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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It took me a little bit to get in the rhythm of reading the flowery prose. The pace was in the middle range for me as the length prohibited carrying on too long with any description or character action, yet I did catch myself dozing off mid-page. Not to say I didn't enjoy the book, but I often had to reread the same pages. It really is beautiful writing though.
As for the ending, I was expecting the whole thing to be a figment of the mind. Even though the main character and the Swede found a body at the end, there's allusion that the otherworldly beings corrupt the mind to point of insanity where the affected subconsciously offers himself as a sacrifice, and the conical sand funnels imprinted a strange pattern on their victims. I still can't help but wonder if it was a coincidence and that most of it was imagined-- That the willow boughs were dancing in the wind, the pressure changes were due to storm fronts, the pitter-pattering were just animals, and the shape diving and rolling about the river really was just an otter..
As for the ending, I was expecting the whole thing to be a figment of the mind. Even though the main character and the Swede found a body at the end, there's allusion that the otherworldly beings corrupt the mind to point of insanity where the affected subconsciously offers himself as a sacrifice, and the conical sand funnels imprinted a strange pattern on their victims. I still can't help but wonder if it was a coincidence and that most of it was imagined-- That the willow boughs were dancing in the wind, the pressure changes were due to storm fronts, the pitter-pattering were just animals, and the shape diving and rolling about the river really was just an otter..
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
3.4 ☆
The ambience here was soooo well written!! The way weird stuff kept happening in that forest was immensely scary and I felt sorry for the two friends lol.
Sadly I either felt it too short, or perhaps came with my expectations a bit high, so three stars and half. But besides that, I liked it quite a lot and you should still read it nonetheless, it's still eerily good!
The ambience here was soooo well written!! The way weird stuff kept happening in that forest was immensely scary and I felt sorry for the two friends lol.
Sadly I either felt it too short, or perhaps came with my expectations a bit high, so three stars and half. But besides that, I liked it quite a lot and you should still read it nonetheless, it's still eerily good!
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This read may have ruined my favorite trees for me…
The dread was almost palpable while reading this story, and I found the author’s auditory and tactile descriptions to be very effective in fueling that sense of dread. However, there was something that would pull me away from the tale’s captivation, namely the main character’s determination to venture outside the tent in the nighttime despite being terrified. The inconsistency between him being filled with explicit cowardice and implicit bravery just threw me off. One moment the willows nearing the tent fill him with terror that he doesn’t even want to approach them, and he resolves to measure the distance between the trees and the tent in the next. Like what? One moment he’s talking about the fear in the pit of his soul and then he’s back outside in the dark again foraging for firewood. Of course this wouldn’t be an issue if the feeling of horror was consistent throughout, but the author makes it seem as though finding resources is an emotionally dissociative task. Towards the end of the story, both characters go out for supplies while carelessly physically interacting with willows. Shouldn’t they be too terrified to even approach the darn things??
The dread was almost palpable while reading this story, and I found the author’s auditory and tactile descriptions to be very effective in fueling that sense of dread. However, there was something that would pull me away from the tale’s captivation, namely the main character’s determination to venture outside the tent in the nighttime despite being terrified. The inconsistency between him being filled with explicit cowardice and implicit bravery just threw me off. One moment the willows nearing the tent fill him with terror that he doesn’t even want to approach them, and he resolves to measure the distance between the trees and the tent in the next. Like what? One moment he’s talking about the fear in the pit of his soul and then he’s back outside in the dark again foraging for firewood. Of course this wouldn’t be an issue if the feeling of horror was consistent throughout, but the author makes it seem as though finding resources is an emotionally dissociative task. Towards the end of the story, both characters go out for supplies while carelessly physically interacting with willows. Shouldn’t they be too terrified to even approach the darn things??
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Often somewhat reductively referenced as another wrung in the ladder of weird fiction/cosmic horror leading up to and directly inspiring Lovecraft, The Willows is the best of these “Lovecraftian” formative horror stories I’ve read yet, and probably the first to stand firmly on its own outside of the shadow Cthulhu and his ilk cast across all works of this distinct style.
Blackwood does an excellent job at establishing the oppressive ambiance of his setting, an ever shifting, marshy island predominated by willows and surrounded by the rushing river rising and falling around it. These unpeopled marshes in which our two adventurers make camp quickly reveal themselves to be barren for a reason, as Blackwood imbues this environmental hostility with an additional strain of cosmic horror, his two men quickly discovering an unearthly presence that they can hardly detect but which wreaks havoc on their mental stability and boating equipment in equal measure, trapping them on a sinking island on which seem to lurk creatures beyond comprehension.
While Blackwood attempts to channel his horror into the supernatural, ramping up his suspense and reveals quite well, it actually felt strongest when the oppression came directly from the realm of the mundane. There is no shortage of man vs. nature driven stories, but rarely do they explicitly attempt to evoke dread the way The Willows so wonderfully does. It’s one thing to describe a man stranded and surviving in the wilderness, but altogether another to fixate on and fully tease out the growing paranoia and gnawing fear as his options grow slim, as the ground, the water, the very trees themselves all seem imbued with thinly veiled malevolence and hatred towards him.
When this focus shifts in the second half to the impossible to describe, madness inducing beings we come to expect from these stories, still Blackwood maintains his environmental horror, the willows as proxies for an evil that cannot be described, and his execution of this motif is wonderfully realized and deeply unsettling. His prose as well is gorgeous, his descriptions of the marshes lush and haunting, and his scene setting is necessary and perfect to succeed in the way The Willows does.
The ending of his story perhaps leaves a bit to be desired, seemingly building to a crescendo of madness and action, we instead get neither in our conclusion. Even so it’s a spectacular mood piece and a beautifully written, uniquely rendered work of horror, while lacking bombast it more than makes up for it in style and a creeping dread that sticks to the brain even after the relentless noises of the willows cease.