Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
Pan'ın kötü düşünülmesi müthiş bir zeka ancak kısa bir kitaba göre fazla isim var. Kurgu çok hoşuma gitti bu arada.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
“The figures of Fauns and Satyrs and Ægipans danced before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, the dance on the mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in green vineyards, by rocks and desert places, passed before him; a world before which the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder.”
⟶ Right off the bat: this story is good at creating an ambivalent and possibly dangerous figure of the pagan god Pan but bad at actually evoking horror and presenting women in it.
The great God Pan is one of the works of fiction that had arisen during the Victorian and early Edwardian times when there was the reawakening of the general interest in paganism and Pan in particular.
This novella is a mixture of:
➣ Science fiction, presented by the scientist Doctor Raymond whose beliefs are rooted in Neo-Platonism; with his view of reality in which the true object of study is the revelation of the higher, hidden spiritual world. Although, it couldn’t be fully classified as such because Raymond expresses an occultist belief rather than the scientific.
➣ Fantasy fiction, obviously in the figure of Pan, who was an ancient Greek God associated with shepherds, nature, one whose appearance inflicted his enemies with sudden terror or panic. The Phrase The great God Pan can be traced back to Plutarch’s On the defense of Oracles where there is a tale of a sailor, during the reign of Tiberius, hearing a voice crying out: “when you have arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the great God Pan is dead.”(this can be tied with the fact that Jesus lived and died during the reign of Tiberius, thus abandoning Pan and turning to a birth of new religion, Christianity). Many writers were inspired by the story, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning who wrote the poem “The dead Pan” alluding to abandonment of the pagan elements in Christian works.
➣ Decadent literature elements such as occultism, the femme fatale, strange deaths, non-mainstream eroticism.
➣ Religious motifs which can be connected to a critic of the atavistic Victorian fascination with paganism in the age of Christianity. Most of these motifs are related to the portrayal of female characters in the novel. Mary, a direct analogy of virgin Mary is presented as helpless and naïve while Helen Vaughan is present as demonic due to her power and sexuality.
“We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish, silly tale.”
⟶ The story has a well-crafted structure, an introduction chapter with elements of science fiction, as the doctor conducts a gruesome experiment; the middle segment which follows different men that came in contact with Helen Vaughan, and an equivocal ending.
It is said to inspire the works of H.P.Lovecraft ([b:The Call of Cthulhu|15730101|The Call of Cthulhu|H.P. Lovecraft|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1567470807l/15730101._SX50_.jpg|25692046] [b:H.P. Lovecraft's the Dunwich Horror|13402044|H.P. Lovecraft's the Dunwich Horror|Joe R. Lansdale|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347620921l/13402044._SY75_.jpg|27337732] [b:The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath|722667|The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath|H.P. Lovecraft|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1293312354l/722667._SY75_.jpg|926162]), Bram Stoker’s [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387151694l/17245._SY75_.jpg|3165724] and Guillermo del Toro’s [b:Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun|42117981|Pan's Labyrinth The Labyrinth of the Faun|Guillermo del Toro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1542345177l/42117981._SX50_.jpg|69856327].
The strongest side of the tale is the structure and the writing, Machen manages to keep the reader entertained and interested in how the story will wrap up rather than actually evoking horror.
⟶ One of the aspects that I couldn’t enjoy in this novella is the masked presentation of a powerful and sexually liberated woman as demonic; the culmination of such in Helen’s post mortem metamorphosis – freeing the evil out of her and morphing her female body into the male. Helen is the character that evokes more terror than the ambivalent Pan.
This definitely wasn’t the best horror story I have ever read but it was an enjoyable read, will be checking out more stories by Machen in the future.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A solid horror novella! Review to come.
dark
mysterious
fast-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
I’d love a retelling of The Great God Pan from Helen Vaughan’s perspective. It’s easy to see how these stories are influential, although I found the supernatural and horror elements a little vague and ambiguous. It leads the readers to guess at multiple meanings.
