Just Eat the Damn Peach

The Ghost Chill Factor #4. "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (Ambrose Bierce)

SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Ambrose Bierce---I feel obliged to start out this way; I don't know why---is best known for the short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and for The Devil's Dictionary.  Since Carlos Fuentes published The Old Gringo, a fictional work about Bierce's fate after his disappearance, he seems to have undergone a resurgence in popularity; or maybe not that, but people seem to be more aware of him than they used to be.  Back in my teens, it seemed that everyone had to read "Owl Creek Bridge" (well, I say "had to"; it's a great and in its way terrifying story and therefore a pleasure to read), but most people didn't know anything about Bierce or any of his other work. 

But since at the age of about 17 I stumbled on The Death of Halpin Frayser in some anthology or other, it's ranked as one of my top ten ghost stories.  I consider it one of the most terrifying and puzzling ghost stories of all time.   I didn't understand it then, and I am not certain I understand it now, but I'll do my best to share such insights as I can offer. 

If you want to read about Bierce, you can do so here and especially here (The Ambrose Bierce Society).   He's a fascinating fellow and one of nature's misanthropes, so he's worth reading about all on his own.  Since my business, as I said in my first note, is with the teller and not the tale, I'm going to concentrate on Halpin Frayser.   The story is available online at several sites and in several formats.  If you like reading in pdf format (which makes the reading look like an actual page in an actual book), you will prefer this link.   Otherwise, you can try this one at the Literature Network or this one---which I'll be using--at Short Stories.

THE STORY.  From M.R. James's "Lost Hearts" to "The Death of Halpin Frayser" seemed like a natural progression to me.   In my note on "Lost Hearts" I mentioned that one of the horrors of the story seems to be the undifferentiated malice of the two dead children.  While it's possible to see them as appearing to the 11 year old Stephen in order to warn him that he may be in danger, to do requires the reader to ignore Stephen's own sense that they will (if he comes in their way) do him harm.  The story shows that the boy, at least, despite his cadaverous thinnness and the near-transparency of his hands, his a terrible and superhuman strength.   The epigram with which Bierce's story, "The Death of Halpin Frayser"  opens suggests an explanation for the children's rage and hunger for revenge.

The Ghost Chill Factor 3: "Lost Hearts." (Montague Rhodes James).

  M.R. James wrote three of my top 20 ghost stories of all time---but I chose Lost Hearts because it's so different from his others.  Because it's now out of copyright, you can read it for free right here.

"Lost Hearts" (published in the early 1900's), is told with James's usual dry detachment, is his one of his only graphically violent stories.  In addition, it involves that extra little (to quote the other and better known James, Henry) turn of the screw in that the protagonist is a child, an 11 year old boy, another aspect of this story that sets it apart from the usual James story (the protagonists of which tend to be elderly or middle-aged male scholars or antiquaries). 

The story is set in 1811 in Lincolnshire, at a house called Aswarby Hall. I've always found James's description of the house intriguing; when James, always concise, bothers to describe anything or anyone in detail, it's best to attend.

[quote begins from M.R. James, Lost Hearts, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary at 25 (Dover Press 1971).]

The little boy, who was the only passenger in the chaise, and who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door.  He saw a tall, square, red-brick house, built in the reign of Anne; a stone-pillared porch had been added in the purer classical style of 1790; the windows of the house were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork.  A pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front.  There were wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed galleries, supported by colonnades, with the central block....It was altogether a pleasant impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind of the boy who was standing in the porch waiting for the door to open to him.

[quote ends]

The Ghost-Chill Factor.

I get a fair number of hits to this sublog from what appear to be inquiries from students looking for help writing papers. Glad I can help, kids; I hope by making you realize WHY YOU SHOULD DO THE DAMN READING FOR YOURSELF.   But the inquiries have given me an idea that sounds as if it might be fun for me to realize.

For 20-something years, I've been hunting down the best ghost stories I can find.  The anthologies come and go, of course, and some of the best aren't even in print anymore, but the stories endure and I have decided to do my small bit by keeping them alive. To understand what a ghost story can and should be, you really have to look back to the beginning of the Twentieth Century, when writers were hampered by all sorts of restraints, because---and I'm sure after many years of reading that this is right---restraint is the one characteristic that a ghost story can't do without. 

