The Flatland Almanack

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 15 August 2007. The Ghost Chill Factor #4. "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (Ambrose Bierce).

"The Death of Halpin Frayser" is one of my favorite ghost stories of all time and---in my opinion---Bierce's best.  It concerns a mother/son relationship very much in line with the most disturbing Victorian model and its conclusion is as chilling as any ghost story in history. 

In my review, I first recap the story (which is fairly short, but very complicated) and then provide my own interpretation of the story (which appears to hinge on events that are briefly alluded to by two subsidiary characters or lightly passed over by the author).  To read more, go to Just Eat the Damn Peach....

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 18 March 2007. The Ghost Chill Factor 3: "Lost Hearts" (M.R. James).

  Continuing to recap and review my favorite classic ghost stories, there seemed a natural progression from How Love Came to Professor Guildea to "Lost Hearts" by M.R. James.  I started with this story partly because though he's my favorite writer of ghost stories, "Lost Hearts" is NOT one of my favorites.  In some respects, it's always struck me as sort of an outlier, very different from the others.  Yet it is a peculiarly horrifying story that takes (for James) an unusually violent turn.  (And the best part is that you can read it for free online!

TO READ MY REVIEW OF THIS CLASSIC GHOST STORY, AND TO LINK TO IT DIRECTLY, JUMP NOW TO JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 15 March 2007. The Ghost-Chill Factor 2: "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" (Robert Smythe Hichens).

I enjoyed reviewing the Burrage story so much that I decided to do another review right away.  This one recaps and discusses one of my favorite ghost stories of all time, the unspeakably creepy and bone-chilling How Love Came to Professor Guildea by Robert Smythe Hichens. 

If it were written by a contemporary author....well, it wouldn't be, I guess, because a contemporary author would never be content to leave the sexual element unstated, and it's the fact that it IS unstated that gives the story its creepy quality.  We only know how this haunting goes down from what little information we get from an exceptionally discreet, rationalistic, scientific man.  He tells us enough for us to form an idea, but what we see is the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

M.R. James believed that an effective ghost story must create a little distance between the reader and the event ("a slight haze of distance" I believe is what he said) and---I know I keep harping on this----reflect restraint.  It's only the restraint and discretion with which this ghost-story is told that keeps disgust and (frankly) the reader's basic sense of ridiculous from getting the upper hand.  Because the writer was writing in 1900, he had to keep this story of a particularly invasive haunting vague.  Its vagueness gives it its horror.  But if you want to know what's really goiing on, keep your eye on that parrot....
 

To read the review (and get a link to a site where you can read the story yourself for free), JUMP TO JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 14 March 2007. The Ghost Chill Factor 1: "Smee" (A.M. Burrage).

The first ghost story I chose to review was the great classic "Smee" by A.M. Burrage, not because it's my favorite----there are a number of stories I personally prefer---but because it's one of the best examples of the classic ghost story that I can think of. 

"Smee" deals with dread and primitive terror in the midst of the most civilized sort of diversion, a merry game of hide-and-seek on Christmas Eve at an English country house party sometime back in the early, innocent part of the century.  The elements of sexual revulsion give the story additional depth and additional terror.  But the story isn't like a contemporary ghost story.  You never see the ghost, except as a sort of shadow flitting across the characters' perceptions.  You only sense her oppressive, dreadful, increasingly threatening presence.  Whereas  if the had been written by, say, Steven King, there'd undoubtedly be all sorts of nasty charnel house stinks and she'd grin and caper and screech catchphrases in italics if not in capitals.

And I don't mean to dis King, because he's turned out some kick-ass stories of his own, but I've heard or read or otherwise inferred that he feels that people don't take him seriously enough, even though he basically owns the whole horror writing genre.  (So, SK, this is the reason (and you explain it yourself in one of your essays about ghost-story writing):  you think it's necessary, sooner or later, to trot the ghost out and make it go booga-booga-booga.  And that sort of effect is shocking the first time, but people eventually build up a tolerance to it. 

The reason The Shining is a great ghost story novel is because whatever is generating the horror at the Overlook is just vague enough to leave behind a trail of residual dread.)   And I don't understand why a writer of his caliber can't see why Riget is so much more frightening (though admittedly a lot less funny) than Kingdom Hospital, which was based on Riget:  the shivery bits in Riget are really vague and are over in a flash.   Which is also the reason why The Ring was a great ghost story and the sequel was just a run-of-the-mill made-you-jump "thriller." 

In my review I discuss the story, and give away the ending (which any contemporary reader can see coming from a mile away in any case) but what I can't do, even by excerpting the key scene is deliver the punch or the impact of reading it from start to finish, so that you're not only in the company of the narrator, but actually in his shoes as the story unfolds.  In other words, (to quote E.F. Benson) I'm serving up the recipe and not the dish itself.  Which is, of course, my intention.  You should read this story for YOURSELF.

To read my review, jump to JUST EAT THE DAMN PEACH.

Just Eat the Damn Peach for 13 March 2007. The Ghost Chill Factor--A New Undertaking.

Out of love and for no other reason, I've decided to add to my blogging repertory a series (and probably a lengthy one) of reviews and commentary on my favorite ghost stories.  A lot of them will be the great classics of all time---I started with A.M. Burrage's Smee for example-----but I'll also cover some that are fairly obscure, and possibly hard to find.

What is the objective of all this?  Love, mainly, as I said.  I don't understand how anthologies are selected and created, and at a given time, there are never enough of them.  Furthermore, there are naturally only a finite number of stories that are truly first-rate, and the anthologists all naturally want to claim them for their own. 

In addition to the great classics from the early Twentieth Century, I'll certain address stories by contemporary writers such as Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Ramsey Campbell (especially Campbell).  But the ghost stories that interest me, and that really work as ghost stories (in contract to "horror" stories) are not the same as "horror fiction."  That is to say, they certainly involve the element of horror, but in most of the best stories, the horror is psychic, moral, and spiritual.  Sometimes a vengeful spirit may succeed in bringing about the death of a character, but elements of violence are passed over lightly, and there is little focus on the gory/charnel house details that modern writers (and readers) seem to relish. 

The focus of these stories is a slow creeping fear and horror that the characters cannot control, do not understand, and generally try to deny.  These are stories you won't want to think about when you wake up in the night.   And in tracking them down, to the extent I've been successful, I've proceeded with expectations informed by the criteria suggested by the great M.R. James (one of the finest ghost story writers of all time and not to be confused with that other great writer of ghost stories, Henry James).

Maybe by reminding the world of the existence of these stories I'll be successful in ensuring they don't disappear.  To find them, you really have to sift through a fair amount of chaff.  Even if you succeed in tracking down the work of the great writers of ghost stories, some of their output won't live up to the very best of it.

I hope people who read my reviews will take the trouble to track down the stories for themselves.  Some are easily located; others take some work.  I'll provide links to people who have done some of the footwork, but that's really all I can do.  I hope it's enough!