The Wine-Dark Sea

by Robert Aickman, Peter Straub (Introduction)

Since his death several years ago, British writer Aickman's reputation has continued to grow among connoisseurs of the horror story. Unlike much of the current form, full of blood, monsters and melodrama, Aickman's stories achieve a quieter, more subtle and, in several ways, more lasting sense of disquiet. His lucid, finely tuned prose moves imperceptibly from the small crises and celebrations of ordinary life into another sphere. In these stories, the occasion may be a walking tour of Northern England, a birthday present of a Victorian dollhouse or a stay at a Swedish sanatorium for insomniacs, but it simultaneously traps the characters with dread and opens them up to a new awareness of a greater, deeper and more dangerous world. A remarkable collection by an author who deserves to be better known.

Contents:
- The Wine-Dark Sea
- The Trains
- Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen
- Growing Boys
- The Fetch
- The Inner Room
- Never Visit Venice
- Into the Wood

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Gothic, Fantasy, Classics

452 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Author of: close to 50 "strange stories" in the weird-tale and ghost-story traditions, two novels (The Late Breakfasters and The Model), two volumes of memoir (The Attempted Rescue and The River Runs Uphill), and two books on the canals of England (Know Your Waterways and The Story of Our Inland Waterways).

Co-founder and longtime president of the Inland Waterways Association, an organization that in the middle of the 20th century restored a great part of England's deteriorating system of canals, now a major draw for recreation nationally and for tourism internationally.

Grandson of author Richard Marsh.

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been a one-time lover of traditional stories by some of the greats of the last century or century and a half, I was much more at home with these tales than I might have been otherwise, assuming that I was in for tales of horror and the macabre.

What we have here are subtle tales that evoke more with atmosphere and themes of travel and disturbing discoveries than outright hack and slash.

My personal favorite was a retelling of Death in Venice with a particularly fantastical bent and no sign of Mann's character's other proclivities in "Never Visit Venice".

Indeed, most of these must be fantastical retellings of classic short stories and novellas, or at least it seems so, with the twists of bygone days, of tourists of different flavors, and even of stories such as the "Wine-Dark Sea" itself which appears to be a modernized retelling of the Isle of the Lotus Flowers or sometime quite similar.

Trains, vacations, buisiness trips, unexpected strangers... all of these things make a collection of stories filling us with awe and wonder even when we're steeped in the commonplace. Indeed, it's the commonplace that leads us to our dooms when we're pushed right off the ledge or when we experience something completely inexplicable, patted on our heads, and then sent on our way.

The author doesn't hold our hands. In fact, he insists that we ponder and try to figure out just what we had experienced. I have to say I like it.

Again, if you're looking for a pat collection of stories, look elsewhere, but if you love detailed and niggling-darkness creeping up on you with stories that harken back to all the more traditional mainstream stories from the turn of the last century through the fifties, then look no further. We've got advanced horror techniques going on here mixed fully with old-style classics. :)

[Paul Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Inner Room (5 stars)
Aickman’s most chilling and memorable story in my opinion. A doll’s house stands as substitute for a Europe whose spiritual neglect by the allied victors of WW2 means its utter ruination.

Never Visit Venice (5 stars)
One of the most right-wing stories ever written. A scathing attack on egalitarian man, with a nod of respect to Mussolini at the end.

Growing Boys (5 stars)
Aickman’s most laugh-out-loud funny story, although it deals with a serious issue. Phineas Morke is what would now be called a soy boy, or bug man - a wet Guardian-reading drip who fails to instill proper discipline in his sons, resulting in disaster for all concerned…

The Fetch (4 stars)
A supernatural tale with a twist, in the fine British tradition.

Into the Wood (5 stars)
Seemingly a horror story, but actually a tale of Initiation.

The other three stories are all excellent and worth reading.

[Ctgt · Rating 4 out of 5]

She seemed still to be looking up at him, and suddenly he waved to her, though it was not altogether the kind of thing he normally did. She waved back at him. Stephen even fancied she smiled at him. It seemed quite likely. She resumed her task.
He waited for an instant, but she looked up no more. He continued on his way more slowly, and feeling more alive, even if only for moments. For those moments, it had been as if he still belonged to the human race, to the mass of mankind.

These stories from Aickman are not what I would call horror or even "weird", they are about disquiet and subtlety, you can definitely see the M.R. James influence.

But now his eye caught something else; something other than the girl and the pool. On the edge of the rising ground behind the girl stood a small stone house. It was something else that Stephen had not previously noticed. Indeed, he had been reasonably sure that there had been nothing and no-one, not so much as a hint of mankind, not for a quite long time.

Many short stories capture a moment in time but several of these tales encompass a whole lifetime of the characters. And if you like stories with very neat endings you may not enjoy this collection, several of the stories just drop off the table at the end.

Without involving myself in psychology, which I detest, I shall simply say that the thought and recollection of my mother lay, I believe, behind the self-absorption my husband complained of so bitterly and so justly. It was not really myself in which I was absorbed but the memory of perfection. It is the plain truth that such beauty, and goodness, and depth and capacity for love were my mother's alone.

Not every story caught my fancy but I really enjoyed

The Inner Room a story about a dollhouse.
Into the Wood about a Kurhus for insomniacs.
The Stain, a man meets an unusual woman after the death of his wife.

Some very interesting, thought provoking and well written stories.

For me, it is like a particular moment in the war; a moment when, having no weapons, I had to fight hand to hand. It was not a moment to recall, even when I walk in the wood. It is far from true, Mrs. Sawyer, that we soldiers are men of strength and blood. Few soldiers are like that in the least. But it was for me the moment when I stopped sleeping, stopped dreaming. Dreams, Mrs. Sawyer, are misleading, because they make life seem real. When it loses the support of dreams, life dissolves.

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read that Aickman possessed a style similar to that of Thomas Ligotti; with my completion of The Wine-Dark Sea I can definitely see certain parallels (but equally as many disparities), especially in the dichotomy between the elegantly placid and nonchalant narrative style and the uncanny, eerie unfolding of strange and spectral events on an Earth that is slightly out-of-tune to our own daily experience. With all of the unearthly unease generated by Aickman's closet-and-attic imagination, the text is laced with a wickedly dry wit, while ofttimes below the surface bubbles a strangled and furtive sexuality; furthermore, these mysterious interactions are positioned as a shadow commentary on the alienating and dissociative aspects of an onrushing modernity and technology—both in flux—that the author seemingly found especially unappealing and dehumanizing. All of this is concentrated in exquisitely crafted stories, rich in detail, range, and allusion, which explore the tenebrous border between the interior and exterior world, between life and death, truth and illusion—and which invariably lack conclusive endings, preferring blossoming enigmas that lend themselves to a plurality of meaning and interpretation.

Ah, Robert—I enjoyed almost everything about The Wine-Dark Sea : the mysterious Amazonian island—starkly outlined in its unnamed bay—with its sorceresses three; its elemental feminine arcana, a maternal wisdom set against the divisive and alienating mind-body duality espoused by a technical Greek masculinity; the hapless middle-aged Grigg, in love and loving what he knows he is not truly a part of, and which cannot, in modernity's encroachment, last much longer. If the ending itself—the image of a uterine rock bleeding multiple Olympic swimming pools of the crimson ichor as its ancient life-force wanes, and a trio of beauties wailing in commiseration—doesn't quite satisfy at a level matching that which came before, it still worked. Thank you, buddy.

