A fairly obscure collection of stories written early 20th century by a definitely obscure Polish author. It was chosen as the Weird Fiction group’s monthly read in April 2024 after I nominated it. I did so partly because I tend to enjoy books from this time period and partly because it intrigued me when I saw that it was written by a Polish author who is compared to Poe and Lovecraft. I was intrigued even further when I noticed that he’s supposed to have written dark, gothic, weird supernatural fiction with underexplored themes (at the time). That’s my favorite kind of literature right there, so I had high hopes that I had found a gem. In some ways, it did live up to my expectations, but in other ways, it unfortunately did not.
The introduction in my edition is written by the translator Miroslaw Lipinski, who gave me some insights into Grabinski’s personal and literary life. Grabinski seems to have received very little recognition for his works, which is unfortunate. It says he didn’t “court critics and the public”, but seems to have been “an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces” (7). I feel for him. Generally, I have an affinity for the misunderstood, under-appreciated author who walks a solitary literary journey on the outskirts of popular culture with their own peculiar, fascinating artistic vision of some unexplainable, mysterious things. So, I’m easily drawn to writers like Grabinski. He seemed like a fascinating man with a twisted mind obsessed with something called the “dark domain” buried deep in our subconsciousness and subsumed in our very existence.
This collection, then, attracted me with its dark, mysterious allure. There’s a blend of both the gloomiest and the most piquant of literary genres and themes. Some of his stories are more gothic, others more psychological or metaphysical, others more gory or sexual or obsessive, even surreal, but most of them are stark, vivid and have a weird edge to them. And includes either supernatural monsters, a character going mad or trains. Of course.
At the same time, I see that there’s an exploratory and experimental approach to his stories, where he spends considerable time and energy into a specific theme or concept. In the spirit of Grabinski himself, I’ll simply call it a tunnel vision, because, you know, he liked trains. And it can be a wild ride sometimes where it tickles in your belly and your blood is pumping from all that momentum and high, forceful speed. Other times, you recognize that you don’t see anything at all. No scenery, nothing at all that makes any sense, and sometimes the train stops in the middle of the tunnel. As such, in several stories here, it seems like Grabinski tried to explore a something deep or cool, which is intelligent and exciting at first, but then he ultimately failed to present his findings or come to any conclusion – leaving a lot more to be desired – ending up not taking his reader anywhere and ultimately leaves us in the dark. I do love weird fiction for its experimental, unpredictable or shocking nature. I love the bewilderment of it all, and this approach can be executed in an excellent manner, to great effect, but there has to be an atmospheric, poetic or deeply psychological foundation there that I can enjoy when I’m bewildered. You know, that thrill of both the heart and the mind! Fortunately, there were times when he did succeed in giving me that as well.
Here are my ratings with some commentary:
“Fumes” – Terningkast 4
A man seeks shelter from a snowstorm in unfamiliar lands and finds it in a house with two unusually friendly people. I can’t say much without giving too much away, but it’s a bit creepy, a bit erotic (although very sexist), and a bit gory. (Specific parts of this reminded me of “Mother of Toads” by Clark Ashton Smith. Yes, do read that one. It’s spicy!) The opening paragraph impressed me, though. I know it's a translation, but I could read epic descriptive sentences like that all day. Very atmospheric and vivid. Striking, even.
“A new herd of gusts advanced from the ravines, and set loose over snow-covered fields, they ploughed their enraged heads through the snowbanks. Raised from its soft bedding, the snow whirled in huge cyclones, bottomless funnels, slender whips, and, wrapping itself up in a hundred-fold repeated whirlpool, sprayed out white, granular powder.” (13)
Ah, he made the elements come alive! The first page, however, is a sharp contrast to the rest of the story, which is nothing like that. The rest of the prose here (most of it) was much simpler or cruder, and I wish he’d been more consistent with his style to make it more cohesive and not give readers the wrong impression/expectations. He did things like that several times throughout the collection, which was a bit frustrating, but I still enjoyed this particular story a lot overall.
There’s supposed to be some commentary on genderfluidity here, by the way, according to other reviewers, but I just didn’t see it. Oh well.
