The Uninhabited House, by Mrs. J.H. Riddell

1406839043
Echo Library, 2007
105 pp
(originally published 1875)

paperback

My many go thanks to Michael Flowers, who maintains a website dedicated to Charlotte Riddell (1832 - 1906) where I was fortunate enough to find some valuable information about this relatively unknown author -- well, at least I'd not heard of her prior to discovering this book.  An incredibly prolific writer, Riddell's vast bibliography includes over fifty novels and short stories, several of them classified as "supernatural."  The Uninhabited House is a novella-sized haunted house story, set just outside of London along the banks of the Thames.

The "uninhabited house" of the title is River Hall, the property of Miss Helena Elmsdale who inherited the property after the death of her father. Miss Elmsdale has not yet reached her majority, however, so the business of keeping the house rented falls to her aunt Miss Susannah Blake who  puts it in the hands of her attorneys, Messrs. Craven and Son.  She is not the easiest of clients, but the lawyers do their very best to keep it rented for her.   Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the house has a history of tenants who are only too eager to leave shortly after taking the place.  After one tenant decides he's had enough, Mr. Craven realizes that the house that is doomed by reputation to never again see a tenant grace its threshold. With Miss Blake demanding that something be done, one man takes it upon himself to stay in the house so he can discover the secrets that plague River Hall.

Charlotte Riddell, 1875

Without giving anything away, the circumstances in which Miss Blake and her niece find themselves in this book are loosely based on events in the author's own life. After her father died and left the family in financial straits, Charlotte and her mother relocated to London where Charlotte took up writing as a way to help support herself.  Her skills came in handy after her marriage when her husband also suffered some financial setbacks.   In this story, the Blake sisters (the other being Kathleen, now deceased) discover one day that "their trustee had robbed them," and that they were penniless.  Although they tried to earn a living, they found themselves "on the edge of beggary." In The Uninhabited House, the sisters are saved when Kathleen marries a businessman, Mr. Elmsdale, but with Kathleen and Elmsdale dead, Miss Susannah Blake and Helena find themselves in a bad financial predicament once again.   The story's focus on money and the lack of it is quite interesting, not just because of art reflecting life, but because all of their problems could have actually been solved if only Susannah Blake had not set her social and class standards so high throughout her life.  It seems to me that in many ways, one of the points of this story is that it isn't money that brings happiness -- in fact, it is just the opposite in some situations.  Combined with the supernatural elements of this story, it definitely should have made for interesting reading at the time.

I will say that for a while I wasn't quite sure how this tale was going to play out, since it reads like a mystery novel in some parts.  Actually, for me as a crime reader that's not a bad thing, but I really wanted to know exactly what was happening at River Hall. As it turns out, it becomes sort of a hybrid mystery/ghost story when all is said and done; the downside is that it also has a wee bit of sentimental sappiness there at the end, which frankly, given the time it was published doesn't really surprise me.  This is also a story you don't read in hopes of being scared out of your wits ... it's more something you read in appreciation of the author's craft and as a representation of Victorian ghost-story writing, especially the work of a woman writer.

 While it has its issues,  I enjoyed The Uninhabited House very much, and when I finished it, I bought two more books of her work for my home library, Volumes I and II of The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mrs. J.H. Riddell,  published by Leonaur.  (By the way, I don't reap any benefit if you click on this link that goes to Amazon).  I foresee many hours spent reading Riddell's work in my future -- and would recommend this book to readers who are interested in Victorian-era women writers, to readers of old ghost stories/haunted house tales, and to anyone like myself who is trying to discover previously-unknown authors and bring their obscurity into the light.

The Golem, by Gustav Meyrink

9781873982914
Dedalus, 2000
originally published as Der Golem, 1915
translated by Mike Mitchell
262 pp

paperback

"The soul is not a single unity; that is what it is destined to become, and that is what we call 'immortality.' Your soul is composed of many 'selves,' just as a colony of ants is composed of many single ants."

