Machen was an early master of weird fiction. His tales are not necessarily horror but they are extremely weird. I have reviewed 'The Great God Pan' earlier on this blog; 'The White People' is Machen's other masterpiece.
He swathes his narrative in layers. Un unnamed third party introduces Cotgrave to the eccentric recluse Ambrose. They have a nightlong discussion about the nature of sanctity and evil. Ambrose maintains that sanctity is the quest to recover paradise as it was before the Fall, whereas evil is the quest to gain the status and powers of angels, which mankind never possessed. By way of illustration Ambrose lends Cotgrave a green journal, the book of secrets kept by a sixteen year old girl whose name we never find out.
She tells her reader that this is just one of a series of books in which she has recorded all the secrets she learned from her nurse as a very young child and which she has explored and practiced in adolesence. These include visions, tunnels leading to other, odd landscapes, nymphs and complex ritual dances. The nurse was taught by her great-grandmother, who dated from a time when these things were widely known and commonly practiced in remote communities.
The girl - an only child, we assume, whose mother we know is dead and whose father is detached and seemingly uncaring - has built a world of her own. Is this the sin Ambrose spoke of - or is it perhaps an act of sanctity? What are the white people? Are they otherworldly or are they nature spirits of some kind? The narrative in the journal ends abruptly, inconclusively. Cotgrave returns it to Ambrose and finds out what happened to the girl, which answers one question, whilst opening up dozens of others to which Machen, the master, provides no further clues.
If you read 'The White People' in search of horror you'll be disappointed. Read it as weird fiction and you will be enthralled, intrigued, and quite possibly amazed.
