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Post by humgoo on Jun 11, 2019 18:00:47 GMT
Having just read all of M.R. James's ghost stories in the collection edited by Darryl Jones, I saw no sexual imagery or connotations of any kind (despite what Jones states in his his introduction). I can't remember what he says exactly in the introduction. I only remember that, after reading the introduction, and finding a glaring typo in one of the stories, my copy (which was not really cheap as far as I can remember) went to the charity shop directly (people in my region don't really read books, so it must have been recycled as waste paper by now). I must have been very angry! And overreacting, in retrospect. But he must have said something quite annoying.
Why couldn't they have found a more appreciative editor like Micheal Cox? Even if Rosemary was too busy for that, there must have been other people who fitted the bill, I suppose.
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Post by samdawson on Jun 11, 2019 21:01:06 GMT
MR James wouldn't be MR James if he was filling his stories with sexual imagery. The very idea!
Similarly, I remember attending the premiere of the Tractate Middoth Ghost Story for Xmas at the NFT and Mark Gatiss (who had added rather modern humour and a Halloween style ending to his adaptation) saying that of course MR had this great sense of humour and all his stories contained jokes.
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 12, 2019 8:07:26 GMT
Having just read all of M.R. James's ghost stories in the collection edited by Darryl Jones, I saw no sexual imagery or connotations of any kind (despite what Jones states in his his introduction). I can't remember what he says exactly in the introduction. I only remember that, after reading the introduction, and finding a glaring typo in one of the stories, my copy (which was not really cheap as far as I can remember) went to the charity shop directly (people in my region don't really read books, so it must have been recycled as waste paper by now). I must have been very angry! And overreacting, in retrospect. But he must have said something quite annoying.
Why couldn't they have found a more appreciative editor like Micheal Cox? Even if Rosemary was too busy for that, there must have been other people who fitted the bill, I suppose.
Darryl Jones is now writing a biography of M.R. James. I can't help it - I'm filled with forebodings!
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 12, 2019 8:09:51 GMT
MR James wouldn't be MR James if he was filling his stories with sexual imagery. The very idea!
Similarly, I remember attending the premiere of the Tractate Middoth Ghost Story for Xmas at the NFT and Mark Gatiss (who had added rather modern humour and a Halloween style ending to his adaptation) saying that of course MR had this great sense of humour and all his stories contained jokes.
Not sure whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with Gatiss there. It's true that MRJ did indeed have a great sense of humour and all his stories contain jokes. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, in fact. ... I tell a lie: jokes are few and far between in downbeat stories like "A Warning to the Curious", but others are filled with humour.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jun 12, 2019 12:42:45 GMT
I can't remember what he says exactly in the introduction. I only remember that, after reading the introduction, and finding a glaring typo in one of the stories, my copy (which was not really cheap as far as I can remember) went to the charity shop directly (people in my region don't really read books, so it must have been recycled as waste paper by now). I must have been very angry! And overreacting, in retrospect. But he must have said something quite annoying. Why couldn't they have found a more appreciative editor like Micheal Cox? Even if Rosemary was too busy for that, there must have been other people who fitted the bill, I suppose.
Darryl Jones is now writing a biography of M.R. James. I can't help it - I'm filled with forebodings! I've just re-read Darryl Jones's introduction, which is fine apart from the Freudian interpretation that uses "evidence" for conclusions that wouldn't hang a cat. No doubt, Freud will feature only too obviously in the biography that I would still be interested to read. As for the typo, very few books are printed without typoes these days.
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 13, 2019 8:01:37 GMT
Darryl Jones is now writing a biography of M.R. James. I can't help it - I'm filled with forebodings! I've just re-read Darryl Jones's introduction, which is fine apart from the Freudian interpretation that uses "evidence" for conclusions that wouldn't hang a cat. No doubt, Freud will feature only too obviously in the biography that I would still be interested to read. As for the typo, very few books are printed without typoes these days. Jones's story annotations are actually a great deal better and more useful than his introduction. He's the first to have looked at the manuscript of "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" and found that the setting of the tale (B---) was originally going to be Bicester (of all places). So all credit to him for that.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 13, 2019 9:38:08 GMT
I've just re-read Darryl Jones's introduction, which is fine apart from the Freudian interpretation that uses "evidence" for conclusions that wouldn't hang a cat. No doubt, Freud will feature only too obviously in the biography that I would still be interested to read. As for the typo, very few books are printed without typoes these days. Jones was banging the Freudian drum at the York conference last year. The only folk who still use Freud's fantasies ideas to interpret stuff are well outside of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has a hell of a lot to offer those in mental distress, but as part of a package of interventions (i.e., with social work &/or medication &/or anxiety management training &/or CBT &/or lots of other things too). And like any treatment in medicine it needs to be evidence-based and patient-focussed rather than the one size fits all Freudian gospel that is imposed on the patient. In any case, it's completely impractical; if you see a therapist for an hour a week for a year, which, believe it or not, is a short course of therapy in Freudian terms, that means that, with a 40-hour working week, the average Freudian analyst will see at most 40 patients a year. Or just 1,200 over an entire 30-year career. That's almost as many as were referred to the unit I worked in in a small part of Yorkshire in one year... But explains its popularity in USA, as their healthcare system loves patients who pay up regularly every week for ages and don't get better. Or, in other words, if you try to base your entire approach on the gospel according to the theories of an uptight, Victorian empire builder who only ever saw a small number of untypical very rich patients in Hapsburg Vienna, you don't get very far. Apologies for the rant, btw.
