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The Dark Domain
Translated by Miroslaw Lipinski. The greatest author of fantastic fiction in the Polish language is Stefan Grabinski (1877-1936), the master of the short story form. Grabinski's stories, which he termed psychofantasies, are explorations of the extreme in human behaviour, where the macabre and the bizarre combine to send a chill down the reader's spine. When it comes to the erotic, few authors can match Grabinski's depiction of seething sexual frenzy.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1918
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About the author
Stefan Grabiński
104 books132 followersStefan Grabiński (February 26, 1887 - November 12, 1936) was a Polish writer of horror fiction, sometimes called "the Polish Poe".
Grabiński worked as teacher in Lwów and Przemyśl and is famous for his train stories collected in Demon ruchu (The Motion Demon). A number of stories were translated by Miroslaw Lipinski into English and published as The Dark Domain. In addition, some of his work has been adapted to film, such as Szamota's Mistress.
Grabiński died of tuberculosis in 1936.
Grabiński worked as teacher in Lwów and Przemyśl and is famous for his train stories collected in Demon ruchu (The Motion Demon). A number of stories were translated by Miroslaw Lipinski into English and published as The Dark Domain. In addition, some of his work has been adapted to film, such as Szamota's Mistress.
Grabiński died of tuberculosis in 1936.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
March 8, 2020
The Polish writer Stefan Grabinski is known for his early modernist tales of terror, tales filled with speeding trains and gritty sexuality. His modernity, however, runs deeper than that, and his stories deserve to be remembered for more than locomotive imagery and furtive gropings in the dark.
In his early years at the University of Lwow, Stefan learned he suffered from tuberculosis, the Grabinski family hereditary complaint. After graduation, he worked as a high school teacher, and achieved some critical success with a book of stories (The Motion Demon, 1920) in his early thirties, but tuberculosis compelled him to retire at forty. He continued to write, his books were neglected, and he died at the age of forty-nine, poor and little known.
Grabinski was a modern man, who believed in evolution, yet he distrusted the Darwinian model and preferred the Bergsonian instead. In other words, for Grabinski, evolution was not the cold product of the calculations of time and mutation, but the result of the elan vital, the creative principle in all living things.
The image of the train—Grabinski's favorite—is an ambiguous one, for, though it speeds with the force of apparent life, it is a cold mechanism of iron and steel, and its very speed and survival depends upon the precision of its schedule, the preparation of its tracks. Sexuality, on the other hand, is a pure expression of life force, and in Grabinski's stories we often see how the efficient, carefully calibrated locomotive world—and other grids and careful constructions—is invaded and overwhelmed by elemental desire. And the most horrifying thing about sexuality—in the stories of Grabinski—is that the life force is even more powerful when it comes from the dead.
Grabinski's stories, however philosophical, please us with their puzzles and mysteries; Like Borges', they never stray far from the well-constructed tale. I like all the pieces collected in The Dark Domain, but my favorite are “The Area” (in which beings imagined but unwritten demand of their author a “full life”), “Szomota's Mistress” (the ultimate “corpse bride” tale,a horrifying use of sexuality), “Strabismus” (a Poe homage inspired by “William Wilson” and “The Tell Tale Heart”), “Vengeance of Elementals” (in which the power of Fire defeats the carefully plotted pattern of a Fire Chief), and “The Compartment” (a sexual liaison on a train devolves into violence and terror).
These eleven stories will jangle your nerves, but will give your mind much to think about too. If you like weird tales, don't miss these. Grabinski is one of the masters.
March 8, 2020
This is a beguiling and potent collection of stories. The author's quixotic nature is clearly evident in his writing. Always the outliers, his protagonists believe in the strength of the mind and the cogency of their own visions.
Trains are a constant image in many of the tales. A character takes trips without destinations, "under the influence of cosmic and elemental forces," leaving constraints of normal routine behind. Celestial paths guide supreme motion.
Grabinski believed in the powers of the chimerical and the elementals ("beings that appear during eruption of the elements"). He also incorporates ghosts and demonic forces into his stories, both of which destroy lives and lovers.
The psychological component is paramount, as it is the mind and its ability to lend thoughts, obsessions and anxieties lives of their own. In "The Area," an author attempts to take his stories beyond language, thus ensuring his own downfall. So strong are his visions that he himself cannot escape their vampiric hunger.
Eroticism has its place in this volume, tantalizing and unnerving in twists of fate. Bodies undergo metamorphoses, only to separate with dire consequences.
Egocentricity and the flow of time trap characters in their own hypotheses, wrapping them in strong beliefs before releasing them to their fates.
The most compelling elements in this collection are subjectivity and imagination, and the intense holds that they have on their believers. It is important that one does not completely lose oneself in the creative current. The void and the unknown are just around the corner.
Trains are a constant image in many of the tales. A character takes trips without destinations, "under the influence of cosmic and elemental forces," leaving constraints of normal routine behind. Celestial paths guide supreme motion.
Grabinski believed in the powers of the chimerical and the elementals ("beings that appear during eruption of the elements"). He also incorporates ghosts and demonic forces into his stories, both of which destroy lives and lovers.
The psychological component is paramount, as it is the mind and its ability to lend thoughts, obsessions and anxieties lives of their own. In "The Area," an author attempts to take his stories beyond language, thus ensuring his own downfall. So strong are his visions that he himself cannot escape their vampiric hunger.
Eroticism has its place in this volume, tantalizing and unnerving in twists of fate. Bodies undergo metamorphoses, only to separate with dire consequences.
Egocentricity and the flow of time trap characters in their own hypotheses, wrapping them in strong beliefs before releasing them to their fates.
The most compelling elements in this collection are subjectivity and imagination, and the intense holds that they have on their believers. It is important that one does not completely lose oneself in the creative current. The void and the unknown are just around the corner.
February 26, 2022
The Polish writer Stefan Grabiński reminds me of his Austrian contemporary Gustav Meyrink in that both writers were deeply immersed in the subject matter forming the backbone of their respective brands of weird fiction (see Meyrink's The Opal for an equally if not more satisfying collection). This lends a degree of authenticity to their writing that bolsters its overall effect and sets them apart from some of their less obsessive peers. With weird fiction in particular, one can usually pick up on how feverishly dedicated to parsing the unknown a writer is/was by the originality of their writing.
Grabiński was a philosophical thinker interested in probing the boundaries of time and space, while also highly skeptical toward the burgeoning Machine Age. What, if anything, lies beyond our understanding of 'reality' and how is it affected by increasing modernization? That sort of thing. We see this manic curiosity manifested in many of the characters in these stories, most intensely in ones such as 'Vengeance of the Elementals', 'Saturnin Sektor', and 'The Glance'—the latter of which conjures up a level of paranoid anxiety similar to that found in Roland Topor's The Tenant. Likewise, Grabiński's doubts around modernization show in the grotesque effects of the railway system as depicted in 'The Motion Demon', ‘The Wandering Train’, and perhaps most disturbingly in 'In the Compartment', wherein the increased speed of travel literally transforms a normally dull, mild-mannered man into a wicked satyr driven to violence.
While years after his death Grabiński did eventually become more widely known in weird fiction circles, he remains one of the less familiar writers from the early heyday of this genre. Part of this is likely due to the rather limited publication of his work in English so far; even though this particular book is still in print, Dedalus isn't exactly a household name among publishers. The only other collections of his work in English have mostly come out in limited runs through small presses targeted toward the collector market, which makes them largely inaccessible to the masses of horror/weird fiction fans who would likely appreciate his work.
Grabiński was a philosophical thinker interested in probing the boundaries of time and space, while also highly skeptical toward the burgeoning Machine Age. What, if anything, lies beyond our understanding of 'reality' and how is it affected by increasing modernization? That sort of thing. We see this manic curiosity manifested in many of the characters in these stories, most intensely in ones such as 'Vengeance of the Elementals', 'Saturnin Sektor', and 'The Glance'—the latter of which conjures up a level of paranoid anxiety similar to that found in Roland Topor's The Tenant. Likewise, Grabiński's doubts around modernization show in the grotesque effects of the railway system as depicted in 'The Motion Demon', ‘The Wandering Train’, and perhaps most disturbingly in 'In the Compartment', wherein the increased speed of travel literally transforms a normally dull, mild-mannered man into a wicked satyr driven to violence.
While years after his death Grabiński did eventually become more widely known in weird fiction circles, he remains one of the less familiar writers from the early heyday of this genre. Part of this is likely due to the rather limited publication of his work in English so far; even though this particular book is still in print, Dedalus isn't exactly a household name among publishers. The only other collections of his work in English have mostly come out in limited runs through small presses targeted toward the collector market, which makes them largely inaccessible to the masses of horror/weird fiction fans who would likely appreciate his work.
December 4, 2014
Stefan Grabinski is usually mentioned as the Polish variant of various contemporaneous horror writers from further west, but besides being a horror writer, this ignores his incomparable talents. Metafictional dialogue on the creative process, modernist unease at the technological advances of the time, decadent/symbolist ability to temper the intellectual with the impulses of uncontrollable passions, and a facility for dream imagery and disconcerting sense of place possibly owing more to incipient surrealism.
Story-by-story breakdown:
Fumes :: Kicking off hard into the psychosexual weirdness that ties Grabinski more directly into a line from Decadence and Symbolism to Surrealism than his typical horror-writing contemporaries. Here, we weave between eroticism to revulsion against a mounting insanity that ambiguously resolves into a concrete causality.
The Demon of Motion :: The mobility and speed of the modern era as occult disruptive force.
The Area :: This one's especially amazing: A writer attempts to transcend the falsity and artifice of his novels by removing himself from the world and concentrating his mind, for years, on a pure act of creation, to unfortunate outcome. Basically about the tipping point between genius and madness, but via a postmodern trick of layers of narrative reality bleeding together, then bleakly, eerily underlines the futility of creation in an coda that moves this up another level. Possibly the best here.
A Tale of the Gravedigger :: I wonder how this story of systematic desecration with a weird twist would have gone over in Catholic interwar Poland. One of the more "normal", but daring nonetheless.
Szamota's Mistress :: And then back to the heavily psychosexual with a kind of ghost story about the corrupting forces of desire. What exactly takes place here is ambiguously suspended between a couple explanations, and essentially unknowable, but it works nicely. Again, with the wondering how the Catholic church would have dealt with all this sex. Kinda in line with something like Machen's The Great God Pan, for all of that.
The Wandering Train :: Again with what is essentially a ghost story emerging from modern technology instead of antiquity. Nice fadeout into probable ruin at the end, too.
Strabismus :: This seems very likely to be another psychiatric collapse, but built so strangely that I can point to a couple explanations that never really pull together solid supporting evidence, leaving the actual course open. In any event, it's about identity, and follows Grabinski's usually excellent imagery.
Vengeance of the Elementals :: A fire marshall becomes obsessed with the esoteric forces he believes to underly his calling, for better or for worse.
Saturnus Sektor :: A somewhat more conventional study of a psychiatric problem, but all tied up in philosophic questions of the meaning and existence of time, though such analysis is cursorily restricted to "time does not exist! Or does it?!" A lesser entry.
The Compartment :: Train travel as drug, complete with the highs and lows of the addiction cycle. This, however becomes merely a backdrop for a love triangle startlingly developed over one overnight.
The Glance :: Like Saturnus, this is a descent into madness via a kind of philosophic question, but much more elaborately and perfectly arranged. An obsession becomes a phobia becomes an interrogation of solipsism and the stability of the universe beyond immediate perception. Taken to its furthest extents. In some ways, a little like a more genre-streamlined Khrzhanovsky story.
Story-by-story breakdown:
Fumes :: Kicking off hard into the psychosexual weirdness that ties Grabinski more directly into a line from Decadence and Symbolism to Surrealism than his typical horror-writing contemporaries. Here, we weave between eroticism to revulsion against a mounting insanity that ambiguously resolves into a concrete causality.
The Demon of Motion :: The mobility and speed of the modern era as occult disruptive force.
The Area :: This one's especially amazing: A writer attempts to transcend the falsity and artifice of his novels by removing himself from the world and concentrating his mind, for years, on a pure act of creation, to unfortunate outcome. Basically about the tipping point between genius and madness, but via a postmodern trick of layers of narrative reality bleeding together, then bleakly, eerily underlines the futility of creation in an coda that moves this up another level. Possibly the best here.
