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Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 - 02:46 am: | |
I've decided to go ahead and open this month's Reading Group thread for Karim's story selection, "Again."
I'll be reading this tale over the next few days and look forward to sharing my thoughts on it as well as reading those of others.
Best,
Richard |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 - 06:22 pm: | |
So having just come back from 4 days of camping, loud music and drunk Swedes at Roskilde Festival, and having removed four days of mud and earplugs cauterized into my head from very loud music, (My Bloody Valentine, Slayer, Battles, Judas Priest, Mogwai amongst others), it was with much enjoyment (after a hot bath and a cup of tea), that I reread Ramsey Campbell’s terrifying and excellent short story Again… again.
One is immediately struck by this description of the mysterious woman at the beginning of the story, ‘A woman with white shoulders standing quite still.’ This description for some reason is immediately unsettling. Perhaps Bryant’s wandering into the strange landscape: ‘an overgrown railway divested of it’s line…’fields too lush for comfort’, ‘children hooting like derailed trains’, and the flies of course, ‘he felt sticky, hemmed in by buzzing and green, a fly in a fly-trap’ certainly gives power to the old woman’s first appearance.
The buzzing of the flies is of course a major device in the build-up of terror in the story: The woman who Bryant believes is beckoning him, is actually waving flies away with her boney hands, Bryant supposes the groaning from the bearded man to be the sussurant buzzing of insects, as he also believes that the movements beneath the blanket to be caused by insects; a fly directs Bryant’s attention to the bottles in the kitchen which he uses first to try and break the windows, and then inevitably as a final defense. Flies escape out of the old naked woman’s mouth at the end of the story, and the sound of flies are strangely absent as Bryant finally rushes out of the house to a kind of freedom. Bryant could of course be understood as a fly caught in a flytrap.
The story relies a great deal on visual codes to help us figure out the old woman’s history and perhaps her pathology. We are first introduced to the magazines ‘people tied up tortuously, a plump woman wearing a suspender belt and flourishing a whip’… and Bryant notices that some of the magazines are quite recent, a few months old. Later, on the photographs, Bryant notices, ’Though the bridegrooms were different…the bride was the same in everyone.’ The bite marks on the bearded man and the scratch marks on his shoulders, indicate that our terrifying old woman has had a long, destructive, sadomasochistic history with several men, who we can only imagine have suffered a similar fate as her most recent victim, the bearded man. The cinematic presentation of the events as they unfold are stressed in the old woman’s role as voyeur, an additional perversity, as she rushes from window to window around the bungalow to follow Bryant’s progress to the grisly revelation.
This is probably one of my very favorite Campbell stories, and I am probably attracted to it because of the very powerful visuals, the narrative economy, the power of the final revelation, the primal survival horror in the claustrophobic bungalow, and that final word which makes you want to read this all over again.
} |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 11:14 am: | |
"Again" has always been one of my favourite Campbell stories, mainly because its so disgusting.
The tale confronts deep human insecurities - sexuality, fidelity, isolation, perversity - and looks them right in the eye. Reading it again, I still felt like I needed a shower afterwards. It's a dirty story in every sense of the word.
The build up is excrutiating, the accumulation of nasty little details relentless, and one can almost hear the buzzing of the flies, see the dirt on the kitchen work surfaces.
The final section is almost unbearably horrific and unforgettable. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 12:34 pm: | |
And to think from the introduction, 'that one British Sunday newspaper magazine dismissed it as not horrid enough' ! |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 12:59 pm: | |
This one provided two jolts. When Bryant first sees the old lady peering in at him I actually shivered, because it is such a strong picture; and second (I guess I'm not alone here) "when he heard her opening the front door with the key she had had all the time", for all it implies. The rest of the story more or less reminds me of "Call First".
An indication of how strong an impact the story had upon me is provided by the fact I 'discovered' the bungalow in my own neighbourhood. It's a lone dwelling out in the fields, quite pleasant-looking actually (its garden is not at all unkempt), but there IS an overgrown railway divested of its line nearby. I'll try to photograph the premises when the sun decides to come out. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 12:02 pm: | |
Don't, Hubert! Come back! Someone stop him! |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 01:00 pm: | |
Too late . . . Claw-like old hands materialize . . . Am being dragged inside towards the cellar . . . [Writing here grows indistinct] Cannot help self . . . I can write no more . . . |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 02:11 pm: | |
:-) |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 02:48 pm: | |
[message dictated to telegraph operator] Aaaargh... that's A-A-A-R-G-H... |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 07:54 pm: | |
After several months of reading non-fiction I took some time this afternoon to read "Again" for the first time. Lawd almighty!!!
