Between 14-18 July 2015, on each day, I will be making a post in celebration of International Authors’ Day, featuring review of works by Kenneth Grahame, J.L. Borges and Algernon Blackwood, authors whose works have been formative inspirations for me.
These posts will be made as part of a Blog Hop as can be seen and visited through the links at the bottom of each post.
Today is 16July2015.
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Landscape Mysteries: Algernon Blackwood
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1869-1951, Algernon Blackwood’s work can be found at Gutenberg.
W. Graham Robertson illustrates the forest landscape in Algernon Blackwood’s, The Man whom the Trees Loved. (courtesy of callumjames blogspot)
Algernon Blackwood is an author who continues to inspire my senses when I take a walk in the garden, a walk in the landscape. Some have called him a cross between an outdoorsman and a mystic.
In his stories, the reader encounters a mystery–and that is where the story begins. Blackwood, at the point at which a character begins to uncover an internal mystery, takes the reader across a threshold–very carefully, step by step, revealing the experience.
Mysteries in the landscape only remain so if a person does not carefully question their reveal. Algernon Blackwood carefully questions their reveal in fine stories such as, The Initiation, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, Descent into Egypt, The Willows and many others.
Blackwood was a prolific writer; but my preferences are the stories where he carefully takes his reader on a journey into the reveal of mysteries found in the forest, in the landscape. He brings the reader to greater appreciation of those experiences that seem, how can I say…too normal? Or too unusual? Or too troublesome.
But we all have experienced them.
In the following two minute sound clip, on the Sussex weald, Algernon Blackwood’s character was helpless in the landscape, under the power of something quite ancient…
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Algernon Blackwood was taken by the landscape of the upper coniferous forests in the Swiss Alps–you can almost feel it in the following three minute sound clip:
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Upper Alpine coniferous forests breathe an air that humans find exhilarating…beyond words. What is it about those trees and the understory they protect and nourish?
Plants: how do they inspire you?
Please answer that question because on the last day of this International Authors’ Day Blog Hop, I will randomly select a winner to receive The 23 Club, Beta 6, a free giveaway for your reading enjoyment.