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A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1905: R. Murray Gilchrist’s “The Lover’s Ordeal”

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March 10, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1905: R. Murray Gilchrist’s “The Lover’s Ordeal” …

Cool story with an excellent set-up of someone saying to his lover that he wished she’d challenge him to some great ordeal to prove his worth. She challenges him to spend a night in a haunted house. So he goes, happily. I like that a lot: the idea of the hero riding with good cheer to a haunted house. I’d definitely do that, and it felt quite realistic to me.

I’ll stop here, because this is a really short story. It’s really good, despite some mythological liberties that I wasn’t entirely on board with.

The last line is outstanding.

Giving this one 4/5 stars, for brevity and charming realism, and for really bringing it home in the final moments.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1904: Arthur Machen’s “The White People”

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March 8, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1904: Arthur Machen’s “The White People” …

Arthur Machen’s more familiar to me as the author of “The Great God Pan,” which Stephen King claims is one of the best horror stories ever written. Since that story was originally published in 1890, I guess it just missed the cut for the collection of the twentieth century’s best horror fiction. It turns out, that’s okay, because “The White People” is another excellent Machen story.

The story starts with a conversation between two men, Ambrose and Cotgrave, about the nature of evil. Ambrose details his theory that true evil is a rare thing and that most people are as incapable of it as they are incapable of being considered saints. Evil, to him, is something rare and lonely and transformative. To further explain his argument, he lends Cotgrave the diary of a young girl, which then serves as the bulk of the narrative.

The story the girl tells is quite bizarre, and I’m still coming to terms with it. The girl is caught up in a mystery surrounding a place she has found where there are a great many strange stones and a large round mound of earth. Odd things happen when she visits, and it almost seemed to me that she was eventually going to turn into the old woman in Samuel Beckett’s Ill Seen Ill Said, wandering around rocks in the gloom until she died. There’s also an echo of Machen’s tale in Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy film, Pan’s Labyrinth, as both stories have a lot to do with the power of a young girl’s imagination.

Ultimately, “The White People” seems to relate somehow to witchcraft, although to claim that that’s all the story is about is to reduce it too much. Visionary, artistic, and troubling–this one really worked for me, and I think it’s one I’ll come back to again and again.

Giving it 5/5 stars, for being extraordinary.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1903: H. G. Wells’s “The Valley of Spiders”

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March 7, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1903: H. G. Wells’s “The Valley of Spiders” …

Three men enter a valley, chasing a runaway girl. I’ll let you guess what kind of creature soon attacks them.

What I won’t do is spoil the beautiful way in which the spiders (oh, oops, sorry–I just gave it away! damn!) arrive. Wells came up with some striking visuals in his stories, and “The Valley of Spiders” likewise impresses. It’s creative and fresh even a hundred years later.

Likewise, the story, which could otherwise seem like a plot-centered adventure stories, does some nice things with its characterizations. The final two scenes overlap the behaviors of men and spiders, while also offering some dramatic interplay between pride and cowardice. The themes come together well in quite a short amount of time.

Wells pulls off a bit of an interesting trick here, too, by having the actual heroes of the story are more or less nowhere to be seen for the duration of his tale (unless, like me, you’re the type to route for the spiders). Part of the suspense has nothing to do with the fate of the men we’re reading about; as things get worse for them, curiosity increases as to the fate of the people these men are pursuing. When Wells resolves the mystery, he does so with characteristic grace and economy.

Some of the description of the more action-heavy scenes left me cold, but overall, this is another really solid story.

Giving it 4/5. Classic spider mayhem!

 

 

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1902: W. W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw”

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March 6, 2013
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1902: W. W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw” …

Tonight was not my first time reading this classic short story, and I always want to like it more than I do. Yes, I respect the craft; the writing is decent enough, and I admire the little flourish of beginning with a chess game lost (chess being one of those games where it is important to think ahead, look before you leap, etc., etc.), which I think was lost on me the first few times I read this story. The prose is clean, the details evocative, and you have to at least give some points to any story where a character is described as being “armed with an antimacassar.”

Oh, domestic weapons!

But the truth is, I resent this story a little. The plot involves the hideous results of a family making three well-intentioned wishes on a shriveled monkey’s paw after being warned not to by the person who brings it into their house. It reminds me of the standard situational comedy model, where a TV show’s characters could concoct all sorts of crazy plans to better their lives, but the viewer always knew that nothing would ever work and that next week everyone would still be right where they started. Or, if not sitcoms, it reminds me of all the hundreds of clones of this story I read in the old EC Comics. Wishes never work out in fiction, and there are few tropes more irritating to the intellect; if I could have a wish, it would be that all characters who make wishes on monkeys’ paws could make smarter wishes. Instead of saying, “I wish for 200 pounds,” say, “I wish to find a forgotten sack of two hundred pounds on my front lawn and for no one to be hurt or harmed or emotionally scarred in the process.” But no. Every character wishes for things that are easily done in horrible ways.

But I  guess the point is conveyed: be careful what you wish for, indeed!

Still, the events of the story seem overly manipulative to me in a way I don’t appreciate. The end is a foregone conclusion, and it’s more frustrating than fun to read about the failure of these characters to think just a little bit ahead.

I give this story 3/5 stars, with apologies for bringing my own personal baggage into a classic tale.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1901: Barry Pain’s “The Undying Thing”

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March 5, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go.

Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1901: Barry Pain’s “The Undying Thing.”

What a way to begin a collection! This story is outstanding.

I’m unfamiliar with Pain’s work, so I had to look him up. I’m not surprised at all to find that he was primarily a humorist. There are a great number of delightfully funny lines in “The Undying Thing,” despite a somber beginning, and its tone reminds me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House, where the only thing that matches the excellence of the spookiness is the wit of the characters.

“The Undying Thing” spans several generations, moving through time with beautiful ease. It’s an effortless story to read, which surprised me given its age. A family is cursed because of a choice made during a time of crisis. Lord Edric, the third baronet in the Vanquerest line, tries to rid the family of an abomination, but, as such things often do in tales like this, it is not so easily discarded. For decades, it haunts the village, until it becomes local folklore to be considered over drinks at the local bar.

Pain creates well-rounded characters in precious little time, and they’re all quite likable. Even the biggest curmudgeon at the bar has a few admirable qualities and is given a moment to shine. While the end may seem somewhat rote and the sum total somewhat ordinary at this late date, the execution of it is damn near perfect.

Giving this story 4/5 for being classic horror, really well told.