A Grand Tradition: Ghost Stories

When I first began to assemble my work for what became the short story collection A CONFEDERACY OF HORRORS, I surprised myself because I had never quite realized that I had written so many ghost stories. To my way of thinking, ghost stories are the origin of horror fiction and at the base of almost every type of weird tale. One can write of monsters and of dragons and killers of all sorts; but at the source of them all is the fear of one's own mortality and of what might lie beyond (even if one does not believe in the "beyond").

I started reading ghost stories when I was a very young kid. Some of the first things I read were ghost stories, or weird stories, or--as one of the finest craftsmen of such tales (Robert Aikman) called them--strange stories. These tales must have stuck with me and influenced me far more than I realized, for a large percentage of the yarns I ended up spinning have been ghost stories of one sort or another.

One of the greatest authors of such tales was M.R. James. An intellectual of both religious and scientific influence, he created what many readers consider among the finest ghost stories written. And occasionally some of his work has been hammered into various films, most notably the excellent 1950s-era movie: CURSE OF THE DEMON, adapted from his short story "Casting the Runes".

But another great one from the pen of M.R. James that was loaned to cinematic excellence was "Whistle and I'll Come to You", adapted in 1968 as a short film. And here it is:

A CONFEDERACY OF HORRORS by James Robert Smith.

Too Similar?

Among my favorite writers of ghost and weird stories is yet another British author, John Gordon. Most of his work is considered for young adults, but almost all of it is exceptional in some way and can be appreciated by older readers. He excels at old-fashioned ghost yarns and for years I sought to buy a copy of his collection CATCH YOUR DEATH AND OTHER GHOST STORIES. But the copies I'd find were generally too expensive for my budget and I'd have to pass. Recently, I landed an original hardback copy, but as it has yet to arrive from the UK, I'll hold comments on the contents until it arrives (I'd read some of the stories therein, presented in the late Karl Wagner's YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES).

This week I read one of his more recent novels, THE FLESH EATER (1998). This is a young adult novel concerning a fellow in his late teens. I don't recall that his exact age is ever mentioned, but for some reason I assumed him to be between 17 and 19 years old. A likeable and physically imposing young gentleman with relatively wealthy parents who own a very large hotel in a village in the Fens. The hero, one Harry Hogge has the enviable quality of attracting pretty girls. And the girls are what get him entangled in a mystery that soon becomes rather dangerous and equally chilling.

 
The writing here is classic Gordon. Which is to say it's also classically Jamesian. The thing about the plot that eventually got on my nerves is that I realized about three quarters of the way into the novel that it's just a re-telling of "Casting the Runes" by M. R. James himself. It wouldn't have much bothered me except that it's so much like that classic story (the source material for the excellent film CURSE OF THE DEMON) that it got on my nerves. I could give it a pass if it had been a bit less like the story...but it is not. At a certain point the plots are pretty much paralleling one another.

Still and all, I'm glad I read it. I always learn something new about writing when I chance across a well-constructed novel. This is certainly a well written book, but I wish the plot hadn't been so much like something so famous from the author who has obviously most influenced Mr. Gordon.

 The creature, from CURSE OF THE DEMON.