First of all, I have some sad news to report. My bicycle got stolen yesterday!!!! I left it tied up to a bike rack at the train station in Milton Keynes at 7.00am and when I got back from a lovely day out in Liverpool much, much later that day (21.00pm) it was gone. So now I have to go and figure out where I am going to get a new bike and how much money I have to spend on it. I did just get some money back from the electricity company as they had overcharged me but I was kind of looking to spend that on something else than a new bike.
Anyway..... I did manage to finish a book as well. I wanted to get this one finished by Halloween and I just finished the last story a few minutes ago. So, hot from the presses....
##### SPOILER ALERT #####
The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories - Richard Dalby (Ed.)
For this one I returned to one of my most favourite genres: the Ghost story.
This one has got a couple of real corkers in it but also some that did not really leave much of an impression at all. When I started reading the book I found that it contained a couple of tales that I had read recently so I kind of skipped through them. Fortunately there were only a few of them and it was definitely worth reading the rest of the book. Interesting to note that all the authors in this one are women, stories date from 1837-1900.
Here's the ones I liked best:
Margaret Oliphant - The Open Door
My favourite one in this selection of stories.
The story deals with a family that move into a house and for a change it is not the house itself that is haunted but a place outside the house. A little boy is the one who discovers the haunting and suffers by doing so. He becomes ill and dad is left to try and sort out the ghost. He gets several people involved (both believers and non-believers in ghosts) and they all testify to the same story there is a presence and a pleading voice. It is not until a local clergyman gets involved that we get to the bottom of the story and the whole ting is rounded up neatly.
What I liked about it was the set up the story and how it develops. The scene is set, the characters are established and you develop a bond with them before "it all kicks off". The haunting itself is a sad story of a son being scorned by his mother and pleading with her. Although the undertone is at times a bit religious (the ghost is set free once he gives himself over to God) the story is told with a great humanity and feeling that works and makes you care for the ghost and those trying to guide him back home.
Willa Cather - The Affair at Grover Station
My second favourite one!
A man's friend is killed by a jealous rival in love is the basic premise for this story. It is presented as a story being told by someone who has kept the truth of what happened to his friend to himself as the truth is so strange it would never be believed. I can tell you that about 99% of the story I would readily have readily believed but it is the final 1% that makes it ghostly.
There's a man wooing a woman and a second guy who thinks he has the right to claim her affections too. Then we have a party and one of them never turns up. Naturally the other is blamed for the disappearance but the way the thing plays out is great and a bit weird. Looking for his friend the main character goes out to investigate at his friend's place of work. Whilst spending the night there his friend appears to him and writes own a message on a blackboard. This then leads them to find the body that has been dead or a little while but has chalk on the fingers. Again the story takes it time in developing, we get to know the people and the world they live in a little, and then the weir stuff comes along. The setting of the atmosphere is really good in this one; the tension between the two love rivals is well written and their characterisation sets them up to fulfil their roles in the story.
Mary Cholmondeley - Let Loose
My third favourite one of the lot.
A story being told by some one's travel companion. It tells of how this gentleman heard about some frescoes in a little church. Him and his dog go down to a village to find them. (Naturally) the frescoes are in a crypt and he has to get the keys for it. He is refused at first but persuades the local cleric to allow him access in the end. He gets some precise instructions about opening and closing the two access doors to the crypt and is told to follow them to the letter. All seems well until someone dies. He is then denied again but pleads his way back in - he hears some noises, notices a hole in one of the coffins but thinks nothing much of it. Although by now the place actually creeps him out and he does what he has to and gets out. The really weird bit happens once he is back in hotel room - the dog goes mad, something comes for him and he passes out. A nice level of creepiness and you spend a lot of time thinking what could possibly be wrong in the crypt and when the weirdness is going to start but trust me, it does in the end. You'll sleep with the windows closed after reading this one.
And here's a brief summary of the rest of them:
Charlotte Bronte - Napoleon and the Spectre
weird little of Nappie going to sleep and ending up sleepwalking into some one's private drawing room. Not enough to it to make it interesting or scary. Not sure she would have had much of a career writing just ghost stories.
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurse's Story
read this one not too long ago. I thought it was okay but not spectacular then and it did not improve on second reading. The tale of a Nurse maid who tells the family history of a child in her care. Reclusive aunt, organ music at night, visions of family tragedy, the end
Dinah M Mulock - The Last House on C-- Street
The story is being told to an impatient listener who keeps trying to fill in the blank and making assumptions - it's a bit annoying. A girl and her first suitor do a bit of courting. Mum goes back to the house in the country, dad and girl stay behind for a few days and guess what... tapping sounds and vivid dreams aplenty and bad news follows. An okay tale but nothing to scary and a bit predictable.
