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strange_complexI've got so behind with book reviews that I'm here reviewing a book I read in July last year. It's partly because of an intensive autumn / winter (teaching) and then spring (LibDemmery), but it's also because I got a bit stuck on this particular review, wanting to articulate complex things about the presentation of narrative raised by the stories but just always being too tired every time I opened the file. I still don't think I've done it particularly crisply, but I'll settle for getting at least something posted at this stage.
The book in question is a rather random collection of J. Sheridan Le Fanu stories published to tie in with the release of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers in 1970. I bought it probably some time between the ages of about 10 and 14, when I used to comb through baskets of books labelled '10p each' on the floor in charity shops and a farm shop which my Mum often took us to, pulling out anything which looked Gothic horror-related. I recognised Peter Cushing on the cover of this one and knew it should be promising, though I hadn't seen The Vampire Lovers at the time. I remember reading Carmilla back then, and I suppose I read the rest of the stories too, but having forgotten all about them it seemed like time for a re-read. That said, I actually skipped Carmilla itself this time, as I read it on its own relatively recently after going to a theatrical production of it (LJ / DW). So I focused primarily on the other stories this time.
It got me thinking about how stories of the supernatural are framed, especially since Le Fanu's practice here is so very recognisable in M.R. James and Bram Stoker. Here is what we have for the stories in this collection:
It seems to be connected with the suspension of disbelief, which is more vexed for tales of the supernatural than it is for straightforwardly realistic genres (romance, crime, warfare) or overtly unrealistic ones (myth, fantasy). The reader or listener needn't believe in the absolute truth of a supernatural yarn to enjoy it, but they do need to be immersed in its internal logic while they are reading / listening in order to feel the thrill of the tension and terror experienced by the characters. Certainly, Le Fanu regularly returns to the question of the veracity of his own narratives via the medium of his framing devices. In 'Schalken...', for example, we get this:
So alongside the assertions that these stories are TRUE, we find a reminder of the fallibility of narrative sources. But I think that plays to the same end of easing the reader into the suspension of disbelief in a way. It unsettles our faith in any form of absolute narrative truth, but in a strange way that also gives us permission to try out believing the account we've been presented with. After all, if there is no such thing as absolute truth, we can put that question aside and see how taking the story on its own terms might feel. I think the device of presenting a story through documents works to the same dual purpose, too. I often hear people saying that the way Stoker's Dracula and many of M.R. James' stories are presented as collections of documents relating the events lends them authenticity and realism. But it also raises doubts about veracity by introducing scope for unreliable narration and acting as a distancing device between the framing narrative voice (if there is one) or the implicit editor of the documents (if not) and the story being related. The persona of M.R. James rarely tells you that a ghost crawled out of the village pond. He just tells you that he's found a collection of documents saying that a ghost crawled out of the village pond.
Telling stories at a remove also relates to the tradition of winter fireside tales, which Le Fanu was clearly well aware of and uses as part of his own framing. They're mentioned explicitly in the opening paragraphs of two stories in this collection:
A few final thoughts on 'Green Tea' specifically, which is the best-known story in this collection after 'Carmilla'. This one is framed as a series of letters presented by an explicit editor: the former medical secretary of the protagonist, Dr Martin Hesselius, now deceased. Le Fanu seems to be very aware of the possibilities created here around unreliable narration and the question of the narrator's relationship to and view of Hesselius, and to be making use of them. The introduction spells out that the narrator has edited down the original letters and tried to translate them literally, if not always gracefully, highlighting that the text has come to us through an editor and thus raising questions about how he may have shaped the narrative even as he claims not to have done. Within the story, there are also some editorial asides, for example the medical secretary explaining that he has edited out a "curious - some persons would say mystical" account of the dietary and medical habits of Jennings (the man affected by the green tea of the title). This helps to preserve the mystique around what has caused Jennings' problems and leave room for the reader to imagine them, almost certainly more effectively than if Le Fanu had committed himself to concrete details here.