A Tale of the Gravedigger :: I wonder how this story of systematic desecration with a weird twist would have gone over in Catholic interwar Poland. One of the more "normal", but daring nonetheless.
Szamota's Mistress :: And then back to the heavily psychosexual with a kind of ghost story about the corrupting forces of desire. What exactly takes place here is ambiguously suspended between a couple explanations, and essentially unknowable, but it works nicely. Again, with the wondering how the Catholic church would have dealt with all this sex. Kinda in line with something like Machen's The Great God Pan, for all of that.
The Wandering Train :: Again with what is essentially a ghost story emerging from modern technology instead of antiquity. Nice fadeout into probable ruin at the end, too.
Strabismus :: This seems very likely to be another psychiatric collapse, but built so strangely that I can point to a couple explanations that never really pull together solid supporting evidence, leaving the actual course open. In any event, it's about identity, and follows Grabinski's usually excellent imagery.
Vengeance of the Elementals :: A fire marshall becomes obsessed with the esoteric forces he believes to underly his calling, for better or for worse.
Saturnus Sektor :: A somewhat more conventional study of a psychiatric problem, but all tied up in philosophic questions of the meaning and existence of time, though such analysis is cursorily restricted to "time does not exist! Or does it?!" A lesser entry.
The Compartment :: Train travel as drug, complete with the highs and lows of the addiction cycle. This, however becomes merely a backdrop for a love triangle startlingly developed over one overnight.
The Glance :: Like Saturnus, this is a descent into madness via a kind of philosophic question, but much more elaborately and perfectly arranged. An obsession becomes a phobia becomes an interrogation of solipsism and the stability of the universe beyond immediate perception. Taken to its furthest extents. In some ways, a little like a more genre-streamlined Khrzhanovsky story.
December 20, 2018
Stefan Grabinski’s tales in The Dark Domain delves deeply into the human psyche and tries to stare down the darkness and unknown fears that reside there. His prose is striking, beautiful and eerie at all times and conjures forth deeply haunting and disturbing images in his stories. Grabinski’s tales in this collection were written from 1918 and onwards if I’m not mistaken, but they read as incredibly contemporary both in setting and motifs he uses in his stories. Trains feature heavily in his tales and he captures the absurdity and how ominous tonnes of steel forcing its way through the landscape is, barely under the control of a conductor. Madness and delusions of the mind often plague his characters, from strange doppelgangers to manifestations of one's deepest, darkest fears. Some of the stories play on almost childish anxieties but expertly crafted to touch on the subconscious horrors most of us have in our minds, thus they reach nightmarish peaks in Grabinski’s hands.
As others have noted, Grabinski does not shy away from the topic of sex in his stories and uses it to great effect. He shows that during courtship and intercourse, reason leaves the mind completely, leaving only animalistic urges and primitive lust. It is very disturbing to think of relinquishing almost all control of the body to a mind that has lost its sense of reason and logic, and this sinister and absurd mood tends to linger in his tales, creating a bizarre and hazy atmosphere. Here the human mind is a labyrinthine, yawning abyss, easily trapped in its own darkness and horror.
The Dark Domain is one of the finest collections I’ve read in 2018 and rarely does an author strike a chord with me as much as Grabinski. As I read this collection, I recognized his impact on modern masters of the strange such as Thomas Ligotti, Livia Llewellyn and Mark Samuels. Creepy and often genuinely disturbing, Stefan Grabinski’s stories are laden with doom, absurdity, and horror reminiscent of the greatest masters of the art, from Poe to Kafka. Absolutely not to be missed!
As others have noted, Grabinski does not shy away from the topic of sex in his stories and uses it to great effect. He shows that during courtship and intercourse, reason leaves the mind completely, leaving only animalistic urges and primitive lust. It is very disturbing to think of relinquishing almost all control of the body to a mind that has lost its sense of reason and logic, and this sinister and absurd mood tends to linger in his tales, creating a bizarre and hazy atmosphere. Here the human mind is a labyrinthine, yawning abyss, easily trapped in its own darkness and horror.
The Dark Domain is one of the finest collections I’ve read in 2018 and rarely does an author strike a chord with me as much as Grabinski. As I read this collection, I recognized his impact on modern masters of the strange such as Thomas Ligotti, Livia Llewellyn and Mark Samuels. Creepy and often genuinely disturbing, Stefan Grabinski’s stories are laden with doom, absurdity, and horror reminiscent of the greatest masters of the art, from Poe to Kafka. Absolutely not to be missed!
October 10, 2016
Now and then I find a book that defines my reading raison d'être, and this is one of them. It is beyond a doubt one of the best books I've read in 2016, and I feel fortunate indeed in having discovered Stefan Grabinski, who seems to be another long-forgotten, neglected author whose work really merits an emergence from obscurity.
There are eleven stories in this book, along with an introduction by the editor & translator Miroslaw Lipinski as well as an afterword by Madeleine Johnson. In a word, it is excellent; there is not one bad story in this entire book. In Grabinski, I've found another writer whose work is just plain genius.
Perhaps the best way to describe what's in this book is by quoting Brian Stableford, who in his News of the Black Feast and Other Random Reviews notes that Grabinski's
"... characters are prone to haunting themselves, unwittingly dislodging fragments of themselves that become independently incarnate." (79-80)
While that's not exactly the case in every story here, it's still an observation that absolutely hits the nail on the head.
While I latched on to Grabinski purely by accident, from now on any new translations of his work are going to find a permanent home on my shelves. He's that good. Anyone who is serious about dark fiction, literary horror and keen insight into human nature and the darkness of the human mind should not miss this book. Again, I wonder how many other books by authors like this are out there, just waiting for me to find them.
http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2016...
April 11, 2014
I'd like to be indulgent with Stefan Grabiński . For he deserves that. For writing the sort of fiction he delivered in his time and place wasn't easy at all, as you will read soon.
The eleven short stories you can find in 'The Dark Domain' are only a tiny fraction of what Grabiński published in his native Poland including five novels and five works for theatre.
And yet, it's with short stories that pan Grabiński briefly touched fame during his short and unfortunate lifetime. And what short stories, I say!
Don't believe Wikipedia and the blurbs: Grabiński is neither the Polish Edgar Allan Poe nor the Polish H.P. Lovecraft.
What we have here is odd but fascinating material which might sometimes bear a resemblance or two to other authors but, in fact, doesn't look like anything else that I've read before.
As simple as it sounds, Stefan Grabiński was and still is just the Polish Grabiński. And if that doesn't seem like much to you, please give 'The Dark Domain' a go and I bet you'll understand what I mean.
The quality of Mr Grabiński was that the short stories he wrote between the 1910s and the 1920s were something completely different from what the Polish audience was looking and asking for. Whereas his compatriots revered the historical novels by Sinkiewicz and the neoromantic books by Zeromski, Grabiński didn't publish anything of that sort. At the contrary, he created his own literary (and, alas, unfashionable) genre by putting sinister and introspective short stories in a modern framework.
Only a few of the eleven short stories included in 'The Dark Domain' have a gothic flavour ('A Tale of the Gravedigger', 'Fumes') imbibed in traditional folklore revisited, but most of them will surprise you with either a philosophical or a sensual twist. Grabiński and his characters are clearly fascinated by the wonders of progress - and particularly by trains - but modernity in itself is not a bulletproof shelter against the wicked acts of evil. Well, in fact, quite the opposite.
What astonished me reading this collection is how explicit and sexually detailed Grabiński could be in a time in which Poland was a puritan and a conservative country. To be honest with you a short story like 'In the Compartment' reads more like a chapter of a steamy softcore novel (enters saxophone) than something written by an author devoted to creepy tales. Striking a similar note, 'Szamota's Mistress' is stalking ante-litteram with plenty of frustrated libido to make the readers feel queasy. There's sex, then. And there's even some powerful and rather vivid transgender stuff in 'Fumes'. But to me the mastery of Grabiński lies elsewhere.
Even though daring experimental short stories such as 'Strabismus', 'Saturnin Sektor' and 'The Motion Demon' are very good and will implore for a second reading to be fully appreciated, it's 'Vengeance of the Elementals' that struck me dead. Did you ever watch 'Howl's Moving Castle' by Miyazaki? Well, if you did think about the demon of fire depicted by the Japanese master, imagine it evil and call it an elemental. This story of a hero of a fireman turned an arsonist due to the fire elementals ensnaring him is as scary as engrossing.
There's this famous Italian comic series called 'Dylan Dog' and dealing with horror stories that I read when I was a teenager.
If I had to tell what reading Grabiński reminded me of, I would say that it's the scripts of some of the best episodes of 'Dylan Dog'. Just don't call poor pan Stefan the Polish 'Nightmares Investigator' as that womaziner of a Dylan Dog introduced himself.
It's time to give Grabiński some justice, in Poland and abroad.
Speaking of which, please translate into English more of his short stories!
The eleven short stories you can find in 'The Dark Domain' are only a tiny fraction of what Grabiński published in his native Poland including five novels and five works for theatre.
And yet, it's with short stories that pan Grabiński briefly touched fame during his short and unfortunate lifetime. And what short stories, I say!
Don't believe Wikipedia and the blurbs: Grabiński is neither the Polish Edgar Allan Poe nor the Polish H.P. Lovecraft.
What we have here is odd but fascinating material which might sometimes bear a resemblance or two to other authors but, in fact, doesn't look like anything else that I've read before.
As simple as it sounds, Stefan Grabiński was and still is just the Polish Grabiński. And if that doesn't seem like much to you, please give 'The Dark Domain' a go and I bet you'll understand what I mean.
The quality of Mr Grabiński was that the short stories he wrote between the 1910s and the 1920s were something completely different from what the Polish audience was looking and asking for. Whereas his compatriots revered the historical novels by Sinkiewicz and the neoromantic books by Zeromski, Grabiński didn't publish anything of that sort. At the contrary, he created his own literary (and, alas, unfashionable) genre by putting sinister and introspective short stories in a modern framework.
Only a few of the eleven short stories included in 'The Dark Domain' have a gothic flavour ('A Tale of the Gravedigger', 'Fumes') imbibed in traditional folklore revisited, but most of them will surprise you with either a philosophical or a sensual twist. Grabiński and his characters are clearly fascinated by the wonders of progress - and particularly by trains - but modernity in itself is not a bulletproof shelter against the wicked acts of evil. Well, in fact, quite the opposite.
What astonished me reading this collection is how explicit and sexually detailed Grabiński could be in a time in which Poland was a puritan and a conservative country. To be honest with you a short story like 'In the Compartment' reads more like a chapter of a steamy softcore novel (enters saxophone) than something written by an author devoted to creepy tales. Striking a similar note, 'Szamota's Mistress' is stalking ante-litteram with plenty of frustrated libido to make the readers feel queasy. There's sex, then. And there's even some powerful and rather vivid transgender stuff in 'Fumes'. But to me the mastery of Grabiński lies elsewhere.
Even though daring experimental short stories such as 'Strabismus', 'Saturnin Sektor' and 'The Motion Demon' are very good and will implore for a second reading to be fully appreciated, it's 'Vengeance of the Elementals' that struck me dead. Did you ever watch 'Howl's Moving Castle' by Miyazaki? Well, if you did think about the demon of fire depicted by the Japanese master, imagine it evil and call it an elemental. This story of a hero of a fireman turned an arsonist due to the fire elementals ensnaring him is as scary as engrossing.
There's this famous Italian comic series called 'Dylan Dog' and dealing with horror stories that I read when I was a teenager.
If I had to tell what reading Grabiński reminded me of, I would say that it's the scripts of some of the best episodes of 'Dylan Dog'. Just don't call poor pan Stefan the Polish 'Nightmares Investigator' as that womaziner of a Dylan Dog introduced himself.
It's time to give Grabiński some justice, in Poland and abroad.
Speaking of which, please translate into English more of his short stories!
October 28, 2022
So here is a selection of weird supernatural fiction NOT from Victorian England or pre-WWII America, but from Poland. Evidently, it is so unusual for any fiction in this genre to come out of Poland that Grabinsky remains one of a kind.
