THE DEEP ONES: "Roman Remains" by Algernon Blackwood
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"Roman Remains" by Algernon Blackwood
Discussion begins August 23, 2023.
First published in the March 1948 issue of Weird Tales.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?65406
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mystery Stories
The Monster Book of Monsters
Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural
ONLINE VERSIONS
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tales_v40n03_1948-03/page/n87/mode/2up
ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS
No online audio versions found to date.
MISCELLANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Blackwood
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview32
https://www.thisishorror.co.uk/exploring-the-cold-desolate-cosmos-algernon-black...
https://tinyurl.com/5n8u2sx2
Discussion begins August 23, 2023.
First published in the March 1948 issue of Weird Tales.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?65406
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mystery Stories
The Monster Book of Monsters
Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural
ONLINE VERSIONS
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tales_v40n03_1948-03/page/n87/mode/2up
ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS
No online audio versions found to date.
MISCELLANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Blackwood
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview32
https://www.thisishorror.co.uk/exploring-the-cold-desolate-cosmos-algernon-black...
https://tinyurl.com/5n8u2sx2
2RandyStafford
This one is shorter than our last Pan story from Blackwood, "A Touch of Pan". But I still think he managed, with that scene with Nora in the woods and Breddle's sudden panic, to nicely convey the deity's quality.
There were some odd bits. I'm just assuming that Breddle thinking Nora is in the "ecstasy of love" was a euphemism for sexual arousal. But I was surprised to see the medieval idea that mother's shock (particularly by sights) creates birth defects. I also found it odd that we don't hear anything about how Nora's remains were disposed.
There were some odd bits. I'm just assuming that Breddle thinking Nora is in the "ecstasy of love" was a euphemism for sexual arousal. But I was surprised to see the medieval idea that mother's shock (particularly by sights) creates birth defects. I also found it odd that we don't hear anything about how Nora's remains were disposed.
3AndreasJ
I confess myself somewhat befuddled. Had Nora given birth to a satyr? Was she carrying on an affair with one born during the war and grown up quickly enough to have an affair with?
4alaudacorax
Is this one also known by a different title? It is apparently not in either the collections I have, yet, now I come to read it, I find I was already quite familiar with it.
5alaudacorax
>3 AndreasJ:
It's certainly a puzzler. I can see why there are not many posts here. It's difficult to know what to make of it. I'm not sure whether to like it as a quite intriguing story or worry that it shows AB as having a fear of or, even, hostility towards women.
Why does it feature Silvanus while the language and content more strongly evoke Pan? I read that Silvanus was sometimes identified with Pan; is AB doing this? What is the significance of the reference to 'monsters'? Was the 'satyr' one of these 'monsters' and not a supernatural being at all? Are the 'monsters' a hint at some sort of traffic the locals have with the supernatural? Is AB hinting that Pan or the satyrs has been having it off with the local women and is doing so now with Nora? But one of the older men says that the locals won't have anything to do with the place (Goat Valley). Or is that just the opinion of the local, male world, which is probably all the elder brother really has access to?
It's certainly a puzzler. I can see why there are not many posts here. It's difficult to know what to make of it. I'm not sure whether to like it as a quite intriguing story or worry that it shows AB as having a fear of or, even, hostility towards women.
Why does it feature Silvanus while the language and content more strongly evoke Pan? I read that Silvanus was sometimes identified with Pan; is AB doing this? What is the significance of the reference to 'monsters'? Was the 'satyr' one of these 'monsters' and not a supernatural being at all? Are the 'monsters' a hint at some sort of traffic the locals have with the supernatural? Is AB hinting that Pan or the satyrs has been having it off with the local women and is doing so now with Nora? But one of the older men says that the locals won't have anything to do with the place (Goat Valley). Or is that just the opinion of the local, male world, which is probably all the elder brother really has access to?
6housefulofpaper
>4 alaudacorax:
I may have cleared up one mystery. I nominated this story after I read it in the 2022 collection The Whisperers and other stories but I've realised it's also in a 1970s Weird Tales anthology put together by Peter Haining. I've got the Sphere edition divided into two paperbacks but didn't you manage to get the hardback that reprinted the original pages and art from Weird Tales?