I read The Golem with a group, which in my opinion, is a very good way to read this novel.  I spent a full two weeks with this book, dragging in other books to use as a reference when I got stuck, in particular my old, raggy copy of  Gershom Scholem's wonderful and classic Kabbalah which came in very handy.  Kabbalah is only one element of the mystical in The Golem, though; as you start this novel you're already into Buddhism, then you get into theosophy, Hindu mysticism and whatever else Meyrink was into -- it's all here.  But the mystical has a purpose -- it is all about spiritual reintegration and self awareness,  and that is most definitely the subject of this novel. Then again, it's a novel of many possible interpretations, so mine may not match anyone else's.

I'm not going to go too much into plot here, but the story focuses on an unnamed narrator who is dreaming/hallucinating  and whose mind makes his way into the body of a gem-cutter named Athanasius Pernath. The truth is that our narrator has lost his memory and he finds himself as Pernath after putting on a hat he had found earlier at church. Pernath's name is written on the headband in gold letters -- and the careful reader will see that this is the first instance of the power of the written word in this novel,  an important theme that follows the story here.  Pernath is in his apartment when he is approached by a strange man who hands him a book that needs repairing -- as it is happens, it is called the "Book of Ibbur," and it is the "I" on the front which needs to be fixed.  Issuing forth from this book in a metaphorical way are all of the important components of Pernath's life that he must discover before the "I" can be repaired, but as things progress, he comes to understand that this is not something he can really do alone. The ghetto's archivist, Hillel, takes Pernath under his wing, and initiates him into the mysticism of Kabbalah (mixed with the other practices I've already mentioned).

   The action in this book takes place in the Prague ghetto, where it is also rumored that the Golem lives in an inaccessible room with no doors; it also known that the Golem returns every thirty-three years in times of spiritual crisis. It seems that this is one of those times;  Pernath will cross paths with the Golem more than once as he attempts his spiritual journey, and along the way he will fall in love, will be tempted by forces he doesn't quite understand, and act as a friend to many in need, all the while trying to remember his past. It is also a book about memory and forgetting, and where better played out than in the streets of the Jewish Quarter of the Prague Ghetto? 

I could go on and on and on about this novel, because frankly, I absolutely loved it.  After I read the book and let things gel in my own head, I looked at several reviews of this novel where the reader had his or her own take on things; rarely did any two agree.  But I do think that it's interesting that Meyrink wrote a book about a man who, because of the influence of outside forces beyond his control, was separated from parts of his memory -- which seems to reflect the story of the upheavals in the Jewish quarter of the Prague Ghetto, and indeed reflects some of the  modernist concerns of the time.  Another thing -- Meyrink may come across as a bit of a woo-woo writer to some people with his intense focus on mysticism here, but considering the fact that psychoanalysis was just barely getting started at this time, it's interesting that Meyrink's focus here is on the importance of connecting with one's self/soul/identity to achieve one's own "salvation" so to speak. There's so much more I could say but well, time and all that.

The Golem is a lovely book, and I'm so very happy to have read it.  I can't think of enough superlatives to describe this book, but  Meyrink's writing here is absolutely beautiful, and this book has led me to others he's written that I plan to read in the very near future.  One thing, though...if you're getting into this novel thinking it's going to be about a monster, or that it's a horror novel, forget it. That's just not the case here.  It's a story about identity in crisis, much more than anything else.

another great book from Valancourt: The Feast of Bacchus, by Ernest G. Henham

9781941147078
Valancourt Books, 2015
214 pp

originally published 1907

paperback

I became interested in this novel as part of my little haunted house foray, but I soon discovered that to label this book as one more haunted house novel is to do it a major injustice. Once again, Valancourt has not let me down ... I LOVE these guys!