So how does it stack up to the more familiar short stories we've all heard around campfires and read under the blankets? Well, it sure is hard to say, since weird fiction is all... well, weird. How does one measure weird?
Well, it is clear Grabinsky was following the trends of the newly emerging science of psychiatry, as there are Freudian and Jungian influences. It is also clear he had a healthy caution for the technologies of the industrial age. His writings have been characterized as "metaphysical" with a heavy doses of sex and science. The end results are works that are clearly a product of their time but which feel surprisingly modern.
For example, the ideas of gender fluidity is explored here in a variety of ways, but none more obvious than in the opening story "Fumes." I can't say much about it, or any of these entries, because they are so short and to give any specifics would take away some of the joy of discovery for the reader.
So from an intellectual and artistic standpoint, these tales do rank high with some of the best in the genre. But do they also succeed in inducing the chills that readers of weird fiction come to expect?
Once again, yes. Some scenes will remain burned in my mind for years to come. From malicious faces staring at you from dark windows of abandoned mansions to discovering something unexpected and horrific has been in your bed, you will experience your share of literary shivers. My favorite of these are his train stories. I know that sounds weird, but train tracks and train stations are very creepy liminal spaces for me, and stories like Dickens' "Railroad Signal Man" have always scared me witless. Grabinsky certainly agreed with me.
But like with any weird fiction, sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. That's why we like weird fiction, but it's also my biggest gripe. If an author comes up on a creative dead end in their narrative, not knowing how to satisfactorily close out the story, then weird fiction offers the perfect cop-out. Just end the story abruptly and offer no explanation. Now you've magically transformed lazy writing and half-finished drafts into the "mysterious."
Don't believe me? Look what happened to "Halloween 5."
Now, I'm not saying that this is the case with Grabinsky at all. These are definitely well-planned stories with particular themes he wanted to explore. What I am saying is that you will definitely finish most of these stories with a scratch of your head and a WTF branded on your wrinkled brow. Don't sweat it. You're not dumb. You didn't miss anything. Everything Grabinsky wanted to coherently say was told in the beginning of the story, while the end was designed to pull the rug out from under you or to abruptly turn off all the lights. Feel disoriented, disturbed, unsettled? Then Grabinsky accomplished his mission.
However, do read these books with an understanding that there is a metacritic in Grabinsky. In one very autobiographical story, he mentions a writer who prides himself on writing poetry that says nothing at all, but all the literary world thinks his poetry is brilliant because his work defies successful interpretation. Grabinsky is winking at the reader here. He has a very subtle but delightful sense of humor.
So if you are looking for a fresh take on the classic ghost story, you've come to the right place. Enter Grabinsky's "Dark Domain" if you dare.
So how does it stack up to the more familiar short stories we've all heard around campfires and read under the blankets? Well, it sure is hard to say, since weird fiction is all... well, weird. How does one measure weird?
Well, it is clear Grabinsky was following the trends of the newly emerging science of psychiatry, as there are Freudian and Jungian influences. It is also clear he had a healthy caution for the technologies of the industrial age. His writings have been characterized as "metaphysical" with a heavy doses of sex and science. The end results are works that are clearly a product of their time but which feel surprisingly modern.
For example, the ideas of gender fluidity is explored here in a variety of ways, but none more obvious than in the opening story "Fumes." I can't say much about it, or any of these entries, because they are so short and to give any specifics would take away some of the joy of discovery for the reader.
So from an intellectual and artistic standpoint, these tales do rank high with some of the best in the genre. But do they also succeed in inducing the chills that readers of weird fiction come to expect?
Once again, yes. Some scenes will remain burned in my mind for years to come. From malicious faces staring at you from dark windows of abandoned mansions to discovering something unexpected and horrific has been in your bed, you will experience your share of literary shivers. My favorite of these are his train stories. I know that sounds weird, but train tracks and train stations are very creepy liminal spaces for me, and stories like Dickens' "Railroad Signal Man" have always scared me witless. Grabinsky certainly agreed with me.
But like with any weird fiction, sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. That's why we like weird fiction, but it's also my biggest gripe. If an author comes up on a creative dead end in their narrative, not knowing how to satisfactorily close out the story, then weird fiction offers the perfect cop-out. Just end the story abruptly and offer no explanation. Now you've magically transformed lazy writing and half-finished drafts into the "mysterious."
Don't believe me? Look what happened to "Halloween 5."
Now, I'm not saying that this is the case with Grabinsky at all. These are definitely well-planned stories with particular themes he wanted to explore. What I am saying is that you will definitely finish most of these stories with a scratch of your head and a WTF branded on your wrinkled brow. Don't sweat it. You're not dumb. You didn't miss anything. Everything Grabinsky wanted to coherently say was told in the beginning of the story, while the end was designed to pull the rug out from under you or to abruptly turn off all the lights. Feel disoriented, disturbed, unsettled? Then Grabinsky accomplished his mission.
However, do read these books with an understanding that there is a metacritic in Grabinsky. In one very autobiographical story, he mentions a writer who prides himself on writing poetry that says nothing at all, but all the literary world thinks his poetry is brilliant because his work defies successful interpretation. Grabinsky is winking at the reader here. He has a very subtle but delightful sense of humor.
So if you are looking for a fresh take on the classic ghost story, you've come to the right place. Enter Grabinsky's "Dark Domain" if you dare.
August 23, 2019
What do I say about this collection of short stories?
It is an interesting collection of short stories. It is interesting because the short stories are supposed to be 'psychofantasy' or 'metafantasy'. The psychological or the metaphysical aspects are the important themes of Grabinski's short stories.
An excerpt from the sort story THE GLANCE:
"Does the world which encompasses me exist at all? And if it indeed exists, is it not created by thoughts? Maybe everything is only a fiction of some deeply meditating ego? Somewhere out there in the beyond, someone is constantly, from time immemorial, thinking - and the entire world, and with it the poor little human race, is a product of this perpetual reverie."
In this story, the main character is always on the look out for the 'unknown' beyond any open door or a street corner. He is frightened of encountering it. When at the end he gathers courage to encounter it, he dies. An interesting concept that speaks of reality that is beyond death (that is, if there is a reality). Grabinski rightly includes both opinions. But the main character is haunted by the 'mystery' throughout his life.
For psychofantasy, the first story (FUMES) is an excellent example. What would a person do with his mind when he finds in a lonely cottage with a young girl? Or what would he do with his mind when he finds himself with a newly married couple in a train compartment? The answers he gives are psychologically chilling and revealing.
Thus we get the answer for the title - THE DARK DOMAIN. The mind is the dark domain. The thoughts it engenders can be very destructive if turned into reality. Just imagine, if all our thoughts turned into realities. Grabinski plays with that idea and creates stories that can be classified as horror genre. There we have the answer. If all the thoughts turn into realities the world will be filled with horrors.
Also treated are the themes related to such themes, such as, life force, moral responsibility, conscience, and reality/illusion.
I have not said everything of the writer or of this collection. Each story can be singularly analysed too? For instance, there is a story in which a person travelling in the train asks this following question: What is the use of this velocity if it fails to remove us from the bondage of this earth? There is a story in which a watch maker questions the reality of time - is it better to leave it just like that (free flow of Duration) or to divide it into months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds and mechanize life? There is a story in which confirming the Biblical statement 'the dead bury the dead'.
As I said earlier, an interesting collection.
It is an interesting collection of short stories. It is interesting because the short stories are supposed to be 'psychofantasy' or 'metafantasy'. The psychological or the metaphysical aspects are the important themes of Grabinski's short stories.
An excerpt from the sort story THE GLANCE:
"Does the world which encompasses me exist at all? And if it indeed exists, is it not created by thoughts? Maybe everything is only a fiction of some deeply meditating ego? Somewhere out there in the beyond, someone is constantly, from time immemorial, thinking - and the entire world, and with it the poor little human race, is a product of this perpetual reverie."
In this story, the main character is always on the look out for the 'unknown' beyond any open door or a street corner. He is frightened of encountering it. When at the end he gathers courage to encounter it, he dies. An interesting concept that speaks of reality that is beyond death (that is, if there is a reality). Grabinski rightly includes both opinions. But the main character is haunted by the 'mystery' throughout his life.
For psychofantasy, the first story (FUMES) is an excellent example. What would a person do with his mind when he finds in a lonely cottage with a young girl? Or what would he do with his mind when he finds himself with a newly married couple in a train compartment? The answers he gives are psychologically chilling and revealing.
Thus we get the answer for the title - THE DARK DOMAIN. The mind is the dark domain. The thoughts it engenders can be very destructive if turned into reality. Just imagine, if all our thoughts turned into realities. Grabinski plays with that idea and creates stories that can be classified as horror genre. There we have the answer. If all the thoughts turn into realities the world will be filled with horrors.
Also treated are the themes related to such themes, such as, life force, moral responsibility, conscience, and reality/illusion.
I have not said everything of the writer or of this collection. Each story can be singularly analysed too? For instance, there is a story in which a person travelling in the train asks this following question: What is the use of this velocity if it fails to remove us from the bondage of this earth? There is a story in which a watch maker questions the reality of time - is it better to leave it just like that (free flow of Duration) or to divide it into months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds and mechanize life? There is a story in which confirming the Biblical statement 'the dead bury the dead'.
As I said earlier, an interesting collection.
December 25, 2012
Introduction
"Fumes"
"The Motion Demon"
"The Area"
"A Tale of the Gravedigger"
"Szamota's Mistress"
"The Wandering Train"
"Strabismus"
"Vengeance of the Elementals"
"In the Compartment"
"Saturnin Sektor"
"The Glance"
Afterword
This book is a collection of short stories by a great Polish writer of supernatural fiction who was virtually unknown in the English speaking world for decades. Lovecraft, for example, in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" makes no mention of Grabinski. The translation and Introduction is by Miroslaw Lipinski, and the afterword is by Madeleine Johnston.
Some stories, such as "A Tale of the Gravedigger" and "Szamota's Mistress" are close to the traditional Gothic tale. But his other stories are marked by striking original--for the time--conceptions. Also, some stories have a strong erotic component, more so than many stories written by other weird fiction writers. The story "In the Compartment" probably is a fine piece of erotic writing, though perhaps is the weakest story in the book, for there is no fantastical element in the story, nor any plot twists.
The stories in this book are like something that might have arisen from a collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Thomas Ligotti. Well written stories of metaphysical horror--stories about time, personal identity, the nature of reality, the discovery of hitherto secret patterns.
Other stories have trains as a theme. This theme is a favorite of mine. Trains were a major mode of transportation for Grabinski and many of his fellow citizens. Here too, the train stories have original conceptions.
Other works by Grabinski have been translated into English, while others, I understand, are still undergoing translation, such as a collection of short stories with fire as its theme.
"Fumes"
"The Motion Demon"
"The Area"
"A Tale of the Gravedigger"
"Szamota's Mistress"
"The Wandering Train"
"Strabismus"
"Vengeance of the Elementals"
"In the Compartment"
"Saturnin Sektor"
"The Glance"
Afterword
This book is a collection of short stories by a great Polish writer of supernatural fiction who was virtually unknown in the English speaking world for decades. Lovecraft, for example, in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" makes no mention of Grabinski. The translation and Introduction is by Miroslaw Lipinski, and the afterword is by Madeleine Johnston.
Some stories, such as "A Tale of the Gravedigger" and "Szamota's Mistress" are close to the traditional Gothic tale. But his other stories are marked by striking original--for the time--conceptions. Also, some stories have a strong erotic component, more so than many stories written by other weird fiction writers. The story "In the Compartment" probably is a fine piece of erotic writing, though perhaps is the weakest story in the book, for there is no fantastical element in the story, nor any plot twists.
The stories in this book are like something that might have arisen from a collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Thomas Ligotti. Well written stories of metaphysical horror--stories about time, personal identity, the nature of reality, the discovery of hitherto secret patterns.
Other stories have trains as a theme. This theme is a favorite of mine. Trains were a major mode of transportation for Grabinski and many of his fellow citizens. Here too, the train stories have original conceptions.
Other works by Grabinski have been translated into English, while others, I understand, are still undergoing translation, such as a collection of short stories with fire as its theme.
