Ghost Stories for Christmas Eve

Once again, my ambition outreaches realistic limits. The second installment of Christmas, A Ghostly Time of Year will not make its appearance until after Christmas. All three kids have been released from school for the holidays, and Lois is home due to her company’s recently adopted policy of mandatory holiday vacation. Thus I forgot to factor in having to battle for computer usage time, having to fend off the constant barrage of interruptions and questions from the little ones (three kids badgering you with holiday related requests are not conducive to serious scholarly research – I love you boys!) as well as my required (and enthusiastic!) participation in Lois’ extensive reconstruction of the living room to enable maximum holiday socializing - I love you, honey! Let the sound of the miniature violins swell as we come to the end of pathetic excuse making. Besides there are twelve days of Christmas, right?

To keep my readers from rioting in the streets over this revoltin’ development, I’m offering ten ghostly pleasures to enjoy if you're overcome with the urge to participate in this most august of Christmas Eve traditions. The first list is geared towards the novice reader, or towards those who maintain a staunch love for the classic tale. The second list has been provided for those more well-read in the genre, offering several delightful examples of the ghost story’s adaptability beyond the confines of gaslights, decrepit mansions and antiquarian interests. Due to my own self-imposed limits, I had to leave out renowned and worthy authors such as E. F. Benson, Oliver Onions, Edith Wharton, Henry James and a host of others from the classic era, and Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Glen Hirshberg and many others from the post-WWII era. In addition I left out a few of my favorite classic stories, including The Upper Birth by F. Marion Crawford and How Love Came to Professor Gildea by Robert Hitchins. The work of J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James deserves lists of their own. It grieved me to limit myself to one tale from each.

Feel free to e-mail me with your own suggestions or post them on the comments page. We here at the Journal are always on the lookout for a good ghost story.

5 classic ghost stories to curl up with on a cold winter’s night:

1. Green Tea by J. S. Le Fanu
2. The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs
3. The Ash Tree by M. R. James
4. The Damned by Algernon Blackwood
5. The Red Lodge by H. R. Wakefield

5 Twentieth Century Ghosts:

1. Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber
2. House Taken Over by Julio Cortázar
3. The Inner Room by Robert Aickman
4. Out of Copyright by Ramsey Campbell
5. The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link

Christmas, A Ghostly Time of Year: Part 1 – The Origins of the Literary Ghost

The dark of winter has descended over the northern hemisphere and the holiday season springs full upon us. For holiday revelers, the month of December ushers in a whirlwind of religious celebrations, gatherings with friends and family, office parties, decorations, carols of every musical genre assaulting the airwaves, open fires, and, for the materialist Western world, loads of shopping. Naturally for us here at the Journal of Weird Studies, the holiday season evokes different associations: namely, the time-honored, seasonal offering of the ghost story.

While ghosts in literature can be traced back to Homer, I suspect the true origins of ghostly tales extend far beyond the written record, down into the deep, dark ancestral well of prehistory, first raising its spectral form shortly after humanity became cognizant of death as a fact of life. The literary ghost story, however – a distinct form separate from true accounts of ghostly apparitions, fictional rewriting of true accounts or the use of ghosts as plot devices in literary works such as in The Odyssey or Hamlet – made its first appearance roughly two hundred years ago (1).

The question naturally arises: what characteristics comprise this distinct form? The best template I’ve found so far is from scholar Michael Cox’s introduction to The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories.

“The ghostly protagonists must act with a deliberate intent; their actions - or the consequences of their actions –rather than those of the living must be the central theme; and, most importantly of all, each ghost, whether human or animal phantom or reanimated corpse, must unquestionably be dead. From this it follows that there can be no rationalization of the ghost, no explanation of the events by natural causes.”

In other words, the ghost assumes primacy in the story; it’s conscious actions drive the plot and impact the fate of the story’s living protagonists. However, I would also put forth a few exceptions: (a) the ambiguous ghost - hauntings and encounters that could have a rational explanation, but which the author leaves purposefully open ended and uncertain; and (b) hauntings of the mind, where the ghost could also be interpreted as a manifestation of psychological elements warring within a character’s tortured psyche - conceivably a subcategory of the ambiguous ghost.