It's the reason why most of the films that attempt to tell ghost stories miss the mark by such a wide marginl:  the writers can't stop themselves from tipping their hand.  There are, of course, a few exceptions.  Here are some of them;

1. The Haunting (a pretty good 1963 based on the infinitely more infinitely terrifying novel The Haunting of Hill House by the amazing Shirley Jackson);
2. The Others, a 2001 film starring Nicole Kidman that nobody seems to have seen.
3. The Ring (2002), the American version of the Japanese film Ringu, which was actually less frightening because more explicit.
4. Mulholland Drive, the 2001 David Lynch Film, which both is---and is not---a ghost story. 
5. The 1994 Danish television series Riget, directed by Lars van Trier.

I can't think of a single other film that's honestly a ghost story that wasn't ruined by the desire of the author to pile on more and more effects till the whole thing sank of its own implausibility.  And if you don't understand what I mean, just check out the aforementioned Riget and then compare it to Kingdom Hospital, the American version that van Trier and Stephen King seem to have produced.  In Riget, you get strange, happenings, weird sightings, inexplicable developments;  in Kingdom Hospital, you get all that plus a talking anteater and extra ghosts that hang about talking your ear off and sucking out any sense of mystery.   Riget  is both terrifying and immensely funny; Kingdom Hospital, despite some good work by the cast, is plenty funny but the ghostly aspects just get sillier and sillier.  (In fairness, I did like the hilarious Na-Na-Na Hey Hey Goodbye dance and the decapitated cadaver running around searching for its head.)   I'll get to all of these in due course. 

But first:  ghost stories.  By ghost stories I mean principally short stories designed to be read by a reader (not read TO a "reader") and that are constructed by a writer for that purpose.  My primary  goal in posting these notes is first and foremost to direct anyone who stumbles upon these notes to some reading that really will deliver the diversion from reality that we all sometimes seek.   My secondary goal is to give love to writers, and stories, that have entertained me over the years and pleasure to myself in reflecting on them. 

My final goal, a tenuous one, is to prolong the life-span of some stories that people might otherwise forget and the publishers of anthologies neglect.  I don't know anything about how such anthologies are compounded, but my own experience is that most of them deliver only a grain or two of wheat amid much chaff.  And the few gems that the anthologizers discover seem to be selected over and over again, with the anthologizers seldom looking into a particular writer's body of work to see if there are more.  (I'm of two minds about this aspect of anthology building, since there are some supreme ghost stories that I feel should be in EVERY collection).  As i say, I don't really understand how the anthology business works. 

Anyway, to get to the stories.  I plan to approach them randomly, in the order in which the mood for discussion strikes me, since I'm doing out of love and to entertain myself.  I'll do the best I can to link to any resources for people who, having read my note, want to read the actual story---and I say this because I'm pretty sure some of them might be very difficult to track down at present.  Maybe some publisher or editor somewhere will see this and take the hint, and they'll be published again; I'm sure I hope so.  Otherwise, the best I can hope for is to inspire people to want to read these stories (which is the best hope for those that aren't available at present to be reprinted). 

Delicious English Goodness for Fans of British Writers by Columnist and Author Mil Millington.

I have explained at great length and with great enthusiasm all the reasons why you should check out "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About" by Mil Millington, a columnist for The Guardian Unlimited, who got his start based on the magnificence and scope of his ruminations at this site.  There is this site, the resultant books, and a mailing list you should know about, plus the delightful columns in The Guardian Unlimited.   Links, useful information, and commentary supplied at my "Flatland Chronicles" site (plus helpful guidance for my fellow compatriots)!

Please jump here now to read about it.  It's for your own good, you know.   You'll thank me afterward.   

A Bloom County Thanksgiving

image hosting by Flickr.

In a note I posted about Gordon Ramsay in one of my related blogs---click here if you're a Ramsay fan and want to read it---I mentioned a cartoon by Berke Breathed from the very early (as in pre-1983) days of Bloom County.  Thinking about this cartoon got me thinking about my substantial collection of Berkeley Breathed collections, which put me in the mood to pay tribute to them and him. 

It's in one of my other blogs, so if you're a Bloom County/Outlands/Breathed fan, JUMP NOW TO THE FLATLAND CHRONICLES:  A BLOOM COUNTY THANKSGIVING.

It's Always About the Templars: Umberto Eco's FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM (transl. by William Weaver)

Foucault's Pendulum is one of my favorite novels in life.  My copy is dated 1990, so it's been around awhile, and I've read it at least once a year since then.

