Everyman Ghost Stories
Jan. 5th, 2010 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koilungfish2/1/10 - Ill
3/1/10 - 1987 words on Pral-Vrai System
4/1/10 - Ill
5/1/10 - 1120 words on Pral-Vrai System
Title - Ghost Stories
Editor - John Hampden
ISBN - Not Given
Mr Hampden opens for us with an introduction of four or five pages, concerning ghosts and ghost stories, that contains better writing and better thinking than a lot of actual ghost stories. This introduction contains a brief meditation on the types of ghost stories that makes it good reading for the writer.
Wandering Willie's Tale is what Thrawn Janet wanted to be and wasn't, on account of Mr Stevenson not being as good at deploying dialect as Mr Scott. A knowledge of Scots history might well help the reader, as will the understanding that "jackanapes" means "monkey". The story is an overall good one, being of the solid old style, one part fairy tale and one part morality play.
Ligeia gives the reader the first hint of the quality of this book. Mr Poe's tale has a simple story, and one that has much meat still to be chewed, but the lushness of setting, and morbidity of ornament, are what make this story breathe.
The Signalman is the same story it was before, and commences a block of Inescapable Classics. We have seen both The Watcher [although it was there entitled The Familiar] and The Dream Woman before. The Signalman I remembered from the first page, its opening being entwined with its memorable ending such as to keep the story alive in the mind. The Watcher took me four or five pages to recall, and I find now that perhaps half my disappointment with the story is that it reminds me of The Horror at Red Hook and then lets me down by not having the sheer enormity of Lovecraft's vision to end it. Comparing the two stories more closely may prove elucidating. The Dream Woman I do not deign to recall in too much detail, not having a great deal of time for its conceits.
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot is a classic ghost's revenge story, couched in a prank. The story does not satisfy much: the titular toe is mentioned only as a distinguishing feature that the story would have lost nothing without. Toes are inherently rather funny things. They are much like short men in fur hats - small, hairy, not particularly ominous, and best kept away from the denouement of ghost stories. That Mr Bierce's style involves a peculiar tendency to circle the point of his sentence without quite reaching it, as seen in the above quote, does nothing to help the overburdened story.
A Wicked Voice is the musical counterpart to The Sacrifice. Artists torment very prettily, musicians more than writers, although less than painters or sculptors, and a writer who can convey senses of music in the written word is definitely doing something right. Mr Lee backs his tale up with a rich style, describing the various Italian settings and activities with a crowded lushness. All in all, a worthwhile read.
Count Magnus ... but what can we say about Count Magnus? It is one of M. R. James' more-often reprinted works, constructed from five or six incidents related in summary form through diary entries. Everything occurs beneath the surface, in hints and suggestions. It is a testament to M. R. James' skill that one can read this brief elusions to uncertain events and yet get a clear understanding of what must have happened. As with great writers such as Tolkien and Lovecraft, M. R. James also gives an impression of secondary depth - that there are things that exist and move behind the scenes, behind the plot, that are only tangentially relevant to the events at hand and yet are the fundamental stuff of the world in which the events happen. He does this in very brief hints too, which is good going.
Running Wolf is typical of Mr Blackwood, if typical is a term that can be applied to a writer who specialized in conveying the sublime peace and beauty of the great outdoors. As usual Mr Blackwood's tale follows in no ways the standard forms of ghost stories, since he is not writing ghost stories, but spiritual stories of communing with the wild. If Mr Blackwood has ever written a bad story, I have not read it, nor is this it.
The Tomb of Sarah strikes one as derivative. It reads very much like M. R. James' An Episode of Cathedral History with a splash of Hammer Horror. The supernatural is too definite here, too real to be unreal, and the narrator too certain from the very start. His assertions of familiarity with the unreal subtract that vital un. All in all, one misses nothing by reading this if one has read the better Jamesian version.
All Hallows is, like the greatest of stories, wholly in defiance of the standard modes of storytelling. It takes several pages to work out what sort of building exactly the narrator is narrating about. The events that follow are peculiar and indefinite, and what might properly be called the climax is the most off-screen and yet unusual piece of the supernatural I can recall. The climax is not the point of All Hallows; the point is the idea mentioned a page of two earlier, about change and the sorts of it thereof. This idea has very original, very much worth reading for - as is the rest of the story - and very, very interesting. Like Silent Snow, Secret Snow this feels like it should be the father of generations of stories that play on its concept. I wonder if there are any.
