Reading Group #34 ('Schalken the Painter')

Time to get back down to my proper business as the host of this Gothic party...

And here is a text for anyone without a Le Fanu collection...

http://www.online-literature.com/lefanu/1780/

I started reading this story not realising I had read it before, and, I think, within the last two years. Fortunately my memory has proven poor on this occasion and not only did I not remember the title of the tale, but I could not remember the finer detail. In fact, while I remembered the overall plot, I thought I was remembering a story by M.R. James.

Having informed you all, and all the other Internet watchers, that my memory is obviously failing me, I will tell you my views on the story.

I felt the atmosphere was built up nicely and the encounters with the mysterious visitor were suitably spooky. What left me a bit cold was the cold fashion in which the uncle signed away his neice with very little protest, all in the interests of gaining for her a good fortune in life, and it was puely incidental that he was landed with a princely sum.

Schalken, for all his lovelornly ways did not put much energy into saving his sweetheart from a mysterious fate. Is this a sign of how rigid the social rules of the time were regarded or simply a convenience for the story?

I could pick holes in the story all night long, but despite all its flaws I did enjoy it, and thanks to my creeping dementia I was able to enjoy it almost as if it was my first reading.

I read it last thing last night; I was absorbed and enjoyed it.

I thought the ending was a bit messy. The story could quite satisfactorily have ended with Rose's second disappearance. The following, Rotterdam passage did explain the painting that started the story, but it had a bit of an air of an add-on.

I loved the little mysteries that Le Fanu left us with. What was the significance of Rose's demands for food and wine - he seems to be hinting at some ritual significance? Is there a significance to the name 'Vanderhausen' and what is his connection to and the significance of the wooden figure that frightened Rose as a child? On the latter point, I haven't been able to find any reference to this statue in online info about the St. Laurenskerk - except references to this story - but one would think that, to have any real significance in the story, it would have to have been fairly widely-known in Le Fanu's time - just Le Fanu's invention? Is Vanderhausen demon, ghost or walking dead (Rose seems to be wearing a shroud in her latter two appearances)? Are we supposed to simply not know the answers to these questions - is that a deliberate part of Le Fanu's atmosphere-building?

I was amused by Le Fanu's (an Irishman) so-English, humorous, mild racism about the Dutch - "... he was as much in love as a Dutchman could be ..." - you can take it two ways, of course, which is part of the humour.

Incidentally, I've said elsewhere in this group that I read this recently - I hadn't (don't know what was in my mind there), and now I'm not sure if I've ever previously read it or just been confusing it with the television production. So, last night I was, to all intents and purposes, reading it quite fresh. I'll probably change my mind on lots of points on a second read.

I finally re-read this story last night. I'll try to get my thoughts in order and get them down in writing before too long.

I'll mention this now, though: I've read criticism that identifies both Stoker's Dracula and Le Fanu's Carmilla as "really" about Ireland, insofar as both the Transylvanian and Styrian locations of the tales and their supernatural elements can be "mapped" onto 19th Century Ireland, and onto Irish folklore (better in some ways than onto Central European Folk beliefs), respectively. I was wondering if "Schalken" could be another candidate, despite its Dutch setting. Is there something of the Sídhe about Vanderhausen and his taking a mortal bride to live with him in some other world?

Quite often this group has made me realise how little I really know. It’s not that I’m completely ignorant about the subjects that come up; rather it’s that what I can half-remember is hopelessly vague and I need to check up on concrete names, dates, and the correct sequence of events, before I’m comfortable saying anything more than “I liked that one”.

Re-reading the story and the comments above has raised quite a few thoughts.

Framework: this is one of a series of stories published in the Dublin University Magazine between 1838-40, presented as a series of manuscripts “from the legacy of the late Francis Purcell, PP of Drumcoolagh” (PP is parish priest). I haven’t read all of these “Purcell Papers” but according to Wikipedia they are by no means all gothic. They are in a variety of genres but the unifying theme seems to be that they are on Irish subjects. (note - the Arkham House edition, which has its own Wikipedia entry, has a different selection of stories from the collected 19th Century edition and does look to be all supernatural fiction).

Setting - given that last observation, why would a story set in the 17th Century Low Countries appear in a series of Irish stories? (Actually this is briefly justified in the opening paragraphs, although it’s evidently assumed that the reader will know the historical background).

Is there any relevance in Le Fanu (a Protestant Anglo-Irish) using a Catholic parish priest as a narrator/framing device (it’s probably not very pertinent to this particular story, as it’s actually the “seventh extract” from the Purcell Papers).

I exchanged a couple of emails with Brian Showers (one of the editors of Reflections in a Glass Darkly) last year and he pointed out that the Irish Gothic writers (the big names, Le Fanu, Stoker, Maturin, and so on) and the lesser-known contributors to the Dublin University Magazine (which sounds a creepy old publication from Brian’s description) were all Anglo-Irish.

Of these writers, both Bram Stoker and Le Fanu “seem to have had a fascination with the ‘Irish character’ and folklore” These two “in particular wrote a lot of Irish dialect, humorous stories at the expense of the Irish”, although many “are good natured enough” (but - I’d suggest - that might, at least in part, be a simple “town/country” mocking antagonism). Brian suggested the Anglo-Irish population’s position, “belonging neither with the Irish (Catholics) or the British” led to an “uneasy, liminal existence” which had something to do with their overwhelming predominance in 19th Century Irish Gothic fiction.

