rigor mortis....or maybe he could have monologued a whole funeral ceremony for the dead guy, and end with shoveling dirt in the guy's face and THEN have their big reveal: "He was dead")
-John Mortonson's Funeral
The story itself is kind of humorous, though I'm not sure it's supposed to be or not.
-The Realm of the Unreal
The guy in a car almost runs over this other guy, then gives him a ride even though he really doesn't like him. He tells us a story of when he met the guy the first time and he got hypnotized into thinking his girlfriend came to visit, when she was really back home...and he and the guy went walking and found what looked like a dead body.
What freaks me out even more than the hypnotists practical jokes is the fact that he would just keep walking home after finding a dead body on the side of the road, and not tell the police or anything.
-John Bartem's Watch
This guy's ancestor was assassinated by George Washington and co. for being a British loyalist. and the guy carried around his dead ancestors watch all the time and he's really anal about it. He freaks out when his friend asks him the time because he doesn't want to look at the watch before 11pm (even though technically every time except 11pm is "before" 11pm) because that's the time his ancestor was killed.
His friend decides to do a little experiment with the guy's psychosis, but it backfires massively because the guy ends up dying.
The friend believes that the guy may have possessed the same soul as his ancestor and that he'd been reliving the trauma of his ancestor's last hours, as he waited for his execution. Pretty freaky.
-The Damned Thing
-Haita the Shepherd: 4/5. Color me impressed! I read this because its supposed to be the first featuring Hastur (aka "The King in Yellow") but he's presented as just a regular diety. Not trying to take over the world or anything. (I guess its kind of like religious extremists would do...)
The ending paragraphs were really beautiful, I wasn't expecting it to be that metaphorical.
-An Inhabitant of Carcosa
I saw even the stars in absence of darkness.
This guy talks about his experience of dying and waking up in a land far away and trying to make it back home. It's pretty sad. At the end, we find out he's relaying all this through a medium/psychic, which is why all the descriptions of everything are all psychedelic and dreamlike. He has no memory of his actual death, only of being sick earlier and the journey through a psychedelic landscape.
-The Stranger
An Arazona ghost story. Very much the kind of thing you'd like to hear around a campfire.
May 11, 2021
En la estela de su compatriota Edgar Allan Poe, las historias de Bierce giran alrededor del mesmerismo, los muertos que regresan de las tumbas para decir cosas oscuras a los vivos, y otros fenómenos de moda entre la burguesía decimonónica y sus mesas parlantes. Dicho lo cual, su especialidad es mezclar estos ingredientes con las historias del Oeste y las batallas entre ejércitos hermanos, con su olor a arena caliente, sus plantas rodadoras y sus lavanderías regentadas por inmigración oriental pagana; claro que esto puede resultar cargante tras el enésimo topónimo desconocido.
En mi humilde opinión, brillan con luz propia sus historias precursoras de los Mitos de Cthulhu (¡y él sin saberlo!), especialmente Un habitante de Carcosa, mi preferida de este sabor. Y, cómo no, sus historias de El clan de los parricidas, de las que gusto particularmente de Aceite de perro; solo por este último subconjunto de idas de olla que revolucionaron la moral imperante merece la pena leer a Bierce.
Nota curiosa de la edición: el prólogo está escrito a dos manos por los editores, que solo necesitan saltar de uno a otro para mostrar una evidente contradicción en lo relatado. Siendo los editores, ¿no lo detectaron en su propio texto?
En mi humilde opinión, brillan con luz propia sus historias precursoras de los Mitos de Cthulhu (¡y él sin saberlo!), especialmente Un habitante de Carcosa, mi preferida de este sabor. Y, cómo no, sus historias de El clan de los parricidas, de las que gusto particularmente de Aceite de perro; solo por este último subconjunto de idas de olla que revolucionaron la moral imperante merece la pena leer a Bierce.
Nota curiosa de la edición: el prólogo está escrito a dos manos por los editores, que solo necesitan saltar de uno a otro para mostrar una evidente contradicción en lo relatado. Siendo los editores, ¿no lo detectaron en su propio texto?
February 19, 2012
Ya me lo he acabado y me ha gustado bastante!
Como pasa con las recopilaciones de relatos hay de todo, pero en este caso en general son buenos. Con todo, para no cansarme me lo he ido leyendo a trozos hasta el día de hoy.
La calidad literaria de Ambrose Bierce está fuera de toda duda y a pesar ser cuentos de finales del s. XIX son una gozada leerlos disfrutando de su genial estilo. Las historias, aunque a simple vista puedan parecer muy similares, tienen sus matices y elementos singulares que las hacen únicas.
Las historias que más me han gustado són:
- El secreto del barranco Macarger
- Una noche de verano
- La jarra de sirope
-El hombre y la serpiente
- Un naufragio psicológico
- El dedo corazón del pie derecho
- El funeral de John Mortonson
- Circunstancias apropiadas
- El engendro maldito
- La ventana sellada
- Un habitante en Carcosa
- Y como curiosidad los últimos relatos de mini-historias monotemáticas
En resumen, un buen libro para "hacer un máster" de uno de los gandes escriteros del género!
