'Tis the Season = M.R. James

Collected Stories lives on my bedside cabinet but Xmas = M.R. James time for real. Read "Casting the Runes" again the other night cos it's pleasant enough to not kick the nightmares in i.e. at least it ends well. That thing he wrote for the Boy Scouts is maybe the wickedest piece of child-scaring I've ever read.

I know there's some James love on this board, let's try and work out why he's the best Christmas writer ever.

Right, you've inspired me to get out my collections--will report back!

The Complete Stories is almost certainly my most revisited book but it mysteriously seems to go missing all the time. Like right now damnit.

Not been updated for ages, and not the most accessible of sites, but if you love MRJ, you need to know about this:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GS.html

He always makes me want to chase up people like Arthur Machen and I think this is partly some proto Wicker Man "british isles is evil and old" imaginary anti-nostalgia but I have never read a writer who can properly compete.

The White People by Machen is definitely worth a read.

Online here: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/whtpeopl.htm

Much more dense and trippy than James. Some elucidation here: http://www.violetbooks.com/REVIEWS/rbadac-numinous.html

I read some Machen on the net one time but I need proper fo' real books.

BBC sussed this shit cos they always do James adaptations over the christmas-tide. I suppose it ties into hiding in our mead-halls over the winter solstice atavism too.

Hard to pick a favourite James story but the Scouts one is definitely one of the darkest and most horrible.

Hard to look at an unmown summer field without feeling it, too.

'Rats' is a really intense shocker. 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook' and 'Count Magnus' also jump to mind.

Doesn't seem to be online, but there is an occasionally reprinted chapbook called "The James Gang", listing MRJ influenced authors of ghost stories. From memory: H.R. Wakefield, E.F. Benson. L.T.C Rolt, A.N.L. Munby, Andrew Caldecott and so on . .

Benson is a guy who always cropped up in childhood ghost compilations and I should maybe try and track down his collected ghost stories next.

Wordsworth do a cheap (3-quid) omnibus of the ghost stories of Benson and his brother.

E F Benson lived in Lamb House in Rye after the death of Henry James in 1915... my Wordsworth collection of Henry James' supernatural stories sits right next to my Wordsworth collection of M R James' supernatural stories...SPOOKY

Getting back to M.R. James, he was an academic expert on the biblical apocrypha, and the medieval literature around it, knew a lot about medieval ideas on demonology and witchcraft and seems to have been at least open to the idea that some of it was true. This certainly gives his stuff its antiquarian depth, and must have something to do with its psychological edge.

There's a good essay by someone called Jacqueline Simpson in Folklore about the origins (particularly Scandinavian) of his ghosts, the rules that they obey.

Here we go -

"The Rules of Folklore" in the Ghost Stories of M. R. James

Jacqueline Simpson
Folklore, Vol. 108, (1997), pp. 9-18

Interestingly, the device he used in Casting the Runes (of the unwitting acceptance of a message resulting in death unless it can be passed on to another unsuspecting victim - later used in, amongst others, the various Ringu/Ring films) Simpson claims is completely original.

Casting the Runes also has that memorable image of the insects crawling out of the slide projection screen at a children's party - possibly a precursor to that brilliant and startling moment in the Ring films.

That's fascinating - he puts that over so convincingly that I just assumed it was a real tradition. Be interested to know if the writer of Ringu was referencing either the James story or the Night of the Demon movie.

The whole slide projection sequence in "Casting the Runes" is vivid and memorable. If anything the "happy" ending undermines the horror a little bit.

I'm sure that there are folkloric precursors to the cursed message, even if James invented the specifics himself. The Black Spot in Treasure Island is kind of an influence I think. Not to take anything away from James himself tho.

I think the Black Spot (god how that gave me nightmares as a child - that and Blind Pew) was just a signal, like a white feather, that some sort of (man made) retribution or communal judgement was at hand, but yes, certainly I'm sure cursed objects, papers etc are a strong element of lots of folk beliefs - I suspect that she was referring to either the unwitting nature of the person receiving the message, or the element where if it gets passed on, the curse moves entirely over to the other person, possibly both - as you say, the specifics.

I've read (nowhere particularly authoritative I don't think) that Ringu was influenced by Casting the Runes, but at the time I read that, I felt that was perhaps a little tenuous, I'm not really sure now, but not knowing anything about the genesis of the film, am only really going on instinct.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_v108/ai_20438230/?tag=content;col1

Here's a link to that Jacqueline Simpson article by the way.

Thanks!

xpost: I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Night of the Demon (the film of Casting the Runes) is well-known and respected in Japan. I don't know if MRJ's stories are, but it would be nice to make the connection.

I have a vague recollection that Ringu was based on some kind of actual school playground urban legend, but I could be wrong.

A big problem I have with lots of non-James stuff is the characters often explicitly hypothesise about the nature of the hauntings, go on about the spiritual dimension, speculate about mechanisms for passing from one side to the other, etc etc. It always comes across as thoroughly bogus and destroys any suspension of disbelief. I can't recall James ever doing this, his horrors just are, and you accept them thoroughly.

Same point made in the article above, I discover.

A collection of James' own pieces on the history and construction of ghost stories:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/mr/collect/appendix.html

i only learnt today his first name is montague

James' ghosts and demons are almost never communicable with, which is another point in their favour. They're almost always implacable forces of evil once they've been disturbed, with no chance for the victim to reason with them. At best, you can dodge them or put them onto somebody else's trail.

Also they're generally real physical things - revenants and demons - rather than wispy spooks and spectres. Not that there aren't scary stories with spooks and spectres, but James' ghoulies seem to generate a more palpable fear.

Yeah as in they will mess you up for real so shutting your eyes going "not scared not scared" won't cut it. As real things I guess they are also that much more tied to their landscape too, hence landscape = fear.

This stuff was all very real to him, that's what makes it so intense. His ghosts are as real as his haunted houses - he would have been able to tell you all about their architecture - and as solid as the old-testament universe that he saw behind the Edwardian world he lived in.

44 sleeps till christmas a website just told me! fuck off. coincidentally i am reading m r james for the first time and huh.

well that made me very efficiently spooked when i was walking around the house in the dark last night but i don't really know how else i felt about it

+enjoyed the running jokes about golf
+favourite 'the mezzotint' = the cambridge types in it displaying utter aesthetic detachment at the supernatural stuff, just kinda 'huh, that ghoul totally stole a kid ... no biggie', like the inverse of Standard Lovecraft Emotion
+don't know how much of this stuff was as ... familiar? not predictable exactly ... at the head of the last century
+like the one with the ward of the guy who's an expert on sacrificial rituals and whose previous wards have vanished
+and he explains that afterwards!! in case you didn't figure it out!!
+whereas 'whistle and i'll come to you, my lad', there's a foregrounded MYSTERIOUS INSCRIPTION which he never explains!!
+contrast to the ones in canon alberic's treasure, which are explained and overexplained. is 'the gold-bug' the (modern) origin of this type of story?
+'room 13' or 'number 13' a fine display of the 'the space in the room is wrong' thing, which is probably my favourite horror topos or trope of all time

Mezzotint = owner is freaked out but god help him he has to watch = maybe archivist's reaction to the unstoppable brutality of the past

inscription in Oh Whistle doesn't feel untranslatable but again the finder's "pooh pooh"ing draws him in
room 13 is straight Poe but Poe is ugly at this kind of horror of physics too, James sells you the naivety of his protagonists imo

I presume you've all googled the inscription.

Interesting display of (non-scholarly) detachment in "Rats".

sorry yeah i think i cd read the inscription anyway when i was undrunk

anyho the place is the thing, imagine how horrible non-rural UK ghost writing mostly cd be

the mezzotint guy didn't seem that freaked out by it. he was willing to give that it was enough of a suspension of normal circumstances that his scout could use his chair, that was the limit.

i enjoyed the presence in a couple of cases of references to psychical-research types at the periphery of the story, curious what it would do to the logic of these fictions if they'd moved any more central

basically after three stories i was thinking 'must get the collected stories as soon as possible' and after i finished the book i thought 'maybe i will get the collected stories one day when i see a copy'

Is there a "best place to start" or just dive in with any book/edition?

