| Author | Message | ||
     Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 |
Hello, everyone, Huw is up for September. His choice is Ramsey's classic tale, 'The Companion.' This story's a real skin-crawler. Can't wait to re-read it this week! Best, Richard | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 |
Why was there no discussion here for this story? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 |
Because it's clumsy and overwritten... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 |
A beautiful little chiller that was perhaps a tad overrated at the time, and that Ramsey has certainly topped many times since, but hardly clumsy or overwritten! Do I detect the literay equivalent of "Love Will Tear Us Apart"-itis?  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 |
I read it to my kids the other year Ramsey and they quite liked it. Now you mention it, yes, a bit long, but incredibly effective in places. I thought it was better than when I first read it, anyway. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 |
I think Stephen King writes about this tale in Danse Macabre. I read it a good many years after I'd seen King's appreciation, and found the story quite effective. Like quite a few other earlier stories ("In the Bag", "The Invocation", "Reply Guaranteed", "Drawing In" . . .) the clincher is in the final sentence. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 |
Ramsey, why do you feel it's overwritten? Other than The Hands, it's possibly the short story of yours I've re-read the most. As a side note, The Pattern was so utterly frightening I have always been loath to read it again at the risk of diminishing its impact on me. Was it published anywhere other than in The Far Reaches of Fear anthology? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 |
Ah, "The Pattern" . . . I read this in surroundings pretty much like the ones described in the story. I was completely alone and had the distinct impression that someone was hiding in the bushes at the edge of the field I was in. A scary experience. The pastoral M.R. Jamesness of the tale is gradually subverted by the 'echo' until we come to the final devastating climax. The final page is just perfect. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 |
Patrick... well, I think the first half is quite awkward and self-conscious. It reads like a first draft (which it pretty well is). For me the story perks up once the protagonist sets out for the second fairground. As I recall, my imagination then engaged so much with the material that I wrote everything from that point in a single session. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 |
Thank you, Ramsey. Could you answer one more question? (For now, at least!) You said somewhere in an anthology introduction I think, that, and I paraphrase here so forgive me, this was a story that was more important to write than to understand. So could you explain why you wanted to write this story? Where did it come from? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 |
The subconscious! But I think it was one of my first attempts to confront in my tales actual terrors of my childhood - the boy lying awake in a praying panic was me in my mid-teens. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 |
Thank you. |