--- 'A Phantom Lover' has been one of my favourite ghost stories for a long time, but somehow I'd never read anything else by Lee. This newly published collection seemed like a good opportunity to put that right. I'd started reading Hauntings before and found it hard to get into, but that didn't happen with Dark Tales – perhaps because editor Mike Ashley places 'Winthrop's Adventure' first, and the more florid 'Amour Dure' (which opens Hauntings) comes later.
In fact, 'Amour Dure' ended up being one of my favourites from the book, with 'Winthrop's Adventure', 'The Legend of Madam Krasinka' and 'Sister Benvenuta and the Christ-Child' in close contention. Like Lee herself, many of the characters are deeply preoccupied with their appreciation of art and music; the stories are packed with densely detailed, vivid, heady descriptions, creating an intense atmosphere that is immediately recognisable as Lee's. There's not a dud among them, with only 'A Wicked Voice', which features diluted versions of themes from a couple of the others, appearing weaker. There are also surprises: I didn't expect to find myself laughing out loud, but 'Sister Benvenuta' is genuinely really funny.
'Winthrop's Adventure' originally went by the title 'A Culture-Ghost' – a phrase that could act as a subtitle to so many of Lee's supernatural stories, since 'culture' is always so present in her writing. I often find Victorian ghost stories underwhelming, and what I've got out of reading, for example, M.R. James, is more of a grounding in the formation of a genre than actual enjoyment. It's different with Vernon Lee's work. The stories are still fresh, so modern and unusual and beautiful. I could enthuse about them all day, but I'll just say that this collection is a brilliant introduction.
I received an advance review copy of A Phantom Lover and Other Dark Tales from Sublime Horror, courtesy of British Library Publishing.
A wistful novel of nostalgia* and young love, lent further poignance by the author's death a year after its publication. It took me some time to get cA wistful novel of nostalgia* and young love, lent further poignance by the author's death a year after its publication. It took me some time to get comfortable with Le Grand Meaulnes; a lack of meaningful dialogue between Meaulnes and the narrator initially prevented me from feeling the depth of their bond. And I wasn't entirely convinced of Meaulnes' status among the boys, or that I agree with the blurb's assertion that he as a character is 'unforgettable'. (Of everyone, I was most drawn to Jasmin Delouche. Who also has by far the best name in the book.) But the title character's adventure in the 'lost domain' is the point at which the story is transformed from everyday to magical, and the momentum created by that lingering stardust is delicately maintained from then on.
The book is full of descriptions like the below – meandering paragraphs that seem to redefine 'evocative', filled with ellipses, inviting the reader to marvel and imagine.
Now and then the wind, damp with enough mist to moisten our cheeks, brings the sound of a piano, like some tune gone astray. I stop to listen. The music coming from the depths of the inscrutable house is at first like some far-away tentative voice intimidated by an excess of joy, or the laughter of a child who has gone to fetch all her toys and spread them out before a new playmate... It is also like the timorous, questioning regard of a woman who has put on her finest gown but is not sure it will find favour... This melody, which I've never heard before, is a kind of prayer to happiness, an entreaty asking fate not to be too cruel, a salutation to happiness and at the same time a genuflexion...
A provincial yet quite spellbinding story.
*The etymology of the word 'nostalgia' seems particularly fitting here: from the Greek nóstos, 'a return home', and álgos, 'pain, suffering'.
I didn't intend to read this book properly; I just wanted to sample a few stories to get a feel for the author's style, in preparation for a blog postI didn't intend to read this book properly; I just wanted to sample a few stories to get a feel for the author's style, in preparation for a blog post about ghost stories I'm in the process of writing. I did, however, end up reading all ten stories, although I skimmed over a few of them a little more quickly than I usually would. The edition I read, one of many available on Kindle (this is a public domain work, which you can download for free at Project Gutenberg) has the provocative and rather daft subtitle '10 extreme ghost stories for hardcore horror fans only'. Despite the fact that this was one of the first things I bought when I got a Kindle, that subtitle actually put me off trying it for a long time - not because I thought I was going to be terrified, but because I expected high melodrama and gore, neither of which are things I particularly value in ghost stories.
As it turns out, however, Blackwood's stories have much in common with other, similar tales from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some feature descriptions of hauntings that might have been perceived as 'extreme' at the time, but are hardly traumatic by modern standards, while just as many are relatively subtle. My favourites were: 'A Haunted Island' - a man staying on a deserted island finds himself besieged by a terrifying vision in his own home; 'Keeping His Promise' - a student's old schoolfriend reappears in (almost comically) strange circumstances; and 'The Wood of the Dead' - a visitor from the city encounters an old man in a country pub, and learns that the stranger is considered to be a harbinger of death. Another one of the best is 'A Suspicious Gift', which is not about anything supernatural at all, but a neatly duplicitous crime story in which a man's acceptance of an unexpected windfall leads to unfortunate and gruesome consequences.
The most problematic, and least successful, stories are those featuring the recurring character Jim Shorthouse. Why Shorthouse reappears is unclear, as there is little to no continuity in his characterisation; his behaviour, reactions to the strange things he experiences, and even the timeline of his life don't appear to match up across the four stories he features in. This makes it annoying when a story features Shorthouse, because the continuity problems hold it back even if the story itself is good, like 'A Case of Eavesdropping', in which he overhears what seem to be terrifying events in the room next door. 'The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York', by far the longest and most imaginative story included here, has the potential to be really interesting, but it's blighted by blatant anti-Semitism, and ends so abruptly it feels like the author couldn't be bothered to finish it. 'The Empty House', which opens the book, is quite scary in parts, but it's also exactly the sort of over-the-top melodrama I feared I would find in these stories. 'With Intent to Steal', meanwhile, is rambling and overdramatic in the extreme.
