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أرض الظلام
(مقدمة المترجم)
عن الرواية:
هذه الرواية، التي ألفها ويليام هوب هودسون عام 1912، عبارة عن رحلة خيالية مليئة بالصور الدراماتيكية والوحوش القبيحة والفظيعة. إنها قصة ملحمية تتناغم مع أساطير أورفيوس حول دخول رجل إلى العالم السفلي وأرض الجحيم ليتمكن من إنقاذ المرأة التي عشقها وصار مُتيمًا بها.
يعيش بطل الرواية اللحظة التي وُلِدَتْ فيها حبيبته، والتي تموت بشكل مأساوي أثناء الولادة. ومن حُسن الحظ أن بطل الرواية لديه القدرة على الحُلم بالمستقبل البعيد؛ حيث يتجسَّد هو وحبيبته (ميرداث)، فبينما هو في الماضي فهو على دراية بذاته المستقبلية. ومن المثير للاهتمام أيضًا أن التجسد المستقبلي يجعله قادرًا على أن يتذكر تجسده في الزمنين الماضي والحالي.
ففي المستقبل، حيث موت الشمس، وتجمَّعتْ جميع بقايا الكائنات البشرية في الحصن الأخير، وهو عبارة عن هرم عظيم كبير تحاصره مخلوقات غريبة وممسوخة ومتوحشة يُطلَق عليها (الحُرَّاس). وحيث أن لم تكن هناك أية قوة لاتخاذ لوازم واستعدادات، فقد سُمِحَ لبعض القوى المخيفة أن يكون لها القدرة على التأثير في حياة البشر. تشمل هذه الوحوش الكائنات الصامتة والعملاقة وكلاب الصيد الليلية والأجساد القوطية والمستذئبين الذين يسكنون في مواقع معينة على أرض الظلام، مثل: (المكان الذي تقتل فيه الكائنات الصامتة)، و(أضواء المدينة الهادئة)، و(سهل النار الزرقاء).
في الواقع، تبدأ الحبكة أخيرًا بعد عدة فصول من بناء العالم عندما يدخل بطل الرواية في علاقة توارد خواطر بعيدة المدى مع امرأة ضمن مجموعة مفقودة على الجانب البعيد من أرض الظلام. إنه تجسُّد للسيدة ميرداث! إن تلك المجموعة المفقودة في حالة سيئة، حيث نفد (تيار الأرض)، والتربة سيئة وهجمات الوحوش متكررة. انطلقت الجيوش لإنقاذ المجموعة المفقودة وفشلت فشلًا ذريعًا. هذا يترك بطلنا فقط في رحلة عبر أرض الظلام والعودة مع الناجين.
وعلى أية حال، يعود بطلا الرواية إلى الهرم الأكبر (الحصن الأخير) بعد رحلة شاقة للغاية، وبعد قتال مرير في مواجهة تلك الكائنات الوحشية. إلا أن بطلة الرواية ستموت في طريق العودة إلى الهرم الأكبر. لكن، وبعد تدمير كل شيء في أرض الظلام، عادتْ البطلة إلى الحياة مرة أخرى عبر قوة الحب وقوته.
قال عن الرواية (لورد كلفن): (إن حسابات مبنية على فرضية أن الطاقة تأتي من انهيار جاذبية سحابة الغاز التي شكلت الشمس، ووجد أن هذه الآلية أعطت الشمس مدى حياة يبلغ بضع عشرات من ملايين السنين. وانطلاقًا من هذه الفرضية، كتب هودسون رواية تصف زمنًا نحو ملايين السنين في المستقبل، عندما تصبح الشمس مظلمة). ووصف (هوارد فيليبس لافكرافت) في مقالٍ له بعنوان (رعب الخوارق في الأدب) هذه الرواية بأنها: (إحدى أقوى القطع في أدب الرعب على الإطلاق).
عن المؤلف:
إنه الروائي والكاتب البريطاني ويليام هوب هودسون، الذي وُلِدَ في 15 نوفمبر 1877م في مقاطعة إسكس الإنجليزية، وقُتِلَ في 19 إبريل 1918م إبان الحرب العالمية الأولى عن عمر 40 سنة. كان برتبة ملازم في الجيش الإنجليزي. أنتج مجموعة كبيرة من الأعمال، تتألف من مقالات، وروايات قصيرة، وروايات، تغطي العديد من الأنواع المتداخلة بما في ذلك الرعب والخيال الرائع والخيال العلمي. استخدم هودسون تجاربه في البحر لإضفاء تفاصيل حقيقية على قصص الرعب القصيرة، والكثير منها يقع على المحيط، بما في ذلك سلسلة من الحكايات المرتبطة به، والتي تشكل (قصص سارجاسو سي). تتميز رواياته، مثل (The House on the Borderland) سنة 1908 و (The Night Land) سنة 1912، بموضوعات كونية أكثر، لكن العديد من رواياته تركز أيضًا على الرعب المرتبط بالبحر. في بداية حياته المهنية في الكتابة، كرَّس هودسون جهدًا للشعر، على الرغم من أن القليل من قصائده نُشرتْ خلال حياته. كما اجتذبَ بعض الأشعار كمصور وحقق شهرة في لعبة كمال الأجسام.
عن استراتيجية الترجمة إلى العربية:
إن روعة هذه الرواية أنها كُتِبَتْ بشكل مختلف تمامًا عن قصص الرعب والفانتازيا المعروفة، ورغم ذلك إلا أن بها تفاصيل مملة للغاية ودقيقة. وللأمانة العلمية في ترجمتي العربية، إن تلك التفاصيل المملة والدقيقة جدًا في الرواية الأصلية دفعني دفعًا إلى أسلوب الحذف Omission، وذلك حتى لا يشعر القارئ العربي بالممل الرهيب الذي سيصيبه بالتأكيد في قراءته الرواية الإنجليزية، وأعني تحديدًا (الفصل العاشر) لما فيه من إسهاب لا فائدة منه. وفي هذا الأمر، قال (كلارك أشتون سميث): (إنه في الأدب كله هناك عدد قليل من الأعمال اللافتة للنظر والمبدعة بحق، مثل أرض الظلام، ومهما كانت أخطاء هذا الكتاب، مثل طوله المفرط، فإنه يثير إعجاب القارئ بوصفه ملحمة نهائية عن هلاك الكون). ذلك الحذف – وهو أسلوب من أساليب الترجمة – لم يؤثر على سرد الرواية وأحداثها، فلجأتُ أيضًا إلى الترجمة الحرة Free Translation في بعض الفقرات.
وأقتبسُ منشورًا كتبه أ.د. أحمد الشيمي على صفحته بأحد مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي: (وكان للعقاد مذهب في الترجمة كان يشرحه في بعض الأحيان في مقدمات كتبه التي كان يقوم بترجمتها كلها أو مقتطفات منها، مثلما فعل في كتاب ألوان من القصة الأمريكية حيث يقول: أما طريقتنا في الترجمة فهي مراعاة الأصل غاية المراعاة، ما لم يكن حشوًا لا محل له من لباب المعنى ومن الوجهة الفنية، ففي هذه الحالة نكتفي بالمفيد، ولا نلتزم الحشو، وهو لا يزيد في الكتاب كله على بضعة أسطر [...]. وقد أردنا ترجمة صادقة في نقل العبارة بمعانيها وظلالها، ولم نرد نسخًا كنسخ الورَّاقين Copyism من لغة إلى أخرى، فمن سمى ذلك نسخًا أو مسخًا، فقد أصاب التسمية! (ص 11) من ألوان من القصة الأمريكية).
محمد مصطفى الساكت
الإسكندرية في 20 أكتوبر 2020
عن الرواية:
هذه الرواية، التي ألفها ويليام هوب هودسون عام 1912، عبارة عن رحلة خيالية مليئة بالصور الدراماتيكية والوحوش القبيحة والفظيعة. إنها قصة ملحمية تتناغم مع أساطير أورفيوس حول دخول رجل إلى العالم السفلي وأرض الجحيم ليتمكن من إنقاذ المرأة التي عشقها وصار مُتيمًا بها.
يعيش بطل الرواية اللحظة التي وُلِدَتْ فيها حبيبته، والتي تموت بشكل مأساوي أثناء الولادة. ومن حُسن الحظ أن بطل الرواية لديه القدرة على الحُلم بالمستقبل البعيد؛ حيث يتجسَّد هو وحبيبته (ميرداث)، فبينما هو في الماضي فهو على دراية بذاته المستقبلية. ومن المثير للاهتمام أيضًا أن التجسد المستقبلي يجعله قادرًا على أن يتذكر تجسده في الزمنين الماضي والحالي.
ففي المستقبل، حيث موت الشمس، وتجمَّعتْ جميع بقايا الكائنات البشرية في الحصن الأخير، وهو عبارة عن هرم عظيم كبير تحاصره مخلوقات غريبة وممسوخة ومتوحشة يُطلَق عليها (الحُرَّاس). وحيث أن لم تكن هناك أية قوة لاتخاذ لوازم واستعدادات، فقد سُمِحَ لبعض القوى المخيفة أن يكون لها القدرة على التأثير في حياة البشر. تشمل هذه الوحوش الكائنات الصامتة والعملاقة وكلاب الصيد الليلية والأجساد القوطية والمستذئبين الذين يسكنون في مواقع معينة على أرض الظلام، مثل: (المكان الذي تقتل فيه الكائنات الصامتة)، و(أضواء المدينة الهادئة)، و(سهل النار الزرقاء).
في الواقع، تبدأ الحبكة أخيرًا بعد عدة فصول من بناء العالم عندما يدخل بطل الرواية في علاقة توارد خواطر بعيدة المدى مع امرأة ضمن مجموعة مفقودة على الجانب البعيد من أرض الظلام. إنه تجسُّد للسيدة ميرداث! إن تلك المجموعة المفقودة في حالة سيئة، حيث نفد (تيار الأرض)، والتربة سيئة وهجمات الوحوش متكررة. انطلقت الجيوش لإنقاذ المجموعة المفقودة وفشلت فشلًا ذريعًا. هذا يترك بطلنا فقط في رحلة عبر أرض الظلام والعودة مع الناجين.
وعلى أية حال، يعود بطلا الرواية إلى الهرم الأكبر (الحصن الأخير) بعد رحلة شاقة للغاية، وبعد قتال مرير في مواجهة تلك الكائنات الوحشية. إلا أن بطلة الرواية ستموت في طريق العودة إلى الهرم الأكبر. لكن، وبعد تدمير كل شيء في أرض الظلام، عادتْ البطلة إلى الحياة مرة أخرى عبر قوة الحب وقوته.
قال عن الرواية (لورد كلفن): (إن حسابات مبنية على فرضية أن الطاقة تأتي من انهيار جاذبية سحابة الغاز التي شكلت الشمس، ووجد أن هذه الآلية أعطت الشمس مدى حياة يبلغ بضع عشرات من ملايين السنين. وانطلاقًا من هذه الفرضية، كتب هودسون رواية تصف زمنًا نحو ملايين السنين في المستقبل، عندما تصبح الشمس مظلمة). ووصف (هوارد فيليبس لافكرافت) في مقالٍ له بعنوان (رعب الخوارق في الأدب) هذه الرواية بأنها: (إحدى أقوى القطع في أدب الرعب على الإطلاق).