There are collected stories freely downloadable. Usually collections are largely chronological, it works well because a lot of his classics are in the first batch of stories but I think he gets richer and more interesting in some ways later on

cosine this

the penguin 'count magnus and other ghost stories' is his first two collections with no omissions and some extra stuff and s.t. joshi's notes are only a little bit annoying

+don't know how much of this stuff was as ... familiar? not predictable exactly ... at the head of the last century
+like the one with the ward of the guy who's an expert on sacrificial rituals and whose previous wards have vanished
+and he explains that afterwards!! in case you didn't figure it out!!

apparently i have a long history of hating on 'lost hearts'

weird note: i have a strong memory of reading that particular copy of 'ghost stories of an antiquary' in the house i grew up in ... which on the evidence of this thread never happened, as my parents had left long before the date i say i'm reading it for the first time ~

There are collected stories freely downloadable

MRJ might be the only author where I have a sudden luddite desire to claim that there's no substitute for reading him on paper. There is or was a cheapo wordsworth classics edition of the complete ghost stories, which has all but three.

There's a run of stories towards the end that up till now have never left any impression on my memory - An Episode of Cathedral History, The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, Two Doctors, The Haunted Dolls' House, The Uncommon Prayer-Book. Just reread them all and I would need some convincing that this isn't the weakest set of the bunch.

An Episode of Cathedral History: this is good and important (= i have a *theory* abt it which i am waiting to deploy on freaky trigger).

All the others have one perfectly formed memorably nasty element but are otherwise slight (two doctors, which is largely period pastiche), formally a repeat (dolls house, as he admits), erm not un-racist (prayerbook), or technically flawed (disappearance, which i remain fond of for the punch-and-judy stuff).

caveat: i am the biggest MRJ-stan on the board and basically he did NOTHING BAD and EVERYTHING IS GOOD shut up

also ledge is clearly setting djh up for some kind of sacristan-style business with his "read it in an actual book"

one reason i like the copy i've downloaded is it collects everything and has James's introductions to the original published volumes.

There is or was a cheapo wordsworth classics edition of the complete ghost stories, which has all but three.

that's collected not complete, which sounds less oxymoronish. it has this cover, which is a perfect evocation of the jamesian atmosphere, if not quite enough to inspire the terror of the sacristan:

http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/grimshaw/moonlight_walk-400.jpg

i have a *theory* abt it which i am waiting to deploy on freaky trigger

only five others to go first eh

ghost story anthologists love a john atkinson grimshaw - quite a few examples iirc.

oxymoronish oxymoranic obv, xp to self.

haha i have a social history of the london context of jack the ripper with a john atkinson grimshaw, called -- with a degree of bathos -- after the shower

only five others: actually it's the next one to go up (but the writer -- not me -- hasn't finished it)

good to hear the series is being exhumed yet again.

All the others have one perfectly formed memorably nasty element

i am willing to forgive a lot in james if there is one perfectly formed memorably nasty element but to me that is just where these are lacking. two doctors is also exceedingly obscure, googling 'bedstaff' does not help much.

This reminds me that I started jumping around in my various Penguin collections of a similar vintage (Machen, Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith) and never returned to James. I shall have to do that.

the chrysalis! the chrysalis!

i have no idea what a bedstaff is, tbh i picture a big stick with a bedsheet nailed to it and move on

i could list the moments i mean (w/o looking them up) but it's a bit spoilery and unfair to djh

I have a collection of his stuff but never really got far into it. What's a really great one to start?

despite the various opinions here, including that he gets deeper and richer as he goes on, which is right i think, i'm not sure it really matters? If I remember rightly I picked up his stories (the first copy i had was Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories, and I just picked stuff I liked the look of. then re-read every winter. Have read all of them now I think (inc those not collected in the collected).

i'd be hesitant to tell you start with my favourites, partly because getting into him and his tone i think means you savour the best even more. would for this reason say 'just start with Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book and go from there where your nose takes you' but as you've presumably already done that, then pluck one you like the title of.

christ my use or rather abuse of brackets is a constant source of shame.

The titular(*) whistle is basically a supernatural equivalent of "Do not throw stones at this notice".

(*) noun/verb confusion notwithstanding

i've always imagined that the Templars or whoever originally made it had some way of managing whatever it summoned

I picked up a cheapo best-of reprint this weekend and am looking forward to reading it. Some Gerhard-style crosshatch illustrations throughout.

This seems like an interesting writeup by P Fitzgerald but am avoiding until I've read some of the stories.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/dec/23/fiction.books

There's a good and complimentary biography review in the lrb, and a bad and dismissive review of the collected stories which overplays the fear of sex angle. Both paywalled but here's a bit of the latter:

We don’t need to have read any of the Freud which James would have run several miles from to interpret what Mr Dunning in ‘Casting the Runes’ finds when he puts his hand into the well-known nook under his pillow: ‘What he touched was, according to his account, a mouth, with teeth, and with hair about it, and, he declares, not the mouth of a human being.’

Jones [sic]detects a vagina dentata

I'm gonna go with 'nope' there.

i've always imagined that the Templars or whoever originally made it had some way of managing whatever it summoned

The fur/fla/fle/bis inscription, likely translation "oh thief, you will blow it, you will weep" suggests otherwise, that it was made simply to punish and not even to protect any other treasure.

Martin's Close on bbc 4 at 10pm tonight. I might be asleep by then...

(can't place this one...)

it's the one that's a report of a trial, the ghost is a spurned and drowned woman with learning difficulties iirc. definitely not top tier.

It's from "More..." but still unfamiliar. Maybe that'll make for a better TV experience.

I had a bunch of the 15 minute radio versions from bbc4extra and they'd shuffle up whilst jogging around the park and really kill the mood.

Dunno if I'll see it tonight or catch up on iplayer over the holiday. 30 minutes seems a bit skimpy, we don't get them very often so a 45 minute film would've been nice. Most adaptations bar Jonathan Miller's aren't exactly formally daring tho

it's one of my favourite stories in the books but as a version it wasn't great:they played judge jeffreys as a twerp, where i think he shd be irresponsible playful and funny but switching on the instant to scary and sinister -- p sure he commanded his courtrooms, which this guy really didn't :(

oh and the line-reading of "with a knife value a penny" was wrong -- this isn't meant dismissively, it's simply a record of the worth of the object by which the murder was done, as routinely entered in judicial records of crimes committed

viz per the medieval death bot tumblr FAQ, for the question (no.2) Why is the price of this thing mentioned?

"That thing – be it a pot or a knife – is called a deodand and it’s something that is believed to have caused the death of an individual. The price of each deodand is appraised and gathered for the crown’s treasury. The crown was then supposed to use this money for pious means, in the light that a deodand is, in purest form, something forfeited to god. The deodand was either paid by someone in the village or taken out of the deceased’s chattels."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodand

They also skipped the bit about john martin's name being spelt wrong on the indictment which I think gives a good indication of his deceitful character and desperation, as well as hanging over the story like a chekhov's shotgun only to misfire at the end.

Yeah maybe the Beeb should let somebody less basic than Gattis have a go next time. This was mostly not quite adequate.

i liked the dark pokeyness of the inn but not so much the windowed smallness of the court (which i guess i imagined wd be more rumpole-esque)

there's some nice annotative details here at rosemary pardoe's pleasingly nerdy james fansite: including a note on the misspelling legal claim which ledge mentions, pointing out that this is almost certainly a reference to a similar occurrence and claim in the 1660 trial of the regicide henry marten/martin (which claim failed, tho marten was not in fact executed, partly thanks to his courageous and able self-defence)

MRJ's curious little legal history in-joke here is one of several things that make me think something is going on in his mind during this story which is not set out clearly: viz the date of the martin's close trial and martin's execution (via clues in the text) = late 1684, towards the very end of charles ii's reign (viz its 36th year, as measured from the death of charles i -- i.e. excluding the cromwellian interregnum). charles ii's successor, his brother james ii, acceded to the thone in feb 1685. the monmouth rebellion against james took place in the west country (= very much round where this story is set) this same summer, followed by the bloody assizes that made judge jeffrey's reputation, the grim consequence of this rebellion's defeat.

