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A review by roshreviews
Carnacki, the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
3.5
Carnacki can be described as the Sherlock of the occult world. This collection of 9 stories brings us tales of weird supernatural phenomena, some of which are genuinely perplexing while the rest are a result of devious human enterprise. All these stories were published in The Idler Magazine between 1910-1912.
The stories are decently engrossing, though a little repetitive in style. You will find quite an odd assortment of tools being used by Carnacki to detect/fight the ghostly phenomena: pentacles, chalk and garlic circles, human hair barriers, vacuum tubes, cameras,... Some arcane references he makes include vowel-intensive names such as Aeiirii, Saiitii, and the Saaamaaa Ritual. These make the reading experience quite different from modern horror stories. The combination of supposedly traditional rituals along with modern scientific methods is quite unique considering the time period in which these stories were published.
The stories follow a preset format.
- Carnacki sends notes of invitation to four friends, asking them to come to dinner.
- After dinner, Carnacki lights his pipe, everyone settles into their favourite chairs, and he tells the tale without interruption.
- Each of Carnacki's tales tells of an investigation into an unusual haunting, which Carnacki is charged to identify and to end.
- He always uses evidence to draw his final conclusions, so that in some stories he decides the haunting is real, while in others it is staged or faked by an adversary for various reasons. So you won't know till the end if the haunting was genuine or man-made or sometimes, a combination.
- After the tale is complete, Carnacki answers a few questions from his guests and then dismisses them with the phrase, "Out you go!"
Every story is written in first person. One of the four invited friends, Dodgson, serves the actual narrator of the story, though his role is quite minimal as Carnacki soon takes centre-stage and begins his own narration. You might equate this with Watson's recounting of Sherlock's adventures but there are two crucial differences.
1. Watson was a part of Sherlock's adventures. Dogdson merely narrates what Carnacki recounted and has no direct role to play in the paranormal adventures.
2. Unlike in Sherlock where Watson is the narrator and Sherlock the 3rd party, here Carnacki himself recounts his adventures. So the stories have more of a personal touch but sometimes sound pompous and abrupt.
If this were written in the modern era, I might have rated it a 3 because of the repetitive tropes and the simplistic writing. But keeping in mind that this would have been a trendsetter a century ago, and that I can't use modern sensibilities to judge old fiction, I'll go with a 4 star rating. Do give it a try if you want to try out a really different kind of horror anthology.
Trigger warnings: brutal animal cruelty in a couple of the tales. 😢
The stories are decently engrossing, though a little repetitive in style. You will find quite an odd assortment of tools being used by Carnacki to detect/fight the ghostly phenomena: pentacles, chalk and garlic circles, human hair barriers, vacuum tubes, cameras,... Some arcane references he makes include vowel-intensive names such as Aeiirii, Saiitii, and the Saaamaaa Ritual. These make the reading experience quite different from modern horror stories. The combination of supposedly traditional rituals along with modern scientific methods is quite unique considering the time period in which these stories were published.
The stories follow a preset format.
- Carnacki sends notes of invitation to four friends, asking them to come to dinner.
- After dinner, Carnacki lights his pipe, everyone settles into their favourite chairs, and he tells the tale without interruption.
- Each of Carnacki's tales tells of an investigation into an unusual haunting, which Carnacki is charged to identify and to end.
- He always uses evidence to draw his final conclusions, so that in some stories he decides the haunting is real, while in others it is staged or faked by an adversary for various reasons. So you won't know till the end if the haunting was genuine or man-made or sometimes, a combination.
- After the tale is complete, Carnacki answers a few questions from his guests and then dismisses them with the phrase, "Out you go!"
Every story is written in first person. One of the four invited friends, Dodgson, serves the actual narrator of the story, though his role is quite minimal as Carnacki soon takes centre-stage and begins his own narration. You might equate this with Watson's recounting of Sherlock's adventures but there are two crucial differences.
1. Watson was a part of Sherlock's adventures. Dogdson merely narrates what Carnacki recounted and has no direct role to play in the paranormal adventures.
2. Unlike in Sherlock where Watson is the narrator and Sherlock the 3rd party, here Carnacki himself recounts his adventures. So the stories have more of a personal touch but sometimes sound pompous and abrupt.
If this were written in the modern era, I might have rated it a 3 because of the repetitive tropes and the simplistic writing. But keeping in mind that this would have been a trendsetter a century ago, and that I can't use modern sensibilities to judge old fiction, I'll go with a 4 star rating. Do give it a try if you want to try out a really different kind of horror anthology.
Trigger warnings: brutal animal cruelty in a couple of the tales. 😢