Hesselius comes across as a bit of a proto-Holmes, recording the observations and deductions which he makes on meeting Jennings for the first time and then surprising the hostess of the evening party at which they met by sharing them with her: all 21 years before Holmes himself first appeared in print. She, of course, confirms from her longer-standing knowledge of Jennings that Hesselius's deductions are all entirely correct. Jennings' haunting is caused not merely by drinking too much green tea (itself standing for dabbling with the orient) but it seems also by his work on the religious metaphysics of the ancients, which he comments to Hesselius is "not good for the Christian mind" and "a degrading fascination". This is a fairly common Christian take on ancient paganism, including the dual sense of degradation and fascination, also identifiable in Dracula. But although the monkey which haunts Jennings is on one level demonic, it struck me as a distinct allegory for real mental health conditions too. It speaks to him not with an ordinary voice, but with what Jennings describes as "like a singing through my head", and which sounds similar to what I understand of the internal voices of OCD or schizophrenia. Indeed, it's possible Le Fanu was writing from personal experience here, since his wife suffered from anxiety and had died of a "hysterical attack" fourteen years before this story was published. Finally, this story includes another reference to a painting by Schalken: Hesselius notes that the tormented face of Jennings in his study as the light fades outside stands out "like a portrait of Schalken's, before its background of darkness". I think it's safe to say Le Fanu was a fan.
The book in question is a rather random collection of J. Sheridan Le Fanu stories published to tie in with the release of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers in 1970. I bought it probably some time between the ages of about 10 and 14, when I used to comb through baskets of books labelled '10p each' on the floor in charity shops and a farm shop which my Mum often took us to, pulling out anything which looked Gothic horror-related. I recognised Peter Cushing on the cover of this one and knew it should be promising, though I hadn't seen The Vampire Lovers at the time. I remember reading Carmilla back then, and I suppose I read the rest of the stories too, but having forgotten all about them it seemed like time for a re-read. That said, I actually skipped Carmilla itself this time, as I read it on its own relatively recently after going to a theatrical production of it (LJ / DW). So I focused primarily on the other stories this time.
It got me thinking about how stories of the supernatural are framed, especially since Le Fanu's practice here is so very recognisable in M.R. James and Bram Stoker. Here is what we have for the stories in this collection:
- 'Carmilla' is a simple first-person narrative, with no particular framing device - i.e. it isn't packaged as a letter or memoir, although of course the first-person format suggests that sort of document even if it isn't presented explicitly as such.
- 'Schalken the Painter' is related by a narrator based on an account told to him by a Dutch acquaintance about Schalken's painting of the woman with the lamp.
- 'Sir Dominick's Bargain' is related to the narrator by an elderly little man he meets in the ruins of the house, who got it from his grandfather who was once the butler there.
- 'Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand' (a story-within-a-story originally embedded into the novel The House by the Churchyard) is presented as the essence of a letter relating the events written in 1753, edited for length at the request of the narrator's editor.
- 'Green Tea', the first story from the collection In a Glass Darkly, is presented with a prologue introducing the late Dr Martin Hesselius and explaining that the story is taken from his letters to Professor Van Loo of Leyden, translated and edited by his former medical secretary. It then moves into a first-person epistolary account in the voice of Martin Hesselius himself.
- 'An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street' (aka 'Mr Justice Harbottle') is told in the first person, and begins with a disclaimer saying that the story isn't really suited to pen, ink and paper, but has a good effect when told around the fireside on a winter's evening after dinner.
- 'The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh' is told by a narrator who first relates one version of the story as a matter of local lore, but then presents another which he says he got from an eye-witness and claims must be the origin of the first.
It seems to be connected with the suspension of disbelief, which is more vexed for tales of the supernatural than it is for straightforwardly realistic genres (romance, crime, warfare) or overtly unrealistic ones (myth, fantasy). The reader or listener needn't believe in the absolute truth of a supernatural yarn to enjoy it, but they do need to be immersed in its internal logic while they are reading / listening in order to feel the thrill of the tension and terror experienced by the characters. Certainly, Le Fanu regularly returns to the question of the veracity of his own narratives via the medium of his framing devices. In 'Schalken...', for example, we get this:
I had only to request Vandael to tell the story of the painting in order to be gratified; and thus it is that I am enabled to submit to you a faithful recital of what I heard myself, leaving you to reject or to allow the evidence upon which the truth of the tradition depends, with this one assurance, that Schalken was an honest, blunt Dutchman, and, I believe, wholly incapable of committing a flight of imagination; and further, that Vandael, from whom I heard the story, appeared firmly convinced of its truth.There, he's using the opportunity afforded by the device of telling us he's telling us a tale to claim at the same time that this particular tale is true. But even while insisting on its veracity, he gives the reader permission "to reject or to allow the evidence", and elsewhere he provides even more room for ambiguity. This is particularly true of 'The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh', in which the narrator presents two different versions of the same story. Overall, he insists on the truth of the second, 'eye-witness' version, pointing out that it must be the origin of the first, which exaggerated it and blended it with events from other generations of the family. Indeed, the tale concludes: "The events which I have recorded are not imaginary. They are FACTS; and there lives one whose authority none would venture to question, who could vindicate the accuracy of every statement which I have set down, and that, too, with all the circumstantiality of an eye-witness." But he also raises questions about the 'eye-witness' version by presenting an alternative version at all, by pointing out that the two are irreconcilable, and by comparing the limitations of both: "it is hard to say whether the events which I am about to record appear more strange or improbable as seen through the distorting medium of tradition, or in the appalling dimness of uncertainty which surrounds the reality."