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 13, 2019 10:45:57 GMT
I've just re-read Darryl Jones's introduction, which is fine apart from the Freudian interpretation that uses "evidence" for conclusions that wouldn't hang a cat. No doubt, Freud will feature only too obviously in the biography that I would still be interested to read. As for the typo, very few books are printed without typoes these days. Jones was banging the Freudian drum at the York conference last year. The only folk who still use Freud's fantasies ideas to interpret stuff are well outside of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has a hell of a lot to offer those in mental distress, but as part of a package of interventions (i.e., with social work &/or medication &/or anxiety management training &/or CBT &/or lots of other things too). And like any treatment in medicine it needs to be evidence-based and patient-focussed rather than the one size fits all Freudian gospel that is imposed on the patient. In any case, it's completely impractical; if you see a therapist for an hour a week for a year, which, believe it or not, is a short course of therapy in Freudian terms, that means that, with a 40-hour working week, the average Freudian analyst will see at most 40 patients a year. Or just 1,200 over an entire 30-year career. That's almost as many as were referred to the unit I worked in in a small part of Yorkshire in one year... But explains its popularity in USA, as their healthcare system loves patients who pay up regularly every week for ages and don't get better. Or, in other words, if you try to base your entire approach on the gospel according to the theories of an uptight, Victorian empire builder who only ever saw a small number of untypical very rich patients in Hapsburg Vienna, you don't get very far. Apologies for the rant, btw. No need to apologise. Everything you say is spot on (and I love your final paragraph). As much as possible Ghosts & Scholars is a Freudian no-go zone.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 13, 2019 11:27:23 GMT
No need to apologise. Everything you say is spot on (and I love your final sentence). That's most kind of you. I should probably have added that it also helps if your therapist isn't a cocaine addict himself...
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 13, 2019 13:06:34 GMT
As much as possible Ghosts & Scholars is a Freudian no-go zone. Yes, well, you know what Freud would have said about that...
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Post by humgoo on Jun 13, 2019 16:58:35 GMT
He's the first to have looked at the manuscript of "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" and found that the setting of the tale (B---) was originally going to be Bicester (of all places). So all credit to him for that. Now I do regret getting rid of the book in such a hurry (and fury), "The Story of a Disappearance ..." being a favourite of mine! (I don't know why it ranks so low in the G&S survey ... but then I also like "Two Doctors" very much.)
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 14, 2019 8:14:26 GMT
He's the first to have looked at the manuscript of "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" and found that the setting of the tale (B---) was originally going to be Bicester (of all places). So all credit to him for that. Now I do regret getting rid of the book in such a hurry (and fury), "The Story of a Disappearance ..." being a favourite of mine! (I don't know why it ranks so low in the G&S survey ... but then I also like "Two Doctors" very much.) I like them both too. These more opaque, obscure MRJ stories tend to grow on you (well, me, anyway) on multiple readings.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jun 14, 2019 12:46:32 GMT
Now I do regret getting rid of the book in such a hurry (and fury), "The Story of a Disappearance ..." being a favourite of mine! (I don't know why it ranks so low in the G&S survey ... but then I also like "Two Doctors" very much.) I like them both too. These more opaque, obscure MRJ stories tend to grow on you (well, me, anyway) on multiple readings. When I last re-read MRJ's stories it was with the intent of putting them into order of merit. I'm never going to bother with "Martin’s Close" or "There was a Man who Dwelt by a Churchyard" (though both have good points, I just don't like them) or "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance", "The Experiment" or "Two Doctors" (all three of them being feeble in the extreme) again. These are the stories I have started to re-read again, starting from the bottom up (and what will Freud make of that?): An Episode of Cathedral History The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral Count Magnus The Ash-Tree Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance Wailing Well The Residence at Whitminster Casting the Runes A View from a Hill “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, my Lad” The Uncommon Prayer-Book The Tractate Middoth The Treasure of Abbot Thomas Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book A Neighbour’s Landmark Number 13 A Warning to the Curious The Mezzotint Rats An Evening’s Entertainment A School Story The Haunted Dolls’ House Lost Hearts The Rose Garden The Diary of Mr Poynter The first four are excellent.
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Post by humgoo on Jun 15, 2019 15:19:03 GMT
These more opaque, obscure MRJ stories tend to grow on you (well, me, anyway) on multiple readings. I don't really find them obscure. They always strike me as carefully constructed tales. People don't like them just because there's things left unexplained in them? MRJ seems to have made a point to not explain everything in a story, I think. Well, at least that's opened the door to the pre/sequels and the wonderful G&S articles!
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