Bearing in mind the story was first published in Weird Tales I wondered if Blackwood was trying to write to that market and be a bit "racy" but according to Mike Ashley's introduction to the story in The Whisperers, he wrote it for August Derleth to publish in The Arkham Sampler (after Derleth published The Doll and One Other). It was Derleth who decided to give it a wider audience by selling it to Weird Tales, an arrangement I presume Blackwood was happy about.
Nevertheless, there were some odd, slightly out of key moments. Speculating as to why that is, firstly, is this in some sense an attempt at an Arthur Machen type story? Although the gap between Machen's death (in December 1947) and the story's publication doesn't seem anywhere near long enough the story to have been directly inspired by it.
Then, the story is set just a few years before "The first major air raid on Liverpool took place in August 1940, when 160 bombers attacked the city on the night of 28 August." - Wikipedia; and the main characters are in their 20s, whereas Blackwood was a Victorian just coming up to his 79th birthday. Maybe he struggled to catch their character and consequently we've got an "outsider's" view of them in the story? But then, as suggested in >5 alaudacorax: do we have to factor in the attitude of different social groups: by sex, but also by class, which (I'm guessing) could overlap with Welsh v. English and also the Folk Horror opposition of outsider v. local?
>2 RandyStafford:
You raised some good points. Just thinking of Blackwood as a Victorian gentleman (for example, I can't help but think that the three men doing "something by way of tidying up a bit" meant they were all in evening dress), the "ecstasy of love" doesn't strike me as being used as a euphemism for sexual arousal here, especially as Breddle immediately after seeing Nora, feels it working in him too, as an overwhelming experience that he has to flee. I think it's the seductive and destructive force of nature (or Nature) that Blackwood's written about before but more conventionally here, instantiated as a literal Panic.
Assuming we are to understand that satyrs (and who knows, Pan himself as well) have been living in a remote Welsh valley since the Roman occupation, the birth defects might have been a cover story in case Breddle spotted a satyr, or (shades of Machen) are hybrids left in the valley abandoned or to be brought up by the satyrs? The suggestion that shock causes birth defects might be part of the cover story (if cover story it was) or is it possible that Blackwood's mystical/spiritual beliefs would lead him to give it some credence? either way, the whole thing has a nasty air of 20th century eugenics about it and cast a bit of shadow over the story, for me anyway. But then, the past is full of things that can pull you up short.
I've no doubt that once the evidence of the satyr was disposed of, Nora's remains were dealt with according to the law and custom. I suppose a civilian death by enemy action during watime had to be recorded as such over and above the usual procedure for reporting a death (although I'm a little surprised to realise that despite the massive cultural presence of WWII when I was growing up, I don't KNOW that - can't recall it from a TV drama for example).
>3 AndreasJ:
It wasn't my understanding that the satyr or satyrs were a recent phenomenon caused by the war. If that were the case, it or they could only be a few months old (the early months of the war was called the "phoney war" until Germany launched the Blitz). Although that said, who knows how long it takes a satyr to reach sexual maturity? (thinking of H. P. Lovecraft now, and Wilbur Whateley's precocious physical and mental development in "The Dunwich Horror"). On the other hand, the valley had already earned the name "Goat Valley". Unless that's from the temple to Silvanus.
I think Nora is supposed to have reached the point of being in a physical relationship with the satyr - they are not known for sustaining long chaste courtships after all - but surely the medical men she was sharing a house with would have spotted a pregnancy?
I may have cleared up one mystery. I nominated this story after I read it in the 2022 collection The Whisperers and other stories but I've realised it's also in a 1970s Weird Tales anthology put together by Peter Haining. I've got the Sphere edition divided into two paperbacks but didn't you manage to get the hardback that reprinted the original pages and art from Weird Tales?
Bearing in mind the story was first published in Weird Tales I wondered if Blackwood was trying to write to that market and be a bit "racy" but according to Mike Ashley's introduction to the story in The Whisperers, he wrote it for August Derleth to publish in The Arkham Sampler (after Derleth published The Doll and One Other). It was Derleth who decided to give it a wider audience by selling it to Weird Tales, an arrangement I presume Blackwood was happy about.
