The Willows

About the book

Two canoeists traveling down the Danube camp on a small island in a lonely region of shifting channels and dense willow bushes. At first their difficulties appear to belong to ordinary wilderness travel: wind, rising water, unstable ground, and the need to protect their boat. Gradually the landscape acquires a more disturbing character, and sensations that the narrator tries to explain away become harder to dismiss. His companion's uneasiness gives their isolation a new significance. Blackwood builds the tale through movement, sound, and the suspicion that the travelers have entered a place governed by conditions they cannot understand. The resulting horror depends less on a visible antagonist than on the collapse of their confidence in a familiar natural world.

• Uncanny nature
• Human vulnerability
• Limits of perception

Why read it

Read it for an atmosphere in which wind, water, and vegetation become increasingly difficult to regard as mere scenery.

English text