November 16, 2008
Always interesting to read another culture's attempts at horror and supernatural fiction and this is some of the best yet.
You could make a strange connection between Grabinski and Algernon Blackwood, although in Grabinski's case the enormous, implacable forces mankind faces off against are elemental physical energies like Fire, Motion, etc. instead of the rural, naturalistic, quasi-pagan forces of Blackwood. You could also make an assertion that Grabinski is oddly allied with the Futurist movement, although he has none of their telltale fascism or interest in exploding typography and the destruction of the presentation of text. What he does have is this fascination with mankind locked in battle with the physics of matter, and one could see the "force lines" of a Boccioni painting emitting from the visuals in some Grabinski stories. Exceedingly modern for its time.
Definitely worth reading for those looking to expand their horizons on what constitutes horror and weird fiction.
You could make a strange connection between Grabinski and Algernon Blackwood, although in Grabinski's case the enormous, implacable forces mankind faces off against are elemental physical energies like Fire, Motion, etc. instead of the rural, naturalistic, quasi-pagan forces of Blackwood. You could also make an assertion that Grabinski is oddly allied with the Futurist movement, although he has none of their telltale fascism or interest in exploding typography and the destruction of the presentation of text. What he does have is this fascination with mankind locked in battle with the physics of matter, and one could see the "force lines" of a Boccioni painting emitting from the visuals in some Grabinski stories. Exceedingly modern for its time.
Definitely worth reading for those looking to expand their horizons on what constitutes horror and weird fiction.
January 26, 2011
Until now I’d avoided naming a favorite author because I hadn’t read enough of any one author’s work to warrant a qualified, sincere opinion on my part. However, I can now enthusiastically say I have one! Yes, my opinion is based on this collection of Grabinski’s short stories alone, but when you stumble across something good, you know it!
I hesitate to mention that Grabinski's work is described as supernatural or fantastic writing as I find classifying it as such is way too confining for what he dug up & entertained us with from the other side of the mind. He not only entertained us with supernatural storytelling, but peeled back the layers of the psyche for a wonderful journey of the mind on many levels. He brought to life the connection of the human’s internal energies with external energies such as speed & motion (In the Compartment). He had me fanning my flushed face with his erotic writing (Fumes, In the Compartment, Szamota’s Mistress). He even tapped that part of the brain that translates optic images as basic as shapes & angles to emotional responses (The Glance). He shrewdly & systematically portrayed the struggling, opposing forces potentially present within each of us (Strabismus). He had a peripheral vision-type mind’s eye when developing the elementals in Vengeance of the Elementals (that is the elementals were always visible, but not when looked for in a straightforward way).
I also hesitate to mention that Grabinski is referred to as the Polish Edgar Allan Poe (as much as I respect Poe) because Grabinksi’s work quite capably stands on its own without being compared to ANYONE.
I frequently had to pause while reading these short stories to have a good laugh or to release my amazement verbally over a thought process or angle Grabinski took in describing something. He had me hooked with the first story & never lost me. An amazingly interesting mind!
I hesitate to mention that Grabinski's work is described as supernatural or fantastic writing as I find classifying it as such is way too confining for what he dug up & entertained us with from the other side of the mind. He not only entertained us with supernatural storytelling, but peeled back the layers of the psyche for a wonderful journey of the mind on many levels. He brought to life the connection of the human’s internal energies with external energies such as speed & motion (In the Compartment). He had me fanning my flushed face with his erotic writing (Fumes, In the Compartment, Szamota’s Mistress). He even tapped that part of the brain that translates optic images as basic as shapes & angles to emotional responses (The Glance). He shrewdly & systematically portrayed the struggling, opposing forces potentially present within each of us (Strabismus). He had a peripheral vision-type mind’s eye when developing the elementals in Vengeance of the Elementals (that is the elementals were always visible, but not when looked for in a straightforward way).
I also hesitate to mention that Grabinski is referred to as the Polish Edgar Allan Poe (as much as I respect Poe) because Grabinksi’s work quite capably stands on its own without being compared to ANYONE.
I frequently had to pause while reading these short stories to have a good laugh or to release my amazement verbally over a thought process or angle Grabinski took in describing something. He had me hooked with the first story & never lost me. An amazingly interesting mind!
July 8, 2018
These stories are a hundred years old and as fresh today as the day they were written; creepy and brilliant tales which I highly recommend if you like psychological horror in a literary style. My favourites in this collection are The Area and Szamota's Mistress.
May 4, 2021
4,6/5
April 12, 2022
Već na samom početku moram da kažem da su "Mračni predeli" jedna od najboljih zbirki priča u ediciji "Poetika strave".
Pored slikovitih opisa i ubedljivih dijaloga, ono što mi se posebno dopalo u ovoj knjizi je raznovrsnost strave Stefana Grabinjskog. On ne spada u one pisce koji su se opredelili da pišu o kosmičkoj stravi ili duhovima, već mi je ostavio utisak da je bio pisac koji je voleo da eksperimentiše, tako da ćete u ovoj zbirci pronaći priče o duhovima, lokalnim legendama, demonima, ali i one priče u kojima su naratori nepouzdani i oštećeni na neki način, zbog čega me je dosta podsetio na Poa.
Favoriti u ovoj knjizi su mi sledeće priče: U Sarinoj kući (savršenstvo pripovedanja, odlično iskorišćen biblijski motiv, maestralno opisana stravična scena), Crno selo (fenomenalni opisi sablasnog mesta koji lede krv u žilama i vidi se uticaj Edgara Alana Poa), Ultima Thule (priča o neobičnom daru koji bi se mogao nazvati i prokletstvom), Šamotina ljubavnica (jedna od najjezivih priča u knjizi zbog koje će mi ova zbirka uvek biti prepoznatljiva, jer je Grabinjski jedini horor pisac, pored Le Fanua, koji je za stravičnog lika izabrao fatalnu ženu) i Čađ (malo me je podsetila na početak filma "Sveto mesto" jer je tematika slična: zalutali putnik pronalazi jedino prenoćište usred noći, a domaćini se od samog početka ponašaju čudno).
Ne bih da vam kvarim doživljaj tako što ću prepričavati priče, jer smatram da je ovo dovoljno da vas ubedi da nabavite knjigu. Nema mnogo horor pisaca koji se podjednako dobro snalaze na različitim poljima strave, kao što je to vešto uradio Grabinjski.
Pored slikovitih opisa i ubedljivih dijaloga, ono što mi se posebno dopalo u ovoj knjizi je raznovrsnost strave Stefana Grabinjskog. On ne spada u one pisce koji su se opredelili da pišu o kosmičkoj stravi ili duhovima, već mi je ostavio utisak da je bio pisac koji je voleo da eksperimentiše, tako da ćete u ovoj zbirci pronaći priče o duhovima, lokalnim legendama, demonima, ali i one priče u kojima su naratori nepouzdani i oštećeni na neki način, zbog čega me je dosta podsetio na Poa.
Favoriti u ovoj knjizi su mi sledeće priče: U Sarinoj kući (savršenstvo pripovedanja, odlično iskorišćen biblijski motiv, maestralno opisana stravična scena), Crno selo (fenomenalni opisi sablasnog mesta koji lede krv u žilama i vidi se uticaj Edgara Alana Poa), Ultima Thule (priča o neobičnom daru koji bi se mogao nazvati i prokletstvom), Šamotina ljubavnica (jedna od najjezivih priča u knjizi zbog koje će mi ova zbirka uvek biti prepoznatljiva, jer je Grabinjski jedini horor pisac, pored Le Fanua, koji je za stravičnog lika izabrao fatalnu ženu) i Čađ (malo me je podsetila na početak filma "Sveto mesto" jer je tematika slična: zalutali putnik pronalazi jedino prenoćište usred noći, a domaćini se od samog početka ponašaju čudno).
Ne bih da vam kvarim doživljaj tako što ću prepričavati priče, jer smatram da je ovo dovoljno da vas ubedi da nabavite knjigu. Nema mnogo horor pisaca koji se podjednako dobro snalaze na različitim poljima strave, kao što je to vešto uradio Grabinjski.
April 10, 2022
2.36 ⭐
Књига коју бих пре волео да обучем или слушам, него да читам, али тесно ми га Грабињски скроји. Стил изграбуљан, а приче излизане, и обрнуто. Summa summarum, испушена муштикла. На насловници треба да стоји упозорење "атеисти стоп".
С почетка је било занимљиво вршити компарацију парних и електричних возова in situ (читајући у возу о возовима), пре но што се мој вагон одвојио и почео да клизи ка разуму, остављајући Стефана да клапара ка мрачном Дизниленду.
Како се зналачки пишу хорор приче видети у Мрачном карневалу Реја Бредберија.
Књига коју бих пре волео да обучем или слушам, него да читам, али тесно ми га Грабињски скроји. Стил изграбуљан, а приче излизане, и обрнуто. Summa summarum, испушена муштикла. На насловници треба да стоји упозорење "атеисти стоп".
С почетка је било занимљиво вршити компарацију парних и електричних возова in situ (читајући у возу о возовима), пре но што се мој вагон одвојио и почео да клизи ка разуму, остављајући Стефана да клапара ка мрачном Дизниленду.
Како се зналачки пишу хорор приче видети у Мрачном карневалу Реја Бредберија.
August 28, 2021
Year of New Authors
Have you ever read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as an adult and thought: 'why, I so do wish there was another collection of creepy and eclectic stories that swing between the deeply creepy and the deeply stupid, but for grown ups and covering most of the zeitgeist fears, rabid misogyny and train loving of an early 20th Century readership'?. Well one, that's oddly specific of you, and two, The Dark Domain most certainly provides.
Grabinski observes a miriade of mundane concepts or daily occurences and thinks 'what can I do to this relatable thing to make it naueously unnerving?' and he mostly succeeds. Taking clocks, trains, fire safety, squints, trains, gravestone architecture and trains (this guy wore an anarok), Grabinski covers them all in a shiny layer of itchy, drying slime. He incorporates the most overused tropes in horror literature and yet somehow manages to add a grimey, horrible twist to surprise and repulse. He still repeats himself, taking great delight in Tulpa-esque creatures and personal madness created through self-imposed solitude, and three of these stories involve the alluring power of trains, but he switches everything up just enough to keep your attention.
Best stories: Fumes and Vengeance of the Elementals
We've now left Praise, next stop: The Bollocks. Grabinski can get a little too wrapped up in the set-up of some stories, giving an over-explanation of his characters' psyche and leaving only a page or two at the end for a sudden whiplash of horror, so a few stories lack the necessary slow burn.
Many of Grabinski protagonists are indistinguishable, with all but one being a learned gentlemen bubbling with pressurised madness, anger issues and smarmy arrogance. Even that kind of works, since we read on happily knowing this horrible pillock will suffer and it's quite fun trying to guess where the steam is going to rupture from first.
Less fun and frankly indefensible is Grabinski's female characters, who almost exclusively take the role of succubus. That's it, they're just there for diabolical horniness and lack all other agency, which is not only distasteful but boring, since the mention of almost any female character made me sigh 'no surprises who the ghoul will be, woo-bloody-hoo'.
Worst stories: The Wandering Train and In the Compartment
Final stop, Conclusion-upon-Tweed:
I still enjoyed The Dark Domain, I greatly appreciate any book that takes the normal and defaces it with hairline fractures. I like any tale that leaves us guessing if nature and technology drive humanity mad, or mankind corrupts nature and poisons their inventions, and I adore them even more if the story directly asks us to face such philosophical questions.
Intriguing, repulsive and leaving you with the uncomfortable sensation that you've walked through a spider web, The Dark Domain is deserving of its rather cheesey name.
Have you ever read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as an adult and thought: 'why, I so do wish there was another collection of creepy and eclectic stories that swing between the deeply creepy and the deeply stupid, but for grown ups and covering most of the zeitgeist fears, rabid misogyny and train loving of an early 20th Century readership'?. Well one, that's oddly specific of you, and two, The Dark Domain most certainly provides.
