6/20/2023 0 Comments The willows by algernon blackwood![]() ![]() It overflows every boundary, literally as well as figuratively, erasing physical and psychological landmarks as it goes. In contrast, ‘The Willows’ is marked by the overwhelming generosity of its landscape. The supernatural intrudes into conformity, so to speak. The liminal space of James’s world is often found in tiny moments that the reader might easily miss, and the critical actions almost always take place indoors or in confined spaces. James’s stories are, for the most part, set in clearly defined spaces, public and private, inside and out, and even when his characters do venture into the countryside, it remains a world of clearly defined edges: fields, footpaths, land owned definitively. Reading it once again, I can see immediately why I never warmed to this story. I never much cared for Algernon Blackwood’s work when I was younger, and I’m not honestly sure how many of his stories I’ve ever read, with the exception of ‘The Wendigo’ and ‘The Willows’, both of which have been regularly anthologised through the years. ![]()
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