Ramsey --- To be able to conjure genuine dread in a reader on an otherwise idyllic summer afternoon, to actually cause a reader (one who is hardly a stranger to horror fiction!) to gasp; these are rare talents. I can honestly say that I was more frightened and repulsed by "Again" than I have been in a very long time. Thank you for sharing this nightmarish story with the world.
I loved the opening passages wherein Ramsey describes the abandoned rail tracks as being part of the "nature" trail area. The whistling of the running children was also a nice eerie touch. I found it demonstrated how isolated Bryant was from civilization, for even though there were other people nearby, they all seemed too absorbed in their own realities to pay him any mind (with the exception of the tongue-happy dog, of course).
Like others here, I found the appearance of the white-shouldered woman to be startling and ingenious. I could relate to Bryant's simultaneous attraction/repulsion to the elderly woman in need. When she requests Bryant's assistance in getting into her house, I actually shuddered.
One particularly startling moment was when Bryant feels the old woman grab his buttocks in order to shove him through the window and into the house. Already we can see this revenant's feral sexuality in action.
The porno-laden bungalow was disturbing, yes, but it also led me to ponder *why* I found it so. Do I possess some ageist bias when it comes to sexuality? Of course this woman's tastes were a little more ferocious than some, but still, I couldn't help but wonder, 'Why does this bother me?' (Note: Was this intentional at all on your part, Ramsey?)
The buzzing flies were a wonderful touch, but I confess that I found they telegraphed what was waiting for Bryant in the house...though Ramsey's prose still made that final encounter chilling.
The woman unlocking door with the key she had all along was a wonderful, awful moment.
Two elements of this story really resounded with me. One was the muffled voice of the woman as she mouthed words to Bryant through the window. This reminded me of how warbled and distant voices are in many of my nightmares. It was creepy stuff, particularly when the woman utters the last word of the story.
The second element was the discovery of the old house in the woods. This is an ancient device in human lore, but one that never loses potency for me. As a regular hiker into some pretty isolated locales, I have come across more than my share of these neglected structures...stupidly or bravely I almost always investigate them. However, after reading "Again" I may be forced to change my ways.
Speaking of that...Has anyone heard from Hubert since Friday??? ;-)
Ramsey mentions in his Introduction that "Again" was given a graphic adaptation in a publication called "Taboo." Has anyone seen this illustrated version?
zed -- You mentioned that you believed fidelity was one of the themes of "Again." Were you referring to the fidelity between the elderly man and woman or something else? Just curious.
I look forward to reading further comments on this powerful tale.
Best,
Richard |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 08:36 pm: | |
I suspect Zed was referring to the protagonist's implicit distaste for casual sex. Though if the only partners on offer were the couple in that house, not many people would be keen.
'Again' is a very fine piece of work, an ironic horror story with sad and bleak undertones but a certain paranoid comedy throughout. It comes from a phase of Campbell's writing when he was looking for alternatives to the pessimistic urban horror he had become famous for, and experimenting with humour and with avant-garde narrative forms.
'Again' is avant-garde in its lack of context and back-story, the way it represents a closed narrative that the narrator wanders into and then breaks out of. It also echoes some of de la Mare's melancholic ghost stories (such as 'Mr Kempe') where the supernatural defines a self-enclosed world of obsession.
The ending is surprisingly gentle and rather sad: worse damaged than ever and no longer a direct threat, the old woman is unable to think of anything except the same thing over again. She and her partner never wanted anything from the protagonist except sex, or possibly his life energy to help them have sex with each other. They would have killed him or made him trapped and undead like them, but they don't actually mean any harm – they're not evil, just single-minded.
'Again' is a weird serio-comic glimpse of the extremes of sexual obsession, like an account of a particularly trying house party. It's a cautionary tale about how attempts at seduction may be perceived by the seductee. And it's a vision of an afterlife in which the obsessions of life come to define the landscape. By Campbell's standards it's a minor story, but it's beautifully crafted. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 09:32 pm: | |
"I suspect Zed was referring to the protagonist's implicit distaste for casual sex."
