M.R James

[HoopyFrood]

Just watched the televised version of "Whistle and I'll Come to You". It actually made me jump. I've watched countless horror films since I was born, practically, and this quiet (literally) tv production did what Hollywood strives for -- every bloody five minutes -- and so simply too. It was the dream. When he's behind the beach...er...fence (I don't know what they've called, don't judge me) and 'cos I've read the story, I had an inkling of what's chasing him and I'm expecting it and then he does that weird yell just when he's about to peer over the wood and you think you're going to see the Thing. Excellent.

And the bit at the end. So quiet and all you can hear the swish and the flap of the sheets.

 

[brsrkrkomdy]

My favorites of M.R. James are:

Count Magnus
The Ash Tree
The Mezzotint
Number 13
Casting The Runes (basis for the classic film, Mark Of the Demon/Curse of the Demon)
Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad

It's been documented that he's a big fan of J. Sheridan LeFanu, Algernon Blackwood, and Erckman & Chatrian. And yeah, he even liked Bram Stoker's Dracula.

 

[Ursa major]

Just one last thing -- did M.R James have a dislike of golf or something...?

Did you ever get a definitive answer?

 

[HoopyFrood]

Alas not, haven't really had time to consider such.

Could've done it as a dissertation...

 

[High Eight]

From a letter James wrote in 1925:

"Tomorrow it is proposed that the Lower Master takes me by car to Worbarrow Bay in Dorset where the Scouts are in camp - it is further proposed that by the camp fire I should read them a story of a terrible nature, which I have made - contrary to my expectation." (the Story was 'Wailing Well' which starts as dark(ish) comedy and ends in pure horror)

I've often envied those scouts - the ultimate campfire tale and teller! (though I bet they didn't get much sleep that night.).

 

[j d worthington]

I've often envied those scouts - the ultimate campfire tale and teller! (though I bet they didn't get much sleep that night.).

No, I would imagine not....

 

[Ursa major]

Anyone visiting Worbarrow Bay when they shouldn't (as if anyone in a horror tale would go where they shouldn't ) may have other reasons not to sleep, although to be fair, I don't think they do much firing at night. As Wiki (Worbarrow Bay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) puts it:

Worbarrow Bay is only accessible when the Lulworth army firing ranges are open to the public.

It's been some time since I was down there, but I would imagine that the place is much the same as it was then, and as it was in the 1940s, one benefit of the army's occupation of the place since then.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

In my preparation to watch Night of the Demon I went looking for my copy of James' stories for a quick refresh, only to discover it was missing

So I started reading "Casting the Runes" online and it's better than I remember him. I read him a long time ago and retained the impression he was one of those boring old Victorian ghost writers. But he's quite good, I noticed what you mean about his characters being commonsensical. He's also quite subtle, letting the reader's mind make up most of the stuff he suggests.

I'll have to buy his stories and reread them again.

 

[Fried Egg]

I read a snippet of S.T. Joshi's criticism of M.R. James and he didn't seem so keep on him. Suggested that he kept the scope of his stories too narrow, disdaining other forms of the weird tale and other writers of the weird.

I must admit that it does seem strange that he confined himself so. He says himself he never wrote anything else other than ghost stories.

 

[j d worthington]

Joshi has, over time, somewhat revised his estimate of James, becoming much less dismissive. When it comes to fiction (save for the novel The Five Jars, which itself has ghostly elements, from what I understand -- I've not read it yet), he did largely keep to the ghost story; but within that field, he had a rather wide range, albeit he tended to avoid the humorous ghost story. (He has comments in some of his nonfiction work on the ghostly tale which tell why.)

But outside of fiction, he did quite a bit of writing, not to mention other types of scholarly work. He was one of the great scholars of biblical apocrypha and the like; was an authority on ancient manuscripts and wrote knowledgeably about them (indeed, until fairly recently, this was what he was remembered for, rather than his ghost stories, save by afficionadoes of the latter), and so on....

 

[Lobolover]

J.D. - I think I posted some similar comments , but do you happen to recall where exactly did James say so ?

One thing I always wondered , as a sidenote . Is there any possibility of Henry and Montague being in some way related ?

