Recommendation: The Strangers & Other Writings by Robert Aickman

Robert Aickman’s The Strangers And Other Writings is the first ‘new’ collection by Robert Aickman since the posthumous publication of Night Voices in 1985. The Strangers contains seven unpublished stories, a selection of non-fiction, and two poems. It also comes with a DVD documentary about the writer (which I haven’t had chance to watch yet). Aickman was undoubtedly one of the finest writers of the supernatural and uncanny of the last century, but if you are a reader new to him then this collection isn’t the place to start (try Cold Hand In Mine or The Wine Dark Sea, both recently reissued by Faber). Instead, this handsomely produced but pricey volume is a book for those who are already Robert Aickman aficionados and want to learn more about his growth and development as a writer. The stories are arranged chronologically in the order they were written, and it must be said they get much better as the book progresses.

The earliest piece (from 1936) is called The Case of Wallingford's Tiger and is a story about a pet tiger kept by an Englishman which promptly goes missing. The slight, predictable plot and reliance on dated colonial tropes mean this is the weakest story in the volume; an inauspicious start. Yet, even at this young age, Aickman’s prose shows flashes of his mature style: precise, cool, knowing. The Whistler is a darker tale, which starts to introduce the uncanny and Aickman’s famed ambiguity. But here the ambiguity is, more properly speaking, just frustration. This isn’t the mature Aickman, showing us a picture full-on thus tempting us to think we can decipher it, it’s a young Aickman showing us half a picture knowing full well it isn’t enough.

A Disciple Of Plato seems to suggest a route not taken for Aickman’s fiction, reading more like Henry James than anything else (and I mean the James of The Bostonians say, not The Turn Of The Screw). It’s about a famous historical figure posing as a ‘philosopher’ in 18^thCentury Rome, meeting a woman on her way to live in a convent. It’s a decent story, if not spectacular, with Aickman’s prose now fully up to the task of telling it. But there’s a spark, a flair, missing; it’s perhaps for this reason Aickman never wrote more in this vein.

With The Coffin House, things improve dramatically. A short but perfectly formed supernatural tale, it starts with two women on a walk who seek shelter in a strange dwelling… Aickman fans will of course recognise this set up from The Trains, but The Coffin House is very much its own beast, and the steady accumulation of strange, unnerving details is masterfully done. The ending is unexpected, both in terms of the story itself and in the context of Aickman; the twist seems to owe as much to the pulps as Aickman’s more literary influences. But its no less chilling and effective for that.

The Flying Anglo-Dutchman reads almost like a pastiche of Aickman’s more well-known tales: two people encounter ‘the strange’ but are left almost blithely unaffected, more concerned with such mundanely English details like tea and the times of the next trains. There’s something almost wistful about the tone, and it would no doubt be annoying if it were any longer. As it is, it serves as the perfect palate cleanser for the next story…

The Strangers – so here it is. The title story. The motherlode. What we all hoped we’d find in this book but were secretly afraid we wouldn’t – a long (50+ pages), never before published Robert Aickman ‘strange story’ masterpiece.  So it feels on first reading anyway. Certainly no one else but Aickman could have written this, with its conventional, staid narrator dragged into events he (and we) scarcely understand, its disturbing yet intriguing visual imagery, its dream-like surrealism rendered even stranger by Aickman’s matter of fact telling. Quite why he never saw fit to include this story in any of the volumes published during his lifetime is a mystery, for it is superb.

The Fully-Conducted Tour is an anomaly, a story written to be read aloud on BBC Radio 4, about the mysterious events that befall a group on a tourist visit to a stately home. It’s an effective piece, with the introduction blurring the lines between Aickman himself and the narrator, giving you the initial impression that Aickman is in fact telling you of something that actually occurred to him. Until events become so strange that you conclude that’s not the case; at least one hopes not.

The two poems in the book, Pimlico and Thea have a similar feel to A Disciple Of Plato about them – slight but promising pieces that indicate a direction Aickman could have taken his writing in, but ultimately did not; which anyone who is a fan of his strange stories must be grateful for. The non-fiction covers a broad range of subjects: films, rivers and waterways, Oscar Wilde, Animal Farm and accounts of supposedly true supernatural occurrences. Naturally it is all well written and interesting, although I suspect the majority of readers will be reading these pieces for what light they shed on Aickman’s life and fiction than the subject matter itself. In this regard Introduction To A Proposed Ghost Story Anthology is most interesting, being a forerunner to Aickman’s fascinating ruminations on the supernatural in fiction that he developed in his introductions to the Fontana anthologies.