Nevertheless, there were some odd, slightly out of key moments. Speculating as to why that is, firstly, is this in some sense an attempt at an Arthur Machen type story? Although the gap between Machen's death (in December 1947) and the story's publication doesn't seem anywhere near long enough the story to have been directly inspired by it.
Then, the story is set just a few years before "The first major air raid on Liverpool took place in August 1940, when 160 bombers attacked the city on the night of 28 August." - Wikipedia; and the main characters are in their 20s, whereas Blackwood was a Victorian just coming up to his 79th birthday. Maybe he struggled to catch their character and consequently we've got an "outsider's" view of them in the story? But then, as suggested in >5 alaudacorax: do we have to factor in the attitude of different social groups: by sex, but also by class, which (I'm guessing) could overlap with Welsh v. English and also the Folk Horror opposition of outsider v. local?
>2 RandyStafford:
You raised some good points. Just thinking of Blackwood as a Victorian gentleman (for example, I can't help but think that the three men doing "something by way of tidying up a bit" meant they were all in evening dress), the "ecstasy of love" doesn't strike me as being used as a euphemism for sexual arousal here, especially as Breddle immediately after seeing Nora, feels it working in him too, as an overwhelming experience that he has to flee. I think it's the seductive and destructive force of nature (or Nature) that Blackwood's written about before but more conventionally here, instantiated as a literal Panic.
Assuming we are to understand that satyrs (and who knows, Pan himself as well) have been living in a remote Welsh valley since the Roman occupation, the birth defects might have been a cover story in case Breddle spotted a satyr, or (shades of Machen) are hybrids left in the valley abandoned or to be brought up by the satyrs? The suggestion that shock causes birth defects might be part of the cover story (if cover story it was) or is it possible that Blackwood's mystical/spiritual beliefs would lead him to give it some credence? either way, the whole thing has a nasty air of 20th century eugenics about it and cast a bit of shadow over the story, for me anyway. But then, the past is full of things that can pull you up short.
I've no doubt that once the evidence of the satyr was disposed of, Nora's remains were dealt with according to the law and custom. I suppose a civilian death by enemy action during watime had to be recorded as such over and above the usual procedure for reporting a death (although I'm a little surprised to realise that despite the massive cultural presence of WWII when I was growing up, I don't KNOW that - can't recall it from a TV drama for example).
>3 AndreasJ:
It wasn't my understanding that the satyr or satyrs were a recent phenomenon caused by the war. If that were the case, it or they could only be a few months old (the early months of the war was called the "phoney war" until Germany launched the Blitz). Although that said, who knows how long it takes a satyr to reach sexual maturity? (thinking of H. P. Lovecraft now, and Wilbur Whateley's precocious physical and mental development in "The Dunwich Horror"). On the other hand, the valley had already earned the name "Goat Valley". Unless that's from the temple to Silvanus.
I think Nora is supposed to have reached the point of being in a physical relationship with the satyr - they are not known for sustaining long chaste courtships after all - but surely the medical men she was sharing a house with would have spotted a pregnancy?
9alaudacorax
>6 housefulofpaper: - I've realised it's also in a 1970s Weird Tales anthology put together by Peter Haining.
I swear I'm not ignoring you! I've been meaning to hunt up that anthology and give this one a reread since you posted. Trouble is, I've got stacks of books around here in odd corners and, stupidly, I never seem to think to stack them spines outward. My memory is a bit hazy on details and nuances at the moment and I really need a reread.
I swear I'm not ignoring you! I've been meaning to hunt up that anthology and give this one a reread since you posted. Trouble is, I've got stacks of books around here in odd corners and, stupidly, I never seem to think to stack them spines outward. My memory is a bit hazy on details and nuances at the moment and I really need a reread.
10alaudacorax
>6 housefulofpaper:, >9 alaudacorax:
This all comes a bit apposite just now: I've become quite absorbed in Blackwood since I received the first two of those Hippocampus Press editions and I've ordered Mike Ashley's Starlight Man.
