The Listener

“The Listener” is an epistolary account told through the diary of its protagonist. Much like Guy De Maupassant’s similarly-themed “The Horla, or Modern Ghosts,” Blackwood’s tale depicts the gradual encroachment of a parasitic spirit into the life of an arguably mentally-compromised man. “The Listener” is an excellent exploration of approaching and voracious threat, much like Blackwood’s later masterworks “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” The protagonist is a stubborn and caustic man who holds the entreaties of his friends and family at bay, isolating himself in a world of self-imposed exile. Tormented by hereditary mental health issues, illness due to malnutrition (and a sedentary, reclusive lifestyle),and mounting paranoia, the narrator finds that his efforts to exclude others from his personal affairs have left him defenseless from the destructive forces that loneliness invites.