Review of “The Gateway of the Monster” (1910)
William Hope Hodgson (writer).
Read in 2017.
Carnacki the ghost finder and his electric pentacle in the Grey Room.
Awkwardly told, as I expect from Hodgson: The story is completely dominated by a single quote from Carnacki, who defers context, presents no evidence and evidently takes no questions but answers some that aren’t asked. How suitable that this self-important psycho works alone. In spite of the presentation, again as I’d expect from Hodgson, it’s a pretty good read, primarily because the secondary narrator talks about his failures and feelings, rather more than Holmes would or Lytton’s narrator does in the similar “The Haunted and the Haunters” (1859). The ghost throws away bedclothes as if it hated to be associated with cheap Halloween ghost costumes, unlike the one in “‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’” (1904) which is actually made of them.