This, though, is an early collection of stories from Blackwood - I believe it was the first thing he ever published - so it's not surprising that it sometimes feels amateurish. Perhaps I should have started with some of his later stories. I've just been looking at Blackwood's Wikipedia page, and some of them sound amazing, eg: 'The House of the Past - A vaguely psychological story expressed in supernatural terms about the relationship between memories, dreams and past lives.' 'A Psychical Invitation - A man's experimentation with drugs opens his mind to an attack by a supernatural force. The tale is based on both Blackwood's own experiments with drugs and his occult learning whilst in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.' 'Ancient Sorceries - A village in a Cathedral town in France, with an above average population of cats, turns out have in its midst a number of dabblers in the dark arts.' So yes, I will probably read more by the author, and I'm glad to have got the measure of his style. This collection was simply too uneven to be anything more than an average read overall.
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List/order of stories in the edition I read: 1. The Empty House 2. A Haunted Island 3. A Case of Eavesdropping 4. Keeping His Promise 5. With Intent to Steal 6. The Wood of the Dead 7. Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House 8. A Suspicious Gift 9. The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York 10. Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp...more
A very sharp little story. It subverts what seems to be a typical tale of seduction - set in a hotel, it tells of a lecherous baron setting his sightsA very sharp little story. It subverts what seems to be a typical tale of seduction - set in a hotel, it tells of a lecherous baron setting his sights on a married woman - by focusing on the seductee's son, a highly sensitive 12-year-old. The bounder's strategy of capturing the boy's affections first quickly backfires: he develops a deep admiration of the baron, and is outraged when he's abandoned in favour of his mother's company. Unable to understand what the baron wants with her, he determines to discover the nature of the 'secret' he's convinced the two must share, and in doing so he unwittingly throws the stability of his family into jeopardy. The short narrative builds to a deflated but emotionally impactful conclusion that's both reassuring and deeply sad (for the boy as well as the reader). ...more
I did this a bit of a disservice by reading the first two stories in October last year, and then not picking it up again until January - my intention I did this a bit of a disservice by reading the first two stories in October last year, and then not picking it up again until January - my intention was to spread the stories out over a couple of months, in the hope that this would make me savour and appreciate them more, but... it didn't really work out. Though a couple of characters grated, and the repetition of themes dulled their impact slightly by the end, I loved these stories, with 'Little Herr Friedemann', 'The Joker', and 'Death in Venice' itself standing out as favourites. ...more
As a lover of ghostly and supernatural fiction in general, I've been meaning to get acquainted with the stories of M.R. James for quite some time. I'mAs a lover of ghostly and supernatural fiction in general, I've been meaning to get acquainted with the stories of M.R. James for quite some time. I'm well aware of the inspiration these classic tales have provided to the writers of many of my favourites, and I'm glad to have read them as I know how seminal they were/are in terms of this particular genre. Having familiarised myself with James' style, I can certainly recognise its influence in many other spooky tales I've enjoyed, though I do wish I could have read these at the time of their publication, when, I imagine, the creepy happenings they detail would have seemed far more terrifying.
The problem for a modern reader is that these stories have been used as inspiration, reworked and expanded so many times by other authors. If you're a regular reader of ghost stories, it's likely you will have come across rehashed versions of these tales many times over. This doesn't make them any less accomplished, but it does dent their power to inspire shock and fear, and their brevity sometimes makes them feel unfinished. As with any compilation - for example Edgar Allan Poe's Selected Tales - some of the themes become noticeably repetitive over this many short stories. They're nearly all told from a point of view that's one or even two degrees removed from the person experiencing the events described, which is a good device as it makes you feel as if you're being told something that might just be true by a friend of a friend; the disadvantage is that, over 19 separate stories, this becomes a bit frustrating and you long to hear one of these accounts straight from the horse's mouth.
My favourites of the stories were: 'Lost Hearts' - creepy and effective; the involvement of children intensifies this, notably in the case of Stephen's dream and his sighting of the two ghosts. 'The Mezzotint' - very simple, but there's something particularly eerie about the idea of a picture that moves/changes. 'Oh Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad' - this was adapted for television last Christmas, and while I've got to say I prefer the version of the tale told by the TV version (I know some fans of James complained about the changes, but it HAD to be properly fleshed out otherwise it wouldn't have been substantial enough for an adaptation), the original story is very enjoyable too. The idea of the cloth figure sitting bolt upright in bed during the dead of night is especially frightening! 'Number 13' - again, a very simple but effective idea; a hotel room that appears and disappears between its neighbours, with a devilish occupant. Plays very cleverly on the sense of displacement and confusion many of us experience when staying in an unfamiliar place. 'The Tractate Middoth' - this has the most developed and involving plot of the collection, with the terrifying figure appearing in the library, followed by Garrett's race to stop the parcel containing the mysterious book reaching its destination. 'Casting the Runes' - this also seems one of the most developed, and creates a rather dastardly villain in the shape of Mr Karswell (I loved the detail of his horrifying 'slide show' for the town's children!) Harrington and Dunning conspiring to return the paper to Karswell provides a further intriguing note of drama towards the end.
Altogether, while this collection may not actually 'keep you up at night' as the title promises, I would thoroughly recommend it as essential reading for any lover of ghost stories.
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Complete list of stories: 1. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book 2. Lost Hearts 3. The Mezzotint 4. The Ash-Tree 5. Number 13 6. Count Magnus (Oh Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad - in the book but not listed in the contents) 7. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas 8. A School Story 9. The Rose Garden 10. The Tractate Middoth 11. Casting the Runes 12. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral 13. Martin's Close 14. Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance 15. The Residence at Whitminster 16. The Diary of Mr. Poynter 17. An Episode of Cathedral History 18. The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance 19. Two Doctors...more