Joel's correct. That's exactly what I was getting at. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 09:58 pm: | |
Zed: Ah, yes. Now I understand your comment. Thank you for clarifying.
Joel: There was a comedic undertone to the piece, definitely.
I did not consider "Again" avant-garde to be honest, even with its singular focus and lack of backstory. I regarded it as a small story about small people with small ambitions. (Though I suppose Bryant could have escaped to go on to bigger and better things than the bleak bungalow.) |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 12:32 am: | |
No, he'll go back there. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 09:06 am: | |
Again and again. |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 09:19 am: | |
A comedic undertone? I didn't think so. Can you provide examples? |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 10:18 am: | |
That business with the key is pure farce. But the whole situation is comic in a really dark kind of way. It's a supernatural version of the classic farcical situation of a swinging couple trying to entice a younger person into a menage a trois. In fact it's the ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE of supernatural horror. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 12:47 pm: | |
I couldn't find any racial elements in AGAIN. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 01:12 pm: | |
Apart from the race against time. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 01:35 pm: | |
I think that weird, offbeat humour underscores a lot of Ramsey's work - the thin line between a laugh and a scream. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 01:43 pm: | |
Marc Almond's memoir IN SEARCH OF THE PLEASURE PALACE includes a priceless anecdote about a couple who invited him round and then organised an orgy in his honour. Not keen to participate but aware that his departure would provoke a scene, he slipped out through the French windows and made his way home. That was in my mind when making the comments above. I dare say you can see the parallels... |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 01:50 pm: | |
It's a question of personal perception. To some the notion of Vic gargling in the bathroom (in "The Cellars") may seem slightly humorous, but with hindsight it's an evocative and extremely unsettling image. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 02:10 pm: | |
Glad you made it back, Hubert. (If it actually is you and not something else using your password.) |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 03:50 pm: | |
Hi, Joel & zed,
I re-read "Again" last night (just before drifting off to sleep, which in hindsight was probably quite foolish) and I wanted to request a bit more clarification on Bryant's "implicit distaste for casual sex."
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I took this character's revulsion to be rooted more in the age of the woman in the photos (as well as the S&M angle) rather than casual sex. Even the woman's string of partners seen in the framed photos didn't really seem to faze Bryant too greatly. I took his reaction to be one of initial shock, then an attempt to rationalize what he was seeing, and then ultimately one of fear.
I could have missed something, so feel free to correct me.
Joel: I hadn't thought of Bryant returning to the bungalow instead of fleeing. This not only makes sense, it also transforms the woman's final word into a kind of ominous portent. Very nice indeed!
Best,
Richard |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 07:50 pm: | |
In a sense Bryant's revelation is one of closure, a long period of abuse has perhaps come to an end due to the grisly discovery (making the final words all the more haunting). There are certainly elements of the grotesque, and reading the story as a farce of sorts I also think is a useful way of looking at the tale.
I was reminded of the Calvino story, the Argentine Ant, with the strangely beautiful and menacing landscape in the beginning, and the sense that there are dark things lurking just beneath the surface. I really like the acceleration of the piece, and how aggravating it becomes. Certain references to class are also present, and introducing these very aggravating elements is one way I suppose of addressing these things. One could imagine that the woman had a secretive facade to uphold, which has long disintegrated, but which was sustainable for a considerable period of time due to the remote location.
Also on the first reading, one feels almost as if a repressed subconscious is being unlocked, revealing one unsettling image after another. On the second reading we can see that the images are carefully chosen to give us just enough information to heighten the terror at the end, but one does feel like you are being hurled forwards, with really no way of stopping until its too late. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 08:04 pm: | |
Karim wrote: "Also on the first reading, one feels almost as if a repressed subconscious is being unlocked, revealing one unsettling image after another. On the second reading we can see that the images are carefully chosen to give us just enough information to heighten the terror at the end, but one does feel like you are being hurled forwards, with really no way of stopping until its too late."