The Trains is a nicely creepy tramp through the empty Pennine moors, culminating in our two heroines' disastrous decision to sample the hospitality of a soot-blackened fortress—built as an uncomfortable tribute to grim and rigid railway cars—manned by an off-kilter middle-aged toff and his unnerving coal-maned manservant. Shades of lesbianism and kin-murder haunt this numbing dalliance in purgatory—Hell is other people being the next stop along the unexpectedly busy railway tracks that run beside this lone dwelling place in the sinister Quiet Valley—and every sentence spoken, or gesture made, drips with nuanced meaning and subtle menace. The ending is a chillingly open-ended entranceway to a continuous cycle of lonely incarcerated madness—and what the fuck is the deal with all those tickets stuffed into Mimi's pockets? Awesomely weird.

A ghost in the machine wrenches Edmund St. Jude's lonely, blasé world out of orbit in Your Tiny Hand is Frozen , Aickman's fuguist foray into the disembodied personalities that form a growing component our everyday interactions via the miracle of audio signals carried over electric wires. St Jude, a deflated aristocrat living a lifeless life—and lovelessly engaged to an absent Teddie, thousands of miles away in a tuberculosis sanitarium—is reinvigorated and refloated on the seas of desire due to that aesthetic miracle of modern communication, the telephone. While being plagued by a series of random phone calls from an unknown entity who hangs up upon the call being answered, St. Jude experiences a Christmas crisis, the usual malaise that sets in when one's utter loneliness and isolation in a cooly humming world is perceived with that holiday brand of heightened awareness. An impulsive decision to contact an old flame—whose number Edmund has recently been given—finds his call redirected to fellow basement blueblood Nera Condamine, a chance encounter which quickly leads to a fervid obsession and oral love affair with the mysterious isolate, who claims such a fierce grip upon St. Jude's soul solely through her words and voice. Living only for her phone calls—a one-way affair accompanied by a spooky underlying electronic babble—St. Jude neglects other aspects of what constitutes his existence, until the news of Teddie's impending return forces his hand—including determining exactly who this incorporeal being is, and what she means by her coquettish games. Will the answer be disturbing? You betcha!

With Growing Boys Aickman abandons the creepy and draws out the black comedy. This is an amusing tale about the irrational and the primordial promoted from the modern subconscious to take centre stage. Millie, a middle-aged housewife, is tormented by her two hulking twin sons, Rodney and Angus—a pair of (innocently) loutish lugs who reminded me of the Barley Brothers from In Viriconium —whose sole concern is roughhouse play and ingesting massive quantities of food so they don't outgrow their strength. Millie's willowy husband, Phineas—the incarnation of a weak tea English liberalism: smugly ineffective, preaching tolerant and intellectual armchair philosophy, utterly self-absorbed and selfish—is destined to become the patricidal main course to the primal lusts of humanity embodied in his gigantic boys. A desperate Millie, horrified by her ravenous sons and contemptuous of her stick-insect hubby—she's a good ol' English gal, the mid-century middle class—seeks the aide of her imperial relic Uncle Stephen, the immigrant fortune teller Thelma, and a Detective-Sergeant who is only one-step ahead of the Keystone Kops. Growing Boys has an anarchic energy, and the feel of a Jerry Cornelius novel, or a literary Carry On Gang installment entitled English Blues. Antic, witty, and as smooth as a (non-giant) baby's bottom.

A good old-fashioned English haunting comprises The Fetch , narrated in an icy, cerebral manner by another of Aickman's inscrutable middle-aged men. AFAIC, there's nowhere more suited to creepy shenanigans than the highlands o' Scotland—and add in an isolated ancestral manor with party-crasher servants, and you've basically been dealt the ace of spades in High Chicago. Brodick—the story's voice—grew up the pampered son of a doting mother of Stendhalian proportions, and the invisible son of a ramrod-stiff, protestant judge of a father. With his beloved mother laid low by one of her recurrent illnesses when Brodick is still a wee lad, he observes a damp visitation by the Auld Carlin, a waterlogged Loch-bred apparition with roughly the same winning disposition found in the well-climbing Sadako from Ringu . The Auld Carlin—the titular Fetch itself—revisits the branded Brodick at various periods of his life, always dripping water, walking with a disturbing gait, face turned aside and draped with grimy, stringy hair—and leaving a death or disappearance in its wake. This story is like a shivery blast of crepuscular arctic air, written with an exquisite precision and discordant imperturbability that proves remarkably effective. The closing image of the Auld Carlin using its side-faced head as a window knocker is one for the Aickman ages.

Welcome to The Inner Room : in an anonymous town in 1921 England, Lene's father impulsively buys her a birthday gift—a formidably sized doll-house of impeccable construction, closed-off to human owner interference and, apparently, possessing a mysteriously hidden inner chamber. Dusty, moldy, and blandly decorated rooms abound, including a central one populated by world-weary dolls of disquieting hue and form, making obeisance to a fiery portrait of a feral, bewhiskered old man shooting lightning from his eyes, rolling thunder from his stance, and poised to dish out more than doll-size violence. Curiously, several rooms removed, in an off-colour study, sits a proto-dreadlocked doll bedecked in spidery shadows penning letters to the editor with more than a hint of being mentally off-kilter. Very shortly, amidst nightmares of wandering lost in a hostile and thickened woods, Lene becomes aware that the miniature house's lifeless inhabitants have invaded her home and, under cover of the night, are furtively padding about. This, plus her younger brother's axiometric discovery of the covert chamber, leads to her parents quickly selling off the mini-mansion, presumably never to be seen again. Alas, that life never wends such a straightened path. Many years later, as time has sutured old wounds and inflicted new ones—and Lene's beloved mother, who soaked up all the love that existed in her family and dished it out in liberal portions, widowed and relocated to her native Germany and having been infected with the inflamed nationalist spirit conducted by Herr Moustache, disappears (a fate—minus the moustache mania—shared by Lene's faceless husband), while Lene and Constantin, her brainy younger brother, have staked out positions on either end of the theological divide in an effort to fill-in what is existentially hollow—our heroine renews an old acquaintance. Lene—inexplicably wandering a forsaken shortcut in an empty rural nowhere—becomes lost in an ominously threatening woodland, and is inexorably drawn to the dollhouse—now human sized—that lies, silent and glaring, in an open clearing amidst the night-wrapped trees. When invited inside by one of the dolls—who seldom brook no for an answer—Lene, heart-pounding, will receive an invitation to the inner room, where the decidedly unfriendly dolls can let their hair down, so to speak; where they can feast. This story, dear reader, is fan-fucking-tastic.

Never Visit Venice is just about perfect. Henry Fern, a lonely and introverted Englishman—sharing more than a few of the isolating quirks that limit my own interaction with the world around me—passes his similar days in a mixture of contempt for and satisfaction with the inward-looking world he has created. Tepid in his exterior routine, he dreams continuously of baroque-tinged Venice, of a silent gondola passage through its lovely canals, the gondolier blurry, an unknown and mysterious beauty, wreathed in black, writhing in his strong embrace under a velvet sky pulsing with a diamantine radiance. When this dream begins to splutter out, Henry becomes convinced that what is required is a journey to the fabled lagoon-girt city. Alas, seventeen days in modern Venice is enough to strip him of all his medieval illusions and romantic pretensions. This Venice is a soulless encomium to the tourist trade: the endless noise, the garish colours, the non-stop hawking of trite and trivial wares; the gouging prices and hustling vendors, the complaisantly dull, plump, and vulgar locals battling afresh and anew with the ignorant, crass, and free-spending visitors; the beautiful, history-soaked buildings standing darkened and empty while monstrous and tacky new edifices scream triumphantly at their forgotten elders—it all combines with Henry's inability to live up to what was expected of a lone Englishman in Italy, with his aching loneliness—made piercingly acute during his strolls beside the canals—to burn all his dreamy images of the city from his sorely tested spirit. Having determined to return to England anon, the city arcanely offers him the enticement of a darkly beautiful, alluringly equivocal companion—replete with the cushioned gondola and silently capable gondolier—freshly sprung from the omnipresent shadows and armed with a lamentation for all that the city—that the world—has lost that rings in perfect harmony with his own despairing desires. As the city noise slowly fades even as the sky turns the familiar purplish-black of his technicolour dreams, his companion responds to Henry's feverish touch while ghostly apparitions raise intricately carved lanterns in acknowledgment—and the empty, open, rippling waters of the lagoon—with the charcoal black sea awaiting just beyond the breakers—welcomes the tiny craft. Before long, dream and reality have become indistinguishably intertwined, the everyday overlain with a patina of mystery and secrets and hushed, crackling potentiality—whether for good or for ill to be determined when, at the last, Henry becomes fully aware of the price of this dearly sought gift.