Grabinski observes a miriade of mundane concepts or daily occurences and thinks 'what can I do to this relatable thing to make it naueously unnerving?' and he mostly succeeds. Taking clocks, trains, fire safety, squints, trains, gravestone architecture and trains (this guy wore an anarok), Grabinski covers them all in a shiny layer of itchy, drying slime. He incorporates the most overused tropes in horror literature and yet somehow manages to add a grimey, horrible twist to surprise and repulse. He still repeats himself, taking great delight in Tulpa-esque creatures and personal madness created through self-imposed solitude, and three of these stories involve the alluring power of trains, but he switches everything up just enough to keep your attention.
Best stories: Fumes and Vengeance of the Elementals
We've now left Praise, next stop: The Bollocks. Grabinski can get a little too wrapped up in the set-up of some stories, giving an over-explanation of his characters' psyche and leaving only a page or two at the end for a sudden whiplash of horror, so a few stories lack the necessary slow burn.
Many of Grabinski protagonists are indistinguishable, with all but one being a learned gentlemen bubbling with pressurised madness, anger issues and smarmy arrogance. Even that kind of works, since we read on happily knowing this horrible pillock will suffer and it's quite fun trying to guess where the steam is going to rupture from first.
Less fun and frankly indefensible is Grabinski's female characters, who almost exclusively take the role of succubus. That's it, they're just there for diabolical horniness and lack all other agency, which is not only distasteful but boring, since the mention of almost any female character made me sigh 'no surprises who the ghoul will be, woo-bloody-hoo'.
Worst stories: The Wandering Train and In the Compartment
Final stop, Conclusion-upon-Tweed:
I still enjoyed The Dark Domain, I greatly appreciate any book that takes the normal and defaces it with hairline fractures. I like any tale that leaves us guessing if nature and technology drive humanity mad, or mankind corrupts nature and poisons their inventions, and I adore them even more if the story directly asks us to face such philosophical questions.
Intriguing, repulsive and leaving you with the uncomfortable sensation that you've walked through a spider web, The Dark Domain is deserving of its rather cheesey name.
November 27, 2021
The book is appropriately titled, for indeed the stories in it are like entering the dark domain of the human mind. These 11 short stories compilation, are bizarre and dark, psychological horror.
Here's the list of stories in my order of preference -
The Glance
Saturnin Sektor
A Tale of the Gravedigger
Vengeance of the Elementals
Szamota's Mistress
The Area
In the Compartment
The Wandering Train
Strabismus
Fumes
The Motion Demon
Here's the list of stories in my order of preference -
The Glance
Saturnin Sektor
A Tale of the Gravedigger
Vengeance of the Elementals
Szamota's Mistress
The Area
In the Compartment
The Wandering Train
Strabismus
Fumes
The Motion Demon
September 25, 2015
I'm entirely convinced that if Lovecraft had known of Stefan Grabinski, he would have included him in his famous essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Occasionally I come across an obscure author from the past who truly surprises me, but it's rare. This is one of those cases.
I first heard of Grabinski after reading his impressive (and quite scary) story "The White Wyrak" in Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's anthology "The Weird." (The best horror and weird fiction anthology I've read, thus far.) This collection of his fiction wasn't overly lengthy, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Some have called Grabinski "the Polish Poe," or "the Polish Lovecraft," I wouldn't disagree. These certainly have a similar anguished, cold and clammy atmosphere of Poe, and the outre elements of Lovecraft.
These works aren't revolutionary but what I liked were stories like "Fumes," "Szamota’s Mistress" and "Strabismus" all take somewhat familiar horror themes and bring original ideas or spin them in ways that freshen up the whole story greatly. Some of these stories explored ideas I've never seen explored in horror. Grabinski doesn't shy away from queasily sexual themes at times either, which is surprising for the era in which he was writing. Several stories here I'd consider re-reading.
Fumes - A good ghost story, some rather nauseous sexuality and a fairly original idea which if I described it, wouldn't sound like it would work. But its quite effective. A young man caught in a snow storm seeks refuge at a small, isolated inn. There he meets a strange old man, and an equally strange beautiful woman -- both of which have an uncanny attraction to him.
The Motion Demon - A very weird little story, humorous with a bit of Kafka-esque absurdity. It has a decent, cerebral idea but isn't among the best here. A man stricken from time to time to set off and travel, often forgetting where he has gone, runs into the man he believes is responsible for his wanderlust.
The Area - This is probably the best story here. It skillfully builds up suspense and mood, then releases it first with appropriately creepy touches, and finally in a climactic finish. A horror writer who has gone into hermitage turns all his psychic focus onto an abandoned house, with horrific consequences.
A Tale of the Gravedigger - I'm not sure if this story was meant to have humor, but it certainly has a grim, gallows humor and a pulpy, over-the-top feel. After the mysterious gravedigger of a village disappears, it's inhabitants are plagued by phantoms, revealing a long-held dark secret.
Szamota’s Mistress - This was an excellent story, a bit of a variation on the succubus legend I suppose, but there's so many weird elements here that it's left pleasantly ambiguous. I like that it feels almost "predictable on purpose," because watching the horrific play out on the narrator is the horrific part of it. A man starts an affair with a woman he previously adored from afar, but she's hardly what she seems.
The Wandering Train - One can tell Grabinski had a thing for trains, this is a minor episode, but he makes the most of it, describing everything in detail. Railway workers are unnerved by the recent appearance of a phantom train which has nearly caused accidents.
Strabismus - Another great one. Yet again I thought I knew where the story was headed, but I was completely surprised by an original wild card Grabinski throws in. After inadvertently causing someone's death, a man finds he has adopted a new personality.
Vengeance of the Elementals - I didn't care for this one, it's not bad story but compared with the others it feels less original and memorable, and more predictable. A fire chief who is unharmed by fire is angering the elements, but continues to flaunt his imperviousness.
In the Compartment - A brief story of suspense more than horror, effective for what it is. A man who finds himself energized beyond his normal personality and self when riding on trains somehow finds the daring to attempt to steal another man's wife.
Saturnin Sektor - This is a really weird, open-ended story. It's actually a fairly deep story on paranoia and insanity, but I found I was more entertained by the overall mood and periphery elements than the rather open-ended plotline. A man recent released from an asylum finds that his manuscript refuting the existence of time is being publicly refuted -- yet he has yet to let anyone else read it.
The Glance - This is another great story, it gets at a deep, existential fear in clever ways which I have rarely seen used so effectively. Plenty of authors talk of the horrid just beyond our sight, but this story does it better than most. After a tragedy a man becomes convinced that there is a horrible reality hiding just beyond what he can see -- waiting to spring at him.
I first heard of Grabinski after reading his impressive (and quite scary) story "The White Wyrak" in Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's anthology "The Weird." (The best horror and weird fiction anthology I've read, thus far.) This collection of his fiction wasn't overly lengthy, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Some have called Grabinski "the Polish Poe," or "the Polish Lovecraft," I wouldn't disagree. These certainly have a similar anguished, cold and clammy atmosphere of Poe, and the outre elements of Lovecraft.
These works aren't revolutionary but what I liked were stories like "Fumes," "Szamota’s Mistress" and "Strabismus" all take somewhat familiar horror themes and bring original ideas or spin them in ways that freshen up the whole story greatly. Some of these stories explored ideas I've never seen explored in horror. Grabinski doesn't shy away from queasily sexual themes at times either, which is surprising for the era in which he was writing. Several stories here I'd consider re-reading.
Fumes - A good ghost story, some rather nauseous sexuality and a fairly original idea which if I described it, wouldn't sound like it would work. But its quite effective. A young man caught in a snow storm seeks refuge at a small, isolated inn. There he meets a strange old man, and an equally strange beautiful woman -- both of which have an uncanny attraction to him.
The Motion Demon - A very weird little story, humorous with a bit of Kafka-esque absurdity. It has a decent, cerebral idea but isn't among the best here. A man stricken from time to time to set off and travel, often forgetting where he has gone, runs into the man he believes is responsible for his wanderlust.
The Area - This is probably the best story here. It skillfully builds up suspense and mood, then releases it first with appropriately creepy touches, and finally in a climactic finish. A horror writer who has gone into hermitage turns all his psychic focus onto an abandoned house, with horrific consequences.
A Tale of the Gravedigger - I'm not sure if this story was meant to have humor, but it certainly has a grim, gallows humor and a pulpy, over-the-top feel. After the mysterious gravedigger of a village disappears, it's inhabitants are plagued by phantoms, revealing a long-held dark secret.
Szamota’s Mistress - This was an excellent story, a bit of a variation on the succubus legend I suppose, but there's so many weird elements here that it's left pleasantly ambiguous. I like that it feels almost "predictable on purpose," because watching the horrific play out on the narrator is the horrific part of it. A man starts an affair with a woman he previously adored from afar, but she's hardly what she seems.
The Wandering Train - One can tell Grabinski had a thing for trains, this is a minor episode, but he makes the most of it, describing everything in detail. Railway workers are unnerved by the recent appearance of a phantom train which has nearly caused accidents.
Strabismus - Another great one. Yet again I thought I knew where the story was headed, but I was completely surprised by an original wild card Grabinski throws in. After inadvertently causing someone's death, a man finds he has adopted a new personality.
Vengeance of the Elementals - I didn't care for this one, it's not bad story but compared with the others it feels less original and memorable, and more predictable. A fire chief who is unharmed by fire is angering the elements, but continues to flaunt his imperviousness.
In the Compartment - A brief story of suspense more than horror, effective for what it is. A man who finds himself energized beyond his normal personality and self when riding on trains somehow finds the daring to attempt to steal another man's wife.
Saturnin Sektor - This is a really weird, open-ended story. It's actually a fairly deep story on paranoia and insanity, but I found I was more entertained by the overall mood and periphery elements than the rather open-ended plotline. A man recent released from an asylum finds that his manuscript refuting the existence of time is being publicly refuted -- yet he has yet to let anyone else read it.
The Glance - This is another great story, it gets at a deep, existential fear in clever ways which I have rarely seen used so effectively. Plenty of authors talk of the horrid just beyond our sight, but this story does it better than most. After a tragedy a man becomes convinced that there is a horrible reality hiding just beyond what he can see -- waiting to spring at him.
April 2, 2019
and to think these were written in the early years of the 1900's... quite amazing... frenzied sexual debauchery, trains, madness, modernity and its perils, doom and gloom atmospherics, and more trains, muscular imagery, quite stereotypical masculine eye, and exclamation points, a lot of them :)
the guilty parties...
+ Fumes - great sense of atmosphere, overtly sexual
+ The Motion Demon - modernity as evil force
+ The Area - autobiographical, seemingly… overcome your fictional self?
+ A Tale of the Gravedigger - zombie tale
+ Szamota’s Mistress - sex and death, or sex with the dead?
+ The Wandering Train - devil train?
+ Strabismus - inner war of personality/self; madness and isolation?
+ Vengeance of the Elementals - strange “academic/mythological” treatment of fire, and one man’s attempt to assume it as his identity…
+ In the Compartment - addiction via train/travel; frenzied, unbridled sex, and guilt…
+ Saturnin Sektor - another tale of insanity/imbalance
+ The Glance - reminded me of the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, in that do we create/destroy reality by addressing/refusing it?
highly recommended collection... the reader is left with a lot to think about, and quite likely a few things they'd rather forget... yes!
the guilty parties...
+ Fumes - great sense of atmosphere, overtly sexual
+ The Motion Demon - modernity as evil force
+ The Area - autobiographical, seemingly… overcome your fictional self?
+ A Tale of the Gravedigger - zombie tale
+ Szamota’s Mistress - sex and death, or sex with the dead?
+ The Wandering Train - devil train?
+ Strabismus - inner war of personality/self; madness and isolation?
+ Vengeance of the Elementals - strange “academic/mythological” treatment of fire, and one man’s attempt to assume it as his identity…
+ In the Compartment - addiction via train/travel; frenzied, unbridled sex, and guilt…
+ Saturnin Sektor - another tale of insanity/imbalance
+ The Glance - reminded me of the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, in that do we create/destroy reality by addressing/refusing it?
highly recommended collection... the reader is left with a lot to think about, and quite likely a few things they'd rather forget... yes!