Overall then, Tartarus Press should be commended for this volume, which sheds so much light on Aickman’s development and missteps as a writer, as well as providing us with the fine stories The Coffin House, The Flying Anglo-Dutchman, and The Fully-Conducted Tour, along with the stellar, sublime, wonderful The Strangers.

Recommendation: Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas

I've read a number of stories by Simon Strantzas in yearly best ofs and the like, but Nightingale Songs is the first solo collection of his I've tried. Given what I'd read before I was expecting something special, stories literate and creepy in equal measure. And I wasn't disappointed.

But before I talk about the stories themselves, it's regrettable but I must mention that this book had the worst formatting error I've yet seen in an ebook. I say 'formatting' but in fact it was worse than that: the entire ending to a story was missing, and instead appeared as part of the final paragraph of the following story, thus ruining the climax of both. What a shame. (I downloaded the Kindle version over a year ago; hopefully other formats aren't affected and the Kindle version has been corrected by now.)

Anyway, with that unpleasantness behind I can say that the stories that weren't mangled were fantastic examples of strange, ambiguous, supernatural fiction. Aickman's influence is often to the fore, fortunately not in a superficial way - indeed second story Her Father's Daughter may well be the best example I've read of a writer assimilating Aickman's influence whilst retaining their own voice. A story that combined elements of both feminist and Freudian psychology (although Aickman hated Freud) into a compelling psychic landscape of strange car accidents, reclusive sisters and a flatly ambiguous ending, this was one of the best stories I've read so far this year.

Other highlights included Pale Light In The Jungle and An Indelible Stain Across The Sky (what a title!) which owed something to Ramsey Campbell's style of paranoia built from metaphoric connection whilst, again, remaining completely Strantzas's own story. Mr. Kneale by contrast was a black, black comedy taking swipes at literary conventions and success, but still having a core of horror beneath. Nearly all the stories were impressive, and personal favourites will likely vary. Only Everything Floats was a slight disappointment to me, beautifully written and atmospheric but building towards an ending all too predictable.

An excellent collection, then. I notice Strantzas has had another collection of short stories released since Nightingale Songs, and given how satisfying these tales were I'll surely be picking that up soon.

Review: Night Voices - Robert Aickman

I've not reviewed any Robert Aickman books on this blog before, despite how much I admire his writing. The final Tartarus Press reissue of his work is a fine time to rectify that. Night Voices was originally published as a posthumous collection which gathered together Aickman stories not available elsewhere. This lovely Tartarus edition omits The Trains (which they reprinted elsewhere) but adds the novella The Model, a selection of Aickman's non-fiction writing, and Robert Remembered by Ramsey Campbell - a nice tribute.

It starts brilliantly - The Stains is a classic Aickman story, with his trademark slow build, exquisite prose, and tantalising symbolism. That sense that more is being implied that is said. It's a showcase of Aickman's ability to delineate a realistic, English setting and characters but yet evoke a faint, surreal sense of disquiet. I don't want to spoil the plot, but I will say the stains themselves are one of Aickman's more hideous little touches.

Just A Song At Twilight is almost as good; a shorter tale with an ending that took me by surprise. I like the fact that Aickman can still surprise me; that I don't yet know all his tricks and techniques. This is the first one I'll reread, seeking out all those tantalising Aickman details...

After that strong start, I have to say the rest of the short stories were definitely second-rate (the presence of The Trains is missed). Aickman, even second-rate Aickman, is always worth reading and his prose is always a pleasure, but I found Laura a somewhat derivative retelling of a common supernatural trope, and I must confess that all I took from a Rosamund's Bower was a sort of pleasurable bafflement. Mark Ingestre: A Customer's Tale is better, another of Aickman's patented 'strange stories' but not quite first-rate, covering themes Aickman did better in  his masterly The Swords. Nevertheless it's a suggestive tale and the historical setting is a nice change.

The novella The Model is an interesting read, but nothing like Aickman's other fiction, being a picaresque tale set in pre-revolutionary Russia, about a young girl who wants to be a ballerina. It's not a realistic piece, having a dream-like, fairytale atmosphere. It was a lovely journey, but I can't say I felt I actually arrived anywhere.

The non-fiction section of the book largely consists of Aickman's series of introductions to the Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories series, which he edited. Taken together, they form a virtual manifesto of the ghost story, which Aickman is at great pains to distinguish from the horror story. Although I disagree with a lot of what he says, the manifestos of geniuses are always fascinating. Suggestive ideas abound; I will quote just one:

"I should like to suggest that the now the word 'ghost' should be seen more as the German geist: that ghost stories should be concerned not with appearance and consistency, but with the spirit behind the appearance..."  