With these basic criteria in mind, the first true literary ghost story appears to be The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (2). Collected in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (published serially in 1818-1820, and in one volume in 1820), Irving’s tale of a gangly schoolteacher’s late night encounter with the ghost of a Hessian trooper is one of the most famous American stories ever, thanks in large part to Disney’s animated adaptation. Irving leaves the ultimate fate of Ichabod Crane a mystery, though one character conjectures the theory that rival suitor “Brom Bones” Van Brunt, disguised as the Headless Horseman, scared Crane out of town. Tales of a Traveler (1824) proves that Irving’s earlier outing was no fluke. Part 1 of the collection, subtitled “Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman,” provides several fine examples of the form, the most successful being The Adventure of the German Student, a savage little tale with a gruesome denouement.

On the English literary scene, critics unanimously agree that Sir Walter Scott’s Wandering Willie’s Tale, an episode inserted in the novel Redgauntlet (1824), was the first masterpiece of the genre, if not the first composed (3). Willie relates an account of his ancestor Steenie Steenson and his descent into hell in order to retrieve a rental receipt from his recently deceased landlord, Sir Robert Redgauntlet. Despite having several undeniable ghosts, the story falls squarely within the supernatural fantasy category, sharing characteristics of folk tales that deal with journeys to the realm of faery and of encounters with Satan (4). After being summoned to the hellish counterpart of Redgauntlet parlour, Steenson faces three tests, the failing of which leads to the loss of his soul; he refuses to consume offerings of food and drink (consumption of faery edibles always led to a mortal’s perpetual entrapment in the realm), declines a request to play a musical tune with satanic associations, and rejects Redgauntlet’s demand that he return in a year’s time to pay his master (presumably Satan) homage owed for his former landlord’s otherworldly protection. Six years later, Scott presented a work solidly situated in the ghost story genre. The Tapestried Chamber tells of a retired soldier, General Browne, who is scared out of his wits by a late night visitation from an evil ancestress of his host and good friend, Lord Woodville. Scott’s contributions to supernatural fiction, though remarkable, were surprisingly few in number. In general, he remained wary of using supernatural motifs in his fiction (possibly due to the stigma of his early association with “Monk” Lewis), preferring to keep his historical fiction grounded in realism.

Over the next decade, two prominent authors associated with spectral fiction made their publishing debuts. Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu ranks as one of the greatest writers of supernatural fiction from the Victorian era. By the time of his death in 1873, he had left behind a substantial body of work, including classic tales such as Schalken the Painter, Green Tea, Carmilla, Squire Toby’s Will, Mr. Justice Harbottle, and The Familiar, as well as the novel, Uncle Silas. In his best work, the natural and supernatural worlds are deeply entwined, inseparable forces linked within the consciousnesses and subtle perceptions of his protagonists. Noted scholar E. F. Bleiler observes that in Le Fanu’s work

“…The supernatural is an unconscious element in the mind and it may leap into emergence when the barriers protecting the conscious ego are temporarily broken down….the larger implications of the mind as a microcosm of the universe also loom out, and potentially evil mental fragments may become hypostatized into semi-independent existence, to ally themselves with larger evil forces of which we are fortunately unaware.”

Unlike many Victorian era writers of supernatural fiction, Le Fanu had a clearly developed aesthetic of how the supernatural operates in fiction. It wasn’t enough for his stories to have the trappings of ghosts, haunted houses and supernatural creatures. The important factor for Le Fanu was examining the subtle effects these visitations had on the states of consciousness of his characters. Le Fanu’s impact on the ghost story deserves closer study, an effort that falls outside the realm of this particular article.

Even today, almost 140 years after his death, Charles Dickens remains one of the most famous and best-loved authors in the world. His novels, with their vivid depictions of lower class characters and their struggles to survive in a harsh and uncaring England, struck an immense chord with his Victorian readership, granting him immense celebrity during his lifetime. It’s hard to imagine how the novel would have developed without his overshadowing influence. Though his impact on the ghost story will be examined more fully in the next post, it should be pointed out that he published five ghost stories in 1836 (5), as part of his serialized first novel, The Pickwick Papers. The last of the five, The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, published in the December 1836 installment, was, in retrospect, a foreshadowing of a future Christmas work to come.


