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Post by dem on Nov 22, 2012 21:17:36 GMT
E. F. Benson - The Flint Knife; Further Spook Stories (Equation, 1988) Selected and Introduced by Jack Adrian. The Flint Knife
The Chippendale Mirror
Dummy On A Dahabeah
The Friend In The Garden
The Light In The Garden
The Witch Ball
The China Bowl
The Shuttered Room
The Box At The Bank
The Return Of Frank Hampden
The Ape
Sir Roger de Coverley
The Red House
Through
The Passenger.
Bibliography and Acknowledgements.Edited by the man who may or may not be aka 'James Montague' of Worms fame, the other name in the frame being Chris Lowder. Jack Adrian's fascinating introduction - during the course of which he nails Fred as a misogynist - provoked a minor controversy on the letters pages of the Ghost Story Society Newsletter (#3, 1990), to which Mr. Adrian reacted angrily. Whether or not you agree with his argument, the essay is an early highlight. The Flint Knife: ( Hutchinsons, Dec. 1929: Ghost Stories, May 1930). Harry Pershore part-demolishes a walled section of his estate to create his very own secret garden. His friend, our narrator, warns against this, having identified a slab of black rock in the flowerbeds as an ancient sacrificial altar. Pershore persists regardless until sure enough, the new garden comes under siege from swarms of bloated flies, while a robed and hooded trespasser is forever lurking at the altar. When the plants inexplicably wither and die, Harry, suspecting vandalism, resolves to spend a night behind the enclosure and catch the culprit in the act. The Chippendale Mirror: ( Pearsons, May 1915). Five months after 'the Wimbledon Mystery' which saw Mrs. Yeats brutally slain in her bed by assailant unknown, Hugh Grainger purchases an antique mirror from a Putney junk-shop. The mirror - which hung in the victim's bedroom - has recorded Mrs. Yeats murder in all it's grisly glory. The guilty party, who happens to be in Hugh's employ, is stood before the glass so he can appraise his performance. The Witch Ball: ( Woman's Journal, Dec. 1928/ Weird Tales, Oct. 1929). Another junk shop find, this time by Margery Kingwood while shopping in Tillingford, Sussex, with cousin Bill. As both saw the witch-ball at the same time, they toss a coin for its ownership. Margery wins but her husband, Hugh, a psychic, wishes she hadn't. The following day, Margery finds her dream home on the marsh. Hugh likes it even less than the witch ball. "There's a wicked, unquiet atmosphere in the kitchen garden particularly: it's steeped in horror of some sort." The house, known as 'Beetles', has but recently been put on the market by Mr. Woolaby, whose wife disappeared, presumed drowned, two years ago. Hugh and Bill use the witch-ball for a spot of crystal-gazing, and sure enough, the glass first bubbles black then clears to show the garden out back of 'Beetles' and a woman entangled in the roots of a willow tree. She doesn't remain there for long .... A variation on The Chippendale Mirror plot. The ghost - one of Benson's ghastliest - is well worth waiting for.
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Post by dem on Nov 23, 2012 18:23:19 GMT
Three more: the first, gentle but classy, the second gentle mundane, the third nasty!
The Friend In The Garden: (The Story Teller, Aug. 1912) "There's only one thing I look forward to in life and that's the end of it." So speaks, Jack Dennison, a rich, successful, otherwise healthy thirty-something. It is no pose. His existence has been entirely bereft of happiness since faithful wife ran off with ever-loyal best pal, and now Jack lives out the days shut away in a Thameside mansion.
His mischievous sister Helen drops by with husband, Dick Ainger on her way to a geography-themed fancy dress party (she's going as the Pole Star). So when that evening a figure in white approaches him in the garden, Jack naturally assumes it is Helen, masquerading as the Angel of Death to bring a smile to his face.
Sir Roger de Coverley: (Woman, Dec. 1927). Christmas Eve, and the narrator is spending the holiday in snowbound Sussex as the guest of his sister and brother-in-law at their new home, a former coaching inn with all-important haunted ballroom. Margery has gone all out for a Dickens-themed Christmas, striving for a convivial, cod-Victorian atmosphere to lure the spectres from hiding. Tony, a scientist currently engaged in pioneering radio work, is happy to indulge her as he wishes to put a pet theory to the test.
The Passenger: (Pearsons, March 1917). An evening bus-ride from Piccadilly Circus passing through to Hyde Park Corner during the closing years of the first world war. Benson has the upper deck to himself, or thinks he does. An invisible presence brushes past him, and from nowhere there's a passenger propped in the front seat. Conductor William Larkins has a guilty secret.