(the titus oates trial mentioned above -- actually a retrial -- also took place in earlyish 1685…)

all this (IMO) is mood music is MRJ's head during this story -- as jeffreys' backstory -- but very little of it is mentioned clearly and so i don't really know what to make of it all lol

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cn0h

Ghost Stories From Ambridge: Lost Hearts

On a biting December night, Jim Lloyd enthrals Ambridge residents with the story of a young boy who arrives at the house of his generous benefactor to find all is not as it seems.

https://unbound.com/books/casting-the-runes/

Crowdfunding for a book of his letters

weird that this hasn't been done already

Yeah, some editions of his books have several letters included but it is weird there was never a dedicated book.

I've had the Collected for years but never read it. Reading a story a night and thoroughly enjoying myself. I've just finished the Ash Tree, which creeped the shit out of me. I'm also following along with the Freaky Trigger marginalia and thoroughly enjoying these, too. Hat-tip to Mark.

Stalls of Barchester on bbc4 tonight, 22:15 and which, according to iplayer, hasn't been broadcast since Christmas eve 1971, but i don't know how accurate that is.

(opposite it on ch5 is a ghost story about an antique book dealer...)

Mark V pitches in:

Thirty years ago this year, Rosemary Pardoe published The James Gang – A Bibliography of Writers in the M.R. James Tradition (1991). This provided a checklist of books and stories following in the antiquarian ghost story form perfected by James, as well as those (not necessarily in that style) by his circle of friends. Hugh Lamb, who had drawn up a “James List” for his own use in 1973, provided an introduction.

This soon became an invaluable reference source for any enthusiast repining that James’ stories are all very well, but there just aren’t enough of them. Rosemary has said she would like to see the list updated with similar work published since her list—but is not volunteering to do it! There would certainly be a lot more to list, not least because of Rosemary’s own work with the Ghosts & Scholars journals and anthologies.

The James Gang is organised alphabetically by author surname, but I thought it would also be interesting to arrange the main items (not all of them) chronologically, to get a sense of how the Jamesian story developed. I have here focused on books, or groups of stories, rather than individual stories, though these are included in the original booklet.
Here 'tis:
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-chronology-of-writers-in-m-r-james.html

Seems like she should have found another title: Thee M.R. The Merrier?

Bible Black and Starless? Geddit King James

Stalls of Barchester on bbc4 tonight, 22:15 and which, according to iplayer, hasn't been broadcast since Christmas eve 1971, but i don't know how accurate that is.

(opposite it on ch5 is a ghost story about an antique book dealer...)

― koogs, Sunday, 31 October 2021 19:19 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Def not accurate, I used to have it taped from a mid-2000s repeat.

well i've bookmarked that list anyway, hope it's full of people who are good like MRJ not just boring cargo cult MRJ *cough*Susan Hill*cough*

yeah i swear i've watched Barchester on TV in the last few years

> (opposite it on ch5 is a ghost story about an antique book dealer...)

this was by Susan Hill...

i know that's what made me think of her

nb i have never nor will i ever read her work

I've taught The Woman in Black a few times. It's a bad book. The upsides are the film from 1988 and particularly the stage show, which is just terrific.

A Warning to the Curious starring Peter Vaughan is on iPlayer now, proper East Anglian uncanny

That story is the subject of the best episode (or two) of ‎A Podcast to the Curious, going into detail on James' experience of WW1 and how it plays into the story. Though they gloss over the strangely mutable dig site (Paxton takes a train back from the dig, then later on they all walk to it from the hotel in half an hour or so.)

the passage where paxton mentions the train is odder even than that really -- bcz he's clearly describing being shadowed on his walk back to the hotel! i wonder if what it means (but doesn't say at all clearly) is that he was aiming to catch a train first thing in the morning from seaburgh (since he now has the crown) but actually never does: instead he returns to the hotel and slumps there in despair

this allows the dig to be not far from the hotel on the outskirts of the town (of course coastal trains also had stops every two minutes in the 1900s)

Aye, you recall that too, friend mark.

he's clearly describing being shadowed on his walk back to the hotel! i wonder if what it means (but doesn't say at all clearly) is that he was aiming to catch a train first thing in the morning from seaburgh (since he now has the crown) but actually never does: instead he returns to the hotel and slumps there in despair

i thought he was being shadowed on his walk from the dig to the station? i guess he does say 'take a train back' which is ambiguous, but he mentions getting into the carriage, if he then got too spooked and jumped out again he probably would have mentioned that too. i think in the podcast they say he got the train to hide the fact of where he was digging but there's nothing in the text to support that.

this article shares my feeling that it's just a slip of james' mind, around which we are free to construct whatever spooky explanation we choose ("the sheer fear that Paxton experiences while being chased along the beautifully desolate beaches and forests forces the very logic of the topography to dissolve" suggests another article on the tv version):

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchivePleasing.html

yes you're right i'd totally forgotten the bit abt the porter (possibly bcz it's a bit too like a similar passage in casting the runes)

the opening paragraph also strongly suggests that the burial mound is on the outskirts of the town (which is not very big even now)

Not sure the extent to which these were oral stories before they were published or whether that matters too much but I hadn't noticed and it's worth thinking about

many of them were written to be read aloud iirc

(funny that 'M R James' doesn't find this thread but 'MR James' does despite not being a match for title)

anyway, Lost Hearts on bbc4 tonight (and this has been recently repeated, assuming it's the same version with the creepy white children, but my recording missed the end)

I thought Warning to the Curious was great, and I don't think I'd seen it before

haha yes i suspect my ineffective suggested explanations derive from reading the essay ledge links to several years ago and then forgetting i'd read it and simply internalising some of its rejected explanations

Oh I meant the 72 BBC film with Peter Vaughan, it's never been one of my favourites but they did good work with it

watched it yesterday, and yes is good. as mark says, the mound in the story is clearly v much within walking distance of the town (and have indeed walked it myself p much).

also despite reading it many times had not noticed that paxton gets a train back to seaburgh after acquiring the crown and they walk there when putting it back.

definitely feels like a slip of the narrative rather than anything else.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/ernst.jpg

I was pleased and unruffled by the way the film took liberties with the story, or at least I think it was taking liberties, been a while since I read the original. Maybe a bit unnecessary in the ending but the cinematography was gorgeous and spot on

definitely liberties but i think they worked well enough like you say.

i prefer the story ending of him which is probably too grotesque to manage or desire to do on film.

You don't need to be told that he was dead. His tracks showed that he had run along the side of the battery, had turned sharp round the corner of it, and, small doubt of it, must have dashed straight irito the open arms of someone who was waiting there. His mouth was full of sand and stones, and his teeth and jaws were broken to bits. I only glanced once at his face.

The notion of Paxton running after--after anything like this, and supposing it to be the friends he was looking for, was very dreadful to us. You can guess what we fancied: how the thing he was following might stop suddenly and turn round on him, and what sort of face it would show, half-seen at first in the mist--which all the while was getting thicker and thicker. And as I ran on wondering how the poor wretch could have been lured into mistaking that other thing for us, I remembered his saying, 'He has some power over your eyes.'

Can't visually improve on the master

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

Anyhoo yeah Lost Hearts tonight which I'll no doubt watch later in the week and I don't love the liberties or the treatment so much

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

Not so keen on them changing Paxton to an older man, it removes the possibility of the WWI readings, with Paxton's elders and mentors unable to save him as James was unable to help those he mentored who went off to die in the war - or more sinisterly Paxton following those he believes to be his elders and mentors to his death. Sounds a bit crass condensed like that maybe but the podcast goes into more detail on James' wartime role and how it plays into those readings.

incidentally my own reading of the story -- based on the chiming descriptions of ager and paxton (young very solitary men of obsessive tendency) -- is that the final terrible face he sees is his own

this isn't remotely canon lol -- and it occurs to me now (reading ledge's post but w/o checking the podcast) that it could certainly be elaborated, via earthworks-trenches and the wartime clash and sacrifice by the old of so many younger men on both sides, and the "martello tower" and the broken face with sand in it…

as for that mysterious train: "'The First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age" (A.J.P.Taylor)

ffs i have actual work to do this morning

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

not helped by having a whacking great BBC ident in the upper left-hand corner of the picture

"Over on BBC Two, M.R. James’ The Mezzotint, adapted by Mark Gatiss, stars Rory Kinnear, Robert Bathurst, Frances Barber, John Hopkins, Emma Cunniliffe, and Nikesh Patel. This haunting tale, set in an old English college in 1922, it is guaranteed to bring some eerie fear to the audience."

