47. M.R. James - 'The Ash Tree' (1903)

'there is also this passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws upon the course of events, and also upon the common beliefs of the time: [...]'
M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories (Ware, Herts: Wordsworth Classics, 1992, p.33)

'The Ash Tree' is a mixture of historical investigation, travelogue and drama: 'And so ends the first act of the Castringham tragedy'. (p.34)

The oddly Italianate Suffolk is perfectly evoked in a lengthy, digressive opening. Past misdeeds, learnedness and loneliness seem intrinsic to this adventurous county of Benjamin Britten and Brian Eno. There are few landscapes as odd in blighty: the juxtaposition of purplish Dunwich Heath with beach and apocalyptic Sizewell Nuclear Power Plant. Time-frozen parish churches that reminded me of Dad's Army, secretive WW2 and Cold War radar sites, villages of 17th century timber housing oddly familiar from Lovejoy; genteel seaside resorts like the becalmed Aldeburgh and the slightly more bustling Southwold, both with distinctively pastel coloured beach huts and houses. Strong, dark Adnams Broadside ale. Weird examples of architectural planning, such as in Thorpeness.

The dating of the different occupants of the house is typically precise: 'Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical account in a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine of 1772, which draws the facts from the Baronet's own papers.' (p.35)

M.R. James ploughs the most English of furrows, in playing upon the mythical and historical exactitude, and their discordance. There is the antiquarian's concern with old books and libraries, inevitably worked into the opening reverie on Suffolk: 'I like the library, too, where you may find anything from a Psalter of the thirteenth century to a Shakespeare quatro.' (p.30) Several of the protagonists have scholarly leanings, as is usual in James; for example, William Crome, the grandson of the erstwhile vicar.

The Michael Reeves film Witchfinder General (1968), almost exclusively filmed in Jamesian Suffolk, comes to mind in Sir Richard's foolhardy burning of Mrs Mothersole's empty coffin, reviving 'for a time all the stories of witch-trials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty years.' (p.35) History will not relinquish its grip, its fascination; James's characters and landscape (from whatever stage in time) resound with the past. It seems natural for James to set the climactic part of his story in 1754 and then have characters who have never previously met striking up an acquaintance based upon familial history: upon meeting William Crome, Sir Richard says, 'the name of Crome is always a passport to Castringham. I am glad to renew a friendship of two generations' standing.' (p.37)

The 'Castringham sickness'. Matter-of-fact, localised tragedy. There is an unknowable quality to the sequence of events which is chronologically related; as ever in MRJ, there is no visible violence, but rather the suggestion of malevolence; no marks of violence, but a window left open. The initial suggestion that it might a squirrel running up and down the stem of the ash seems plausible enough, and even when we get clearer elucidation of the threat, it is left opaque, mystical almost: 'Such a nest of catarrhs and agues was never seen.' (p.37) Ultimately, as is the case in other good weird fiction - and indeed pure cinema - 'the reader must judge for himself.' (p.31)

The topography of the house and its grounds is methodically set out, James creating an eerie atmosphere. It will be interesting to see whether David Rudkin's Ghost Story for Christmas version (TX: BBC1, 23/12/1975) manages to capture the subtle dread of the Jamesian prose. From watching Rudkin's previous Play for Today, Penda's Fen (TX: 21/03/1974), it would seem Rudkin would be an ideal adaptor of this sort of English piece, which is so much about the pull of landscape and ghosts of the past.

9/10

41. Robert Louis Stevenson - 'The Body Snatcher' (1884)

'To bodies that had been laid in the earth in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there came that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade and mattock; the coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and the melancholy relics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moonless byways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a class of gaping boys.'
(Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Body Snatcher', The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, Penguin Classics, 2002, p.87)

Full Text: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/body.htm

'The Body Snatcher' was published a year after the immortal Treasure Island, a much-loved novel from childhood - aided also by an abridged tape version, featuring some urchin reading effectively as Jim Hawkins, backed by Bedrich Smetana's majestic Vltava (The Moldau).