Mary E Braddon - The Cold Embrace
A couple promise to be there for each other even after death... in a ghost story that is asking or trouble. She dies, he tries to get away and keep busy and always surrounded by people but she gets him in the end.
Rosa Mulholand - Not to be taken at Bed-time
Brute of a man falls in love, spurned by the daughter of the man who is his sworn enemy. He gets her in the end. Tries very hard to be very dark.
Amelia B Edwards - The story of Salome
There's a mysterious woman who becomes the obsession of a man and then of his friend. Some stuff about an island and a grave and her restless spirit.
This one would probably have been better if all the padding was taken out of it and the characters had been more defined.
Rhoda Broughton - The Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth
The story is presented in the form of a correspondence between two women which is a nice touch. Woman 1 - the house is great, where did you find it, I cannot believe my luck. Woman 2 - I'm stuck out here with my sick son and wish I could be there with you. Woman 1 - we've left the house, the maid got spooked, weird stuff happened, people died. CU soon.
Mrs Henry Wood - Reality or Delusion
2 Women fight for their man but he turns out not to be a good apple but a bad one. The envy between the two women is well written and it is a nice enough tale it just does not pack much of a punch in the end.
Vernon Lee - Winthrop's Adventure
The music is doing the haunting is this tale. A man hears a tune he has not head in years and tells the story of how he came to know it. The story drags on a bit for me and I lost interest with it at some point. It makes one too many side steps and meanders off the main idea for my liking. The whole thing seems to lose focus from what the haunting is really about. There is too much fluff and not enough real body to the tale.
Charlotte Riddell - The Old House in Vauxhall Walk
A man down on his luck gets to stay in a friend's house for a few days. The house is haunted by the ghost of a miser and he re-discovers the lost fortune. Then goes back to dad and says he is a changed man.
Lanoe Falconer - Cecilia de Noel
This is more a story about religion and compassion than anything else. Various people see a ghost and tell their tale and what it means to them. It preaches too much the values of religion, or at least some kind of belief and the ghost is not really that important in the end... because guess what.. if you show it true compassion is disappears.
Louisa Baldwin - Many waters cannot quench Love
Man goes to stay in the countryside. Surly housekeeper warms to him. The family that left the house had a daughter who loved a local lad. Time passes and he has a vision of the daughter who perished on the seas, and then the lad turns up dead as well. Of course it was determined that they died about the same time... well, it would be.
Violet Hunt - The Prayer
A loving couple - he dies, she begs him not to leave her, maddened by grief and then he mysteriously comes back to life. However, he is not the same man she knew once. It seems the characters in this one are all just a tad too much. The family doctor is too much of a nice, understanding, basing his principles on science kind of guy. The wife is a bit too doting and a bit too lethargic and dramatic. The husband is a bit too remote and cool and creepy. I don't like any of them too much.
The end is nice though and does lift the story a bit - it's not too dramatic and overemphasised, you can draw whichever conclusion you want from it.
Ella D'Arcy - The Villa Lucienne
I did not really like this one. It's too flimsy and has no real scare. Only some posh people exploring a house and a whining kid. It tries to be scary and the author tries to set a moody atmosphere but fails to do so effectively.
Gertrude Atherton - The Striding Place
A man's friend disappears. He looks for him, finds a body without a face... ah well.
No good character setting and yet the story is based on a real place where real people died. You'd think the author could have come up with something better than she did.
Mary E Wilkins - The Vacant Lot
In any ghost story if it comes cheap, there's a reason for it! Here it is the vacant lot next door that is haunted. The visions the family see seem unconnected (someone hanging up laundry, the shape of a previous house, a group of men dressed in black) and dad is awfully keen not to lose his money by selling the house so soon, more than he is concerned for his family's welfare. Oh and in the last sentence we learn that someone was killed in his ancestor's hostelry and that that guy's family owned the vacant lot. So if you suggest the family link, why did other people unconnected to either family have issues living there then?
Isabella Banks - Haunted
A poem about haunting.
Nice but a strange addition to a collection of stories.
Title: The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories
Author: Richard Dalby (Ed.), various authors
342 pages
Virago Press Ltd
ISBN n 0-86068-809-7
Books to be read 71
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