Thinking about Hallowe’en last night, I decided to pull down and dust off my copy of The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries. Published in 1936, it’s something of a mystery in itself how this book came into my possession but there it is and it’s a charming little collection. The short story that caught my eye was His Brother’s Keeper by W.W.Jacobs. Jacobs is most famous for arguably the best ghost story of all, The Monkey’s Paw, one that defies review because it is so perfectly executed. Just go read.
His Brother’s Keeper is a perfect little ghost story too; a man called Anthony Keller kills his rival and is haunted by the fact that the corpse is buried at the bottom of his garden. He can’t sell up, he can’t leave. They are to remain soul mates for evermore. What’s effective about the writing is that Jacobs manages to nag the reader with Keller’s worries, worries that haunt the man so deeply. Strangely, possibly due to the skill of the narration, I pictured the events unfolding in my own garden. Suitably creepy.
One chill a night will normally suffice, although I did go on to read The Seventh Man by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Here’s a writer who can build a comfortably chilling atmosphere:
Within the hut the sick man cried softly to himself. Faed, the Snipe, and Cooney slept uneasily, and muttered in their dreams. The Gaffer lay awake, thinking. After Bill, George Lasman; and after George…? Who next? And who would be the last – the unburied one?
The unburied one – that’s a frightening phrase.
Today I read an irresistible post over at The Pickards, an invitation to write a short story of your own for Hallowe’en. The prospect is scary in itself as I haven’t indulged in any fiction writing for quite some time. But I’m going to give it a whirl, so if anyone else is tempted then please join in…
‘I am pursued with blasphemies, cries of despair and appalling hatred. I hear those dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the corners of the streets; they come in the night-time, while I sit in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous crimes, and – great God! – threatening me with coming vengeance and eternal misery. Hush! do you hear that?’ he cried with a horrible smile of triumph; ‘there – there, will that convince you?’
Sheridan Le Fanu, The Familiar
I’ve been meaning to read In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu for some time. This is a famous collection of five supernatural stories, first published in 1872. I’m a fan of M.R.James, who described himself as a disciple of the Irish writer. I’m also partial to a gothic tale or two, and Le Fanu’s stories also stray into this territory.
Green Tea opens the collection and is easily Le Fanu’s best known ghost story. Quite simply, it’s a magnificently constructed and well written tale. It’s also very scary. It concerns the doomed Jennings, who begins to see a menacing small monkey wherever he goes. This is perhaps a hallucinatory symptom of the green tea he has been overindulging in, or perhaps it is something more sinister. The most chilling aspect of this story is, whether or not the monkey is real or in his disturbed imagination, that he is most troubled by the fact that the monkey appears to relish the fact that he can see him. And only he can see him. What can be worse than being a lonely demon that nobody can see? What can be better than being allowed to suddenly haunt somebody to death? You’d really pull the stops out, wouldn’t you?
In a Glass Darkly is framed by the case notes of one Dr Hesselius and Green Tea is a study of Jennings’ deterioration. Hesselius treats his patient as an interesting specimen rather than as a friend or as a doctor treating a troubled man, but this is also exactly what the reader does. If they are really honest about it. We know that Jennings is a hopeless case. We know the monkey is going to get him. Like the monkey, we relish that fact.
The next two stories, The Familiar and Mister Justice Harbottle, follow similar themes. Both deal with personal hauntings with inevitably gruesome endings. Both follow men with guilty secrets, men responsible for the death of others who will get their comeuppence. In The Familiar, Barton is haunted by a menace that only he can see and one, like in Green Tea, that will claim its victim in the end.
The longest story in the collection is A Room at the Dragon Volant. Here Le Fanu can take his time to establish atmosphere and subtle menace, a menace so slight it’s like a nagging itch. At times it is difficult to see where this story is going; the exciteable narrator relates more of a mystery tale than supernatural or horror and it’s nowhere near as disturbing as Green Tea or The Familiar. Still worth a read though, as is the final story Carmilla. This is notable for being an early vampire story, and the tale influenced Le Fanu’s fellow Dubliner Bram Stoker for Dracula. Carmilla is the story of a lesbian vampire, predating such Hammer classics as The Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil by a century:
I stood at the door, peeping through the small crevice, my sword laid on the table beside me, as my directions prescribed, until, a little after one, I saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating mass.
If you’re a disciple of the ghost story or the gothic tale, even a Hammer Horror or two, it’s worth spending some time with Sheridan Le Fanu.
This is the first in a new regular series. I enjoy writing about stories that I love reading. With novels, there can be a slow turnaround. So something to keep me posting more regularly…
Next to Charles Dickens, the other master of the classic ghost story is M.R.James. Like Dickens, James enjoyed reading his stories aloud and his tales are best enjoyed with this in mind. Imagine the open fire, a room full of attentive and eager students and James holding court. In The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, he delivers another of his warnings to the curious:
I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several – I don’t know how many – legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body.
This is the story of Mr Somerton, who cleverly deciphers the riddle set by the Abbot, although unwisely chooses to follow it through. I can imagine James reading the more disturbing passages with relish, as well as reading out the different character parts, such as Somerton’s servant Brown:
So I looked up, and I see someone’s ‘ead looking’ over at us. I s’pose I must ha’ said somethink, and I ‘eld the light up and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad un, sir, if I ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much fell in, and larfin’, as I thought.
Whether you’re an antiquary, an archaeologist, a humble servant or just generally curious minded, watch out for James. He’ll haunt you, for in his world some things are best left untouched.
The recent mystery ghost story was The Signalman by Charles Dickens. His brilliant writing style really makes it the classic it is, and something that can be read again and again even when you know the terrible outcome.
Next to Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol is probably Dickens’ best known work. Like The Signalman, you can hear the story and pass it on, with the result that people are telling the story who haven’t necessarily read it. I would say that the majority of people more or less know the basic story of Scrooge, but far fewer have actually read the original. Familiarity with A Christmas Carol comes from the countless film, stage and television adaptations over the years.
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