Dummy On A Dahabeah: (The Story-Teller, June 1913). "Tom and I were on our way to join Harry Brookfield. Six months ago he had lost his wife. She had been dressing for a ball in London and her dress caught fire. She died in a few hours."
The life of the idle rich on the eve of the Great War. Narrator and pal Tom Soden travel to Egypt to join the recently bereaved Mr. Brookfield. Harry refuses to even mention his wife's name, though it's clear she's never far from his thoughts as they honeymooned on the Nile in this very boat. Not being the most imaginative bunch, the gents pass the time with endless games of whist. Tom is rubbish at cards, doesn't even understand the rules, but it's soon apparent that his dummy partner is on top of her game.
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Post by dem on Sept 16, 2018 8:36:46 GMT
The Ape: (The Story Teller, May 1917). "Hughie, what a bore everybody else is except you and me." Hugh Marsham buys the broken remnant of a blue glaze statuette depicting Cynocephali, the dog-faced ape, at a Luxor bazaar. Just as he hoped, it compliments the half of the same relic he found earlier in the Valley of the Kings! Professor Rankin, the eminent Egyptologist and student of Occult lore, deciphers the inscription. "He of whom this is, let him call on me thrice - and I, Tahu-met, obey the order of the master." He warns the young man against ever summoning the God.
Hugh is besotted with the Professor's niece, Julia Draycott. Julia, who has designs on snagging Lord Paterson for husband #1, plays on his infatuation while laughing at him behind his back. When Hugh learns of their affair, he calls upon Tahu-met to give them grief.
My first thought was he'd blown the ending, but on reflection, it ends on an appropriately melancholic note.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 16, 2018 16:41:31 GMT
All those stories sound stellar. But they are not in my big fat The Collected Ghost stories of E. F. Benson. ... grrrr. *SIGH* I have stopped collecting, I thought my book collection was complete. *SIGH*
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Post by dem on Sept 16, 2018 16:51:02 GMT
All those stories sound stellar. But they are not in my big fat The Collected Ghost stories of E. F. Benson. ... grrrr. *SIGH* I have stopped collecting, I thought my book collection was complete. *SIGH* .... and Jack Adrian has since located yet more uncollected Benson ghost stories. No idea why these were overlooked during EFB's lifetime as many are at least equal to the collected works. |
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 16, 2018 23:18:00 GMT
Amusing to note just how many characters in these stories are called Hugh. And if not Hugh then Arthur. Caritatem fraternitatis caritatem, as one of Fred's loafer narrators might have said.
Some of these stories are a bit too contrived for my taste, but "The Ape" is plain great. The ending is maybe a little underwhelming but that's probably because I'd mentally prepared myself for a "Williamson" style consequence to it. Certainly wouldn't have put it past women-hating-Fred.
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 16, 2018 23:38:59 GMT
All those stories sound stellar. But they are not in my big fat The Collected Ghost stories of E. F. Benson. ... grrrr. *SIGH* I have stopped collecting, I thought my book collection was complete. *SIGH* I feel your pain, just ordered a copy of The Flint Knife.....that ominous creaking sound must just be the floorboards expanding.....my overfull bookshelves couldn't be slowly and menacingly advancing upon me as I sit in front of my screen..... |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 17, 2018 13:26:01 GMT
While I'd like to read The Flint Knife again, I think my copy of it ended up with Richard Dalby!