The small parish of Thorlund is the site of a "inexplicable" and abandoned house, known locally as the Strath.  It had sat empty for well over a century and had "no evil reputation" attached to it, although it had been the site of a murder of one Thomas Reed before the Crown was supposed to have seized the property. However, since the Crown never took it, the Reed family claimed it, but being too poor for its upkeep, they had rented it out, but no one ever stayed too long at the Strath.  As the novel opens and the current owner of the house, Henry Reed, enters he  finds the remnants of the last dinner party of the last family to have lived there still out on the dining table.  Reed has decided to make something of the Strath and himself, and has plans to clear it out, clean it up, tame the wild garden and start a poultry-farming enterprise.  One of Thorlund's locals,  the Rector Dr. Berry, has been the only person for years to have ever set foot into and to have enjoyed the Strath's gardens, and he "knows" the house well enough to advise Reed that his plans will never see fruition -- that the house will never allow him to make his desired changes. Berry, who has fallen under the "spell" of the house over several years, now finds himself an unwelcome guest.  But it isn't long after Reed takes up residence that he is soon found dead.   Soon enough, another person comes to take Reed's place; unlike his predecessor, however, Charles Conway quickly finds himself growing in tune with the house and its influences.  The problems really begin when other people begin to make their way to the Strath and the house starts to work its spell on them, causing them to, as the back cover blurb says, "behave in bizarre and violent ways."  They become "puppets," acting out some strange dramas while inside the house; outside, they return to themselves but with only a vague, hazy recollection that they'd been there.  But what exactly is the source of the house's power?  That is indeed the question that will keep you reading until the very end when all is revealed.

There are a number of factors that elevate this novel from being just another simple haunted house tale. I'll list a couple of them here.   First, the house is the stage for a contemporary tale related in the form of classical Greek drama, complete with all of its component parts.  It doesn't take the reader long to figure this out; if nothing else, the chapter headings are constant reminders -- there are  acts, scenes, scene-shifts, incidentals, etc.  Another factor that elevates this novel way beyond the norm is the shifting atmosphere of the house, denoting some strange force that takes control of and fashions the players' personalities depending on the current whim of the house.As the introduction states,  "the ceaseless interaction of comedic and tragic is the human condition,"  and in the case of the Strath, this idea takes on some very dark overtones. I will leave it for the reader to discover how and why. There are other indicators of the uniqueness of this story as set apart from "normal" haunted house tales, but those I will leave for other readers to discover.

I was both fascinated and disturbed by this novel for many reasons, most of which I can't explain without giving away the show. I will just say that Feast of Bacchus is a book that once you've read it, sticks in your head for a very, very long time -- it's that good. A word, though, about the book itself. It was written in 1907, so the writing may come across as a bit archaic to modern readers. If you can get past the style though, it's a book you definitely do not want to miss.  Creepy, weird, strange, way out of the ordinary yes, but definitely a fine read.

when those demons you're looking to purge just might be your own: Nazareth Hill, by Ramsey Campbell.

0812539303
Tor, 1998
383 pp

paperback

No, S.T. Joshi, this book does not "rival" Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, but it is certainly a good one. It's an incredibly well-balanced novel where the supernatural provides a backdrop for an intense psychological examination of a man as he sinks into his own madness.

Outside the market square, beyond the park gates on a hill in the village of Partington, there lies an old ruined house on Nazareth Row.  It is known to the locals as Nazarill,  but to eight year-old Amy Priestley, it is "the spider house."  Maybe it has something to do with the idea that "its ominous stillness reminded her of a spider crouching in its web," but more likely because

"...since she'd glimpsed her father's fear of spiders despite his efforts to conceal it from her, it somehow stood for fears of her own that she would rather not define."

At the time, though, she "hadn't the words to express that idea." Regardless, dad Oswald decided to teach her a lesson about conquering her fear, and makes her look into the window, so that he can prove to her that there's nothing there. Later we find out that at the time, he's actually more worried that Amy might be showing symptoms of her maternal grandmother's mental illness, so he tries to make her realize that there is absolutely nothing to fear from the house. Unbeknownst to Oswald, he's just made a huge mistake -- Amy does see something there, but so as not to make her parents upset, she hides the panic it causes and never says a word. After a time, she forgets, but it all comes back  seven years later when Amy and her father take up residence in their  newly-rebuilt Nazarill upscale condo. All seems to be going well until strange things start happening at Nazarill -- including a death -- and Amy becomes convinced that there's something more there than meets the eye.  Looking for any kind of answers, she starts researching Nazarill's history.  The more she digs, the more she finds, but in trying to persuade Oswald into believing her that there is weird stuff happening here, she only manages to convince him that there's something terribly wrong with her -- and that perhaps her grandmother's mental illness has caught up with her. Things take a very wrong turn when Oswald refuses to listen to her and she decides to call in and tell the truth on a radio talk show, which only makes things worse and alienates her from the conservative locals. Their complaints to Oswald, her resistance to her father's growing tyranny,  and Oswald's own increasing paranoia lead him to take some pretty drastic and horrific measures to rid her of the demons he thinks are plaguing her.

