The Great God Pan: Arthur Machen

[poliphilo]

No, Arthur, this really won't do. There's no such thing as unspeakable horror or unfathomable evil. Your dirty little mind is fully capable- as well you know- of visualising and naming the things you're hinting at. Yes, I know you're having to contend with Victorian censorship- but even so you're perpetrating a lie- that evil is somehow glamorous- and that's wrong- as wrong as any of the enormities you're imagining but not describing. As you will find out- because you're going to live through two world wars- evil is actually rather dim and dusty and dingy- "banal" as Hannah Arendt reported- and best symbolised not as a beautiful woman with unearthly eyes but as a little man in spectacles- in some sort of uniform- sitting at a desk...

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I found Machen's interchangeable male protagonists rebarbative- and I don't think I was meant to. I'll give the White People a go- and maybe some of his later things.