عن المؤلف:
إنه الروائي والكاتب البريطاني ويليام هوب هودسون، الذي وُلِدَ في 15 نوفمبر 1877م في مقاطعة إسكس الإنجليزية، وقُتِلَ في 19 إبريل 1918م إبان الحرب العالمية الأولى عن عمر 40 سنة. كان برتبة ملازم في الجيش الإنجليزي. أنتج مجموعة كبيرة من الأعمال، تتألف من مقالات، وروايات قصيرة، وروايات، تغطي العديد من الأنواع المتداخلة بما في ذلك الرعب والخيال الرائع والخيال العلمي. استخدم هودسون تجاربه في البحر لإضفاء تفاصيل حقيقية على قصص الرعب القصيرة، والكثير منها يقع على المحيط، بما في ذلك سلسلة من الحكايات المرتبطة به، والتي تشكل (قصص سارجاسو سي). تتميز رواياته، مثل (The House on the Borderland) سنة 1908 و (The Night Land) سنة 1912، بموضوعات كونية أكثر، لكن العديد من رواياته تركز أيضًا على الرعب المرتبط بالبحر. في بداية حياته المهنية في الكتابة، كرَّس هودسون جهدًا للشعر، على الرغم من أن القليل من قصائده نُشرتْ خلال حياته. كما اجتذبَ بعض الأشعار كمصور وحقق شهرة في لعبة كمال الأجسام.
عن استراتيجية الترجمة إلى العربية:
إن روعة هذه الرواية أنها كُتِبَتْ بشكل مختلف تمامًا عن قصص الرعب والفانتازيا المعروفة، ورغم ذلك إلا أن بها تفاصيل مملة للغاية ودقيقة. وللأمانة العلمية في ترجمتي العربية، إن تلك التفاصيل المملة والدقيقة جدًا في الرواية الأصلية دفعني دفعًا إلى أسلوب الحذف Omission، وذلك حتى لا يشعر القارئ العربي بالممل الرهيب الذي سيصيبه بالتأكيد في قراءته الرواية الإنجليزية، وأعني تحديدًا (الفصل العاشر) لما فيه من إسهاب لا فائدة منه. وفي هذا الأمر، قال (كلارك أشتون سميث): (إنه في الأدب كله هناك عدد قليل من الأعمال اللافتة للنظر والمبدعة بحق، مثل أرض الظلام، ومهما كانت أخطاء هذا الكتاب، مثل طوله المفرط، فإنه يثير إعجاب القارئ بوصفه ملحمة نهائية عن هلاك الكون). ذلك الحذف – وهو أسلوب من أساليب الترجمة – لم يؤثر على سرد الرواية وأحداثها، فلجأتُ أيضًا إلى الترجمة الحرة Free Translation في بعض الفقرات.
وأقتبسُ منشورًا كتبه أ.د. أحمد الشيمي على صفحته بأحد مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي: (وكان للعقاد مذهب في الترجمة كان يشرحه في بعض الأحيان في مقدمات كتبه التي كان يقوم بترجمتها كلها أو مقتطفات منها، مثلما فعل في كتاب ألوان من القصة الأمريكية حيث يقول: أما طريقتنا في الترجمة فهي مراعاة الأصل غاية المراعاة، ما لم يكن حشوًا لا محل له من لباب المعنى ومن الوجهة الفنية، ففي هذه الحالة نكتفي بالمفيد، ولا نلتزم الحشو، وهو لا يزيد في الكتاب كله على بضعة أسطر [...]. وقد أردنا ترجمة صادقة في نقل العبارة بمعانيها وظلالها، ولم نرد نسخًا كنسخ الورَّاقين Copyism من لغة إلى أخرى، فمن سمى ذلك نسخًا أو مسخًا، فقد أصاب التسمية! (ص 11) من ألوان من القصة الأمريكية).
محمد مصطفى الساكت
الإسكندرية في 20 أكتوبر 2020
Paperback
First published January 1, 1912
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About the author
William Hope Hodgson
864 books568 followersWilliam Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his poems were published during his lifetime. He also attracted some notice as a photographer and achieved some renown as a bodybuilder. Hodgson served with the British Army durng World War One. He died, at age 40, at Ypres, killed by German artillery fire.
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December 1, 2025
The hideous beasts crawl during the eternal murky darkness on this an unknown alien world, however the miserable reality, sick old Earth in its last inglorious days...The 17th Century tortured gentleman arrives here, just after losing his beloved wife Lady Mirdath and baby during childbirth. The setting, yes Earth eons of years in the future when the dead Sun and stars have gone out, not shining also the unseen moon still orbiting the ugly planet. No daylight perpetual night, monsters and things roam the territory , millions of humans hide in a gray metallic object, a gigantic gloomy pyramid The Last Redoubt, dizzy miles high. With 1,320 floors each one a virtual separate city, underground farms that feed the hungry inhabitants vital food... The perplexed husband wakes up here as a seventeen- year -old a dream, what happened? Unexplained how he got there by the author, but the man has childhood memories of the pyramid and believes somehow Lady Mirdath is calling him by telepathy. A mythical second Redoubt somewhere in the blackness, is rumored to exist or is it just another fable our gentleman friend believes ... his heart aches incessantly he has to do this, will risk all ( life is meaningless without his adorable wife) and find love again, this is everything... Reincarnated hopefully, maybe as Naani the woman who lives far away in the small other pyramid contacting him, strangely he presumes telepathically, yet where ?...After strenuous training needed supplies, food tablets and water powders, ( a magic never discovered) putting on protective armor and most important his weapon the Diskos , the spinning deadly fire shooting discs carried on a handle. The people of the building look sadly at the teenager going on a suicide mission, they have become a timid race....Giants that intimidate, huge vicious hounds, loathsome killer spiders , flying unfriendly creatures wild deformed men and strange other abominations surround the Redoubt. Erupting volcanoes give some light and fire pits too much warmth, the spring waters flow. Rivers and seas some dry, make it a very creepy atmosphere to travel through deep in the bowels of the planet the landscape miles below ground of the frozen surface , becomes weirder as the unnamed gentleman goes further...The blackness more oppressive, death all around. Most frightful the mysterious Silent Ones, but a man has to do what a man has to do....In a savage, Night Land. A awesome read for people who like to be scared.
May 9, 2015
A modern man starts receiving psychic messages from hundreds of thousands of years in Earth's future--messages from himself. The sun is dying, the world is filled with horrific monsters, and the last remnants of humanity have locked themselves away in a vast pyramid to await the death of their world in peace. They peer out from countless windows at the awful monstrosities which beat at the gates, who want nothing so much as to kill every man, woman, and child within. Then, one day, they receive a message, from far beyond the monstrous lands--someone else is out there.
At first, I thought it no wonder Lovecraft declared this a must read for any scholar or writer of Supernatural Horror--it's a great premise, not quite like anything before, with clear potential for unexpected moments, high tension, a depiction of the ultimate struggle of mankind to survive--and Hodgson squanders all of it. Everything about this book seems designed to work against the story, to undermine it, to remove any thrill or tension or genuine human sentiment.
Our hero isn't just psychic--he's the most psychic, with knowledge and theories that no one else can ever hope to comprehend. The message isn't just from some other survivor, it's from the reborn soul of his dead girlfriend. Though it's supposed to literally be a love for the ages, the romance is as naive and idealized as a Taylor Swift song, full of grand words and gestures but completely lacking in any emotional depth or personal connection.
It's the sort of romance that occurs automatically, without any participation from those involved--there is no connection, and their personalities (especially hers) are entirely superfluous to the relationship. The romance is really for him, to motivate him, to draw him out--it's your standard 'love interest as plot device'. The entire relationship is presented in terms of control and possession, until the 'hero' ends up creepier than all the faceless monsters.
Here's a man who sees himself as far above others, in both body and mind, who constantly talks about his own amazing abilities (Hodgson was, himself, an early proponent of bodybuilding). Meanwhile, he is beset on all sides by a dark, incomprehensible world of faceless figures bent on destroying him. It is such a complete image of self-obsession, persecution complex, and profound entitlement. Hodgson's success in House on the Borderlands seems entirely to hinge on the fact that the protagonist was supposed to be a creepy, reclusive weirdo--'write what you know', I guess.
Then there is the physical style of the work, which begs through bloody lips for some kind of editing. We get the same information again and again, recapped and repeated. The agonist is constantly trying to explain the plot to us, as well as his thoughts, his desires, and every other thing. The story is never allowed to progress naturally, but is instead whipped and drug every inch of the way.
It’s as if an author wrote a short book, perhaps two hundred pages, and then went back through everything he had written and copied paragraphs and sentences, repeating them over and over throughout the story, changing the order here and there, until the book swells to six hundred pages. There is no thought, observation, description, or scene too banal to be repeated five or six times--usually capped off by the narrator saying ‘as I’ve mentioned several times before’.
There are entire chapters (and the chapters aren’t short) which are just the author walking for six hours (always six hours) across some barren plain or dry seabed before reaching some notable piece of landscape he’d mentioned before (usually a large rock), and then, ‘at the tenth hour’, realizing that he hasn’t slept or eaten anything in twelve hours, and collapsing exhausted in a shallow cave to a brief meal before passing out a good long while. When he wakes up, he’ll hear or see some terrible beast nearby, but it won’t notice him. Then he’ll get up and do it all again two or three times, until the chapter ends. That same scenario repeating is literally at least 50% of the book.
Finally, after walking ‘halfway across the world’ (in the narrator’s words), he reaches the only other human settlement on Earth, a place he’d never imagined existed, but which he was determined to reach against all odds. So, what does he do then: Check for supplies? See who else survived? Try to band together and save some of the other people? He doesn’t even look at the place, he just conveniently finds his girlfriend in a shallow cave outside, takes a nap, and then they leave.
Her only home has been destroyed, everyone she knows is dead or hiding from monsters, and yet when they meet, it’s all sweet kisses and blushing, holding hands, laughing and teasing--and of course him ordering her around for her own good, since she’s too stupid to do even the most basic things herself.
Then there's the language, which is artificially archaic, as Hodgson seeming to think that the residents of One Million AD will all sound like a Roanoke colony parson. While I enjoy the carefully-constructed archaism of Dunsany and E.R. Eddison, which provide their works with a sense of tone and poetry, a beauty of language that is appreciable in and of itself, Hodgson’s archaism is clunky and serves only to draw out an already tedious narrative.
The book is odiously stupid, just a constant test of the reader’s patience. Yet, it’s not stupid like most books, which are simply cliche and badly written by accident of the author’s lack of skill--this book is terrible because of a series of increasingly stupid and pointless decisions, all despite the fact that it’s conceptually interesting and inventive. By all rights, this book should have been worth reading, but it simply fails to be, at almost every turn.
At first, I thought it no wonder Lovecraft declared this a must read for any scholar or writer of Supernatural Horror--it's a great premise, not quite like anything before, with clear potential for unexpected moments, high tension, a depiction of the ultimate struggle of mankind to survive--and Hodgson squanders all of it. Everything about this book seems designed to work against the story, to undermine it, to remove any thrill or tension or genuine human sentiment.
Our hero isn't just psychic--he's the most psychic, with knowledge and theories that no one else can ever hope to comprehend. The message isn't just from some other survivor, it's from the reborn soul of his dead girlfriend. Though it's supposed to literally be a love for the ages, the romance is as naive and idealized as a Taylor Swift song, full of grand words and gestures but completely lacking in any emotional depth or personal connection.