So alongside the assertions that these stories are TRUE, we find a reminder of the fallibility of narrative sources. But I think that plays to the same end of easing the reader into the suspension of disbelief in a way. It unsettles our faith in any form of absolute narrative truth, but in a strange way that also gives us permission to try out believing the account we've been presented with. After all, if there is no such thing as absolute truth, we can put that question aside and see how taking the story on its own terms might feel. I think the device of presenting a story through documents works to the same dual purpose, too. I often hear people saying that the way Stoker's Dracula and many of M.R. James' stories are presented as collections of documents relating the events lends them authenticity and realism. But it also raises doubts about veracity by introducing scope for unreliable narration and acting as a distancing device between the framing narrative voice (if there is one) or the implicit editor of the documents (if not) and the story being related. The persona of M.R. James rarely tells you that a ghost crawled out of the village pond. He just tells you that he's found a collection of documents saying that a ghost crawled out of the village pond.
Telling stories at a remove also relates to the tradition of winter fireside tales, which Le Fanu was clearly well aware of and uses as part of his own framing. They're mentioned explicitly in the opening paragraphs of two stories in this collection:
I'm sure she believed every word she related, for old Sally was veracious. But all this was worth just so much as such talk commonly is—marvels, fabulae, what our ancestors called winter's tales—which gathered details from every narrator and dilated in the act of narration. ('Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand')Urban myths do the same thing, and for similar reasons. Telling a story which just happened to someone somewhere would lack the vivid realism which comes from being able to claim some personal connection with and witness to it. But the story-teller would also quickly lose credibility if they claimed that every tale they told had happened to them personally. The middle ground of the reported story lends realism but also retains distance, and Le Fanu clearly recognised and appreciated this.
Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been called upon to tell it, to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good after-dinner fire on a winter's evening, with a cold wind rising and wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone off—though I say it, who should not—indifferent well. ('An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street'.)
A few final thoughts on 'Green Tea' specifically, which is the best-known story in this collection after 'Carmilla'. This one is framed as a series of letters presented by an explicit editor: the former medical secretary of the protagonist, Dr Martin Hesselius, now deceased. Le Fanu seems to be very aware of the possibilities created here around unreliable narration and the question of the narrator's relationship to and view of Hesselius, and to be making use of them. The introduction spells out that the narrator has edited down the original letters and tried to translate them literally, if not always gracefully, highlighting that the text has come to us through an editor and thus raising questions about how he may have shaped the narrative even as he claims not to have done. Within the story, there are also some editorial asides, for example the medical secretary explaining that he has edited out a "curious - some persons would say mystical" account of the dietary and medical habits of Jennings (the man affected by the green tea of the title). This helps to preserve the mystique around what has caused Jennings' problems and leave room for the reader to imagine them, almost certainly more effectively than if Le Fanu had committed himself to concrete details here.