May 22, 2024
A fairly obscure collection of stories written early 20th century by a definitely obscure Polish author. It was chosen as the Weird Fiction group’s monthly read in April 2024 after I nominated it. I did so partly because I tend to enjoy books from this time period and partly because it intrigued me when I saw that it was written by a Polish author who is compared to Poe and Lovecraft. I was intrigued even further when I noticed that he’s supposed to have written dark, gothic, weird supernatural fiction with underexplored themes (at the time). That’s my favorite kind of literature right there, so I had high hopes that I had found a gem. In some ways, it did live up to my expectations, but in other ways, it unfortunately did not.
The introduction in my edition is written by the translator Miroslaw Lipinski, who gave me some insights into Grabinski’s personal and literary life. Grabinski seems to have received very little recognition for his works, which is unfortunate. It says he didn’t “court critics and the public”, but seems to have been “an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces” (7). I feel for him. Generally, I have an affinity for the misunderstood, under-appreciated author who walks a solitary literary journey on the outskirts of popular culture with their own peculiar, fascinating artistic vision of some unexplainable, mysterious things. So, I’m easily drawn to writers like Grabinski. He seemed like a fascinating man with a twisted mind obsessed with something called the “dark domain” buried deep in our subconsciousness and subsumed in our very existence.
This collection, then, attracted me with its dark, mysterious allure. There’s a blend of both the gloomiest and the most piquant of literary genres and themes. Some of his stories are more gothic, others more psychological or metaphysical, others more gory or sexual or obsessive, even surreal, but most of them are stark, vivid and have a weird edge to them. And includes either supernatural monsters, a character going mad or trains. Of course.
At the same time, I see that there’s an exploratory and experimental approach to his stories, where he spends considerable time and energy into a specific theme or concept. In the spirit of Grabinski himself, I’ll simply call it a tunnel vision, because, you know, he liked trains. And it can be a wild ride sometimes where it tickles in your belly and your blood is pumping from all that momentum and high, forceful speed. Other times, you recognize that you don’t see anything at all. No scenery, nothing at all that makes any sense, and sometimes the train stops in the middle of the tunnel. As such, in several stories here, it seems like Grabinski tried to explore a something deep or cool, which is intelligent and exciting at first, but then he ultimately failed to present his findings or come to any conclusion – leaving a lot more to be desired – ending up not taking his reader anywhere and ultimately leaves us in the dark. I do love weird fiction for its experimental, unpredictable or shocking nature. I love the bewilderment of it all, and this approach can be executed in an excellent manner, to great effect, but there has to be an atmospheric, poetic or deeply psychological foundation there that I can enjoy when I’m bewildered. You know, that thrill of both the heart and the mind! Fortunately, there were times when he did succeed in giving me that as well.
Here are my ratings with some commentary:
“Fumes” – ★★★★
A man seeks shelter from a snowstorm in unfamiliar lands and finds it in a house with two unusually friendly people. I can’t say much without giving too much away, but it’s a bit creepy, a bit erotic (although very sexist), and a bit gory. (Specific parts of this reminded me of “Mother of Toads” by Clark Ashton Smith. Yes, do read that one. It’s spicy!) The opening paragraph impressed me, though. I know it's a translation, but I could read epic descriptive sentences like that all day. Very atmospheric and vivid. Striking, even.
“A new herd of gusts advanced from the ravines, and set loose over snow-covered fields, they ploughed their enraged heads through the snowbanks. Raised from its soft bedding, the snow whirled in huge cyclones, bottomless funnels, slender whips, and, wrapping itself up in a hundred-fold repeated whirlpool, sprayed out white, granular powder.” (13)
Ah, he made the elements come alive! The first page, however, is a sharp contrast to the rest of the story, which is nothing like that. The rest of the prose here (most of it) was much simpler or cruder, and I wish he’d been more consistent with his style to make it more cohesive and not give readers the wrong impression/expectations. He did things like that several times throughout the collection, which was a bit frustrating, but I still enjoyed this particular story a lot overall.
There’s supposed to be some commentary on genderfluidity here, by the way, according to other reviewers, but I just didn’t see it. Oh well.
“The engineer stared at the dying redness, and dozed. Time lengthened terribly. Every moment he raised his heavy eyelids and, overcoming sleepiness, fixed his eyes at the roving glimmer in the abyss. In his confused thoughts the figures of the lascivious old man and Makryna alternated, by the law of psychic relationship flowing into some strange whole, into some chimerical alloy, brought about by their mutual lasciviousness; their words, odd expressions, their successive appearances unreeled chaotically in a manifest, though not reasonable, arrangement. From covered thickets emerged previously hatched questions, now indolently seeking explanation. Everything loitered about, got entangled along the road, everything jostled sluggishly, sleepily and absurdly…” (21)
“The Motion Demon” – ★★★
A story about a man who, at random intervals, comes under the influence of “cosmic and elemental forces” which makes him travel by train in a kind of hypnotic state, waking up later with no memory of the actual trip. This premise is very interesting and promising, but he then just ends up having an argument with someone over speed, movement and time. Grabinski raises some interesting questions, but the ending is too abrupt and unsatisfying, and I wish he'd kept chugging along the same track of the first half rather than changing tracks into a dead end. None of his ideas are developed any further, and I think it was really getting somewhere. Lots of potential. And here seems to have been no apparent point to the supernatural element here too. Puzzling. I did like the way it was written, though, so not too bad.
“Szygon understood that me made his unusual journeys under the influence of cosmic and elemental forces, and that train travel was a childish compromise caused by the circumstances of his earthly environment. He realized only too well that if it weren’t for the sad fact that he was chained to the Earth and its laws, his travels, casting off the usual pattern and method, would take on exceedingly more active and beautiful form.” (29)
“The Area” – ★★★★★
One of my favorites! It’s about a man who seems to have the crippling condition of writer’s block, but there’s so much more beneath the surface. The introduction describes the protagonist here as Grabinski's fictional counterpart: “the dedicated artist who disdains the normal and separates himself from the public while advancing toward a realization of powerful, supernatural forces born of his own imagination. Like the character in this story, Grabinski was an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces in the most potent framework available - in Grabinski's case, supernatural fiction".
That's what's at stake here: his whole being. The meaning of his life. As an artist, there's a strong - potent - creative desire to fully express and realize works of art and in so doing, yourself. So, it's a constant dream, a freedom unlike any other. But Grabinski uses that understanding to explore the consequences of not being able to fulfil that desire, and how a deeply ingrained obsession in pursuit of it might manifest. It's truly harrowing in this story, because "absolute fulfilment would also be a complete release of one's energy, causing death through a surfeit of artistic exertion. Because the ideal, as is know, is in death (...) left alone, without a point of support on a real base, they can be fatal to their creator".
These ideas are explored to the extreme here, of course, but I feel like I understand where it's coming from, and I think he expressed it splendidly. I'd say I found it awe-inspiring.
“Something resided in these short and dense works that riveted the attention and fettered the soul; a powerful suggestion arose from these incisive compendium-like works – written in such a seemingly cold style, as if a reporter’s or a teacher’s – under which pulsated the fervour of a fanatic.” (40)
“A Tale of the Gravedigger” – ★★★
A tale about a gravedigger, told in two parts, it seems. It begins after his disappearance (demise?) and then goes back in time to when he first came to the town. The story deals with the subject of blasphemy in some ways, I think, but it’s mostly about the gravedigger’s life as a strange, mysterious man with a mask. It was bit confusing, the ending was disappointing, and I’m left with too many unanswered questions.
“The deeply sunken eyes stared out with what seemed cold death; the yellow, shrivelled skin merged with the tint of the jutting cheek bones; the hairless, earless skull shone with the smoothness of glazed tibias…” (58)
”Szamota's Mistress” - ★★★★
Pages from a discovered diary reveals the simultaneously harrowing and exciting last years of a secret admirer who finally meets the woman of his dreams. But eventually he discovers there’s something off about her. I liked the build-up a lot here, as it gradually became weirder, creepier and more erotic! It's ambiguous as well, and I don't think I have the answer to what really happened, but that's okay. I’m entertained.
"The Wandering Train" - ★★★★
A mysterious train appears in different places and the vanishes. A fellow weird fiction group member called this one “an atmospheric piece”, which is a perfect description of it. Short, but effectively weird and cool!
“Their outstretched hands indicate some unknown goal, an aim surely distant; their inclined bodies lean to the distance, to a stunning, misty land far away; and their eyes, glazed by wild alarm and enchantment, are lost in boundless space…” (83)
"Strabismus" - ★★
My least favorite story in the collection. I thought it was confusing and boring. There were parts that, again, seemed so promising in the first half: a deep character study with psychological trauma and identity and different states of mind etc., but everything fizzled out eventually. A bit frustrating!
«A tiny, rusty moustache, twirled rakishly upward, moved constantly, like the pincers of a poisonous scarabaeus – sharp, stinging, evil.” (84)
"Vengeance of the Elementals" - ★★★
Antoni is a fire chief with “a nose of and keen understanding of fire statistics” as well as being invulnerable to fire. He faces some kind of personal battle with fire elementals, but I don’t understand what kind of battle it is, and it’s ultimately quite underwhelming overall.
"In the Compartment" - ★★★
A train fanatic who loves riding trains so much it turns him on and makes him violent. Speed and motion and momentum are like drugs to him, and so, when he meets a married couple and is attracted to the woman, crazy things happen. I’m on the fence here. There were some interesting parts to this, but sadly, the other parts were a bit … basic, for the lack of a better word. Cool idea, though.
“Something resided in the essence of a speeding train which galvanized Godziemba’s weak nerves, stimulating strongly, but artificially, his faint life-force. A specific environment was created, a unique milieu of motion with its own laws, power and dangerous spirit. The motion of a locomotive was not just physically contagious; the momentum of an engine quickened his psychic pulse, it electrified his will – he became independent. ‘Train neurosis’ seemed to temporarily give this overly sensitive individual a forceful and positive energy. A moving train effected him like morphine injected into an addict’s veins.” (112)
"Saturnin Sektor" - ★★
The main character has written a secret treatise called “On the False Conception and Fictitiousness of Time” and someone else has apparently read it without his knowing and then written an article in the newspaper in direct rebuttal to his arguments. I’m very close to calling this an essay and not a short story, as it’s fairly analytic and metaphysical. Which surprisingly for me makes it even less interesting.
“Distant, misty lands unfold before me, enchanting precipices, unknown worlds with gloomy depths. I am visited by the dead, by processions of strange creatures and capricious elemental beings. One appears, the other leaves – ethereal, beautiful, dangerous…” (124)
"The Glance" - ★★★★★
Fortunately, the collection ends with a banger. Onodicz loses his wife to what might seem like a suicide and becomes paranoid in the aftermath. His paranoia suppresses his grief to the extreme, and he becomes haunted by delusions, crippled by fear of mystery, of what might lurk behind each corner or hide behind each surface. He gets rid of most things in his house and inevitably isolates himself completely. I appreciated Grabinski incorporating supernatural elements to that classic theme, making it more dualistic, open-ended and - most importantly - haunting. So, it's showing me a different aspect to grief than I've come to read about. Less weary, dreary and mournful - more dreadful, darkly burdensome and maddening.
“Any surprises which could eventually hide around the corner, now had enough time to mask themselves. That indefinite, heterogenous and bizarrely unfamiliar ‘something’, whose existence on the other side of the turn he felt deeply, could now – not caught unawares by his sudden appearance – hide with relative ease for a while, or, speaking in Odonicz’ expressive style, ‘dive under the surface’. For by then he didn’t doubt at all that there was something around the corner, something fundamentally different.” (139)
“‘Does the world which encompasses me exist at all? And if it indeed exists, is it not created by thoughts? Maybe everything is only a fiction of some deeply meditating ego? Somewhere out there in the beyond, someone is constantly, from time immemorial, thinking – and the entire world, and with it the poor little human race, is a product of this perpetual reverie.’” (145)
I see a lot of praise for Grabinski’s stories from other competent readers of weird fiction, but as you can see, I have mixed feelings. Reading everyone else’s reviews, this collection is like a perfect gift for weird fiction enthusiasts. And I see this cool-looking gift and get so excited. I grab it, starts to open it, but I then there’s one too many layers of wrapping to unpack, and when I’m done and see what’s inside, I get a little underwhelmed as I didn’t get exactly what I wished for. I’m not unhappy to have read this collection, not by any means, but I just wanted a little more consistency and resolve in his style and ideas and a little more of the uncanny and the weird.