The Extra Hand is five pages that are included on the premise that they involve a haunted ship, but are more about the death of the ship herself. Ghost Stories contains stories that would not be printed today for not being cinematic or definite enough about what they are, and this is what makes it an elegant read, contained of subtlety and originality.
The Beast With Five Fingers is, in contrast, about the most cinematic and definite of all the stories here. I am given to understand it is the precursor of a number of films, but I doubt any of the films capture the blend of fear and practicality with which the protagonists deal with their adversary. It puts one in mind of The Affair at 7 rue de M---.
A Daughter of Ramses is wistful and subtle, a love story more than a ghost story, with melancholy and underplayed spiritual anguish in place of modern shocks and horror. Writing is one of the ancestral homes of subtlety; modern writers would do well to watch fewer movies and read more old stories.
Mrs Lunt is a story about two writers, which ought to be death to any story, but in truth the main failing is the smallness of the ending. The inferences feel like a shortcut. The best part of this story is its description of the feelings of the protagonist, who goes through very human vacillation of feelings.
The Buick Saloon has something of The Phantom 'Rickshaw to it, although this is definitely the superior piece. It has a great deal of humanity to it, in the descriptions of the behaviours, emotions and secret thoughts of its protagonist. Often when characters in stories act on impulse one gets the feeling that they did it because the writer needed them to; here, the character's impulses feel like the natural result of her personality and thoughts.
The White Road seems a descendant of Wandering Willie's Tale, being as it is an old-fashioned ghost story with a more modern, sympathetic ending. There is a lack of clarity in some places that does it no particular favours, but it is a good enough read. This is very much a story that depends on its neighbours; in the wrong context, it could well feel small and weak.
The Earlier Service is some sort of statistical necessity, that all anthologies of ghost stories must have at least one story which has been visited by the Spectre Of I Can't Think Of An Ending. Like the rest of the final third of Ghost Stories, this tale has some excellent description of human behaviour - that is, human beings behaving like human beings - and a sense of something interesting lurking under the surface, but the ending is a rushed mess, with a badly chosen change of narrating character and no real sense to what happened, nor where the characters now stand. In all, a shame the last few pages weren't visited by the Good Fairy Of Editing.
All together, Ghost Stories is a collection of fine old stories, clustered together with companionable familiarity. The first third is straight-up old-fashioned ghosts [and Mr Poe]. The second third is more subtle, more spiritual. The last third is well-written human behaviour.
I cannot think of a single reason why anyone who loves ghost stories would not want to read this book. Good luck finding a copy.
This book is:
* - full of human, elegant ghost stories
* - heavy on the Inescapable Classics
* - a great collection of good stories
This book is not:
* - easy prose
* - to be read in one go
* - in print
3/1/10 - 1987 words on Pral-Vrai System
4/1/10 - Ill
5/1/10 - 1120 words on Pral-Vrai System
Editor - John Hampden
ISBN - Not Given
"His low forehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and over the nose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followed the same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at what would otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeply sunken beneath these, glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain colour, but, obviously enough, too small." - The Middle Toe of the Right FootContents:
- Wandering Willie's Tale - Sir Walter Scott
- Ligeia - Edgar Allan Poe
- The Signalman - Charles Dickens
- The Watcher - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
- The Dream Woman - W. Wilkie Collins
- The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - Ambrose Bierce
- A Wicked Voice - Vernon Lee
- Count Magnus - M. R. James
- Running Wolf - Algernon Blackwood
- The Tomb of Sarah - F. G. Loring
- All Hallows - Walter de la Mare
- The Extra Hand - H. M. Tomlinson
- The Beast With Five Fingers - W F. Harvey
- A Daughter of Ramses - Lord Dunsany
- Mrs Lunt - Sir Hugh Walpole
- The Buick Saloon - Ann Bridge
- The White Road - E. F. Bozman
- The Earlier Service - Margaret Irwin
Mr Hampden opens for us with an introduction of four or five pages, concerning ghosts and ghost stories, that contains better writing and better thinking than a lot of actual ghost stories. This introduction contains a brief meditation on the types of ghost stories that makes it good reading for the writer.
Wandering Willie's Tale is what Thrawn Janet wanted to be and wasn't, on account of Mr Stevenson not being as good at deploying dialect as Mr Scott. A knowledge of Scots history might well help the reader, as will the understanding that "jackanapes" means "monkey". The story is an overall good one, being of the solid old style, one part fairy tale and one part morality play.
