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1veilofisis
Here we are, friends.
A link for those without a copy: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14168/pg14168.html
The first story in that collection is the one we'll be reading.
A link for those without a copy: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14168/pg14168.html
The first story in that collection is the one we'll be reading.
3alaudacorax
We briefly discussed this on the 'gossip' thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/115964) and pgmcc hit the nail right on the head when he used the words 'lovely gradual build'.
I'm only part-way through at the moment but it's every bit as good as first time around. The change in mood is so gradual and subtle - and so ambiguous. You're never really sure what's going on.
I realised first time round that there were a couple of possible interpretations of it; but now I'm realising that Onions is allowing for a lot more than that to be read into it. I think this one crosses well over the line from craftsmanship to art (actually, having read so far, I'm quite tempted to go back and give 'The Great God Pan' another kicking*).
ETA - *I meant because the contrast is so striking.
I'm only part-way through at the moment but it's every bit as good as first time around. The change in mood is so gradual and subtle - and so ambiguous. You're never really sure what's going on.
I realised first time round that there were a couple of possible interpretations of it; but now I'm realising that Onions is allowing for a lot more than that to be read into it. I think this one crosses well over the line from craftsmanship to art (actually, having read so far, I'm quite tempted to go back and give 'The Great God Pan' another kicking*).
ETA - *I meant because the contrast is so striking.
4housefulofpaper
There are some stories, or some authors, that you get along with straight away, while there are others that you struggle with. I don’t think it’s necessarily about how ‘good‘ the author is; rather, I think it’s about whether you are in sympathy or not - whether that’s down to your individual nature or you’ve had some experience of what’s being written about.
This is by way of trying to justify not enjoying this story as much as Rankamateur has.
I first read ‘The Beckoning Fair One’ last summer, as the first story in the Tartarus Press edition of Onions’ collected ghost stories. I’ve just reread it in a paperback edition of The Third Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories edited by Robert Aickman in 1966: a good excuse to make a small dent in my TBR pile.
I was much better-disposed to the story on the second reading, but I’m not sure why. It would be good to be able to react against someone else’s ideas. I can offer a few disjointed thoughts:
This is not the virtually all-male world of M. R. James, and breaks one of James‘ cardinal rules - bringing sex into the ghost story. Which is not a problem, provided it is not handled in a way that is redolent of pre WWI magazine/women’s fiction. For me, the relationship between Oleron and Elsie Bengough didn’t entirely escape that.
The impact of Oleron’s mental disintegration was blunted, for me, because it was similar to things I’d read a long time ago - psychological science fiction stories of the ‘New Worlds’ school and the like. I know Onions was writing half a century earlier, and this is my problem not a weakness in the story.
I don’t think I would have enjoyed reading Romilly Bishop.
I can quote Aickman’s comments from his introduction: once again, I’m put in my place!
“it must be said that it is one of the (possibly) six great masterpieces in the field; ... An almost perfect story, its perfection is the more impressive by reason of the unusual but indispensable length to which it is sustained. The masterly characterisation, not by any means only of the bewitched hero (for who can forget the odious Barrett, and “I was arsking a blessing on our food”?); the slenderness of the ghostly mechanism, equalled only by its deadliness; the so skilfully kept balance, however fierce the odds, between Miss Bengough and her lethal rival; the author’s disconcerting blend of worldly knowledge with unworldly lyricism: these are among the elements in a story which brings great power to the ninetiesish theme of the quest for perfection and the ruin to which the quest so regularly leads. To break through the common round is so often to find oneself surrounded.”
This is by way of trying to justify not enjoying this story as much as Rankamateur has.
I first read ‘The Beckoning Fair One’ last summer, as the first story in the Tartarus Press edition of Onions’ collected ghost stories. I’ve just reread it in a paperback edition of The Third Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories edited by Robert Aickman in 1966: a good excuse to make a small dent in my TBR pile.
I was much better-disposed to the story on the second reading, but I’m not sure why. It would be good to be able to react against someone else’s ideas. I can offer a few disjointed thoughts:
This is not the virtually all-male world of M. R. James, and breaks one of James‘ cardinal rules - bringing sex into the ghost story. Which is not a problem, provided it is not handled in a way that is redolent of pre WWI magazine/women’s fiction. For me, the relationship between Oleron and Elsie Bengough didn’t entirely escape that.
The impact of Oleron’s mental disintegration was blunted, for me, because it was similar to things I’d read a long time ago - psychological science fiction stories of the ‘New Worlds’ school and the like. I know Onions was writing half a century earlier, and this is my problem not a weakness in the story.
I don’t think I would have enjoyed reading Romilly Bishop.
I can quote Aickman’s comments from his introduction: once again, I’m put in my place!
