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Spells
Hitherto unavailable in English, Spells, by the Belgian dramatist Michel de Ghelderode, ranks among the 20th century's most noteworthy collections of fantastic tales. Like Ghelderode's plays, the stories are marked by a powerful imagination and a keen sense of the grotesque, but in these the author speaks to us still more directly. Written at a time of illness and isolation, and conceived as a fresh start, Spells was Ghelderode's last major creative work, and he claimed it as his most personal and deeply felt one: a set of written spells through which his fears, paranoia and nostalgia found concrete form.
By turns mystical, macabre and whimsically humorous, and set in the unsettled atmosphere of Brussels, Ostend, Bruges and London, Spells conjures up an uncanny realm of angels, demons, masks, effigies and apparitions, a twilit, oppressed world of diseased gardens, dusty wax mannequins and sinister relics.
Combining the full contents of both the 1941 and 1947 editions, this translation of Spells is the most comprehensive edition yet published.
Michel de Ghelderode was born in Brussels in 1898. After nearly a decade of penning fiction, drama, literary journalism and puppet plays, in 1926 he began to write almost entirely for the theater and the following ten years saw the creation of most of his major plays. After 1936 he suffered from poor health and his involvement with the theater diminished. In the later 1940s, performances of his plays in Paris sparked a major awakening of interest in his work. Ghelderode died in 1962; the interior of his apartment, packed with books, pictures, puppets and masks, has been reassembled in Brussels as the Musee-Bibliotheque Michel de Ghelderode.
By turns mystical, macabre and whimsically humorous, and set in the unsettled atmosphere of Brussels, Ostend, Bruges and London, Spells conjures up an uncanny realm of angels, demons, masks, effigies and apparitions, a twilit, oppressed world of diseased gardens, dusty wax mannequins and sinister relics.
Combining the full contents of both the 1941 and 1947 editions, this translation of Spells is the most comprehensive edition yet published.
Michel de Ghelderode was born in Brussels in 1898. After nearly a decade of penning fiction, drama, literary journalism and puppet plays, in 1926 he began to write almost entirely for the theater and the following ten years saw the creation of most of his major plays. After 1936 he suffered from poor health and his involvement with the theater diminished. In the later 1940s, performances of his plays in Paris sparked a major awakening of interest in his work. Ghelderode died in 1962; the interior of his apartment, packed with books, pictures, puppets and masks, has been reassembled in Brussels as the Musee-Bibliotheque Michel de Ghelderode.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
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About the author
Michel de Ghelderode
74 books19 followersMichel de Ghelderode, pseudonyme d'Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, était un écrivain belge d'origine flamande et d'expression française. Il a également utilisé d'autres pseudonymes: Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan et Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode dans la Wikipédia française
Site consacré à Ghelderode (En français/In French)
Michel de Ghelderode, pseudoniem van Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, was een Vlaamse schrijver die in het Frans schreef. Hij schreef ook onder de pseudoniemen Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan en Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode, nom de plume of Louis Adolphe Adémar Martens, was a Belgian writer of Flemish descent who wrote in French. He also used other pseudonyms: Philostene Costenoble, Jac and Nolan Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in the English Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode dans la Wikipédia française
Site consacré à Ghelderode (En français/In French)
Michel de Ghelderode, pseudoniem van Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, was een Vlaamse schrijver die in het Frans schreef. Hij schreef ook onder de pseudoniemen Philostene Costenoble, Jac Nolan en Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
Michel de Ghelderode, nom de plume of Louis Adolphe Adémar Martens, was a Belgian writer of Flemish descent who wrote in French. He also used other pseudonyms: Philostene Costenoble, Jac and Nolan Babylas.
Michel de Ghelderode in the English Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 7, 2017
These stories of automatons, devils, and virulent gardens are well-steeped in the floridly decomposing language and paranoia of the decadent-weird tradition, but having been penned in the immediate shadow of WWII, they seem oddly dated and out of time. And without the invention (and genuine weirdness) of someone like Robert Aickman. Instead these are stories of obsession and malaise, obsessively caught up in describing some fateful place or encounter, that seem oddly incapable of pushing through their concepts into real shock or horror. What remains is tonally suggestive and bordering on the sublime anticipatory at points, but ultimately oddly unimaginative and stunted.
And that same historical shadow that makes them feel especially dated also falls directly on Ghelderode, who seems to have welcomed fascism into Belgium. At last, with the final stories, one completed only later than the original version of this volume, and one omitted from later printings once the tides of history turned, he fully spills over into misogyny and then anti-semitism. As the translator is careful to note, there's a value in staring down the darkest impulses of the 20th-century, for here we have an erudite monster whose kind we must be able to spot in the future. But having weathered this volume, I'm released, relieved to consign Ghelderode to the historical grave that he so clearly dug for himself.
And that same historical shadow that makes them feel especially dated also falls directly on Ghelderode, who seems to have welcomed fascism into Belgium. At last, with the final stories, one completed only later than the original version of this volume, and one omitted from later printings once the tides of history turned, he fully spills over into misogyny and then anti-semitism. As the translator is careful to note, there's a value in staring down the darkest impulses of the 20th-century, for here we have an erudite monster whose kind we must be able to spot in the future. But having weathered this volume, I'm released, relieved to consign Ghelderode to the historical grave that he so clearly dug for himself.
December 26, 2020
How in the hell, seriously, is Michel de Ghelderode not more known? It has been years since discovering an author who writes this well in the genres you could lump this writing into. His marvelous prose is matched does not make up for a lack of ideas, quite the opposite, and these stories simply aren't worth appreciating on a technical level, they remain with you, haunt you on more than just a psychological way. Simply outstanding work that should not be forgotten.
June 27, 2017
A solid collection of horror and grotesque tales that might best be summed up as feeling like a stepping stone from Robert Chambers to Thomas Ligotti. I was unfamiliar with the author before reading this book, but will be seeking out more of his work. Favorites include "A Twilight," "You Were Hanged," and "The Public Scribe."
May 18, 2020
I went into this collection knowing little about it, just seeking out lesser-known European authors of the fantastic and weird. I skipped the introduction (keep your spoilers to yourself!) and went straight to the stories.
Ghelderode's work is hard to describe; unsettling at moments, rarely horrific, but decadent and full of rich language. There's a bit of Poe in his work. These stories were written to evoke melancholic, solitary, wistful moods and a few of the shorter entries are prose poems more than stories. Ghelderode not only excells in creating mood, but is equally good at creating a sense of place. That is strong in almost all of these, certainly in the best of them.
It's not easy to recommend this to others and it's hard to put my finger on exactly what I liked so much. These are quiet works, best read at night and they do not seem to have been written to fall into an easily pigeon-holed genre, or appease a wide audience. Ghelderode likes to toy with the reader, occasionally making us see things which turn out to be something else. They're often delightfully unpredictable but milder fare than most supernatural fiction. However, they can run together, mostly being narrated by solitary, morose individuals, so it's best to read them one or two a day.
The Public Scribe - I loved this story, it's very well-written, the prose is so rich you can smell it. It's decadent and strange with a whiff of the expertly-hinted-at supernatural. A man is drawn to visit an abandoned convent and feels a growing kinship with a wax figure there.
The Devil in London - An interesting story, seemingly with a moral about the banality and boredom of workaday, disenchanted adult life. A man is so bored with life he is willing to meet the Devil to overcome it.
The Sick Garden - This is by far the longest story in the book, and one of the more conventional -- it's a haunted house story of sorts, but incredibly sad and genuinely touching. Probably the best in the book. A man rents a decaying mansion to get away from the modern world and becomes fascinated by the overgrown garden which harbors a mystery.
The Collector of Relics - This one was among my least favorites, although it's not entirely bad. There's certainly something there, it's not to my taste. A man plays an odd game of wits with an antique dealer over a religious relic.
Rhotomago - This story is OK, more of a "hallucinogenic episode" perhaps. A man dreams that a sinister bottle imp on his desk comes to life.
Spells - This is another of my favorites, I really liked the overall tone and setting, the descriptions are excellent. It's the closest Ghelderode comes to writing actual horror, and the explanation at the end is equally parts bizarre and funny. A man's estrangement from humanity and attraction to the sea almost leads to his demise.
Stealing from Death - This story reads a bit like a parable, more light and hopeful than most stories here. A man of business finds who his true friends are during a brush with Death.
Nuestra Senora de la Soledad - At four pages, this is the shortest story in the book. It's a sort of meditation on solitude. A man of solitude is drawn to a statue in a church.