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Post by dem on Sept 17, 2018 20:40:22 GMT
A Some of these stories are a bit too contrived for my taste, but "The Ape" is plain great. The ending is maybe a little underwhelming but that's probably because I'd mentally prepared myself for a "Williamson" style consequence to it. Certainly wouldn't have put it past women-hating-Fred. But was he? Publication of The Flint Knife sparked "a frank exchange of opinions" on the subject of EFB's alleged misogyny over three consecutive issues of The Ghost Story Society Newsletter (#3-5 : June 1989-May 1990), with "Jack Adrian" standing his ground, Cynthia Reavell and Maureen Porter equally persuasive in disputing his conclusions. Seemed to me that once he'd calmed down (his letter began with a closely argued 6 million word wild swipe at Hugh Lamb) Mr. Adrian put forward a decent argument, but so too did his detractors - who were a damn sight funnier about it ("Jack Adrian somehow equates homosexuality with misogyny which is to wildly misunderstand the nature of both states"). "Woman-hating-Fred"? The jury is probably still out. Must admit, I thought The Ape was headed in a similar direction. I mean, it's a horror story. Benson has seemingly created this despicable Julia character purely for the purpose of destroying her, and nobody's going to shed too many tears when Hugh lets loose the demon ape. Except - well, you've read the ending. Seemed like a cop out [to me] at the time, but now it feels just right. |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 17, 2018 20:59:02 GMT
I feel your pain, just ordered a copy of The Flint Knife.....that ominous creaking sound must just be the floorboards expanding.....my overfull bookshelves couldn't be slowly and menacingly advancing upon me as I sit in front of my screen..... Of course they aren't advancing upon you, what a ludicrous notion. It's the rest of the room that's shrinking.... |
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Post by helrunar on Sept 17, 2018 21:19:24 GMT
I've read lots of E F Benson tales since I was a youngster but I know practically nothing about his life. I hadn't picked up on the misogyny, beyond what was pretty much a commonplace in magazine fiction of the day.
For what it is worth, I have known several women friends who were big fans of Mapp and Lucia. Most got into that series because of the books, as opposed to the television version. Of course, that means nothing in terms of Benson's own attitudes.
I was looking at a couple of "kindle" editions of Benson tales. "The Ape," which I've never read for some reason, was included in all of them, but not some of the other stories discussed in this thread.
H.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 17, 2018 21:43:51 GMT
I've read lots of E F Benson tales since I was a youngster but I know practically nothing about his life. I hadn't picked up on the misogyny, beyond what was pretty much a commonplace in magazine fiction of the day. H. He was/is assumed to be gay. There's definitely a noticeable gay vibe in many of his tales, which is more obvious than a misogynistic one. |
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 21, 2018 21:01:46 GMT
Come to the end of this book and its easy to understand why Benson himself elected not to preserve for posterity any of the stories it features in the major collections issued in his lifetime. With one or two inexplicable exceptions the stories simply didn't warrant it. The exceptions are the title story, which is a fine weird yarn, and "The Ape" too, for all the contentiousness surrounding its flawed ending, still has enough about it to suggest it warranted collecting also. And I can also see a case being made for "The Light in the Garden" as well which, despite boasting nothing beyond the usual trappings of a traditional ghost story, is nevertheless well done and suitably atmospheric.
But as for the rest: as a Benson fan it pains me to say it but if he ever wrote anything worse than "The China Bowl" then I've never come across it. We are seriously expected to swallow a succession of ludicrous conceits. Not only are we given a murderer so stupid that not only does he bury the incriminating piece of crockery in his own garden but neglects to wash it first. He then rents the house out and goes to great lengths to draw the ignorant narrator's attention to the buried bowl by trespassing into the garden at the dead of night to look at the spot where he interred it. Its utterly absurd.
While none of the other stories quite plumb these risible depths, any decent ideas they have are completely lost in woefully contrived scenarios. Admittedly some of the more feeble offerings - like "Sir Roger de Coverley" - may be explained by the sedate nature of the women's journals Benson was writing them for. But how to explain the sort of preposterous contrivance at work in "The Chippendale Mirror" and "The Passenger"?
Where the book really suffers though is in its tiresome repetition of the same set ups; no less than five wives are murdered by husbands in the course of the book with one further wife meeting her end at the hands of a stranger, another dying in an accident and another running off with the protagonist's best friend [so much for Benson's conjectured philogyny]. Recently purchased or inherited properties requiring renovation are the jumping off points for five stories too. And I simply lost count of the amount of times I found myself reading of plunging temperatures and the brushing past of unseen people.
Little blame can be accorded Benson himself of course for the repetitiousness of the material collected here but Adrian certainly did his reputation no favours by seeming to show such apparant limitations to his imagination.
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 21, 2018 21:34:32 GMT
Sigh.......my copy should arrive next week, maybe as early as Monday. We'll see if I concur with your comments, although my tolerance for preposterousness and contrivance is quite high! 
Just finished it off now; the title story, The Witch Ball, The Ape and The Return of Frank Hampden were great! I still enjoyed The Chippendale Mirror, The Shuttered Room and even The Red Room and The Passenger, contrived as it/they are. The rest....meh!
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 21, 2018 21:55:26 GMT
Sigh.......my copy should arrive next week, maybe as early as Monday. We'll see if I concur with your comments, although my tolerance for preposterousness and contrivance is quite high! I can only hope you like your credulity well strained too, Miss S. |
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