Erckmann-Chatrian - The Invisible Eye

[Johnlprobert]

The Invisible Eye by Erckmann-Chatrian (Ash-Tree Press 2002)

Introduction by Hugh Lamb

The Invisible Eye
The Owl's Ear
The White and the Black
The Burgomaster in Bottle
My Inheritance
The Wild Huntsman
Lex Talionis
The Crab Spider
The Mysterious Sketch
The Three Souls
A Legend of Marseilles
Cousin Elof's Dream
The Citizen's Watch
The Murderer's Violin
The Child Stealer
The Man-Wolf
APPENDIX: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Books.

This lovely hardcover volume hardly counts as a pulp paperback but oh my goodness the contents does! For anyone who wants to sample their (Emile Erckmann and Louis Alexandre Chatrian -two authors you see) brand of nastiness look no further than their tale 'The Child Stealer' in Michel Parry's Reign of Terror Volume 2, as it's a pretty fair example of what these guys wrote. They certainly seem to have a thing against grubby old ladies as they often feature as the villains in these stories.

The Invisible Eye: Anyone who's read HH Ewers' story The Spider (and if not why not - it's superb) will get a serious case of deja vu here. People keep hanging themselves from the stanchion of a public house sign. They've all stayed in the same room at said public house and now our hero decides to stay there too. The room faces a house on the opposite side of the street, from the window of which stares on evil ugly mad old woman. Could she be responsible for their deaths?

The Owl's Ear: Here's a weird one. Strange noises in a local crypt (lovely descriptions of the descent into it by the way) reveal a mad scientist who has been experimenting with a revolutionary micro-ear trumpet that magnifies sounds. A bit like Ray Milland's Man With X-Ray Eyes but with ears this of course doesn't end well.

The White and the Black: Gredel Dick commits suicide (another recurring E-C theme). It's all the fault of her family but other than that I can't remember much about this one even with it sitting beside me.

The Burgomaster in Bottle: An absolute classic! Haunted booze! Hedonistic Hippel swigs from a bottle of possessed wine and finds himself reliving the life and death of a local burgomaster. Probably the only ghost story I have ever read where exorcism is acheived by urination. And it's the ghost's grave that gets pissed all over. M R James would have been unimpressed. Pulp fans should rejoice.

My Inheritance: A warning about taking the money rather than pursuing that which you truly love. Composer Kaspar inherits his uncle's house, lands, and a plethora of ghosties that convince him to bugger off back to Berlin to get an opera off the ground.

[dem bones]

The Ash Tree is clearly a beefed up version of his earlier collection: another undeserved revival from Vault Mk. 1!

Hugh Lamb (ed.) - Best Tales Of Terror Of Erckmann-Chatrian (Millington, 1981)

The Crab Spider
The Murderer's Violin
The Invisible Eye
The Child Stealer
My Inheritance
The Mysterious Sketch
The Owl's Ear
The Three Souls
The Wild Huntsman (aka The Forest House)
The Man Wolf

So how come they deserved an entire anthology to themselves?

Because they were pioneers is the easiest answer to that one.

M. R. James rated them. Lovecraft once said of The Invisible Eye "Few short tales contain greater horror.", and Hans Heinz Ewers liked it so much that he rewrote it, nastied up, as The Spider. Truly horrible, The Child-Stealer anticipates the crimes of Fritz 'The Hanover Vampire' Haarmann, and, if you've ever endured Clive Barker's Dread, try The Three Souls for its Victorian equivalent.

The dictates of the time insisted upon a happy ending, but the narrators certainly went through a Hellish time getting there.

* The thread in question, Best Tales Of Terror Of Erckmann-Chatrian gets miles better after that. *

French language edition of the novel known to English speakers as The Man Wolf (Casterman, 1980). Cover art and interior illustrations are the work of Jean-Claude Luton.