It's the sort of romance that occurs automatically, without any participation from those involved--there is no connection, and their personalities (especially hers) are entirely superfluous to the relationship. The romance is really for him, to motivate him, to draw him out--it's your standard 'love interest as plot device'. The entire relationship is presented in terms of control and possession, until the 'hero' ends up creepier than all the faceless monsters.
Here's a man who sees himself as far above others, in both body and mind, who constantly talks about his own amazing abilities (Hodgson was, himself, an early proponent of bodybuilding). Meanwhile, he is beset on all sides by a dark, incomprehensible world of faceless figures bent on destroying him. It is such a complete image of self-obsession, persecution complex, and profound entitlement. Hodgson's success in House on the Borderlands seems entirely to hinge on the fact that the protagonist was supposed to be a creepy, reclusive weirdo--'write what you know', I guess.
Then there is the physical style of the work, which begs through bloody lips for some kind of editing. We get the same information again and again, recapped and repeated. The agonist is constantly trying to explain the plot to us, as well as his thoughts, his desires, and every other thing. The story is never allowed to progress naturally, but is instead whipped and drug every inch of the way.
It’s as if an author wrote a short book, perhaps two hundred pages, and then went back through everything he had written and copied paragraphs and sentences, repeating them over and over throughout the story, changing the order here and there, until the book swells to six hundred pages. There is no thought, observation, description, or scene too banal to be repeated five or six times--usually capped off by the narrator saying ‘as I’ve mentioned several times before’.
There are entire chapters (and the chapters aren’t short) which are just the author walking for six hours (always six hours) across some barren plain or dry seabed before reaching some notable piece of landscape he’d mentioned before (usually a large rock), and then, ‘at the tenth hour’, realizing that he hasn’t slept or eaten anything in twelve hours, and collapsing exhausted in a shallow cave to a brief meal before passing out a good long while. When he wakes up, he’ll hear or see some terrible beast nearby, but it won’t notice him. Then he’ll get up and do it all again two or three times, until the chapter ends. That same scenario repeating is literally at least 50% of the book.
Finally, after walking ‘halfway across the world’ (in the narrator’s words), he reaches the only other human settlement on Earth, a place he’d never imagined existed, but which he was determined to reach against all odds. So, what does he do then: Check for supplies? See who else survived? Try to band together and save some of the other people? He doesn’t even look at the place, he just conveniently finds his girlfriend in a shallow cave outside, takes a nap, and then they leave.
Her only home has been destroyed, everyone she knows is dead or hiding from monsters, and yet when they meet, it’s all sweet kisses and blushing, holding hands, laughing and teasing--and of course him ordering her around for her own good, since she’s too stupid to do even the most basic things herself.
Then there's the language, which is artificially archaic, as Hodgson seeming to think that the residents of One Million AD will all sound like a Roanoke colony parson. While I enjoy the carefully-constructed archaism of Dunsany and E.R. Eddison, which provide their works with a sense of tone and poetry, a beauty of language that is appreciable in and of itself, Hodgson’s archaism is clunky and serves only to draw out an already tedious narrative.
The book is odiously stupid, just a constant test of the reader’s patience. Yet, it’s not stupid like most books, which are simply cliche and badly written by accident of the author’s lack of skill--this book is terrible because of a series of increasingly stupid and pointless decisions, all despite the fact that it’s conceptually interesting and inventive. By all rights, this book should have been worth reading, but it simply fails to be, at almost every turn.
March 10, 2020
SENTENCED TO READ
The hero, a 17th century English gentleman, dreams of a Night Land where mankind only survives as a community living in an underground pyramid, besieged by horrid creatures and unknown entities...
----------
What is amiss?
1) The Night Land offers a dishearteningly linear plot (A to B to A), told in an excruciatingly descriptive, extensive, diary-like writing.
2) Verbose, self-righteous, self-justifying, tirelessly paraphrasing narrator-hero writes in a parody of 17th-century English. He is OP and can survive on a pouch of astronaut food for 6 months.
Oh, and no use looking for another narrator, I am afraid you will have to cope with him all the way.
By the way, did I tell you he endlessly adresses you, asking for confirmation, for understanding? Or is it talking in your stead? :) Let me give you an example, shall I!
'And this you to perceive', 'And you to agree in this thing', 'as you do mind'... verbatim.
Hm I bet you can already feel a connection with him ;)
Also, did I tell you that The Night Land is a giant monologue? Oh yes, I already did ;)
3) Dreary, awfully formulaic writing, the equivalent of a 72h-long, ad-free weather-forecast. It is already unwieldy and almost unbearable from Chapter 6 onwards, especially from chap. 6 to chap. 9, er 10, er I mean 11... you get the idea ;)
4) Mawkish love story, mind-numbing when it is not overtly off-putting.
5) Limited information can prove a terrific asset, as it drives you to know more and more about these unexplored bits. Here it just feels dry and lacking, and ill-paced, and lame.
You are left with endless repetitions, hassle, bickering, trite matters getting in the spotlight, while rare action-packed fight scenes (with close to no sense of real threat btw) are rushed and sloppy.
There was another promising bit in the first 5 chapters of The Night Land : the Last Redoubt, the sanctuary of mankind used to work instruments to send and receive messages in the "ether".
It was a silent and efficient way to warn one another about any danger, and send all manner of information from one place to another, allowing humans to cooperate and overcome mighty odds in the grim underworld. There comes a promising idea involving funkspiel from the monsters. The creatures outside can use the ether to their own benefit, overhearing messages, jamming them, answering them, luring humans from their strongholds... Resulting in the humans in the Last Redoubt using less and less their communications not to draw attention, and not to be deceived by the creatures. Engaging? Well, you can forget it once you're in the second half of the book.
6) Special suspension of ordinary rules, a magic shield of great and holy and lovely forces surrounding the hero time and again... bollocks.
7) And to keep the best for last... This story features exclusive advice from a qualified marriage counsellor :)
ASSOCIATIONS :
Stories with common features :
The intro is reminiscent of the Sea of Dreams, the Poem, the Fragments in The House on the Borderland.
The embedded narrative is somewhat similar to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, only this time around this is a full-fledged story, with a beginning that matters a lot as to the end of the Dream-Quest :)
Ligeia
Conan 1 - Le Cimmérien with a wide-scaled universe, only Conan has a lot more actual interaction with other humans :D
Soundtrack :
None. This is a foretaste of the Country of Silence :)
- Buddy read with Tara, March 2020
The hero, a 17th century English gentleman, dreams of a Night Land where mankind only survives as a community living in an underground pyramid, besieged by horrid creatures and unknown entities...
----------
What is amiss?
1) The Night Land offers a dishearteningly linear plot (A to B to A), told in an excruciatingly descriptive, extensive, diary-like writing.
2) Verbose, self-righteous, self-justifying, tirelessly paraphrasing narrator-hero writes in a parody of 17th-century English. He is OP and can survive on a pouch of astronaut food for 6 months.
Oh, and no use looking for another narrator, I am afraid you will have to cope with him all the way.
By the way, did I tell you he endlessly adresses you, asking for confirmation, for understanding? Or is it talking in your stead? :) Let me give you an example, shall I!
'And this you to perceive', 'And you to agree in this thing', 'as you do mind'... verbatim.
Hm I bet you can already feel a connection with him ;)
Also, did I tell you that The Night Land is a giant monologue? Oh yes, I already did ;)
3) Dreary, awfully formulaic writing, the equivalent of a 72h-long, ad-free weather-forecast. It is already unwieldy and almost unbearable from Chapter 6 onwards, especially from chap. 6 to chap. 9, er 10, er I mean 11... you get the idea ;)
4) Mawkish love story, mind-numbing when it is not overtly off-putting.
5) Limited information can prove a terrific asset, as it drives you to know more and more about these unexplored bits. Here it just feels dry and lacking, and ill-paced, and lame.
You are left with endless repetitions, hassle, bickering, trite matters getting in the spotlight, while rare action-packed fight scenes (with close to no sense of real threat btw) are rushed and sloppy.
There was another promising bit in the first 5 chapters of The Night Land : the Last Redoubt, the sanctuary of mankind used to work instruments to send and receive messages in the "ether".
It was a silent and efficient way to warn one another about any danger, and send all manner of information from one place to another, allowing humans to cooperate and overcome mighty odds in the grim underworld. There comes a promising idea involving funkspiel from the monsters. The creatures outside can use the ether to their own benefit, overhearing messages, jamming them, answering them, luring humans from their strongholds... Resulting in the humans in the Last Redoubt using less and less their communications not to draw attention, and not to be deceived by the creatures. Engaging? Well, you can forget it once you're in the second half of the book.
6) Special suspension of ordinary rules, a magic shield of great and holy and lovely forces surrounding the hero time and again... bollocks.
7) And to keep the best for last... This story features exclusive advice from a qualified marriage counsellor :)
ASSOCIATIONS :
Stories with common features :
The intro is reminiscent of the Sea of Dreams, the Poem, the Fragments in The House on the Borderland.
The embedded narrative is somewhat similar to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, only this time around this is a full-fledged story, with a beginning that matters a lot as to the end of the Dream-Quest :)
Ligeia
Conan 1 - Le Cimmérien with a wide-scaled universe, only Conan has a lot more actual interaction with other humans :D
Soundtrack :
None. This is a foretaste of the Country of Silence :)
- Buddy read with Tara, March 2020
May 20, 2024
Yes yes...the writing style is obnoxious and the constant repetition is grating, but as a reader what would you rather have?
1. A well-paced and readable thriller of a book that causes you no pain, but is soon forgotten and is (in verity) a mediocrity?
2. Or a book that infuriates you and tries your patience to the utmost degree, but is at its core a true original and one of the most remarkable feats of imagination in the English language?
You need to determine how much you value originality, and how much energy you are willing to expend in the fight to expose yourself to it. If you are brave, try the Night Land. But do not expect an unturbulent relationship with the text. I hate it, but I love it so much more.
P.S. I advise reading "The House on The Borderland" or "the Boats of the Glen Carrig" first.
1. A well-paced and readable thriller of a book that causes you no pain, but is soon forgotten and is (in verity) a mediocrity?
2. Or a book that infuriates you and tries your patience to the utmost degree, but is at its core a true original and one of the most remarkable feats of imagination in the English language?
You need to determine how much you value originality, and how much energy you are willing to expend in the fight to expose yourself to it. If you are brave, try the Night Land. But do not expect an unturbulent relationship with the text. I hate it, but I love it so much more.
P.S. I advise reading "The House on The Borderland" or "the Boats of the Glen Carrig" first.
May 11, 2019
One of the greatest love stories ever written.
This is a SYMBOLIST work, other reviewers here who don't understand that are demi-morons.
This is Amor, A-Mor, Without Death, as Serrano defined it, not the mundane 'love' of 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'.
This is a SYMBOLIST work, other reviewers here who don't understand that are demi-morons.
This is Amor, A-Mor, Without Death, as Serrano defined it, not the mundane 'love' of 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'.
May 22, 2024
The Nightland by William Hope Hodgson is definitely what I would characterize as an Eldritch, dark, science fiction, weird horror, fantasy novel that is not for everyone. It is written in a lyrical fashion with almost every paragraph beginning with "And."
Lovecraft himself called it "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written," and Clark Ashton Smith said: In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. Whatever faults this book may possess, however inordinate its length may seem, it impresses the reader as being the ultimate saga of a perishing cosmos, the last epic of a world beleaguered by eternal night and by the unvisageable spawn of darkness. Only a great poet could have conceived and written this story; and it is perhaps not illegitimate to wonder how much of actual prophecy may have been mingled with the poesy [poetry].