These essays are full of such gems, and any writers of horror (sorry, Robert!) are certain to find much to think over, much inspiration.

Overall, this book is like one of those rarities albums bands release when they're no longer together - interesting to the fans and obsessives, but hardly the best place to start for someone new. Night Voices contains much of Aickman's brilliance but, for this reader, some misfires and duds as well . If you're new to Aickman, start with Cold Hand In Mine or Dark Entries. But if you're already under his spell, you'll find nothing in this volume to break that spell; Aickman was one of the best there's ever been, it's simple as that.

Robert Aickman Word Clouds

So, I've been participating in a fabulous group read of The Wine Dark Sea by Robert Aickman - no need to explain to regular readers how much I admire Aickman's stories, I'm sure I've banged on about him often enough...

Anyway, I wanted to do a post about some of the stories in the book, and I've decided to do something a bit different. Because reading Aickman is so subjective I'd hesitate to offer my interpretation of one of his stories as definitive; so (with their permission) I've decided to use other people's words from the group read to create these 'word-clouds' for the title story and for The Trains. The phrases are just ones that struck me from the discussion, be they people's view on what the story meant, or other stories it reminded them of, or whatever. The idea was to get a more impersonal, multi-layered, ambiguous description of each story than if I'd just waffled on myself.

I think the results look quite good, and if there's a positive response I'll probably do a couple more.

The Wine Dark Sea

The Trains

Big Bulky Horror Novels for Halloween

Halloween is an odd time of year, when people who never normally watch horror movies or read ghost stories seem to find an excuse to do so. The webpage of a national newspaper might discuss a short story by Robert Aickman, and a respectable broadcaster might devote an hour to an informed discussion of European horror films.

 

I'm probably guilty on this blog of discussing the more obscure aspects of horror fiction, at the expense of commercial books that a wider audience will have heard of. So in tribute to Halloween and the temporary mass celebration of all things scary, I've decided to do a post on my favourite BIG horror best-sellers. These were the kind of books that introduced me to the genre when I was a teenager and it’s unlikely I’d be reading Aickman & Co. if I’d not read the likes of King and Simmons first.

 

I've imposed some strict rules on my selections here: no tricksy post-modernism (sorry, House Of Leaves); no psychological ambiguity (bye bye Turn of The Screw and Hill House); nothing old (stop moaning,  Doctor Jekyll And Mister Hyde) and no short stories or novellas (adiós just about every weird, under-appreciated book I've ever featured here). Instead, these are the block-busters. The writers of cracking action scenes with unambiguously evil villains. At least three have been made into movies, and the other two should be.

 

I guess it’s obvious from the above that this list would include King, so I thought I might as well start with him. IT is probably my favourites of his horror novels, and it exemplifies the kind of book I'm talking about here: vast, with a sprawling cast of characters, and a ‘big bad’ who has been responsible for decades of fear in the Maine town (of course) of Derry. The story takes place across two timelines – the characters repeat scenes from their childhood as flawed and weaker adults… King’s handling of this, and the creepy effects associated with time repeating itself, are a highlight of the novel and really call into question those people who think he can’t write with any subtlety. (Just because the books I'm talking about here are big bulky blockbusters doesn't mean they’re big bulky dumb blockbusters.)

 

For me, Ghost Story is Straub’s best book by a country mile – forget the singular title, this book should really be called Ghost Stories, containing as it does multiple stories told by a group of old men know as the ‘Chowder Society’. Straub takes the Stephen King approach of using an American small town as a setting for his horrors, and as a microcosm of society as a whole, but this is distinctly his own style. As the story progresses it becomes clear that each of the individual ghosts and monsters are just facets of the real evil; that each of the separate stories being told, are in fact just elements of one story after all.

Probably the most ‘arty’ book in this list, and arguably not horror, being told as it is from the point of view of a monster. But there are bigger monsters in this tale than the vampire doing the talking, and the real horror may be the slow falling away of his humanity… I like this book for it’s lavish set pieces (the whole book is nothing more than a series of set pieces, really) and the darkly luxurious feel of the prose, particularly in its descriptions of night-time New Orleans and Paris. Maybe this was the start of the trend towards Twilight and everything bad associated with that, but here the vampires still have a decadent, almost nihilistic  edge. (Everything else I've read by Rice, including the sequels to this, I've not liked at all.)

 

An absolute whopper of a book, which has a premise that makes it sound like the worst tripe imaginable: ‘mind vampires’ have been controlling human affairs for decades. But this was back when Simmons was at the top of his game (by contrast his last book was one part plot to nine parts Tea Party ranting) and he plays the idea of mind vampires with a completely straight bat. They become almost the ultimate villain, responsible for humanity’s evils both big and small. And like all the best villains they are completely compelling. The odds seem ridiculously stacked against the human heroes and despite the simple good versus evil plot, the book has an air of desperation in places that makes it stand out.

