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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 11, 2019 21:53:53 GMT
PotentialSet in the 1960s, Charles pops into Brichester's first love-in in the hope of meeting some nice ladies. It proves to be a flop, but he meets a man who asks him if he would like to go and meet some friends of his who were 'experimenting with the mind'... The End of a Summer's DayA genuine 'What the hell was that?' story. A couple join a tour of some deep dark caves, and when the party emerges the trouble really starts. Brilliant. A whole bunch of sexual repression going on here, and a bizzare twist which, even if not logical on any normal level, gives me the creeps every time I read it. So taken with The Seductress and Merry May, was I, following on from the Aickman stuff, I decided to check out some more RC. Loved potential. It captures that feeling of walking into a gig perfectly. The second story was even more unsettling, particularly the ..er...'switch' in the caves. |
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 16, 2019 12:07:59 GMT
I travelled through the idyllic rural area of Råbäck, with fine old mansions and giant oak trees, and it inspired me to reread M. R. James's "Count Magnus". It was even scarier this time, than my two earlier reads. Magnus de la Gardie appears to have been some alchemist sorceror, well-travelled, and of vastly evil psychopatic mental constitution. To think of him in these beautiful surroundings, is disconcerting, so very disparate from the common Swedish mentality of diffident social conformity. At the same time I can somehow well imagine him in this particular spot, because Råbäck gives an impression of great families of fortune living in isolated luxury, given time for intellectual and ritual excesses. I am convinced that M. R. James must have visited here, because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to blend so well the particular details of the scenery into the story. I am very excited right now, because I have started reading Demons by Daylight. Previously I have only read the collection Cold Print which I greatly enjoyed, and a few stray other stories. Demons by Daylight was always at the back of my head, for many years, but I didn't like the Arkham House cover art, so I never bought it. Recently I acquired a copy of the STAR paperback, and I love it! It is also wonderful to hold, stiffer than a regular paperback, ... and it is heavier in weight than can be accounted for by its paper alone. M. R. James, next to H. P. Lovecraft, is Ramsey Campbell's closest inspiration, isn't he? I was thinking it would be interesting to compare the stories of James, the academic scholar and antiquarian, to those of Campbell, the self-taught researcher and deep delver, in the "modern horror" of the legendary Demons by Daylight. So far it's different, ... more Lovecraftian, with added interesting turns. "At First Sight" were too lowkey for me. Pretty creepy and disturbing with that roommate who seemed confident and socially successful, but instead spending her time in that unexpected way. But the dark stranger saying "To you" didn't reappear again, or lead to anything, which I found disappointing. Weird coincidence...? After Count Magnus, I reached for Demons By Daylight and fell into At First Sight. A real headscratcher, but one that enables you to project your own explanations all over it(to no avail).Completely baffling but compelling. Must read it again and see if it has a different effect. |
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Post by bluetomb on Oct 16, 2019 23:01:47 GMT
I travelled through the idyllic rural area of Råbäck, with fine old mansions and giant oak trees, and it inspired me to reread M. R. James's "Count Magnus". It was even scarier this time, than my two earlier reads. Magnus de la Gardie appears to have been some alchemist sorceror, well-travelled, and of vastly evil psychopatic mental constitution. To think of him in these beautiful surroundings, is disconcerting, so very disparate from the common Swedish mentality of diffident social conformity. At the same time I can somehow well imagine him in this particular spot, because Råbäck gives an impression of great families of fortune living in isolated luxury, given time for intellectual and ritual excesses. I am convinced that M. R. James must have visited here, because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to blend so well the particular details of the scenery into the story. I am very excited right now, because I have started reading Demons by Daylight. Previously I have only read the collection Cold Print which I greatly enjoyed, and a few stray other stories. Demons by Daylight was always at the back of my head, for many years, but I didn't like the Arkham House cover art, so I never bought it. Recently I acquired a copy of the STAR paperback, and I love it! It is also wonderful to hold, stiffer than a regular paperback, ... and it is heavier in weight than can be accounted for by its paper alone. M. R. James, next to H. P. Lovecraft, is Ramsey Campbell's closest inspiration, isn't he? I was thinking it would be interesting to compare the stories of James, the academic scholar and antiquarian, to those of Campbell, the self-taught researcher and deep delver, in the "modern horror" of the legendary Demons by Daylight. So far it's different, ... more Lovecraftian, with added interesting turns. "At First Sight" were too lowkey for me. Pretty creepy and disturbing with that roommate who seemed confident and socially successful, but instead spending her time in that unexpected way. But the dark stranger saying "To you" didn't reappear again, or lead to anything, which I found disappointing. Weird coincidence...? After Count Magnus, I reached for Demons By Daylight and fell into At First Sight. A real headscratcher, but one that enables you to project your own explanations all over it(to no avail).Completely baffling but compelling. Must read it again and see if it has a different effect. Sometimes with Campbell's more oblique moments I like to imagine that they might well have some deeper meaning but actually they were things he just heard or saw for real. I have the same attitude to Waiting for Godot and some Pinter. |
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Post by helrunar on Oct 17, 2019 12:32:15 GMT
I love it! The existential horror of Ramsey Campbell. It needs to be a book, a film, a videogame.
