“The Willows”

Both Lovecraft and Joshi rank Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 tale “The Willows” as the best weird tale in English. Click on the story title to get it on line, and allow 30-40 minutes to soak up the mood.

It’s pretty good, though I hope not the best of its genre; there must be better stories in this vein. Blackwood deserves credit for the fascinating setting– a weird island of willow bushes in a swampy area of the Danube just downstream from Pressburg (the present-day Bratislava, Slovakia). The story itself takes a bit too long to develop for my tastes, and the climax could have been a bit weirder.

Actually, maybe Peter Erdélyi can weigh in on this supposed swampy area of the Danube. Peter?

I’ve been to Bratislava myself, way back in summer 2001. It was a nice long Central Europe trip, featuring my first-ever visits to Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Bratislava, Brno, and Vienna.

Not sure if it’s ancestral memory, or what exactly, but I rarely feel so comfortable as when in that part of the world. Other places may excite me more, but none feel as much like home– and that includes eastern Iowa, Chicago, and Cairo, the three places where I’ve spent the most time.