Welcome to Litsy!

There are some very good stories in this collection of Grabinski's short works. There's an uncertainty in most of them as to whether the narrative describes objective or subjective reality, and along with the comparisons he's received to Poe and Lovecraft, a couple of the tales could be compared to Philip K.Dick, so high praise. A couple of the endings felt a little rushed, but the oppressive otherworldly atmosphere is well drawn in them all. 4⭐

"The Glance" is a suitably paranoid one to end on. The circumstance catalysing the protagonist's breakdown is barely sketched, but an incidental part of it acts in such a way on his nerves that he becomes unable to tolerate the hidden and obscure for what he fears might lie there in wait. As much as he protects himself from the mysterious unknown, the urge to peer behind the veil, despite the potential horror to be confronted, grows and grows...

"Saturnin Sektor": Time, duration, madness, death and the turn of aeons collide in this story, which could be from the viewpoint of another unreliable narrator, but probably isn't, with all that means for objective reality.

"In the Compartment" is an erotic tale with none of the weird or supernatural elements of the other stories, though linked by the train motif, with its suggestion of thrusting energy - think locomotives and tunnels. Anyway, there is also violence and murder added to the mix, suggestive of a Freudian libidinous link between Venus and Mars.

"Vengeance of the Elementals": Science & statistical analysis, or alchemy & arcane knowledge? Either way, the firechief of Rakszawa makes a remarkable discovery about the incidence of fires, and sets to inventing an efficient fire-fighting system. None of which explains his peculiar fire-resistant powers, but does explain why the spirits of conflagration have it in for him. Antoni Czarnocki would have made an intriguing recurring character.

"Strabismus" is either a species of the doppelganger motif, though perhaps twisted 180°, or the unreliable narrative of a psychotic, or simultaneously both. Madness, possession and obsession figure largely to create an oppressive atmosphere. Nicely done.
[Strabismus = cross-eyed, the relevance of which to the story might be one of the elements which has caused comparisons to be drawn between Grabinski and Poe, "The Tell-tale Heart" in this case.]

"The Wandering Train" is one of Grabinski's shorter, and more traditionally framed, stories in this collection. The gradual, inevitable approach of the mysterious locomotive has dramatic intensity, reaching its climax in a fury of speed. There were several possible endings I anticipated, but not quite the one Grabinski delivered, which is always rather satisfying.

"Szamota's Mistress" is a variation on the "spectral bride' theme. I'm not sure if Szamota is intended as a love-lorne romantic, or the creepy, stalkerish narcissist he appears as to me, but intended or not, the infusion of the one with the other makes the story the more effective. Another of Grabinski's stories in which he doesn't leave the sexual element as an undercurrent, making it an overt and central part of the horror.

"A Tale of the Gravedigger" is a slightly more conventional 'chiller' than the three stories before it, but no less interesting on that account. While I'm comparing Grabinski to other authors, this one has a bit of a feel of Chambers' "King in Yellow" stories about it: I have a sense of there being more behind the narrative than is spoken of. Anyway, it starts off with a contagion of restless corpses and proceeds with macabre humour from there.

Grabinski is compared to H.P. Lovecraft, and the story "The Area" does somewhat put me in mind of "Pickman's Model" or "The Music of Erich Zahn" in that it's protagonist, a disregarded writer in this case, is consumed by his artistic creation, figuratively and literally. The incursion of other dimensions through the intense mental and emotional focus of wayward genius also chimes with stories by Lovecraft's penpal, Clark Ashton Smith. Good stuff.

"The Motion Demon" is a dreamlike story embracing the Futurist aesthetic movement and Henri Bergson's philosophy of life energy, contrasting the infinitesimal scale of the one with the cosmic grandeur of the other. So there's that, and then there's a shapeshifting demon, madness and murder!
I like a story that sends me to the dictionary or encyclopædia ?

If the first story in this collection, "Fumes", is anything to go by, it's no wonder Grabinski was little known and poorly regarded in his own time, writing at the end of WWI. It's a sexually explicit (not excessively graphic) febrile Freudian nightmare of the Old Dark House variety. It is striking in a disturbing way and I'm giving it a tentative thumbs up, as I move on to the second story.

Today's purchases from Broadhurst's Booksellers 📖 and Quicksilver Music🎼
The Dark Domain sounds interesting: tales of supernatural horror written in Poland early last century, published by Dedalus (of course).
Music is Sonny Rollins's The Bridge (inspiration for a Bleeding Gums Murphy Simpsons episode), yet another Dave Brubeck Quartet live album, and a Linton Kwesi Johnson compilation.