(new years eve ish)

it is guaranteed to bring some eerie fear to the audience

great copywriting here

bbc christmas press release, bound to be a bit florid

also, xmas eve is the more traditional time for this. stop doing james wrong.

Gatiffs

moffe growing upon the scrapbook of a canon

Further to the discussion of Jamesian authors some way above, I really enjoyed both collections of Women's Weird. Sometimes stretching fairly standard horror to fit 'weird fiction', perhaps, but they're great anthologies, and there are a few antiquarian spooks in there to get a James-like fix.

Those look great. Might actually lose a fair bit of cash on that publisher in general, looks like they have loads of interesting stuff.

those do look good, thanks for the link

Yeah will give that a go.

Mezzotint an interesting choice for televising, all the action happens in a picture which makes no difference in the reader's imagination but hard to imagine it having a high spook factor on the screen.

very high risk factor making an artwork the centre of yr visual fiction!

itt: paintings that are plot-points in movies and TV that are terrible paintings (or excellent ones if there are any)

Aha, I was sure that I'd seen a version of 'the Mezzotint' before, and I had! BBC Classic Ghost Stories, 1986: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3389680/reference

I recall liking it a lot, too. I don't have an anti-Gatiss kneejerk reaction like some people do, but I do kind of wish he wasn't the only one reviving these stories.

Thanks for the link emil.y, hadn't heard of that publisher before. Wonder if there's much crossover with the British Library's anthologies of proper old ghost etc stories

https://shop.bl.uk/collections/british-library-fiction/products/a-phantom-lover-and-other-dark-tales-by-vernon-lee

tbf it's not full-blown kneejerk with Gatiss but he usually winds up disappointing me

I'm not sure any of the adaptations past or present have been that great tbh. The original Oh Whistle was about seven hours too long, the keystone cops chase at the end of A Warning to the Curious was pretty disappointing.

Nooo, lies, ledge, lies. Both of those are wonderful. (My favourite Xmas ghost story adaptation is The Signalman but that's not James so doesn't count on this thread, I guess.)

I want full on CGI monsters & gore not flapping sheets and a bloody nose.

none more goth!

https://norfolktalesmyths.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/lost-hearts-lost6.jpg

That made me think of Our Mutual Friend - "come up and be dead!" - which made me think of "I'll hold you living and I'll hold you dead" from the same - which made me think of the climax to A School Story.

bbc4 are showing these weekly on Mondays. last Monday was The Treasure of Abbott Thomas which i missed

next Monday is The Ash Tree

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

― it isn't even a Fraktion (Noodle Vague), Monday, 15 November 2021 21:52 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nope, reshown in 2004 and 2005.

Jesus, last on 16 years ago. Where did my life go?

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?order=-last&filt=bbc_four&q=A+Warning+To+The+Curious

dickens' Signalman tonight, followed (oddly) by an MR James documentary

The Signalman is really good, a psychological story that works better with the vfx and sensibilities of 70s TV than James' jump scares of the imagination.

Stigma next week, an original story, not well received at the time.

The Signalman was excellent - properly creepy with some great scraping drones on the soundtrack.

The thing that sticks with me most about the Holden Oh Whistle is the portrayal of the solitary walker. It captures that lonely, bumbling madness beautifully.

It's the landscape as well, Miller uses the stark East Anglian coastline incredibly well to depict the character's total isolation, all those endless flat pebbly peaches stretching on to infinity. No better place to go slowly mad through loneliness.

Re: The Signalman, Denholm Elliot's best performance maybe? A strikingly haunting portrayal of the aftermath of trauma (the story inspired by Dickens' own traumatic experience surviving a train crash of course).

Stigma next week, an original story, not well received at the time.

They weren't wrong.

I thought Stigma was ok, though it has been a while since I saw it.

I enjoyed the other original story in the series, The Ice House, more - though that isn’t well regarded either.

The Ice House is on next week. Stigma was just devoid of atmosphere, suspense, horror, historical depth or characterisation, and the acting was dreadful (including a 13 year old girl played by an actress who must have been 18 at least).

The Ice House is v good iirc, with more of an Aickmanesque atmosphere than Jamesian, looking forward to that. Agreed on Stigma, bit of a will-this-do box ticker

new Mezzotint tonight on 2, and classic Whistle later on 4 (after turn of the screw)

The Ice House - Aickmanesque or not (and awful hammy acting or not) these kinds of stories full of signs and suggestions and not a shred of narrative logic do nothing for me. The Mezzotint - better than I was expecting! I am fully in support of the additional story element and ending.

Yeah didn't much care for The Ice House at all, thought it was much too arch and silly.

Here's a good and quite rare short that turned up on youtube starring TP McKenna, "A Child's Voice". Not a Ghost Story For Christmas but would fit that strand very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zwQ6_KyHao

mezzotint was simply done and i thought p strong* right up to the end, when it went very gerald's game (in a bad way)

*solo performance from rory basically

5 minutes into Whistle and it's got that great b&w look that i don't think you'd get today even if you tried. a friend's daughter caught him watching a b&w film and asked him why it was all silver and that's how this feels.

wonky angles galore too, and i don't think there's been a shot so far that hasn't had something in the foreground, or this one that's in a mirror.

The Ice House - Aickmanesque or not (and awful hammy acting or not) these kinds of stories full of signs and suggestions and not a shred of narrative logic do nothing for me. The Mezzotint - better than I was expecting! I am fully in support of the additional story element and ending.

― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Tuesday, 28 December 2021 11:34 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah on rewatch it wasn't as good as I remembered, not v good at all tbh

Mezzotint was pretty well done, all quibbles are minor, Barber feels like violence but that's nobody's fault but hers really, closing bit could've stopped with his first/second sight of the new picture, the degrees for women bit felt like boilerplate Gatiss straining for the wrong note of relevance and flubbing it. it were good tho.

Christopher Lee reads the Ash Tree on bbc4 tonight at 10

http://www.urbanfantasist.com/uploads/1/0/3/4/10341498/christmasashtree-copy_orig.jpg

this book just *terrified* me as a kid and as a result i totally recommend it (70s YA was a thing other imo)

Considered one of the best novels in the M.R. James tradition and long unavailable, a reprint of John Gordon's THE HOUSE ON THE BRINK (1970) is coming soon. Preorder now on our site and read more here: https://t.co/JkOTW8IalW pic.twitter.com/56iIQK3aXl

— Valancourt Books (@Valancourt_B) August 31, 2022

clearing out old bookmarks, and making a note of this book and reminded just *how good* (and often terrifying) the puffin plus imprint was.

Summer email---this may be sold out by now, but more affordable second hand some day---is this a good bet? I'm not familiar with the publisher or contributors.

NEW TITLE NEWS: THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS BOOK OF FOLLIES AND GROTTOES

Sarob Press is spookily delighted to present thirteen eerie spectral tales (eight are wholly original to this volume) where the authors have taken, as inspiration, the theme of follies and grottoes. In her introduction Rosemary Pardoe tells us: ‘Follies may be fake temples, belvederes, pyramids, obelisks and towers, sham castles and ruins, eyecatchers, faux druid circles and hermitages (with or without fake hermit!), and many other things besides. Folly grottoes are often cut out of rock, and decorated, frequently with shells (such as the one at Margate, which is famously often claimed to be genuinely pre-Christian).’

And the dark and ghostly stories ... ‘range widely, from mysterious towers and classical temples to hidden grottoes; from revivals of the worship of ancient gods to unexpected distortions of space and time’.

All five of the previous Sarob Press (and Rosemary Pardoe edited) Ghosts & Scholars anthologies sold out very quickly … so get your order in early to avoid disappointment as this one will, surely, quickly go the way of the others.