The introduction in my edition is written by the translator Miroslaw Lipinski, who gave me some insights into Grabinski’s personal and literary life. Grabinski seems to have received very little recognition for his works, which is unfortunate. It says he didn’t “court critics and the public”, but seems to have been “an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces” (7). I feel for him. Generally, I have an affinity for the misunderstood, under-appreciated author who walks a solitary literary journey on the outskirts of popular culture with their own peculiar, fascinating artistic vision of some unexplainable, mysterious things. So, I’m easily drawn to writers like Grabinski. He seemed like a fascinating man with a twisted mind obsessed with something called the “dark domain” buried deep in our subconsciousness and subsumed in our very existence.
This collection, then, attracted me with its dark, mysterious allure. There’s a blend of both the gloomiest and the most piquant of literary genres and themes. Some of his stories are more gothic, others more psychological or metaphysical, others more gory or sexual or obsessive, even surreal, but most of them are stark, vivid and have a weird edge to them. And includes either supernatural monsters, a character going mad or trains. Of course.
At the same time, I see that there’s an exploratory and experimental approach to his stories, where he spends considerable time and energy into a specific theme or concept. In the spirit of Grabinski himself, I’ll simply call it a tunnel vision, because, you know, he liked trains. And it can be a wild ride sometimes where it tickles in your belly and your blood is pumping from all that momentum and high, forceful speed. Other times, you recognize that you don’t see anything at all. No scenery, nothing at all that makes any sense, and sometimes the train stops in the middle of the tunnel. As such, in several stories here, it seems like Grabinski tried to explore a something deep or cool, which is intelligent and exciting at first, but then he ultimately failed to present his findings or come to any conclusion – leaving a lot more to be desired – ending up not taking his reader anywhere and ultimately leaves us in the dark. I do love weird fiction for its experimental, unpredictable or shocking nature. I love the bewilderment of it all, and this approach can be executed in an excellent manner, to great effect, but there has to be an atmospheric, poetic or deeply psychological foundation there that I can enjoy when I’m bewildered. You know, that thrill of both the heart and the mind! Fortunately, there were times when he did succeed in giving me that as well.
Here are my ratings with some commentary:
“Fumes” – ★★★★
A man seeks shelter from a snowstorm in unfamiliar lands and finds it in a house with two unusually friendly people. I can’t say much without giving too much away, but it’s a bit creepy, a bit erotic (although very sexist), and a bit gory. (Specific parts of this reminded me of “Mother of Toads” by Clark Ashton Smith. Yes, do read that one. It’s spicy!) The opening paragraph impressed me, though. I know it's a translation, but I could read epic descriptive sentences like that all day. Very atmospheric and vivid. Striking, even.
“A new herd of gusts advanced from the ravines, and set loose over snow-covered fields, they ploughed their enraged heads through the snowbanks. Raised from its soft bedding, the snow whirled in huge cyclones, bottomless funnels, slender whips, and, wrapping itself up in a hundred-fold repeated whirlpool, sprayed out white, granular powder.” (13)
Ah, he made the elements come alive! The first page, however, is a sharp contrast to the rest of the story, which is nothing like that. The rest of the prose here (most of it) was much simpler or cruder, and I wish he’d been more consistent with his style to make it more cohesive and not give readers the wrong impression/expectations. He did things like that several times throughout the collection, which was a bit frustrating, but I still enjoyed this particular story a lot overall.
There’s supposed to be some commentary on genderfluidity here, by the way, according to other reviewers, but I just didn’t see it. Oh well.
“The engineer stared at the dying redness, and dozed. Time lengthened terribly. Every moment he raised his heavy eyelids and, overcoming sleepiness, fixed his eyes at the roving glimmer in the abyss. In his confused thoughts the figures of the lascivious old man and Makryna alternated, by the law of psychic relationship flowing into some strange whole, into some chimerical alloy, brought about by their mutual lasciviousness; their words, odd expressions, their successive appearances unreeled chaotically in a manifest, though not reasonable, arrangement. From covered thickets emerged previously hatched questions, now indolently seeking explanation. Everything loitered about, got entangled along the road, everything jostled sluggishly, sleepily and absurdly…” (21)
“The Motion Demon” – ★★★
A story about a man who, at random intervals, comes under the influence of “cosmic and elemental forces” which makes him travel by train in a kind of hypnotic state, waking up later with no memory of the actual trip. This premise is very interesting and promising, but he then just ends up having an argument with someone over speed, movement and time. Grabinski raises some interesting questions, but the ending is too abrupt and unsatisfying, and I wish he'd kept chugging along the same track of the first half rather than changing tracks into a dead end. None of his ideas are developed any further, and I think it was really getting somewhere. Lots of potential. And here seems to have been no apparent point to the supernatural element here too. Puzzling. I did like the way it was written, though, so not too bad.
“Szygon understood that me made his unusual journeys under the influence of cosmic and elemental forces, and that train travel was a childish compromise caused by the circumstances of his earthly environment. He realized only too well that if it weren’t for the sad fact that he was chained to the Earth and its laws, his travels, casting off the usual pattern and method, would take on exceedingly more active and beautiful form.” (29)
“The Area” – ★★★★★
One of my favorites! It’s about a man who seems to have the crippling condition of writer’s block, but there’s so much more beneath the surface. The introduction describes the protagonist here as Grabinski's fictional counterpart: “the dedicated artist who disdains the normal and separates himself from the public while advancing toward a realization of powerful, supernatural forces born of his own imagination. Like the character in this story, Grabinski was an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces in the most potent framework available - in Grabinski's case, supernatural fiction".
That's what's at stake here: his whole being. The meaning of his life. As an artist, there's a strong - potent - creative desire to fully express and realize works of art and in so doing, yourself. So, it's a constant dream, a freedom unlike any other. But Grabinski uses that understanding to explore the consequences of not being able to fulfil that desire, and how a deeply ingrained obsession in pursuit of it might manifest. It's truly harrowing in this story, because "absolute fulfilment would also be a complete release of one's energy, causing death through a surfeit of artistic exertion. Because the ideal, as is know, is in death (...) left alone, without a point of support on a real base, they can be fatal to their creator".
These ideas are explored to the extreme here, of course, but I feel like I understand where it's coming from, and I think he expressed it splendidly. I'd say I found it awe-inspiring.
“Something resided in these short and dense works that riveted the attention and fettered the soul; a powerful suggestion arose from these incisive compendium-like works – written in such a seemingly cold style, as if a reporter’s or a teacher’s – under which pulsated the fervour of a fanatic.” (40)
“A Tale of the Gravedigger” – ★★★
A tale about a gravedigger, told in two parts, it seems. It begins after his disappearance (demise?) and then goes back in time to when he first came to the town. The story deals with the subject of blasphemy in some ways, I think, but it’s mostly about the gravedigger’s life as a strange, mysterious man with a mask. It was bit confusing, the ending was disappointing, and I’m left with too many unanswered questions.
“The deeply sunken eyes stared out with what seemed cold death; the yellow, shrivelled skin merged with the tint of the jutting cheek bones; the hairless, earless skull shone with the smoothness of glazed tibias…” (58)
”Szamota's Mistress” - ★★★★
Pages from a discovered diary reveals the simultaneously harrowing and exciting last years of a secret admirer who finally meets the woman of his dreams. But eventually he discovers there’s something off about her. I liked the build-up a lot here, as it gradually became weirder, creepier and more erotic! It's ambiguous as well, and I don't think I have the answer to what really happened, but that's okay. I’m entertained.
"The Wandering Train" - ★★★★
A mysterious train appears in different places and the vanishes. A fellow weird fiction group member called this one “an atmospheric piece”, which is a perfect description of it. Short, but effectively weird and cool!
“Their outstretched hands indicate some unknown goal, an aim surely distant; their inclined bodies lean to the distance, to a stunning, misty land far away; and their eyes, glazed by wild alarm and enchantment, are lost in boundless space…” (83)
"Strabismus" - ★★
My least favorite story in the collection. I thought it was confusing and boring. There were parts that, again, seemed so promising in the first half: a deep character study with psychological trauma and identity and different states of mind etc., but everything fizzled out eventually. A bit frustrating!
«A tiny, rusty moustache, twirled rakishly upward, moved constantly, like the pincers of a poisonous scarabaeus – sharp, stinging, evil.” (84)
"Vengeance of the Elementals" - ★★★
Antoni is a fire chief with “a nose of and keen understanding of fire statistics” as well as being invulnerable to fire. He faces some kind of personal battle with fire elementals, but I don’t understand what kind of battle it is, and it’s ultimately quite underwhelming overall.
"In the Compartment" - ★★★
A train fanatic who loves riding trains so much it turns him on and makes him violent. Speed and motion and momentum are like drugs to him, and so, when he meets a married couple and is attracted to the woman, crazy things happen. I’m on the fence here. There were some interesting parts to this, but sadly, the other parts were a bit … basic, for the lack of a better word. Cool idea, though.
“Something resided in the essence of a speeding train which galvanized Godziemba’s weak nerves, stimulating strongly, but artificially, his faint life-force. A specific environment was created, a unique milieu of motion with its own laws, power and dangerous spirit. The motion of a locomotive was not just physically contagious; the momentum of an engine quickened his psychic pulse, it electrified his will – he became independent. ‘Train neurosis’ seemed to temporarily give this overly sensitive individual a forceful and positive energy. A moving train effected him like morphine injected into an addict’s veins.” (112)
"Saturnin Sektor" - ★★
The main character has written a secret treatise called “On the False Conception and Fictitiousness of Time” and someone else has apparently read it without his knowing and then written an article in the newspaper in direct rebuttal to his arguments. I’m very close to calling this an essay and not a short story, as it’s fairly analytic and metaphysical. Which surprisingly for me makes it even less interesting.
“Distant, misty lands unfold before me, enchanting precipices, unknown worlds with gloomy depths. I am visited by the dead, by processions of strange creatures and capricious elemental beings. One appears, the other leaves – ethereal, beautiful, dangerous…” (124)
"The Glance" - ★★★★★
Fortunately, the collection ends with a banger. Onodicz loses his wife to what might seem like a suicide and becomes paranoid in the aftermath. His paranoia suppresses his grief to the extreme, and he becomes haunted by delusions, crippled by fear of mystery, of what might lurk behind each corner or hide behind each surface. He gets rid of most things in his house and inevitably isolates himself completely. I appreciated Grabinski incorporating supernatural elements to that classic theme, making it more dualistic, open-ended and - most importantly - haunting. So, it's showing me a different aspect to grief than I've come to read about. Less weary, dreary and mournful - more dreadful, darkly burdensome and maddening.
“Any surprises which could eventually hide around the corner, now had enough time to mask themselves. That indefinite, heterogenous and bizarrely unfamiliar ‘something’, whose existence on the other side of the turn he felt deeply, could now – not caught unawares by his sudden appearance – hide with relative ease for a while, or, speaking in Odonicz’ expressive style, ‘dive under the surface’. For by then he didn’t doubt at all that there was something around the corner, something fundamentally different.” (139)
“‘Does the world which encompasses me exist at all? And if it indeed exists, is it not created by thoughts? Maybe everything is only a fiction of some deeply meditating ego? Somewhere out there in the beyond, someone is constantly, from time immemorial, thinking – and the entire world, and with it the poor little human race, is a product of this perpetual reverie.’” (145)
I see a lot of praise for Grabinski’s stories from other competent readers of weird fiction, but as you can see, I have mixed feelings. Reading everyone else’s reviews, this collection is like a perfect gift for weird fiction enthusiasts. And I see this cool-looking gift and get so excited. I grab it, starts to open it, but I then there’s one too many layers of wrapping to unpack, and when I’m done and see what’s inside, I get a little underwhelmed as I didn’t get exactly what I wished for. I’m not unhappy to have read this collection, not by any means, but I just wanted a little more consistency and resolve in his style and ideas and a little more of the uncanny and the weird.
August 6, 2024
These stories only came in three flavors, the first being what I will call "train horny". The second being "spiritual invasion the two for one" and the third being "creating your own demise".