Very much enjoying these notes. I haven't read Demons by Daylight; I need to get hold of it, one of these days.
cheers, H.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 28, 2019 23:28:35 GMT
The Old Horns doesn't completely pull off marshy cosmic horror mixed with nested dreams, poetic block and uncertain characters, a brain tickler whose key seems to me frustratingly close but elusive. I thought I had it, but can't be sure. Reading various reviews though, some have had quite different reactions. Surely not for all, but on the whole well worth while I think. Apart from a dreadful last line, I enjoyed The Old Horns.It puts a very different spin on the countryside myths. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 3, 2020 9:30:13 GMT
As the scans are marred by Ph*t*fu*&, I thought a new one is in order. Over the years I bought a lot Ramsey Campbell novels and collections, often on autopilot, but it never really clicked. The stories were difficult in my opinion, often I didn't understood was happening on the page, or what the point was. Or if there even was a point. In this I am not the only one, as I discovered. Still I see this work as a kind of challenge and fascination. You don't have many writers of the genre whose work merit a whole shelf of commentaries and essays. So maybe it is a thing of concentration and of mood. Be it as it may, one of my projects is a re-read of Campbell, as I finally got hold of some of the old collections. I started with Demons by Daylight, took my time and never read more than one story at a time. Thanks again to Middoth for the Klein, which was very helpful with his observations. Potential (1973)I quite liked it at first, the atmosphere, the pop-culture references. Here is a writer with his own voice, that is clear from the outset. But soon I felt I was missing the context and it became difficult to understand the plot. Cook and Charles are both duped by the cultists and their fake sacrifice, but Charles is compelled to kill Cook which is setting free a demon from the inside of Charles who leaves him as a husk? Maybe I am thinking to literal, but the plot doesn't work for me. Thinks happen and don't make a lot of sense, there are too much coincidences. I am a great believer in Chekhov's Gun, which here seemed sorely lacking. The End of a Summer's Day (1973)
I didn't understood the story when I read it years ago and still don't understand it. As far as I am concerned, the story has no end, it just stops. Strange things may happen or not, the female protagonist has a nervous breakdown or not, this is all too vague. The interpretations for this are seemingly endless, Ramsey Campbell wrote in an introduction that "I have always taken the man in the cave to be a projection of Maria's fears about her husband, which of course doesn't mean the encounter can be explained away". Okay. At First Sight (1973)I liked the grim and desolate atmosphere, as a reader I believed the surreal even if again unexplained descent of the female protagonist into hysteria. But again I didn't understood the ending. What exactly happened? Did something happen? Errol Undercliffe: a tribute (1973)
The Franklin Paragraphs
The Interloper by Errol UndercliffeI am not a fan of stories where the writer fictionalizes him or herself. I find it unbelievable in crime stories, and in horror I think it is self-indulgent and lazy. Especially in movies. The description "a horror writer encounters true horror" as a tag is nowadays enough to avoid it. I recognize that it has a long tradition in the genre and of course is a matter of taste. The story is well written and amusing in parts, it is a tribute to pulp-fiction, no doubt about it, the atmosphere works and becomes suitable creepy. Still I rolled my eyes. Sentinels (1973)Sentinal Hill. A classic set-up :-) Well-constructed narrative, nice atmosphere. As with so many Campbell tales, this has an open end, in many novels this would be just the beginning. Maybe this is the viewpoint which is sometimes needed when in doubt. The Guy (1973)A well-written story in itself, lively told, but the supernatural element at the end is (again) too vague. Frankly I only comprehended it after reading the story up in some guide. The political element, which at the time surely was unusual, is not very heavy-handed compared to today's tiresome message writing, also it is in its core still valid after nearly 50 years. Sad. Still it is another of those maybe it happened this way, maybe not stories. The Old Horns (1973)The reviews speak of Machen and the