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Post by ian38018 on Mar 7, 2015 17:17:46 GMT
Anyone any thoughts on this one?
THE MARKET-GARDENERS
By Robert Duncan
Two youths talk their way into the house of Abraham and Mary, a childless, married couple in their mid-thirties. They tie-up Abraham and younger youth rapes Mary, before the two intruders leave without “taking what they came for”.
Nine months later Mary gives birth to little Henry, and all three live happily ever after.
I recall upon first reading this one around forty years ago being really rather puzzled as to what it was all about, beyond the suggestion that rape (both the act and the sequelae) could actually be a positive thing.
Re-reading it for these scribbles, I felt it deserved additional scrutiny to attempt to winkle out any hidden clues. So here goes:
The husband’s name is Abraham which may suggest he is Jewish, and he clearly has been subject to some not dissimilar experiences in the past: “It was the old animal, the nastiness, seeking him out again in his peaceful retreat”. Were he and Mary both holocaust survivors?
That Mary is so quick to get into things, either she is a sexually frustrated woman who has been waiting for this experience for some time, or perhaps the whole situation is some complex sex-game being played by all four individuals. Does Abraham get a kick out of being restrained whilst his wife is mock-raped? This does appear most unlikely.
Perhaps less unlikely, but only marginally so, is that the whole encounter is a set-up by Mary in order to become pregnant. Given Abraham has clearly has been firing blanks for the thirteen years of their marriage, this would be one way of conceiving without raising suspicions. But I acknowledge even this theory is fanciful.
And yet, there is no mention of Abraham and Mary contacting the Police once the youths leave, and their decision not to terminate the resultant pregnancy may suggest some level of compliance on the part of one or both of the couple.
But who knows?
Whilst I am at it: who exactly are The Market-Gardeners? Although it is stated that this is the profession of the couple, there is other stuff going on. The younger intruder, the one who commits the rape, just beforehand talks about “frosty ground” and the author describes him as “working over the soil”. He is the one who succeeds in fertilizing Mary – something Abraham has been unable to do.
And the there is, we presume, his son little Henry, who grows up to be a successful gardener with a “talent for making things grow”.
All very confusing, but I think Duncan, in the manner of David Bowie when writing The Bewlay Brothers probably intentionally penned a riddle without a solution, just for the fun of it.
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-eleventh-pan-book-of-horror-stories.html
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Post by erebus on Mar 7, 2015 20:14:06 GMT
Just had a good read through of your blog on the Pan books. Excellent work, very enjoyable and well written and described breakdowns of each story. Superb stuff, Well Done.
As for The Market Gardeners. For me its a load of pointless twaddle.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 8, 2015 8:41:32 GMT
Hi Ian. I enjoyed your deconstruction of The Market Gardeners far more than the story itself. On realising that it was only three-and-a-bit pages long, gave TMG another try and, subtext or otherwise, it just leaves me cold. You might be onto something re the husband's name (though personally, strikes me it was chosen to identify the couple as Jews and, yes, holocaust survivors). Inspired by your post, I revisited his other contribution to the series, The Evil One (#10), directly afterwards. He seems to have a thing for Biblical imagery and some form of "good" coming of an evil act, does Mr. Duncan!
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Post by ian38018 on Mar 10, 2015 22:14:52 GMT
I had never really picked up on the similarities between Duncan's two yarns, but you are quite correct. There is a bit of a Good from Evil theme going on.
What was your take on this one:
THE CLOCK
By Edwin Brown
Nine-year old Elizabeth longs to grow-up and, on the advice of a creepy yet persuasive stranger she meets on the street, persuades her father to buy her a particular clock for her room. And the clock actually does its job, but rather too well.
A grim (as opposed to Grimm, I suppose) fairy-tale this one and, on the surface at least, a warning of the Careful-what-you-wish-for type. But I cannot help but wonder if underneath it all there is something even more sinister going on, with Elizabeth’s premature ageing perhaps being a metaphor for loss of childhood innocence consequent to unstated sexual abuse by her father.
An impression reinforced I feel by that chilling “But first, Elizabeth…” interlude.
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-22nd-pan-book-of-horror-stories-1981.html |
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Post by dem bones on Mar 11, 2015 0:21:37 GMT
I'm not sure there's any ambiguity to The Clock. For me its a properly sinister story extremely well told. The father is a bit of an enigma, I'll grant you, but even so!
I like all three of Edwin Brown's PH contributions. Wonder if he was an actual flesh and blood entity or yet another case of a series regular writing under a pseudonym?
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Post by ian38018 on Mar 11, 2015 22:44:43 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 12, 2015 8:02:07 GMT
Just read through the blog. Really well done. Good incisive summaries. |
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Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2015 9:58:13 GMT
Just had a good read through of your blog on the Pan books. Excellent work, very enjoyable and well written and described breakdowns of each story. Superb stuff, Well Done. Just read through the blog. Really well done. Good incisive summaries. Agreed, and the ground-hopper blog, Caledonia Dreaming is a thing of beauty too (seriously, Kendall Town's Cosyseal Stadium looks very impressive by level 7 standards). Consider yourself double bookmarked, Mr. Ian! Have been racking my 'brain' for an ambiguous Pan Horror story suggestion. Thought I'd nailed it with William Sansom's The Man With The Moon In Him except the story no longer strikes me as ambiguous at all. Back to the drawing board. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 12, 2015 16:47:37 GMT
Yes, Dem. That site completely won me over as Tynecastle was the first ground our horror champion attended...Good taste on all counts.