I'd like to know what Blackwood was reading at the time of writing this. I feel it would shed some light if we could put it in the context of what his contemporaries were doing or had been doing. There was an obsession with Pan, at least among British writers, but, as usual, it's a couple of years since I read up on this and I still have a couple of books to read which seem have rather fallen by the wayside. I really should be able to put these things into a context by now. Lazy! One of the obvious candidates would seem to be Machen's The Great God Pan, but that was published half a century before, so ...
This all comes a bit apposite just now: I've become quite absorbed in Blackwood since I received the first two of those Hippocampus Press editions and I've ordered Mike Ashley's Starlight Man.
I'd like to know what Blackwood was reading at the time of writing this. I feel it would shed some light if we could put it in the context of what his contemporaries were doing or had been doing. There was an obsession with Pan, at least among British writers, but, as usual, it's a couple of years since I read up on this and I still have a couple of books to read which seem have rather fallen by the wayside. I really should be able to put these things into a context by now. Lazy! One of the obvious candidates would seem to be Machen's The Great God Pan, but that was published half a century before, so ...
11housefulofpaper
>10 alaudacorax:
I've got the first edition of Starlight Man. It turned up in the Oxfam bookshop. Perhaps the donor replaced it with the second edition. I haven't read it yet but turning to the relevant pages there isn't a lot (at least in this first edition) that sheds any light the inspiration for the story. He was starting to feel his age (a bad knee had spoiled a skiing holiday) and was making a push to break into radio. Not much to go on there.
I've also got, and I've read, Pan: the Great God's Modern Return but again I couldn't see anything specific about the 1940s. It's not actually in the book, but the paperback imprint Pan Books (first version of the Pan logo by Mervyn Peake, no less) dated from 1944. Any 1940s children would encounter Pan in The Wind in the Willows but this wouldn't really bear fruit until the 1960s counterculture (off topic, but The Wind in the Willows was the first book we studied in English at my secondary school. The teacher skipped the whole "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" chapter. I wondered why at the time. Did he think it was sacriligeous? Or conversely did he think Grahame was sneaking a Christian allegory into the nursery? About twenty years ago I was able to attend a school reunion and finally had the chance to ask him. Neither of my conjectured reasons, he just thought the story was faster-moving without it).
I've got the first edition of Starlight Man. It turned up in the Oxfam bookshop. Perhaps the donor replaced it with the second edition. I haven't read it yet but turning to the relevant pages there isn't a lot (at least in this first edition) that sheds any light the inspiration for the story. He was starting to feel his age (a bad knee had spoiled a skiing holiday) and was making a push to break into radio. Not much to go on there.
I've also got, and I've read, Pan: the Great God's Modern Return but again I couldn't see anything specific about the 1940s. It's not actually in the book, but the paperback imprint Pan Books (first version of the Pan logo by Mervyn Peake, no less) dated from 1944. Any 1940s children would encounter Pan in The Wind in the Willows but this wouldn't really bear fruit until the 1960s counterculture (off topic, but The Wind in the Willows was the first book we studied in English at my secondary school. The teacher skipped the whole "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" chapter. I wondered why at the time. Did he think it was sacriligeous? Or conversely did he think Grahame was sneaking a Christian allegory into the nursery? About twenty years ago I was able to attend a school reunion and finally had the chance to ask him. Neither of my conjectured reasons, he just thought the story was faster-moving without it).
12alaudacorax
>11 housefulofpaper:
Hmm ... I actually rather love the 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' chapter, but I can see how it would have youngsters looking for the fast forward button. I'm not saying that from experience as I never read WITW until adulthood.
I would be fascinating if all our favourite writers kept reading journals, but life is never that simple, of course. And this all reminds me—I'm going to find that anthology NOW. Set myself the target of finding it by lunchtime.
Edited to add: 'IT would be fascinating'! IT would be fascinating!' Stone me!
Hmm ... I actually rather love the 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' chapter, but I can see how it would have youngsters looking for the fast forward button. I'm not saying that from experience as I never read WITW until adulthood.
