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Post by dem on Mar 23, 2009 14:11:25 GMT
Kingsley Amis - The Green Man (Penguin, 1990: originally Jonathan Cape, 1969)  Photo: Barry Boxall
And there are skeletons in the cupboard of Allington’s own domestic affairs - just rattling to get out."The main one was somebody called Dr Thomas Underhill who lived here in the later seventeenth century. He was in holy orders, but he wasn't the parson of the parish; he was a scholar who for some reason gave up his Cambridge fellowship and bought this place. He's buried in that little churchyard just up road, but he nearly didn't get buried at all. He was so wicked that when he died the sexton wouldn't dig a grave for him, and the local rector refused to officiate at his funeral. They had to get a sexton from Royston, and a clergyman all the way from Peterhouse in Cambridge. Some of the people round about said that Underhill had killed his wife, whom he used to quarrel with a lot, apparently, and he was also supposed to have brought about the death of a farmer he'd had trouble with over some land deal ..... both these people were murdered all right, half torn to pieces, in fact, in the most brutal way .....""Tale of supernatural terror meets sex-farce" ...... It's all going so well for Maurice Allington, genial, alcoholic landlord of charming country gastro-Pub The Green Man, Fareham, Hertfordshire. As a distraction from his day to day duties, Maurice is on the verge of cracking it as far as persuading understanding wife Joyce to join he and bit-on-the-side Diana in a three-in-a bed romp. But just lately, Maurice has been seeing ghosts, relatively benign ones to begin with, but these are merely the warm-up acts for powerful seventeenth century Black Sorcery wizard Dr. Thomas Underhill who is soon making a nuisance of himself in Maurice's affairs. Maurice realises that Underhill has grim designs on the life of his young daughter Amy - perhaps the only person on earth he truly cares for - but what chance has he against a dead man who can - and does - raise that most destructive of nature's forces, the Green Man itself? Despite his unashamedly Jamesian approach to his ghost story, Amis crams it with incident and introduces so many spectres that the reader's attention has little chance of wavering. At one point, time literally stands still for all but Maurice and his latest guest, a nondescript young man who, it transpires, is God, and, to put it bluntly, not somebody you'd wish to invest any faith in. As to the feted "domestic affairs": There was much feverish anticipation when the BBC2 ran it's three-part adaptation as the sub-plot involving Allington's (Albert Finney) attempts to get wife Linda Marlowe to agree to sharing a bed with he and Sarah Berger came to a head. Maurice eventually gets his wicked wish, but should have realised that, with luck like his, it was always going to go * ahem* tits up ... The Penguin edition does the job, but really, you'll want either or both of the Panther editions from 1971, the first featuring gorgeous cover artwork by Brian Frowde, the second what looks like a left-over from the Confessions Of A Taxi Driver shoot.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 23, 2009 15:33:05 GMT
I watched the BBC version of this fairly recently, after it was shown during one of BBC4's Christmas ghost seasons, having read the novel (the Finney cover, though those other two are brilliant, particularly the Panther one which in no way suggests that it's a creepy ghost story), and it's a pretty good adaptation (which numbers amongst its cast Reggie Oliver, whose own ghost stories have been mentioned more than a few times in the Vault), but I was disappointed that it didn't have a proper appearance from the Green Man himself - aside from some Evil Dead-like tree action.
Also worth mentioning is the 1970s ITV adaptation of Amis's semi-sequel to "The Green Man", "The Ferry Man". Jeremy Brett plays a writer (basically Amis), who finds himself and his wife staying in an inn with a remarkable resemblance to the titular location of his supernatural novel "The Ferry Man", populated by characters who are all alarmingly familiar to Brett. If this really IS his fictional location become real, will his story's ghost turn its attentions on the landlord's teenage daughter?
Amis's short story can be found in Peter Haining's "Late Night Television Horror Omnibus".
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Post by dem on Mar 24, 2009 12:05:09 GMT
It's also also reprinted, as Who Or What Was It?, in both Richard Dalby's Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories Volume 2 and Haining's Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories. The Panther covers are ace, ain't they? Funnily enough, the one they used for the second edition was originally sidelined for an M. R. James collection but the expected 7th reprint failed to materialise. Honest.  |
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 24, 2009 13:29:34 GMT
Ah, yes, the tie-in to the sadly unproduced "Confessions of an Antiquary".  |
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 24, 2009 13:47:20 GMT
Funny you should mention books that failed to appear for whatever. The Supernatural Cleft Palate Society managed to ban this particular tome:   |
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Post by carolinec on Mar 24, 2009 16:09:07 GMT
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 24, 2009 16:36:22 GMT
This one caused outrage when it was released and was quickly shelved. You'd be lucky to get this rare book for less than £150 nowadays.  sorry for hijaking Dem...  |
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Post by dem on Mar 24, 2009 18:31:21 GMT
You've done it again, Dem! I did nothing, madam! All credit belongs to the diligent researcher at Panther who consulted Mr. James' original manuscripts. As you're aware, further uncorrected proofs have since resurfaced in the British Fantasy Society limited edition booklet, There Was A Man Dwelt By A Churchyard ... (1987) |
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Post by carolinec on Mar 24, 2009 20:17:17 GMT
You've done it again, Dem! I did nothing, madam! All credit belongs to the diligent researcher at Panther who consulted Mr. James' original manuscripts. As you're aware, further uncorrected proofs have since resurfaced in the British Fantasy Society limited edition booklet, There Was A Man Dwelt By A Churchyard ... (1987) I know I've said it before - but you are brilliant, Dem! * thinks to self: "I don't know what's come over me lately - I keep complimenting Dem" *  |
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 24, 2009 20:55:29 GMT
Robin Askwith is M.R. James in "The Haunted Dolly-bird's House"!
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 24, 2009 21:04:38 GMT
I did nothing, madam! All credit belongs to the diligent researcher at Panther who consulted Mr. James' original manuscripts. As you're aware, further uncorrected proofs have since resurfaced in the British Fantasy Society limited edition booklet, There Was A Man Dwelt By A Churchyard ... (1987) I know I've said it before - but you are brilliant, Dem! * thinks to self: "I don't know what's come over me lately - I keep complimenting Dem" * my genius goes by unnoticed....  |
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Post by carolinec on Mar 24, 2009 23:53:37 GMT
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Post by dem on Mar 25, 2009 0:38:04 GMT
Huh! You say that as though it's a bad thing.  Now, if you want to see it done properly, longmire and his readers sure have their moments ... Anyway, i should just like to point out that Kingsley's The Green Man is proper and everybody should buy it, likewise the complete works of M. R. James (except these ones)! Robin Askwith is M.R. James in "The Haunted Dolly-bird's House"! Lurks, if ever film cried out for extras provided courtesy of Vault of Evil ... |
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 25, 2009 7:45:22 GMT
Doesn't the fella onThe Green Man surrounded by the ladies look like Randy Quaid? So THAT'S what he's been doing since the roles all dried up...
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 25, 2009 10:06:44 GMT
Dem - you should set up a 'covers that should have been' thread...  |
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