Polar Horrors: Strange Tales from the World's Ends (ed.) John Miller

9780712354424

British Library, 2022

340 pp

paperback

It's time for another book in the British Library Tales of the Weird series.   This time we're off to the remoteness of the Arctic and the Antarctic with Polar Horrors: Strange Tales From the World's Ends.  My geek self has a particular fascination with the history of polar exploration, which after a while led to a particular fascination with fiction set in these locations as well, so this book is tailor made.   With the exception of one story from 2019 that editor John Miller has chosen to include here, the remainder of the stories range from the 1830s through the 1940s, with the earliest in the section entitled  "North," reflecting, as Miller notes in his introduction, the "earlier arrival of the Arctic than the Antarctic into European and American writing."  

 Surprisingly, there were only two stories that I'd read before, leaving nine here that are new to me.  The first of these is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's well-known "Captain of the Pole Star," followed by Harriet Prescott Spofford's "The Moonstone Mass," in which a young man decides to attempt the Northwest Passage.  About that one, all I will say is that anyone should think twice before setting sail on a ship named Albatross, especially when heading into unknown territory.  My favorite stories (in order of appearance) begin with  "Skule Skerry" by John Buchan (1928), from his The Runagates Club, which I own but haven't yet read.   An island at  "61° latitude in the west of the Orkneys" is where this story is situated.  The narrator of this story is an ornithologist, Anthony Hurrell,  one of a group of men at a gentlemen's club in London who regale each other with their stories.   He had gone to the Norland Islands one year for the spring migration of certain birds, but unlike other people who "do the same," he had in mind something quite different.  Taking his cue from prior research he'd done and using the Icelandic Saga of Earl Skuli as a guide, he'd  found  a reference to a certain "Isle of the Birds," which was located "near Halsmarness ... on the west side of the Island of Una."  Further research nets a mention of "Insula Avivum... quae est ultima insula et proximao, Abysso," by a "chronicler of the place."  Intrigued, he made his way to Una, and finds exactly the place that had "been selected for attention by the saga-man," Skule Skerry.  He is told that it has an "ill name" --  that "Naebody gangs there," and that "the place wasna canny." While highly atmospheric, it's really all about the journey in this one.  Next on the list and deserving of top honors is the incredibly unsettling "The Third Interne" by Idwal Jones (1938), which appeared in Weird Tales in January of that year, listed as "A brief tale of a surgical horror in the Asiatic wastes of northern Russia."   As Miller notes about this tale, the setting "outside the established limits of civilisation" is perfect for the secretly- unfolding of "darker enterprises." In this story, a group of three science "internes" who had studied under Pavlov set their sights on working with "a far greater scientific man than he,"  a certain Dr. Melchior Pashev, "a brilliant worker in neurology."  Dr. Pashev, as "the third interne" relates, had once cut off a dog's head and managed to keep it alive for three years. It had "functioned beautifully," barking, drinking water, blinking its eyes "in affection," just like a normal dog despite the lack of a body. The three worked hard and saved the money they made in their jobs and finally borrowed enough to get them to Yarmolinsk, where Pashev was busy with his work.  Welcomed warmly, after a while their devotion grows to the point where it knows no bounds.  And that's about all I will say about this one, except that the ending turns things back on the reader, where he or she must judge between two alternatives.   This is one of the strangest and most eerie mad scientist stories I've ever encountered, and not only gave me the shivers but made me feel queasy.   Also deserving of high marks is  John Martin Leahy's "In Amundsen's Tent" from 1928, a story of an horrific series of events left behind in an account "set down" by Robert Drumgold, a member of the Sutherland expedition aiming to be the first to the south pole at the same time that Scott and Amundsen were vying for the same honor.  It begins with a question that asks

"What was it, that thing (if thing it was) which came to him, the sole survivor of the party which had reached the Southerrn Pole, thrust itself into the tent, and issuing, left but the severed head of Drumgold there?" 

