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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 19, 2010 22:23:27 GMT
Robert Aickman - The Trains. Oh I really don't know what's going on here, and having read Calenture's notes on this at the start of the thread I'm still none the wiser. This seems to take a terribly long build up and then have a weird payoff (I think the butler is meant to be a woman all along, though) that resolves nothing, creates several mysteries where there were none, and all of this would be fine if it was delciously ambiguous, but I just thought it was all a bit pointless. Sorry Robert - this one really didn't work for me.
Mrs. Gaskell - The Old Nurses Story. This is the third time I've read this and it still works. Here's my note from 'Reign of Terror Volume 1': 'One of the best Xmas ghost stories' says Parry, and he may be right. The plot's the usual sounds-complicated-but-actually-straightforward ghostly affair, but Gaskell conjures some fantastic gothic imagery of the old house snowbound for Xmas. I was so impressed with this I've bought the Penguin Classics version of her stories. I still haven't read it, mind
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Post by dem bones on Jun 19, 2010 22:49:01 GMT
Robert Aickman - The Trains. Oh I really don't know what's going on here, and having read Calenture's notes on this at the start of the thread I'm still none the wiser. This seems to take a terribly long build up and then have a weird payoff (I think the butler is meant to be a woman all along, though) that resolves nothing, creates several mysteries where there were none, and all of this would be fine if it was delciously ambiguous, but I just thought it was all a bit pointless. Sorry Robert - this one really didn't work for me. it was the first Aickman story i ever read and - imagine the bewilderment! there i was, getting along famously with the likes of The Voice In The Night and all the rest of the relatively trad ghost and horror stuff on offer - even Three Miles Up wasn't too tough - but The Trains! Oddest of all, i really liked it without ever really having a clue what he was on about. several of Aickman's stories would later leave me equally baffled, often not quite as pleasantly so. i note opinions are divided over Pages From A Young Girl's Journal and its probably telling that i adore what i'd agree is one of his less challenging stories (though i'm also a fan of his other award winner, The Stains). i've a feeling that , were there enough of us to run a poll, both The Trains and Pages ... would feature in 'Best Aickman story' and 'Worst Aickman story'.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 20, 2010 7:37:41 GMT
i've a feeling that , were there enough of us to run a poll, both The Trains and Pages ... would feature in 'Best Aickman story' and 'Worst Aickman story'. Quite possibly! If you run the poll I'll be there, and Lady P is working her way through the stories I have in paperback as the Tartarus books are too bloody huge so I'll pass on her comments as well.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 20, 2010 8:20:37 GMT
maybe we need to think about some alternative to straight polls as, the Wordsworth ones apart, there's rarely been enough of us to participate. Perhaps a blunt 'Best Aickman/ Worst Aickman' thread would be better? i'd certainly love to have Lady P.'s take on it all. And may i take this opportunity to belatedly congratulate her magnificence on winning the Whitechapel Society's short story competition with the fetching Jack the Ripper story From Hell to Eternity! can't remember exactly where, but i recall some very negative response to another of Aickman's relatively straight stories, Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale, his mildly erotic take on Sweeney Todd, in Kirby McCauley's superlative Dark Forces anthology. The reviewer was very "Oh no, no, no! what's he playing at? this isn't Robert Aickman!" Me, i hugely appreciated it as a far easier read than, say, The Cicerones, though even i, who have no interest in such matters, can tell which is the "better" story.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 20, 2010 12:00:31 GMT
I'm going to be somewhat obvious and predictable, and suggest "Ringing The Changes" as a front-runner for best Aickman (but having backtracked on "Pages..." after re-reading it, I might change my mind again). Have to say, the ones I didn't enjoy have all kind of blended into one horrible and confusing mess inside my head... I don't know if I can manage to read through them again just to decide which one I enjoy least.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 20, 2010 13:04:07 GMT
And may i take this opportunity to belatedly congratulate her magnificence on winning the Whitechapel Society's short story competition with the fetching Jack the Ripper story From Hell to Eternity! Lady P sends her thanks! My favourite Aickman would be 'Ringing the Changes' as well - perhaps an obvious choice but it's the one that scared me the most.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 20, 2010 23:32:36 GMT
can't remember exactly where, but i recall some very negative response to another of Aickman's relatively straight stories, Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale, his mildly erotic take on Sweeney Todd, in Kirby McCauley's superlative Dark Forces anthology. The reviewer was very "Oh no, no, no! what's he playing at? this isn't Robert Aickman!" Me, i hugely appreciated it as a far easier read than, say, The Cicerones, though even i, who have no interest in such matters, can tell which is the "better" story. I really liked "Mark Ingestre" too! "Growing Boys" is another story which seems to get a lot of flak - admittedly it's closer to a Chetwynd-Hayes story than an Aickman tale, but luckily I like both authors. I quite liked "Pages", but whenever I read vampire tales (especially ones about female vampires), I always end up judging them against "Carmilla", which is probably deeply unfair. I love "The Trains", despite / because of the ending, which almost seems to have been bolted on by another writer - I've read reviews which claim that the ending is intended as a Gothic pastiche (make of that what you will). Personally, the only Aickman story that I actively hate is "Rosamund's Bower" - as far as I know, it was only published posthumously, so maybe if it had gone through another draft it would be tolerable. Maybe. That aside, I think that some of the very short tales ("The Waiting Room", for example) feel a bit throwaway, and "Never Visit Venice" spends rather too long on a whinge about the modern world to be very effective. Choosing the best is much harder - "The School Friend", "Choice of Weapons", "A Roman Question", "My Poor Friend", "Marriage", "The Fetch", "The Cicerones", "The Visiting Star"... oh, and "Ringing the Changes"! And then there's The Late Breakfasters, which should really be reprinted by someone.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 21, 2010 8:06:50 GMT
your post has put me to shame Jonathan as i realise i've not read four of your best selections while no copy of Rosamund's Bower has ever crossed my path. i've read Growing Boys but, quite probably, well before i was ready for it (i had an aversion to No Stronger Than A Flower - "what's that doing in a book of HORROR stories?" - only to find it stimulating when i took the time to re-read it a couple of years back).