Fog - I really enjoyed this one for its expertly-mounting tension and hallucinatory prose. The end is very strange and avoids a conventional conclusion, giving us something to mull over. A man is caught in a thick fog during his walk home, and begins to feel he is pursued by an unseen assailant.
A Twilight - There are several ways to interpret this one, and it stuck with me for a while. I enjoy these most when I just let them wash over me as an experience, without trying to over-interpret all the symbology, although I often can't help it. A man has strange visions in the sky, and flees to a decrepit church for shelter.
You Were Hanged - This is another that's a bit more conventional, but it's also one of the best. A nice break after several stories that seem to exist in total dream-states. Still, it manages to surprise with a unique focus on ancestral memories and has a great ambiance and setting. A man staying in a new city becomes fascinated by what appears to be a bland corner of the city. An innkeeper there has a ghoulish fascination with it's dark past.
The Odor of Pine - This is a very decadent, cruel tale. I love the narrator of this story; his bitterness, spite and ennui at the world, the way he describes things. A man sitting in his estate receives a sinister visitor he recalls seeing once before.
Eliah the Painter - This final story comes with a special introduction, warning of the fairly straight-forward anti-Semitism it contains. It's certainly an interesting story, not among my favorites primarily because the uncanniness that makes so many other stories here special is almost an afterthought here. It feels like the fascistic narrator himself becomes an unsympathetic parody, while he tries to portray a Jewish man he hates as a stereotype. A man begins to stalk a quiet Jewish painter.
Ghelderode's work is hard to describe; unsettling at moments, rarely horrific, but decadent and full of rich language. There's a bit of Poe in his work. These stories were written to evoke melancholic, solitary, wistful moods and a few of the shorter entries are prose poems more than stories. Ghelderode not only excells in creating mood, but is equally good at creating a sense of place. That is strong in almost all of these, certainly in the best of them.
It's not easy to recommend this to others and it's hard to put my finger on exactly what I liked so much. These are quiet works, best read at night and they do not seem to have been written to fall into an easily pigeon-holed genre, or appease a wide audience. Ghelderode likes to toy with the reader, occasionally making us see things which turn out to be something else. They're often delightfully unpredictable but milder fare than most supernatural fiction. However, they can run together, mostly being narrated by solitary, morose individuals, so it's best to read them one or two a day.
The Public Scribe - I loved this story, it's very well-written, the prose is so rich you can smell it. It's decadent and strange with a whiff of the expertly-hinted-at supernatural. A man is drawn to visit an abandoned convent and feels a growing kinship with a wax figure there.
The Devil in London - An interesting story, seemingly with a moral about the banality and boredom of workaday, disenchanted adult life. A man is so bored with life he is willing to meet the Devil to overcome it.
The Sick Garden - This is by far the longest story in the book, and one of the more conventional -- it's a haunted house story of sorts, but incredibly sad and genuinely touching. Probably the best in the book. A man rents a decaying mansion to get away from the modern world and becomes fascinated by the overgrown garden which harbors a mystery.
The Collector of Relics - This one was among my least favorites, although it's not entirely bad. There's certainly something there, it's not to my taste. A man plays an odd game of wits with an antique dealer over a religious relic.
Rhotomago - This story is OK, more of a "hallucinogenic episode" perhaps. A man dreams that a sinister bottle imp on his desk comes to life.
Spells - This is another of my favorites, I really liked the overall tone and setting, the descriptions are excellent. It's the closest Ghelderode comes to writing actual horror, and the explanation at the end is equally parts bizarre and funny. A man's estrangement from humanity and attraction to the sea almost leads to his demise.
Stealing from Death - This story reads a bit like a parable, more light and hopeful than most stories here. A man of business finds who his true friends are during a brush with Death.
Nuestra Senora de la Soledad - At four pages, this is the shortest story in the book. It's a sort of meditation on solitude. A man of solitude is drawn to a statue in a church.
Fog - I really enjoyed this one for its expertly-mounting tension and hallucinatory prose. The end is very strange and avoids a conventional conclusion, giving us something to mull over. A man is caught in a thick fog during his walk home, and begins to feel he is pursued by an unseen assailant.
A Twilight - There are several ways to interpret this one, and it stuck with me for a while. I enjoy these most when I just let them wash over me as an experience, without trying to over-interpret all the symbology, although I often can't help it. A man has strange visions in the sky, and flees to a decrepit church for shelter.
