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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 6, Spring 1945
Page 121
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 121 indeed a remarkable treatment of the dream theme. The hero, home on leave during the last war, decides to spend his time in a lonely and desolate district of England. Stopping for the night at an inn, he hears, as he dozes off to sleep, the other frequenters of the place discussing an old earth-barrow near by, beneath which lie buried together hundreds of men who had been slain in a battle of ancient days. The next day he starts out afoot on the last stage of his journey. As he arrives at the old burial spot a strange fatigue syndrome overpowers him; lying down in the grass, he immediately falls asleep. When he awakens it is already dark, and ghost-fires are playing about the burial mound. Coming to a sudden decision, he resolves to excavate the mound to see what lies below. After digging down some feet he discovers what appears to be the wall of an underground chamber; and breaking through this he finds himself in a room in which a hideous company of long-dead men are grouped around a table, at whose head is seated a king, sceptre in hand. Moved by impulse, he snatches the weapon from the ancient's hand. A frightful struggle ensues, the man desperately trying to beat off the attack of his dead-alive opponents; finally, more through luck than judgement, he finds the entrance, staggers into the sane outer air, and collapses. On recovering his senses in the daylight he finds himself undishevelled, and the burial plot undisturbed---yet in his hand is a curiously carven bone and a twisted scepter... Also in Strange Assembly is the same author's "Black Lad," wherein the same general theme predominates. In his preface, Gawsworth quotes a passage from Wuthering Heights, wherein the character Catherine says, "I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas. They've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind..." Catherine is here echoing the personality of Emily Bronte, her creator; but unknowingly, too, she is describing the prose of Frederick Carter. Two other powerful tales in this collection are by Francis Marsden---who is introduced by the anthologist as editor of Form; they are studies in illusion and fear, bordering on the realm of the subconscious. The first of these is "The Mask." The character in this story, as Gawsworth puts it, "is obsessed with the fear of nothingness, haunted by the mask and the terror of the blank behind it...forever explaining his fears away, believing he has conquered them." Paradoxically, the illusion he suffers from is that he has completely rid himself of his illusion. And there is where the diabolical ingenuity of the tale asserts itself. Marsden's second contribution is "The Captain," which has for its background the unreal atmosphere of London during the first great war. It tells of a woman with a passion for cats, one of her pampered favorites being a huge creature called The Captain. During an air-raid this cat disappears---but at the same time a great negro enters the scene. The woman becomes convinced that a transformation has occurred, as the negro one day disappears suddenly and mysteriously---and the cat is to be found once more in his favorite spot. The remainder of the stories in this collection are in no way fantastic, and need not be treated here. One, however---Stephen Hudson's "Fragment"---should be of interest to anyone admiring the genius of Marcel Proust, for it relates of an actual meeting with the author of Remembrance of Things Past. All in all, Strange Assembly is undoubtedly a worthy addition to the library of any serious fantasy collector; and I hope that these brief comments may be instrumental in removing it from the place of apparent obscurity where, up until now, it has evidently been resting. ---Harold Wakefield.
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 121 indeed a remarkable treatment of the dream theme. The hero, home on leave during the last war, decides to spend his time in a lonely and desolate district of England. Stopping for the night at an inn, he hears, as he dozes off to sleep, the other frequenters of the place discussing an old earth-barrow near by, beneath which lie buried together hundreds of men who had been slain in a battle of ancient days. The next day he starts out afoot on the last stage of his journey. As he arrives at the old burial spot a strange fatigue syndrome overpowers him; lying down in the grass, he immediately falls asleep. When he awakens it is already dark, and ghost-fires are playing about the burial mound. Coming to a sudden decision, he resolves to excavate the mound to see what lies below. After digging down some feet he discovers what appears to be the wall of an underground chamber; and breaking through this he finds himself in a room in which a hideous company of long-dead men are grouped around a table, at whose head is seated a king, sceptre in hand. Moved by impulse, he snatches the weapon from the ancient's hand. A frightful struggle ensues, the man desperately trying to beat off the attack of his dead-alive opponents; finally, more through luck than judgement, he finds the entrance, staggers into the sane outer air, and collapses. On recovering his senses in the daylight he finds himself undishevelled, and the burial plot undisturbed---yet in his hand is a curiously carven bone and a twisted scepter... Also in Strange Assembly is the same author's "Black Lad," wherein the same general theme predominates. In his preface, Gawsworth quotes a passage from Wuthering Heights, wherein the character Catherine says, "I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas. They've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind..." Catherine is here echoing the personality of Emily Bronte, her creator; but unknowingly, too, she is describing the prose of Frederick Carter. Two other powerful tales in this collection are by Francis Marsden---who is introduced by the anthologist as editor of Form; they are studies in illusion and fear, bordering on the realm of the subconscious. The first of these is "The Mask." The character in this story, as Gawsworth puts it, "is obsessed with the fear of nothingness, haunted by the mask and the terror of the blank behind it...forever explaining his fears away, believing he has conquered them." Paradoxically, the illusion he suffers from is that he has completely rid himself of his illusion. And there is where the diabolical ingenuity of the tale asserts itself. Marsden's second contribution is "The Captain," which has for its background the unreal atmosphere of London during the first great war. It tells of a woman with a passion for cats, one of her pampered favorites being a huge creature called The Captain. During an air-raid this cat disappears---but at the same time a great negro enters the scene. The woman becomes convinced that a transformation has occurred, as the negro one day disappears suddenly and mysteriously---and the cat is to be found once more in his favorite spot. The remainder of the stories in this collection are in no way fantastic, and need not be treated here. One, however---Stephen Hudson's "Fragment"---should be of interest to anyone admiring the genius of Marcel Proust, for it relates of an actual meeting with the author of Remembrance of Things Past. All in all, Strange Assembly is undoubtedly a worthy addition to the library of any serious fantasy collector; and I hope that these brief comments may be instrumental in removing it from the place of apparent obscurity where, up until now, it has evidently been resting. ---Harold Wakefield.
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