Contents: “Introduction” by Rosemary Pardoe, “Baines’ Folly” by Christopher Harman, “Lady Elphinstone’s Folly” by John Ward, “The Ptolemaic System” by David Longhorn, “The Crooked Rook” by Rick Kennett, “Sweet Folly” by Gail-Nina Anderson, “Branks’s Folly” by C.E. Ward, “Folly” by Sam Dawson, “Minter’s Folly” by Chico Kidd, “Mothrot Hall” by Katherine Haynes, “‘Father’ O’Flynn and the Fressingfold Friezes” by Tina Rath, “Mad Lutanist” by Mark Valentine, “When I Heard My Days Before Me” by John Howard & “And Music Shall Untune the Sky” by S.A. Rennie

THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS BOOK OF FOLLIES AND GROTTOES is a Hand Numbered Limited Edition Jacketed Hardcover. Bound in Wibalin Cloth (Fine Linen Style), Foil Blocked to Spine, Lithographically Printed on Quality 80gsm Cream Bookwove Paper, Coloured Endpapers, Section Sewn Binding & Head/Tailbands.

Approx 192pp including prelims etc. Fabulous wrap jacket art by the ever brilliant Paul Lowe.

Publication currently scheduled for mid September 2022.

PRICES ... (inclusive of Postage and Packing)

UK: £38.00

EUROPE : 45,00 Euros

USA & Rest of World: USA $60 / USA $65 (Tracked)

as some will know rosemary pardoe runs the *impressively* old-school (and usefully scholarly) m r james fansite http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GS.html as well as a site devoted to the 60s underground magazine GANDALF'S GARDEN: http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GS.html

(sad to note her husband and co-sitehost darroll pardoe passed away last year)

so i'd say bet on it yes

oops i gave u james twice, here's gandalf: http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GG.html

Noticing good pix there right away, thx!

Douglas A. Anderson, editor of fine Tales Before Tolkien, on James' only novel (brief, intriguing comments)http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-centenary-of-five-jars.html

bbc christmas schedule out today and includes

A Ghost Story for Christmas: Count Magnus

gatiss again

it's all good, i'm used to these inferior facsimiles now

Count Magnus is a very cruel one to do underwhelmingly tho

it's the brass ring of mrj and gatiss will as usual fail to seize it 😔

if i was Gatiss i would simply say "i'm rubbish at this, give somebody good a go"

When will there be more freaky trigger hauntography posts, that's what I'd like to know.

yeah those lazy assholes

knowing the murkiness of the details about the comings and goings of the guy in 'a warning to the curious' i've just spent some time finding out if it was possible that for count magnus's unfortunate victim, "much of his journey" home was by canal boat, alongside a traveller going from stockholm to trollhättan. it was.

that trollhättan in full:

https://assets.moomin.com/uploads/2015/11/Finn-Family-Moomintroll_Hat.jpg

now there's a crossover i'd like to see.

This isn't cheap but the concept is pretty great: a book about the real life settings of hundreds of ghost stories
http://tartaruspress.com/ghost-story-gazetteer.html

I just heard a reading of "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" on the Ephemeral podcast. Inspired me to download Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. Happy Holidays.

Asking gpt-3 to write a moomin story in the style of m.r. james. 'in the style of' doesn't seem to work so well but this one gets a bit meta:

As the moon rose high in the night sky, the moomins gathered around their cozy little house, huddled together against the chill of the autumn air. In the distance, the forest was alive with the rustling of leaves and the howling of the wind, but the moomins were safe and warm inside their home.

Suddenly, a knock at the door startled them all. Who could it be at this late hour? The moomins hesitated, but eventually one of them bravely opened the door to find a stranger standing on their doorstep.

The stranger was tall and thin, with a long, curved nose and a strange, otherworldly air about him. He introduced himself as Mr. James, a traveler who had been lost in the forest for days. The moomins welcomed him inside, offering him a cup of tea and a warm fire to sit by.

As they talked, Mr. James told the moomins of his adventures in the forest, of the strange and wondrous creatures he had encountered, and of the many dangers he had faced. The moomins listened with rapt attention, entranced by his tales of adventure.

But as the night wore on, the moomins began to sense that there was something not quite right about Mr. James. His stories seemed too fantastical, too far-fetched, to be true. And there was a glint in his eye, a hint of malice, that made them uneasy.

As the moomins prepared for bed, Mr. James retired to his room, but they could hear him muttering and chanting late into the night. And when they woke the next morning, they found that Mr. James had disappeared, leaving behind only a strange, cold feeling in the air.

The moomins knew then that they had been visited by a mysterious and dangerous creature, one that threatened to upset the balance of their peaceful world. But they were strong and brave, and they knew that they would overcome this threat, just as they had overcome all the others that had come before.

And so the moomins went about their days, keeping a watchful eye out for any further signs of Mr. James, determined to protect their home and their way of life from the dangers of the forest.

As the sun set over the peaceful Moomin Valley, the Moomins gathered around the fire to tell each other ghost stories. Little My was the first to speak, her voice trembling with fear as she told the tale of the ghostly Moominpappa who roamed the woods at night, searching for lost souls to haunt.

But it was Snufkin's story that truly chilled the Moomins to the bone. He spoke of the Moominmamma who, long ago, had been possessed by a dark spirit and had begun to prey on the other Moomins, luring them into her clutches with her sweet words and gentle touch.

The Moomins listened in horror as Snufkin described how the Moominmamma had lured Moominpappa into her embrace, only to reveal her true, monstrous form and devour him whole. And now, he warned, she was coming for the rest of them.

As the fire crackled and the night grew darker, the Moomins could hear the sound of soft footsteps approaching. And then, from the shadows, the Moominmamma emerged, her eyes glowing with malevolent intent as she reached out to embrace them all.

The Moomins screamed in terror as they were pulled into the darkness, never to be seen again. And in the silence that followed, the only sound was the Moominmamma's chilling laughter, echoing through the empty valley.

classic snufkin

Count Magnus was underwhelming on several levels. I swear I take no joy in this, and if i was less hungover and more energetic would have a good think about what's wrong with the commissioning process, the cultural expectations and a bunch of other non-Gatiss factors that wind up with these rote simulacra of past glories. Schalcken the Painter was on BBC4 the night before and tho that has a few minor issues of its own the yawning gulf in quality and ambition probly just soured Magnus even more.

at least if it was bad that would've been something

no wait, one more thing. Adaptation is adaptation, fine, it's not just about faithfulness to the source text. but what fucking use is a Count Magnus with all of the horror and dread flattened out of it?

didn't realise it was on - will have to fit it on over the next few days. stoked for the disappointment.

not sure whether my memory is up to its usual tricks, or I've never heard of schlacken the painter.

it's been discussed somewhere this year i think? if not this thread, then maybe Wyrd Britain or one of the old TV movie threads

it isn't a strictly functional ghost story maybe, but it pisses over this latest effort

magnus is a pmtough ask translating across mediums IMO but trust gatiss to fvck it up lol

pmtough = p tough

yeah i asked myself what a good version would look like and i'm not at all sure. but not this one

then i thought maybe the Beeb should start A Borges for Christmas and give it to fucking Danny Boyle or someone

considered opinion: Gatiss isn't a big James fan

The Tractate Middoth was ok and the other one was crap, I'm in no hurry to watch this.

I meant The Mezzotint

I think I missed his version of The Mezzotint, or at least I remember nothing about it. Probably commented on ilx somewhere if I did watch it but can't be fucked to search. I suspect Gatiss *is* a James fan but yeah, his adaptations have been deeply underwhelming for the most part, this one included. His own one, The Dead Room, I thought was a genuinely good addition to the canon.

