Horror: The 100 Best Books by Kim Newman, Stephen Jones Page B
Authors: Kim Newman, Stephen Jones
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faithfully under the collective title A Ghost Story for Christmas . When we asked more than a hundred modern writers to contribute to this book, M.R. James was named far more times than any other author as the most important and influential figure in the horror field.
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M. R. James is one of horror fiction's few class acts. Like Stephen King, he can write about the vile and horrific without seeming to smear it all over himself or you. His stories are rich in atmosphere, inexorable in construction -- and describe a world as circumscribed as Jane Austen's. James's first collection, published in 1904, was called Ghost Stories of an Antiquary . The title sums up the balance of elements in the stories. James was a brilliant medievalist and biblical scholar, provost of both King's College Cambridge and, later, Eton. The main characters are almost always scholars, and almost always bachelors. The world is seen through their eyes. In "Lost Hearts", the description of a Queen Anne House takes up about 140 words, while a description of the owner's library and published articles takes up another hundred -- in a 4,300 word story about a little boy. The narrators in James' stories usually take no part in the action. They piece their stories together as historians would, through old documents or the evidence of friends. The scholarly, slightly fusty tone of voice; the professional characters; and the narrative technique all work together to produce what could be called an air of Cambridge verisimilitude. This air lends credence and charm to the tales, and defines their limits. The stories are full of unlikely discoveries of old manuscripts or relics, fantasy thrills for historians. In "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook", for example, a researcher comes across a 16th century collection of pages plundered from illuminated manuscripts. "Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments." But the very last page is a drawing of a demon. Here the narrator of the tale intervenes, making a sudden appearance. He describes, not the drawing which has been destroyed, but a photograph of it. "I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it," says the narrator and then describes the figure in great detail:
"At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long coarse hairs and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils . . . Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form and endowed with intelligence just less than human . . ."
M. R. James is thought of as a master of subtle suggestion. He almost never describes physical injury. But his terrors are described in great and very physical detail, and are the focus of the tales. The writing grows more specific when they appear -- and there would be no story without them. The monsters are seldom ghosts. They are curses -- spirits of revenge or spite or unrequited longing. They erupt into our world because a scholar has dug them up. James seems to have little interest in the wider implications of his tales either moral or metaphysical. In his fictional world, witches used to be real, as in "The Ash Tree", until they were all burnt at the stake. The justice of burning witches alive is not questioned. What is of interest is their ability to come back as a crop of large, poisonous spiders. The aims of the stories are modest -- to tell a creepy story convincingly and with a measure of elegance. In this aim, he succeeds time after time, but for a historian, he shows little feeling for being haunted by the past, or little interest in what history could really teach us. Like many scholars, his attention is not held by great and central questions.
***
M. R. James is one of horror fiction's few class acts. Like Stephen King, he can write about the vile and horrific without seeming to smear it all over himself or you. His stories are rich in atmosphere, inexorable in construction -- and describe a world as circumscribed as Jane Austen's. James's first collection, published in 1904, was called Ghost Stories of an Antiquary . The title sums up the balance of elements in the stories. James was a brilliant medievalist and biblical scholar, provost of both King's College Cambridge and, later, Eton. The main characters are almost always scholars, and almost always bachelors. The world is seen through their eyes. In "Lost Hearts", the description of a Queen Anne House takes up about 140 words, while a description of the owner's library and published articles takes up another hundred -- in a 4,300 word story about a little boy. The narrators in James' stories usually take no part in the action. They piece their stories together as historians would, through old documents or the evidence of friends. The scholarly, slightly fusty tone of voice; the professional characters; and the narrative technique all work together to produce what could be called an air of Cambridge verisimilitude. This air lends credence and charm to the tales, and defines their limits. The stories are full of unlikely discoveries of old manuscripts or relics, fantasy thrills for historians. In "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook", for example, a researcher comes across a 16th century collection of pages plundered from illuminated manuscripts. "Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments." But the very last page is a drawing of a demon. Here the narrator of the tale intervenes, making a sudden appearance. He describes, not the drawing which has been destroyed, but a photograph of it. "I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it," says the narrator and then describes the figure in great detail:
"At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long coarse hairs and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils . . . Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form and endowed with intelligence just less than human . . ."
M. R. James is thought of as a master of subtle suggestion. He almost never describes physical injury. But his terrors are described in great and very physical detail, and are the focus of the tales. The writing grows more specific when they appear -- and there would be no story without them. The monsters are seldom ghosts. They are curses -- spirits of revenge or spite or unrequited longing. They erupt into our world because a scholar has dug them up. James seems to have little interest in the wider implications of his tales either moral or metaphysical. In his fictional world, witches used to be real, as in "The Ash Tree", until they were all burnt at the stake. The justice of burning witches alive is not questioned. What is of interest is their ability to come back as a crop of large, poisonous spiders. The aims of the stories are modest -- to tell a creepy story convincingly and with a measure of elegance. In this aim, he succeeds time after time, but for a historian, he shows little feeling for being haunted by the past, or little interest in what history could really teach us. Like many scholars, his attention is not held by great and central questions.
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