 

The most recent book on the list and yet another one about vampires. I don’t know if Lindqvist has read Interview With The Vampire, but given it’s English-language ubiquity it at least seems likely he might have. One of the minor characters in that book might have been the inspiration for this one – a child vampire. A creature that has lived for centuries but still has the body of a kid. In some ways this is the darkest of the books in this list, with its setting of an 80s Swedish housing estate, and its background themes of addiction and child-abuse. In this setting the child-vampire is only partly horrific, and the tale of her relationship with a lonely schoolboy has a real emotional core, twisted and bleak, but there. The kind of book that gives best-sellers a good name.

Feel free to mention your own big bulky favourite horror novels in the comments...

Weird Tales; PD on Smashwords; BIG Skeleton

Book Review: The Modern Weird Tale by S.T. Joshi

I do enjoy books about the theory of horror fiction, particularly those that focus on newer authors - most academic textbooks are slanted towards older, 'gothic' works. There are few books around which deal with modern horror in an intellectually robust way, but S.T. Joshi's are among the best of those that do.

The Modern Weird Tale is the follow up to The Weird Tale and The Evolution of the Weird Tale, and it is mainly concerned with authors from Shirley Jackson onwards. Joshi basically groups the writers into two camps - those he likes (people like Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, and TED Klein) and those he doesn't (mainly 'bestseller' authors such as King, Anne Rice etc.) There are also some writers discussed that it is downright odd to classify as 'weird' - Thomas Harris?

The main flaws in the book show when Joshi discusses writers he doesn't like - he seems to think he is skewering them with objective barbs, whereas viewed from the outside the subjectivity of his tastes is obvious. Thus Stephen King is castigated, in part, because his characters are middle-class people with middle-class woes. "Who cares about people like this?" Joshi says, without every wondering how that sentence would sound applied to any other social group... Similarly The Exorcist and its explicitly Christian viewpoint doesn't square with Joshi's atheism, and so by his logic must be a flawed book... Of course Joshi is quite entitled to like what he likes (and often I agree with him) but his apparent belief in his objectivity is annoying.

The most aggravating issues occur when Joshi critisizes an author he doesn't like for a 'flaw' that he is happy to ignore when applied to writers he does like. So some of Stephen King's stories come under fire for not explaining how and why the supernatural in them came to be - a claim that could be made against no end of weird fiction, including lots of those featured here.

Fortunately, Joshi is far, far better at explaining why he loves writers he loves - the chapters on Ramsey Campbell, TED Klein and Shirley Jackson alone are worth the price of the book. Here he really shines, highlighting themes and connections that I missed even on books I've read loads of times. I've never read any Thomas Tyron, but Joshi's discussion of The Other and Harvest Home really makes me want to - his writing is infectious in these sections, erudite but not dry, pointing out strengths (and weaknesses) of books with clarity and accuracy. (Only the chapter on Robert Aickman is somewhat disappointing, largely because Joshi seems unsure quite what to make of him...)

So - a good book to argue with, but a better one to be inspired by.

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In other news, Penny Dreadnought: Omnibus! Volume 1 is now available from those good folks at Smashwords (as well as Amazon UK | US). Rejoice!

And finally.... is this the best set for anything ever?

A Dream about Robert Aickman

A Dream about Robert Aickman

Last night, I dreamt I was in a bookshop. All the books were on rotating carousels; they were square and very thin with covers seemingly made of canvas or some sort of woven fabric. They only displayed the author’s name on the front, not any titles, and to tell who the book was by you had to run your fingers over the embossed writing like Braille.

I was turning the carousel looking through the books and I wondered why there weren't any by Robert Aickman. As soon as I thought this, the carousel (which turned of its own accord) presented a book to me; I traced Aickman's name on the cover and then opened it.

All the pages were folded into each like the leaves of a map, but a thousand times more complicated and intricately layered. As I unfolded more and more pages I held them up to the light, and the paper was tough but almost see through, like an insect's wing. Each page spawned more and more pages. The next might have writing in all the alphabets of the world, or diagrams that drew themselves, or colourful illustrations like the Book Of Kells, or brand new periodic tables, or anatomical drawings of imaginary creatures.

I looked around the bookshop, and all the other people there had similar books open, their open pages unfolding and connecting like paper streamers between us. Everyone was smiling and everyone was reading, and I knew I’d never be able to shut the book that was opening and opening in my hands.