The Nightland begins with one chapter of a normal period piece story, and then in chapter two, the story is flashed into the future where the MC and the reincarnation of his wife attempt to reunite. One of the impediments to their reunion is that the Sun has gone out in this future timeline so that the world is cast in perpetual night. The majority of the human race are hidden and protected by a giant pyramid called the Last Redoubt.
It is only when our MC establishes a mind-contact with his former love that he discovers that she is sequestered in a place called the Lesser Redoubt. He must now do something considered an impossibility, travel throughout the Nightland to the Lesser Redoubt and reunite with the maid. Along the way, he battles all manner of creatures hidden in the dark to find his lost love and bring her to the Last Redoubt.
The story is entirely too long, but epic in scope. The lyrical way of communicating the inane might remind one of Shakespeare with a lot less gravitas. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the inventive monsters and ideas. I am happy to get this voluminous and classic work beneath my belt but will probably never reread.
Lovecraft himself called it "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written," and Clark Ashton Smith said: In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. Whatever faults this book may possess, however inordinate its length may seem, it impresses the reader as being the ultimate saga of a perishing cosmos, the last epic of a world beleaguered by eternal night and by the unvisageable spawn of darkness. Only a great poet could have conceived and written this story; and it is perhaps not illegitimate to wonder how much of actual prophecy may have been mingled with the poesy [poetry].
The Nightland begins with one chapter of a normal period piece story, and then in chapter two, the story is flashed into the future where the MC and the reincarnation of his wife attempt to reunite. One of the impediments to their reunion is that the Sun has gone out in this future timeline so that the world is cast in perpetual night. The majority of the human race are hidden and protected by a giant pyramid called the Last Redoubt.
It is only when our MC establishes a mind-contact with his former love that he discovers that she is sequestered in a place called the Lesser Redoubt. He must now do something considered an impossibility, travel throughout the Nightland to the Lesser Redoubt and reunite with the maid. Along the way, he battles all manner of creatures hidden in the dark to find his lost love and bring her to the Last Redoubt.
The story is entirely too long, but epic in scope. The lyrical way of communicating the inane might remind one of Shakespeare with a lot less gravitas. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the inventive monsters and ideas. I am happy to get this voluminous and classic work beneath my belt but will probably never reread.
June 9, 2015
Disappointing. I was excited to read this after experiencing The House on the Borderland but this severely dragged.
The beginning to this novel is supremely evocative; a world in darkness due to the absence of the sun, lit from within by flaming pits and powered by a type of geothermal energy. The landscape is visionary, the creatures suitably monstrous and unsettling; from slug-like behemoths to the vile and base Humpt men. After the initial world building the descriptive fervour wanes and we are left following a very traditional tale of a knight on a quest to rescue a fair maiden. This can be tolerated if done well, but seems so naive now to a modern audience that the feeling it should be relegated to a children's fairy story is the tempting compulsion, but then again that would insult the modern child. Even allowing for the literary conventions of a hundred years back this is deeply repetitive. I set it down for four days without any desire to pick it back up again and complete it. Out of fairness, stubbornness and being blown away by The House on the Borderland I went back to it but unfortunately that was a waste of time. By the time the ending came around the lack of any psychological truth made what was supposed to be a stirring denouement unengaging and fatuous.
It shocked me how quickly this turned from an imaginative fantastical world of wonder to a tedious drudge in the company of a messed up knight with issues and his drippy girlfriend. The misogyny on show is just awful and cannot be excused by saying it was of its time. And even if that is disregarded there is not enough to sustain the narrative for even a half of the length of the novel.
Please read The House on the Borderland. It is completely ace.
The beginning to this novel is supremely evocative; a world in darkness due to the absence of the sun, lit from within by flaming pits and powered by a type of geothermal energy. The landscape is visionary, the creatures suitably monstrous and unsettling; from slug-like behemoths to the vile and base Humpt men. After the initial world building the descriptive fervour wanes and we are left following a very traditional tale of a knight on a quest to rescue a fair maiden. This can be tolerated if done well, but seems so naive now to a modern audience that the feeling it should be relegated to a children's fairy story is the tempting compulsion, but then again that would insult the modern child. Even allowing for the literary conventions of a hundred years back this is deeply repetitive. I set it down for four days without any desire to pick it back up again and complete it. Out of fairness, stubbornness and being blown away by The House on the Borderland I went back to it but unfortunately that was a waste of time. By the time the ending came around the lack of any psychological truth made what was supposed to be a stirring denouement unengaging and fatuous.
It shocked me how quickly this turned from an imaginative fantastical world of wonder to a tedious drudge in the company of a messed up knight with issues and his drippy girlfriend. The misogyny on show is just awful and cannot be excused by saying it was of its time. And even if that is disregarded there is not enough to sustain the narrative for even a half of the length of the novel.
Please read The House on the Borderland. It is completely ace.
November 2, 2010
Millions of years into the future when the sun has ceased to shine and most of the world is overrun by strange demonic beasts, the remnants of mankind hold out inside a mighty pyramid fueled by the "earth current" in which the beasts cannot enter. No one who ever ventures out ever comes back and since they have all they need inside their redoubt, not many bother.
At first this seemed to be a story about a man who is telepathically contacted by a woman who he remembers from a former life, and was his beloved. She is however not located within the mighty pyramid but in another lesser pyramid somewhere out there in the night land, and it's earth current is failing. Eventually he decides to go out, on his own, to try and find his soul mate. He must venture out and brave the unknown terrors of the night land with only a general idea of direction and no idea how far. Can he defy all odds, find her and bring her back alive?
Actually though, the story is not about the above, it is in fact the protagonist's very poorly written account of these events. To start with, the protagonist writes with a seventeenth century English prose and is no natural story-teller. The narrative is in the first person with large amounts of exposition and no dialogue. Rarely is the reader able to feel that they are put into the story, instead is constantly reminded that they are reading about the story after the event. The tediousness of his journey is exacerbated by the constant dwelling on the daily routines of walking, sleeping, drinking water and pill popping. And on his return journey, the narrative becomes dominated by the childish behaviour of two love-sick "teenagers" in which they are constantly smiling at each other, kissing, teasing and upsetting each other. Remember, there's no dialogue. Just when I was looking forward to relieving the monotony of the first half with another character for protagonist to interact with, I found that it was instead replaced by something even more infuriating.
The prose is not archaic in a good, Eric Rücker Eddison kind of way. It instead feels clumsy, repetitive and ugly. If I'm being unkind I would say that Hodgson was very bad at archaic styling and if I'm being generous I would say that he most skillfully constructed a character whose prose was appalling. Indeed, I ended up feeling that all the flaws of the book were intentional, part of Hodgson's deliberate styling. And I know full well from reading his other work that this man could write really well when he wanted to. What he was trying to achieve in this book I will never really understand but whether it was deliberate or not, I didn't enjoy it.
This is a long book, coming in at just over 500 pages. The blurb on the front boasted this was the "complete and unabridged version" and I found myself wishing it wasn't. At various points I was on the verge of giving up but just managed to force myself to carry on until the end. My advice to anyone considering reading this is to only do so after reading some of his other work and if you really feel you just have to have more of this otherwise wonderful writer whose life was cut tragically short.
At first this seemed to be a story about a man who is telepathically contacted by a woman who he remembers from a former life, and was his beloved. She is however not located within the mighty pyramid but in another lesser pyramid somewhere out there in the night land, and it's earth current is failing. Eventually he decides to go out, on his own, to try and find his soul mate. He must venture out and brave the unknown terrors of the night land with only a general idea of direction and no idea how far. Can he defy all odds, find her and bring her back alive?
Actually though, the story is not about the above, it is in fact the protagonist's very poorly written account of these events. To start with, the protagonist writes with a seventeenth century English prose and is no natural story-teller. The narrative is in the first person with large amounts of exposition and no dialogue. Rarely is the reader able to feel that they are put into the story, instead is constantly reminded that they are reading about the story after the event. The tediousness of his journey is exacerbated by the constant dwelling on the daily routines of walking, sleeping, drinking water and pill popping. And on his return journey, the narrative becomes dominated by the childish behaviour of two love-sick "teenagers" in which they are constantly smiling at each other, kissing, teasing and upsetting each other. Remember, there's no dialogue. Just when I was looking forward to relieving the monotony of the first half with another character for protagonist to interact with, I found that it was instead replaced by something even more infuriating.
The prose is not archaic in a good, Eric Rücker Eddison kind of way. It instead feels clumsy, repetitive and ugly. If I'm being unkind I would say that Hodgson was very bad at archaic styling and if I'm being generous I would say that he most skillfully constructed a character whose prose was appalling. Indeed, I ended up feeling that all the flaws of the book were intentional, part of Hodgson's deliberate styling. And I know full well from reading his other work that this man could write really well when he wanted to. What he was trying to achieve in this book I will never really understand but whether it was deliberate or not, I didn't enjoy it.
This is a long book, coming in at just over 500 pages. The blurb on the front boasted this was the "complete and unabridged version" and I found myself wishing it wasn't. At various points I was on the verge of giving up but just managed to force myself to carry on until the end. My advice to anyone considering reading this is to only do so after reading some of his other work and if you really feel you just have to have more of this otherwise wonderful writer whose life was cut tragically short.
March 22, 2022
Novela de terror, y algo de empalagoso romance, de principios del siglo pasado.
La trama va de un caballero del siglo XVII, de luto por la muerte de su amada Lady Mirdath, que empieza entonces a tener visiones de un futuro lejano llegando a delirar y ver el mundo a través de los ojos de una encarnación futura en donde el sol ha muerto y la tierra solo está iluminada por los resplandores volcánicos. Lo poco que queda de la raza humana vive en conjunto en una única pirámide metálica gigantesca, que vive bajo el constante asedio de fuerzas y criaturas desconocidas y poderosas de la oscuridad, las cuales frenan solo con una especie de red metálica de energía que cubre la pirámide. Salir de la protección de la red es la muerte casi segura o una destrucción del alma, ya que hay criaturas qué se alimentan de ellas.
Tras todo éste planteamiento comienza la acción, que se desencadena con la llamada de socorro de otra pirámide que los habitantes del lugar no tenía idea que existía. El protagonista, con su habilidad de recibir los pensamientos de otras personas, se da cuenta que es la reencarnación de su amada muerta en el siglo XVII, lo que produce que se interne en las tierras malditas enfrentándose a un sinnúmero de peligros en pos de llegar a ella y salvarla.
Hodgson es realmente un genio creando ambientes y los enfrentamientos con las criaturas son excelentes, hay partes que logra imprimirle una dosis de terror tan bueno que te pone los pelos de punta. No obstante, es cuando llega el encuentro con su amada cuando la novela decae. El romanticismo con el que nos empieza a atacar el autor es tan empalagoso, y para esta época ya desfasado, cargado de un machismo extremo, que la novela comienza a hacerse pesada y repetitiva. Una y otra vez se recalca todo lo que la ama y todo lo haría por ella y etc... etc... ya para el final la novela logra levantarse otra vez, pero aún así a esas alturas ya estás tan hastiado de las repetitivas situaciones, y la ya retrógrada visión romántica del autor, qué no te deja un muy buen sabor de boca.