“The engineer stared at the dying redness, and dozed. Time lengthened terribly. Every moment he raised his heavy eyelids and, overcoming sleepiness, fixed his eyes at the roving glimmer in the abyss. In his confused thoughts the figures of the lascivious old man and Makryna alternated, by the law of psychic relationship flowing into some strange whole, into some chimerical alloy, brought about by their mutual lasciviousness; their words, odd expressions, their successive appearances unreeled chaotically in a manifest, though not reasonable, arrangement. From covered thickets emerged previously hatched questions, now indolently seeking explanation. Everything loitered about, got entangled along the road, everything jostled sluggishly, sleepily and absurdly…” (21)
“The Motion Demon” – Terningkast 3
A story about a man who, at random intervals, comes under the influence of “cosmic and elemental forces” which makes him travel by train in a kind of hypnotic state, waking up later with no memory of the actual trip. This premise is very interesting and promising, but he then just ends up having an argument with someone over speed, movement and time. Grabinski raises some interesting questions, but the ending is too abrupt and unsatisfying, and I wish he'd kept chugging along the same track of the first half rather than changing tracks into a dead end. None of his ideas are developed any further, and I think it was really getting somewhere. Lots of potential. And here seems to have been no apparent point to the supernatural element here too. Puzzling. I did like the way it was written, though, so not too bad.
“Szygon understood that me made his unusual journeys under the influence of cosmic and elemental forces, and that train travel was a childish compromise caused by the circ*mstances of his earthly environment. He realized only too well that if it weren’t for the sad fact that he was chained to the Earth and its laws, his travels, casting off the usual pattern and method, would take on exceedingly more active and beautiful form.” (29)
“The Area” – Terningkast 6
One of my favorites! It’s about a man who seems to have the crippling condition of writer’s block, but there’s so much more beneath the surface. The introduction describes the protagonist here as Grabinski's fictional counterpart: “the dedicated artist who disdains the normal and separates himself from the public while advancing toward a realization of powerful, supernatural forces born of his own imagination. Like the character in this story, Grabinski was an idealistic loner who strove for an understanding of the hidden forces of both the world and the human mind, and whose creative integrity depended upon representing those forces in the most potent framework available - in Grabinski's case, supernatural fiction".
That's what's at stake here: his whole being. The meaning of his life. As an artist, there's a strong - potent - creative desire to fully express and realize works of art and in so doing, yourself. So, it's a constant dream, a freedom unlike any other. But Grabinski uses that understanding to explore the consequences of not being able to fulfil that desire, and how a deeply ingrained obsession in pursuit of it might manifest. It's truly harrowing in this story, because "absolute fulfilment would also be a complete release of one's energy, causing death through a surfeit of artistic exertion. Because the ideal, as is know, is in death (...) left alone, without a point of support on a real base, they can be fatal to their creator".
These ideas are explored to the extreme here, of course, but I feel like I understand where it's coming from, and I think he expressed it splendidly. I'd say I found it awe-inspiring.
“Something resided in these short and dense works that riveted the attention and fettered the soul; a powerful suggestion arose from these incisive compendium-like works – written in such a seemingly cold style, as if a reporter’s or a teacher’s – under which pulsated the fervour of a fanatic.” (40)
“A Tale of the Gravedigger” – Terningkast 3
A tale about a gravedigger, told in two parts, it seems. It begins after his disappearance (demise?) and then goes back in time to when he first came to the town. The story deals with the subject of blasphemy in some ways, I think, but it’s mostly about the gravedigger’s life as a strange, mysterious man with a mask. It was bit confusing, the ending was disappointing, and I’m left with too many unanswered questions.
“The deeply sunken eyes stared out with what seemed cold death; the yellow, shrivelled skin merged with the tint of the jutting cheek bones; the hairless, earless skull shone with the smoothness of glazed tibias…” (58)
”Szamota's Mistress” - Terningkast 5
Pages from a discovered diary reveals the simultaneously harrowing and exciting last years of a secret admirer who finally meets the woman of his dreams. But eventually he discovers there’s something off about her. I liked the build-up a lot here, as it gradually became weirder, creepier and more erotic! It's ambiguous as well, and I don't think I have the answer to what really happened, but that's okay. I’m entertained.
“I stretched out my hand to clasp her and encountered her naked hips. A thrill ran through me body, and my blood seethed. In a moment I was already taking in the sweetness of her womanhood. She was insane. The giddy scent of her body intoxicated my senses and incited a craving to possess her completely. The passionate rhythm of her divine hips inflamed my blood and drove me wild. But I sought her lips without success, I tried to enclose her in my arms to no avail. I began to pass my trembling hands about the pillow, to slide them along the length of her body. I met only wraps, veils. She had, as it were, completely enclosed herself in the fire of her sex, withdrawing everything except that.” (75)
"The Wandering Train" - Terningkast 4
A mysterious train appears in different places and the vanishes. A fellow weird fiction group member called this one “an atmospheric piece”, which is a perfect description of it. Short, but effectively weird and cool!