I don't know what to think of this, given its weighty reputation, I was expecting something different. Perhaps the works that followed improved so much on it that it has lost the power it once had. The ideas are powerful, but the pace is plodding and the characterization is typically Victorian, by which I mean, basically non-existent.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is my first book by Machen, but hardly of this genre of "gentlemanly narrative" and the horror of other realms. A number of white British men set out to live their lives with varying levels of curiosity in the occult realm--after all, what else could occupy them from their endless succession of wealthy dinners and distractions? At first, it is difficult to see how all of the chapters intersect, but soon enough, the various scenes resolve to discover that a great evil--tragically experimented with in the first chapter--is not done with them. And, little wonder, it manifests in the guise of a woman.
Let's not spend overmuch time dealing with the misogyny and latent classicism and racism which is overwhelming present in these old stories. Check. Ditto. It's here. But this is a review of the story and its crafting. The more important cultural and political talk about these books belongs in a more important space than this.
What did interest me, though, about Machen's structuring of the story is the shifting of chapters between scenes and characters, absenting some altogether and then pointing at a quirk of one or another at length. I'm not certain that this is effective narration, but it did disorient me some, basically off-loading the horror to the margins. And this is where it largely stays. Every moment of terror and true danger occurs in retrospect through the telling of stories 1st or even 3rd hand in the relative comfort of someone's study. Even the resolution will not have its moment in action but as told first in preparation for and then as afterword. "I plan to do this," and then, "Here is how it went." Yes, to consider what they confront--the Great God Pan, perhaps?--is truly a terrifying conception. But Machen never really lets us get too close.
More than twice, I wondered if the motivation for this evil was political justice against rich white men (as it surely would be if written today), but no, Machen approaches the story with seemingly no irony at all. The rich white men have been set upon; and they will be defended in this story nearly 150 years old. And don't forget: the evil the woman does upon them is only insinuated, perhaps the real terror which is whispered of only in the oblique terms of white men in their clubs and studies.
In this sense, the book offers no twists or surprises; more it is a conventionally-situated dive into what will ultimately become a sub-genre of horror called pulp or Lovecraftian horror. Sinister, yes, but altogether "comforting" in its performance.
P.S. Just found out that Stephen King called this one of "the best horror stories ever written." Sorry. Steve.
Let's not spend overmuch time dealing with the misogyny and latent classicism and racism which is overwhelming present in these old stories. Check. Ditto. It's here. But this is a review of the story and its crafting. The more important cultural and political talk about these books belongs in a more important space than this.
What did interest me, though, about Machen's structuring of the story is the shifting of chapters between scenes and characters, absenting some altogether and then pointing at a quirk of one or another at length. I'm not certain that this is effective narration, but it did disorient me some, basically off-loading the horror to the margins. And this is where it largely stays. Every moment of terror and true danger occurs in retrospect through the telling of stories 1st or even 3rd hand in the relative comfort of someone's study. Even the resolution will not have its moment in action but as told first in preparation for and then as afterword. "I plan to do this," and then, "Here is how it went." Yes, to consider what they confront--the Great God Pan, perhaps?--is truly a terrifying conception. But Machen never really lets us get too close.
More than twice, I wondered if the motivation for this evil was political justice against rich white men (as it surely would be if written today), but no, Machen approaches the story with seemingly no irony at all. The rich white men have been set upon; and they will be defended in this story nearly 150 years old. And don't forget: the evil the woman does upon them is only insinuated, perhaps the real terror which is whispered of only in the oblique terms of white men in their clubs and studies.
In this sense, the book offers no twists or surprises; more it is a conventionally-situated dive into what will ultimately become a sub-genre of horror called pulp or Lovecraftian horror. Sinister, yes, but altogether "comforting" in its performance.
P.S. Just found out that Stephen King called this one of "the best horror stories ever written." Sorry. Steve.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide
Nearly all of the graphic elements of the work are "off-scene," but insinuated or discussed.