u/A_Guy195

Once again, my local public library delivered. I had learned about this book through an article a couple of years back, and I thought I’d never be able to find it. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find a translated copy of it in the library – and was an interesting book indeed.

Lady Into Fox is a 1922 novel (although its length would make it mostly a novella), by the British author David Garnett.

The quiet and idyllic life of Richard Tebrick in the English countryside, is suddenly interrupted when one day, his young wife Silvia, unexpectedly turns into a fox. From that point on, Richard tries to care for his wife and continue their lives as they were up to that point, although the Laws of Nature will quickly overcome his attempts at normality.

There are a lot of ideas cramped into such a short novel (less than 100 pages). The whole magical affair between Richard and Silvia, who, although at first still retains human characteristics despite her metamorphosis, starts to change even more, can be read through various different lens: as a commentary on the traditional, patriarchal family and the role of women in it, the relationship between the modern Man and the natural world, and the meaning of being “Human” more broadly.

The novel is pretty short as I said, and it’s in the public domain, so it can be easily found in a site like Project Gutenberg. If you like stuff like Aesop’s parables etc., you can treat this story as something similar, in a way. It’s quite easily digestible.

Around 15 days ago, as I was perusing the shelves of my local public library, I made a remarkable discovery: an old, beaten-up mass market paperback novel. The translated title in my language was The House of the Abyss, although, as I had suspected by the author’s name, and after checking inside for the original title, I recognized it: it was the novel The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

The House on the Borderland is a 1908 horror novel. Although relatively unknown today, it inspired the writings of various authors throughout the decades, from H.P. Lovecraft to Terry Pratchett, and was an important part on the development of modern cosmic horror.

The novel starts with a frame story, were the narrator and his friend Tonnison, are on a holiday in a remote part of western Ireland, and they discover an old manuscript near a massive pit. The contents of this manuscript make up the rest of the novel from then on.

The unnamed author of the manuscript (who I’ll just call the Old Man), rents a mysterious and sinister-looking old house near a village, and moves there with his sister Mary, and his dog, Pepper. We learn that the house had a centuries-old evil reputation, and the Old Man has rented it cheaply.

From then on, the story devolves into what I can only describe as psychedelic madness: after having an extremely realistic dream/hallucination of floating into space and encountering a mysterious planet that houses a massive, green jade-copy of his house, the Old Man sees a horrific swine-like monster attacking it, before returning back to our reality. A few weeks later, swarms of dead-skinned swine creatures emerge from a subterranean pit near the house and attack it for real, prompting the Old Man to defend himself and his family.

I don’t want to expand into the plot more (I’ve already said too much), but let’s just say that it becomes even crazier and more unbelievable from there. Again, “psychedelic madness” is the only phrase that I think kinda describes this story.

For a novel written more than a century ago, it seems extremely fresh and modern-ish today. It is clear how Hodgson inspired other writers like Lovecraft to expand upon cosmic horror with their works. The battle scenes are quite entertaining and breathtaking, and the direction the story goes certainly has something deeply Lovecraftian and, let’s just say nihilistic in it, in a way.

If you enjoy cosmic horror in general, I think you’ll enjoy this book.