The story arc of Margaret Sawyer—middle-aged (surprise!) standard issue traveling wife of moderately wealthy road-builder Henry (initially called Harry and then quizzically never so referenced again)—veered off several times from the progression I believed it was going to pursue in the beautifully written Into the Woods . Margaret, by all appearances a woman contented with hubby and hearth, follows Henry to West-Central Sweden in the spring where he is involved in the construction of a vast and improved new roadworks project. Margaret, somewhat exhausted and alienated from the hyper-energetic and social Swedish couples associated with her husband's work, seeks a couple of days of unwinding at an isolated mountain sanatorium called, improbably, the Jamblichus Kurhus. It is merely a matter of time before Margaret is informed by the omni-placid and vaguely creepy greyhair, Mrs. Slater, that the Kurhus is a gathering place for incurable insomniacs—some of whom haven't slept a wink in several years—who have all suffered the ignominious fate of having been driven away from their family and friends—from all of normal, sleep-cycle society—due to the inability of the latter to endure the strange-eyed changes that occur to the very structure of the sleep-deprived soul when dreaming is snatched away from one's life and replaced by an endless exposure to the illusions and glamours that constitute our living reality. Margaret—who never has experienced the slightest problem sleeping before, a fact for which she harbors a moderate guilt—both repulsed and drawn towards the Kurhus' silent and listless inhabitants, is made aware of the fact that there exists a labyrinthine series of trails through a dense forest that borders the sanatorium. The insomniacs pass the night wandering these trails which—seemingly imbued with traces of an elemental power that is as old as the hills, and is anathematical to modern patterns of existence—substitute for the lack of an outlet of dreams. Indeed, certain residents, having wandered so far they have reached the uppermost limits of self-realization, disappear into the eternal arboreal arms altogether, never to be seen again. Upon the cusp of realizing certain previously hidden truths about her true nature after a meeting with an intriguing Polish military officer—who hasn't slept since the Second World War—Margaret flees the Kurhus to await her husband's return in the neighboring town. However, she has wandered the trails, and been touched by the forest's evergreen truth; from that point on, she, too, will find her dreams have faded away into the shimmering streams of moonlight, to be substituted for a heightened wakefulness that concentrates itself in the eyes and never shuts down.

********************************************

Faber Finds should be ashamed to publish such a carelessly proofed collection—the typos are frequent and infuriating, and inexcusably cheapen Aickman's imaginative prose. There's simply no good reason for turning out work this shoddy*—especially from such a well-established publishing name.

*From the Faber Finds website, it seems that all of these collections are print on demand, and the endless litany of mistakes the result of the page scanner they use to electronically format the original works. Very cool technology, and bully on them for resurrecting lost masterpieces for a twenty-first century reading public—but Jesus wept, is it ever a miserable experience downing one of these**, especially when one is as anal-retentive about properly proofed text as I am.

**Well, the misery becomes quite ameliorated as you plug away—by the midway point of YTHIF I was no longer noticing the missing or inverted apostrophes, the three word justified sentences, the constant replacement of It's with If' s, etc.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last time I read a Robert Aickman book - his most famous short story collection, Cold Hand in Mine - I felt conflicted. I appreciated and admired the stories, but found the anticlimatic, deliberately ambiguous, and often abrupt endings to be problematic, making several of the stories feel either incomplete or simply disappointing. I think perhaps my more positive reaction to this collection was due to adjusted expectations, knowing more about what I would get; but my assessment of Cold Hand in Mine has also improved with hindsight, as I have found the set of qualities that might be referred to as 'Aickmanesque' is something I can immediately call to mind and seem to have a strong, vivid impression of.

Like Cold Hand in Mine, this volume opens with a story that seems to set the tone for everything within. The Wine-Dark Sea tells, with heavy mythological overtones, the tale of Grigg, a persistent, somewhat boorish tourist who's determined to visit a Greek island declared verboten by the locals. There he finds three women, ostensibly sisters, eking out a simple and sensual existence he's naturally enthralled by. It seems clear this peacefulness cannot last, that surely the women will either kill or enslave Grigg, but this being an Aickman story, the ending was never going to be that obvious. 'The Wine-Dark Sea' shows how, in these stories, the true horror often lurks beyond the actual conclusion. What, you wonder, will become of Grigg after this?

It doesn't have a very promising beginning (two bickering friends on a walking holiday), but The Trains turned out to be one of the most enjoyable stories in the collection. When Margaret and Mimi arrive at the house of the Roper family in the midst of a furious rainstorm, it turns out to be a bleak, old-fashioned place, described portentously by its owner as 'a house of the dead'. But the heavy gothic gloom isn't the only good thing about this story; its exploration of Margaret's character is wonderful, her attraction to Wendley Roper lends it a human touch, and her revelation that she will always be at a disadvantage compared to the likes of the more attractive Mimi is arguably its most crucial moment. As expected, the ending - while it has a punchline-like quality - doesn't resolve anything. Is Margaret's appearance at the window an ironic echo of the past; or have the past sightings somehow been an echo of this inevitable future? It parallels 'The Wine-Dark Sea', in which it appears to the reader (though it doesn't occur to the character himself) that the shadowy figure Grigg spots on the island might, in fact, be Grigg, so closely does its course follow his own initial exploration of the place.

Your Tiny Hand is Frozen is another strong story, though the premise is perhaps one of the flimsiest. In the absence of his fiancée Teddie, Edmund strikes up a 'relationship' of sorts with a woman he's never seen, via the telephone. Their calls become increasingly incomprehensible and disturbing, yet his obsession with her only grows, until the macabre climax.

Growing Boys presents a blood-curdling vision of parenthood - specifically motherhood, as Millie struggles to cope with her overgrown sons, who are terrifyingly large and violent for their age. Everything about this story - the menacing behaviour of the boys, Phineas's infuriating indifference (and the lactose obsession!), Millie's depression and desperation to get away - is horribly oppressive, even nauseating. There's a recurrence of an occasional theme I also saw in Cold Hand in Mine, in that physical relationships between certain sets of characters - children, closely related family members - are described in deeply uncomfortable terms that suggest sexual undertones. It's all very cleverly done; there is no concrete suggestion of anything 'unacceptable' going on, it's just a feeling created by the use of particular words and scraps of description. You wonder how much more disturbing all of this would be if you could see it. (A TV adaptation would no doubt make Uncle Stephen obviously predatory and lascivious towards Millie - but I thought the fact of not knowing whether that really was the case made it all the more unnerving.)

While 'Growing Boys' is extremely effective, it is so nightmarish that it's a relief to be done with it. I thought it exceptionally well put together, but I can hardly say I enjoyed the experience. This story reminded me of the things that made me remember Cold Hand in Mine so clearly, but also my reasons for giving it an average rating. Stories like this are unpleasant to think about, even weeks after reading them, and it's that very unpleasantness that makes Aickman's work so incredibly memorable and distinctive.