Footnotes:

(1) Some scholars put forth Daniel Defoe’s story A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal (1706) as the first literary ghost story. In truth, the tale is little more than a fictional retelling of a then famous contemporary haunting. Defoe’s ghostly protagonist has the dubious distinction of being one of the chattiest ghosts in literary history, engaging in almost two hours of discourse with her good friend Mrs. Bargrave on topics ranging from Christian theology and the merits of religious verse to the nature of true friendship.

Later in the 18th century the Gothic novel, which shares more than a passing relationship with the ghost story, rose to prominence. These excessive and often quite sensational novels were steeped in supernatural trappings. More often than not though, the supernatural elements had rational explanations (the Scooby Doo cartoon mysteries have provided millions of children the world over with an excellent, albeit simplified, introduction to the common methods of plot resolution in Gothic novels, attributing the Scooby Gang’s run-ins with supernatural wonders such as UFOs, ghosts, vampires, and monstrous sea creatures to trickery employed to cover up the evil machinations of scheming old men hungry for money and/or property. Personally, I blame their encounters on the hallucinogenic properties of the Scooby snack). Acknowledged masters of the Gothic novel include Horace Walpole, Charles Robert Maturin, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Gregory “Monk” Lewis.

M. R. James posited the ballad form as “the direct line of ancestry of the ghost story,” and hesitated over bestowing first place honors to Sir Walter Scott’s verses, Glenfinlas and Eve of St. John, collected in the anthology, Tales of Terror and Wonder, edited by “Monk” Lewis.

(2) I’m sure British scholars will cry foul over this choice. How could an upstart Yankee possibly have composed the first undisputed entry in a genre typically considered as distinctly English?

(3) Note the publication date of Redgauntlet. Even discounting The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on grounds that the haunting could be explained rationally, Irving still shares primacy with Scott due to his undisputable contribution, The Adventure of the German Student, a minor masterpiece of the genre.

(4) Subtle distinctions between the various subgenres of supernatural fiction appear to be non-existent in the earliest parts of its history. The term “ghost story” is liberally applied not only to fiction containing actual apparitions of the dead, but also to stories that feature goblins, faeries, devils and other supernatural creatures. Perhaps these various beings were all considered denizens of different kingdoms within the immaterial (or spiritual) plane, thus accounting for their common grouping within the blanket term “ghost story.”


(5) These tales are The Lawyer and the Ghost, The Queer Chair, The Ghosts of the Mail, A Madman’s Manuscript, and The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton.

At Christmas, He'll Devour Your Soul

My wife is in league with the Elder Gods.

A few days ago, she returned from a business trip bearing a sealed shipping envelope. "This is for you," Lois said, quickly averting her eyes. She left the room in a hurry, slamming the door shut behind her. The package throbbed in my hands. What the hell could this be?

As I opened the envelope, a sickly green light emanated from within, filling the room with its nauseous tint. For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind that Lois was trying to kill me, that she had somehow got her hands on a small particle of discarded radioactive waste, that I was now going to die a horrible death from being exposed to it. Then I saw the tentacles and the Santa hat.

Gingerly, I removed the idol from its faux wool bedding. Astonishment and horror filled me, yet also wonder and a strange sense of liberation. Humanity's struggle is over, I thought. The Old Ones have arrived to hurl death and destruction on mankind. I ran out of the room. Upstairs, in the living room, Lois stood by the Christmas tree. I proclaimed jubilantly, "We must situate the idol in a place of prominance on the coniferous throne of pagan worship!" Odd, that didn't sound like something I'd say. "Yes," Lois said, her voice dull and mechanical. "We must place the idol on the Christmas tree."

All through the night, the tree vibrates at a low frequency, an unhealthy glow radiating from its center. In a highly improbable turn of events, our children are begging us to cancel Christmas, anything to get rid of that corrupted tree, that horrid ornament. Even worse, our cat has gone missing. We last saw him writhing beneath the tree, scratching at the branches, yowling in unearthly fright. Late at night, I still hear his uncanny howling, faint and far away, sounding as if it originates from deep within the heart of the tree's trunk. I now suspect our Christmas tree houses a portal opening onto R'yleh.

