Just typing the title of this blog, I can’t help but tense up, fearful that an angry mob of torch-bearing William Hope Hodgson fans is about to descend on me with shouts of: “How dare you suggest the greatest literary work by William Hope Hodgson has been forgotten!” (if the one person reading this can be described as a mob). On the other hand, if I had a penny for every person who ever said to me “William who?” I could afford to buy a new copy of The House on the Borderland and still have enough money left over to pick up a copy of the latest Jilly Cooper (a really frightening thought). The fact is that, whether you are familiar with Hodgson or not, his reputation is far from on a par with the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, or H.P. Lovecraft. How strange when you consider that the latter's subsequent mythos was so clearly influenced by Hodgson?
Before I continue, a confession: my first visit to The House on the Borderland happened relatively recently. As an eager devourer of all things fantastic, whether horror, fantasy, or science fiction I only became aware of this classic novel when I unintentionally caught the first part of a BBC radio adaption late one night as I lay drifting off to sleep. The story of a mysterious house, an unearthed journal, and the memoires of a man besieged by monstrous swine-things was simultaneously mystifying, startling, and disturbing. I was keen to hear more and tuned in for the next episode in jittery anticipation. A shame then that a week of too many late nights and too little caffeine put paid to my return to the mysterious house. Well, temporarily anyway.
Tracking down a copy of the original book, I promptly moved it to the top of my reading list. This is saying something when I was already halfway through Dan Simmons’ The Terror, had just started Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (again), and had most of Guy N. Smith’s 70s and 80s output queued up. But that was the effect that hearing a few fragments of The House on the Borderland had on me. I not only wanted to know what happened next but I knew that it would be even more remarkable than what had come before. Suffice to say that I was not disappointed. Even if the cover of the version I had might suggest otherwise ...
Starting the book, I was immediately transported back to the mysterious house. This eerie start, involving 2 characters chancing upon the dilapidated ruin and its mysterious contents, might put one in mind of the works of M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, or even H. P. Lovecraft himself. Certainly, when the two of them start reading the previous owner’s memoir, the influence on the latter becomes apparent. Soon, we are caught up in the trials of a man, his sister, and his dog. The man has visions of a faraway place, an arena, a hideous giant, and a house that looks uncannily like his own. And then the others come. Pig-like bipeds emerge from a chasm beneath the house. They lay siege to his home after dark. The man is forced to fight them off night after night. Determined to seek out the origin of the creatures, the man ventures down into the chasm from whence they came. It is at this point that things turn really strange.
What follows defies description. If you were expecting a classic monster-movie plot with a final standoff between the man and the creatures, you’ll be disappointed. Instead, the narrative twists and turns its way towards an epic, cosmos-spanning conclusion. Time speeds up, the world crumbles into dust, and the man drifts through the endless expanse of space as human, angelic, and demonic forms pass him by. Eventually the man returns to the house to find that everything is as it was. Well, everything is as it was aside from the fact that his dog has wasted away to nothing, he is being stalked by the same hideous giant he had visions of, and he is now facing the threat of a glowing fungal disease.
I don’t know whether or not I have convinced you to dip into this forgotten classic or not. If I have, I can promise suspense and horror, a haunted house and rampaging beasts, a visionary flight through the cosmos and a heart-breaking paean to a lost love. I can’t think of any other book that achieves so much. Well, I can’t think of any other book that achieves so much in just over 150 pages. Well, I can’t think of any other book that achieves so much in just over 150 pages and that filled me with such a sense of apprehension, wonder, and awe. And that includes the works of Jilly Cooper.