I would be fascinating if all our favourite writers kept reading journals, but life is never that simple, of course. And this all reminds me—I'm going to find that anthology NOW. Set myself the target of finding it by lunchtime.
Edited to add: 'IT would be fascinating'! IT would be fascinating!' Stone me!
13AndreasJ
Hm. I’ve only encountered The Wind in the Willows in the form of illustrated abridgements, but I confess an encounter with Pan strikes me as out of character with the story as I know it.
14paradoxosalpha
>13 AndreasJ: Yet there it is!
Another instance in this field is the lovely The Blessing of Pan, which is seminal folk horror.
Another instance in this field is the lovely The Blessing of Pan, which is seminal folk horror.
15AndreasJ
>14 paradoxosalpha:
I may have expressed myself poorly, but yes, I already knew there is. What I’m wondering is, does it seem equally out of place in the original, or have the adaptations changed enough for what’s natural in the original to appear out of place in them?
I may have expressed myself poorly, but yes, I already knew there is. What I’m wondering is, does it seem equally out of place in the original, or have the adaptations changed enough for what’s natural in the original to appear out of place in them?
16paradoxosalpha
Well, I can't really speak to the adaptations, but I don't find Chapter VII incongruous in the original.
17alaudacorax
>15 AndreasJ:, >16 paradoxosalpha:
It's certainly an interval or digression to the main line of the story, but I've never thought of it as out of place. It has a strong bearing on this—for me, at any rate—that Grahamesort of insulates it by having Mole and Rat completely forget about it immediately afterwards.
It's certainly an interval or digression to the main line of the story, but I've never thought of it as out of place. It has a strong bearing on this—for me, at any rate—that Grahame
18alaudacorax
Anyway, I reread 'Roman Remains' last night.
First off, I think I should take back what I said in >5 alaudacorax: about AB possibly having a hostility to women. I was overthinking things with too much modern-day, politically-correct baggage in my mind. His point was that Nora was, in Breddle's view, different and unpleasantly so to the broad mass of womanhood that he had previously encountered.
So, does AB have hostility to the idea of Pan, seeing him as fundamentally evil and most definitely not THE DEEP ONES: "A Touch of Pan" by Algernon Blackwood's Pan, or is he just doing so for the purposes of this story? Or are we meant to note that we are primarily looking at things through Breddle and Leidenheim's eyes, with background provided by the brother, all of whom might be very biased witnesses? I'm wondering how much or little we are meant to empathise with the three men's attitudes. After all, Nora and the satyr are innocent victims of stray bombs and haven't been shown as doing anything definably evil and what it all boils down to is their revulsion at the appearance of the dead satyr and panic at confronting something so totally at odds with their modern, rationalist world-view. Bury it! Quick! Did AB intend me to be thinking along those lines?
Final few questions: did AB have 'A Touch of Pan' in the back of his mind when he wrote this; if so, what is the relationship between the two stories; or had he completely forgotten it in the intervening half a lifetime?
First off, I think I should take back what I said in >5 alaudacorax: about AB possibly having a hostility to women. I was overthinking things with too much modern-day, politically-correct baggage in my mind. His point was that Nora was, in Breddle's view, different and unpleasantly so to the broad mass of womanhood that he had previously encountered.
So, does AB have hostility to the idea of Pan, seeing him as fundamentally evil and most definitely not THE DEEP ONES: "A Touch of Pan" by Algernon Blackwood's Pan, or is he just doing so for the purposes of this story? Or are we meant to note that we are primarily looking at things through Breddle and Leidenheim's eyes, with background provided by the brother, all of whom might be very biased witnesses? I'm wondering how much or little we are meant to empathise with the three men's attitudes. After all, Nora and the satyr are innocent victims of stray bombs and haven't been shown as doing anything definably evil and what it all boils down to is their revulsion at the appearance of the dead satyr and panic at confronting something so totally at odds with their modern, rationalist world-view. Bury it! Quick! Did AB intend me to be thinking along those lines?
Final few questions: did AB have 'A Touch of Pan' in the back of his mind when he wrote this; if so, what is the relationship between the two stories; or had he completely forgotten it in the intervening half a lifetime?