The main characters are three intellectuals, two editors and one much younger consultant for a publishing house that publishes material dealing---among other things---with occult and esoteric knowledge.  They make up a game that emulates the very special reasoning processes they have learned from certain of their more eccentric authors.  Using their combined learning plus one of those newfangled computers they had back in the mid 1980's, they develop a complete history of the world by a process of connecting bits of arcane information, actual historical fact, and any number of handy fictions and half-baked hypotheses.  Among much else, they learn that once you begin to synthesize...uh, anything really (including "Minnie Mouse is Mickey Mouse's Fiance"), a startling pattern emerges!  And when you put the patterns together, the dots all connect!

Lynda Barry: The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, One Hundred Demons, and Cruddy.

[ published on July 11, 2006 in my previous blog, "The Flatland Oracles"]

The purpose of this blog/blog category is to recommend things to other people that have helped me cope with life's failure to live up to fantasy.  On the list of those who have helped me along the way, Lynda Barry's name ranks near the top.

I first encountered Lynda Barry's comics (essentially short stories in graphic format) at Salon.com, where it is described as a "serial comic."  If you haven't read her comics, you can find One Hundred Demons there---this link is to the last one in the series-----but if you do a search, you'll find the rest of them. 

Second-hand Bookstore Gold: H.H. Munro (Saki)

[published on July 9, 2006 in my previous blog, "The Flatland Oracles"]

*also available free on the internet.

[1]  A few biographical facts about H. H. Munro.

I bought my 1930 Random House Edition of The Short Stories of Saki (with introduction by Christopher Morley) on a grey January day back in 1995.  I was in a most depressed frame of mine.  My husband and I were living in different cities; I had a room at the house of a friend who had just been fired and was taking it out on me; and my husband's job was looking pretty problematic. I needed diversion----I needed to contemplate someone else's troubles.

Since I've had trouble finding the collected stories of two of my favorite short story writers (L.P. Hartley and Robert Aikman), I wondered if it would be similarly difficult for an interested person to procure a copy of Saki's stories.   Happily, the Penguin Classics collection of The Complete Saki (both used and new) is presently available at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  Certainly most libraries should have all or some of his works (or even the same collection that I love so dearly).   

Even better, if you're not sure you want to invest, three of his short story collections are available online at no cost to the reader , including my hands-down favorite, The Chronicles of Clovis.  Most of the stories I recommend below are from the Clovis book.

Updike for the 21st Century: Let Us Praise Him with Faint Damns.

[published on June 13, 2006 at "The Flatland Oracles," my previous blog]

Peter Mehlman: Rabbit Reads. When John Updike gives a talk at the Writer's Guild Auditorium in Los Angeles, it's a big deal, roughly the equivalent of Georgio Armani stopping by the Dockers's showroom. But here Updike was last Tuesday night, all smiles, distinguished gray and Ivy elegance, gliding on stage to discuss literature in a town where full sentences leave a lot of people really wiped out. Drizzling a queasy vapor over the event was Michiko Kakutani's fairly savage review in that morning's New York Times of Mr. Updike's latest novel "Terrorist." On the ticket line, one woman shook her head and said, "How do you chit-chat about your book knowing the audience has all read a review like that?" [The Huffington Post | Raw Feed]

You know, Updike is one of those late Twentieth Century icons whose work I always really felt I ought to like.  His books are cerebral yet sensuous, exalted yet sensual, tender yet deep and incisive, vibrant yet insightful, and a whole host of other contradictory pairs of adjectives that I would readily concede to him (though he'd doubtless prefer to use much more obscure ones).

And the fact is, I do like some of it.  I haven't read all of his novels---there were a couple I just could not manage to make myself read---but I did read a number of them.  There were some I rather enjoyed reading, there are only three I've ever wanted to read again.--and for me, re-readability is the acid test for the book's importance on my personal scale.

"'A Modicum of Blood, Shed Deliberately and Carefully Husbanded.' Ghost Stories---Treat them Gently."

[published on August 13, 2005 at "The Flatland Oracles"]

If you truly need to be taken out of yourself, there’s nothing like a ghost story---a real ghost story, written by someone who understands the art---to make you forget your free-floating anxiety through the study of dread sufficiently subtle and menacing and separate from you to bring your ordinary workaday stress into proper perspective. I’ve spent more years than I care to count searching out the best. But the best ones aren’t easy to track down. Many are out of print or available only in anthologies which are also out of print. You have to track them down, in libraries and used bookstores (now thankfully accessible online). The ones I discuss are well worth the trouble.