“it must be said that it is one of the (possibly) six great masterpieces in the field; ... An almost perfect story, its perfection is the more impressive by reason of the unusual but indispensable length to which it is sustained. The masterly characterisation, not by any means only of the bewitched hero (for who can forget the odious Barrett, and “I was arsking a blessing on our food”?); the slenderness of the ghostly mechanism, equalled only by its deadliness; the so skilfully kept balance, however fierce the odds, between Miss Bengough and her lethal rival; the author’s disconcerting blend of worldly knowledge with unworldly lyricism: these are among the elements in a story which brings great power to the ninetiesish theme of the quest for perfection and the ruin to which the quest so regularly leads. To break through the common round is so often to find oneself surrounded.”
5alaudacorax
#4 - Interesting thoughts, H. I'm not sure what you mean by 'redolent of pre WWI magazine/women's fiction' as I don't remember that I've read any, but I've become quite fascinated by the relationship between Elsie and Oleron and I'm not at all sure that I've yet got all the resonances of it.
Elsie seems to be meant for an example of 'The New Woman' - a very controversial figure at the time of authorship. At the same time, she seems to be a tremendously physical presence in the story: Onions is always adding little snippets to keep the picture before us of her as flesh and blood creature - actually, I'm not sure if she isn't partly a foreshadowing of the 20th-century's screen stereotype of the curvaceous blonde.
Now, I'm not at all sure I can justify the next bit, but here goes, anyway ...
Is it implied that Oleron is rejecting this very real woman for differing from some Victorian poet's pedestalised and ethereal ideal of womanhood that probably never existed in the real world? Is it his inability to relate properly to the contemporary woman as she really is that ends up destroying the both of them? Is Onions symbolically commenting on the changes and stresses in contemporary society?
ETA - I've also been wondering if there's any significance to the name 'Oleron' but I can't work one out. It's such an odd name and looks as if it ought to be an anagram.
Elsie seems to be meant for an example of 'The New Woman' - a very controversial figure at the time of authorship. At the same time, she seems to be a tremendously physical presence in the story: Onions is always adding little snippets to keep the picture before us of her as flesh and blood creature - actually, I'm not sure if she isn't partly a foreshadowing of the 20th-century's screen stereotype of the curvaceous blonde.
Now, I'm not at all sure I can justify the next bit, but here goes, anyway ...
Is it implied that Oleron is rejecting this very real woman for differing from some Victorian poet's pedestalised and ethereal ideal of womanhood that probably never existed in the real world? Is it his inability to relate properly to the contemporary woman as she really is that ends up destroying the both of them? Is Onions symbolically commenting on the changes and stresses in contemporary society?
ETA - I've also been wondering if there's any significance to the name 'Oleron' but I can't work one out. It's such an odd name and looks as if it ought to be an anagram.
6housefulofpaper
>5 alaudacorax:
Thanks for responding to my disconnected thoughts - I will ponder on your comments, but I think there's a lot to what you've said. (I really hope that doesn't sound condescending!)
In the meantime, I hope this links to the cover of the paperback I read the story in...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65741746@N08/6432209097/in/photostream
Thanks for responding to my disconnected thoughts - I will ponder on your comments, but I think there's a lot to what you've said. (I really hope that doesn't sound condescending!)
In the meantime, I hope this links to the cover of the paperback I read the story in...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65741746@N08/6432209097/in/photostream
7alaudacorax
#6 - ... the cover of the paperback ...
Um ... wow ... er ... that is ... I mean to say ... er ... dear me!
Um ... wow ... er ... that is ... I mean to say ... er ... dear me!
8housefulofpaper
>7 alaudacorax:
And of course, that cover's restrained for the '70s...
I imagine the 'Sheffield sticks' are accurate, at least!
And of course, that cover's restrained for the '70s...
I imagine the 'Sheffield sticks' are accurate, at least!
9housefulofpaper
> 5
I think you're right about Elsie being a 'New Woman" - but this was a phenomenon of the 1890's, while the story was published in 1911 (with no indication that it is set in the then-recent past). I wondered for a while whether Elsie, being in her mid-thirties, should be understood as 'old'. I decided that she isn't, by virtue of not being working class, and thereby not being aged - prematurely aged, by our standards - by the harshness of her life (as, for example, my great-grandparents were).
Onions strongly hints that Oleron and Elsie have both made choices - high minded artist, career woman - that have set them on lonely and possibly emotionally unsatisfying paths. With this in mind, I can appreciate, rather more than I did on first reading, the irony of Oleron rejecting his escape route (romance with Elsie) not for his literary masterpiece, but for seduction (by a ghost or something even less tangible) that destroys both him and Elsie.