Having discovered and read the journal left behind by Drumgold, the narrator of this story and his comrades had decided to suppress the parts that dealt with "the horror in Amundsen's tent," so as not to "cast doubt upon the real achievements of the Sutherland expedition."   But he's decided that it is now time to release it to the world, and thus his story of horror begins.  Don't be surprised if you find something familiar in this one.  

from Patrick Cullis Photography

Three more stories of note,  presented here in no particular order,  deserve a mention.    Although modern (2019),  Aviaq Johnson's  " Iwsinaqtutalik Pictuc: The Haunted Blizzard" is a reminder that there is more than a measure of truth in indigenous legends, which in this case, have seemed to have been forgotten by all except children and elders, with disastrous consequences. I am always  happy to see indigenous literature in any volume, so cheers to the editor.   "A Secret of the South Pole" by Hamilton Drummond (1901) begins with a visit to a former sea captain during a downpour.  The captain loved to tell stories, and on this day, what he's about to say has to do with a strange artifact he calls "the gem of my whole kit."  If any one could tell him what it is, he has offered to give that person "the whole shanty." All he knows about it is that it's "a bit o' the South Pole" and launches into a story about how it came to be in his possession. Once upon a time he  and two fellow sailors were stuck out in the ocean  in an open boat, when they encountered a derelict ship and decided to go on board.  As he tells his attentive audience, "what came after was queer, mighty queer, that I'll admit."  No Flying Dutchman lore here, just weirdness.   Mordred Weir's "Bride of the Antarctic" (1939) centers on an "ill-fated expedition" headed by "Mad Bill Howell," who had forced his wife against her will to go with him to the coast of Victoria Land.  Legend has it that Howell was a cruel man, and during his expedition all perished during the long Antarctic night except Howell and the cook, who were both saved when the ship came to pick them up.  Now another expedition has come to the same place, where strange happenings begin just as the winter darkness falls.  

from ScienceNewsExplores

And now the difficult part, where I'm left with three stories that I just did not care for, but your mileage may, of course, vary.   To be fair, they all certainly fit the bill of "Strange Tales," they are set at one of the "World's Ends," and the main characters of these stories did technically experience some sort of polar horror, each in his or her own way.  Therefore, the editor did his job.  But  as a reader of the weird and the strange, these three just left me cold and unfazed.   In my way of thinking, the opening story of an anthology should set the tone for what's to come, making  me excited about getting to the rest.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen here.  "The Surpassing Adventures of Allan Gordon" by James Hogg started out well, but its novella length and a polar bear with the name of Nancy saving the main character's skin time after time just didn't do it for me.  Quite honestly, this isn't the story I would have led with.    "Creatures of the Night" by Sophie Wenzel Ellis and Malcolm M. Ferguson's "The Polar Vortex" are, like "The Third Interne," tales which concern themselves with rather outré science for the time, but while Jones' story had the power to seriously disturb, these two were lacking in that department.   

from my own designated British reading room

That's the thing about anthologies, though -- they truly are a mixed bag so you don't know what you're going to get.  The eight stories I did enjoy were still well worth the price of the book, so I can't complain too much.   And then there's this:  I've read and loved two other anthologies in this series edited by John Miller (Tales of the Tatttoed: An Anthology of Ink and Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain)  so if I wasn't exactly enamored with three stories  in this book, he's still provided me with hours and hours of solid reading entertainment, as has the series as a whole.  

Recommended. 

 

one of my favorite Gothic novels of all time: Uncle Silas, by J.S. Le Fanu

0486217159
Dover, 1966 ed.
originally published 1864
436 pp

paperback

"Fly the fangs of Belisarius!"

There are certain books in my library with which I've fallen in love -- the books I've been dragging around with me from move to move that I would never let out of my sight, and this one is pretty much in the top tier of those.  I decided to reread it a few weeks ago when someone online was asking about a Victorian mystery and this one popped into my head.  Well, there's that, plus the fact that many months ago, I'd bought a dvd of the old BBC adaptation of Uncle Silas called "The Dark Angel"  and really wanted to watch it, but I wanted to wait until I'd reread the book.  I have two different editions:  Penguin  ( ISBN 9780140437461)  and this one from Dover, but I had just finished a Dover reprint of another book from 1827 and decided to continue the Dover run.