Hesselius comes across as a bit of a proto-Holmes, recording the observations and deductions which he makes on meeting Jennings for the first time and then surprising the hostess of the evening party at which they met by sharing them with her: all 21 years before Holmes himself first appeared in print. She, of course, confirms from her longer-standing knowledge of Jennings that Hesselius's deductions are all entirely correct. Jennings' haunting is caused not merely by drinking too much green tea (itself standing for dabbling with the orient) but it seems also by his work on the religious metaphysics of the ancients, which he comments to Hesselius is "not good for the Christian mind" and "a degrading fascination". This is a fairly common Christian take on ancient paganism, including the dual sense of degradation and fascination, also identifiable in Dracula. But although the monkey which haunts Jennings is on one level demonic, it struck me as a distinct allegory for real mental health conditions too. It speaks to him not with an ordinary voice, but with what Jennings describes as "like a singing through my head", and which sounds similar to what I understand of the internal voices of OCD or schizophrenia. Indeed, it's possible Le Fanu was writing from personal experience here, since his wife suffered from anxiety and had died of a "hysterical attack" fourteen years before this story was published. Finally, this story includes another reference to a painting by Schalken: Hesselius notes that the tormented face of Jennings in his study as the light fades outside stands out "like a portrait of Schalken's, before its background of darkness". I think it's safe to say Le Fanu was a fan.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 13 June 2021 21:21 (UTC)I can't remember if you have read—or if I have already recommended to you—E. Nesbit's horror fiction, much of which is supernatural, but this entire discussion made me think instantly of the opening of "The Shadow" (1905) which opens:
This is not an artistically rounded off ghost story, and nothing is explained in it, and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you have ever come close to, are like this in these respects—no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story.
and then goes on to play further with the conventions of the tale at one remove. The setting is explicitly Christmastime, with the housekeeper unexpectedly welcomed into the circle of girls staying up after the dance:
'We've been telling ghost stories,' I said. 'The worst of it is, we don't believe in ghosts. No one's ever seen one.'
'It's always what somebody told somebody, who told somebody you know,' said the youngest of us, 'and you can't believe that, can you?'
'What the soldier said is not evidence,' said Miss Eastwich. Will it be believed that the little Dickens quotation pierced one more keenly than the new smile or the new voice?
'And all the ghost stories are so beautifully rounded off – a murder committed on the spot – or a hidden treasure, or a warning . . . I think that makes them harder to believe. The most horrid ghost story I ever heard was one that was quite silly.'
'Tell it.'
'I can't – it doesn't sound anything to tell. Miss Eastwich ought to tell one.'
'Oh do,' said the youngest of us, and her salt cellars loomed dark, as she stretched her neck eagerly and laid an entreating arm on our guest's knee.
'The only thing that I ever knew of was – hearsay,' [Miss Eastwich] said slowly, 'till just the end.'
Worth reading on general principle, in any case, but also seemed relevant here.
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Date: Sunday, 13 June 2021 21:39 (UTC)Oh, BTW, I am reading Denis Bracknel at the moment on the strength of your recommendation and enjoying it very much! Thought I should mention that, especially because it could be a long while before I actually review it here given how far behind I am.
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 09:48 (UTC)I will check it out. I tend to read stories more often than listen to other people reading them.
I suspect supernatural and fantastic fiction (and drama) tends more towards the meta-referential than realist fiction because it prompts authors to think consciously about how to draw in their readers, and that that is part of what I've always liked about it.
I am contemplating this statement and will come back when I have an actual opinion. My feeling is that there is definitely a strain of weird and supernatural fiction which relies on the plausible deniability of the distance between the audience and the teller, but I don't know if it uses the device more than other genres—it might exploit it more, especially in modes where the ambiguity of the events themselves, not just their believability, is part of the strength. There's also a strain where the flat factuality of the impossible is its own weird charge.
Oh, BTW, I am reading Denis Bracknel at the moment on the strength of your recommendation and enjoying it very much!
I'm glad to hear it! I also enjoyed Brian Westby (1934), which is to date the only other novel of Reid's I have read, but I didn't find myself with the same screaming instinct to recommend it: I think I am more naturally oriented toward moon-weirdness than not.
Thought I should mention that, especially because it could be a long while before I actually review it here given how far behind I am.
I look forward to a review if/when you write one, and you should enjoy the book no matter what.
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 12:46 (UTC)Thinking further, The Castle of Otranto of course also uses the framing device of a claim that it is a found medieval manuscript to lend it authenticity and yet also establish distance, doesn't it, so this has been a key feature of Gothic literature from the very beginning. Obviously that's not the only way of being meta-referential, but it does flag up the story-ness of a story. I could see it being used to good effect in crime narratives, actually, since they deal with events typically then recorded in police reports and court judgements. So a suitable format of framing document is right there, and you can also play around with the difference in style and perspective between those formal documents and a character-led perspective. But I don't think it's common in e.g. romance, thrillers or middle-brow fiction.