Como pasa con las recopilaciones de relatos hay de todo, pero en este caso en general son buenos. Con todo, para no cansarme me lo he ido leyendo a trozos hasta el día de hoy.
La calidad literaria de Ambrose Bierce está fuera de toda duda y a pesar ser cuentos de finales del s. XIX son una gozada leerlos disfrutando de su genial estilo. Las historias, aunque a simple vista puedan parecer muy similares, tienen sus matices y elementos singulares que las hacen únicas.
Las historias que más me han gustado són:
- El secreto del barranco Macarger
- Una noche de verano
- La jarra de sirope
-El hombre y la serpiente
- Un naufragio psicológico
- El dedo corazón del pie derecho
- El funeral de John Mortonson
- Circunstancias apropiadas
- El engendro maldito
- La ventana sellada
- Un habitante en Carcosa
- Y como curiosidad los últimos relatos de mini-historias monotemáticas
En resumen, un buen libro para "hacer un máster" de uno de los gandes escriteros del género!
October 12, 2015
Just started reading. I remember doing a report on him in school, and dug this out from my collection. Giving it a read. I also had his "Devil's Dictionary". Nice tales of horror and supernatural for the campfire or when the lights go out in a storm, and read by the candle. I finished this book last week
May 19, 2014
Well written and erudite, with clever twists and a spooky ambiance...but not much depth to the stories. They finish as quickly as they begin, almost like they're first drafts and need to be developed more.
December 13, 2015
oh Ambrose! some of the stories were awesome, some were bad. but I sure do love him!
February 13, 2014
Many unusually fantastical horrific ghostly and downright strange classic tales by Bierce...
December 18, 2024
Available for free through Project Gutenberg.
January 11, 2025
Up till now the only things I knew about Ambrose Bierce were:
1) his death;
2) the number of the authors I loved who were influenced by his works.
I've picked this particular collection because of An Inhabitant of Carcosa, the only story I knew I wanted to read, but decided to pass through all the others as well on my way towards it.
As usual with short story collections, I had mixed reactions. My biggest problem was how many times he drops a promising line only to never follow up on the topic. What happened during this one character's forced years on the sea? We will never know. Was that woman a bigamist? We will never know. What do you mean that other character isn't sure what he saw anymore? All up to our imagination.
One reason I definitely recommend trying this collection: it's probably the best way to see in one tome how both modern horror and modern thriller was developing. Pretty much every story has a slightly different structure and storytelling method. Bierce experiments with narration styles, sometimes painting a scene in one way only to explain it as something different than he made us expect. In that sense it's very interesting, even if the stories themselves aren't anything special at times.
My surprising favorites were Moxon's Monster and The Damned Thing.
Also, after I translated Staley Fleming's Hallucination for my mother, she's retold it to several friends and they all liked it, so here's another recommendation.
1) his death;
2) the number of the authors I loved who were influenced by his works.
I've picked this particular collection because of An Inhabitant of Carcosa, the only story I knew I wanted to read, but decided to pass through all the others as well on my way towards it.
As usual with short story collections, I had mixed reactions. My biggest problem was how many times he drops a promising line only to never follow up on the topic. What happened during this one character's forced years on the sea? We will never know. Was that woman a bigamist? We will never know. What do you mean that other character isn't sure what he saw anymore? All up to our imagination.
One reason I definitely recommend trying this collection: it's probably the best way to see in one tome how both modern horror and modern thriller was developing. Pretty much every story has a slightly different structure and storytelling method. Bierce experiments with narration styles, sometimes painting a scene in one way only to explain it as something different than he made us expect. In that sense it's very interesting, even if the stories themselves aren't anything special at times.
My surprising favorites were Moxon's Monster and The Damned Thing.
Also, after I translated Staley Fleming's Hallucination for my mother, she's retold it to several friends and they all liked it, so here's another recommendation.
November 6, 2024
A doua colecție de povestiri a lui Bierce a fost “Can such things be?”, publicată în 1893 și reeditată la noi în 2005 la Leda cu titlul “Valea bântuită”, în traducerea Corneliei Marinescu. Spre deosebire de prima colecție, aceasta nu a fost pe placul criticii vremii, care a respins volumul ca fiind prea morbid. Fantome, mașinării care au viață și animale monstruoase invizibile populează povestirile. Dar colecția a rămas cartea horror cea mai cunoscută a lui Bierce și care i-a conferit faima pe care o are azi în cercurile de cunoscători.
