The Great God Pan (1894) is a novella by Arthur Machen (1863-1947). There are several sources for the text: Gutenberg.org and Manybooks.com, to name but two. There is also a Youtube.com movie available, presumably because the movie is in the public domain. I think I found this novella when searching for famous older horror stories or weird fiction a few months back. This was one of the novellas mentioned. The reception for this novella is a bit inexplicable for me. I found the text to be dull. Yet, Stephen King is on record for saying, "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." I would love to inquire from him why he thinks so. What have I missed?
The article on Wikipedia.org states, "On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror." I didn't find it degenerate, but nor did I find it particularly decadent in style or particularly sexual. I feel like everyone has read a different story than I have. John Lane wrote, "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?" Yet, how monstrous can these evil characters be? H. P. Lovecraft writes, "No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds." Perhaps I'm not sensitive?
It all begins with a ruthless scientist who cuts a portion of the brain that blinds people to the horrors of some underworld, so that they might see Pan. The girl upon whom this surgery is conducted becomes essentially brain dead. To take care of her, she's sent to a farmer. Though it isn't explicitly pointed out that the farmer raped her, at the end of the story it becomes evident that the accused for instigating suicides is her daughter, and there was no one else to have gotten her pregnant I imagine. Pan himself is hinted to be the impregnator, however. Both Pan and the farmer were in her life at roughly a close enough interval that either could have been the father. Further, if she had been pregnant, why was this not discovered at an earlier point? Surely it must have been intentionally hidden.
The style is clumsy, as is noted by Stephen King who wrote, "surmounts its rather clumsy prose and works its way relentlessly into the reader's terror-zone. How many sleepless nights has it caused? God knows, but a few of them were mine. I think 'Pan' is as close as the horror genre comes to a great white whale." I promise I shall not lose a night's sleep over it. I will just shake my head in wonderment over the sensation that it caused in its day and the reception it continues to receive from a writer of King's caliber.
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