And that's also the case with The Fetch, which tells of a character named Leith who frequently describes himself as a 'haunted man'. The source of that haunting is 'the auld carlin', a witch-like creature said to be sighted prior to the death of someone in the family. Once again, the story is full of uncomfortable detail (the incestuous lust makes another appearance, and there has to be some significance to the fact that every woman Leith has a relationship with has some sort of minor disability relating to a leg injury, though I can't for the life of me work out what it might be), while the carlin is vividly described and appeared in my mind's eye like something out of a much more modern horror story (or film).

In The Inner Room, a woman encounters - in adulthood - an apparent real-life version of a dolls' house she had as a child, along with human equivalents of the dolls therein. More explicitly fantastical than most Aickman, but typically anticlimactic, as you expect Lene to be taken to the hidden room (and killed?) but she is simply led out of the house and, even though she is narrating the story from a time after these events, there is no reflection, merely an abrupt stop - a conclusion reminiscent of 'The Hospice' as well as this book's title story.

Never Visit Venice has some similarities to 'The Wine-Dark Sea', though it's less subtle, and more melodramatic - in an entirely entertaining way that made it one of my favourites in the book. (What is it about Venice that makes it such a successful setting for a horror story?) Fern, like Grigg, is a blundering sort of man, and it's his pathetic pandering to a woman - a stranger, who he believes to be the real-life fulfilment of a dream he's been having for years - that leads him to ruin. I loved the ending of this. It's so deliciously gothic.

Into the Wood reminded me of stories by both Daphne du Maurier and Anna Kavan. A woman checks into a hotel that turns out to be a sanatorium for insomniacs; is badgered by an annoying fellow guest (another example of 'ordinary horror'); finds herself afflicted by the same insomnia after she leaves. As often with Aickman, the most effective parts are in the details, for example when she's turned away from every other hotel in town except a Salvation Army hostel (the proprietor of which makes attempts to 'save' her). It's the things unsaid, the suggestions of manifest madness (how does she appear to others at this point?) and the question of what happens next that make this so unsettling.

[Momčilo Žunić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ejkman je otvorio osobeni začudno-fantastički procep, iz koga horor proviruje kao jedna od mogućnosti. To, naprotiv, ne znači da se hororično prigušuje - premda simbolistička disperzija, zapretanje očekivane topike ili smekšavanje završnog udarca mogu da iznedre i takav utisak - već pre da se ono na jedan istančani način re-konfiguriše. [Da, čak i onda kada se konačnica eksplicitnije obznani!]

Preoblikovanje je, reklo bi se, mahom takvo da će Ejkmanovi junaci, usled egzistencijalnog iskliznuća - tavorenje ili tamnovanje životnim datostima su takođe podesni sinonimi - koga često ni sami nisu svesni ili takvim ne žele da ga predstave ili su se s njim u toj meri srodili kada već orijentira nema, prekoračenje doživeti, prihvatiti, prigrliti kao nešto sasvim prirodno. Istupili-ne istupili, vratili se-ne vratili, ne preostaje im ništa drugo. Kao ni čitaocu [koji se pronalazi u prozama A. G. Matoša, Momčila Milankova, Branimira Šćepanovića].

Oberučke. Hladnim rukama.

[Tijana]

Uglavnom vrlo dobre do odlične jezive priče, s najboljom "Unutrašnjom sobom". Možda za mrvu slabije od prethodne kod nas objavljene zbirke, jer nema nijedne pripovetke koja odskače koliko ona o 'istom psu' ali dobro, ta odskače toliko da je prosto nepravedno očekivati da neko napiše dve takve stvari u životu. Takođe valja pohvaliti vrlo lepo Orfelinovo izdanje. Ja bih zamerila samo to što su dvoje prevodilaca izrazito nejednakog kvaliteta pa se baš primeti kad pređete s jedne priče na drugu (a još više ako ste počeli čitanje na engleskom pa se prebacili na friško nabavljen prevod).
(Ali opet, mogu da kažem i kako je barem Sava Kuzmanović više nego korektan i da od sada mogu biti mirna kad vidim da je on nešto prevodio.)

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the stories in this collection were very twisted. I actually went back and re-read parts to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.

Try and find a copy and read these unforgettable and unsettling stories.

[Marko Vasić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oduševljen sam. O-D-U-Š-E-V-LJ-E-N. M.R. James, Robert Aickman i Algernon Blackwood su mi neraskidivo sveto trojstvo pisaca tzv. „začudnih“ priča. Ejkman je, kao i ostala dvojica, vrhunski atmosferičar. Lošom, neobjašnjivom predrasudom, očekivao sam da će ova zbirka biti nešto poput Hodžsonove, a koja nije ostavila neki preterani utisak na mene. Sreća, te me je već prva priča iz zbirke uverila da odbacim predrasude. Ovo je svojevrsni dnevnik noir sa različitih putovanja. Sadrži sve ono čega su se viktorijanci (iako su priče pisane mnogo nakon što je viktorijanska era u Engleskoj završena) plašili (uslovno rečeno): iracionalno, pagansko nasleđe, erotičnost i strah od nepoznatog. Većina protagonista prema putovanjima ima stav koji se u mnogome poklapa sa mojim: „putovanje, osim možda za tek poneke prirodne boeme, može biti vredno samo kada se zasniva na privatnim resursima: otud je putovanje skoro u potpunosti iskvareno i prevoreno u organizovani turizam, umetnost svedena na nauku, i tako je površina naše planete, koja postaje sve manja, (...) postala jedno jedinstveno mesto koje ne zavređuje da uopšte zbog njega napuštamo sopstveni dom kako bismo ga videli.“ Dakle, sumornost neudobnosti koju vožnja ka dalekim krajevima izaziva kod mene, jedva da može biti potisnuta lepotom koju će mi ta odabrana destinacija pružiti, kada jednom dospem do nje. U Ejkmanovim pričama, osim specifičnosti atmosfere koja okružuje protagonistu, ne nedostaje ni seksualne energije (u priči „More, poput vina tamno“ i u natuknicama u „Vozovi“), zvukovnih paranoja (u priči „Tvoja se malena ruka smrzla“ i „U šumu“), vizuelnih i senzornih halucinacija (u priči „Pratilac“) te klaustrofobije i nametanja griže savesti (u priči „Unutrašnja soba“). Osim što me je prošetao od Grčke preko Venecije, Engleske i Švedske, Ejkman mi je u par navrata izazvao podpražni, mini anksiozni napad, stežući opisima pravi nervni grč: recimo, u priči „U šumi“, gospođa koja, iako u braku, proživljava užasne epizode otuđenja od supruga i prijatelja, i u poseti malog grada u Švedskoj, u šumi nailazi na začudno zdanje za koje joj napominju da je sanatorijum za insomničare. Nakon samovoljne želje da tamo ostane za vikend, počinju da joj se, iako nije nikada imala problem sa snom, pojavljuju čudni simptomi nesanice. Pritom, ljudi koji su tu „smešteni“ pokazuju vrlo specifične stereotipije, na koje ona pokušava da se navikne. Vrativši se u grad, biva prezrena i odbačena od društva, kao da je nečim žigosana, i ponovo odluči da se vrati u sanatorijum, ali zauvek. Ako je Nil Gejmen čitao Ejkmana (a ubeđen sam da jeste), njegova „Nikadođija“ na momente ima elemente koji su mi vrlo slični ovoj priči. Još jedan efekat umne transformacije Ejkman je doneo u priči „Vozovi“, gde dve mlade (vrlo privlačne) devojke nailaze, gubeći se po engleskom vresištu, na kuću pored pruge, za koju saznaju da je u njoj stanovala mentalna bolesnica, nedavno skončala, koju su ljudi viđali da poput aveti maše vozovima na svom prozoru. Smeštaj dobijaju upravo u toj sobi. Na kraju, jedna od njih preuzima potpuno ulogu te nedavno preminule gospođe, ostajući da maše vozovima. Dalje, Ejkman se dotiče grčkog paganstva u priči „More, poput vina tamno“, ali i frojdovskih postulata, postavljajući protagonistu kao arhetipskog muškarca, koji, našavši se u Grčkoj, pronalazi način da dođe do kamenog ostrva koje mu sve vreme privlači pažnju. Tamo stiče utisak da je vreme na ostrvu zaustavljeno, i pronalazi jednog od glavnih idola jedine tri žiteljke ostrva – maskulinizovanog homunkulusa sa prenaglašenim primarnim seksualnim karakteristikama, i uskoro mu biva jasno da je upravo on taj arhetipski falusni stožer koji ima za obavezu da oplodi i produži vrstu, spajajući se sa četiri elementa (od kojih su tri sadržana u ovim trima ženama, te im se prepušta seksualnom sladostrašću, a četvrti se otkriva na kraju priče). U priči „Pratilac“ dotakao se irskog folklora izvlačeći biće koje se u literaturi irske mitologije označava kao „the fetch“ – onaj koji prati tj. proganja nekoga. A u priči „Tvoja se malena ruka smrzla“ dočarava psihološku klaustrofobično paranoidnu atmosferu izazvanu nesnosnim telefonskim pozivima kojima je podvrgnut protagonist, a koji su, zapravo, sa onog sveta. Sve u svemu, ova zbirka mi je, uz Zazviždi i ja ću ti doći za sada druga na listi omiljenih Orfelinovih izdanja začudnih priča.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