Didn't realise Schalcken was on BBC4, have already arranged a rewatch with a friend for our own Ghost Stories For Christmas shenanigans. I remember thinking it was wonderful when I last saw it but not much about what happens! We've already done a rewatch of The Exorcism from Dead of Night and oh man, if you haven't seen that one you really should. Powerhouse of a scenery-chewing performance as the centrepiece of that one, and deeply political. Also Clive Swift.

gattis is forever on book shambles podcast and its various offshoots talking about that stuff - I've just been listening to their stay-at-home-festival stuff they did during lockdown. which makes it more of a mystery why he never quite nails it.

haven't seen magnus yet because parents TV only gets sport and afternoon quiz shows, somehow

i quite enjoyed mezzotint right up to the final moments bcz i tht rory kinnear was p good and then they gerald's gamed it lol

tbf this error goes all the way back to casting the runes / night of the demon == climactic horror being underwhelming after all

fond tho everyone justly is of:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/e/e8/The_Bad_Dude_Night_of_the_Demon_%281957%29.jpg

Of course Night of the Demon is great but it's the cat that's the scary monster

emil.y I haven't seen The Exorcism as far as I know and I'll look out for it

"Poor Bilbo Baggins! He set out on his journey to the Shire on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken hobbit"

perhaps bcz forewarned it wd be poor i didn't hate this (tho my co-viewers were very underwhelmed): jason watkins playing wraxall (or wraxhall as gatiss calls him and fraxhall as voiceover magnus pronounces him) as bumptiuously irritating and silly, with austin powers moves. which is a reading (the swedes in the original story none of them extend their chats with him lol) even if it makes him p hard to care about. no harm bringing in the countess as a new exposition deliverer (rather surprisingly in life james actually spent time with women but he didn't write so many). the bystanders were more wickerman complicit than the original story quite suggests -- as if they need a sacrifice and feel bad for him even if he is super-annoying -- but actually i quite like this evolution. bcz he knows and wills the ending, and sees the victim as his pet's lunch more than sociology, magnus as voiceover strips out abt half of the device by which the reader observes wraxall's terror mouintg = the reader reading w's increasingly panicked journal over his shoulder: also i think it was gatiss doing fake swedish, which fvck that.

the look of the setting was (to say it 18th century style) pleasantly BOSKY, tho not i think v swedish, it was filmed nr beaconsfield, which probably undermines w's sense of solitude. my co-viewers were "there's not much to it!" -- well no, despite being somewhart cryptically warned off wraxall wakes the terror and the terror goes after him, that's literally it, the value and weight of the story is in the measure of the mounting dread not the rubber tentacle lol.

here's a passage quoting from W's journal piling up the dread: "as I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember." i'm not going to say this idea is literally unfilmable, but gatiss made no adequate attempt and found no adequate solution, in favour of cutting to -- and then p much past -- the chase

imv gatiss is a malignant mediocrity who never fails to extract the mysterious transformative element from his subject matter before representing, adapting or reviewing it.

i *partially* agree with it being more or less unfilmable, but feel someone with an imagination and an understanding of the mechanics of james’ ghost stories might make a decent fist of it. i don’t think gatiss has an ounce of imaginative capability in his entire frame. I haven’t seen CM yet tho. am almost reluctant to, tho like you thought the mezzotint was actually fairly acceptable, again mainly because of rory kinnear, who is an incredibly good actor at minimal conveyance of thought and emotion. just magically good at it. and also v good at amplifying that subtle approach on stage as well, which is a total mystery to me how you do it.

oh and merry xmas/wobs etc all!

by making Wraxall a buffoon you basically eliminate the possibility of sympathetic terror

the emphasis all very much on the wrong things as per

otm (in advance of me having seen it but p certain it’s otm).

while we’re here i want to rep once again for The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, which i read again the other day and feel is neglected esp as it has the important element of a f’ing sinister punch and judy show.

the painting was a classic of bad art in a movie :D

this is the de la gardie MRJ is generally assumed to have had in mind:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Jakob_delagardi.jpg

wikipedia on the de la gardies then and now:
The family's social status in France is uncertain; the founder, Ponce d'Escouperie, son of a tradesman, came to Sweden as a mercenary in 1565 and took the name Pontus De la Gardie when registered by the House of Knights. He was given the title friherre in 1571 and married Sofia Johansdotter Gyllenhielm, an illegitimate daughter of king John III in 1580.

The baronial title ended with his eldest son John De la Gardie. Pontus De la Gardie's second son, Jacob De la Gardie, was given the title count of Läckö in 1615; his grandson Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie became a favourite of Queen Christina and married her cousin, Countess Palatine Maria Eufrosyne of Zweibrücken (a sister of Charles X Gustav of Sweden).

The De la Gardie of Läckö comital lineage is extinct. The current head of the family, Carl Gustaf De la Gardie (1946– ), lives outside Linköping.

linköping is the swedish for microwave

CM is the one where Chorazin is referenced isn’t it? For all those Spectre vs Rector fans out there.

yup

chorazin-ah as MES refers to it 😇

pronouncing it convincingly would've been a good idea too

it has the same root as chorizo: he was on the black pilgrimage there to meet the prince of the air SPICY MEDITERRANEAN SAUSAGE

its-a me magnus

brb going to chatgpt for spector vs rector in the style of joe dolce.

https://mario.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/b/b5/Blooper_-_MarioPartyStarRush.png/1200px-Blooper_-_MarioPartyStarRush.png

Magnus's companion, earlier today

"as I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember."

from Wormwoodiana blog:

At the Cambridge University Library Special Collections website* Clarck Drieshen discusses the authentic medieval magical document, held by the library, which was deployed by M R James in his New Year's Eve 1931 ghost story 'The Experiment'. A fresh look at the manuscript identifies it as one known in other collections of 15th and 16th century magical texts and, by comparing these and re-examining the text, he reveals that James may have mis-read the name of the presiding spirit.

As he observes: "This changes the nature of the ritual from an angelic to a demonic one". The misinterpretation sounds itself like an incident that might have occurred in a Jamesian story, no doubt with drastic consequences . . .

(Mark Valentine) *https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=24166

it's true that james mis-decrypts a demon's name (""assaell", elsewhere known as "azazel") for one ordinarily associated with angels ("raffaell") -- he indicates his uncertainy with a question mark in the text and didn't have time or opportunity to go back and check as the story was on deadline and the library had closed for christmas -- but i am unconvinced james ever saw this ritual as in any routine way "angelic"! or perhaps more accurately that he would even have considered "angelic" a shorthand for things only nice and good: this is magic and it requires the advice and assistance of those we should not treat with, and it is always evil

in fact the otherness and predatory peril of angels (yes fallen, but they're still angels) sat directly within his purview as a scholar -- he himself had discovered or recovered a section of the latin translation of the biblical (or more accurately apocryphal) book of enoch, in which all this is expanded at some length. azazel even gets a passing mention (as a kind of sauron-when-still-fair figure):

Chapter 8
1 And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made
known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and
ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly
stones, and all
2 colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and
they
3 were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways (…)

cheers for that Azazel

Am now very worried for this instagrammer, who may not have read any MR James. LEAVE IT BE, MIKE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY pic.twitter.com/cV2HfD5Qbe

— Helen Macdonald (@HelenJMacdonald) January 4, 2023

just watched Schalcken, it's on iPlayer until Saturday. loved all the Flemish art references

The climax is a little ripe I think - and I like expressionism over realism! - but the journey to it has lots of beautiful creepiness and creepy beauty, yes. And on reflection the whole thing, like all Flemish art, is about accountancy

I listened to the Christopher Lee readings over the last couple of days. God he's good. As ever with good readers, it's the way he manages silence.

I say 'listened to' as they make some nice use of different props and you get a sense of the ordering and layering James is doing with different narrative perspectives and devices but the re-enactments are largely pointless as drama.

any word of a new wrong-headed James adaptation on the BBC this year?

Oh that reminds me - the latest Blacklisted is an MR James special: https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/199
The most excellent Andrew Male is the main guest.

I say 'reminds me' because my first thought when I saw the episode was 'don't let it be Gatiss'.

How is that as a podcast? The books they cover look like a really good range, but I'm a bit worried about general Media Liberal conservatism.

They do cover good books and I've discovered lots of great things through them but yeah, it's a bit Mojo for books.

i know andrew a little -- literally reviews editor for mojo, gave my book a nice thumbs up -- and (relatedly but anyway) i like him

I didn't mean to give the impression that any of that was about AM! I know him a little too (if one day record shopping and a few beers talking about Larkin counts) and totally agree. He's great and easily one of the best guests they have on Backlisted.

