As a lifelong fan of the ghost story I was particularly pleased to see Andrew Taylor's new story Broken Voices on the first list of Kindle Singles. I really enjoyed The American Boy years ago on a holiday to Rome - it still evokes memories of a blissful day on a park bench in spring - so the combination of Taylor and ghost story was exciting to say the least.
Broken Voices was just the latest in a long line of ghost stories I've read and enjoyed over the latest 31 years. I vividly remember a short story I read over and over again as a child which featured a haunted newell post. While this sounds a ridiculous premise for a story, like all the best ghost stories, it was unforgettably terrifying. The young protagonist innocently dressed the newell post each day by hanging his coat on it and placing shoes beneath it. One dark night he walks up the stairs to the sound of dragging footsteps close behind him...Unfortunately I can't remember the author of this chilling delight, which was published as part of an anthology of children's ghost stories. If anyone can remember I'd love to hear from you!
Broken Voices contains many of the classic tropes of the genre: a Christmas setting, a story within a story, a child protagonist in an isolated setting. It's set in a cathedral and it's environs - a wonderful choice for a creepy tale. There's a deliciously gothic flavour to a scene where the protagonist and his companion enter the huge cathedral late at night and feel overwhelmed by the cavernous stone structure. The boys are investigating a mysterious loss in the cathedral itself. That's about as much as I'll reveal about the plot itself; it would be invidious to spoil either the unraveling of the tale or its denouement.
Taylor is a master of the drip feed of unease necessary for a good ghost story. Lovely details are used to add a macabre touch: a malevolent cat, a grotesque episode in a barn, a lost cap all add to the atmosphere. And the haunting itself is appealing unusual. A lovely cocktail of fear very suitable for Christmas.
The modern mistress of the form is, of course, Susan Hill. With many ghost stories to her name, the most famous is The Woman In Black. Here Hill's mastery of setting is clear; the creation of Eel Marsh house is a masterpiece. Her recent The Small Hand is a more intimate ghost story, less about horror and more about terror - the terror of what is simultaneously known and unknown. Her protagonist is haunted by a child ghost - much like the narrator of AS Byatt's superb short story "The Summer Ghost", published in the excellent Virago Book of Ghost Stories. Both The Small Hand and Byatt's story are sad as well as scary.
And of course there are the classic ghost stories of the nineteenth century: The Signalman by Dickens, O Whistle and I'll Come to You by MR James (and of course all the other Jamesian treats - Lost Hearts is gloriously macabre)...I could go on. I read an interesting piece by Mark Gatiss (whose set of modern ghost stories for BBC4, Crooked House, was an excellent modern addition to the ghost story for Christmas genre) in the Christmas New Statesman which revealed the apparent fear of the female form latent in James's stories. Although I'm not entirely convinced by such a psychological reading of James's oeuvre, I did find it added a new layer to my thinking on the stories themselves. My own preferred (psychological!) reading of the Victorian era's predilection for and mastery of the ghost story is that it reflects the anxiety felt about a changing world. The ghosts are the spectres of a simpler time pressing back into industrialised England.
I can't conclude this without mentioning my absolute favourite ghost story by one of my all time favourite authors: Afterwards by Edith Wharton. Although we now know Wharton mainly as an incisive commentator on turn of the century New York, she was also a superb writer on the supernatural. Afterwards is a truly wonderful story, set in a crumbling country house in the English countryside. There's a ghost bringing retribution for a past sin - but, as the title tells us, both the reader and the characters won't know it till long afterwards.
I could go on - and possibly will in another post! No room for The Little Stranger, for example, and what about The Shining? I'd like to think a bit more about the line between a ghost story and a horror story. And that means a trip into Stephen King territory - which definitely means another post is needed. Meanwhile, read and enjoy Taylor's Broken Voices - and if there are other classic ghost stories you love or I've missed please let me know in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment