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Acolyte, v. 2, issue 2, whole no. 6, Spring 1944
31858063101376_031
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Little-Known Fantaisistes by Harold Wakefield 4. JOHN METCALFE In 1926 a volume of short stories appeared under the title, The Smoking Leg and Other Stories, which revealed a talent so strange and powerful that it seems amazing that it has not achieved wider acclaim. The author, John Metcalfe, is virtually unknown. The only information I can discover is that the is apparently English, has two novels, Arm's Length and Spring Darkness, to his credit, and is the husband of the well-known American writer, Evelyn Scott. Though all the stories in The Smoking Leg contain a strong element of strangeness and grimness, they do not all qualify as weird stories. Those, however, that do fall into this category are of such vivid power, and are told with such economy of words and with so little straining for effect that they deserve a place in every fantasy collector's library. The title story, The Smoking Leg, reveals at once the author's ability to take even a trite and overworked theme and transform it into a thing of supernatural terror and mystery. I wish particularly to cite the scene on board the ocean liner. This ship has picked up a lascar who has brought disaster on every ship he has boarded. During the night, the captain hears excited voices and singing coming from the cabin in which the Jonah has been installed. He finds that the lascar's leg has been bewitched in such a manner as to emit smoke and flame, and that in order to calm and placate this grisly limp it is necessary to sing to it. However, even this is highly dangerous because the singing of the wrong song will infuriate it utterly, and the rendering of the wrong selection has already resulted in the destruction of five or six other ships. Almost Lovecraftian in atmosphere is Nightmare Jack, which tells of a hideous and obscene old god who absorbs his priests, with whispered hits of such frightful secrets as the mythos of the Web and Loaf, and the faded terror of the Triple Scum. Paper Windmills, an otherwise magnificent story of the Arthur Machen type, is ruined by a stupidly commonplace ending. One of the finest stories in the book,and one which Lovecraft described as having gradations of horror bordering on genius is The Bad Lands. It deals with a foul nightmare world impinging on our own and into which certain highly strung and nervous individuals can pass. The strange and subtle The Double Admiral has also appeared in several English collections. In this tale, Metcalfe makes effective use of the psychiatric lore of Jung and his followers. In Proxy, the hero is haunted in his dreams by a beautiful woman and an obscene little valley. The story tells of the horrifying discovery he makes when he finally encounters both during his waking hours. One of the most powerful stories in the collection is The Grey House, which tells of a man who slips through a chink in time and space and disappears utterly. It could well serve as a model of brevity, compactness, restraint, and power. In the very grim little yarn, The Tunnel, we see the inmate of a madhouse frantically digging and clawing his way through the blackness of a tunnel towards his imagined freedom--a performance which he has repeated numerous times even though the attendents always await him at the spot where he invariably emerges. The Flying Tower is raised far above the conventional ghost story by a very deft and original treatment. The balance of the stories in this collection, while possessing their moments of strangeness and fear, are off lesser merit. Two other Metcalfe stories, not included int his volume, show his strange art at its peak. The first, Mortmain from Judas and -- 25 --
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Little-Known Fantaisistes by Harold Wakefield 4. JOHN METCALFE In 1926 a volume of short stories appeared under the title, The Smoking Leg and Other Stories, which revealed a talent so strange and powerful that it seems amazing that it has not achieved wider acclaim. The author, John Metcalfe, is virtually unknown. The only information I can discover is that the is apparently English, has two novels, Arm's Length and Spring Darkness, to his credit, and is the husband of the well-known American writer, Evelyn Scott. Though all the stories in The Smoking Leg contain a strong element of strangeness and grimness, they do not all qualify as weird stories. Those, however, that do fall into this category are of such vivid power, and are told with such economy of words and with so little straining for effect that they deserve a place in every fantasy collector's library. The title story, The Smoking Leg, reveals at once the author's ability to take even a trite and overworked theme and transform it into a thing of supernatural terror and mystery. I wish particularly to cite the scene on board the ocean liner. This ship has picked up a lascar who has brought disaster on every ship he has boarded. During the night, the captain hears excited voices and singing coming from the cabin in which the Jonah has been installed. He finds that the lascar's leg has been bewitched in such a manner as to emit smoke and flame, and that in order to calm and placate this grisly limp it is necessary to sing to it. However, even this is highly dangerous because the singing of the wrong song will infuriate it utterly, and the rendering of the wrong selection has already resulted in the destruction of five or six other ships. Almost Lovecraftian in atmosphere is Nightmare Jack, which tells of a hideous and obscene old god who absorbs his priests, with whispered hits of such frightful secrets as the mythos of the Web and Loaf, and the faded terror of the Triple Scum. Paper Windmills, an otherwise magnificent story of the Arthur Machen type, is ruined by a stupidly commonplace ending. One of the finest stories in the book,and one which Lovecraft described as having gradations of horror bordering on genius is The Bad Lands. It deals with a foul nightmare world impinging on our own and into which certain highly strung and nervous individuals can pass. The strange and subtle The Double Admiral has also appeared in several English collections. In this tale, Metcalfe makes effective use of the psychiatric lore of Jung and his followers. In Proxy, the hero is haunted in his dreams by a beautiful woman and an obscene little valley. The story tells of the horrifying discovery he makes when he finally encounters both during his waking hours. One of the most powerful stories in the collection is The Grey House, which tells of a man who slips through a chink in time and space and disappears utterly. It could well serve as a model of brevity, compactness, restraint, and power. In the very grim little yarn, The Tunnel, we see the inmate of a madhouse frantically digging and clawing his way through the blackness of a tunnel towards his imagined freedom--a performance which he has repeated numerous times even though the attendents always await him at the spot where he invariably emerges. The Flying Tower is raised far above the conventional ghost story by a very deft and original treatment. The balance of the stories in this collection, while possessing their moments of strangeness and fear, are off lesser merit. Two other Metcalfe stories, not included int his volume, show his strange art at its peak. The first, Mortmain from Judas and -- 25 --
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