And the podcast is good! Just a bit what emil.y said, basically.

i enjoyed the podcast! thanks for sharing it

> any word of a new wrong-headed James adaptation on the BBC this year?

apparently the Christmas schedule is published (in drips and drabs) from start of December. i guess anything like this will be in the can already but I've not heard.

drama costs are sharing though (see cancellation of doctors) and i can see this being something they would cut (even though it's probably less than strictly's glitter budget)

sharing - soaring

decided last night it was that time of year to start a re-read, at least until i get distracted by something else

so, my first thought/question. in "Canon Alberic" exactly how long has the sacristan been successfully dodging that demon? feels like it's not as lethal as one would suppose

Canon Alberic himself managed a few years before it got him in bed, which also raises some questions

so as someone who will never not be thinking abt these stories, i think there's several possible things going on here (possibly all at the same time)

to establish the jamesian ground, you will perhaps recall that there is a story later in the first collections where the inconvenienced afterwards afterwards admits that the inconveniencer might have had no real power except to scare; being a threat only to the weak of heart (maybe)

well, the demon may only have the power to harass -- like a bully repeating the same annoying phrase over and over, the demon erodes the sacristan's sense of self and safety and the sacred simply by never letting up and always being there no matter how often or where he he prays

also (possibly): the sacristan is the caretaker of the church in which the scrapbook is housed rather than the actual owner of the book?
thirdly (maybe): scrapbook, sacristan and demon are all in the actual church, which acts as a general protection against the worst?

alberic by contrast was the maker of the book and in bed (hence presumably not in church lol); possibly also ill and weakened? (tho it also says his departue was "rather sudden" or similar, which speaks against any vulnerability others had observed… )

(or a bed-ridden ?) of illness)

the sacristan keeps the book in his house - this is where he takes it out of the chest when offering it to Dennistoun. the picture of King Solomon with the demon does show a victim with what seems like a broken neck tho without looking back that might be vague in a Jamesian way. "the power only to harass" still feels like a plausible read tho

like i don't want an actual canonical (thousand apologies) solution, i think it's just the first time i've thought about this specific thing

the detail that Dennistoun burns the original picture but has taken and keeps a photograph of it feels like it wants to be a relevant hint

This year's bbc ghost story for christmas appears to be

"Kit Harington and Freddie Fox star in Mark Gatiss’ adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No.249."

( https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/bbc-christmas-whats-on-tv-iplayer-2023 )

"The Residence at Whitminster" last night. goes on a bit.

important related poll: Daddy Longlegs

that's right

general thought now i'm halfway or so thru the stories: James experiments with lots of different ways of narrating (despite his alleged conservative grumpiness). he chops the viewpoints of the stories up thru manuscripts (obv), reported accounts, narrator's voices, hints at and deferrals of plot developments. i guess i knew this but looking at it now i wonder if this presents an impediment to suitably Jamesian film adaptations - the need to tell a straight story flattens out the experience of reading them

what if his entire body of work is in fact the scrapbook of canon alberic

uh this is my strong view fwiw. james uses framing devices because seeing ghosts directly is hard - for good reason. framing devices - that is to say a manuscript within a story, an engraving within a tale told by an innkeeper - is much harder to manage in film in a consistent way. you need to use sepia tints, or visibly different clothes or whatever. in a story the tone and medium is the same. the frame is permeable and natural and not evident.

time to re-up my laborious essay on framing devices in ghost stories i guess sorry not sorry

https://diasyrmus.com/2009/10/29/mr-james-r-kipling-d-welch-three-ghost-stories-for-all-hallows-even/

excellent, and apologies if i've seen this before and forgot it in classic "my head" style

not at all. i think i diffidently offer it every now and again, but v much in “a link?” way. nothing to do with your head.

Thanks for the link Fizzles. I enjoyed it. The contemporaneous (ish) nature of those three writers would signal something? I think of Freud writing 'The Uncanny' in 1919, haunted by an entire continent of ghosts and James, in his role as provost, having to write letters of consolation to the parents of boys in his college.

I also wonder if the frames *produce* the ghosts somehow. A kind of slippage between worlds: the time is thrown out of joint and the ghosts come calling.

James reading the stories to his Christmas audience is yet another frame of course

i think the 'frames produce the ghosts' is right, at least in the terms i wrote in that piece - as i say 'frames are also portals'.

interesting point about the period. it is of course well known that the boer war had a direct impact on MR James, Arthur Conan Doyle and Kipling, and generally led to a long victorian period of seance and table tapping. I'm also reminded of W Benjamin on Leskov in The Storyteller

With the WorId War a process began to become apparent which has not halted since then. Was it not noticeable at the end of the war that men returned from the battlefield grown silent - not richer, but poorer in communicable experience? What ten years later was poured out in the flood of war books was anything but experience that goes from mouth to mouth. And there was nothing remarkable about that. For never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly than strategic experience by tactical warfare, economic experience by inflation, bodily experience by mechanical warfare, moral experience by those in power. A generation that had gone to school on a horse-drawn streetcar now stood under the open sky in a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body.

i'm not sure any passage has better described what changes after generational death, and psychologically, spiritually, what it does. the ghost stories are both entertainments but also the psychological environment was propitious. imagination requires that is not a simple transaction though.

sorry, i'm post christmas part and i'm aware that's not v lucid! will try and do better tomorrow.

TPTV tonight 20:30 the stalls of barchester 1971
13th a warning to the curious 1972
15th lost hearts 1973

(all under the banner of 'a ghost story for Christmas'.

i noticed fopp was selling these as well, the bfi boxed sets. not particularly cheap though.

)

This one is pretty comprehensive I think. The bfi price is on the high side given that it's DVD rather than BR, but plenty of other places seem to have it for ~£20.

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/blu-rays-dvds/ghost-stories-christmas-expanded-six-disc-collection#:~:text=This%20expansive%20edition%20collects%20over,of%20the%20Ghost%20Stories%20for

wasn't that cheap in fopp. although maybe that was the brs. hmv.com has it for 22, down from 36.

TPTV are showing at least disks 2, 3 and The Signalman from disk 4 over christmas (and The Night Of The Demon)

Night of the Demon seems to be on TPTV all the time

which is good, obviously

now watching THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER (1971), starring robert hardy, mavis from coronation street and mr smith from please sir!

not entirely cinematically solving the scrapbook aspect of the written fiction lol (this one being particularly scrapbooky iirc)

i signed up to TPTV in the hope that it had NIGHT OF THE DEMON, but currently no :(

There is a bloke at my meditation class who is the spit of Niall MacGinnis' Carswell (in hippy trousers). I check my pockets every time I leave.

yikes

night of the demon on tptv on the 19th
ash tree 20th
treasure of Abbott Thomas 21st

I meant to say the other day: I have a rip of Night of the Demon if anyone wants it. Bung me a webmail.

tonight is the Night Of The Demon

few more in the epg now:
20th The Ash Tree (1975)
21st The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas (1974)
23rd Sigma (1977)
24th The Ice House (1978)
25th Whistle And I'll Come To You (2010)

Ice House is kinda proto-Clive Barker, in its preoccupations with class and sexuality. That and Sigma aren't MR James adaptations tho - and I don't think the 2010 Whistle, title aside, really is either.

Stigma, obv

Stigma Male

both have been on before (2021) and talked about upthread (spoilers, i guess)

'Tis the Season = M.R. James

I don't know what TPTV is or how to watch it (is it this? https://www.tptvencore.co.uk/), but THE ASH TREE is on Youtube and I'm going to watch it soon in order to somewhat keep up with this thread.

a replacement copy of COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES arrived last week, after my last copy was lent out a few years back and sadly never returned. it's been great to read the first few stories again!

tptv is uk freeview ch 82

https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/schedule/

(not sure i like the new schedule page which seems to be downloading 26 days of data (with pictures) before showing you the one day you're interested in)

ah, thanks!