Since I'd already read this novel, I didn't skip the intro this time, and there was a particular paragraph that caught my eye, so much so that I'm putting it in bold print here:

"Well, you now have Uncle Silas in your hands. If you've not read it before, I envy you. You are about to have a first-time reading experience which, I suspect, you will never forget."

That is certainly the truth -- I remember the very first time I read it, sending pages flip flip flipping in my desire to make sure that my beloved, sweet Maud Ruthyn was going to be okay at the end, pounding heart, knotted stomach, and the feeling that everything else could just go to hell for a little while until I finished the book.  This time through, since enough years had passed since I'd first read it, I can say that the flip flip flipping, the pounding heart, knotted stomach, and the feeling that everything else could just go to hell for a little while until I finished the book happened all over again.  What's changed is that this time, unlike the last time x number of years ago,  I got much more of a sense of what lies beneath, and of just how near-perfectly  this book was written. It was this novel that started me on Le Fanu's  fiction, and afterwards,  I bought and devoured all of his gothic-ish novels (that have also moved with me from place to place), then started collecting his ghostly and other supernatural tales. I haven't read them all yet, but it's comforting to know that should I have a desire to do so, they're there, waiting for me.

This post is a huge departure from my norm, since I won't give up a single detail here, nor will I provide even the slightest hints, because first-time readers should stay away from anything about Uncle Silas  that will reveal its contents  either before or during your reading of this novel. Do so at your own peril: knowing what happens ahead of time will completely lessen the impact that the book will have on you and the fun is in the building of suspense and in getting caught up in its atmosphere as it gets darker and darker and darker,  until in its final moments when you can finally let out all of the tension you've been holding inside.  If you're not knotted with tension as you read this book, there is seriously something wrong with you. Seriously.

It is and will remain one of my favorite books ever, and I can absolutely recommend it. Unlike my usual practice, I won't go into what lies underneath its surface, but just so you know, there is a LOT happening that careful readers will be able to discern. Honestly, it's killing me to keep quiet about it, but as I said, not a word.   Just a couple of things: 1) do not gloss over the role of the Swedenborgian religion here -- it's very, very important, and 2) don't skim through either the descriptions of the landscape or the main houses in this story -- Le Fanu is an absolute master of weaving such details into his work and they only serve to augment what he's trying to do.  Other than that, my only advice is to let the book carry you away from the real world and to have tons of fun with it.

*********

Now - let's talk adaptations for a moment, neither of which should be viewed until you've finished the book.   As I noted earlier, I recently bought a screen adaptation of this novel called "The Dark Angel,"

which stars Peter O'Toole as Uncle Silas, and he's pretty damn creepy in his role. This adaptation tends to overdo it with the more nightmarish/surrealistic effects which were probably great at the time (1988)  but which now seem kind of silly and tend to lessen the suspense a bit here and there, but at least it adheres to the novel quite nicely with only a few changes here and there.  The second adaptation (1947)  is called "Uncle Silas,"  which quite frustratingly changes the story almost completely.  However, what both adaptations do well is choosing the right person to play the role of my favorite, most horrific character in this book --  Maud's governess Madame de la Rougierre.   While the actress does a great job in the 1947 version,  Jane Lapotaire does an even more freakish portrayal than her counterpart in the earlier film.

from myreviewer.com

Honestly, I didn't think that could be possible.

Both have their merits, but my money's on "The Dark Angel."

in which you, dear reader, must judge for yourself: The Statement of Stella Maberly, by F. Anstey

9781943910618
Valancourt Books, 2017
originally published 1896
171 pp

paperback

I am just in awe of the old, often forgotten books that Jay and Ryan, aka the Valancourt guys,  have decided to reintroduce into the modern reading world.  I haven't yet met a Valancourt book I didn't like, but this new release,  The Statement of Stella Maberly, is a book I absolutely loved, and I'm not exaggerating at all.  It has that wonderful ambiguity that I love in a novel, and I can honestly say that I can't remember reading anything quite like it.