You Were Hanged - This is another that's a bit more conventional, but it's also one of the best. A nice break after several stories that seem to exist in total dream-states. Still, it manages to surprise with a unique focus on ancestral memories and has a great ambiance and setting. A man staying in a new city becomes fascinated by what appears to be a bland corner of the city. An innkeeper there has a ghoulish fascination with it's dark past.
The Odor of Pine - This is a very decadent, cruel tale. I love the narrator of this story; his bitterness, spite and ennui at the world, the way he describes things. A man sitting in his estate receives a sinister visitor he recalls seeing once before.
Eliah the Painter - This final story comes with a special introduction, warning of the fairly straight-forward anti-Semitism it contains. It's certainly an interesting story, not among my favorites primarily because the uncanniness that makes so many other stories here special is almost an afterthought here. It feels like the fascistic narrator himself becomes an unsympathetic parody, while he tries to portray a Jewish man he hates as a stereotype. A man begins to stalk a quiet Jewish painter.
December 24, 2017
Ghelderode's most alluring characters are haunted gardens, festering interiors and misty, shrouded landscapes of his half-finished fairytales. The project of most seems to be to build to a level of foreboding and unease that are reflected in the minds of his characters. This book was all the more interesting for including a couple of the unforgivable stories he tried to erase from his ouvre following the Second World War. His masterful ability with horror took a political turn later in his career (maybe earlier) in the form of a brutal anti Semitism. I think that makes these stories all the more important, revealing the easy slip from Decadent affinity for horror and aristocratic malaise to smug nationalism and aestheticism of death.
June 30, 2017
Wonderfully weird somewhat stylized writing but a real joy. Lovecraft would have thoroughly enjoyed him. Good thing his works are finally be translated.
April 10, 2018
Man is alone in life. He’s alone in his cradle as he’ll be alone on his deadbeat; he’s alone in love…
Alone in a house, on a bus, in the middle of a field. Alone in a room.
Alone in your efforts, in your struggle, in your pain.
Yet, somehow alone does not mean swimming in a sea of silent nothingness. On the contrary, barring meditative states, it means alone with your thoughts. And the nonsense that swills around in there, between Willing the Future and Judging the Past, can be quite an imaginatively torturous pandemonium—a stampeding herd of dinosaurs makes less of a fuss.
It had been raining since dawn. Damp had made my room as foul-smelling as a cave and its light was really that of a crypt where I was moldering, looking at tears streaming down the window and feeling that I was gradually swelling up with water absorbed through my pores. It seemed that this rain would last forever. I was surrounded by a pervasive odor of old scrapheaps and, since everything smelled, my body emitted the smell that tramps carry in their rags. My thoughts, like a bottle imp, slowly sank under the pressure of the opaque sky. And this inexorable descent into the void constituted a palpable but unspeakably horrible torture. It is conceivable that a man in a room, unmoving and apparently impressive, could stand to feel his soul smothered without groaning, writhing, or praying?
Writing about the lives of solitary people doesn’t generally make for popular literature. Plot is hard to set up with one person; exterior dialogue is lacking; interior dialogue is called interior monologue and it’s a disordered mess. The results tend to wearisome ramblings.
Michel de Ghelderode resists this tendency in two ways: he harnesses disquieting topics that inherently inspire curiosity (mannequins, magic of twilight, decay, devil, death) and he allows himself one, at most two, other interesting characters who prop up his solitary narrator. So equipped he pits his protagonists against that interior stampeding herd of dinosaurs and sees what emerges from the fray.
Twilight fell on the countryside. Landscapes fled by and horses fled in reverse across the landscape. I closed my eyes on the image of horses fleeing through smoke or through foam. I was fleeing too, and I tried to remember why. The police, a woman, an enemy, the demon? No, the drama was simpler than that; I was only fleeing myself. It happens to everyone at least once to get sick of himself, of meeting his own face in the mirror. A perilous moment, because so clear is the mirror and so frozen the face that the time to flee has come; for it can explode, that culminating moment, and blow to bits both the human head and the mirror that contains it.
Gheldrode was an avant guard Belgian dramatist writing in French. Spells is an outlier in his oeuvre, especially as his fantastic stories are distinctly non-theatric with the majority of their “action” unspooling inside the narrator’s head. However, he does employ a dramatic mechanism to enliven the somber proceedings without losing the sense of solitude: Death shows up as a rotting seaman, a wax mannequin comes to life, the Devil lives in London, minor demons float around in jars, statues of saints aren't as implacable as we assume.