¿Si recomiendo esta novela? Si deseas conocer un mundo oscuro y terrorífico, entonces sí. Solo ten en cuenta que tendrás que aguantar el mal conseguido romance que intenta colarnos el autor y algunos excesos de detalle en algunos pasajes que realmente sobran. Si no fuera por ello esta novela de seguro puntuaría más alto.
¡Solo para fans de lo terrorífico!
La trama va de un caballero del siglo XVII, de luto por la muerte de su amada Lady Mirdath, que empieza entonces a tener visiones de un futuro lejano llegando a delirar y ver el mundo a través de los ojos de una encarnación futura en donde el sol ha muerto y la tierra solo está iluminada por los resplandores volcánicos. Lo poco que queda de la raza humana vive en conjunto en una única pirámide metálica gigantesca, que vive bajo el constante asedio de fuerzas y criaturas desconocidas y poderosas de la oscuridad, las cuales frenan solo con una especie de red metálica de energía que cubre la pirámide. Salir de la protección de la red es la muerte casi segura o una destrucción del alma, ya que hay criaturas qué se alimentan de ellas.
Tras todo éste planteamiento comienza la acción, que se desencadena con la llamada de socorro de otra pirámide que los habitantes del lugar no tenía idea que existía. El protagonista, con su habilidad de recibir los pensamientos de otras personas, se da cuenta que es la reencarnación de su amada muerta en el siglo XVII, lo que produce que se interne en las tierras malditas enfrentándose a un sinnúmero de peligros en pos de llegar a ella y salvarla.
Hodgson es realmente un genio creando ambientes y los enfrentamientos con las criaturas son excelentes, hay partes que logra imprimirle una dosis de terror tan bueno que te pone los pelos de punta. No obstante, es cuando llega el encuentro con su amada cuando la novela decae. El romanticismo con el que nos empieza a atacar el autor es tan empalagoso, y para esta época ya desfasado, cargado de un machismo extremo, que la novela comienza a hacerse pesada y repetitiva. Una y otra vez se recalca todo lo que la ama y todo lo haría por ella y etc... etc... ya para el final la novela logra levantarse otra vez, pero aún así a esas alturas ya estás tan hastiado de las repetitivas situaciones, y la ya retrógrada visión romántica del autor, qué no te deja un muy buen sabor de boca.
¿Si recomiendo esta novela? Si deseas conocer un mundo oscuro y terrorífico, entonces sí. Solo ten en cuenta que tendrás que aguantar el mal conseguido romance que intenta colarnos el autor y algunos excesos de detalle en algunos pasajes que realmente sobran. Si no fuera por ello esta novela de seguro puntuaría más alto.
¡Solo para fans de lo terrorífico!
August 29, 2017
A five star rating elsewhere is a 'perfect' score, but as on Goodreads it signifies 'amazing' I unequivocally cast such a rating. As most Hodgson aficionados would admit, The Night Land is a flawed jewel. The prose is clumsy and laboured, the repetition is vitiating and the second half of the book sags due to a mix of turgid storytelling and limited content, but Hodgson's transmutation of the ghost story into a fantasy epic is also ingenious, awe-inspiring and without comparison.
Not an easy book, but a great and unforgettable one. A tip would be to listen to an audio version so the bizarre grammatical choices don't overwhelm. When so approached, The Night Land becomes the literary equivalent of evocative ambient black metal, with enough atmosphere to soak oneself in that the various profound flaws are easily compensated for. This is true kvlt literature.
Not an easy book, but a great and unforgettable one. A tip would be to listen to an audio version so the bizarre grammatical choices don't overwhelm. When so approached, The Night Land becomes the literary equivalent of evocative ambient black metal, with enough atmosphere to soak oneself in that the various profound flaws are easily compensated for. This is true kvlt literature.
February 21, 2016
you: I want to read about a dude walking in the dark & eating astronaut food for a billion pages
me: I got u fam
me: I got u fam
August 18, 2011
William Hope Hodgson's epic novel "The Night Land" was chosen for inclusion in Cawthorn & Moorcock's "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books," and yet in this overview volume's sister collection, "Horror: 100 Best Books," Jones & Newman surprisingly declare the novel to be "unreadable." No less a critic than H.P. Lovecraft pronounced "The Night Land" to be "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written," and yet still insists that "the last quarter of the book drags woefully." With critics seemingly split down the middle regarding this novel, I manfully plunged into this book's 400+-page story, having greatly enjoyed four previous Hodgson titles: "The Boats of the Glen Carrig" (1907), "The House on the Borderland" (1908), "The Ghost Pirates" (1909) and the short-story collection "Carnacki The Ghost-Finder" (1913). Although "The Night Land" was initially published in 1912, it may very well have been Hodgson's first novel, if we can believe Sam Gafford's scholarly Internet essay entitled "Writing Backwards: The Novels of William Hope Hodgson." Be it the author's first novel or last, however, the book is extraordinary in many ways, and depicts a milieu not easily forgotten.
Our nameless narrator, who apparently lives in the 18th century, tells us of his visions of the very far distant future. His reincarnated self, he reveals, lives in a time when the Earth's sun has burnt itself out, and the remnants of humanity reside in a seven-mile-high, 1,320-story pyramid, The Last Redoubt, around 150 miles below the planet's frozen surface. Our narrator, using a pseudo-archaic form of English that doubles as the language of the far future, goes on to tell of the epic journey he takes through the uncharted bowels of the Earth in search of a woman named Naani, who he is in telepathic communication with and who also seems to be the reincarnation of our narrator's 18th century wife. The travails that our young hero undergoes to find his lost love and bring her safely back to the Redoubt are certainly no less insurmountable than those that Homer's hero experienced in his classical odyssey. This young man is forced to encounter monstrous beastmen, enormous slugs and spiders, giants, feral hounds, volcanoes and other menaces during his months-long journey, and his plight is only made more worrisome when he ultimately does find Naani and has to turn around and bring her home. But a mere plot summary can in no way convey the atmosphere of eeriness that Hodgson manages to sustain for the entire duration of his book. The Night Land is indeed a world of dark wonders, most of which go unexplained. The angelic powers of good that repeatedly come to our hero's salvation, the dreadful Watchers, the inhabitants of the House of Silence, the Laugher of the East, the invisible Evil Powers...all these mysterious inhabitants of the underground realm are fleetingly referred to, leaving the reader hoping to learn more. Despite the novel's length, "The Night Land" could easily have served as a mere introduction to an epic fantasy series. Sadly, with Hodgson's death in World War I action in April 1918, that continuing series was never to be, leaving us with this tantalizing glimpse of Earth's future.
I mentioned that archaic language before, the major stumbling block, seemingly, for most readers; the one responsible for the charge of the book being "unreadable." Here are some examples of this supposedly "unreadable" language: "And presently, when eighteen hours did have passed since that my sudden awakening to the peril of the Grey Men, I did search about for a place to slumber." "But I to know how that she did be like to be all gone of her strength thiswise...." "And there to be yet one thing upon which, mayhap, I not to have thought sufficient...." Although this diction is initially offputting, I found that I quickly adapted to the book's unusual grammar, syntax and punctuation (Hodgson's other works, especially "Glen Carrig," were a good prep for this), and soon felt that the narrator's manner of speech is almost charming. The book is far from unreadable; indeed, I think it is actually quite gripping. The final quarter that Lovecraft complained about is, for me, anything but a drag. Yes, the action does slow down a bit, as Hodgson details the "Taming of the Shrew"-like relationship that develops between our hero and his Naani; but this only sets us up for a final 50 pages or so that are really very thrilling. The relationship referred to, by the way, is quite a sweet one. Has a couple in all of fantasy literature ever been more manifestly in love than this couple here? Have you ever seen two people so enamored of each other that they actually kiss each other's food? Though some modern feminists might have a problem with our narrator's pet name for Naani ("Baby Slave"), the two are as perfect a couple as one could hope to find, and the reader's sympathies are wholly with them during their harrowing journey. Indeed, the more sentimental reader may find him/herself getting quite a bit misty-eyed by the book's conclusion. In any event, the bottom line is that this novel is some kind of brilliant work, and one that should greatly appeal to all fantasy, sci-fi and horror fans. It is well worth seeking out.
Our nameless narrator, who apparently lives in the 18th century, tells us of his visions of the very far distant future. His reincarnated self, he reveals, lives in a time when the Earth's sun has burnt itself out, and the remnants of humanity reside in a seven-mile-high, 1,320-story pyramid, The Last Redoubt, around 150 miles below the planet's frozen surface. Our narrator, using a pseudo-archaic form of English that doubles as the language of the far future, goes on to tell of the epic journey he takes through the uncharted bowels of the Earth in search of a woman named Naani, who he is in telepathic communication with and who also seems to be the reincarnation of our narrator's 18th century wife. The travails that our young hero undergoes to find his lost love and bring her safely back to the Redoubt are certainly no less insurmountable than those that Homer's hero experienced in his classical odyssey. This young man is forced to encounter monstrous beastmen, enormous slugs and spiders, giants, feral hounds, volcanoes and other menaces during his months-long journey, and his plight is only made more worrisome when he ultimately does find Naani and has to turn around and bring her home. But a mere plot summary can in no way convey the atmosphere of eeriness that Hodgson manages to sustain for the entire duration of his book. The Night Land is indeed a world of dark wonders, most of which go unexplained. The angelic powers of good that repeatedly come to our hero's salvation, the dreadful Watchers, the inhabitants of the House of Silence, the Laugher of the East, the invisible Evil Powers...all these mysterious inhabitants of the underground realm are fleetingly referred to, leaving the reader hoping to learn more. Despite the novel's length, "The Night Land" could easily have served as a mere introduction to an epic fantasy series. Sadly, with Hodgson's death in World War I action in April 1918, that continuing series was never to be, leaving us with this tantalizing glimpse of Earth's future.
I mentioned that archaic language before, the major stumbling block, seemingly, for most readers; the one responsible for the charge of the book being "unreadable." Here are some examples of this supposedly "unreadable" language: "And presently, when eighteen hours did have passed since that my sudden awakening to the peril of the Grey Men, I did search about for a place to slumber." "But I to know how that she did be like to be all gone of her strength thiswise...." "And there to be yet one thing upon which, mayhap, I not to have thought sufficient...." Although this diction is initially offputting, I found that I quickly adapted to the book's unusual grammar, syntax and punctuation (Hodgson's other works, especially "Glen Carrig," were a good prep for this), and soon felt that the narrator's manner of speech is almost charming. The book is far from unreadable; indeed, I think it is actually quite gripping. The final quarter that Lovecraft complained about is, for me, anything but a drag. Yes, the action does slow down a bit, as Hodgson details the "Taming of the Shrew"-like relationship that develops between our hero and his Naani; but this only sets us up for a final 50 pages or so that are really very thrilling. The relationship referred to, by the way, is quite a sweet one. Has a couple in all of fantasy literature ever been more manifestly in love than this couple here? Have you ever seen two people so enamored of each other that they actually kiss each other's food? Though some modern feminists might have a problem with our narrator's pet name for Naani ("Baby Slave"), the two are as perfect a couple as one could hope to find, and the reader's sympathies are wholly with them during their harrowing journey. Indeed, the more sentimental reader may find him/herself getting quite a bit misty-eyed by the book's conclusion. In any event, the bottom line is that this novel is some kind of brilliant work, and one that should greatly appeal to all fantasy, sci-fi and horror fans. It is well worth seeking out.
Read
April 16, 2017It was in the Olden Days of the dawn of the world that I didst stumble across a copy of this book at the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences store in Providence, Rhode Island, a city anigh to both mine own redoubt and also mine own Heart. Obviously I was aware of the book's reputation (what with Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith being professed fans), and had recently seen it discussed at the Ligotti forums, and now lo! there it was on the shelf before me. So didst I purchase it very quickly, though put off reading it until recently, for divers reasons. This book is truly of those rarest of beasts... a novel I feel that I cannot give a star rating to, as truly mine own feelings for it are quite conflicted, and in verity, I'm still not sure if I could call this book a Masterpiece of the Imagination or one of the most boring novels I've ever read. I will say that it was, by far, one of the most exhausting novels I've ever read, and by the end of it didst seem as if I had literally walked every damn mile of the Night Land by the narrator's side, and didst felt much awearied (the fact that there's almost no dialogue at all, and that the whole thing is torturously written in a ludicrous and misguided attempt to mimic the archaic writing style of the 17th-century, doesn't help matters). It almost reads less like a novel and more like a nightmarish geography reduced to words. In his essay "The Supernatural Horror in Literature" H.P. Lovecraft declares this book as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written" while at the same time bemoaning its many flaws: "...painful verboseness, repetitiousness, artificial and nauseously sticky romantic sentimentality..." He also mentions that the last quarter of the book drags woefully, and he's not kidding. The first half, in which the unnamed (and, it must be said, somewhat sexist, pompous and unlikeable) narrator travels across that bleak landscape kist by Everlasting Night in search of his lost Beloved, is generally quite good, and captures a nice sense of cosmic loneliness. But then around the book's halfway point he finds his Beloved (who acts more like a spoiled and simple-minded child than a grown woman) and they head back home, and that's when the tedium sets in: every now and then there's an exciting scene like when they're forced to flee from giant slug monsters, only for it to be followed by a MINDBOGGLINGLY BORING 7 page scene of the narrator and his girlfriend bathing and washing their clothes in a hot spring: I lost count of how oft times mine eyes glazed over while struggling through the second half (to say nothing of the dulling of mine poorly taxed brain-elements), though I perceived that it didst pick up at the final few chapters. One thing that impresses me about this book is how that many of the monsters are only sketchily described (or heard rather than seen), leaving much to the imagination. I also like how many of the locations mentioned in the Night Land doth not even appear or gat visited by the narrator, though those we doth see are pretty cool (especially the chilling House of Silence).
July 10, 2007
Hodgson is my favorite early fantasy author, and this is one of his best. It's one of the most densely-written, dream-like novels I've ever read, and his rich use of language is unsurpassed. It takes a while to get through, but it's worth it.
March 18, 2020
El protagonista realiza un viaje en el tiempo hacia el futuro, un viaje de millones de años. El sol está apagado y la Tierra está sumida en tinieblas. El último bastión de la humanidad es una inmensa pirámide de metal donde habitan millones de personas. Hay que decir que este es un lugar sitiado por extrañas criaturas, por lo que salir supone prácticamente una muerte segura. Bajo este entorno, el protagonista y narrador escucha la llamada mental de su amada, lo que indica otro lugar, del que no se tenía noticia, con personas. Será entonces cuando decida acudir en su ayuda.
‘El Reino de la Noche’ (The Night Land, 1912), del inglés William Hope Hodgson, es todo un clásico del horror cósmico, alabada por el mismísimo H.P. Lovecraft. La edición de Valdemar es excelente, con traducción y prólogo de José María Nebreda. Me ha gustado la atmósfera y esas primeras descripciones de esta tierra infernal y enigmática. Sin embargo, la lectura se me ha vuelto muy repetitiva y farragosa. Para mí Hodgson fue un genio y maestro, y me ha gustado todo lo que he leído de él. Pero con esta novela no he podido.
‘El Reino de la Noche’ (The Night Land, 1912), del inglés William Hope Hodgson, es todo un clásico del horror cósmico, alabada por el mismísimo H.P. Lovecraft. La edición de Valdemar es excelente, con traducción y prólogo de José María Nebreda. Me ha gustado la atmósfera y esas primeras descripciones de esta tierra infernal y enigmática. Sin embargo, la lectura se me ha vuelto muy repetitiva y farragosa. Para mí Hodgson fue un genio y maestro, y me ha gustado todo lo que he leído de él. Pero con esta novela no he podido.
June 23, 2010
Man this book was long and repetitive. And that's a shame because there was incredible imagination at work here and there were some lovely passages of writing. But every moment of the story seemed to take a week to describe, and there was so much repitition that I felt like screaming.
When it came to the end, I thought Hodgson was going to pull off a beautiful ending, but, as with most of the rest of the book, he had to write on and on past what would have been the true moment to end the story.
I understand that the uncut version of this book is about 200,000 words long and it could 'easily' have been cut in half to make it a much stronger work. I also hear there is a short, 20,000 word version called: "The Dream of X." I sure wish I'd known that before I tackled the long version.
When it came to the end, I thought Hodgson was going to pull off a beautiful ending, but, as with most of the rest of the book, he had to write on and on past what would have been the true moment to end the story.
I understand that the uncut version of this book is about 200,000 words long and it could 'easily' have been cut in half to make it a much stronger work. I also hear there is a short, 20,000 word version called: "The Dream of X." I sure wish I'd known that before I tackled the long version.
March 14, 2018
It honestly blows my mind that this book has been virtually forgotten since its original publication in 1912. One thing many readers will find jarring - but I found beautifully evocative - is its unique framing device. The entire book is narrated in the first person perspective of a 17th-century English nobleman (and written in language to match the character). This protagonist, mourning the recent death of a beloved spouse, experiences an extended vision of a time hundreds of thousands of years into the future. The sun has died and 'the last millions' of humanity live in a pyramid arcology (the "Last Redoubt") surrounded by an electrified "Earth Current" to protect them from the monsters and forces of evil roaming a world of perpetual darkness. What follows is a dark, riveting, and profoundly moving epic of the protagonist's quest to find his true love from the former age, now reincarnated with himself in a future just a few steps removed from Hell.
This book in many ways anticipates the 'cosmic horror' genre pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft, but is the furthest thing removed from his nihilistic worldview. The "reincarnation" element was something I found very difficult to suspend disbelief towards as someone with a Christian outlook, but the story's basic theme is a powerful portrayal of light in the midst of darkness, with explicit reference to angelic "powers of holiness" (and a brief reference to God) aiding a beleaguered humanity against the otherworldly horrors of the Night Land. Combined with the Old English language, the book feels like something that could have been written by John Milton or even John Bunyan - not to say that it's theology mirrors their own.
Though this book is a confirmed influence on Lovecraft, I almost have to believe that J.R.R. Tolkien read it at least once. The descriptions and imagery are remarkably similar to Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor. The Night Land and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion saga also share a common underlying theme of "fighting the long defeat." Frodo's destruction of the Ring can only delay the inevitable return of the Shadow at the end of Days; the Last Redoubt will inevitably fall at "the Day of Doom, when our Earth-Current should cease, and leave us helpless to the Watchers and the Abundant Terror." Yet even then, you keep fighting - because it's the right thing to do. Success - or the lack of it - is in the hands of a power far greater than any one of us or than the evils we face in this darkened world. HOW we face those evils - not whether we defeated them - is what will ultimately judge us in the end.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys not only science fiction but classical literature in the tradition of Milton, Dante, and Homer. I would call it an epic to stand among the greatest of them.
This book in many ways anticipates the 'cosmic horror' genre pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft, but is the furthest thing removed from his nihilistic worldview. The "reincarnation" element was something I found very difficult to suspend disbelief towards as someone with a Christian outlook, but the story's basic theme is a powerful portrayal of light in the midst of darkness, with explicit reference to angelic "powers of holiness" (and a brief reference to God) aiding a beleaguered humanity against the otherworldly horrors of the Night Land. Combined with the Old English language, the book feels like something that could have been written by John Milton or even John Bunyan - not to say that it's theology mirrors their own.
Though this book is a confirmed influence on Lovecraft, I almost have to believe that J.R.R. Tolkien read it at least once. The descriptions and imagery are remarkably similar to Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor. The Night Land and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion saga also share a common underlying theme of "fighting the long defeat." Frodo's destruction of the Ring can only delay the inevitable return of the Shadow at the end of Days; the Last Redoubt will inevitably fall at "the Day of Doom, when our Earth-Current should cease, and leave us helpless to the Watchers and the Abundant Terror." Yet even then, you keep fighting - because it's the right thing to do. Success - or the lack of it - is in the hands of a power far greater than any one of us or than the evils we face in this darkened world. HOW we face those evils - not whether we defeated them - is what will ultimately judge us in the end.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys not only science fiction but classical literature in the tradition of Milton, Dante, and Homer. I would call it an epic to stand among the greatest of them.
March 29, 2010
This is a much-flawed yet fabulous book. Set mostly in a fantastically distant future, on a dark Earth whose sun has died, it is an adventure and a romance that spans eternity.
First the bad news:
It's written in a clunky, artificially-archaic style. This lends gravitas to the solemn and distant world depicted, and to our heroic narrator, but it is wordy and sometimes laborious.
Some parts of the book portray a land riddled with mighty creatures that are nonetheless natural (as opposed to the supernatural 'forces' arrayed against humanity elsewhere). These beasts exist in an ecology apparently devoid of prey-animals; nor is it clear how vegetation (leafy trees!) can survive, illuminated only by the dim red glow of distant volcanoes. Hodgson appears not to have considered these concerns, but they jar on the intellect of the Educated Modern Reader (yours truly).
The second half of the book rather belabours the lovey-dovey stuff, trying this reader's patience. And feminists will shudder from the first page to the last: enlightened sexual relations are NOT on the agenda...
There are smaller quibbles I could mention; but on to the more important good news:
The book presents a vision of the last millions of humanity crowded together for defence in the Last Redoubt, a steel pyramid seven miles high, surrounded by giant malicious beasts so huge and slow that their movements are barely detectable in a human lifetime. Malign influences bear down upon the Last Redoubt: the House of Silence, the Giants, the Strange Things that Peer from the Precipice, the Silent Ones. He who ventures out beyond the protective circle of the Great Earth-Current risks not merely death but the eternal destruction of his spirit.
If that all sounds a bit OTT, it most certainly is. It's hair-prickling Deep Horror, wonderfully evoked. Our hero is a fellow from our time who, losing his love, awakes reincarnated in this far future and hears her mind call to him from far across the Night Land - where there shouldn't even be any more humans. The book relates his epic lonely pilgrimage to find his beloved and return her to safety.
It is, in other words, a Romance, and in grand style. Though it makes the reader work, the broad and dark vision of a dying humanity, the arduous adventures, the thrilling climax and the heart-wrenching ending make this book a timeless classic.
First the bad news:
It's written in a clunky, artificially-archaic style. This lends gravitas to the solemn and distant world depicted, and to our heroic narrator, but it is wordy and sometimes laborious.
Some parts of the book portray a land riddled with mighty creatures that are nonetheless natural (as opposed to the supernatural 'forces' arrayed against humanity elsewhere). These beasts exist in an ecology apparently devoid of prey-animals; nor is it clear how vegetation (leafy trees!) can survive, illuminated only by the dim red glow of distant volcanoes. Hodgson appears not to have considered these concerns, but they jar on the intellect of the Educated Modern Reader (yours truly).