Train horny should be self-explanatory. This guy really liked trains. Ghost trains, mad demons who ride trains and even the seduction which leads to murder on trains. I'm finished.
Second, the spiritual invasion theme is having a nemesis- abstract or seemingly flesh and blood- torment you until it becomes you. I dug these stories a little more because they were of a deeper probing philosophy of the myth of Janus. One of them includes a foot fetish bit which would have gotten a thumbs up from Tarantino.
Last, but the best, were the creating your own demise stories which one is clearly autobiographical and has some of the best spooky imagery in the book. Another has a perfect lover who keeps the narrator waiting and shows up wrapped more and more in veils and giving less and less of herself. Thirsty, for sure, but a fantastically creepy ending.
Wild, but tame for my modern tastes. Great if you like trains though.
Train horny should be self-explanatory. This guy really liked trains. Ghost trains, mad demons who ride trains and even the seduction which leads to murder on trains. I'm finished.
Second, the spiritual invasion theme is having a nemesis- abstract or seemingly flesh and blood- torment you until it becomes you. I dug these stories a little more because they were of a deeper probing philosophy of the myth of Janus. One of them includes a foot fetish bit which would have gotten a thumbs up from Tarantino.
Last, but the best, were the creating your own demise stories which one is clearly autobiographical and has some of the best spooky imagery in the book. Another has a perfect lover who keeps the narrator waiting and shows up wrapped more and more in veils and giving less and less of herself. Thirsty, for sure, but a fantastically creepy ending.
Wild, but tame for my modern tastes. Great if you like trains though.
October 19, 2017
A ghoulishly good read. Grabiński obviously had quite the inventive imagination, and I enjoy his prose (also nice to see a horror/supernatural writer from that era not afraid to lace his fiction with sex). "The Area" in particular was very modern... wouldn't look out of place in a Thomas Ligotti book.
October 1, 2017
Demons that feed on motion, a strange encounter in a remote inn, an author whose unborn characters wreak their revenge, a necromantic romance, and more. A luscious and decadent buffet of weird tales from underappreciated Polish author Stefan Grabinski. Go, read, revel, enjoy.
February 19, 2008
This is a collection of eleven very good short "macabre fantasy" stories from the undeservedly obscure writer that (wikipedia at least) calls the Polish Poe. Despite a handful of stories that riff on tried and true ghost story themes (but how could you see her - Jadwiga has been dead for two years!) there was quite a lot of very original and imaginative stuff here, like a fire chief who figures out that fire elementals are communicating with him, or the wonderfully paranoid Saturnin Sektor, where a man recently released from an insane asylum fights his nemesis, the ancient god Saturn (or does he?)
A few of these stories are also exceedingly erotic, including a scene in the wonderful story In the Compartment that almost borders on softcore erotica.
A few of these stories are also exceedingly erotic, including a scene in the wonderful story In the Compartment that almost borders on softcore erotica.
February 8, 2017
Cold, erotic, elliptical and fascinating. This author somewhat changed how I perceive trains. In Grabinski's stories motion, sexuality and the elements control the lives of his oblivious puppets.
The Glance was my favourite tale.
The Glance was my favourite tale.
April 17, 2015
Very neat short stories, would like to read more of them.
"And yet, after his thorough examination, which lasted more than a month, Master Vincent showed that behind the pious, seemingly dignified works of art was hidden a sacrilege exhibiting truly devilish skill. The monuments, the marble sarcophagi and family tombs were one uninterrupted chain of blasphemies and satanic concepts. From behind the hieratical poses of tomb angels appeared the vulgar gesture of a demon, on lips bevelled with suffering flickered an illusive smile of cynicism. Statues of women, bending with the agony of despair, aroused the libido with sumptuous bodies, unfurled hair, hypocritically bare breasts.
The larger compositions, formed of several figures, created the impression of a double meaning, as if the sculptor had intentionally chosen risqué themes, for the boundary between lofty suffering and lewdness was ambiguous. The least amount of doubt, however, was awakened by the inscriptions – those celebrated Foscara stanzas whose solemn cadences were admired by all lovers of poetry. These verses, when read backwards from bottom to top, were a scandalous, completely cynical denial of what was proclaimed in the opposite direction. They were rank paeans of honour for Satan and his obscene affairs, hymns of blasphemy against God and the saints, immoral songs of falernian wine and street harlots."
---
" The gloomy elegance of the house captivated him from the first moment he had occupied his new abode. At the end of a black double row of cypresses, their two lines containing a stone pathway, appeared a several-stepped terrace where a weighty, stylized double door led to the interior. Across the iron railing that surrounded the mansion, the wings of the house were losing colour. Sickly and sad walls, coated with a pale-greenish paint, peered out from inside. From underneath the garden, treacherously concealed humidity crawled out here and there with dark oozing. Once carefully cultivated flowers had with time lost the orderliness of their arrangement. Only two eternal fountains quietly wept, shedding water from marble basins onto clusters of rich, red roses. Only a muscular Triton on the left side continually raised his hand in the same gesture of greeting to a limber Harpy who, leaning from a marble cistern on the other side, enticed him for many years with the lure of a divine body; in vain, because they were separated by the mournful cypresses … .
The celadon villa gave the impression of dismal loneliness, abandoned by its inhabitants a long time ago and isolated from neighbouring buildings. It ended the street; there were no other houses beyond it – only wide bands of marshy meadows, fallows, and, in the distance, beech woods that turned black during winter and a rust-colour during autumn …"
"And yet, after his thorough examination, which lasted more than a month, Master Vincent showed that behind the pious, seemingly dignified works of art was hidden a sacrilege exhibiting truly devilish skill. The monuments, the marble sarcophagi and family tombs were one uninterrupted chain of blasphemies and satanic concepts. From behind the hieratical poses of tomb angels appeared the vulgar gesture of a demon, on lips bevelled with suffering flickered an illusive smile of cynicism. Statues of women, bending with the agony of despair, aroused the libido with sumptuous bodies, unfurled hair, hypocritically bare breasts.
The larger compositions, formed of several figures, created the impression of a double meaning, as if the sculptor had intentionally chosen risqué themes, for the boundary between lofty suffering and lewdness was ambiguous. The least amount of doubt, however, was awakened by the inscriptions – those celebrated Foscara stanzas whose solemn cadences were admired by all lovers of poetry. These verses, when read backwards from bottom to top, were a scandalous, completely cynical denial of what was proclaimed in the opposite direction. They were rank paeans of honour for Satan and his obscene affairs, hymns of blasphemy against God and the saints, immoral songs of falernian wine and street harlots."
---
" The gloomy elegance of the house captivated him from the first moment he had occupied his new abode. At the end of a black double row of cypresses, their two lines containing a stone pathway, appeared a several-stepped terrace where a weighty, stylized double door led to the interior. Across the iron railing that surrounded the mansion, the wings of the house were losing colour. Sickly and sad walls, coated with a pale-greenish paint, peered out from inside. From underneath the garden, treacherously concealed humidity crawled out here and there with dark oozing. Once carefully cultivated flowers had with time lost the orderliness of their arrangement. Only two eternal fountains quietly wept, shedding water from marble basins onto clusters of rich, red roses. Only a muscular Triton on the left side continually raised his hand in the same gesture of greeting to a limber Harpy who, leaning from a marble cistern on the other side, enticed him for many years with the lure of a divine body; in vain, because they were separated by the mournful cypresses … .
The celadon villa gave the impression of dismal loneliness, abandoned by its inhabitants a long time ago and isolated from neighbouring buildings. It ended the street; there were no other houses beyond it – only wide bands of marshy meadows, fallows, and, in the distance, beech woods that turned black during winter and a rust-colour during autumn …"
April 19, 2024
"Several of his train stories end with obvious orgiastic explosions, and 'Szamota's Mistress' may be, on one level, a unique tale of masturbation-induced frenzy." -Miroslaw Lipinski (Introduction)
Trains sure are neat! I was thrilled by trains as the setting and catalyst to a few of these fascinating tales. Some of the other stories, that don't involve trains, appealed to me with mysterious and possibly deranged protagonists who venture into the dark unknown, often macabre world of the supernatural.
Although Stefan Grabinski excelled at portraying carnal prose of erotic encounters, his representation of women seemed misleading. 'In The Compartment' is a story with a comically fickle and unfaithful woman. While in other stories women are portrayed as Succubi. I could understand why this would be objectionable to some readers.
My favorite story was 'Saturnin Sektor', in which a philosopher disputing the concept of time, discovers and confronts his antithesis. 'A Tale of the Gravedigger' is a classic story of satanic rituals in a prominent graveyard. I would enjoy reading more of Grabinski's translated fiction, and this collection was a fantastic introduction to this author.
Trains sure are neat! I was thrilled by trains as the setting and catalyst to a few of these fascinating tales. Some of the other stories, that don't involve trains, appealed to me with mysterious and possibly deranged protagonists who venture into the dark unknown, often macabre world of the supernatural.
Although Stefan Grabinski excelled at portraying carnal prose of erotic encounters, his representation of women seemed misleading. 'In The Compartment' is a story with a comically fickle and unfaithful woman. While in other stories women are portrayed as Succubi. I could understand why this would be objectionable to some readers.
My favorite story was 'Saturnin Sektor', in which a philosopher disputing the concept of time, discovers and confronts his antithesis. 'A Tale of the Gravedigger' is a classic story of satanic rituals in a prominent graveyard. I would enjoy reading more of Grabinski's translated fiction, and this collection was a fantastic introduction to this author.
March 24, 2022
These stories were originally published in Polish in collections published between 1918 and 1922.
I found a lot of these stories quite brief and not particularly memorable. A lot of them deal with the idea of split personalities or spiritual doubles. Several also center around the train as a malevolent modern force of power and evil. They have a stark and dreamlike quality, containing elements of the supernatural.
The most memorable was 'Vengeance of the Elementals' where a man who has the ability to withstand fire, wages a battle against the aforementioned fire elementals.
• Fumes ⭐⭐⭐
• The Motion Demon ⭐⭐
• The Area ⭐⭐⭐
• A Tale of the Gravedigger ⭐⭐⭐
• Szamoto's Mistress ⭐⭐⭐
• The Wandering Train ⭐⭐
• Strabismus ⭐⭐
• Vengeance of the Elementals ⭐⭐⭐
• In the Compartment ⭐⭐
• Saturnin Sektor ⭐⭐⭐
• The Glance ⭐⭐
I found a lot of these stories quite brief and not particularly memorable. A lot of them deal with the idea of split personalities or spiritual doubles. Several also center around the train as a malevolent modern force of power and evil. They have a stark and dreamlike quality, containing elements of the supernatural.
The most memorable was 'Vengeance of the Elementals' where a man who has the ability to withstand fire, wages a battle against the aforementioned fire elementals.
• Fumes ⭐⭐⭐
• The Motion Demon ⭐⭐
• The Area ⭐⭐⭐
• A Tale of the Gravedigger ⭐⭐⭐
• Szamoto's Mistress ⭐⭐⭐
• The Wandering Train ⭐⭐
• Strabismus ⭐⭐
• Vengeance of the Elementals ⭐⭐⭐
• In the Compartment ⭐⭐
• Saturnin Sektor ⭐⭐⭐
• The Glance ⭐⭐
July 12, 2018
Great collection of short stories from an author I knew nothing about. I was reading an interview with China Miéville and he recommended it to all of those who were keen to explore the beginnings of weird fiction, I'm glad I picked it up.
Grabiński loves his twist endings and to create atmosphere by crossing the daily with the paranormal. Sometimes the stories jump into something that I can only call magical realism, but of course, they are mostly grim and melancholic.
Favorite Stories:
"A Tale of the Gravedigger" and "Vengeance of the Elementals"
Recommended if you like ghost stories or maybe something that dwells a little bit into the space of fantasy.
Grabiński loves his twist endings and to create atmosphere by crossing the daily with the paranormal. Sometimes the stories jump into something that I can only call magical realism, but of course, they are mostly grim and melancholic.
Favorite Stories:
"A Tale of the Gravedigger" and "Vengeance of the Elementals"
Recommended if you like ghost stories or maybe something that dwells a little bit into the space of fantasy.
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