This short-story was a precursor in some ways to his novella 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1886), obviously one of the key works of horror and 'scientific romance', providing an enduring influence for literature, not mention criticism, pertaining to the Weird, the uncanny. There is a duality in Fettes and how he spends his days and nights: 'For his day of work he indemnified himself by nights of roaring blackguardly enjoyment; and, when that balance had been struck, the organ that he called his conscience declared itself content.' (p.79)

As ever, Stevenson's style is bold and emphatic, revelling in macabre, exaggerated details; it is a blood and thunder storytelling with a florid vocabulary that grips you by the lapels with its urgency and gusto: 'sot', 'cerements' 'antecedents', 'interlopers', 'blackguardly', 'mattock'. As with his other seminal works, RLS establishes character with broad, burning strokes: Fettes is 'an old drunken Scotchman' with a mysertious past: 'We called him the Doctor; for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine'. (p.73) The 'we' is ambiguous; the (potentially unreliable) first-person narrator is never named and can only be assumed to be an alehouse regular. The George inn in Debenham (code for Edinburgh, presumably?) is Fettes's abode, and it is from this sodden spot that the 'sot' relays his story, told to the narrator. Once this is entered into, there is no return to the present-day scene; RLS simply gets on with the story and ends it on a dramatic note characteristic of horror and romance.

The story is closely based upon the Burke and Hare case, with Edinburgh Doctor Robert Knox clearly the Dr K---- of the narrative, senior figure at the medical school and ambiguous facilitator of Macfarlane and Fettes's dark doings. It is implied that initially Fettes has to deal with Burke and Hare themselves, providing cadavers for medical research - 'he would open the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land'. (p.78) This prefaces his pact with the urbane, seemingly 'civilised' Macfarlane, which leads them to the graveyard and hands-on bodysnatching.

There is a sense of things progressing far beyond the everyday and humdrum, distorting into nightmare; like the 'human Juggernaut', Mr Hyde, treading a child down (p.13), Wolfe Macfarlane considers himself beyond good and evil: 'Hell, God, devil, right, wrong, sin, crime and all that old gallery of curiosities - they may frighten boys, but men of the world, like you and me, despise them.' (p.88) This compelling expression of amorality perhaps expresses a concern at what was to come; the Century of the Self to come, Christian morality shattered. Indeed, the pair's climactic snatching is to take place in Glencorse, a 'rustic neighbourhood' representing placid, unchanging, traditional values; a godly old lady's corpse is to be uprooted from the earth, 'carried, dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday's best'. (p.87)

There is an ambiguity in the writing - it is unclear how RLS regards the sort of Victorian taboos and etiquette later assaulted by Grant Allen in his Hill-Top Novel, The British Barbarians (1895).

In 1884, or indeed 1881, when he composed 'The Body Snatcher' at Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, RLS simply identifies traditions as under grave attack - whether bodily or societal. Science and the Self are part of a revolution that is not condemned, but reported. Stevenson's concern is to tell a vivid, page-turning tale, rather than primarily to attack, or take sides between, Science and Religion.

This is an extreme, uncanny melodrama divested of any didacticism; one is carried along by the narrative, gallows humour and the often staggering achievement of RLS's characterisation and drawing of extraordinary incidents and images: for example, the wildly bizarre finale, which I shall not spoil in its particulars other than to say that it marks a return to Edinburgh, finally named, and given its due place.

9/10

38. Edgar Allan Poe - 'Hop-Frog' (1849)

http://watchinghorrorfilmsfrombehindthecouch.blogspot.com/2009/01/masque-of-red-death.html

'Poor fellow! his large eyes gleamed, rather than shone; for the effect of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the success of the king's "joke".'
(Edgar Allan Poe, 'Hop-Frog', The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Penguin, 1982, p.504)

Edgar Allan Poe has been a favourite of mine for some years; perhaps ever since I saw the excellent Roger Corman film from 1964, Masque of the Red Death, which combined that story with elements of 'Hop-Frog', creating a richly Gothic tapestry that bore quite an Ingmar Bergman influence. In 2004, I read the marvel that is 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and, more recently, deft exercises in morbidity such as 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar'.

After seeing Corman's film, I decided to read the short-story as part of my English Speaking Board examination - conducted at the end of my first year of Sixth Form College. It should be noted that I was in the last cohort of students to simply do 'A' Levels over two years, before the Advanced Subsidiary (A.S.) came in. One had to chair a debate on a topical issue, do a reading from a work of fiction, poetry etc. and do a short presentation on any topic of interest. At the time, I found the whole thing very difficult, but nevertheless could recognise that it was worth doing; presentation making and public speaking is an area I am now rather well versed in, but then was out of my depth. This forcible projection got me started, inadvertently perhaps leading to where I am today, lecturing after a fashion, engaging an audience of students on topics such as aesthetics, religion / science and changes in modern society. I am also seemingly in demand as a moment's-notice MC at friends' weddings, in lieu of anyone else, although mercifully am one who sticks to the bare essentials of that duty!