These Stories Did Not Work for Me

The Wine-Dark Sea is the third collection of “strange tales” by Robert Aickman that I read, and the strangest thing about them was how little I liked them this time, given that my preceding two experiences were highly enjoyable. I don’t know whether the tales included in this collection were early stories of the writer or belonged to a later period of his literary career, but they were somewhat different from what I had so far read by Aickman in that the style was more wordy and meandering, and some elements of the absurd cropped up, like in Growing Boys that spoilt a lot of the effect for me. Apart from that, in many of these stories the characters showed such an amount of petty petulance against the world around them that I found the overall tone whiney and annoyingly fretful as well as somewhat snobbish.

I am not sure whether all this is simply because the stories were different from the ones I read so far in point of tone and composition, or whether, in the past few months, my reading tastes have changed. Since I don’t want to glide into a rant against an author whose works I have hitherto quite enjoyed, I’ll let the matter rest here.

[Jovana Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm starting to think that the Serbian horror edition from this particular book publisher is actually choosen well.

I am very picky with the horror genre, and I tend to feel indifferent with reading short stories;I was sure that this can't be the second short story horror book that I gave 5 stars in 2019- but alas, it was.

And the Serbian edition is beautiful.

The thing with these stories is that they don't have a definitive ending, it leaves more than one possibile ending and that actually makes them memorable. Nothing stays longer in the memory than the things we can't explain.

They are unsettling. And definitely not for everyone. I guess you have to pick it up and see if you like this writing style, 5/5.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Brilliant! RTC.

[Boris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ejkmanova proza je zaista specifična, njegov horor je dubok, psihološki, sablastan na nekom potpuno neočekivanom nivou. Ali zato zaista nagrađuje čitaoca, pravo je uživanje čitati ga. U njegovim pričama (uglavnom ) nema čudovišta, monstruma, masovnih ubica , njegov horor je mnogo suptilniji.
Prošloj zbirci sam dao četvorku, ovoj pet zvezdica-nijanse su odlučivale. U prošloj ima nekoliko sjajnih priča ( Konačište, Čuvar časovnika, Dnevnik jedne mlade devojke , Isti taj pas ), ali i nekoliko koje su kvalitetom poprilično ispod pobrojanih. U ovoj zbirci tri priče po meni zaslužuju najvišu ocenu ( prvo Unutrašnja soba, pa More poput vina tamno i Nikako ne idi u Veneciju ), a preostale četiri su isto veoma dobre, i ne puno slabije od ove tri. Taj ujednačeniji kvalitet u ovoj zbirci mi je presudio da joj
dam veću ocenu nego prvoj.
Srž Ejkmanovog horora je po meni, sam čovek, nesreća koja ga prati i ubeđenje da je načinjen kao nesrećan i da ništa nije moguće učiniti da se to suštinski izmeni. Sreća i lepota su nedostižne.Čak i ako se dosegnu, ne traju dugo-na kraju, čovek se menja, stari i umire. Čemu onda uopšte i tragati za srećom, kad ista, iako se dosegne, ne može da se zadrži? Utvarne ljubavi, sećanja na čudne stvari iz detinjstva, sablasni predeli, samo su refleksije tog unutrašnjeg stanja, te nemoći pred činjenicom da je sve prolazno i da sve mrvi zub vremena, da će sve nestati i prestati. Ta duboko uznemirujuća proza nesumnjivo spada u vrhunce horor književnosti. Čitajte Ejkmana, i uživajte.

[Luka Jovanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

More, poput vina tamno 4⭐
Vozovi 5⭐
Tvoja se malena ruka smrzla 5⭐
Pratilac 5⭐
Unutrašnja soba 5⭐
Nikako ne idi u Veneciju 4⭐
U šumu 3⭐

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Average rating for the entire collection - 2.4 stars

Given the high ratings for this collection, I was hoping to enjoy these stories more than I ultimately did. Some of them took some discussion with a fellow reader to help understand what was going on, so I got more out of them than I would have on my own. However, there were only a few that I marked up because I really enjoyed the uneasy atmosphere and situations the characters found themselves in. My favorite above all of them was The Inner Room, followed by Into the Wood, The Fetch, and The Trains.

1. The Wine-Dark Sea - 2 stars
2. The Trains - 3 stars
3. Your Tiny Hand is Frozen - 2 stars
4. Growing Boys - 2 stars
5. The Fetch - 3.5 stars
6. The Inner Room - 4 stars
7. Never Visit Venice - 1 star
8. The Next Glade - 1 star
9. Into the Wood - 3.5 stars
10. Bind Your Hair - 2.5 stars
11. The Stains - 2 stars

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just written a review of Cold Hand in Mine, a book I read some years back, I realized I had this volume and, oddly enough, had never read it. And so, with the first substantial winter's snow piling up outdoors, I draw my down comforter around me and began.

Curiously, the title story was my least favorite in the book. I didn't read the eight longish stories (averaging 30-40 pages each) in sequence but as the mood took me. The last four tales I found the most intriguing, especially "Never Visit Venice," which had some lines I found almost startling in their revelatory clarity, providing somewhat uncomfortable insights into an alienated life. To say that I identified with the unhappy character in that story is perhaps a bit too strong, but I could certainly could identify with this, for example:

"Like most introverts, he [Henry Fern], was very dependent on small, minute-to-minute comforts, no matter whence they came. Fern's gaze upon life was very decisively inward. He read much. He reflected much. One of his purest pleasures was an entire day in bed; all by himself, in excellent health. He lived in a quite pleasant suburban flat, with a view over a park. Unfortunately, the park, for the most part, was more beautiful when Fern was not there; because when he was there, it tended to fill with raucous loiterers and tiny piercing radios.... He had much difficulty, not perhaps in making friends, but in keep up an interest in them.... Much worse was that it [his temperament] made him see through the work he had to do: see that, like so much that is called work, it was little more than protective colouration; but see also that the blank disclosure of this fact would destroy not merely the work itself and his own income, but the hopes of those who were committed to at least a half-belief in its importance..."

There's very little room to wiggle away from under this sort of stark, almost surgical analysis. All the main characters in this book are essentially loners, coming to grips with their inability to interact meaningfully with others. But there's nothing adolescent or even particularly tragic about their state; it's more a growing realization of, "Yes, this is how I am... this is what life is.." that builds as the story unfolds.