Very perceptive, Karim. I agree with you on this. Perhaps it was this influx of images that made me forget --- or simply not care --- that there was very little in way of characterization or backstory in this narrative, as Joel pointed out earlier in this thread. Although these details were scant, "Again" still feels complete and not at all like a vignette. The story is like falling into a nightmare, one that moves with a force that is wholly beyond our control. |
Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 08:15 pm: | |
I read this story in Twilight Zone magazine back in the 1980s, one of the first stories of Ramsey's I'd ever read and found utterly wonderfully genuinely disturbing, not in the juvenile way, but very profoundly.
Some years later, I went on a hike with the San Francisco Cacophony Society to an abandoned railroad station in a marsh in the South Bay (San Francisco) and there, in an abandoned house, like the one in the story, to a crowd of twenty to thirty unsuspecting souls, I read "Again"
You should've heard the screams . . . (including one of angry protest!)
I'll have to read it . . . "Again!" she said! |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 08:33 pm: | |
"Some years later, I went on a hike with the San Francisco Cacophony Society to an abandoned railroad station in a marsh in the South Bay (San Francisco) and there, in an abandoned house, like the one in the story, to a crowd of twenty to thirty unsuspecting souls, I read "Again""
Great, Thomas! Exactly the sort of experience I'm looking for. I don't suppose you have a photograph of the railway station? |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 09:56 pm: | |
Withholding information is certainly a powerful, unsettling device. It does also invite the reader to help fill in the gaps with his or her own imagination, just giving us enough however to stir it in a frightening direction indeed!
Seeing the woman following Bryant from window to window (from the point of view of inside the old building) is just a great, very disturbing image. (Even If you were outside the house and you were to see that from a distance- which one's mind's eye kind of conjures up as well.)
I think this story has some powerful primal things going on, both in the story and the visuals, which is why I also like it a great deal. I don't know if the story could be considered avant guard as such, it has these primal elements, the old house, and the urge to go into it and explore it, even if your instincts might make you feel otherwise; the old lady is presented at the very beginning and promises us something terrible which she certainly delivers- (as we had feared). But it does also challenge us, and confronts us with something frightening and twisted from the private sphere...most of the time however we're just too dammned frightened to do anything but start to panic!
Hubert and Thomasb : I love exploring old buildings- though its been ages! When I was about fifteen I remember going into this old hospital- when I was living on the Maltese Islands- the hospital had been used for wounded allied soldiers in WW2. The place had been closed just after the war but had not been demolished or reopened. That was quite an experience, and more scary when you're 15! Be careful lest some apparition gets you! |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 11:57 pm: | |
ThomasB wrote: "Some years later, I went on a hike with the San Francisco Cacophony Society to an abandoned railroad station in a marsh in the South Bay (San Francisco) and there, in an abandoned house, like the one in the story, to a crowd of twenty to thirty unsuspecting souls, I read 'Again.'"
You are a man after my own heart, Thomas. Bravo, my friend. Bravo.
Best,
Richard |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 12:36 pm: | |
Well, I did return to photograph the 'bungalow' with the camera in my mobile phone. Sadly, the pictures are all worthless, so I'll have to try yet again with a proper camera. But I have a tale to tell.
As I stood in front of the structure, trying to find a proper angle, an elderly man accompanied by a truly decrepit-looking elderly lady (yes!) came out of the front door. Did I have a minute to spare? I half expected to be told off for my conspicuous and (to them) possibly insolent behaviour, but no, the man had been working in the back garden and was experiencing some difficulty in sawing off a dead branch from a recalcitrant outgrowth close to the side entrance. Could I lend a hand? This was too good to be true, so I put aside my bike and followed them into the garden.
They were amiable enough, with not a hint of maliciousness. Obviously well off, too, for I spotted a Hummer under the trees in the back of the garden. The lady needed an ambulator to get me a glass of water in the kitchen. Somewhat to my surprise, a curious horse poked its head out of an small stable next to another clump of trees.
Did I know that the house had at one time been a railway station? There were a couple more along the old railway, in fact one was up for sale – “14 million, I’ve heard,” the man piped up. He made it sound as if it were a bargain at that price. Maybe it was.
“Really? That’s interesting. Must be a dream to live here – no neighbours, all that space and quiet . . .”
“I can see you’re a man of the world. My guess is you’re a lawyer, am I right? With your long hair you certainly look the part.”
“Good heavens, no!” I laughed. The man handed me a very rusty frame saw and without further ado I set to work. While I was merrily sawing away he told me he’d owned three hotels in his day, one of them the T.N., a well-known resort back in the sixties and seventies, long since torn down.