That's not to imply that the otherworldly cannot provide a fully-embodied cast of characters—and it often does, think Faust’s Mephistopheles—but within the space of a short story any personification of the Devil, no matter how original, will trail a long cloud of cultural associations. The writer has to contend with this cloud and use it, rather than try to disperse it. In that sense, the Devil won't ever be seen the same way as Jarod the grocer, or Sally the businesswoman, and will instead provide a phenomenon half-way between a full character and a philosophical concept. Solitude lives on philosophy, so the otherworldly provide ideal interlocutors who break the circularity of a navel-gazing soliloquy without introducing another person.
Alone can be a dangerous place, but like Gheldrode says, Alone is the only home we are guaranteed in this life. There’s nowhere to run.
April 22, 2020
Absolutely inventive, staggeringly creative, its fun to get lost in his words. But once you find your way again, you will come to realize, again and again, much like life, that you don't care about what is going on.
January 11, 2018
Michel de Ghelderode, who I have been told is a wonderful playwright, is a dull narrative writer. Or it can be me because I don't find this type of retro-horror stories not that interesting. His prose is very stylistic, which for some writers, is fantastic, but Gelderode I find to be a tad over-the-top for my taste. On the other hand, Wakefield Press made a magnificent book. The paper is thick and beautifully designed. "Spells" is not interesting to me, but I think there are those out there who would like it. Especially those who love the combination of Surrealism, Expressionism, with a touch of goth thrown into the mix.
October 21, 2019
This is the best shit I’ve ever read in my life.
March 5, 2023
I've decided to make notes on each of the short stories as I read them:
The Public Scribe - A loner with access to a private museum develops a deep and perhaps obsessive connection with a waxwork mannequin. Moody but almost plotless.
The Devil in London - A tourist in London wishing to escape his boredom gets his wish when he finds the residence of the devil, living as a retired magician. Moody, but again almost plotless.
The Sick Garden - A loner and his dog take up residence in a decrepit mansion scheduled for demolition, and slowly get to know their fellow residents (an old woman, a sickly child, and a repulsive cat) as their drama slowly develops in the mansion's sickly and repulsive garden. The gloomy suspense slowly grows into a wrenching climax. Jan 29, 2023.
The Relic Collector - I've read through this twice, and I'm not sure of anything. The title could refer to the narrator or the object of his practical joke, the purpose of which I also don't understand. This one is lost on me. 2/1/2023
Rhotamogo - While playing with a toy "bottle imp," the narrator releases a demon who can foretell the future. Once again, there is almost no plot and an ambiguous resolution. 2/2/2023
Spells - A man apparently on the verge of killing himself experiences a strange series of events during a seaside village's celebration of Carnivale. Delirious and decadent imagery gives this tale a punch lacking in the less interesting ones. 2/6/23
Stealing From Death - A man escapes death when a friend of his tricks Death itself. Moody, of course, but interestingly told from the point of view of a man lying in bed near to death.
Nuestra Senora de Soledad - The shortest story in the collection, it is little more than a pastiche. A loner who adores a statue of Mary in a decrepit Catholic church receives a message from it.
Fog - A man gets lost in impenetrable fog while walking home, hears the voice of one he thought dead twenty years ago, then experiences visions of heaven and hell, then the next day learns his supposedly late acquaintance hadn't died 20 years ago. Once again, Ghelderode delivers a moody piece of delirium.
A Twilight - A falls asleep during an endlessly rainy day and wakes up to find the world eerily empty of humans and caught somewhere between day and night. Enraptured by phantasmagoric visions in the dusky sky, he is drawn to a decrepit church. This takes the moody hallucinations of the previous tale and amps it up a notch.
You Were Hanged - A solitary man wanders all over Flanders, inevitably ending up spending his evenings in an inn called The Little Gibbet. Tension slowly builds through some creepy events as he comes to learn of his dark, fatal connection to the place. 2/27/23
The Odor of Pine - A man plays chess with Death to determine his fate, but Death's unexpected lust for the man's serving maid puts a twist on things. Effectively creepy, the narrator's repulsive treatment of his own maid is just as horrifying as what the maid suffers at the hands of Death, leaving the reader to wonder just how much the author fears women. 3/1/23
Eliah the Painter - A preface for this story describes how it was omitted from French language editions of the book for it being overtly antisemitic, and boy wow, is it ever. In an unnamed suburb the narrator, an unpleasant man who claims to be indifferent to Jews but nevertheless is highly prejudiced, develops a desire to murder the title character. It is not very interesting as a story but could be interesting as an example in a debate over how to address works of literature abhorrent for views held by the author. 3/5/23
Overall, the short stories were more often than not pastiches with little actual plot or suspense, and mostly moody prose poems. The most powerful for me was The Sick Garden, which seemed have an actual plot. Of the moody prose poems, Spells, A Twilight, and perhaps Fog were the most effective at presenting creepy, inexplicable moments of horror.