The sound of one's own voice; something you have to be comfortable with in many spheres - acting, politics, teaching and foolery. The eponymous Hop-Frog, is, as required by court jesters, silver tongued in his ability to provoke amusement with his jesting. As in Lear, where the Fool imparts sometimes harsh truths with the impugnity accorded by his position and attire, 'Hop-Frog''s titular protagonist lambasts and ribs royalty - but safely, within the confines of a 'game'.

Poe takes this scenario and portrays the nobility going too far, and the jokes becoming less 'safe' as a result and instead leading to a deliciously macabre denounement. There is the eeriness of sounds in Poe's description, conveying a subtle link to Beckett's Embers: 'There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the falling of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted by a low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come from every corner of the room.' (p.505) Horror - the myserious and unexplainable - seems to reside in this recurring (see p.508), bodiless noise.

This uncanny sound must - though seems not to - emanate from the dwarf Hop-Frog; it goes beyond his corporeal being: ' "The sound appeared to come from without," observed one of the courtiers. "I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill upon his cage-wires.' '

I shall not go into the precise manner of the jester's revenge, other than to say that it revolves upon a masquerade - a role's reverse, which shows up the evil and corrupt as they really are. Hop-Frog assumes the role of master of a righteously macabre ceremony; Poe's use of italics indicate the shrill emphasis in this ritual performer's performance, shattering the institutions that bound and abused him:

"I now see distinctly," he said, "what manner of people these maskers are." (p.509)

In the end, the opening sentences reveal themselves astypically sardonic: 'I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking.'

9/10

27. James Hogg - 'The Expedition to Hell' (1836)

'There is no phenomenon in nature less understood, and about which greater nonsense is written than dreaming.'

(Peter Haining, ed., Great British Tales of Terror: Gothic Stories of Horror and Romance 1765-1840, Penguin, 1973, p.496)

Another tale from the same Haining anthology as the Thackeray, and from the same year. This is notably more melodramatic, less satirical and creates a good deal of tension. Not a great deal to say other than that this is a notable piece of Scottish Gothic, rooted in Edinburgh - progressing to a subjective Hell.

Nice to see some accented dialect captured; this has been relatively rare in my survey; Barstow and Lawrence, obviously, but relatively few others that come to mind. Dialogue such as points the way towards Kelman and the like: 'Weel, weel, ye maun tell him that he mauna keep that engagement at no rate.' (p.504) 'no' rather than 'not', is another example.

Hogg plays with ambiguity and mystery in how he presents the central dream of George, the coach-driver, only being certain that we cannot be certain - and that the whole affair was of course extraordinary. A notable feature is the present narrator, seemingly Hogg himself, declaiming as in the epigraph above; pontification discounting rational explanations for dreams is followed by his telling of George's story.

It is all rather enjoyable; a before-its-time presentation and manipulation of the state of dreaming. Perhaps lacking that extra dimension Poe brings - as in 'The Facts of M. Valdemar' (1845) - but it is a canny old read, foraging almost unknowing into the uncanny.

7/10

13. Ramsey Campbell - 'Breaking Up' (2004)

'Since the day I lost you, girl

I just can't face the world

I can't help feeling kind of small'

(The Walker Brothers, 'I Need You', 1965*)

Ramsey Campbell: "I'd already written one macabre tale about a mobile phone [...] and then it occurred to me that there could be another. I suspect all this is my mental preparation for owning one of the things."

(Stephen Jones, ed., The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol.16, Robinson, 2005)

Excellent story again here, a textbook study in how to gradually evoke unease; Ramsey Campbell's horror story is a horror of the everyday - viewed in terms of naturally occurring extremes: the end of a relationship, mirrored by near Arctic weather. The setting is appropriately unspecific - it could be any town in Britain.

He also uses our everyday technology to provoke chills - the mobile phone is hardly presented as a comfort or aid in any conceivable sense. Home comforts turning into nightmares is a theme very much prevalent in 1970s cinematic horror, when the uncanny began to dominate genre cinema and one senses Campbell emerges from this tradition (although I do have a collection of his tales which begins in 1962).

The scenario and detail is all plausible, and it is only at the climax that things become a tad more inexplicable, but then this element is crucial to how Campbell haunts. As in other stories previously discussed, memory is important; here it is subtly implied as a Pinteresque battleground - one evening is seen in drastically different terms by main protagonist Kerry and her older ex-suitor, Russell:

'It had been the beginning of their end. Once he'd finished shouting above the disco uproar that he was her uncle, he'd set about dancing with a violence that seemed designed to complete with everyone else in the room. She could almost see the thin figure jigging and jerking as if he'd borrowed all the artificial vigour of the strobe light, his sleeves and trousers flapping like flags in a gale. When he'd panted to a standstill he had subsided into a chair and watched her dance, his eyes flickering with resignation that might have concealed a plea. Now she could have hoped he would ask anything other than "Didn't you?"' (pp.112-3)

In the end, the human mind and its entanglements can prove as horrific as anything, as this story goes on to outline in merciless, tellingly small details. We learn relatively little about Kerry or her exact thoughts, only that she did not reciprocate Russell's rather desperate yearning. I shall not 'spoil' how precisely it develops...