Ever since Lois gave me the "ornament," its dead black eyes seem to be trying to communicate with me. My mind is not right. I've been having bizarre dreams of a jagged island looming in the midst of storm-tossed seas. Exploring its circumference, I come upon a doorway leading into a gargantuan building, conceived and constructed from alien geometries. As the doorway opens, tentacles wreathed in tinsel slither forth. My mind hovers on the verge of collapse as an immense voice, deep and gutteral, reverberates within my cranium.

MWRAWLKABRAHA BAKAXIKHEKH ZEPRAKLAXOSZOSO

"What's that, Mr. Cthulhu? You want me to compose a Christmas carol in your honor?"

IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

"But what of my immortal soul? Won't I be damned to hell for such blasphemy?"

ANTAKLOS MRADUK FHORN'N TEKALILI

"Oh, you've already eaten my soul?"

IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

"In that case..."

(sung to the tune of O Come All Ye Faithful)

O come all ye Old Ones
Loathesome and repugnant
O come ye, O come ye
to reign and destroy.

Tremble and fear him
from outer dimensions
O come let us abhor him
O come let us abhor him
O come let us abhor him
Cthulhu fhtagn!

I'm straining with every ounce of my being to stop myself from typing this next bit, but Cthulhuclaus compels me to tell you that you can purchase your own Christmas idol, I mean ornament, at the Etsy shop.

What doom have I wrought upon mankind?

I mean, merry Cthulhumas, or rather, Christmas.

Education of the Horror Kids, Part 2

I just helped my four year old draw and color a picture of a bald headed zombie, adorned in tattered, bloodstained clothing, with bloodshot eyes, menacing teeth and a bloodsmeared mouth.

Is that so wrong?

Led Zeppelin Redux

For millions of Zeppelin fans the world over, today is a momentous occasion. In a few short hours, the surviving members of one of rock's most legendary groups take the stage at London's 02 Arena. I, for one, am excited, but filled with trepidation. Previous reunions have been bombs, even by the band's reckoning. It would be nice to see Page, Plant, Jonesy and Jason Bonham add one more masterful performance to the band's mythology.

The evidence will soon be out. By tomorrow, the concert will be circulating among bittorrenters the world over, and judgement will have been passed. I wish them the best. And if the magic has returned, I hope they see fit to keep riding on to new lands, unleashing the hammer of the gods.

Lord of the Rings: a text of transformation?

Much scholarly ink has been spilled examining Professor J. R. R. Tolkien’s spiritual views and how they influenced and permeate his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings. Many naysayers (most recently Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) claim that the work is hampered by Tolkien’s spirituality, that Tolkien didn’t address the “big adult questions” because he believed that the Roman Catholic Church had all the answers. Personally I disagree with that claim. Within the pages of the LOTR, as well as his monumental history of Middle Earth, Tolkien tackles many of the big themes and questions - loss of innocence; the importance of friends; the solace of the natural world; the devastation of the natural world by the rise of industrialism; the nature of war; the nature and corrupting influence of power; what things are worth fighting for; how one copes with the tremendous burdens life unexpectedly lays on us. It may be a no-brainer to longtime Tolkien fans, but I would further argue you don’t have to be Roman Catholic or even Christian to appreciate the LOTR’s philosophical and religious underpinnings. If you possess a love for the ancient epic, Norse mythology, quest literature or excellent fantasy, you’ll find much to savor in Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

I would argue though that the LOTR is a deeply spiritual text, one that transcends its creator’s Christian faith. To a sensitive and receptive reader, the book invites and even initiates personal transformation, acting as a catalyst in much the same way Joseph Campbell proclaimed myth does. I’ll illustrate my point with an example from my own life.