Preferatele mele din colecție sunt “Drum sub clar de lună” și “Locuitorul din Carcosa”. “Drum sub clar de lună” poate fi văzută ca un fel de mister supranatural. Povestea e spusă din punctul de veedere a 3 personaje: fiul unei femei ucise în propria casă, ucigașul, și victima. Punctul forte al povestirii e șocul crescând al descoperirii. Prima parte, povestea fiului e convențională, spusă de un narator extern oricărui element supranatural. Începând cu a doua parte am început să-mi dau seama că nu am de-a face cu o crimă comisă de un criminal oarecare, ci de un spectru de dincolo de mormânt. Și la partea a treia povestirea capătă o notă foarte neliniștitoare, când victima descrie ce înseamnă să fii moartă și să te uiți la cei vii. M-am simțit observată, spun sincer.
https://leseriana.blog/2024/11/06/amb...
Preferatele mele din colecție sunt “Drum sub clar de lună” și “Locuitorul din Carcosa”. “Drum sub clar de lună” poate fi văzută ca un fel de mister supranatural. Povestea e spusă din punctul de veedere a 3 personaje: fiul unei femei ucise în propria casă, ucigașul, și victima. Punctul forte al povestirii e șocul crescând al descoperirii. Prima parte, povestea fiului e convențională, spusă de un narator extern oricărui element supranatural. Începând cu a doua parte am început să-mi dau seama că nu am de-a face cu o crimă comisă de un criminal oarecare, ci de un spectru de dincolo de mormânt. Și la partea a treia povestirea capătă o notă foarte neliniștitoare, când victima descrie ce înseamnă să fii moartă și să te uiți la cei vii. M-am simțit observată, spun sincer.
https://leseriana.blog/2024/11/06/amb...
December 22, 2025
As old as these are, Bierce is experimenting with many of these stories. It was a foundation work in the genre, and went onto influence so many writers that came after him.
These days, the twists will seem predictable and obvious with the diet of horror the enthusiast is fed now. They became genre clichés, so it’s necessary to adapt a frame of mind of a reader back in the 1890s to appreciate them fully.
It’s important not to forget that you are reading a piece of history.
These days, the twists will seem predictable and obvious with the diet of horror the enthusiast is fed now. They became genre clichés, so it’s necessary to adapt a frame of mind of a reader back in the 1890s to appreciate them fully.
It’s important not to forget that you are reading a piece of history.
October 21, 2019
I don’t like horror.
October 27, 2016
For the bibliographically-inclined, it's worth noting that this title covers a number of editions with vastly varying contents - it's a short story collection - so much so that you could argue that the reader of a late edition has not read the same book as the reader of an early edition. I read the free Kindle version derived from a Project Gutenberg transcription/scan (as, I suspect, most readers here will have done), and because the PG metadata was sorely lacking, it took me a while to figure out that what I read corresponds, in terms of stories and story-order, with the first 2/3 of Volume 3 (1910) of Bierce's collected works. It has very little overlap, other than a few of the more famous stories, with the 1903 edition, which you can find for comparison on the Internet Archive. Apparently it was first published in 1893.
That said, this was a fun read, especially for the late-October season. The stories are chiefly very short, often told in the first person, and usually quite simple, with the narrative presenting a set of peculiar events that can only be explained - and Bierce by and large lets the reader do their own explaining - by something supernatural &/or very gruesome. There are plenty of abandoned houses and cemeteries for settings, but Bierce's particularly American take on the Gothic also brings in Civil War battlefields and for some reason several gulches, a topographic feature that seems to have some resonance for him. The effect aimed for is the frisson, not full-out horror. The language is accomplished and charming. There are a few departures from the formula, notably Haita the Shepherd, self-consciously mythological. One or two of the stories, especially the first one (The Death of Halpin Frayser) are longer and more complex, and Halpin Frayser in particular is very ambiguous in its solution, to the point where the reader can go down a number of different and probably irrelevant Freudian rabbit-holes trying to figure out exactly what happened. As a product of a late-19th, early-20th century sensibility, the collection also contains a certain amount of expected, if jarring, racism - since most of the stories are set in California, that generally takes the form of stereotypical Chinese characters.
A pleasant time-waster.
That said, this was a fun read, especially for the late-October season. The stories are chiefly very short, often told in the first person, and usually quite simple, with the narrative presenting a set of peculiar events that can only be explained - and Bierce by and large lets the reader do their own explaining - by something supernatural &/or very gruesome. There are plenty of abandoned houses and cemeteries for settings, but Bierce's particularly American take on the Gothic also brings in Civil War battlefields and for some reason several gulches, a topographic feature that seems to have some resonance for him. The effect aimed for is the frisson, not full-out horror. The language is accomplished and charming. There are a few departures from the formula, notably Haita the Shepherd, self-consciously mythological. One or two of the stories, especially the first one (The Death of Halpin Frayser) are longer and more complex, and Halpin Frayser in particular is very ambiguous in its solution, to the point where the reader can go down a number of different and probably irrelevant Freudian rabbit-holes trying to figure out exactly what happened. As a product of a late-19th, early-20th century sensibility, the collection also contains a certain amount of expected, if jarring, racism - since most of the stories are set in California, that generally takes the form of stereotypical Chinese characters.
A pleasant time-waster.
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