blurred line between Fantasy and Reality. While for once I don't think the narrative is too vague, atmosphere is here more important than the plot. Again the end is a matter of the viewpoint, did really something happen or was it all just in the head of the narrator – a thing which makes Campbell really frustrating as a writer -, but here it worked for once for me. The last line should have been cut, though. The Lost (1973)This doesn't work for me at all. Two thirds of the story are okay. But the ending doesn't make sense. It is not the missing supernatural element, which makes this mediocre, it is the actions of the narrator which are just random. They are not connected with the rest and are unbelievable, even in the context of the plot. The Stocking (1968)As the last decades virtually flooded the media with tales about obsessed stalkers and the serial killer, and the topic has lost any relevance by now IMHO, this has lost a lot of its impact. But it is the changes in society make this terribly dated and hard to take seriously – which happens quite seldom with Campbell's stories, I think. The constant fooling around of the protagonists in the office – 'he spanked her and she squealed' - is so unbelievable that it has become more farcial than creepy. It takes real effort to blend this out. If this is possible, as a portrait of growing obsession and sexual frustration this is still well done. It is not the fault of the story that as a reader you constantly seem to hear Agent Hotchner ponderously saying: We have our profile! from the off. The Second Staircase (1973)A classic ghost story. I gathered that this is again a story about the writer's scene of the time. I quite liked it with its many allusions to cinema. But the supernatural incident was a bit too random for my taste. It had no real connection to the beginning of the story. Concussion (1973)The only story I couldn't get into and gave up after a few pages. Repeatedly. The Enchanted Fruit (1973)Again I thought the ending was just a stop. So the guy just flips being high on the fruit or magic before the church-entrance. After all the build-up this was disappointing. What's the point? Made in Goatswood (1973)The garden gnomes :-) Creepy, no doubt. Here also the build-up just evaporated. This could have been much better. The suggested supernatural elements were too subtle to work, at the end they didn't matter as the story became a relationship drama. Which was a bit heavy-handed in itself, still it was interesting to see questions of religion to be the lynchpin of the plot. You don't get this from Weird Tales. While quite a few of the stories left me cold and the willful vagueness became frustrating after a time, I can understand the high esteem this collection is held by many. In hindsight the literary quality is high, especially if you keep in mind how old Ramsey Campell was at the time - compare the seriousness of the tone with, say, the early Stephen King -, the ease with which the writer tackles difficult, adult topics is remarkable. This is far removed from a lot of genre tales. Even in the stories which doesn't work for me, there is usual some part which is wholly original. For all the genre trappings this often has a depth which the genre often misses. The strength lies in the relatable descriptions of relationships and setting, which are always believable, even if the conclusion may be not. |
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Post by helrunar on Jul 3, 2020 15:04:20 GMT
Interesting notes, Andreas. By coincidence (?), a friend wrote to me earlier this week about Campbell's novel Ancient Images, which reportedly is about the quest for a lost film on which Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi collaborated. He mentioned it because we had been discussing Flicker. My friend did not have a good experience reading another of Campbell's novels a few years ago--he may try again with Images, however. He ordered a copy of Flicker based on an article I sent him about the book, and that will keep him occupied for a length of time.
T. S. Eliot famously believed that "good poetry should be difficult" (or some version of that dictum)... perhaps Campbell feels the same about supernatural fiction. When I was reading the Ghost Book anthologies a few months ago, I got fatigued with stories that evoked an atmosphere or the thread of a situation but then ended with nothing in particular.
Henry James started it all, of course, with The Turn of the Screw, though that novella did not lack for quite distinctive thrills.
