Robert Aickman
- Thread starter Jim Daze
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Mr James Brown - legendary horror writer, author of such classics as Blow That Funky Horn and I'll Come For You.
I was referring to this bit below which You - but not you - mentioned above (that is a very confusing sentence)
The point that is being made is that British ghost sory writing - or so she believes - can be broadly divided into two schools; those who are influenced by MR James and those by Aickman. What I meant to say that they may differ in their approach to the horror manifests itself and is revealed - but despite that, they could both be very well described as buttoned up.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I just wondered if you got my (extremely clever and erudite) joke - Blow That Funky Horn and I'll Come To You was a reference to one of his (James, MR James) most famous stories. It was actually called Oh, Whistle And I'l Come To You, My Lad but when it was adapted for TV (which has been done twice I think) it was simply called Whistle And I'll Come To You - in the story there is a professor of history (which is a very typical protagonist for him (when I say him I mean James (that's MR James, not James Brown))) who goes on a walking holiday in Norfolk or something. One day he finds an old cache with this ancient whistle - like a twat he blows the haunted whistle and as a result a ghost appears to him each evening I think it is, and each night it's more scary than before...
IdleRich
IdleRich
Does anyone have any idea as to why she divided up British writers into camps for James and Aickerman? From my limited reading in each case I could suggest a number of differences between them, but I don't necssarily see them as two opposing schools - unless she simply meant to say that they were the most popular two. But I imagine she had more profound reasons than that.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
outstanding
you
Well-known member
Interesting observation from Nina Allan here https://www.ninaallan.co.uk/?p=2565
"The Swords by Robert Aickman (1975). How to explain Robert Aickman? He’s often grouped together with M. R. James and Arthur Machen as a ‘master of the English weird tale’ and indeed Aickman does belong to – or rather issue from – this tradition. There’s more, though. His stories belong to a strange, indeterminate time for horror fiction, which unsurprisingly fell out of fashion after WW2, and did not truly arrive in its various modern incarnations until the publication of Stephen King’s Carrie in 1974. What permeates Aickman’s fiction most of all is a sense of disappointment, of washed-upness: the postwar ‘never had it so good’ utopia has failed to arrive. In Britain there’s a mood of confusion and displacement in the aftermath of empire. Where now? Aickman’s protagonists seem to be asking, and none more so than the travelling salesman who is the ‘hero’ of ‘The Swords’. In its depiction of decay and disillusionment, Aickman’s fiction provides something the English weird tale had never attempted up till then: a version of the dirty ‘kitchen sink’ realism we see in the mainstream novels and films of the period. It also directly paved the way for the weird fiction of writers from the so-called ‘mundane’ school such as M. John Harrison, Nicholas Royle and Joel Lane."
I adore 'The Swords', based where I grew up. And, of course, as I said elsewhere, its influence in Lane's work is clearest in 'Keep the Night' in Scar City. Robert Aickman's 'The Swords' is based in Wolverhampton but Lane's 'Keep the Night' is notably—conspicuously in this collection based almost entirely Birmingham and the Black Country—set Milton Keynes. I wonder if this was a conscious decision to add some distance into a story that borrows heavily from Aickman. I wonder.
But, @IdleRich - As Allan points out, there is a disillusionment, a drabness, a disappointedness about Aickman (and Lane too, of course) that is, so far as I can tell, not a major aspect of M. R. James' work.
Also, I wonder if the difference could be as simple as James' stories being stories about the subject of ghosts.... whereas Aickman very quickly moved beyond and sought to distance himself from 'ghost stories', proclaiming his genre to be 'Strange Stories'- which could, of course, be interpreted as having a supernatural explanation, if one seeks such 'foolish explanations'.
In the introduction to the 4th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (containing an M R James) he writes
"I cannot pretend that these tales were not first called ghost stories because they were regarded as stories that dealt with the dead who returned. I should like to suggest that now the word 'ghost' should be seen more as the German geist; that ghost stories should be stories concerned not with appearance and consistency, but with the spirit behind appearance, the void behind the face of order. Ghost stories inquire and hint, waver and disassemble, started and astonish. They are the last refuge from the universal, affirmative shout."
Certainly, if there are 'ghosts' in Aickman and Lane's stories these are ghosts in the sense RA detailed above, geist, spirit.
forclosure
Well-known member
I think this is a bit reductive considering James basically made the formula for the ghost story aswell as the fact that he grew up a small parish village in Kent, antiquarian mediavalist scholar factors into that
also and i think this might be crucial but James intented for his stories to be read out loud since there's that old tradition of reading Ghost stories around Christmas time in the uk isn't there? I don't really get that with Aickman but it'd be interesting for somebody to do that
forclosure
Well-known member
you
Well-known member
@WebEschatology you're right, any conversation about the differences in writers can lead to being a touch reductive. To be fair, I was speculating, wondering...
But to follow up, Allan's comment of Jamesians vs Aickmanites (Aickmanites against the Jamesians) leads one to ignore the context of each. The most obvious difference to point out is that they were active in different times. Different generations.
In the context of a literary event, I think this difference becomes more significant.... what are the politics and ethics of those who still want to write like James contra those who feel more recent writers have something more to offer, something more relevant and significant? And I think this is close to what Aickman is getting at in his Fontana introduction, that the ghost story can, and should, move on, be developed beyond the form of its heyday.
"there's that old tradition of reading Ghost stories around Christmas time in the uk isn't there?" Correction, there was. Dickens tapped into this market. Today the tradition is to gorge till dusk and find oneself slumped amidst a tinsel havoc enjoying an Only Fools and Horses re-run on UK Gold for its surreal lack of social distancing.
But to follow up, Allan's comment of Jamesians vs Aickmanites (Aickmanites against the Jamesians) leads one to ignore the context of each. The most obvious difference to point out is that they were active in different times. Different generations.
In the context of a literary event, I think this difference becomes more significant.... what are the politics and ethics of those who still want to write like James contra those who feel more recent writers have something more to offer, something more relevant and significant? And I think this is close to what Aickman is getting at in his Fontana introduction, that the ghost story can, and should, move on, be developed beyond the form of its heyday.
"there's that old tradition of reading Ghost stories around Christmas time in the uk isn't there?" Correction, there was. Dickens tapped into this market. Today the tradition is to gorge till dusk and find oneself slumped amidst a tinsel havoc enjoying an Only Fools and Horses re-run on UK Gold for its surreal lack of social distancing.