Here are thirteen i got on well with. the bias is clearly toward his more, uh, commercial offerings with plenty from Cold Hand In Mine.
Ringing The Changes The Hospice Meeting Mr Millar Pages from a Young Girl's Journal Ravissante Your Tiny Hand is Frozen The Inner Room The Swords Wood The Fetch The Trains The Visiting Star The Stains
i need to re-read him. perhaps a splurge later in the year ....
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 21, 2010 9:50:10 GMT
And finally...
Walter de La Mare - Seaton's Aunt. I'm obviously missing something here as there are good write ups of this one all over the net but I'm afraid it didn't do anything for me at all. Perhaps I need to read it again, or perhaps after the Aickman I'd had enough of 'obliquely strange' and needed something more conclusive to round off the volume. Any suggestions as to why I haven't appreciated what is obviously a highly thought of story would be gratefully received!
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 21, 2010 10:25:58 GMT
And finally... Walter de La Mare - Seaton's Aunt. I'm obviously missing something here as there are good write ups of this one all over the net but I'm afraid it didn't do anything for me at all. Perhaps I need to read it again, or perhaps after the Aickman I'd had enough of 'obliquely strange' and needed something more conclusive to round off the volume. Any suggestions as to why I haven't appreciated what is obviously a highly thought of story would be gratefully received! It's never really done it for me either. I haven't read much de la Mare, but there's a couple of his stories that I would rank way above "Seaton's Aunt" - my favourite is probably "A:B:O" (which you can download from the Horrormasters website). It's a much more conventional horror story - but I find it really very creepy. I'm not really surprised Aickman liked "Seaton's Aunt" though - it's seems to me to be something he could have written himself. "Oblique" is a good word for it (some see it as a vampire tale, of sorts).
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Post by dem bones on Jun 21, 2010 10:39:24 GMT
i found Seaton's Aunt to be one of his more accessible, albeit gloomy offerings and was pleasantly depressed rereading it for the purpose of this thread. John, if you've not done so already and get the opportunity try his Mr. Kempe - it's more horror than ghost story, perhaps my favourite De La Mare (though i believe i'm in a minority there?) and, i'd hazard, it is more up your street.
Dr Strange; yes, A.B.O. is a brilliant one. funnily enough, i'm currently reading Shaun Hutson's treatment of the same theme. it's slightly .... different. Crewe did it for me when i first read it many moons ago and i've a soft spot for the no frills, traditional Bad Company too.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 21, 2010 11:01:33 GMT
[I'm not really surprised Aickman liked "Seaton's Aunt" though - it's seems to me to be something he could have written himself. "Oblique" is a good word for it (some see it as a vampire tale, of sorts). I read elsewhere that it is thought by some to be a vampire story & that's yet another aspect of it that went over my head. It's not the first time that's happened, though - there's a Robert Aickman vampire tale where I completely missed that it was one as well! Thanks for the de La Mare recommendations though gentlemen - I shall chase those up and maybe, just maybe, we could get a de la Mare thread going as well
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 21, 2010 11:02:11 GMT
yes, A.B.O. is a brilliant one. funnily enough, i'm currently reading Shaun Hutson's treatment of the same theme. it's slightly .... different. I can imagine! Not sure when de la Mare wrote "A:B:O", but I think it's one if his early ones, and might have been quite daring at the time? Crewe did it for me when i first read it many moons ago and i've a soft spot for the no frills, traditional Bad Company too. Yeah, those are both good ones too. The other one I remember is "All Hallows" - which I remember as being like Aickman impersonating MR James.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 21, 2010 20:30:10 GMT
I haven't read much de la Mare, but there's a couple of his stories that I would rank way above "Seaton's Aunt" - my favourite is probably "A:B:O" (which you can download from the Horrormasters website). It's a much more conventional horror story - but I find it really very creepy. Many thanks Dr Strange! I downloaded A:B:O this afternoon and I thought it was excellent! By turns witty (almost eccentrically so) and chillingly scary. It was absolutely my cup of tea!
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Post by monker on Jun 22, 2010 6:15:59 GMT
There's an intimation in 'Seaton's Aunt' that I did not pick up on at first reading when the protagonist approaches the old battleaxe at the end which suggests it could be a ghost story.
I just read it as a story about a strangely domineering old women who perhaps has subtly supernatural powers of perception and other abilities undisclosed that make her insufferable and ultimately malignant. The 'vampirism' is perhaps just readers trying to fill the gaps. I've read "All Hallows" as well and found it atmospheric but I thought that there was a lot of religious talk in it that, I admit, either went over my head or was ultimately pointless, probably the former. I think I'd enjoy some of his others more but I'm not sure about A:B:O; I'm getting mixed messages about that one.
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