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Post by pulphack on Mar 12, 2015 18:56:58 GMT
And he's seen the O's in one of their few good periods! As well as the Pan and footy blogs, that gig blog of Ian's is worth a look! Good stuff, and a good man to have aboard.
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Post by ian38018 on Mar 19, 2015 9:40:45 GMT
Craig
I never I suppose expected any PBoHS writer to actually stumble upon my scribblings, and your name had me frantically scrambling back through my pages in the hope I had given your tale a positive review - which I think I generally have. Not that my inane ramblings should be of the slightest import to a real writer, of course.
I was more than a little delighted to note you are also a musician, and feel I must attend a gig to write up in the "Starstruck... " blog.
Then all I would further require would be for you to get yourself into the Hearts' first team, and you could attain the surely unique position of appearing in all three of my rather culturally diverse blogs.
Regards
Ian
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-29th-pan-book-of-horror-stories-1988.html |
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Post by ian38018 on Mar 19, 2015 12:47:16 GMT
..............and here is another maddeningly vague one.
Anyone got any further ideas on what has gone on?
OBSESSION
By Miranda Seymour
Mallet, an antique collector, purchases an 18th century mirror from a dealer (known as the Jackdaw). The buyer becomes obsessed with the previous owner of the item, a girl named Rose Marie Leigh who died in 1918 aged just twenty. He convinces himself he occasionally catches glimpses of her in the mirror, and yearns to see a collection of letters written by the girl which the Jackdaw claims to possess.
The pair occasionally lay flowers on the girl’s grave, but when Mallet breaks a promise by visiting the cemetery alone, the Jackdaw breaks off their acquaintance. But this just increases Mallet’s obsessive desire for the letters.
A beautifully and intelligently written yarn which scatters all sorts of clues around – I loved The Aspern Papers reference - but leaves most of them unresolved, so the reader has to utilise a bit of grey matter to come to his/her own conclusions.
My own interpretation for what it is worth is that Rose Marie and the Jackdaw (we learn his real name is James Leigh) were twins, and that the Jackdaw raped and murdered his sister fifty-or-so years earlier. Now deceased (perhaps executed) his ghostly form (he does not reflect in the mirror) is earthbound until the mirror is destroyed; something, for whatever reason, he is unable to do himself.
In selling the mirror to Mallet he sets in motion a chain of events which he knows will lead both to the destruction of the mirror and his subsequent release from whatever limbo existence he has found himself in.
Quite who the chap breaking down the door at the end of the tale is though, I have not got a clue.
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-24th-pan-book-of-horror-stories-1983.html
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 19, 2015 18:47:41 GMT
Craig
I never I suppose expected any PBoHS writer to actually stumble upon my scribblings, and your name had me frantically scrambling back through my pages in the hope I had given your tale a positive review - which I think I generally have. Not that my inane ramblings should be of the slightest import to a real writer, of course.
I was more than a little delighted to note you are also a musician, and feel I must attend a gig to write up in the "Starstruck... " blog.
Then all I would further require would be for you to get yourself into the Hearts' first team, and you could attain the surely unique position of appearing in all three of my rather culturally diverse blogs.
Regards
Ian
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-29th-pan-book-of-horror-stories-1988.html I am a mere cipher in the Pan Pantheon. David Riley is also on here - an inspiration to me - and I've no doubt he'll have a peek at the site. I had a look at your review and it was splendid. The only mistake you made was in assuming I was good enough to have meant those jumps in the plot. In reality I spent hours agonizing over them because I couldn't think of a way of doing it properly. I also hated the weak 'Asia' section but there you go. As to Hearts I'll be there in April on the terracing. I had the good fortune to sing in the stadium a couple of times but that's the only contact I'll have with the magic turf. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Mar 19, 2015 22:23:24 GMT
Craig
I never I suppose expected any PBoHS writer to actually stumble upon my scribblings, and your name had me frantically scrambling back through my pages in the hope I had given your tale a positive review - which I think I generally have. Not that my inane ramblings should be of the slightest import to a real writer, of course.
I was more than a little delighted to note you are also a musician, and feel I must attend a gig to write up in the "Starstruck... " blog.
Then all I would further require would be for you to get yourself into the Hearts' first team, and you could attain the surely unique position of appearing in all three of my rather culturally diverse blogs.
Regards
Ian
pandaemonian.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-29th-pan-book-of-horror-stories-1988.html I am a mere cipher in the Pan Pantheon. David Riley is also on here - an inspiration to me - and I've no doubt he'll have a peek at the site. I had a look at your review and it was splendid. The only mistake you made was in assuming I was good enough to have meant those jumps in the plot. In reality I spent hours agonizing over them because I couldn't think of a way of doing it properly. I also hated the weak 'Asia' section but there you go. As to Hearts I'll be there in April on the terracing. I had the good fortune to sing in the stadium a couple of times but that's the only contact I'll have with the magic turf. I already took a look at that splendid site. davidandrewriley.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/pandaemonian-scribbles-on-pan-book-of.htmlCheers David |
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