When this book was first published back in 1896, the publisher, T. Fisher Unwin, decided to print it without crediting Anstey as the author. Instead, as Peter Merchant reveals  in his excellent introduction, it was released as The Statement of Stella Maberly, "written by herself," with different reviewers saying it should be read as a  "madness memoir," "a curious portrayal of the neurotic temperament," or an account of "a madwoman, who takes it into her head that an evil spirit is occupying her friend's body."  That all changed about six months later when Anstey was identified as the real author, at which point it could then be seen as "a carefully crafted thriller about demonic possession" or "based on a strong storyline idea suggested by the spirit world."

From somewhere in "a place of permanent confinement," Stella Maberly has "determined to make a full statement" of "circumstances" that led to her committing what she calls "an act that, in itself, would seem a crime deserving of nothing but condemnation."  Her memory has become "confused," so while she's lucid, she needs to get it all down, not just for herself but for those of us reading her statement.  Perhaps, she says, we will discover that once we know the facts, we might judge her to be "more to be pitied than blamed."  This is the setup for what turns out to be a most bizarre story, which as she also reveals, begins in Stella's childhood.

What follows is a strange, sometimes shocking account, and whether Stella should be "pitied" or "blamed" comes down to reader perspective.  The cover blurb reveals that Stella Maberly has been "forced" to make her own way in the world after her father's fortune is all but lost.  Stella writes an acquaintance about the possibility of acquiring a position as a governess, and to her surprise, she discovers that one of her old school friends, the lovely Evelyn Heseltine, has need of a companion. Evelyn, who suffers from a weak heart, hasn't been in the best of health, and has been abroad for a while. Now she's back, and  Stella takes the job.  For a while, everything is going quite nicely between the two young women, and Stella is beyond happy. But things change owing to circumstances which I won't reveal here, and one morning, eager to sit beside Evelyn and "wait until she awoke," Stella enters Evelyn's room, opens the curtains to "let in the light," and gets the first shock of the day:  when she sees Evelyn's face, she realizes that

"Nothing would wake her any more, no words of love and sorrow would ever reach her. She was dead."

The night before, she'd loaned Evelyn's aunt some chloral to help Evelyn sleep, and now Stella is wracked with guilt since chloral is not to be used for people with weak hearts, going so far as to  beseech God to "give me back my dead."  However, before she can "rouse the house," to let others know of Evelyn's death, she gets another shock --  Evelyn has come back to life. The surprises aren't quite over though, with the biggest one yet to come in the days that follow. It slowly begins to dawn on Stella that it is not

"...Evelyn's stainless soul that was gazing at me now through her eyes, but some evil, mocking spirit that my rash and blasphemous prayer had called to animate the form she had left."

The  events that follow set up the question asked on the cover blurb,

"Is Stella insane, or has a dark spirit actually taken possession of Evelyn's body?"

The Statement of Stella Maberly  is cleverly written, and as Mr. Merchant notes in the introduction, the book is nicely balanced, with the potential of becoming

"as much a Gothic encounter with embodied evil as a curious portrayal of the neurotic (or neurasthenic) temperament."

As I noted in my post title, it's really up to the reader to decide what's going on. While I have my own opinion as to what  the real story is here, I am not going to share, but instead let readers enjoy this excellent novel for themselves and make up their own minds.  I went through this book two times to explore these "competing possibilities," and the second time through, the story became a completely different experience. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and that is definitely the case here.  Reading it twice is something I would definitely recommend to anyone who decides to give it a try.

This short novel will certainly appeal to readers interested in Victorian fiction, to people who read "madness memoirs," and to lighter-fare horror readers interested in demonic possession. It may also appeal to some crime fiction readers as well.  Do not miss the texts that follow the story, and while the introduction is worth its weight in gold, it may be best to leave it until after finishing the book.