One of the tales in the book is a sort of vampire story; another involves something akin to a ghost; several others involve encounters with unnatural or psychopathic creatures. It's not these things that give these "strange" tales their essential strangeness, however. It's the odd reactions of the central characters to these situations that produces the most unsettling effect.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another collection of stories that, although not quite of the same consistantly high standard as those in Cold Hand in Mine, was still remarkably good.

You see the thing about Aickman is that even when the stories aren't quite as interesting and gripping as the others (such as "Growing Boys", "The Fetch" and "Never Visit Venice"), they are still a pleasure to read because his prose is so engaging. I whole heartedly agree with S.T. Joshi when he said: "There are few writers who are as purely pleasurable to read, regardless of their subject matter or the success or failure of their actual work, as Robert Aickman.".

But there are some superb stories in here. "The Trains", "Your Tiny Hand is Frozen", "The Inner Room" and "Into the Wood" were all outstanding. Aickman at his best. Most of the stories had the author's typical ambiguity and obscurity to them which some readers will not enjoy, although for me this is one of the things I like best about his writing. Although stories like "The Wine Wine-Dark Sea" and "The Fetch" were comparatively direct and explicit.

A note on the text. I don't think I have encountered a book so full of textual errors and mis-prints in my lifetime of reading. I'm not particularly a stickler for grammatic accuracy but this was getting ridiculous, to the point where it was marring my enjoyment of the book. I might well have marked it down a star accordingly but I think it's an unfair reflection on the author and his stories. One doesn't exactly have a lot of choice at the moment but if you can find this book in another edition, I would definitely avoid this one.

[Jeannie Sloan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun and thought provoking book.I thought that I would be annoyed because I had heard that many of his stories were left open ended but found the opposite was true.The open endings left room for further thought on the stories that I still coninue to think about even though it's been a while since I read this book.
I would classify his stories,for the most part,as fantasies as well as horror stories.He is very good at descriptions of people and places so that you feel that you are connected to them and are part of the story even though you are only the observer.
It's a shame that Robert Aikman is not more well known.I came across him in some anthologies otherwise I would never had known about him.
For people who enjoy a more literary story ,I think, will find this book to their taste.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this selection of Robert Aickman’s short stories and it really knocked me out. The stories are strange, atmospheric, and thought-provoking. My favorites were ‘ Into the Wood’, ‘Never Visit Venice’, and ‘The Inner Room’, but I pretty much enjoyed all of them. The stories in ‘The Wine-Dark Sea' are difficult to categorize. They are certainly not horror, nor are they weird fiction. It’s probably best to say that they are just strange stories that satisfy.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to hear a lot of my thoughts on this amazing book, check out the Lit Century podcast episode I did with Catherine Nichols & Elisa Gabbert:

https://lithub.com/how-robert-aickman...


"Very good horror writers often demonstrate that ordinary life can be horrific and tedious at once for the sensitive person, and one suspects it was for Aickman" (Straub 8).

"(The only other story here as explicit as that, apart form 'The Fetch and its family spectre, is 'The Wine-Dark Sea,' a forthright allegory: as in a myth, man is blindly destructive to the original sacred world of the gods, and even Aickman's typically responsive and insightful lone traveller must be returned to the noisy, empty world he came from.)" set me up for how best to receive the story itself (8).

From THE WINE-DARK SEA:

"The idea came to him, not for the first time, that most of the things which people buy in the belief that they are luxuries are really poor substitutes for luxury" (22).

"Nothing to be surprised at. It is the same quality that made the Greeks separate man from nature in the first place, or rather from life" and "The same Greeks. All Greeks are the same. All stupid. All lopsided. All poisoned with masculinity" (28).

"The object appeared to be not so much individual triumph as an intensification of fellow-feeling; of love, to use Lek's word of welcome to him" (31).

"Grigg would not have believed it possible, as he reflected on his third morning, that he could live so happily without occupation. There were a few jobs to be done, but so far the women had done all of them, and Grigg had felt no real compunction, as the jobs had seemed to be as complete a part of their lives as breathing--and as automatic and secondary. There had been almost nothing else: no reading, no struggling with the environment, no planning. Grigg had always truly believed that he, like others, would be lost without tasks; that pleasures pall; and that ease exhausts. Now he was amazed not only by the change in his philosophy, but by the speed with which it had come about" (35).

"There was nothing at all loud to be heard, but there was an unmistakable clinking and clanking in the island night, systematic, purposive, human" (39).

From THE TRAINS:

"Roper was smiling a scholar's smile, tired and deprecating, but at the same time uniquely arrogant," (67).

From YOUR TINY HAND IS FROZEN:

"Edmund was not one of the many men whose response to an emotional need is inversely proportionate to the degree of that need" (90).

From THE FETCH:

"It was one of the things I always knew. Everything about the woman was of a kind that children particularly fear and dislike. Women, when frightening, are to children enormously more frightening than any man or men" (151).

"Until then I had been a baby in the matter, as in many others. Most people are babies until they confront property ownership" (161).

"Perhaps only madmen need to know everything and thus to destroy everything" (166).

From NEVER VISIT VENICE:

"He realized early that, except for a few natural bohemians, travel can be of value only when based upon private resources; hence the almost universal adulteration of travel into organized tourism, an art into a science, so that the shrinking surface of the earth, in its physical aspect as in its way of life, becomes a single place, not worth leaving home to see" (216).

"Even thought it was the spring, always the most difficult season of the year, he looked himself over, confirmed that he was surviving, and seemed to inaugurate an inner change. This was perhaps the moment, which comes to so many, when Fern simultaneously matured and withered. He became more practical, as people call it; less demanding of life" (220).

"Fern went to hear Rigoletto at the Fenice and to hear a concert with a famous conductor and a famous soloist: Both occasions were more than half empty, and such people as were there were either elderly Americans doing their duty by a dead ideal (often at the behest of their hotel porters) and intermittently slumbering, or dubious Italian youths, palpably with free seats and very concerned to make clear that fact to the fools who had paid. The performances in themselves seemed to Fern good, but that only made it worse. They seemed to be provided for a bygone generation, a bygone species of man, a world that had been laughed out of life and replaced by nothing" (223).

From THE NEXT GLADE:

"Moreover, the woods always felt quite different when one entered them with one's entire family. The things that happened when one was with one's family were amazingly unlike the things that happened when one was not. It was this fact that made the transition between the two so upsetting" (248-49).

From INTO THE WOOD:

"These areas are not uncommon if you know how (or are compelled) to look for them. As men and women work more and more against nature, nature works more and more against men and women" (273).

"The common rejoinder to these feelings of rebellion was, as she knew well, that she needed a little more scope for living her own life, even (as a few Mancunians might dare to say) for self-expression. But that popular anodyne never, according to Margaret's observation of other couples, appeared in practice to work. Nor could she wonder. It reduced the self in one to the status and limits of a hobby. It offered one lampshade making, or so many hours a week helping the cripples and old folk, when what one truly needed was a revelation; was simultaneous self-expression and self-loss" (294).

"The place of war is now taken in society by motoring" (303).

"Probably everything in this world is decided by tiny last straws" (305).

From THE STAINS:

"...but the sun was no more than a misty bag of gleams in a confused sky" (343).

"Stephen quite saw that his expressed response to the glorious little spring had been inadequate. He had lost the trick of feeling, years and years ago" (353).

"He who had missed so many opportunities, always for excellent reasons, and for one excellent reason in particular, clearly saw that this might be his last opportunity, and almost certainly was" (355).

"It was always the trouble. So long as one was far from the place one called home, one could successfully cast secondary matters from the mind, or at least from the hurting part of it; but from the moment of return, in fact from some little while before that, one simply had to recognize that, for most of one's life, secondary matters were just about all there were. Stephen had learned ages ago that secondary matters were always the menace" (372).