“Ah, the T.N.! I used to work there sometimes for an English tour operator, twenty-odd – no, more than thirty years ago.”
“Is that so? Then you must have known M.?”
“Certainly. He used to chain-smoke Louis Doize cigarettes, if I remember correctly. There was this morose waiter, too. And the landlady - it all comes back now. We used to call her Mademoiselle, for she was a bit of a - ”
Suddenly it dawned on me. Heavens, could it be that the creature in the doorway . . . ? Luckily I’d refrained from reminiscing about Mademoiselle’s all too overt preference of young damsels.
At this the man proferred his hand.
“My, you’re a strong one. Must be all that cycling. How old are you?
I told him my age.
“Really? Thought you were about thirty-five. Incredible. Or is it your long hair? Call me M. I don’t know if you remember who I am, but I’m the good lady’s brother.”
The work was soon finished, and after another draught of water, I bid the couple farewell.
“Feel free to drop by whenever you’re in the neighbourhood. It has been very nice talking to you. Nowadays so few people know how to smile and be friendly.”
I was on my way out when an incredibly swift Mademoiselle stopped me in my tracks to hand me a small packet of cookies. There was a drawing on it – I couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to look like a mirror or a balloon, but right in the middle of the white circular space was the blithe exclamation hahaha...!
[Not the tale of unease you might have expected, but I thought I’d share it with you anyway. Oh, and I most emphatically didn’t tell the two about “Again”.] |
Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 12:49 am: | |
Hubert: re photo, I'm afraid not, tho photos were taken! |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 - 11:05 am: | |
Wasn't it Albie who mentioned something about parallels with Ramsey's situation at home, when his parents were still alive? I think it's an interesting angle. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 - 12:37 pm: | |
Ramsey himself has made that comparison. It's quite a blatant one. How he could have missed it while writing it is testament to his mental barriers concerning the subject.
The story is basically about a man trapped in a house by an old lady. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 - 12:44 pm: | |
That's right, and I also thought that the references to milk suggested a maternal image. I ought to explain that the whole story derived from an incident when I was quite young, when my mother locked her keys in the house and I had to climb through a kitchen window she'd left ajar. So I did know the source of the original idea, but as with writing my tales in general, I lost sight of that once the situation in the story engaged my imagination. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 - 02:28 pm: | |
I was wondering Mr.Campbell, if any of the other startling images in the story also were a point of departure for the tale? (Other than the biographical point you mention above of course.) The images are really powerful in this. As a reader I have to admit that there seems to be quite a number of moments where you go- I bet this image of the bearded man, or the glimpses of the woman around the house, the photographs, or the countless other great images, were also points of origin? If you feel you want to comment! Thanks for sharing the biographical note. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008 - 09:46 pm: | |
I think all those images came out of the process of telling the tale. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 12:06 am: | |
Absolutely :-) I suppose it is the process then I was curious about. I wonder also if contempoary audiences who've grown up with TV and film etc, don't also subconciously apply cinematic readings to things much more than they think - maybe even to give the terror in a frightening story for example, some kind of form, or some way of dealing with traumatic subject matter- and thus distance themselves a little- lest they panic! :-) |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 11:00 am: | |
Or you could say that we try and create images in our mind's eye to make things less abstract and uncertain, (though the opposite effect could also be the case). Whatever the process is, I suppose you feel it at work in the story I guess. I really enjoyed reading this story again. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 12:45 pm: | |
Interesting. So you had to crawl through a window. And your mother was locked out.
I wonder why you would find that so appealing to start a story with it.
We could over analyse this (oh, lets). A sense of power, that the house is yours. Mother excluded.
I wonder if the contents of the room then belong to you, Ramsey, and not the woman.
Yuk. That opens a smelly door. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 01:19 pm: | |
Let's add to that the thrill of apparently burgling your own home, identifying with the intruder. Suppose you met yourself coming down the stairs with a baseball bat?