This book just may be my favorite Valancourt release yet, and considering how many I've read, well, that should speak volumes. Hats off!!!!

The Outcast Spirit and Other Stories, by Lady Dilke

9781943813131
Snuggly Books, 2016
150 pp

paperback - my copy from the publisher, so my many, many thanks to Anna.


The back cover blurb of this book says that "there is nothing quite like the short stories of Lady Dilke in the annals of English literature," and although I can't rightly say that I'm familiar with the entire  "annals of English literature," I can say that the stories inside this short book are delightfully different than anything I've ever read.  This is one of the very best story collections I've ever experienced, heightened by the sort of dreamlike quality hovering around each and every tale.  Don't let the fact that it's only a short 150 pages fool you -- this book is filled with some of the most complex tales I've ever encountered.

the author, 1887, from the National Portrait Gallery

Brian Stableford's introduction to this book offers a brief biography of this author, and there are several places online where you can find  biographical information about her as well, so I'll just offer a few interesting factoids:  she was a well-known figure in her day, with friends such as John Ruskin and George Eliot.   A brief blurb from the UK's  National Portrait Gallery reveals that she was a "scholar of French art and culture," going on to become The Academy's art editor as well as  a rather prolific writer of well-known "volumes on painters, sculptors, engravers, architects and draughtsmen in eighteenth-century France (1899-1902)."  An early biographer notes that  Lady Dilke was also "absorbed by zeal for social reform," and, according to Stableford, she "tirelessly" campaigned for women's rights more than ten years before "the explosion of the suffragette movement."

At this point someone's reading this and saying yeah, well, that's all very interesting, but what about the book?  Worth mentioning here is that one of the most unique aspects of Lady Dilke's fiction writing is that from a young age, according to Stableford, she'd "suffered from 'hallucinations'," of which she started keeping a record, trying to "anchor" them "scientifically and philosophically," but also with the idea of "developing them in future in a methodical literary fashion." Trust me -- this little factoid becomes very apparent while reading her stories. He also notes that despite the fact that Lady Dilke seemed satisfied in life, some of these stories seem to "embody feelings that the author had about aspects of her own life," an idea supported in the memoir of his wife written by her second husband as part of her The Book of the Spiritual Life, in which he states that she "wrote her stories to lay ghosts."  Just what ghosts these might be I will leave to the reader to discover, since  these stories are highly allegorical, and  most are downright disturbing when you stop to consider what you've just read.   Some you'd swear were written during medieval times, and most all of them are filled with some sort of supernatural elements at play which differ from story to story.

Bypassing my usual pattern with short-story collections,  I'm not going to go into each story here because to disclose anything at all about these tales would be doing a serious disservice to potential readers. While I enjoyed each and every one of these stories,  I especially loved "The Hangman's Daughter," a shiver-producing little story, followed by "The Triumph of the Cross," both of which fit together nicely because of their historical aspects, but the one that really wowed me was "The Serpent's Head."  I won't say why so as not to spoil things, but this story is just downright chilling to the point where I had to put the book down, walk away, and wait for a while before returning to it.  I will say that her somewhat archaic language  is not always easy to get through, and that if you think you can breeze through this book's short 150 pages in an hour or two and get the most out of it,  you'd probably be wrong.  It is, as I like to say, a thinking-person's book, one where I felt compelled to stop and consider what I'd just read after each story.  And while I'm neither a true book reviewer nor even talented enough to come up with any sort of  meaningful overall analysis of this collection, my casual-reader self knows exquisite work when I find it.

I think the best way I can describe this book as a whole is to say that it reads like a mix of fables and otherworldly tales. There's also an ethereal quality at work here that sort of blankets the reader in a hazy atmosphere of unreality; the reward is in trying to discern the actual  reality that is hidden beneath the surface.  Very highly recommended -- I live to find books like this one.