Episode 171 – The Novel of the Black Seal – Part 1
Let’s get together and crack open The Novel of the Black Seal by Arthur Machen!
Special thanks to our reader, Rachel Lackey!
I know the future – and it is you buying a copy of Transreality, the original graphic novel written and illustrated by our own Chris Lackey!
“Black Seal” is a powerful story, when read on its own. In the context of The Three Impostors , though, it’s a major disappointment. Lots of spaces, since you don’t have a SPOILER tag.
The 3 impostors are conmen, searching for someone for revenge, and telling all sorts of stories to people as excuses for their interest in this person. In this case, “Miss Lally’s brother” is the one they’re one they’re looking for. So the whole “Novel of the Black Seal”, and that of the White Powder, are lies told by the conmen.
Ultimately, this may be of little interest, since all fiction is lies, and the interest is in how well the story is told. But it is sad, considering how well “Black Seal” builds up its atmoshphere, to learn it’s all a sham within its own universe.
Phooey. Spaces were compressed.
S.T Joshi addresses those very ideas in the new Penguin Classics ‘The White People’ – why Machen would chose to undermine his own terror. Check it out, Chris!