Things near & far

Things near & far by Arthur Machen is a memoir written in the early 20th century. It blends luminous recollections of his Welsh childhood and family with frank accounts of his literary apprenticeship in London, digressions on occult literature and aesthetics, and wry reflections on poverty, pleasure, and the making of art. Expect a meandering, eloquent life-portrait in which place, reading, and wonder matter as much as plot. The opening of the memoir sets a dream-bright vision of Caerleon-on-Usk, then imagines two aunts walking the white road to meet the young “John” returning from Oxford, only to pivot to the sober knowledge that all those figures are long dead. From there it moves to the mid-1880s: the narrator wanders the lanes of Gwent, then returns to London for hack work compiling a catalogue of occult books in a Strand garret, sifting alchemists, Kabbalists, and spiritualists while maintaining a skeptical but curious mind. He struggles to begin a “Great Romance,” writes playful dedications and an epilogue to an unwritten book, and is abruptly called home because his mother is dying. Subsequent chapters turn into a meditation on why one writes despite little money and much toil, recounting the painful composition of early tales and the eventual completion of The Chronicle of Clemendy. The scene then shifts to a lively circuit of London lodgings, a comic “war” on fleas ingeniously won with flypapers, and a rapturous trip to Touraine—disappointment at Doré’s imagined landscapes giving way to the real delights of inns, wine, and Chinon. He returns to practice the “great art” of getting lost in London’s unknown quarters, before noting a modest inheritance that lets him live simply, avoid luxury, and keep writing for the pleasure—and necessity—of wonder.