“Their outstretched hands indicate some unknown goal, an aim surely distant; their inclined bodies lean to the distance, to a stunning, misty land far away; and their eyes, glazed by wild alarm and enchantment, are lost in boundless space…” (83)
"Strabismus" - Terningkast 2
My least favorite story in the collection. I thought it was confusing and boring. There were parts that, again, seemed so promising in the first half: a deep character study with psychological trauma and identity and different states of mind etc., but everything fizzled out eventually. A bit frustrating!
«A tiny, rusty moustache, twirled rakishly upward, moved constantly, like the pincers of a poisonous scarabaeus – sharp, stinging, evil.” (84)
"Vengeance of the Elementals" - Terningkast 3
Antoni is a fire chief with “a nose of and keen understanding of fire statistics” as well as being invulnerable to fire. He faces some kind of personal battle with fire elementals, but I don’t understand what kind of battle it is, and it’s ultimately quite underwhelming overall.
"In the Compartment" - Terningkast 3
A train fanatic who loves riding trains so much it turns him on and makes him violent. Speed and motion and momentum are like drugs to him, and so, when he meets a married couple and is attracted to the woman, crazy things happen. I’m on the fence here. There were some interesting parts to this, but sadly, the other parts were a bit … basic, for the lack of a better word. Cool idea, though.
“Something resided in the essence of a speeding train which galvanized Godziemba’s weak nerves, stimulating strongly, but artificially, his faint life-force. A specific environment was created, a unique milieu of motion with its own laws, power and dangerous spirit. The motion of a locomotive was not just physically contagious; the momentum of an engine quickened his psychic pulse, it electrified his will – he became independent. ‘Train neurosis’ seemed to temporarily give this overly sensitive individual a forceful and positive energy. A moving train effected him like morphine injected into an addict’s veins.” (112)
"Saturnin Sektor" - Terningkast 2
The main character has written a secret treatise called “On the False Conception and Fictitiousness of Time” and someone else has apparently read it without his knowing and then written an article in the newspaper in direct rebuttal to his arguments. I’m very close to calling this an essay and not a short story, as it’s fairly analytic and metaphysical. Which surprisingly for me makes it even less interesting.
“Distant, misty lands unfold before me, enchanting precipices, unknown worlds with gloomy depths. I am visited by the dead, by processions of strange creatures and capricious elemental beings. One appears, the other leaves – ethereal, beautiful, dangerous…” (124)
"The Glance" - Terningkast 6
Fortunately, the collection ends with a banger. Onodicz loses his wife to what might seem like a suicide and becomes paranoid in the aftermath. His paranoia suppresses his grief to the extreme, and he becomes haunted by delusions, crippled by fear of mystery, of what might lurk behind each corner or hide behind each surface. He gets rid of most things in his house and inevitably isolates himself completely. I appreciated Grabinski incorporating supernatural elements to that classic theme, making it more dualistic, open-ended and - most importantly - haunting. So, it's showing me a different aspect to grief than I've come to read about. Less weary, dreary and mournful - more dreadful, darkly burdensome and maddening.
“Any surprises which could eventually hide around the corner, now had enough time to mask themselves. That indefinite, heterogenous and bizarrely unfamiliar ‘something’, whose existence on the other side of the turn he felt deeply, could now – not caught unawares by his sudden appearance – hide with relative ease for a while, or, speaking in Odonicz’ expressive style, ‘dive under the surface’. For by then he didn’t doubt at all that there was something around the corner, something fundamentally different.” (139)
“‘Does the world which encompasses me exist at all? And if it indeed exists, is it not created by thoughts? Maybe everything is only a fiction of some deeply meditating ego? Somewhere out there in the beyond, someone is constantly, from time immemorial, thinking – and the entire world, and with it the poor little human race, is a product of this perpetual reverie.’” (145)
I see a lot of praise for Grabinski’s stories from other competent readers of weird fiction, but as you can see, I have mixed feelings. Reading everyone else’s reviews, this collection is like a perfect gift for weird fiction enthusiasts. And I see this cool-looking gift and get so excited. I grab it, starts to open it, but I then there’s one too many layers of wrapping to unpack, and when I’m done and see what’s inside, I get a little underwhelmed as I didn’t get exactly what I wished for. I’m not unhappy to have read this collection, not by any means, but I just wanted a little more consistency and resolve in his style and ideas and a little more of the uncanny and the weird.
