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A very long sermon...
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The price of The 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost
Stories (first published in 1969) hasn’t gone down on Amazon since I first
mentioned it, so if you have a spare copy in your attic you can sell it (or
at least list it) for hundreds. I
don’t, so thank you to OP for providing a digital copy.
In this 5th volume, Aickman is still in charge of
the selection, and while he devotes little space to discussing the individual
stories, he is still pontificating on “the ghost story” in his introduction,
despite a promise not to:
“At its best, its true affinity is… with poetry: it is a
projection and symbolisation of thoughts and feelings experienced by most
people (perhaps by all) but of their nature excluded from the common plod of
ordinary prose narrative and record.
We badly need more living writers of ghost stories with the
right kind of imagination and a respect for the power and poetry…”
As usual, Aickman’s definition of a ghost story is a loose
one – actual specters are the exception here, if indeed there are any at all.
The collection begins with “The Firmin Child” (1965), by Richard
Blum, which deftly exploits parental sins and worries – and young Tommy gives
his parents much to worry about:
“The spoon, the dances, the silences, the spells. It’s not human. He’s like a devil sometimes, or an animal.”
Tautly written and memorable, “The Firmin Child” is one of
the highlights of this volume.
“Lord Mount Prospect” (1965), by John Betjeman (UK Poet
Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984), provides the inspiration for the
cover illustration. It’s nice that the
(apparently uncredited) illustrator actually provided illustrations from the
stories for all the Fontana volumes, instead of generic ghosts. The story itself involves a “Society for the
Discovery of Obscure Peers”, which discovers a very obscure Irish peer, member
of an obscure religious sect, who proves difficult to track down. I found “Lord Mount Prospect” short on
poetry, short on plot, and (although Betjeman apparently intended it to be
funny) short on humor.
One of the older members of the collection is Mrs.
Oliphant’s 1881“The Library Window”. The
Scottish Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant had a long and prolific writing career in
which ghost stories played only a small part.
This story of a young girl’s obsession with a window across the street
which may or may not actually lead to a room is highly enjoyable – cozy but
mysterious, and with just enough Scots dialect to add to it rather than detract
from it.
Jerome K. Jerome’s “The Dancing Partner” (1893) tells the
story of a German maker of mechanical toys who constructs an “electric dancer”
for the girls of the town, who aren’t satisfied with their flesh and blood
partners. Needless to say, the automaton is debuted a little prematurely. “The Dancing Partner” is short, simple, and
satisfying.
Next up is the debut of Aickman’s own “The Swords”, which I
first read in Cold Hand in Mine.
I’m a big fan of this story, but then again I’m a big fan of most of
Aickman’s stories. Here, he really hones
in on a very specific type of disquiet and disappointment – the Germans probably have a word for it, but
I don’t.
Speaking of Germans, the next entry is “The Mysterious
Stranger”(1823), by an anonymous author. Aickman writes
that “This German story is the work of an important artist.” The story opens promisingly and
atmospherically, as a group of travelers in the Carpathians are menaced by the
howling of both “Boreas, that fearful north-west wind” and “reed-wolves” which,
it is said, tend to become more rambunctious when Boreas howls.
“The Mysterious Stranger” delights with its Gothic ruined
castles in the moonlight, rampaging wolf packs, coffin-filled vaults, and a
mysterious stranger who somehow controls the wolves and exerts a malign
influence on the bold Franziska. It must
have occupied a prominent place on Bram Stoker’s bookshelf.
In Elizabeth Walter’s “A Question of Time” (1969), an old
picture of “a monk, sort of greyish, with long pink fingers”, turns out to
portray a Father Furnivall, who was tortured to death in the 17th
century. The picture causes a strange
reaction in the young man who buys it, causing him to imagine that he was there
for the torture – or is it his imagination?
Unfortunately, “A Question of Time” fails to build to anything
particularly gripping.
Maurice Baring’s “Venus” (1909) involves a man who, seeing
an advertisement for Venus Soap in a telephone box, begins to be transported
to, or imagine himself transported to, the jungle-shrouded conception of that
planet. Like “A Question of Time”, there isn’t enough development in this story
to make it particularly memorable.
It’s always refreshing to see a W.W. Jacobs story that isn’t
“The Monkey’s Paw” in an anthology.
“Jerry Bundler” (1897) begins in a cozy inn where “three ghost stories…
had fallen flat” (coincidentally the same number which fall flat in “The 5th
Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories”).
The fourth is more of a success, since it involves a murder-minded ghost
said to haunt the very inn in which the stories are being told. It may, in
fact, end up being too successful…
The collection ends with the scintillating “The Great
Return” (1915) by Arthur Machen. Mysterious
events are occurring in Llantrisant, on the coast of Wales, and the narrator
goes to investigate, to be promptly told by the local rector that “You are not
worthy of this mystery that has been done here.” Has a new religious sect sprung up, or is the
change in the town due to something much older?
So, the 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories
contains a diverse group of stories, and some are excellent.