The Public Scribe - A loner with access to a private museum develops a deep and perhaps obsessive connection with a waxwork mannequin. Moody but almost plotless.
The Devil in London - A tourist in London wishing to escape his boredom gets his wish when he finds the residence of the devil, living as a retired magician. Moody, but again almost plotless.
The Sick Garden - A loner and his dog take up residence in a decrepit mansion scheduled for demolition, and slowly get to know their fellow residents (an old woman, a sickly child, and a repulsive cat) as their drama slowly develops in the mansion's sickly and repulsive garden. The gloomy suspense slowly grows into a wrenching climax. Jan 29, 2023.
The Relic Collector - I've read through this twice, and I'm not sure of anything. The title could refer to the narrator or the object of his practical joke, the purpose of which I also don't understand. This one is lost on me. 2/1/2023
Rhotamogo - While playing with a toy "bottle imp," the narrator releases a demon who can foretell the future. Once again, there is almost no plot and an ambiguous resolution. 2/2/2023
Spells - A man apparently on the verge of killing himself experiences a strange series of events during a seaside village's celebration of Carnivale. Delirious and decadent imagery gives this tale a punch lacking in the less interesting ones. 2/6/23
Stealing From Death - A man escapes death when a friend of his tricks Death itself. Moody, of course, but interestingly told from the point of view of a man lying in bed near to death.
Nuestra Senora de Soledad - The shortest story in the collection, it is little more than a pastiche. A loner who adores a statue of Mary in a decrepit Catholic church receives a message from it.
Fog - A man gets lost in impenetrable fog while walking home, hears the voice of one he thought dead twenty years ago, then experiences visions of heaven and hell, then the next day learns his supposedly late acquaintance hadn't died 20 years ago. Once again, Ghelderode delivers a moody piece of delirium.
A Twilight - A falls asleep during an endlessly rainy day and wakes up to find the world eerily empty of humans and caught somewhere between day and night. Enraptured by phantasmagoric visions in the dusky sky, he is drawn to a decrepit church. This takes the moody hallucinations of the previous tale and amps it up a notch.
You Were Hanged - A solitary man wanders all over Flanders, inevitably ending up spending his evenings in an inn called The Little Gibbet. Tension slowly builds through some creepy events as he comes to learn of his dark, fatal connection to the place. 2/27/23
The Odor of Pine - A man plays chess with Death to determine his fate, but Death's unexpected lust for the man's serving maid puts a twist on things. Effectively creepy, the narrator's repulsive treatment of his own maid is just as horrifying as what the maid suffers at the hands of Death, leaving the reader to wonder just how much the author fears women. 3/1/23
Eliah the Painter - A preface for this story describes how it was omitted from French language editions of the book for it being overtly antisemitic, and boy wow, is it ever. In an unnamed suburb the narrator, an unpleasant man who claims to be indifferent to Jews but nevertheless is highly prejudiced, develops a desire to murder the title character. It is not very interesting as a story but could be interesting as an example in a debate over how to address works of literature abhorrent for views held by the author. 3/5/23
Overall, the short stories were more often than not pastiches with little actual plot or suspense, and mostly moody prose poems. The most powerful for me was The Sick Garden, which seemed have an actual plot. Of the moody prose poems, Spells, A Twilight, and perhaps Fog were the most effective at presenting creepy, inexplicable moments of horror.
July 22, 2022
This one came as a recommendation. Quoted as "Weird cantankerous kind of horror type stuff." Cantankerous is right, just look up photos of Ghelderode. Who also wrote puppet plays. Can you imagine? The language is very dense, a few pages exhaust the reader. But each page compels the reader: one more page, one more page, one...more.... Readers of post-Naturalism Huysmans, Kubin, and Lovecraft will dig this. Decadent and Horror fans, rejoice!