Again, this is another writer who would be perfect to write for a television show with fantasy or horror themes; for example, Dr Who if that show was not so reliant on hype, pyrotechnics and gimmicks - i.e. every episode having to have such Sontarans, Daleks or Dubai. 'Breaking Up' would, I feel, be really good to use in teaching; hard-hitting, gripping and difficult to dislodge from the mind.**

* Another life-affirmingly gloomy number from Take It Easy with the Walker Brothers, this one penned by Goffin and King.

** 'I, Haruspex', both in terms of length and content would be unsuitable for any classroom use, superb as it is!

9/10

8. Michael Marshall Smith - 'This is Now' (2004)

'Forests have a way of making civilization seem less inevitable.'

(Stephen Jones, ed., The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Robinson, 2005)

'Where were you in '92?' Part 1




Marshall Smith's story sets up a week of shorts provided by Sunderland central library, after a fashion; all of the pieces to be written about this week were purchased from a sale two Saturdays ago at the Fawcett Street library. 26 books for £4 and all that, with a good number providing lifeblood for my short-story craving sensibility.

The first is from a bumper, indeed Mammoth Book of New Horror, containing stories from 2004. Perhaps appositely for the most recent entry so far in ASSAD, it is basically set in the future (2015), but the main focus is upon reflecting upon a dim-and-potentially-distant past (1992).

MMS is an anglo-American writer, born in Knutsford, Cheshire (1965) and who spent much of his childhood in South Africa, Australia and the US, only to return to the UK in the seventies (he is now a resident of North London). This story is set in a north-eastern corner of Washington state, in America, yet seems inflected with a British perspective in certain ways.

The central three protagonists have known each other at least since adolescence; the main framing sees them aged 38, returning to and then reflecting upon the scene of an episode that might be termed a teenage transgression: when they were fifteen they infilitrated an ambiguous military compound. They are also established in their present-day locale; a bar with omnipresent pool table activity, from which the memories arise - if internally.

MMS establishes a subtly uneasy juncture between the everyday and the unsettling, the odd; the current-day reflections and longueurs are juxtaposed with flashbacks to what happened fifteen years ago - the tense and rather primordial transgressions in 1992 contrasted with the languid and uneasily sedate rituals of 2015. The teenagers find a weak spot in the electrified fence and get over into a military installation - epically ambiguous, as MMS leaves it - that was established in 1985.

This is ultimately winning, perhaps, because it does not resort to 'horror' in any generic sense; it is gratifying to come across a story classed as one of 2004's finest horrors that simply does not need any shocks, undue violence or authorial sleight-of-hand to achieve its effect. Marshall Smith's prose is straightforward yet penetrating; revealing average 38-year-olds settling for life as usual, deciding, albeit tacitly, to put the fascination and curiosity awakened by their adventure at fifteen behind them - for better or for worse.

It is all bittersweet without any real sense of the sweet; there is the ebbing memory of their togetherness at fifteen, having got away with the transgression: 'boys who had come triumphantly out the other side. The forest felt like some huge football field, applauding its heroes with whispering leaves.' (p.259) Now, one is settled in a reasonable if hardly fulfilling marriage, one amicably separated, the other - the 'I' narrator, Dave, is seemingly at a loose end: 'I lit another cigarette and wondered why I still didn't really know how to deal with women. They've always seemed so different to me. So confident, so powerful, so in themselves. Kind of scary, even. Most teenage boys feel that way, I guess, but I had assumed age would help. That being older might make a difference. Apparently not. The opposite, if anything.' (p.253)

There is the melancholy in Dave's past reflections on a perceived missed opportunity with a girl called Lauren, who saw herself in Seattle in a few years: 'What I didn't know, that night in the forest, was that she would do this, and I would not, and that she would leave without us ever having kissed.' This along with the eerie, intangible memory of the transgressive night; seemingly abandoned, 'ruined houses' (p.256). This subterranean progress - albeit on the fringes of a town that is on the road to nowhere in particular - leads both everywhere and nowhere, as the final passages detail. The final point seems to be that it is important, sometimes, to leave old haunts behind, even if there is no obviously gleaming future in store.

8/10