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jblago's review against another edition
5.0
I give this a higher score than I think I should based on overall enjoyment. But I love horror writing and especially horror writing like this. Grabinski had a super creative and strange way of presenting horror or “scary” concepts and while not every story is as great as The Area or A Tale of the Gravedigger, the ambitious nature of each story made it interesting enough. The great stories were just that but even the stories I wasn’t as interested in were still very good and short enough to forgive. A great read for the Halloween season.
thecommonswings's review against another edition
5.0
Quite the thing: as fascinated by the interior machinations of the mind (and both the mind of the ostensibly upstanding members of society and those who are damaged, and particularly the inevitable overlap between the two) as forces from elsewhere, Grabinski manages to create stories that feel somehow *like* existing weird fiction but are also completely and utterly unique. He’s fascinated by interiors - houses, the mind, the heart of the city, train carriages - and how those are under attack by others and yourself. A good deal of these stories are tales of madness, but a madness not usually touched on in fiction - the triggers are about dualities, literal and figurative. Lusts and fears become personified, terrified people find their worst fears and greatest desires are closely entwined and through it all there’s a mordant, black humour that makes the stories especially memorable. There’s a fascinating afterword in this edition that connects the story The Area to Catherine Storr’s Marianne Dreams and particularly the film Paper House... and it’s a really clever thing to draw parallels with. They’re very much shared obsessions as are the films of Polanski, as the introduction points out. In his own way, Grabinski must cast a long shadow but an entirely unique one. Remarkable stuff
oblomov's review against another edition
4.0
Year of New Authors
Have you ever read [b: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark|1325218|Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (Scary Stories, #1)|Alvin Schwartz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440189576l/1325218._SX50_.jpg|145600] as an adult and thought: 'why, I so do wish there was another collection of creepy and eclectic stories that swing between the deeply creepy and the deeply stupid, but for grown ups and covering most of the zeitgeist fears, rabid misogyny and train loving of an early 20th Century readership'?. Well one, that's oddly specific of you, and two, The Dark Domain most certainly provides.
Grabinski observes a miriade of mundane concepts or daily occurences and thinks 'what can I do to this relatable thing to make it naueously unnerving?' and he mostly succeeds. Taking clocks, trains, fire safety, squints, trains, gravestone architecture and trains (this guy wore an anarok), Grabinski covers them all in a shiny layer of itchy, drying slime. He incorporates the most overused tropes in horror literature and yet somehow manages to add a grimey, horrible twist to surprise and repulse. He still repeats himself, taking great delight in Tulpa-esque creatures and personal madness created through self-imposed solitude, and three of these stories involve the alluring power of trains, but he switches everything up just enough to keep your attention.
Best stories: Fumes and Vengeance of the Elementals
We've now left Praise, next stop: The Bollocks. Grabinski can get a little too wrapped up in the set-up of some stories, giving an over-explanation of his characters' psyche and leaving only a page or two at the end for a sudden whiplash of horror, so a few stories lack the necessary slow burn.
Many of Grabinski protagonists are indistinguishable, with all but one being a learned gentlemen bubbling with pressurised madness, anger issues and smarmy arrogance. Even that kind of works, since we read on happily knowing this horrible pillock will suffer and it's quite fun trying to guess where the steam is going to rupture from first.
Less fun and frankly indefensible is Grabinski's female characters, who almost exclusively take the role of succubus. That's it, they're just there for diabolical horniness and lack all other agency, which is not only distasteful but boring, since the mention of almost any female character made me sigh 'no surprises who the ghoul will be, woo-bloody-hoo'.
Worst stories: The Wandering Train and In the Compartment
Final stop, Conclusion-upon-Tweed:
I still enjoyed The Dark Domain, I greatly appreciate any book that takes the normal and defaces it with hairline fractures. I like any tale that leaves us guessing if nature and technology drive humanity mad, or mankind corrupts nature and poisons their inventions, and I adore them even more if the story directly asks us to face such philosophical questions.
Intriguing, repulsive and leaving you with the uncomfortable sensation that you've walked through a spider web, The Dark Domain is deserving of its rather cheesey name.
Have you ever read [b: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark|1325218|Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (Scary Stories, #1)|Alvin Schwartz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440189576l/1325218._SX50_.jpg|145600] as an adult and thought: 'why, I so do wish there was another collection of creepy and eclectic stories that swing between the deeply creepy and the deeply stupid, but for grown ups and covering most of the zeitgeist fears, rabid misogyny and train loving of an early 20th Century readership'?. Well one, that's oddly specific of you, and two, The Dark Domain most certainly provides.
Grabinski observes a miriade of mundane concepts or daily occurences and thinks 'what can I do to this relatable thing to make it naueously unnerving?' and he mostly succeeds. Taking clocks, trains, fire safety, squints, trains, gravestone architecture and trains (this guy wore an anarok), Grabinski covers them all in a shiny layer of itchy, drying slime. He incorporates the most overused tropes in horror literature and yet somehow manages to add a grimey, horrible twist to surprise and repulse. He still repeats himself, taking great delight in Tulpa-esque creatures and personal madness created through self-imposed solitude, and three of these stories involve the alluring power of trains, but he switches everything up just enough to keep your attention.
Best stories: Fumes and Vengeance of the Elementals
We've now left Praise, next stop: The Bollocks. Grabinski can get a little too wrapped up in the set-up of some stories, giving an over-explanation of his characters' psyche and leaving only a page or two at the end for a sudden whiplash of horror, so a few stories lack the necessary slow burn.
Many of Grabinski protagonists are indistinguishable, with all but one being a learned gentlemen bubbling with pressurised madness, anger issues and smarmy arrogance. Even that kind of works, since we read on happily knowing this horrible pillock will suffer and it's quite fun trying to guess where the steam is going to rupture from first.
Less fun and frankly indefensible is Grabinski's female characters, who almost exclusively take the role of succubus. That's it, they're just there for diabolical horniness and lack all other agency, which is not only distasteful but boring, since the mention of almost any female character made me sigh 'no surprises who the ghoul will be, woo-bloody-hoo'.
Worst stories: The Wandering Train and In the Compartment
Final stop, Conclusion-upon-Tweed:
I still enjoyed The Dark Domain, I greatly appreciate any book that takes the normal and defaces it with hairline fractures. I like any tale that leaves us guessing if nature and technology drive humanity mad, or mankind corrupts nature and poisons their inventions, and I adore them even more if the story directly asks us to face such philosophical questions.
Intriguing, repulsive and leaving you with the uncomfortable sensation that you've walked through a spider web, The Dark Domain is deserving of its rather cheesey name.
corvidquest's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
3.75
This is a wonderful, inventive collection: gruesome horror, erotic horror, metaphysical horror - and lots and lots of trains. Often it's up to interpretation whether a character is encountering a real demon or one of his own making, which makes the tales all the richer. Grabinsky really should be better known.
alexkhlopenko's review against another edition
3.0
Worthy of remembering as a sign of its time, not worthy of rereading or studying in 2020
myxomycetes's review against another edition
5.0
Early 20th century weird fiction from Poland's "Poe", Grabinski's obsessions are peculiarly his own and this makes for quite good reading.
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