Breaking into your parents' house to find the keys is a potent symbol, and not only in Freudian terms. It's about behaving like an outsider in order to become an insider. As T.S. Eliot put it:
"In order to possess that which we do not possess
We must go by the way of dispossession"
I don't know if any of you have read the Tindal Street Press anthology GOING THE DISTANCE – there's a story in that by Maria Morris called 'Homing Instinct' that touches on related themes. It's about man who becomes obsessed with breeding pigeons when his wife is dying of cancer and his son starts to hate him. Very, very bleak stuff. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 01:34 pm: | |
I knew you were going to to say all that.
I did. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 02:04 pm: | |
Well Albie you said 'The story is basically about a man trapped in a house by an old lady' and then 'So you had to crawl through a window. And your mother was locked out. I wonder why you would find that so appealing to start a story with it.'
Well we have the tale as proof! However as Joel says there is some powerful imagry here that could lead us to all sorts of interpretations.
And finally Albs you say 'We could over analyse this (oh lets)'
Well we're kind of gathered here for that. I'm sure it is weird for an author to hear interpretations of the work, and lots of it is probably not what the author intended, but I'm sure it also must be fun to hear the things that the stories gestate in the minds of the readers, even if they may be wrong, or incorrect or whatever. It is also great I think that Mr. Campbell occasionally brings light on some issues. Just wonderful actually. Well better than digging someone up with a shovel from the previous century and asking the corpse' WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY THIS* ;-) |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 02:12 pm: | |
Yes, but that's fun too. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 04:53 pm: | |
Ha! What five questions would you ask five dead authors then if you had a magic shovel? |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 05:20 pm: | |
"Interesting. So you had to crawl through a window. And your mother was locked out.
I wonder why you would find that so appealing to start a story with it."
Just that it was capable of development, I think. Ideas come from anywhere, in my experience, and it's the potential for development that makes me write them down. For instance, "Just Waiting" came out of nothing more than picnicking with my family in Delamere Forest and imagining waiters suddenly appearing at the table. Obsession (I know I often relate this) came from a single dialogue exchange in a Stallone film. |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 - 07:10 pm: | |
To overtly over-analyse things even further: if the old lady is a projection of Ramsey's mother, then maybe it would not be too far-fetched to hold that the bearded man or victim in the torture chamber is the seldom seen father. I imagine marriage, if not life itself, must have been sheer hell . . . or at least torure to the fellow. My own father used to do shift work and this effectively split our family in two, so things like "My mother waylaid him" and "My father's voice hardly sounded like a voice at all" strike an all too familiar chord here. |
Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 12:29 am: | |
What Mr.Campbell says about the image of the waiters might be similar to the way we sometimes take a particular image or scene away with us when we read a story. And that scene or image makes us remember the other details of the story. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 11:52 am: | |
I wonder how you get from "I'm gonna' blow your freakin' ass off!" to Obsession.
I wonder if the many husbands the woman had could be seen as another way of representing the vagueness of Ramsey's father. |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 01:18 pm: | |
Autobiographical elements rarely, in my view, provide a final and definite source for fiction that allows you to say 'This represents...' or 'This is really about...' Rather, they get thrown in as part of a mix of elements from many sources, conscious and unconscious, being redefined by the process of being used in fiction. Words like 'subtext' and 'metaphor' are helpful in allowing us to articulate the relationships between experience and creativity, but they're only signposts on a Spaghetti Junction that straightens itself out and reforms in a new tangle every second. Interpretation is useful as well as fun, but there is no 'final' meaning.
(If you're Des and you're reading this, you may note that I am contradicting myself. Very well then, so I contradict myself. I am dim, I contain mist formations.) |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Friday, July 25, 2008 - 12:57 pm: | |
Obviously. This is all just theory.
That's a given. |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 01:19 pm: | |
Hello, all,
I realize we strayed from the original Reading Group schedule a wee bit, but unless I'm mistaken, August's tale will be Huw's pick: "The Companion."
If you're ready to step up to the podium, Huw, I will open the August thread.
Best,
Richard |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 01:34 pm: | |
Ah - it's meant to be me for August. I don't mind at all but I'm just posting this to say you'll have to forgive me if I now forget all about it as that's the month I have in my head for doing it & I'm hopeless if things get rescheduled. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 04:05 pm: | |
OH NO! We made an error? I can't help but blame everyone but myself.
Why? WHY? |
Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 07:30 pm: | |
No worries. Mr. Probert, the floor is yours! The August tale shall be "The Depths."
I will open the thread now.
Best,
Richard |