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Aickman is best known for his "strange fiction," mostly consisting of stories that border on the supernatural without really being straight horror tales. The Wine-Dark Sea consists of eight such stories, of which the title story, "The Wine Dark Sea," is by far the best. It presents a very different view of Greek civilization.

Also good are "Growing Boys," a heterodox view of uncontrollable children; "The Fetch," about a Scottish sort of Banshee visitation; "Never Visit Venice," about an eerie trip on a gondola; and "Into the Wood," about a forest hotel for trolls (of a sort).

If you like strange fiction, Aickman appears to be an excellent writer. Definitely good Halloween reading.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dipped into this short story collection as the mood struck me. Each story was 30-40 pp. of horror, called more exactly supernatural or "strange". Each concerns a character or characters who meet with a strange, otherworldly person, thing or events and their reactions to what they come upon. Endings are open-ended, not neatly tied up. The horror is subtle and creeps up on you. Aickman is a master in this genre; not for him the bloodfests of recent horror literature and movies. The writing conveys just the right amount of creepiness.

My favorites:

"The wine-dark sea" [a nod to Homer]: a man vacationing in Greece sees an island across the sea, and although told not to venture there, does so with devastating results. It's sort of an amalgam of the Lotus Eaters, the "wyrd sisters" [or could they be the Fates of Greek mythology?] and Philoctetes.

"Your tiny hand is frozen": a character contends with vagaries of the telephone: hang-ups, a disembodied voice with whom he falls in love without meeting her, and odd calls to a certain company.

"The fetch": a ghost story set in Scotland. The ghost is a banshee without the moaning.

"Into the woods": A couple on holiday in Sweden discovers a sanatorium or Kurhus. The wife spends some time there; it is a sanatorium for insomniacs, who can only be cured by going into the surrounding woods. This one seems to be an allegory of some sort.

"The stains" [my favorite]: a man whose wife has died recently visits his brother, a vicar in the country with an interest in mosses and lichens. The protagonist meets and has an affair with a girl he meets on the moors; is she a maenad or wood nymph? He takes her to his flat in London, which shrinks and becomes moss-furred. Then they return to the moors and live in a house that becomes stained the same way. There is a shattering conclusion.

The author's writing is impeccable. What he could do with his word-pictures!! I admit I had chills up and down my spine on occasion, although to get the full sense I'd have to stop and reread a paragraph here and there. I hope to read more of this type of story. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw or perhaps Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story are the closest I had read previously.

Thank you, Wall Street Journal, for your review. Without you, I may never have heard of this book.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Aickman was not one of the big names in horror during his lifetime and he remains an unfairly neglected author. He won the World Fantasy Award for his story Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal, which is, ironically, one of his weakest stories (in my opinion, although others seem to like it more than I did). Aickman did not write stories that would make you jump out of your seat in terror. He wrote stories that leave the reader disturbed, with a sense of having had a brush with the uncanny. He was the great master of subtle horror. Things happen in his stories that you feel should not have happened, but you’re not quite sure why. The Wine-Dark Sea is an exceptional collection of Aickman short stories. It includes my personal favourite, Never Visit Venice, and other classic Aickman tales like The Inner Room and The Trains. If you’ve never read Aickman before this is an excellent place to start. And if you’ve never read Aickman before then you’ve missed out on one of the greatest horror writers the 20th century produced.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The master of the literary weird. No one, not even M. R. James, can create such an atmosphere of elegant unease.

[Steve Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just the kind of book I love to read in my cosy living room on dark and wintry rainy days, when the howl of the wind blows up from the bay and the now bare silhouetted trees sway violently back and forth outside my window. And illuminated by my reading lamp is the comforting creamy glow of an extra-large glass of Bailey’s, which I sip from every three or four pages to ponder over events in Aickman’s misty world.

I’ll say yet again what I always say about Robert Aickman, it is truly not overstating the case to say that there is no other writer in the English language (that I know of) who so seemingly without effort creates such genuinely strange mystery to the point that you are constantly asking yourself what it is you are reading – not to the point of frustration I hasten to add, but leaves you in sheer pleasure at the oddness of it all, and admiration at the supreme literary skill accompanying such a story. Aickman almost unconsciously pulls you ever deeper into the bizarre situations that he creates, to the point where you start questioning everything; that everything he says possibly alludes to something else. Take the story ‘Growing Boys,’ in which a mother becomes increasingly fearful of the antics of her two obese and increasingly wayward sons. It could be a straight crime story about two seriously sadistic brothers. But the more you read and become accustomed to Aickman, the more you question things. His constant reference to their size is so constant, and yet unspecified, you start to wonder on the malleability of the logic in his world. My mind was soon forming visions of something approaching Ray Harryhausen creations!

It’s the beauty of Aickman’s prose and skilfully crafted storytelling that for me, raises him far above the level of more famous names. I know that many admirers of Robert Aickman’s work still feel they’re part of a secret society, that nearly forty years after his death, this true and unique voice is still unknown by many even within his own genre (which we’ll assume to be horror tinged with fantasy). His own term was, ‘Strange Tales.’

The Wine-Dark Sea is made up of eight stories. For me, four of them are good, and four of them exceptional. As well as the aforementioned ‘Growing Boys’ (the only fault of which is an all too sudden end); the other stories I would rate as exceptional would be the title story, in which a man borrows a boat to go to a mysterious island everyone else refuses to travel to, and finds it populated by three strange women; ‘The Trains’ – in which two female hikers find themselves in the household of a very peculiar man; and ‘The Inner Room,’ in which parents buy their daughter a strange doll’s house. As with all the stories, it constantly has you questioning things as you read, and ruminating further upon completion. He has a way of writing which leaves you asking questions such as, why has he bothered to mention such a trivial fact? You can constantly feel that he’s hinting at something; or sometimes he’ll make vague and misty statements on things that are open to debate and interpretation.

In 2014 Faber & Faber issued this and three other books with eye-catching covers to mark his 100th birthday. Each has informative introductions and a fascinating personal afterword from someone who knew him. These Faber & Faber books in tandem with two other recently issued books, ‘Compulsory Games’ (published by the New York Review Of Books) and ‘The Late Breakfasters & Other Strange Stories’ (published by Valancourt Books) almost take care of the main body of his forty-eight short stories. The key word being almost. It’s unfortunate that because of the way his works have been reissued, two stories have been left orphaned from his original collections and are extremely hard to come by – ‘The Insufficient Answer’ was originally published in a book called ‘We Are For The Dark’ (in which Aickman provided three stories, and Elizabeth Jane Howard a further three), and the story ‘The Breakthrough,’ from his collection ‘Intrusion.’ In addition to ‘The Late Breakfasters,’ his other longer work of fiction is the novella, ‘The Model,’ which is also available from Faber & Faber.

I can understand that he’s not going to be for everyone. If you like gore, action, and for things to move swiftly, or if you like things neatly rounded off with explanations and crystal reasoning, forget it. He’s a literate writer who will make you think (to the point at times of unfathomable bemusement!), but for all that he is a thoroughly enjoyable read whose stories and imagery will leave long-lasting memories. And who is to say that after all your fathoming and reasoning you have indeed come to the same conclusion as Robert Aickman intended, if indeed he intended you to come to any conclusion at all. I haven’t read all of his stories once yet, but I’m already looking forward to a second reading. I think he’s that type of writer, one in which something different will materialise with each reading.

[Jeff · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

I've read three collections of Robert Aickman's short fiction to date, and The Wine-Dark Sea is certainly the best of them. All of Aickman's virtues as a writer are fully on display, and the variations between the individual stories gives the collection a momentum that I don't always experience when wading through multiple stories by the same author.