Best wishes,
Steve
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 3, 2020 20:33:02 GMT
T. S. Eliot famously believed that "good poetry should be difficult" (or some version of that dictum)... Henry James started it all, of course, with The Turn of the Screw, though that novella did not lack for quite distinctive thrills. I don't mind being challenged every now and then--for example, I found Demons by Daylight rewarding--but I generally prefer to read straightforward fiction (and no poetry, difficult or otherwise). Most Henry James stories leave me cold (see also: Edith Wharton). The Turn of the Screw is an exception; I suppose the story trumped its style. I don't read anything that's even remotely deep ... Same here, for the most part. Sometimes I read stories by authors who I think are trying to say something deep--such as Robert Aickman, or Adam Nevill, or Caitlin Kiernan--but even then I'm in it for the thrills, the weirdness, and the characters. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2020 9:16:00 GMT
; Henry James started it all, of course, with The Turn of the Screw, though that novella did not lack for quite distinctive thrills. Last year it was published that the production team which made The Haunting of Hill House such a train-wreck would do The Turn of the Screw next. Shudder. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2020 9:46:45 GMT
T. S. Eliot famously believed that "good poetry should be difficult" (or some version of that dictum)... Henry James started it all, of course, with The Turn of the Screw, though that novella did not lack for quite distinctive thrills. I don't mind being challenged every now and then--for example, I found Demons by Daylight rewarding--but I generally prefer to read straightforward fiction (and no poetry, difficult or otherwise). Most Henry James stories leave me cold (see also: Edith Wharton). The Turn of the Screw is an exception; I suppose the story trumped its style. I don't read anything that's even remotely deep ... Same here, for the most part. Sometimes I read stories by authors who I think are trying to say something deep--such as Robert Aickman, or Adam Nevill, or Caitlin Kiernan--but even then I'm in it for the thrills, the weirdness, and the characters. It is some time ago that I really read something deep. I am not well informed about what is in in mainstream literature. Always wanted to tackle Hemingway again and finally try Fitzgerald or Faulkner. But the last serious mainstream I read would have to be Iain Banks, novels like A Song of Stone or The Business. And that's a while ago. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 4, 2020 10:13:14 GMT
Last year it was published that the production team which made The Haunting of Hill House such a train-wreck would do The Turn of the Screw next. God, no. There's only been one decent adaption and that's The Innocents (1961), which creeped me out no end when I came across it on TV one afternoon as a kid. |
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 4, 2020 12:14:57 GMT
"The constant fooling around of the protagonists in the office – 'he spanked her and she squealed' - is so unbelievable that it has become more farcial than creepy."
It happened.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2020 12:17:01 GMT
Last year it was published that the production team which made The Haunting of Hill House such a train-wreck would do The Turn of the Screw next. Shudder. God, no. There's only been one decent adaption and that's The Innocents (1961), which creeped me out no end when I came across it on TV one afternoon as a kid. Yes, the classic. I mean Deborah Kerr's portrayal as a puritan spinster is creepy, and not in a good sense, but the movie is very atmospheric and frightening. I had a soft spot for the one with Patsy Kensit and Julian Sands, not becuase it was good but because it was so trashy. But I guess today it would be unwatchable. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 4, 2020 12:26:12 GMT
"The constant fooling around of the protagonists in the office – 'he spanked her and she squealed' - is so unbelievable that it has become more farcial than creepy." It happened. I have no doubt whatsoever that it did.  I can remember a time when things were more relaxed and the daily early breakfast before opening was a cigarette in the office. |
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Post by helrunar on Jul 4, 2020 13:42:54 GMT
That new film of Screw sounds dire. Really dire.
My solution to all these endless reboots and remakes is simple but effective. I don't see them. End of.
I DID see the disastrous Burton-Depp re-castration of Dark Shadows several years ago, simply so that I could bitch about how dreadful it was on the interwebs with a clear conscience. I actually thought there were some good bits in the film whenever Depp and, unfortunately, Eva Green (who I loved in Penny Dreadful, but her makeup and acting were uniformly unwatchable here) showed up on scene, which was about 90 percent of the proceedings. I felt sorry for Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Jonny Lee Miller et al being trapped in this thing. End of rant.
H.
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I can remember a time when things were more relaxed and the daily early breakfast before opening was a cigarette in the office.