The Hill of Dreams
This book is like the story of my life, depressingly enough. Particularly from page 208 onwards. The story of a young writer (no doubt a somewhat autobiographical sketch of Machen himself), struggling to craft the perfect masterpiece, after experiencing a vision in the ruins of an old Roman fort. Lucian is more enamored of fantasy than reality - he doesn't care about anything else. Practicality be damned! 'The Hill Of Dreams' follows his trajectory from a fresh-faced, starry-eyed dreamer to a
Perhaps the strangest bildungsroman ever published; like a daemonic Proust Machen winds his protagonist down an ever-narrowing labyrinth of memories until we find ourselves trapped in a grimy bedsit, dreaming of better times: a singular, minor masterpiece.
I was so sure I was going to love this one, given the 'doomed artist' the synopsis featured, my love for this type of character, and my previous adoration with Machen's work.His writing was as lyrical as I remembered but whilst his words continued to haunt me, the actual story line did not. If anything, I felt the events could have been protracted for better horrifying appeal. Put simply, this is a novel about an individual finding themselves and although the mediums used to do so were
There's nothing quite like a forgotten masterpiece... This is lyrical and sad, autobiographical yet very far from being simple, boring roman a clef. The author maintains an atmosphere of mystery throughout, with the life of a struggling writer forming only the surface story, the skeleton plot overlaid (or underscored?) by his celestial dreams and ideas. All the mystical Celtic, old-Roman and druidic imagery lends itself to the fever-dream style. It's filled with a sense of the capital E ecstasy,
Arthur Machen is, along with Blackwood and Bierce and Clark Ashton Smith, an early proponent of weird/ supernatural horror fantasy. Whereas Lovecraft seemed to revere Dunsany, Machen's influence is not as apparent. He seems to inhabit the outskirts of literature, as no one's favorite.From the get-go The Hill of Dreams radiates an aura of 'masterpiece.' In my opinion, there are only a few books so polished, so evocative, and so articulate in the English language. It is so precise in its
This a lyrical yet sad book of a poor young man who dreams of using words to paint sound pictures that stir the heart and soul of all who read them. Villified by his peers for being poor, different and dreamy he increasingly descends into the finer reality inside his head, where Greeks, Romans, Alchemists and Druids all vie for space, living life in a grand style. Soon the line between the world inside his head and the world without get ever more blurred as reality takes a back seat to beauty,
Arthur Machen
Paperback | Pages: 204 pages Rating: 3.9 | 845 Users | 100 Reviews
Particularize Books To The Hill of Dreams
Original Title: | The Hill of Dreams |
ISBN: | 1587155303 (ISBN13: 9781587155307) |
Edition Language: | English |
Characters: | Lucian Taylor |
Setting: | Caermaen, Wales(United Kingdom) London, England(United Kingdom) |
Representaion As Books The Hill of Dreams
Lucian Taylor is damned, either through contact with an erotically pagan faerie world or through something degenerate in his own nature. He thinks of the damning thing inside him as a faun. He becomes a writer, and when he moves to London he becomes trapped by the increasing reality of the dark imaginings of this creature within him, which become increasingly real. The portrait of a doomed artist: a man not unlike Machen himself.Present Regarding Books The Hill of Dreams
Title | : | The Hill of Dreams |
Author | : | Arthur Machen |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 204 pages |
Published | : | August 1st 2002 by Borgo Press (first published 1907) |
Categories | : | Horror. Fantasy. Fiction. Classics. Weird Fiction. Gothic |
Rating Regarding Books The Hill of Dreams
Ratings: 3.9 From 845 Users | 100 ReviewsJudge Regarding Books The Hill of Dreams
The Hill of Dreams is a beautiful and complex book about the creative process. It is also a really honest book, it's like being in the mind of Arthur Machen for a while. He mentions everything that he likes in this book, from Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, Thomas De Quincey, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, everything is here. His love for the Middle Ages and Ancient Rome, as well as its anti-materialistic ideas are here. It is the struggle of a writer trying to put down on paper hisThis book is like the story of my life, depressingly enough. Particularly from page 208 onwards. The story of a young writer (no doubt a somewhat autobiographical sketch of Machen himself), struggling to craft the perfect masterpiece, after experiencing a vision in the ruins of an old Roman fort. Lucian is more enamored of fantasy than reality - he doesn't care about anything else. Practicality be damned! 'The Hill Of Dreams' follows his trajectory from a fresh-faced, starry-eyed dreamer to a
Perhaps the strangest bildungsroman ever published; like a daemonic Proust Machen winds his protagonist down an ever-narrowing labyrinth of memories until we find ourselves trapped in a grimy bedsit, dreaming of better times: a singular, minor masterpiece.
I was so sure I was going to love this one, given the 'doomed artist' the synopsis featured, my love for this type of character, and my previous adoration with Machen's work.His writing was as lyrical as I remembered but whilst his words continued to haunt me, the actual story line did not. If anything, I felt the events could have been protracted for better horrifying appeal. Put simply, this is a novel about an individual finding themselves and although the mediums used to do so were
There's nothing quite like a forgotten masterpiece... This is lyrical and sad, autobiographical yet very far from being simple, boring roman a clef. The author maintains an atmosphere of mystery throughout, with the life of a struggling writer forming only the surface story, the skeleton plot overlaid (or underscored?) by his celestial dreams and ideas. All the mystical Celtic, old-Roman and druidic imagery lends itself to the fever-dream style. It's filled with a sense of the capital E ecstasy,
Arthur Machen is, along with Blackwood and Bierce and Clark Ashton Smith, an early proponent of weird/ supernatural horror fantasy. Whereas Lovecraft seemed to revere Dunsany, Machen's influence is not as apparent. He seems to inhabit the outskirts of literature, as no one's favorite.From the get-go The Hill of Dreams radiates an aura of 'masterpiece.' In my opinion, there are only a few books so polished, so evocative, and so articulate in the English language. It is so precise in its
This a lyrical yet sad book of a poor young man who dreams of using words to paint sound pictures that stir the heart and soul of all who read them. Villified by his peers for being poor, different and dreamy he increasingly descends into the finer reality inside his head, where Greeks, Romans, Alchemists and Druids all vie for space, living life in a grand style. Soon the line between the world inside his head and the world without get ever more blurred as reality takes a back seat to beauty,
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