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Rating: The Polish writer Stefan Grabinski (1887-1936) is to be considered a master of European fantastic literature and one of the giants of this literary genre. The critic Karol Irzykowski has somewhat forcibly dubbed him the “Polish Poe”, but undoubtedly, in terms of value, the comparison does not sound blasphemous. Grabinski is a very modern author, a contemporary of the American H.P. Lovecraft: along with the latter, and other "weird" writers like William Hope Hodgson and Jean Ray, he contributed to the rejuvenation of the "topos" of Gothic literature based on the new scientific discoveries of Einstein that diminished the importance of man in time and space. Another important influence comes from the revelations of the ghosts lurking in the human unconscious brought to light by the nascent psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung.
The Dark Village - the volume published by Edizioni Hypnos - thus fills a significant gap - also due to a publishing market that in the fantastic field continually reprints the usual things - finally unearthing a great writer from oblivion. The Dark Village benefits from the introduction, translation, and a bio-bibliographic note by Andrea Bonazzi, one of Italy's leading experts in fantastic fiction, and the presentation by China Miéville. Miéville's words are particularly enlightening and effective in showing the relevance and originality of Grabinski when he writes that “we are faced with a writer for whom supernatural horror manifests precisely in modernity – in electricity, in fire stations, in trains: the uncanny as the bad conscience of today”. The fantastic of Stefan Grabinski draws from a mad and inscrutable parallel universe from which mysterious horrors belonging to other dimensions emerge. We are not, however, faced with a pantheon of "Lovecraftian" deities but with dark forces lurking in everyday life. In this sense, one of the most illustrative stories is “The Area” where the protagonist, a misanthropic writer who retreats to solitude at the edge of society, discovers how his fantasies have materialized into real, bloodthirsty creatures - a sort of vampires of the unconscious - that will end up persecuting him. Another little gem of the collection is “The Gray Room”, a nightmare tale in which the protagonist rents a room where the malicious presence of the previous tenant remains. It is a textbook story, where the realms of the dream universe and daily life intersect perfectly: the protagonist relives in a dream all the actions completed by his sad predecessor, ultimately avoiding the extreme act of suicide. A story very similar to “The Tenant”, the well-known 1976 film by Polish director Roman Polanski derived from the homonymous novel by Roland Topor (a Frenchman of Polish descent). The dream theme returns in another masterful story, namely “The Dark Village”, in which a man "sees" in a dream a bizarre village in black colors populated by curious and disturbing characters: once again, the world of dreams will materialize in tangible reality. Other stories have, instead, the railway and trains as their backdrop, seen as symbols of modernity and “vehicles” of new terrors and anxieties for humans, as can be read in “The Demon of Movement” and “Szatera's Engram”. Curious and maliciously evocative is also the “Story of the Gravedigger”, a tale set in Tuscany in the imaginary town of Foscara where the protagonist is the gravedigger Giovanni Tossati, a sculptor of funerary monuments.
Admired by his compatriot Stanislaw Lem, a great science fiction writer and utopian, and by the current American "weird" writer Thomas Ligotti, Grabinski absolutely deserves to be rediscovered and read by a wide audience. We hope that The Dark Village is just the beginning of his rediscovery. The volume can be purchased directly at the Hypnos store or at the Delostore.
Stefan Grabinski “The Dark Village” – Edizioni Hypnos – 290 pages – Euro 21.90 – 2012
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