A few favorites:

"Your Tiny Hand is Frozen" was written in the age of telephonic communication, but well anticipates the age of virtual relationships via the internet. Even before the advent of AI-generated confidants, did we ever really know who (or what) was on the other end of the line?

"Growing Boys" has a wonderfully absurd premise in the guise of adolescent male twins who consume everything in sight, much to the exasperation of their mother. Children can be such a bother!

"The Inner Room" accurately reflects my own feelings about dollhouses. They have always been completely creepy.

"Into the Wood" blends insomnia and purgatory into a scenario that could only be properly experienced by an uptight middle class English woman. Luckily, protagonist Margaret Sawyer is up to the challenge, and remains resolute throughout in her dislike of both Swedes and other English people.

This last story includes the following lines, which brilliantly crystallize Aickman's flawless prose and razor sharp wit, as well his frequent explications of the loss of wonder in an age of scientific realism:

It was along tracks such as the one below that all creation ran from darkness to darkness, everything from the stars to the rabbits in the corner of an altarpiece; until Copernicus, and Kepler and Brahe, and Galileo began upsetting things. One of the hospitable Swedes had shown her a big illustrated book about Brahe, translating all the captions into better English than the English speak. The Swedish family had not appeared to doubt that Brahe and his kind were advantageous.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

В очередной раз становится понятно, до чего же он прекрасный писатель и насколько лучше недавнего графомана Лавкрафта. Да и Стивен Кинг отдыхает - он в сравнении сильно рецептурен и шаблонен. А Эйкмен продолжает здесь свой каталог английских неврозов середины ХХ века.
Первый же рассказ - "Винно-темное море" - забрасывает нас в Грецию, и всё - мы Эйкмена навеки. Прочие истории, как и раньше, исполнены некоторой дразнящей недоговоренности, и не одна не забивает нарративные гвозди по шляпку. Это действительно шедевры зловещести. Впечатление закрепляет, конечно, рассказ "Никогда не приезжайте в Венецию" - мы как будто из нее и не уезжали (и город тут совершенно другой, нежели у недавнего Бродки, конечно: "мертвый идеал"). А "У тебя ручонка замерзла" -  прямо узнаваемый рассказ о коллеге-переводчике и его виртуальном романе по жутковатому аналоговому телефону (вот поэтому мы и не любим эти звонки, ну да).
Однако в целом все эти истории (да и в других сборниках тоже) призваны показать непрочность сансары и некоторые буквально квантовые воздействия на нее, возможные только при наличии недуального сознания (у автора, правда, нацело западного). Все рассказы Эйкмена, а особено последний, "В лес", - эдакий западный недопризыв к пробуждению.

[Hakim · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

The first Aickman collection I read, Cold Hand in Mine, was deeply unsettling and bizarre. I was completely bewitched by his ingenious sense of the uncanny, and was absorbed by his prose. The prose in The Wine-Dark Sea is just as good, if not a tad more enjoyable. However, most of the short stories fell flat for me, and felt bland, banal, and dull. The exceptions are The Inner Room, Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen, and Into the Wood. The first is a classic tale of reality altering goodness, seen the from eyes of a child. The second uses the "talking to a dead person on the phone" trope (at the time this came out I don't think it was much of a trop yet), but is infused with an undercurrent of deep, creeping dread.. Into the Wood is easily the most terrifying of the bunch. I wouldn't be surprised if that story had influenced Stephen King. Ultimately, this is a very uneven collection, but the high points make it well worth the effort.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another superb collection, tho one that will hardly satisfy those who view Aickman as a writer of what is nowadays seen as “weird“/dark fiction.

“The Wine-Dark Sea” - being the opening, titular story - is a gorgeous, melancholy piece. Herein are set both the tone and theme of this collection. This story is centred around the journey to "...the island surrounded by the waters, the rock, the unshakable stone... symbols of inviolability and inaccessibility; the invisible or not-to-be-found castle or land, a wild mountain peak, a subterranean region… the "Land of Light," the "Land of the Living," the "Holy Land"… all the variations of the golden symbolism, which, on the one hand, includes all the notions of solarity, light, regality, immortality, and incorruptibility.” (from Evola’s “The Mystery of the Grail“) The story is ultimately tragic, with the protagonist‘s failure to assume his archetypal role (failures of masculine being another recurring motif in Aickman), and the inevitable profanation of the sacred and the fading of beauty.
Then we have “Your Tiny Hand is Frozen“ with its effete and isolated male protagonist in bondage to technology at its most lilithic – what happens in this story is eminently relevant in this age of faceless electronic communication, I think. Also, this is one of few stories in this collection that are likely to satisfy those who are interested in Aickman purely for the conventional horror aspect.
„Growing Boys“ is hilarious and uncomfortable in equal measures. Again that failure of the masculine, with the failure of fatherhood as seen in the figure of Phineas (an archetypal „NuMale“ if there ever was one), with the new generations who devour everything, their fathers, themselves.
„The Fetch“, like “Your Tiny Hand is Frozen“, is another piece that can work as a conventional horror story, and a great one at that – with some visceral chilling moments, cinematically handled. There is more here, of course, this story being something of a throwback to Aickman‘s fascination with Freudian psychosexual, what with its Oedipal mother and a folkloric figure that heralds disaster… and, perhaps, a connection between the two.
„Never Visit Venice“ is a story of a dreamer who sees through the shallowness of modern existence, including his own. Early on, it almost evokes Machen’s “A Fragment of Life“ (indeed, Machen is directly invokes and one point).
Aickman masterfully handleds this contrast between the ancient city and the vulgar sleepwalking Mass that wanders its streets.
Eventually, our protagonist is led into this reenactment of the ancient Venetian ritual of the Marriage of the Sea. Whether the ending is, again, wholly tragic or not, is up to the reader. „A simple hour as a lion is to be preferred to a lifetime as an ass“ indeed.
„Into The Wood“ is initially reminiscent of one of Aickman‘s better known stories, “The Hospice“. „Initially“, mind you, and on a most superficial level. For, this story is ultimately akin to Algernon Blackwood‘s meditative spiritual novellas from the mature portion of his career. In fact, there are moments here, say its heroine’s first tentative entrance into the eponymous wood, that are almost pure Blackwood. Package is, of course, very much Aickman, with his trademark wit. This tale is one of spiritual awakening and, also, one that ends this collection on what I see as unambiguously positive note.

[Selma · Rating 2 out of 5]

-More, poput vina tamno ✨️✨️✨️
- Vozovi ✨️✨️
- Tvoja se malena ruka smrzla ✨️✨️
- Pratilac ✨️✨️
- Unutrašnja soba ✨️✨️✨️
- Nikako ne idi u Veneciju ✨️✨️
- U šumu ✨️✨️

[Wreade1872 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well.. i kind of hated that. Which is odd because its quite well written, and the worldbuilding is great, really top-notch. Not a single one of these tales feels like the others and they're all quite distinctly drawn.
And yet.. there is also no story in here that is satisfying. Part of that is intentional i imagine. The author is purposefully obtuse and tries to leave his tales open ended or open to interpretation.

I get that, and leaving the reading with questions and a feeling of mystery can be a very effective strategy. However in this case i didn't even know what the questions would be, every story either just ended abruptly without any sense of closure or ended in complete confusion.

There's one about some twins which is the most surreal and most effective, although it also add issues, but this one i hated because it was actually effective. It got right under my skin and pushed all my buttons (buttons are what we had before triggers kids!) .
The rest, as mentioned, varying degrees of.. 'eh, ok?' or 'wait, what?' or 'oh.. that's it?'.

Definitely one where the author expects you to be on the exact same wavelength as them and maybe then it would be great but i certainly was not vibeing it.
I havn't looked at the other ratings but suspect they will be much higher than mine.