The second half of the book rather belabours the lovey-dovey stuff, trying this reader's patience. And feminists will shudder from the first page to the last: enlightened sexual relations are NOT on the agenda...
There are smaller quibbles I could mention; but on to the more important good news:
The book presents a vision of the last millions of humanity crowded together for defence in the Last Redoubt, a steel pyramid seven miles high, surrounded by giant malicious beasts so huge and slow that their movements are barely detectable in a human lifetime. Malign influences bear down upon the Last Redoubt: the House of Silence, the Giants, the Strange Things that Peer from the Precipice, the Silent Ones. He who ventures out beyond the protective circle of the Great Earth-Current risks not merely death but the eternal destruction of his spirit.
If that all sounds a bit OTT, it most certainly is. It's hair-prickling Deep Horror, wonderfully evoked. Our hero is a fellow from our time who, losing his love, awakes reincarnated in this far future and hears her mind call to him from far across the Night Land - where there shouldn't even be any more humans. The book relates his epic lonely pilgrimage to find his beloved and return her to safety.
It is, in other words, a Romance, and in grand style. Though it makes the reader work, the broad and dark vision of a dying humanity, the arduous adventures, the thrilling climax and the heart-wrenching ending make this book a timeless classic.
June 4, 2009
I read this book based on a review by C. S. Lewis, who commented that the best fiction adds a new dimension to your life for having read it. "The Night Land" does not disappoint!! It is one of the most incredible love stories, combined with a truly Epic tale of Good vs Evil -- in a genuinely Classic sense.
For some inconceivable reason, the author chose to tell his tale in a bizzare, stilted dialect which is extremely difficult to work through at first. But, once you get past the mechanism of an incredibly distant future prophet sending his Tale back through time to this possibly Chaucerian-age bard, and get into the story of Earth's Last Two Cities, and what one great and gifted man will endure to save his love, you're hooked.
I also appreciated the subtler, spiritual journey our Hero must make to succeed in his quest.
When he learns that his Great Love is in jeopardy, of *course* our hero wants to rush right off and rescue her! But, he is persuaded that he must first prepare, or he will hardly make it past the outer walls. And so he prepares, both mentally, spiritually, and physically, while the Elders work to make him magical armor, so that when he finally ventures forth he will have the best possible chance of success.
I found MANY, MANY life lessons woven into this narrative. I love it.
For some inconceivable reason, the author chose to tell his tale in a bizzare, stilted dialect which is extremely difficult to work through at first. But, once you get past the mechanism of an incredibly distant future prophet sending his Tale back through time to this possibly Chaucerian-age bard, and get into the story of Earth's Last Two Cities, and what one great and gifted man will endure to save his love, you're hooked.
I also appreciated the subtler, spiritual journey our Hero must make to succeed in his quest.
When he learns that his Great Love is in jeopardy, of *course* our hero wants to rush right off and rescue her! But, he is persuaded that he must first prepare, or he will hardly make it past the outer walls. And so he prepares, both mentally, spiritually, and physically, while the Elders work to make him magical armor, so that when he finally ventures forth he will have the best possible chance of success.
I found MANY, MANY life lessons woven into this narrative. I love it.
December 28, 2008
How do I rate this thing? This book has such incredible strengths and incredible flaws that they cancel each other out. Hodgson starts from a first-class fantasy premise that is absolutely groundbreaking in scope and unbelievably grim and relentless in aspect, and then makes it the gooshiest and most maudlin of love stories, with all the abuses of language that a man writing in the High Gothic Romantic style can muster.
Fortunately I had the Ballantine edition, which was split in half for publication. I am informed that I miss nothing in the other half.
Fortunately I had the Ballantine edition, which was split in half for publication. I am informed that I miss nothing in the other half.
March 16, 2023
Un libro de terror, fantasía o ciencia ficción? Pues un poco una mezcla de todo y una novela que entusiasmo a Lovecraft y que seguramente le influenció bastante en la creación de los dioses primigenios que poblaban sus relatos y novelas.
"El reino de la noche" tiene una primera mitad del libro absolutamente fascinante con la descripción de un mundo donde el sol ha desaparecido y la tierra se ha poblado de monstruos y gigantes. Los escasos humanos supervivientes viven dentro de una gran pirámide que han habilitado con todo lo necesario y aquellos que osan salir fuera a explorar el reino nunca vuelven.
Nuestro protagonista, alertado por unos extraños sueños y la voz de una chica que escucha gracias a un poder que sólo él tiene, decide partir a buscarla. La chica parece ser la habitante de otra pequeña pirámide que está justo a la otra punta del reino. Armado con el diskos, una especie de palo con una rueda de motosierra en el extremo, se adentrará en los páramos de esta tierra oscura y se enfrentará a los más variados peligros y criaturas en pos de su amada.
El problema viene cuando al encontrarla y emprender el viaje de retorno al reino la aventura deja paso a un romance insípido y un sinfin de descripciones sobre las horas que duermen, las tabletas que ingieren y los besitos que se dan.
Esta segunda parte lastra mucho la opinión del lector y se ve que por ello se hicieron versiones actualizadas o resumidas con el nombre de "El sueño de X". Y no me extraña porque la primera mitad del libro está a la altura de los maravillosos libros y cuentos que Hodgson escribiría más tarde.
"El reino de la noche" tiene una primera mitad del libro absolutamente fascinante con la descripción de un mundo donde el sol ha desaparecido y la tierra se ha poblado de monstruos y gigantes. Los escasos humanos supervivientes viven dentro de una gran pirámide que han habilitado con todo lo necesario y aquellos que osan salir fuera a explorar el reino nunca vuelven.
Nuestro protagonista, alertado por unos extraños sueños y la voz de una chica que escucha gracias a un poder que sólo él tiene, decide partir a buscarla. La chica parece ser la habitante de otra pequeña pirámide que está justo a la otra punta del reino. Armado con el diskos, una especie de palo con una rueda de motosierra en el extremo, se adentrará en los páramos de esta tierra oscura y se enfrentará a los más variados peligros y criaturas en pos de su amada.
El problema viene cuando al encontrarla y emprender el viaje de retorno al reino la aventura deja paso a un romance insípido y un sinfin de descripciones sobre las horas que duermen, las tabletas que ingieren y los besitos que se dan.
Esta segunda parte lastra mucho la opinión del lector y se ve que por ello se hicieron versiones actualizadas o resumidas con el nombre de "El sueño de X". Y no me extraña porque la primera mitad del libro está a la altura de los maravillosos libros y cuentos que Hodgson escribiría más tarde.
January 1, 2013
Since I have spent considerable effort rewriting this novel into more modern prose, I'll only say that it is one of the most remarkable books in existence. For more information, go to Andy Robertson's website: http://www.thenightland.co.uk
October 9, 2008
Critics have repeatedly pointed out the imperfections of this novel. Curiously, The Night Land's critics are frequently its fans as well. That ought to tell you something about how strong its strong points are. That these critic-fans also offer the novel's originality as one of its primary assets, ought to tell you something about how unusual it really is.
This novel is a strange animal. When it was published, in 1912, the ghost story was alive and well at that time, perhaps already starting to look a bit hackneyed; vampire stories not unheard of; science fiction, though perhaps not yet called 'science fiction', also beginning to get regular shrift. And while gleaning atmosphere and substance from all of these genres, The Night Land mimics none of them. Often called a 'horror' novel, that moniker also seems to suit it only partly.
One obvious strangeness in The Night Land involves Hodgson's archaism. The frame narrative occurs in some indistinct past time - a number of commentators specify the 17th century, so I'll roll with that. The 17th-century narrator, after the death of his love, indeed seemingly due to grief itself, receives sudden insight into a man, himself (think reincarnation), living in a period unimaginably far in the future, long after the sun has died. He begins telling of this future life, in the Night Land, and his quest to find the future-self of his dead 17th-century love. Owing to this 17th-century character stuck narrating a futuristic story, Hodgson wrote the tale in a faux archaic language that can be difficult to get into, but flows after a couple of pages. Many of Hodgson's critic-fans number this faux archaism among the book's flaws. I disagree. The language lends the story an ingenuousness that's both appealing and suitable to the storyline which does, after all, hinge upon a love that outlives millennia. This is legendary, grand, heady stuff and the language suits it.
Critics also dismiss the love story as trite or sentimental, but I adhere to the camp who does not use 'sentimental' as a dirty word. The love story is sentimental, but so is love when it's not callous, and every kind of love story has its place. Besides, spitting out 'sentimental' as a pejorative equates to belittling genuineness and earnestness. I may not want to constantly read about these qualities, but I value them when I find them and I think the world a little meaner of a place without them, so I'm quite comfortable with sentimental.
What I am not comfortable with is repetition and that, by my estimation, is the worst sin of The Night Land. This novel could have been cut almost in half and, in fact, Hodgson released his own abridged version. We read how our hero stops and seeks shelter for the night, every night, how and when he eats his rations, over and over again. On one hand, including these quotidian details gives the reader a good sense of the interminability of a voyage on foot, always walking day after day, where sleeping and eating would both comprise the high points of one's day and serve to break the journey up into mentally manageable components. On the other hand, enough already! Few exciting altercations (with giant slugs and other beasties) punctuate this mundanity and it's simply asking a lot of a reader's patience to get through every last word of this lengthy book if we feel like we've read half of it before. As a matter of fact, I skipped through large chunks of the second half and skimmed many more. But this is my only real beef with what, otherwise, is an atmospheric, strange and beautiful story.
Hodgson well imagines his future world. He vividly portrays the bleakness and horror of the sunless darkened earth, lit by volcanic fissures belching noxious gases, terrors waiting at every turn. He creates vile and gruesome beasties to inhabit this place. Lovecraft-style, he tells you just enough about the monsters to make you shiver and never enough to make you scoff. I think of JAWS and its notoriously malfunctioning shark. Spielberg knew it was better to show half a scary-looking shark than all of a broken, fake-looking one - a little detail will never blow the illusion the way too much detail will. Hodgson nails this and, indeed, Lovecraft numbers among his critic-fans. I guess I do, too. I've really never read anything like it.
This novel is a strange animal. When it was published, in 1912, the ghost story was alive and well at that time, perhaps already starting to look a bit hackneyed; vampire stories not unheard of; science fiction, though perhaps not yet called 'science fiction', also beginning to get regular shrift. And while gleaning atmosphere and substance from all of these genres, The Night Land mimics none of them. Often called a 'horror' novel, that moniker also seems to suit it only partly.
One obvious strangeness in The Night Land involves Hodgson's archaism. The frame narrative occurs in some indistinct past time - a number of commentators specify the 17th century, so I'll roll with that. The 17th-century narrator, after the death of his love, indeed seemingly due to grief itself, receives sudden insight into a man, himself (think reincarnation), living in a period unimaginably far in the future, long after the sun has died. He begins telling of this future life, in the Night Land, and his quest to find the future-self of his dead 17th-century love. Owing to this 17th-century character stuck narrating a futuristic story, Hodgson wrote the tale in a faux archaic language that can be difficult to get into, but flows after a couple of pages. Many of Hodgson's critic-fans number this faux archaism among the book's flaws. I disagree. The language lends the story an ingenuousness that's both appealing and suitable to the storyline which does, after all, hinge upon a love that outlives millennia. This is legendary, grand, heady stuff and the language suits it.