I just watched the Ash Tree. It's a good adaptation, I think. Slightly confusing in the chronology (deliberately I guess but it would be difficult to work out what was going on without some knowledge of the story I think?) but creepy where it needs to be and brutal with regards to Mothersole. Final scene in the bedroom is grim and great.

is there a consensus vieew on what james's best short stories are, if i want to read a few over the break?

apparently there's an audiobook with michael hordern, which is great casting

The bit of The Ash Tree I saw last night looked great, gonna watch properly on catchup

i was listening recently to something which had a 'guess the m r james narrator' quiz in the middle. can't remember where.

there are 30 and they are all pretty short. i think my collected MR JAMES is less than 300pp

casting the runes
oh whistle...

those two, plus

Canon Alberic's Scrapbook
Lost Hearts
Number 13
Wailing Well
A View from a Hill
Martin's Close
The Uncommon Prayer-Book (maybe)

surely a warning to the curious? the treasure of abbott thomas is one of my faves. mr humphreys and his inheritance isn't the best story - to long iirc - but the climactic image is one of the most startling and memorable.

i was listening recently to something which had a 'guess the m r james narrator' quiz in the middle. can't remember where.

wasn't it from the backlisted podcast episode that Chinaski posted?

xp Count Magnus, too

Chuck, i have this collection, FWIW. i've been trying to find a table of contents online somewhere, but apparently that's too much to ask even of the publisher. but anyway i think it's a good selection

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296061/count-magnus-and-other-ghost-stories-by-m-r-james/

contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

^ Amazon description

i rewatched "the treasure of abbot thomas" w/my sister's family last night: the lurking monster stuff is p good and and the abbey (mostly well cathedral) is pleasantly creepy. the first half is perhaps needlessly bulked out by stuff ported in from some unrelated story -- social interaction, class uneasiness and the hubris of rationalism at a seance; tea w/petit fours and slab cake). all a bit digressive though i guess it stops it being a conversationless solo piece where a guy mainly solves cryptic puzzles on paper and glass

the original opens with litereally a page of unbroken medieval latin before the puzzler-guy says "i supposed i should try and translate this" -- which is a very james joke

wellS cathedral

Abbot Thomas is where I poached my current dn from but I'm not a big fan of James's slurpy tentacle monsters

i read a commentary -- and afterwards saw an illustration -- which argued that the abbot thomas creeper is actually another huge leathery spider (as the was famously averse to same) but what he actually writes allows you to inject yr own best fear i guess

My latest reread has also made me think that Im not as creeped out by your classic skeleton things as MRJ wants me to be

There are a LOT of skeleton things

now I want to make an m.r. james top trumps set.

Revisiting mark's post from yesterday now I'm a bit soberer and my main thought is whatever happened to petit fours?

well everyone in the scene said they'd have slab cake so i guess they were already on the way out

that slab cake looked great tbf

it's what's lurking behind the slab you have to worry about

what's wittgenstein's favourite cake?

slab!

This year's bbc ghost story for christmas appears to be

"Kit Harington and Freddie Fox star in Mark Gatiss’ adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No.249."

( https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/bbc-christmas-whats-on-tv-iplayer-2023 )

― koogs, Wednesday, 6 December 2023 12:42 (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

haunting my tv right now i dont know if theres any legal basis for gatiss to be prevented from working but morally surely there's something that can be done

If I speak I will be in trouble

jesus i've seen a couple of reviews and they must've been on the Baileys early

If you want to experience the absolute nadir of Gatiss/Moffat, the play Unfriend - about SOCIAL MEDIA and TRUMP and LIBERAL HIPOCRISY - is a truly cursed production (walked out during the interval).

lot 249 is a story i was scared witless by as a kid when i read it at school along with all the other down-canon conan doyles (he wrote several good horror stories, my ten-yr-old self advises that you skip the brigadier gerard books tho)

i have no doubt gatiss will wreck it and will subscribe to deems's problematic newsletter

lol I enjoyed Brigadier Gerard!

also worth tracking down his autobio where, at one point, he visits Australian troops in wwi and lectures them for being too boastful when after all they were only there to serve the British Empire

lol early keano eh

only got round to reading some james last night - a neighbour's landmark and rats, because they're short and it was late. I thought, it's only words and surely familiarity has dulled any of their power to scare. but I was not a little nervous after turning out the light. but I am a big wuss.

stoked for the gatiss badness.

i think this doesn't count as spoilers: the opening scene is some dialogue that i assume is lifted straight from Conan Doyle and the actors readings felt a bit off and i thought "ah well at least they're going for a sense of period"

two minutes later the phrase "colour me surprised" appeared out of nowhere

it was downhill from there

watched "night of the demon" on friday courtesy my sister's BF's collection

superb combo of tourneur for spooky mis-en-scene in various diversity plus niall macginnis as karswell (everyone else might as well be bit parts but this doesn't matter) (exception: maurice denham, tho his part is over in moments)

• excellent deployment of "scary clown" trope
• the damaged local yokel whose hypno-testimony saves the good guys is named "rand hobart" lol (name is highly unjamesian; character is not his) (there's an oddly similar scene in quatermass and the pit two years later)
• the scene where holden encounters and is menaced by the rest of the farming family hobart is nevertheless tremendous
• there are no runes on stonehenge but #whocare
• the demon revealed remains adorable

That the demon is totally un-Jamesian goes without saying but that death scene is kind of horrific for 1957?

(Karswell's screams awoke traumatic memories of some of the deaths in the black and white Tarzan episodes that used to be in the 6 o'clock slot on, I think, BBC2.)

love the demon. such a good boy!

The Gatiss documentary is on BBC4 right now yay the darkness is encroaching

followed by two non-MR short stories, which is an odd choice (maybe talking pictures have the rights currently, they showed the usual ones at Christmas)

how was the doc?

a repeat. we've complained about it before, i'm sure

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03n2rnc/mr-james-ghost-writer

It's alright, the biographical stuff about Monty is good, Gatiss doesn't impose a grand theory on him, the clips of the 70s TV adaptations are fine, the chat about the TV adaptations is pretty dull. The lad playing Monty is a bit much maybe

I picked up a DVD of all of them, pre-Gatiss, this week. Has always been quite expensive but found it for about £20. Be nice watching them all free of YouTube.

I also found, after some digging, an interview with Gatiss that confirms he's doing one this year.

https://worldscreen.com/tvdrama/mark-gatiss-talks-the-ghost-stories-franchise/

His description here sounds a bit like E Nesbit - Man Sized In Marble, but we shall see. Her horror stories are amazing, would be brilliant for this series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ghost_Story_for_Christmas

Wikipedia confirms it is! I wish this wasn't Gatiss but it still should be great.

In her final days, E. Nesbit (whose Man-sized in Marble this drama is adapted from) recounts the chilling tale of newlywed Victorians Jack and Laura. As they settle into a small cottage in a quiet village, they find their idyll overshadowed by the superstitious warnings of their housekeeper, regaling the legend of the two marble tomb effigies who are said to rise one night each year. Jack dismisses the story as folklore ramblings. But as the fateful night draws near, he makes a terrifying discovery. Back at the cottage, Laura is all alone...

i'm sure i've read that one tho not for a long time. i remember it being a good one

yeah i've never really read a bad one of hers. some of them are absolutely terrifying. i was rereading some of her stuff this weekend just gone... the shadow is the one i always think about.

OK I'll definitely try those, I've only read her children's stories but the ugly-wugglies in the enchanted castle are truly creepy.

only to echo LG: e nesbit horror stories are fantastic. but i really can’t abide gatiss’ brightly lit and jaunty approach. i’m sure it might work in some hands but he just comes across as relentlessly not-good-enough.

i mean this is rich - he’s clearly a multi-talented, interested and energetic contributor to television and his enthusiasms. but i do just mean i find it all not good enough, not quite getting at the mystery.

yeah i feel like he is gonna have that kinda nudge winky feeling he's had so far and sort of ruin the vibe a bit.

whereas the only funny thing about e nesbit's stories is how relentlessly bleak they are.

i mean i definitely laugh a little bit when the story begins with 'they talk about death being cold. it’s life that’s the cold thing' or whatever.

follow https://bsky.app/profile/onetrueposter.bsky.social for a bracket tournament to discover the greatest m.r. james ghost story.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gmdt/episodes/guide

^ repeats of Ghost Stories For Christmas (not all MR James. and is that the new one? Woman of Stone)

not on that list is

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l566n/episodes/guide

^ repeats of 3x Christopher Lee's Ghost Stories for Christmas

Several of the old BBC adaptations are streaming on Shudder this month.