koilungfish | Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

Title - Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories
Editor - Road Dahl
ISBN - 0-14-007178-4
Contents:

W.S. by L.P. Hartley
Harry by Rosemary Timperly
The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith
In The Tube by E.F. Benson
Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperley
Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie
Playmates by A.M. Burrage
Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman
The Telephone by Mary Treadgold
The Ghost of a Hand by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Sweeper by A.M. Burrage
Afterward by Edith Wharton
On The Brighton Road by Richard Middleton
The Upper Berth by Marion Crawford

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories was, at the editor's claim, compiled to present a collection of ghost stories that are actually good. In his introduction Dahl states that he read through some seven hundred stories in search of some that struck him as being of quality and of merit, and that it was damn hard to find stories that fitted those criteria. Dahl's specific tastes show, as there is a distinct similarity of flavour to all here collected: a definite sense of reservation, of being painted in watercolours rather than oil or acrylic, of effects ephemeral over effects physical. Dahl has stuck very close with the concept of ghost stories as opposed to just the generally supernatural, in that all of the stories here feature a small spirit, a thing that, although beyond normal human ken, is kin to humanity and part of its order of existence.

W.S. is a story for writers and Dahl, as a life-long writer, must have felt its horror much more keenly than a non-writer would. For any writer who has had what started as a figment of their imagination, a character whose movements they controlled like a puppet on wires, to do what the best characters always do and raise their head and blink muzzily back at their creator, W.S. has a genuine vein of the terrible. What writer, having inflicted some tortuous plot upon a character, has not felt a bit guilty about it? W.S. takes the tendency of strong characters to develop inner lives of their own and that writer's shade of guilt to its logical conclusion.

Harry preys more viciously on a very easily-struck fear: the parent's fear of their child's abduction. Harry realises this fear and its causes very well, has a strong sense of internal logic and ends on a balanced conclusion. However, although the parent's fear is entirely logical, reasonable and emotionally expressed, it's a little difficult to connect with over the faint sense of hysteria.

The Corner Shop is a very Victorian sort of ghost story, and if Dahl included this to frighten, or even to unnerve, I'm not sure what he was reading into it that I wasn't seeing. The ghost is essentially benign and at no point threatening or even particularly possessed of that essential loathsomeness that supernatural beings often engender in the living. This feels really quite Christmassy, in the happily-ever-after-merry-wellness sense.

In The Tube is not a patch on Dicken's The Signalman. Although it approaches the same sort of event from a different direction, the older story is by far the better.

Christmas Meeting is a very different sort of ghost story, in that one is not entirely sure who is the ghost and who isn't - indeed, both participants may well be ghosts to one another - but is over so quickly that there's no chance to develop a sense of strangeness at events. The author, Rosemary Timperley, definitely has something going on in her mind, enough to warrant noting her name for later reference, but whether it's a good something or not remains to be seen. She was responsible for the Ghost of Venice adaptation, the poorness of which may have been due to the original source rather than her work. Who can say at this juncture?

Elias and the Draug is told at such a great remove that only M. R. James could have made it work. It is the kind of story that needs to be told by the fireside - told, rather than read aloud - in order to have life and spark. Obviously it is written down here. It's interesting in terms of being a titbit of Scandinavian folklore, but there's nothing much else to it other than utter doom.

Playmates is an interesting take on the concept of creepy children and haunted houses, navigating a possibly unique path through the cliches. However, although a sense of the strange develops there's such a sense that the ghosts are friendly - indeed, that everything certain people say can be taken totally at face value - that it's hard to feel chilled or creeped. Which leads to the question of what the point is, writing a ghost story with totally non-threatening ghosts yet with no other plot beyond "Lo, here are some ghosts!".

Ringing the Changes is entirely another order of story and I don't know what it's doing in this book. It presents an atmosphere of secrets and unpleasantness that swamps the rest of the book, rather like a fat man in a kid's pool, and brings characters who have much more development and sense of life that all of the others. It has the advantage in being about the longest story in the book, but it is so clearly a tale of supernatural horror rather than a ghost story, telling as it does of mental and physical damages caused by some very tangible presences, that it doesn't belong with these other, gentler, vaguer ghosts. Ringing the Changes is definitely worth reading, if you can find it.

The Telephone takes "less is more" all the way, since it's arguable there's no ghost at all, in which case this story is more about psychological obsession than a ghost story. That it's in this collection suggests Dahl took there to be a ghost, in which case it is the laziest one ever. Telephones, especially old ones, are great toys for writers of the supernatural, but Ms Treadgold isn't playing with hers very well here.

The Ghost of a Hand is a Ronseal story - it contains exactly what it says in the title - and Mr Le Fanu does some pretty things with his hand, but the whole thing feels rather perfunctory. Once again the occupants of a haunted house do little to nothing to rid themselves of their creeping visitor. Mr Le Fanu manages a sense of the strange, and of the threatening, but the reader will have trouble caring, especially given the perfunctory ending.

The Sweeper is another story of Victorian feel, with that morality tale ring, but there's really nothing here that hasn't been seen in any other tale of the time and type. I being to suspect that much of the chill of this story was produced in Dahl's mind during and after reading; that he might have sat and thought about the sweeper coming ever closer, and though thinking about it, caused it to become more frightening that the story actually did. One might argue that Dahl chose many of these tales for their subtlety, which he found compatible with his strong and active imagination, so that it was the mind of the reader that did the work rather than the words of the writer.

Afterward on the other hand really has no excuse for being here. It suffers from the classic short story problem in that the reader must know, coming into this story in a collection of ghost stories, that a ghost will appear, and thus the reader is entirely aware from the first moment that the seemingly normal visitor is entirely not so. This leads to that familiar frustration as the protagonist runs through the mundane options before finally, at long last, realising what the reader knew all along; the visitor was a ghost. Worse yet, the prose of Afterward is rather bland and dull, leaving one with little reason to want to read it.

On The Brighton Road is a quick shamble over a concept of recurring ghosts, and although the first page or two is well written, the ending feels limp and weak. Worth reading if one happens across it, not worth so much as to be worth hunting for.

The Upper Berth is a serious contender for being the best story in the book. It is always refreshing, after endless tales of people who sat and suffered in silence, to meet the characters who take action, even if that action involves running like a hare. The Upper Berth presents us with that even rarer breed, the protagonist willing to about-face and give the ghost what-for. The horror of this story is also a particularly unpleasant sort, unexplained and better that way, and giving an intensely strong sense of being something men should not mess with even though it has decided to mess with men. The Upper Berth presents atmosphere, a sense of the strange, of the hostile, of the chilling, of the unpleasant and of the unconquerable unknown. It has characters who are willing to tackle the supernatural armed with nothing but a lantern and a strong stick. Watching characters sit at the bottom of the mountain wibbling is dull; watching characters have a crack at climbing the mountain, even if they get thrown back at the first scarp, is vastly more interesting. It's hard to say if The Upper Berth or Ringing the Changes is the better story here, but on balance I prefer The Upper Berth

This book contains a couple of good stories, a couple of some interest to writers on account of tropes and mechanics and cliches avoided, but mostly it contains small, mild ghosts of the Christmassy variety. Other than for the two aforementioned good stories, I would not bother with this book.

This book is:
* - to be read around about Christmas
* - contained of many gentle ghost stories
* - contained of a few good ghost stories

This book is not:
* - scary
* - as good as Roald Dahl wanted it to be
* - in print