Algernon Blackwood: Il profeta del Dio Pan
Zothique 3

The third issue of the magazine dedicated to fantastic and weird literature Zothique is largely dedicated to the figure of Algernon Blackwood. Matteo Mancini, a fantastic literature enthusiast and lover, as well as a writer himself, deals with him. Italy was lacking a comprehensive article on the English writer. Mancini's analysis is thematic: it reviews Blackwood's biography and then moves on to a critical analysis of his works. What emerges is the portrait of a very sensitive and very British author whose work perhaps still hasn't been well understood. The title of this essay is intriguing: Algernon Blackwood: the Prophet of the God Pan. We usually associate the God Pan with Arthur Machen, but in Blackwood, this deity (Pan’s Garden is the title of one of his collections) represents the symbol of pantheistic terror that involves all of nature.

The English writer utilized atmosphere a lot, and for this reason, he was esteemed by H.P. Lovecraft, who considered him, at his most intense moments, as the best weird writer ever. Unfortunately, the admiration was not mutual: as Peter Penzoldt — author of The Supernatural In Fiction, an important unpublished essay in Italy on the supernatural in which he is given considerable space — reports, Blackwood knew Lovecraft's work very well but was not very enthusiastic about it because, in his opinion, the writings of the Recluse of Providence lacked the qualities of genuine "spiritual terror" that characterized his works instead. Fruttero and Lucentini, in the classic anthology Ghost Stories, published by Einaudi in 1960, wrote when presenting his story The Empty House, "that Blackwood was desperately aged." Frankly, this seems to me an ungenerous judgment, also considering that we in Italy only partially know his work. The fundamental novel The Centaur is still unpublished for us.

The analysis of all his works published in our country surely proves to be of great interest. As usual, the bibliography curated by Pietro Guarriello is very well-crafted and precise. Then two unpublished stories by the English writer are presented, both of good quality; in particular, The Ghost in the Attic impressed me. This long excursus is completed by Mariano D’Anza, who examines the theme of the werewolf in his tales.