I must say, I read Campbell's Ancient Images not all that long ago, and Nazareth Hill makes that one seem like the work of an amateur.  This is a great book -- it is a drama based in the real world that finds itself played out on the stage of the supernatural.  It is a look at a man's descent into utter madness and how it affects others around him. The big question, I think, is whether or not what ultimately happens in this book has its roots in Nazarill itself, or would Oswald's decline have eventually happened no matter where he and Amy lived?   It seems that whatever is inside Nazarill has the ability to isolate, understand, and then magnify the fears of its inhabitants. After all, it's not just Amy and Oswald who have issues -- other people in the Nazarill  building have seen and experienced strange things (one even manifesting itself in a group photograph).  But sadly for Amy, Oswald has a number of issues he's internalized (including his arachnophobia) so if you opt for Nazarill,  he's a particularly susceptible candidate for the house's influence.  What's really and truly frightening to me, though, is how calm and caring he appears to those on  the outside, seen to all as a father who wants to help his little girl. The problem is that  no one really understands how far into his own delusional paranoia he's fallen, and even worse -- because of things Amy's done to rock the boat in this little conservative community, no one will listen to her when she begs for help.

I don't understand the negative reviews of this novel -- some people didn't find it scary enough, some thought it was too long and too clunky in terms of how Campbell writes here. I mean, each to his own, but I found it exceptionally frightening on a human level. And while I'm a huge fan of the author's short stories, he manages to keep the tension flowing and building throughout the entire length of this book. A lot of authors I've read can't make that transition and do it well, but in this case, I was hopelessly lost in this story until the ending.  Actually, the ending was kind of what I found not so great about this novel, but for me it's usually about the journey anyway. I have zero qualms recommending this book.

And I digress: following the path of the haunted house -- post number one

from "The Haunting" -- Hill House

A few weeks ago,  I read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and was just blown away with just how great of a book it is. It's definitely not your average haunted house story, for example, as in the case of John Boyne's This House is Haunted, where there is an actual spirit in the house who haunts the governesses of her children, or in  Haunted by James Herbert where there are definitely ghosts who cause trouble for a paranormal investigator. While there's absolutely  nothing wrong with the appearance of ghosts and other creepy entities in haunted house novel (and let's face it -- they're fun when you want a bit of light reading and want that nice shiver of fright running down your spine), The Haunting of Hill House gave me an entirely new perspective on things.  When it was over and I thought about it, I realized that unlike the straight-up haunted house novels mentioned above,  The Haunting of Hill House works at a much deeper level, focusing mainly on the character of Eleanor Vance.  At some point I remember asking myself whether it could possibly be Eleanor herself  unconsciously projecting her own neurosis (and she has many psychological issues that revealed themselves as I went through the book)  and actually creating the "hauntings" that occurred there. On the other hand, it could be the house itself  that is evil in its own right, something malevolent that wants something from the people within. Actually, now that I'm rehashing it in my head, maybe it's a combination of both.

Borley Rectory, England

As much as I would love to talk about the psychological implications of Jackson's novel, since to me they're at the very core of this story,  this post isn't a "review" of the novel at all. Reading Jackson's book has kind of put me onto this haunted house kick, so until I get really sick and tired of the topic, I'm thinking I'd like to do kind of a survey of haunted house fiction to explore how different authors use these spooky dwellings in their work. Nothing too literary, mind you -- just reading for my own entertainment and personal enlightenment.  Right now I'm sort of flying by the seat of my pants re my book choices, sticking to what I have on hand, but I think I'll spend some time researching the history of haunted house literature and sort of arrange my findings/reading in some kind of chronological order if possible. [As an interesting sidebar, I read somewhere once that one of the Plinies even wrote an account of someone staying in a house that was supposedly haunted, but I'll have to double check that].

So far since Jackson, I've read Nazareth Hill, by Ramsey Campbell (another excellent novel but not quite in the same range of excellence as Haunting of Hill House, imo, but close), which I will discuss sometime soon down the road, and another I'll post about shortly, Kim Newman's An English Ghost Story.  Currently I'm reading The Feast of Bacchus by Ernest G. Henham written in 1907 and republished by Valancourt Books.

