tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post7852866300688968694..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: as it is written in the book – as it is written in the book : ghost stories by Kipling, Wells, and M. R. JamesAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-66558712023214030662014-09-25T22:45:10.157-05:002014-09-25T22:45:10.157-05:00More eccentric than that, even, because the anthol...More eccentric than that, even, because the anthology is by design purely English - no Scots, Irish, or Imperials, which means no Stevenson, no Joyce, no Frank O'Connor, no Katherine Mansfield.<br /><br />And then she omits Gaskell, Maugham, Forster and Lessing for various idiosyncratic reasons. Byatt is making a counter-canonical gesture of some kind. I am not complaining, even if the result is a little puzzling.<br /><br /><i>The Children's Book</i> sounds like it has everything I like.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14393629284122169212014-09-25T20:59:09.234-05:002014-09-25T20:59:09.234-05:00That does sound like an eccentric collection - tho...That does sound like an eccentric collection - though on reflection, I realize that a surprisingly large proportion of material in most of my own short fiction anthologies is not British but American and Canadian, so maybe I just don't know from the British short fiction canon. At any rate, you've sold me on the Kipling one, which I'll have to go find.<br /><br />I have read a fair bit of Byatt but tend to like the less swerve-y ones. I thought The Children's Book was pretty stunning.Rohanhttp://openlettersmonthly.com/novelreadingsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-90957948273774185592014-09-25T18:19:59.797-05:002014-09-25T18:19:59.797-05:00I once thought I saw a ghost (of sorts) several da...I once thought I saw a ghost (of sorts) several days after my father died when I was 18, but whatever I "saw" was probably just a creation of my grief. Of course, our emotions and our imaginations can create things that are even worse than the so-called "real thing" when it comes to ghosts. And, Scott, I agree that zombies (and I should add vampires) are variations on our not-so-religious experiences, whereas angels (e.g., Blake's visions) are perhaps variations on our religious experiences. I suppose within all that rambling is some profound theory about religions, emotions, and imaginations, but am neither heretical nor informed enough to state such a theory.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-15037522146946781712014-09-25T18:07:43.156-05:002014-09-25T18:07:43.156-05:00I imagine that the "forces beyond our control...I imagine that the "forces beyond our control" trope is ancient. The latest versions of it involve robots and zombies, though demonic possession still seems popular. I'd like to see a good old fashioned chain-rattling ghost, myself.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-64087537926117405552014-09-25T16:40:56.588-05:002014-09-25T16:40:56.588-05:00Ghosts go back to the beginning of literature - Th...Ghosts go back to the beginning of literature - <i>The Egyptian Book of the Dead</i> and so on. The Witch of Endor, Homer. I assume the same is true for classical Chinese and Sanskrit literature.<br /><br />The ghosts in the Icelandic sagas are hardly even ghost-like - horrible physical monsters that can be crushed to death by a troll like Grettir, but also uncursed through by means of poetry as in the Sjón novel I am reading. The Icelandic ghosts are not at all English ghosts.<br /><br />A key to the modern ghost story has to be that so few people believe any of it. The fear is pleasurably displaced. So I would guess this kind of story is an Enlightenment invention, a Gothic spin-off, but I don't know. In the "Headless Horseman," early in the 19th century, Irving is already writing a parody of the ghost story.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-30068225319407128262014-09-25T16:08:45.270-05:002014-09-25T16:08:45.270-05:00Now you have me curious about when (and why) we st...Now you have me curious about when (and why) we started telling each other ghost stories. I imagine people sitting around the campfire in the cave, and then Groka tells everyone about Horgata -- the unfortunate vengeful fellow who was killed by the mastodon after the same mastodon had stomped his wife and children to death at the nearby watering hole -- roaming about the forests at night, looking for his lost family. But, seriously, I do wonder about the "history" of the ghost story as a printed genre. So, without further delay, I off to do some research. Suggestions from you and your readers will not be rejected.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-68805973644041641802014-09-25T15:11:09.196-05:002014-09-25T15:11:09.196-05:00"The South," yes, of course! I wish I h..."The South," yes, of course! I wish I had thought of that. The notion of the cosmos in the two stories is amusingly different.<br /><br />Bi-annual sounds about right for this feature. It is not completely a coincidence that I have wandered into it this week, even if I had originally planned something else. Maybe I'll write that up tonight.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29653586278833577472014-09-25T11:50:34.988-05:002014-09-25T11:50:34.988-05:00Sadly, Borges also rewrote the Jack-o-lantern stor...Sadly, Borges also rewrote the Jack-o-lantern story (see The South). In The South, the ghost is the protagonist, who, realizing that he had died during surgery, is having what we now call a near-death experience. And the only way to realize that it is a ghost story is to notice a very little clue: the owner of a certain store in a little hamlet in the deep south, which the main character has never visited before, calls him out by his last name.<br /><br />Mr. Bailey, thank you for the Byatt pointer, I'm about to make Misters Barnes and Noble richer, again. (How I envy those who live near a public library with more than 2,000 books on its shelves...).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47377453830800739842014-09-25T11:45:28.221-05:002014-09-25T11:45:28.221-05:00Byatt does some surprising things, out of the blue...Byatt does some surprising things, out of the blue almost. In one book she interrupts the narrative to tell the reader that the present scene is written around the image which provided the creative spark for the whole novel (actually a quartet of novels). The first book in that quartet ends with something like, "every novel must end somewhere, and this is as good a place as any." I'm talking about the <i>Babel Tower</i> series here, which is full of literary criticism and formal experimentation, and in which one character is doing formal literary experiments that mirror those of Byatt's. There's a lot of goofy stuff in her books, too, that's almost embarrassing as a reader. But she writes marvelously about food and clothing and sex.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-56531310781474228222014-09-25T11:40:34.600-05:002014-09-25T11:40:34.600-05:00I'm hoping that your bi-annual visit with ghos...I'm hoping that your bi-annual visit with ghost stories becomes a regular and even more frequent feature. The last one was immensely enjoyable, and this one (though not all of them ghost stories and though you haven't explicitly promised more) already seems poised to top that. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-35844749459007069962014-09-25T11:35:56.398-05:002014-09-25T11:35:56.398-05:00Byatt is a writer who does a lot of what I want a ...Byatt is a writer who does a lot of what I want a fiction writer to do, who has a lot of the characteristics I most enjoy, but for some reason I have barely read her, so I do not know any of the books you mention. I should read <i>Ragnarok</i> before I close up the Scandinavian project.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-19618469390805456312014-09-25T11:31:39.807-05:002014-09-25T11:31:39.807-05:00For how old stories show up in later comic books, ...For how old stories show up in later comic books, really? Not that those <i>Doctor Strange</i> and <i>Swamp Thing</i> stories are not classics.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-21246612766073420742014-09-25T11:28:20.415-05:002014-09-25T11:28:20.415-05:00It's like that Borges story about writing Don ...It's like that Borges story about writing <i>Don Quixote</i>, but with a ghost. Not the jack-o-lantern, I mean. The other one.<br /><br />Byatt has played with ghost stories for decades. Do you know her <i>Little Black Book of Stories</i>? Scary tales that all swerve pretty radically. She also wrote a novella about a djinn, in a bottle, in the 20th century. And <i>Ragnarok</i>, which I haven't read at all.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8026507230735192042014-09-25T11:19:40.199-05:002014-09-25T11:19:40.199-05:00This is exactly what I come to Wuthering Expectati...This is exactly what I come to Wuthering Expectations for most definitely! That Wells story is and your analysis of it is a riot. :)Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.com