About the name "Oleron" - it may have no special significance. On it's unfamiliarity, two things come to mind (i) Nigel Kneale's distinctive character names such as Quatermass, Kinvig, etc. were, he said in an interview, simply ordinary surnames he was familiar with from growing up on the Isle of Man. Onions, I understand, was a Yorkshireman; perhaps it's a once-common name from those parts (ii) as to why we don't recognise it now, I remember hearing that one of the consequences of the First World War was many British surnames disappeared - because the slaughter was so great, there were no males left to pass on those family names. A melancholy and rather shocking fact.
I think you're right about Elsie being a 'New Woman" - but this was a phenomenon of the 1890's, while the story was published in 1911 (with no indication that it is set in the then-recent past). I wondered for a while whether Elsie, being in her mid-thirties, should be understood as 'old'. I decided that she isn't, by virtue of not being working class, and thereby not being aged - prematurely aged, by our standards - by the harshness of her life (as, for example, my great-grandparents were).
Onions strongly hints that Oleron and Elsie have both made choices - high minded artist, career woman - that have set them on lonely and possibly emotionally unsatisfying paths. With this in mind, I can appreciate, rather more than I did on first reading, the irony of Oleron rejecting his escape route (romance with Elsie) not for his literary masterpiece, but for seduction (by a ghost or something even less tangible) that destroys both him and Elsie.
About the name "Oleron" - it may have no special significance. On it's unfamiliarity, two things come to mind (i) Nigel Kneale's distinctive character names such as Quatermass, Kinvig, etc. were, he said in an interview, simply ordinary surnames he was familiar with from growing up on the Isle of Man. Onions, I understand, was a Yorkshireman; perhaps it's a once-common name from those parts (ii) as to why we don't recognise it now, I remember hearing that one of the consequences of the First World War was many British surnames disappeared - because the slaughter was so great, there were no males left to pass on those family names. A melancholy and rather shocking fact.
10alaudacorax
I've just discovered that there's a large, French, Atlantic seaboard island known in English as the Island of Oleron. I don't know if there's any significance to that - playing on Paul Oleron being 'insulated'?
On the 'new woman' thing, probably I'm using the phrase anachronistically for the time of writing, but I think controversy about women having professional careers and independent lives was still around until, at least, the Great War, and I assume Oleron was referring to it in the conversation on the bus. These things tend to be seen differently at different levels of society and Onions seems to be making the difference in attitudes to them between Oleron and Elsie's circle (presumably arty, intellectual and very 'modern') and the working class circle of Barrett and his neighbours an important secondary consideration in the story. The house is in a run-down district in which, in a sense, Oleron and Elsie are outsiders.
Is anyone else having the difficulty I am in getting to grips with Onions' prose, here? I'm strongly feeling that Onions is a much, much better writer than I am a literary critic and I'm feeling rather out of my depth. I'm finding it extremely difficult to properly take it apart and examine it.
On the 'new woman' thing, probably I'm using the phrase anachronistically for the time of writing, but I think controversy about women having professional careers and independent lives was still around until, at least, the Great War, and I assume Oleron was referring to it in the conversation on the bus. These things tend to be seen differently at different levels of society and Onions seems to be making the difference in attitudes to them between Oleron and Elsie's circle (presumably arty, intellectual and very 'modern') and the working class circle of Barrett and his neighbours an important secondary consideration in the story. The house is in a run-down district in which, in a sense, Oleron and Elsie are outsiders.
Is anyone else having the difficulty I am in getting to grips with Onions' prose, here? I'm strongly feeling that Onions is a much, much better writer than I am a literary critic and I'm feeling rather out of my depth. I'm finding it extremely difficult to properly take it apart and examine it.
11veilofisis
Everybody feel free to continue posting on this thread, but I'm going to create a new one for anyone ready to move on...
Recently we discussed Shakespeare's influence on the world of the Gothic. Nowhere is his relationship with the genre stronger than when we consider Hamlet. I think the play (which I'm sure we are all fairly familiar with) could provide for an interesting discussion, especially if we examine it within the context of its influence on the Gothic. This could also be an interesting read to begin looking at cinematic comparisons: I'd suggest we take a look at Olivier's production, which utilizes the Gothic 'castle' as a visual motif. Anyway, this read will be a bit more free-form than our previous discussions, so feel free to bring any and all observations to the table (or not). New thread is up.
Recently we discussed Shakespeare's influence on the world of the Gothic. Nowhere is his relationship with the genre stronger than when we consider Hamlet. I think the play (which I'm sure we are all fairly familiar with) could provide for an interesting discussion, especially if we examine it within the context of its influence on the Gothic. This could also be an interesting read to begin looking at cinematic comparisons: I'd suggest we take a look at Olivier's production, which utilizes the Gothic 'castle' as a visual motif. Anyway, this read will be a bit more free-form than our previous discussions, so feel free to bring any and all observations to the table (or not). New thread is up.