 Any help with titles would be welcomed, the more obscure, the better.

in search of lost time: The St. Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires, by Eric Stener Carlson

9781905784165
Tartarus Press, 2009
233 pp

hardcover

"Hobbes was right...life is too short." 

Set in Buenos Aires, Miguel Ibaňez spends his days working as a civil servant, "the lowest-rung bureaucrat"  in the "most obscure" Ministry of Parks, Public Monuments and Green Areas. His boss, Gutierrez, has dumped a lose-lose assignment in his lap -- telling him that since he had been a student of "all that philosophy and shit at the University of Buenos Aires," maybe he could figure out how to keep everyone happy on both sides of the issue of gating all of the city's parks and then locking them at night to keep the homeless out.  Miguel knows that whatever he does will cause controversy, and matters are made even worse when he's told he'll be organizing a conference on the topic.  This wasn't the life Ibaňez had planned -- once he'd been a promising PhD student working diligently on his dissertation with the aim of being a professor, but as things so often happen, he had to set his future plans aside and take a job.   As an escape, he often returns to his favorite haunts, bookstores. Not the

"modern bookstores, with hip-hop blaring and cappucinos foaming and salesgirls in tight T-shirts offering self help books on everything from Zen Buddhism"

 but the old stores with "musty" smell, "dusty, isolated from the cares and troubles of the outside world. His favorite is Bernardo's, where the owner sat perpetually thumbing through his well-worn copy of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu.  And indeed time, or more specifically, the secret of  controlling time, is the subject of this fascinatingly strange book, which weaves its way through the streets, the subways and the old bookstores of Buenos Aires.

At Bernardo's one afternoon after a particularly difficult morning at work, Ibaňez is searching for a particular edition of Plato's Republic that he'd been eyeing for a very long time. Grabbing it from its usual spot on the shelves, he discovers to his surprise that he'd picked up a "rather battered edition" of Butler's Lives of the Saints. When he questions Bernardo about the Republic, the only answer the old man can give him is a cryptic "Tempus fugit," before sticking his nose back in the Proust.  He turns to Bernardo's wife Bernardina with the same question, and her response, trying to snatch it from his hand, piques Miguel's curiosity. As he notes,

"The binding was good, the leaves sturdy. But the more I looked at it, the more I felt there was something deeper. I didn't know what it was, but I felt Bernardina sensed it too."

He also had the feeling that this particular book "belonged" to him.  It had for some reason been priced ridiculously low, so Ibaňez decides to buy it. Despite the fact that the money should go toward baby formula for his infant son,  Miguel hands over the cash and claims the book for himself, while Bernardina begs him not to take it.  That night he begins to read, and when he gets to the section on St. Perpetuus, eighth Bishop of Tours, he finds "a series of annotations between the lines," in "beautiful, flowing cursive, the kind you find in old court documents from the 1800s." As he soon discovers, this "sort of malicious diary hidden between the lines and arranged in a series of books" is "anything but saintly."  He begins to lose himself in this secret book within a book, uncovering the writings of a man who claims to have the power to control time. As he follows this man's story, this book becomes Miguel's obsession while juggling work, a wife, and fatherhood; after all, who wouldn't want to know the secrets of how this is possible?  In searching for answers, his obsession slowly turns into a quest, even as he lets his wife and child slip away from him.

The hidden book turns out to have been written by someone who, like Miguel, was a civil servant himself. I won't go into his story, because it is so strange and so fascinating that it has to be experienced firsthand. What I will say is that this book explores the hidden treasures and secrets of a city, saying in effect that even when time is of the essence, there's much to be discovered in the "dark fissures," the history, and the public spaces of where one lives. As Miguel says as he's looking at the stories that are told on the murals of the city subways:

"Such fascinating stories on the subway walls, and yet I bet not one commuter in a hundred knows what the images mean. People are just too busy with their memos and their deadlines and all of the rest of their bullshit to pay attention."

 Beyond the obvious, though, there's the question of time itself -- what would a person do if he/she could go back in time and change things?   The answers are not as cut and dried as one might think.

