The Boats of the Glen Carrig

I’ll be honest and say that my re-read of “The Boats of the Glen Carrig" was a little over two years ago. So I won’t be going into a highly detailed plot synopsis. I first read it back in the very early 1970s. As a 10 year old I had no idea who “Hieronymus Bosch” was, but the Bosch inspired cover art by “Robert LoGrippo” drove me on the spot into begging my parents to buy me the book. It didn’t hurt that I recognized Mr. Hodgson as being the author of, my favourite horror story at the time, “The Voice in the Night”. I knew that story from the copy of “More Tales to Tremble By” owned by the "Johnny Clem Elementary School" Library. I had borrowed it so many times that I considered it my own personal property. It’s a wonder that I never stole it.Before I get I get into the story, I want to first talk about Mr. Hodgson’s writing style in general. I like it! I have read several reviews lately where people have complained that his language is archaic, that Mr. Hodgson sacrificed description in favour of mood and atmosphere and lastly that he loved run on sentences. Now I’ll agree that his “The Night Land” is an unreadable mess, but I knocked off “Boats” in one afternoon two years ago and had no trouble with it as a ten year old either. I don’t know if this means that your average modern/young reader will enjoy it today or not. As a child my only talent (and to be fair, my only talent in my entire life.) was that I learned to read at an early age and learned too read well. 40+ years ago the great majority of the genre writing that was considered appropriate for young readers was mostly stuff written between the 1890s and pre-WWII. There was no YA horror market/Industry ala R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series and the like. This means that back then we were cutting out reading teeth on the likes of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Howard Philips Lovecraft and of course William Hope Hodgson.That’s not a bad reading list for ten year olds! So I’m completely at home with Mr. Hodgson’s writing style. Come to think about it I’ve also seen such complaints being raised against “Abraham Merritt" lately. I think that this is a terrible shame that many people shy away from “old” novels and stories fearing that they will have trouble with the writing "style". These are all wonderful fantasists who aside from a few writers such as “Darrell Schweitzer” have no peers in the modern world are far as pure imaginative genius is concerned.