 

[j d worthington]

J.D. - I think I posted some similar comments , but do you happen to recall where exactly did James say so ?

I don't have a copy of the essay to hand at the moment but, as I recall, it was in his introduction to the anthology Ghosts and Marvels, edited by Vere H. Collins (Oxford University Press, 1924). At any rate, the exact quotation is:

Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story.

I may be mistaken on the location of the quote, though.

I'd love to have a copy of his A Fearful Pleasure, which collects together all his writings on ghosts -- not only tales, but essays and excerpts from letters, iirc -- but by the time I even knew such a book had been published, it was op and already going for about $600....

Incidentally, here's an essay those interested in James might enjoy perusing:

Ghosts, trains and trams

One thing I always wondered , as a sidenote . Is there any possibility of Henry and Montague being in some way related ?[/QUOTE]

Perhaps, at some remove; but I really have no idea.

 

[Lobolover]

I do wonder if anyone actualy ever researched their possible relation .

Incidently, I may have said so before, but Wakefield agreed on this subject with James . The exact quote, according to Ash Tree Press is

'The Author of "The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" in the preface to one of his books expressed his lively distaste for benevolent ghosts, and ghosts with nice minds. The author profoundly agrees with this sentiment of the master, and, furthermore, he abominates the 'natural' explanation, a poisonous anti-climax. So this much can be said for his tales, that those Who Return therein are animated by undiluted malevolence, and no iconoclastic materialist has been allowed to cast a doubt on their credentials as genuine apparitions.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, Wakefield also took that view, as did (in the main) the Benson brothers. Algernon Blackwood did have some benevolent supernaturalism, but he was one of the few that managed (at least on several occasions) to pull it off -- part of his own mystical belief system, I think, which makes his ghostly and horror tales actually a subset of a much larger set of tales concerned with the numinous or sublime.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I read the Wordsworth edition of James' Collected Ghost Stories at the beginning of this year (having earlier read Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary, which I own in a rather charming old Penguin edition) and I must say that my reactions were largely of the awestruck variety. It's the subtlety of his tales that gets me, the way in which, yes, commonsensical people (a very astute observation) are gradually confronted with something that simply cannot be reconciled with the safe, tidy vision of reality that the story might at first invoke.

'Count Magnus' is a prime example. Strip away James' well-paced, suggestive unfolding of what is going on, and you have a core story that could have been rendered lurid and ultimately less effective in a different treatment. In James' hands, this material is carefully rationed out for maximum impact rather than carelessly squandered in a sensational rush. The horror of the climax is the more effective for standing out in stark contrast against the restrained way in which it is evoked.

I am interested in exploring the Victorian ghostly tale further. I have several multiple-author collections, but what specific authors would people suggest I focus on?

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Oh, look. Here's an interesting speculative essay about the identity of Count Magnus! Who was Count Magnus

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

In what used to be this thread, JDW responded to the above with these words:

Very neat! Thanks for bringing that one in -- I'll have to find some time to actually read the thing this weekend *wanders off muttering about "blasted tight schedules"*....

The Ghosts And Scholars M.R. James Newsletter, apparently now defunct, had a great deal of similarly interesting material, which I have been dipping into from time to time. Here's a link to their online archives (sadly many earlier issues were never archived online): M.R. James and Jamesian News

 

[j d worthington]

Some of that material, however, is available from Hippocampus Press in Warnings to the Curious: A Sheaf of Criticism on M. R. James. (I note that the very essay you brought in is there... I'd forgotten that, as I have yet to read my copy!!!! Yep, fading memory indeed.... Yeesh!)

http://www.hippocampuspress.com/other/warnings-to-the-curious.html

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I'm glad these essays have found a more permanent home.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Not really productive to the conversation, but I thought I'd mention it nonetheless. M.R James Ghost Stories has been lying around the house so I've picked it up a couple of times and read through Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad ('cos I like it). Read the ending last night, forgot how eerie it was with the Sheeted Thing in his room, searching for him. Then last night I had my own Oh, Whistle... dream. Well, it was more of an addition to another dream I was having, as I was at my old school, but I walked past some windows and whenever I looked through I saw a bedroom within, and a weird sheeted thing bobbing next to the beds...Creepy.