There's is a LOT going on in this book, but it's all very tightly controlled in the hands of the author, who has woven several topics into one story: the nature of time, the nature of destiny, the hellish and often absurd world of bureaucracy and civil service, and the importance of history.  There are also some very funny moments in this book, including one where I actually recognized myself -- there's one scene where the lights go out in Miguel's apartment, and thinking about changing the fuses, he realizes he doesn't even know what to do -- that the fuse box was "an absolute mystery...Fucking humanities!" That's so me: booksmart but real-world things leave me scratching my head.  On the other hand, it's a very serious story that in my opinion, shouldn't be missed by anyone.

about as dark as it gets, folks...Songs for the Lost, by Alexander Zelenyj

9781908125323
Eibonvale Press, 2014
510 pp

paperback

my copy provided by the publisher -- a very huge and very grateful thanks!

Once again Eibonvale has scored really big on the anthology scale, this time with its collection of short stories Songs for the Lost by author Alexander Zelenyj.  There is no way to pigeonhole these tales in terms of genre or style, so the term "dark fiction" or my new favorite phrase "literary darkness" (thank you, RD) will just have to do for the moment. David Rix, "who first launched the good ship Eibonvale,"  notes in the book's introduction no less than twenty genres, which "suggests a diverse range of styles" including "surrrealism", "weird western," "weird war fiction," "children's fiction," "urban fantasy," "weird erotica," "pulp," "noir," and then his final category, "as well as other less defined things." It is certainly one of the most diverse collections I've ever read -- one minute you're reading about the horrors found in the jungles of Vietnam or Laos and the next thing you know you're in the middle of a suicide cult's final moments -- but even with the wide range of styles on offer here, thematically they all tie together perfectly.  Turning once more to the book's introduction, Songs for the Lost deals with "Human pain on a level that is very real," the kind of pain that brings with it a "parallel need for escape, and with it a kind hope."

There are a total of 34 stories and poems in this collection so it is a huge, all but impossible task to talk about each one on an individual basis and to give each the detailed attention and it deserves.  This is a book inhabited by the lonely, the damaged, the lost, the emotionally tortured;  their collective pain an undercurrent that runs through the entire volume,  their collective desires for deliverance made manifest in several different forms.  For example: a soldier whose mind is broken because he carried out orders. A brother and sister standing on a beach waiting for the inevitable. Two adventurers who stumble into an unknown civilization, one of them guided by fame, the other by wonder. A rock group which rises to cult status and fame after they simply vanish  along with hundreds of fans in an "exodus" tied to the twin stars of Sirius.   And many, many more lost souls to be examined.

I have several favorites from this volume -- "The Dying Days of Treasure Spiders Everywhere," about a troubled boy and his grandfather; "Maria, Here Come the Death Angels," which made me want to cry; "Or the Loneliness of Another Million Years," about a man who meets up with a boy who hears about a special door on a toy radio; "On Tour With the Deathray Bradburys;" "Roaring Dream of the Weeping Spider-Men," which emotionally floored me solely because of its subject matter, and then there's "Far Beneath Incomplete Constellations," one of the best stories in this collection, about a man who uses and abuses a young girl he meets who somehow finds it within her to love him even though he admits her body is just a vehicle for him (to what I won't say).  This story alone, probably the best written in the entire book, combines erotica, fantasy, and magical realism to examine a man who is quite frankly dead inside.

 To unashamedly borrow from the book's foreword  written by Brian A. Dixon, once you step into Songs For the Lost  "you will find yourself among lost souls touring abandoned hopes and forbidden dreams at the edge of an impossible paradise."   And it is exactly the author's ability to place the reader at that edge that  is Zelenyj's special gift.   It is a dark place to be sure, and there were times while reading that I wanted out, but I was just not ready to pack up and leave until the last word appeared on the last page.

Songs for the Lost is that perfect, excellent blend of literary and dark that I am always looking for and in my opinion, it is an absolute must-read for anyone who loves dark fiction.  Highly recommended but not just for anyone. Prepare to be gut punched, and do not read this book while you're depressed. Once again, it's a small press that proves that literary and dark can indeed go hand in hand -- cheers.