William Hope Hodgson

The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by William Hope Hodgson. He went beyond the existing ghost story and gothic molds, synthesizing a new cosmic horror that made a huge impact on later writers of weird tales, notably H. P. Lovecraft. The two gentlemen Tonnison and Berreggnog head to a village in Ireland for a week's fishing. There they discover the ruins of a strange house and the diary of the house's former occupant, the words on its torn pages hinting at an evil far beyond anything that has existed in this world before.

The House on the Borderland

Caleb Yarian

Here's how I feel about William Hope Hodgson generally:

Writing as he did at the beginning of the 20th century, Hodgson's creativity in the realm of supernatural horror is impressive given what few authors preceded him in the genre. Although he wrote many stories that partook of elements common to supernatural fiction of his era (i.e.,most of his short stories, including the Carnacki stories), he also broke new ground. Moving beyond the ghost stories which had, for the most part, made up the genre before him, he created landscapes and creatures that feel not just super-natural but really extra-natural, coming from a completely different reality, either unrestrained by morality or subject to a construction so alien as to be unknowable, that is just recognizable enough to be terrifying. Hodgson's landscapes and creatures are very similar to the Cthulian creations of H.P.Lovecraft, a later admirer of Hodgson, in that they are gigantic in their physical and temporal dimensions. His universe is far older and larger than human and earth-centered histories allow, and subject to forces and intelligence completely removed from human concerns or anthropomorphized deity.

If Hodgson worked merely as a set designer or painter of still images he would have been difficult to match. However, he wrote narrative prose and this choice of medium is his downfall. Hodgson couldn't write a human character to save his life and the pacing of his stories is excruciatingly slow. Although female characters in stories from this era and genre are typically pretty flat, Hodgson's are so flat as to be almost unrecognizable as human. His male narrators are almost unidentifiable emotionally, never demonstrating much fear or empathy for others. The inaccessibility of his characters robs Hodgson's stories of much of the fear that the other elements enable. 

Finishing a Hodgson novel is an exercise in endurance. The good elements are very good and the bad are horrible. 

The House on the Borderland:
The creatures, the demons in the mountains, the cavern, the trapdoor were excellent. The protagonist was bizarre and uninteresting.

The House on the Borderland

Reviews