Critics also dismiss the love story as trite or sentimental, but I adhere to the camp who does not use 'sentimental' as a dirty word. The love story is sentimental, but so is love when it's not callous, and every kind of love story has its place. Besides, spitting out 'sentimental' as a pejorative equates to belittling genuineness and earnestness. I may not want to constantly read about these qualities, but I value them when I find them and I think the world a little meaner of a place without them, so I'm quite comfortable with sentimental.
What I am not comfortable with is repetition and that, by my estimation, is the worst sin of The Night Land. This novel could have been cut almost in half and, in fact, Hodgson released his own abridged version. We read how our hero stops and seeks shelter for the night, every night, how and when he eats his rations, over and over again. On one hand, including these quotidian details gives the reader a good sense of the interminability of a voyage on foot, always walking day after day, where sleeping and eating would both comprise the high points of one's day and serve to break the journey up into mentally manageable components. On the other hand, enough already! Few exciting altercations (with giant slugs and other beasties) punctuate this mundanity and it's simply asking a lot of a reader's patience to get through every last word of this lengthy book if we feel like we've read half of it before. As a matter of fact, I skipped through large chunks of the second half and skimmed many more. But this is my only real beef with what, otherwise, is an atmospheric, strange and beautiful story.
Hodgson well imagines his future world. He vividly portrays the bleakness and horror of the sunless darkened earth, lit by volcanic fissures belching noxious gases, terrors waiting at every turn. He creates vile and gruesome beasties to inhabit this place. Lovecraft-style, he tells you just enough about the monsters to make you shiver and never enough to make you scoff. I think of JAWS and its notoriously malfunctioning shark. Spielberg knew it was better to show half a scary-looking shark than all of a broken, fake-looking one - a little detail will never blow the illusion the way too much detail will. Hodgson nails this and, indeed, Lovecraft numbers among his critic-fans. I guess I do, too. I've really never read anything like it.
August 22, 2018
And lo!, verily you shall know that my brain-elements will transmit forth to you... that this story was a beating of the highest order.
I decided to read 'The Night Land' because both H.P. Lovecraft & Clark Ashton Smith had high praise for it. Ummm, OK. I slogged through this thing because I hate not finishing books - best I can remember I've only abandoned one book in my adult life, and that's the one I'm going to mark as 'currently reading' next as I'm going to give it another go.
If I can pull up the details from my brain of a month ago when I started this mess, the plot line basically starts around the 18th century (I think) where our hero courts/falls in love with a fair maiden. She dies, he's heartbroken, and he ends up having visions of his far-in-the-future self when the Sun has gone out and the remaining dregs of humanity survive in a miles-high pyramid known as The Last Redoubt. Through his ability of "night hearing" (aka telepathy), he discovers that his long-lost love may been reincarnated also and is living in a smaller pyramid (The Lesser Redoubt) somewhere out in the wastes. So he goes off to find her.
Action ensues as he crosses the Night Land and dodges/fights giant "humpt" men, giant slugs, giant critters along the lines of scorpions and so on. He eventually finds "Mine Own Maid" wandering through the land after The Lesser Redoubt has fallen. So they head on back with more encounters and A LOT of references "eating of the food and drinking of the water".
I know this thing was written written a little over a hundred years ago, and maybe the style was supposed to be that it was to read as even older, but anyone who thinks that Lovecraft wasn't much of a writer as far as putting sentences together needs to give this a run before throwing H.P. under the bus. And the last third or so of the novel might as well be a Harlequin romance as what action there is crossing these blasted lands is dwarfed by our protagonist constantly stating his love for his maid, the rules of love... oh, and either whipping her - or contemplating whether or not to whip her - for the maid's "naughtyness". Again... written 100+ years ago... but I'd like to see this guy chucked into the same room with such literary ladies as Ce'Nedra, Polgara the Sorceress, Katniss Everdeen, Tiffany Aching, Granny Weatherwax, Arya Stark, Naomi Nagata, Bobbi Anderson & Brin Ohmsford, to name a few... and see how he fares with this "whipping" bit.
Methinks this could've been an incredible story if HPL or CAS had gotten their hands on the idea instead.
I decided to read 'The Night Land' because both H.P. Lovecraft & Clark Ashton Smith had high praise for it. Ummm, OK. I slogged through this thing because I hate not finishing books - best I can remember I've only abandoned one book in my adult life, and that's the one I'm going to mark as 'currently reading' next as I'm going to give it another go.
If I can pull up the details from my brain of a month ago when I started this mess, the plot line basically starts around the 18th century (I think) where our hero courts/falls in love with a fair maiden. She dies, he's heartbroken, and he ends up having visions of his far-in-the-future self when the Sun has gone out and the remaining dregs of humanity survive in a miles-high pyramid known as The Last Redoubt. Through his ability of "night hearing" (aka telepathy), he discovers that his long-lost love may been reincarnated also and is living in a smaller pyramid (The Lesser Redoubt) somewhere out in the wastes. So he goes off to find her.
Action ensues as he crosses the Night Land and dodges/fights giant "humpt" men, giant slugs, giant critters along the lines of scorpions and so on. He eventually finds "Mine Own Maid" wandering through the land after The Lesser Redoubt has fallen. So they head on back with more encounters and A LOT of references "eating of the food and drinking of the water".
I know this thing was written written a little over a hundred years ago, and maybe the style was supposed to be that it was to read as even older, but anyone who thinks that Lovecraft wasn't much of a writer as far as putting sentences together needs to give this a run before throwing H.P. under the bus. And the last third or so of the novel might as well be a Harlequin romance as what action there is crossing these blasted lands is dwarfed by our protagonist constantly stating his love for his maid, the rules of love... oh, and either whipping her - or contemplating whether or not to whip her - for the maid's "naughtyness". Again... written 100+ years ago... but I'd like to see this guy chucked into the same room with such literary ladies as Ce'Nedra, Polgara the Sorceress, Katniss Everdeen, Tiffany Aching, Granny Weatherwax, Arya Stark, Naomi Nagata, Bobbi Anderson & Brin Ohmsford, to name a few... and see how he fares with this "whipping" bit.
Methinks this could've been an incredible story if HPL or CAS had gotten their hands on the idea instead.
January 8, 2014
William Hope Hodgson's science fantasy of a decaying Earth darkened by the death of the Sun in a vastly remote future should be regarded as unreadable. The pseudo-archaic language lumbers along, the plot is simple and largely descriptive, there is virtually no dialog, the characters are thin, there is an unpleasant thread of misogyny in the character relationships, and the whole mass is excessively long and repetitive.
But The Night Land is, after a strange fashion, a masterpiece.
The Night Land is less a narrative than a prose-poem, a mood, an evocation of entropy and dread in a world so old that human progress is over, the Sun is dead and only the end of all things, inevitable but hugely delayed, remains. Humanity has retreated to one last Redoubt, and can only wait for extinction. The world is desolate, ruled by threatening monsters, but their nature is utterly alien. Whatever the hero of the text can gain, it will be ultimately eclipsed by the destruction and failure of everything else. Hence, in a real sense, progress, narrative advancement, is futile. The book is really about a setting, a world of alien things and impending destruction, which can be barely named, let alone described.
Hence, the archaic language represents the alienating effect of so much time. The vague names of creatures – Watchers, Silent Ones – suggest their menace and unknowability. The routine story is really the only action that is possible when all human beings can do is rescue the remaining fragments and wall them up against the gathering darkness. Hodgson's fantasy edges close to the logic and stasis of a dream. The Night Land is about an impression, a sense of dread, the night closing in and a flicker of human resistance.
This, and the scope and boldness of the author's vision of a dying universe, makes The Night Land unique.
An earlier version of this review appears on my blog: http://displaced-pieces.blogspot.com.au/
But The Night Land is, after a strange fashion, a masterpiece.
The Night Land is less a narrative than a prose-poem, a mood, an evocation of entropy and dread in a world so old that human progress is over, the Sun is dead and only the end of all things, inevitable but hugely delayed, remains. Humanity has retreated to one last Redoubt, and can only wait for extinction. The world is desolate, ruled by threatening monsters, but their nature is utterly alien. Whatever the hero of the text can gain, it will be ultimately eclipsed by the destruction and failure of everything else. Hence, in a real sense, progress, narrative advancement, is futile. The book is really about a setting, a world of alien things and impending destruction, which can be barely named, let alone described.
Hence, the archaic language represents the alienating effect of so much time. The vague names of creatures – Watchers, Silent Ones – suggest their menace and unknowability. The routine story is really the only action that is possible when all human beings can do is rescue the remaining fragments and wall them up against the gathering darkness. Hodgson's fantasy edges close to the logic and stasis of a dream. The Night Land is about an impression, a sense of dread, the night closing in and a flicker of human resistance.
This, and the scope and boldness of the author's vision of a dying universe, makes The Night Land unique.
An earlier version of this review appears on my blog: http://displaced-pieces.blogspot.com.au/
February 27, 2021
280717: read this edition (HiLo 2013) abridgement is sometimes mistaken but not in this case. i read another edition and know now: skip romantic conceit ch 1, do not bother with long ending after ch 11. this version much more concise, effective. it you can survive the archaic, mannered, excessive language- there are some great images in here. lands, monsters, redoubts, fights, lands, monsters... not so much the plot. not the characters. i can see where in science of its day 1912 this can be seen as the beginning of the 'dying earth' sff subgenre...
June 5, 2008
this is both the best, and the worst book ever. The faux enlightenment slang is annoying and pages and pages are so repetitive that you want to kill someone. Then, there will be 15 pages of a harrowing escape from giant zombie slugs that makes it all worthwhile. The vision Hodgson had of this world, with the brilliant mysteries of man's end is amazing, but the book is nearly impossible to read.
November 1, 2023
2.5* I think it's an injustice to Hodgson to say that The Night Land is his masterpiece. While the elements of the story at large are undeniably Hodgson, the style of writing is not. If he had opted to go with his usual narrator's style instead of emulating the Epic, it would have been a far better book. As it is, the constant repetition and logging of banal action makes the reading fatiguing. While it's not as bad as using ye olde-style English, it's pretty close. 95% of the sentences in this book begin with the word "And," so that should give you a clue about what you're getting into. Plus, every single time our hero eats, drinks, or sleeps, you can be sure he'll put it into his narrative for your dubious enjoyment.
The bad aside, the monsters and the settings are fantastic. There just isn't nearly enough of either in the book to make it a truly enjoyable read. And while I'm generally no fan of abridged literary works, I'm thinking The Dream of X might actually be be a big improvement to this story. I'll need a good long while to recover from this slog before I find out for sure, though.
The bad aside, the monsters and the settings are fantastic. There just isn't nearly enough of either in the book to make it a truly enjoyable read. And while I'm generally no fan of abridged literary works, I'm thinking The Dream of X might actually be be a big improvement to this story. I'll need a good long while to recover from this slog before I find out for sure, though.
November 27, 2025
How does one even rate and review perhaps the foundational text of modern, epic fantasy? Uttely brilliant and imaginative far beyond its time (1912), yet perhaps some of the most turgid and unenjoyable passages I’ve ever read in places. But what an exciting and emotional finale!
I’ll write more later, but for now I’m mostly in awe, yet could not in all honestly recommend it either unless you are a keen student of influential literature
I’ll write more later, but for now I’m mostly in awe, yet could not in all honestly recommend it either unless you are a keen student of influential literature
May 21, 2023
كتاب ممل جدا وخسارة الوقت اللي ضاع فيه بخلاف البطل المستفز ، يشترك الكاتب والمترجم كلهم تعانوا ليخرجوا هذا الملل
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