Ligeia gives the reader the first hint of the quality of this book. Mr Poe's tale has a simple story, and one that has much meat still to be chewed, but the lushness of setting, and morbidity of ornament, are what make this story breathe.
The Signalman is the same story it was before, and commences a block of Inescapable Classics. We have seen both The Watcher [although it was there entitled The Familiar] and The Dream Woman before. The Signalman I remembered from the first page, its opening being entwined with its memorable ending such as to keep the story alive in the mind. The Watcher took me four or five pages to recall, and I find now that perhaps half my disappointment with the story is that it reminds me of The Horror at Red Hook and then lets me down by not having the sheer enormity of Lovecraft's vision to end it. Comparing the two stories more closely may prove elucidating. The Dream Woman I do not deign to recall in too much detail, not having a great deal of time for its conceits.
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot is a classic ghost's revenge story, couched in a prank. The story does not satisfy much: the titular toe is mentioned only as a distinguishing feature that the story would have lost nothing without. Toes are inherently rather funny things. They are much like short men in fur hats - small, hairy, not particularly ominous, and best kept away from the denouement of ghost stories. That Mr Bierce's style involves a peculiar tendency to circle the point of his sentence without quite reaching it, as seen in the above quote, does nothing to help the overburdened story.
A Wicked Voice is the musical counterpart to The Sacrifice. Artists torment very prettily, musicians more than writers, although less than painters or sculptors, and a writer who can convey senses of music in the written word is definitely doing something right. Mr Lee backs his tale up with a rich style, describing the various Italian settings and activities with a crowded lushness. All in all, a worthwhile read.
Count Magnus ... but what can we say about Count Magnus? It is one of M. R. James' more-often reprinted works, constructed from five or six incidents related in summary form through diary entries. Everything occurs beneath the surface, in hints and suggestions. It is a testament to M. R. James' skill that one can read this brief elusions to uncertain events and yet get a clear understanding of what must have happened. As with great writers such as Tolkien and Lovecraft, M. R. James also gives an impression of secondary depth - that there are things that exist and move behind the scenes, behind the plot, that are only tangentially relevant to the events at hand and yet are the fundamental stuff of the world in which the events happen. He does this in very brief hints too, which is good going.
Running Wolf is typical of Mr Blackwood, if typical is a term that can be applied to a writer who specialized in conveying the sublime peace and beauty of the great outdoors. As usual Mr Blackwood's tale follows in no ways the standard forms of ghost stories, since he is not writing ghost stories, but spiritual stories of communing with the wild. If Mr Blackwood has ever written a bad story, I have not read it, nor is this it.
The Tomb of Sarah strikes one as derivative. It reads very much like M. R. James' An Episode of Cathedral History with a splash of Hammer Horror. The supernatural is too definite here, too real to be unreal, and the narrator too certain from the very start. His assertions of familiarity with the unreal subtract that vital un. All in all, one misses nothing by reading this if one has read the better Jamesian version.
All Hallows is, like the greatest of stories, wholly in defiance of the standard modes of storytelling. It takes several pages to work out what sort of building exactly the narrator is narrating about. The events that follow are peculiar and indefinite, and what might properly be called the climax is the most off-screen and yet unusual piece of the supernatural I can recall. The climax is not the point of All Hallows; the point is the idea mentioned a page of two earlier, about change and the sorts of it thereof. This idea has very original, very much worth reading for - as is the rest of the story - and very, very interesting. Like Silent Snow, Secret Snow this feels like it should be the father of generations of stories that play on its concept. I wonder if there are any.
The Extra Hand is five pages that are included on the premise that they involve a haunted ship, but are more about the death of the ship herself. Ghost Stories contains stories that would not be printed today for not being cinematic or definite enough about what they are, and this is what makes it an elegant read, contained of subtlety and originality.
The Beast With Five Fingers is, in contrast, about the most cinematic and definite of all the stories here. I am given to understand it is the precursor of a number of films, but I doubt any of the films capture the blend of fear and practicality with which the protagonists deal with their adversary. It puts one in mind of The Affair at 7 rue de M---.
A Daughter of Ramses is wistful and subtle, a love story more than a ghost story, with melancholy and underplayed spiritual anguish in place of modern shocks and horror. Writing is one of the ancestral homes of subtlety; modern writers would do well to watch fewer movies and read more old stories.