"...Such stories must exist in literature, which also has its lower depths."
"Normality has its limits abnormality has none."
"...Such stories must exist in literature, which also has its lower depths."
"Normality has its limits abnormality has none."
May 14, 2022
I wanted to read this book because I had seen and loved his play Pantaglieze in the mid-1960s; and also because I am a fan of Belgian art and Belgian Surrealist photography.
My reactions to these short stories were mixed (ratings below). However, it is worth a mention that Wakefield Press is the publisher and did a superb job of printing a very high-quality book (binding and paper), which also includes excellent historical and critical information by the translator about the author, and notes on most of the stories.
I highly recommend taking a look at the Wakefield Press website. They are publishing many previously hard to find gems in a similar vein, and I've already added several books to my "Shopping Cart."
Public Scribe *****
Devil in London ***
Sick Garden ****
Collector of Relics ***
Rhotomago ***
Spells **1/2
Stealing from Death ***
Nuestra Senora de la Soledad **
Fog **
A Twilight ***
You Were Hanged ***
The Odor of Pine ***
Eliah the Painter [intentionally left unrated] (preceded in book by notes providing context)
My reactions to these short stories were mixed (ratings below). However, it is worth a mention that Wakefield Press is the publisher and did a superb job of printing a very high-quality book (binding and paper), which also includes excellent historical and critical information by the translator about the author, and notes on most of the stories.
I highly recommend taking a look at the Wakefield Press website. They are publishing many previously hard to find gems in a similar vein, and I've already added several books to my "Shopping Cart."
Public Scribe *****
Devil in London ***
Sick Garden ****
Collector of Relics ***
Rhotomago ***
Spells **1/2
Stealing from Death ***
Nuestra Senora de la Soledad **
Fog **
A Twilight ***
You Were Hanged ***
The Odor of Pine ***
Eliah the Painter [intentionally left unrated] (preceded in book by notes providing context)
March 1, 2020
A selection of short stories in a Poe vein.
November 7, 2022
A fantastic collection of short stories, unreality lurking in dreams, exhaustion, obsession, and feverish illness. A feeling of places or things that are attached to reality by a thin thread. The characters of the stories so often respond to the super natural with disdain, annoyance, as if they have always expected this thing to come, and now that it finally has they would like to get it out of the way. I like the story with the house and the garden, the hanged man, and the anti semitic one is haunting for its paranoia and obsession of the main character, which they take constantly to be provoked by a jew which they go out of their way to harass. The entire collection feels of a man who was anti reality.
August 14, 2017
Ghelderode is great at evocative, descriptive language, but if you are looking for any substance bellow his pretty prose and moody descriptions, you won't find any. Add to that his far right views that sometimes made themselves seen in these stories, and other reviewer's comment about leaving him and his fiction to the graveyard of history is sadly more than apt. Long lost classic of weird fiction this collection certainly isn't.
October 20, 2021
What obscure tales that inhabit a murky midden of existence. I found this collection after reading up on the inspirations of the Quay Brothers. The atmosphere here is exactly like a Quay film. There is occasionally a savage black humour that feather tickled my ribs. However, whether or not I was in the right mood for it, I didn't enjoy Ghelderode as much as I wanted to. That said, I would recommend Spells for fans macabre or weird fiction.
June 12, 2025
What might her sublime dream be? For, as I studied her, a supernatural light bathed the face of the creature infernally surrendered to passion. What supreme annihilation passed through her, like a warm river that snakes voluptuously toward the abyss?
“Mortal Sin?” I murmured, “from now on your name will be Sacrifice.”
“Mortal Sin?” I murmured, “from now on your name will be Sacrifice.”
January 4, 2024
Nice prose and ideas which are however buried under the hazy symbolist style - definitely not my thing.
June 1, 2024
Très expressif et grotesque avec monstres de fantastique. Belgian School of the Strange tradition.
July 5, 2024
Una vuelta de tuerca a viejos motivos góticos por parte de este Valle-Inclán belga con momentos casi borgianos y un estilo espeso, de alta graduación.
June 17, 2025
I wanted to like it. Heard lots of good things about it. Couldn't hold my attention. two stars for the rare moments I was into it. best story The Sick Garden.
August 2, 2025
Solo el cuento "El jardín enfermo" ya merece la puntuación. Que maravilla de lo extraño...
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