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 19:29 (UTC)I remember some of your descriptions of live events! I'm glad YouTube has worked for him even if it is not his natural metier.
I could see it being used to good effect in crime narratives, actually, since they deal with events typically then recorded in police reports and court judgements.
Crime fiction was the other genre that came to mind—I was thinking of the first chapter of Sayers' Strong Poison (1930), which is not pure courtroom reportage in that it has a third-person narration and a few interjections from regular cast (who are not yet identifed as such), but is otherwise almost entirely the summing-up of the judge to the jury. I'm wondering if the device crops up most, not necessarily in genres, but in modes of storytelling where assessing the reality of events is significant, both to the characters as well as the reader.
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 20:52 (UTC)That seems like a strong theory. I'm going to bear it in mind in my future reading adventures.
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Date: Sunday, 13 June 2021 23:41 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 09:21 (UTC)no subject
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 07:56 (UTC)Le Fanu was a Calvinist- meaning, among other things, that he believed in damnation. His supernatural critters aren't just scary but represent an authentic existential threat. There are things out there that can drag you off to hell, so be very very careful.
On a point of detail, Aungier Street and Harbottle are separate stories- though the second probably grew out of the first. Both involve "hanging judges". There's a story by Stoker called "the Judge's House" which borrows rather heavily from them. I read Aungier Street as a kid and it scared the Bejasus out of me.
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 09:26 (UTC)Ah, I see. I thought the second was merely the first re-named. 'Aungier Street' builds up the creeping menace extremely effectively, and I certainly recognised its influence on Stoker's story (which I've also read).
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 11:26 (UTC)Things I'm thinking about as a result include
1) how myths and legends would operate for contempory listeners in terms of the truth and easing in to the suspension of disbelief?
2) whether film and television re-tellings of these stories have the same double or triple isolation of the viewer from the truth - given that you are watching the events unfold rather than reading an account of someone else being told a story.
3) the constrast with the Flashman Papers in terms of the format of the framing device providing some wiggle room in the suspension of disbelief.
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 12:54 (UTC)2) Some film and TV adaptations use devices of their own to achieve an equivalent effect. The 1970s TV series Supernatural springs to mind as an example - each episode began with someone telling the story to others in a gentleman's club-type setting, hoping to become a member.
3) I haven't read any of the Flashman books, I'm afraid! What do they do as framing?
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 13:09 (UTC)2) Did Tales from the Crypt do a similar thing?
3) The framing device is that George MacDonal Fraser has been asked to edit in the 1970's many packets of papers which are the personal memoirs of one General Sir Harry Flashman VC - a Victorian hero of empire and the bully from Tom Brown's School Days, discovered long after his death in his attic. Flashman's introduction to his own memoirs is that these are the absolute truth, no matter how unbelievable the stories are you can believe that they are the truth because in all of the stories Flashman is going to tell you how he, a decorated war hero, was a liar, a cheat, a coward, a bully, a swindler, a letcherer and a massive massive fraud who succeeded largely by running away and claiming credit for the good and brave deeds of the people he left behind to die. You can tell this is the truth because the narrator comes out of it really really badly.
no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 14:05 (UTC)2) Yes, a lot of horror anthology films do the same thing. But it's not the only way of framing screen stories as 'real'. Another one is the 'found footage' device used in Blair Witch etc.
3) I like this! Very clever.
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 15:01 (UTC)I think it makes sense to me that ancient peoples did more or less believe their own mythologies. Modern Christians seem to sincerely believe in a literal Christ in some form. But never myself having believed in a literal Christ I don't know what that feels like - so I find myself without a starting point for what that spectrum of levels of reality might be as an experience. Which makes it more interesting, but more baffling.
2) I have never seen the Blair Witch Project. MLW was a big fan of horror movies when she was younger but something mysterious happened and she's not any more so we don't watch them. To be honest she finds the original version of Before We Die too stressful to watch.
3) The books themselves are very good. Flashman keeps cropping up at pivotal historical moments and then running away. So lots of historical knowledge woven in to the stories which are ripping yarns and quite funny.
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 14:07 (UTC)no subject
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Date: Tuesday, 15 June 2021 16:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 16:54 (UTC)I love the image on the front of that book though - Mr Cushing looks ever so serious and yet matter of fact as if it's a job that just needs doing.
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Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 16:57 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 14 June 2021 21:06 (UTC)