Mrs Lunt is a story about two writers, which ought to be death to any story, but in truth the main failing is the smallness of the ending. The inferences feel like a shortcut. The best part of this story is its description of the feelings of the protagonist, who goes through very human vacillation of feelings.
The Buick Saloon has something of The Phantom 'Rickshaw to it, although this is definitely the superior piece. It has a great deal of humanity to it, in the descriptions of the behaviours, emotions and secret thoughts of its protagonist. Often when characters in stories act on impulse one gets the feeling that they did it because the writer needed them to; here, the character's impulses feel like the natural result of her personality and thoughts.
The White Road seems a descendant of Wandering Willie's Tale, being as it is an old-fashioned ghost story with a more modern, sympathetic ending. There is a lack of clarity in some places that does it no particular favours, but it is a good enough read. This is very much a story that depends on its neighbours; in the wrong context, it could well feel small and weak.
The Earlier Service is some sort of statistical necessity, that all anthologies of ghost stories must have at least one story which has been visited by the Spectre Of I Can't Think Of An Ending. Like the rest of the final third of Ghost Stories, this tale has some excellent description of human behaviour - that is, human beings behaving like human beings - and a sense of something interesting lurking under the surface, but the ending is a rushed mess, with a badly chosen change of narrating character and no real sense to what happened, nor where the characters now stand. In all, a shame the last few pages weren't visited by the Good Fairy Of Editing.
All together, Ghost Stories is a collection of fine old stories, clustered together with companionable familiarity. The first third is straight-up old-fashioned ghosts [and Mr Poe]. The second third is more subtle, more spiritual. The last third is well-written human behaviour.
I cannot think of a single reason why anyone who loves ghost stories would not want to read this book. Good luck finding a copy.
This book is:
* - full of human, elegant ghost stories
* - heavy on the Inescapable Classics
* - a great collection of good stories
This book is not:
* - easy prose
* - to be read in one go
* - in print
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 01:43 am (UTC)It's been a while since I read it, but isn't "The Tomb of Sarah" one of the classic old vampire stories? One of those that used to be reprinted in vampire anthologies from back in the day before vampire fiction exploded post-Anne Rice.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 11:46 am (UTC)It may be. I don't recall seeing it before, although I doubt I'd remember it after a few years. That doesn't mean I'd think any better of it. Doesn't matter how often it's printed, a badly executed story is still a badly executed story.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 12:56 pm (UTC)alchemyempirical art in 1898).That being said, my means and time for hunting down old stories is very limited; I opt to spend money on new books that aren't available for the Googling. Also I have a shiny Sony eReader that I love stuffing books into for reading. It has a better interface than the Kindle, and like the Kindle, an eInk display, which means decent contrast (if you avoid the touch-screen models) and readable in the same lighting you would read a book. (Unlike LCD displays, that wash out in bright light). I like.
It also means I have the entire Project Gutenberg archive to wander through again. (Again, because I will not read full novels on a computer display; it's too much of a pain. I used to read them on my Palm-type device before I dropped it and broke it during Katrina evac.) Project Gutenberg has introduced me to more classics than even the library, because I don't have to worry about returning it in 2 weeks.
My memory of the story has faded a lot, but I never was impressed with F. G. Loring's writing. But, back before Anne Rice, the pickings for vampire anthologies were pretty slim. You had the same handful of classics reprinted over and over and over. At least Polidori's "The Vampyre" was worth reading....
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 09:36 pm (UTC)I just collect books. I'm not sure where they come from. They just accrue around me. Sometimes I even read them.
The one problem with trawling Project Gutenberg for these stories is that you won't get this book's foreword, which has some interesting and lucid thoughts on the writing of ghost stories.
You'd think that an obvious need for new vampire stories would result in young writers having a go at them. Perhaps they all sucked.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 02:00 am (UTC)Anne Rice seriously changed the market when "Interview with the Vampire" came out. It was like no vampire novel written before, and suddenly there was editorial demand for vampire stories.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 02:46 pm (UTC)Steven King essentially retold one of Count Leo Tolstoy's (the other Tolstoy) 19th century Russian vampire stories in "Salem's Lot", but he got a best-seller out of it. (No, I don't think King consciously retold the Russian story, but the plot is quite similar.)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 02:47 pm (UTC)Polidori's story about Lord Ruthven was far more interesting.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 01:39 pm (UTC)Ruthven's the one with the metallic grey eyes, isn't he?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 03:26 pm (UTC)Building and technics
Date: 2015-03-04 06:02 pm (UTC)