During the spring of 1995, I began re-reading the LOTR for the first time since high school. To my delight I found the books still spoke to me. Not only were they entertaining, but they also touched a deep place within me, reserved for certain transcendent pieces of music, beloved books, or films. As I went further into the trilogy, I found myself adopting an odd rhythm in my reading. I would devour entire chapters, and then, inexplicably, put the book down for an indefinite time, sometimes for weeks. After a while I would feel the urge to resume the quest. Around The Two Towers, I noticed a pattern: whenever I started reading after a break, the events taking place in the book, at that moment, echoed real-time trials in my own life. It was almost as if I was subconsciously waiting for my life to catch up to the adventures unwinding in the book before I could resume reading.

One specific example rings clear in my mind. At the time, I was involved in a band and I had misgivings about the founder, who I’ll refer to as Bjorn (not his real or stage name). We were friends and fellow explorers in occult ritual and philosophy, as well as band mates. Lately though, I had come to suspect he was hiding his true motives from me. After a grueling late night session auditioning drummers for our band, I returned home, uneasy in spirit. While unwinding with dinner and a bottle of good beer, I found my thoughts turning to The Two Towers. It had been a good two weeks since I had rejoined the broken fellowship. I had left off at the point where Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas arrive in Rohan to discover King Théoden enslaved by Wormtongue’s bewitchment. As Gandalf worked to dispel Wormtongue’s dark, insidious influence, encouraging Théoden to step forth to resume his kingship, a flash of insight exploded in my brain. Bjorn functioned like a real life Wormtongue. Over a relatively short period of time, his influence had become paramount in my life, looming over every move I made. In a few months time he had slowly steered me from my true wants and needs, undermining my relationship with my wife, my brother and other close friends, to usurp my power for his ends. Suddenly, the basis of our “friendship” became clear, and I saw my interactions with him over the last few months in a very different light. Bjorn was more or less the equivalent of an emotional vampire, feeding off my talent and life energy, instigating me to relinquish people and ideas that were dear to me, so he could enlist me in his own dark service. It sounds melodramatic (I’m withholding several personal, yet telling details), but it was a very real instance of someone trying to subtly assume control of my life’s direction, and I almost willingly bestowed him the power to do it. In a matter of days, I ended the professional and personal relationship.

The rest of 1995 proved to be a tumultuous year. Against reason, I attributed this to my journey through the LOTR. The book spooked me. Over the course of the next twelve years I often thought of returning to Middle Earth again, especially in the days leading up to the release of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The emotions stirred up by my last reading would flare up, and I lost my nerve.

During my recent illness, I watched all twelve hours of Jackson’s extended cut versions of the films. Despite my lingering emotional trepidation, I suddenly felt the time was right to revisit Tolkien’s original vision. Already the books seem to be working their magic, reflecting real life in their fictional mirror. This time The Hobbit, a work that I initially excluded from the “transformative” books, seemed to have a similar effect. After experiencing personal upheaval that left me feeling lost, helpless and longing for outside help, I came across this passage wherein Bilbo has to figure out a way to liberate his traveling companions, the Dwarves, from the prison of the wood elves in Mirkwood: “He often wished, too, that he could get a message for help sent to the wizard, but that of course was quite impossible; and he soon realized that if anything was to be done, it would have to be done by Mr. Baggins, alone and unaided.”

I’m over halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring and my own journey has proceeded to the point where turning back is no longer an option. I felt a great kinship with Frodo just before the council of Elrond. As he stared off into the woods, he expressed to Gandalf his wish to go wandering in the pines, to reconnect with the natural world and possibly shed a bit of the darkness that had been stalking him over the course of his journey. “’You may have a chance later,’ said Gandalf. ‘But we cannot make any plans yet. There is much to hear and decide today.’”

I long for more carefree days, but the road I still have to travel beckons me. I’m afraid of what lies ahead, and saddened by what I've lost; yet I'm optimistic I’ll make it though this journey, changed for the better, happier and more fulfilled. The only thing I’m sure of is that Tolkien’s books will be at my side, my traveling companions through the wilderness of the coming months.

Anyone wishing to share their own unusual experiences reading The Lord of the Rings can contact me at wavegenerator1@gmail.com. Perhaps if I get enough entries, I’ll post the best of these experiences (with permission from their authors) at a later date.