It’s worth pointing out that Douw and Schalken were both real people.

M R James expressed his admiration for Le Fanu: “he succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer.” (from an essay reprinted in Reflections in a Glass Darkly) and I did think that I detected a sort of “foreshadowing” of James’s style here. I don’t know how highly James would have rated this story though, given his objection to “sex” in a ghost story (this element was emphasised in Leslie Megahey’s 1979 TV version for the BBC’s “Omnibus”).

Returning to my idea that Vanderhausen in some ways resembles one of the “fairy folk”, there’s an edition of BBC Radio 4’s “in Our Time” on the subject of fairies, available as a podcast, that I think supports this - especially in the identification of the fairies with the dead in certain celtic beliefs.

Did the Rotterdam ending weaken the story?
I didn’t think so, although this view might be coloured by seeing the film version within the last couple of years . The ending forms the (no pun intended) climax of the film. Even without the explicitness of the film, there’s no doubt that the four-poster is a marriage bed. Schalken’s “vision” is an epiphany of a sort but he takes no moral lesson from it. Maybe it’s too late for him, or Le Fanu didn’t want to write that sort of story. Perhaps it’s in part a commentary on Dutch 17th Century painting (this is certainly an aspect of the film); or on perceived moral and/or spiritual shortfalls in the Dutch character (which, in fact, could be a synecdoche for modern capitalism, which was pretty much imported into Britain when William and Mary became king and queen of Great Britain and Ireland. The “Glorious Revolution” can look like a business takeover: a new management team (aristocrats with Dutch names), debt used to raise funds for the equivalent of a business venture (war with France), and so on).

#5 - It’s worth pointing out that Douw and Schalken were both real people.

I enjoyed hunting up their paintings online. Schalken partly specialised in intimate little, not very well-lit scenes, surrounded by darkness; which was, presumably, why Le Fanu chose him. As did his master, Gerard Douw/Gerrit Dou, but I get the impression, from what I've been able to find online, that Schalken's tended to be darker and murkier.

I remember seeing Schalken's A Man Offering Gold and Coins to a Girl in the National Gallery in London, sometime not too long after the television adaptation showed (it's actually quite small, which emphasises the murkiness). I got it into my mind that there was some connection between that painting and the story. But if there is I can't find it, or remember where I got the idea, and it's, sadly, probably just a figment of my imagination, built up because it looks relevant.

Sadly, it seems that the painting that forms the basis for the story doesn't really exist.

This is yet another case where I'm wishing I'd read a biography or two. I'd love to know if Le Fanu frequented art galleries, if he had access to works of Douw and Schalken, if he'd visited Amsterdam and the St. Laurenskerk.

I really don't know as much as I should about the Protestant Ascendancy, either.

I don't actually know for sure Le Fanu had access to any works by Dou (it's usually written without the "w") and/or Schalken. Dou was highly collectable a certain moment in time though, so I wouldn't be surprised, if Le Fanu had the access to the right museums and/or private collections.

Dou was a pupil of Rembrandt - at a time when Rembrandt was still very young himself - and Schalken was indeed a pupil of Dou. Dou in turn founded of "school" of painting specializing in usually small but very finely painted scenes, exploiting lighting effects.

p.s.: the St. Laurenskerk is in Rotterdam, not Amsterdam. Rivalry between the two towns is old and deep. It's a bit like calling a Scotsman English ;-)

#7 - Oops! Sorry, Rotterdam.

#6 & #8

Many of the "Big Houses" in Ireland, i.e. the homes of the higher echelons of the Ascendancy would have had collections gathered from across the continent (i.e. Europe) and further afield. Apparently it was a regular occurence at the time that young gentlemen spent time abroad, as a matter of course. They teneded to buy up objects d'art and the abundance of such items in their family home was a measure of their success.

As a student at Trinity College, and as a member of the Church of Ireland, Le Fanu is quite likely to have met the acquaintance of people from theses houses and have had opportunity to view paintings hung there.

In terms of other influences on Le Fanu the Huguenot origins of his family could be considered of interest.

A book I hope to read is Jarleth Killeen's Gothic Ireland: horror and the Irish Anglican imagination in the long eighteenth century. This could shed some light on the origins of Gothic literature in the Ascendancy.

#6 I really don't know as much as I should about the Protestant Ascendancy, either.

For a, in my opinion, relatively unbiased history of Ireland that is short and sets the context for the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, one could do worse than read Robert Kee's The Most Distressful Country.

Over the years I have found Robert Kee's reporting and writings about Irish history and events to be fair and incisive. I draw my conclusion of his work being "unbiased" from the fact that his accounts of history and reporting of events contains detail that can irritate and enrage people from both sides of the political/sectarian divide in Northern Ireland. Anyone who can anger everyone must be telling the truth. ;-)

(See for example his overview of Bloody Sunday on youtube. Listen for his final comment and see how it inverts the sense of the reportage up to that point.)

If I'd just read on a bit, I would have known what M. R. James thought about this story: ..."the truly horrifying "Episode in the Life of Schalken the Painter." A motif not unlike that of Bürger's ballad "Lenore" is employed here: a living corpse marries a girl, and when she has escaped from the vault, comes to reclaim her - with success only too marked."

"Among {Le Fanu's weaknesses as a writer} I should rank the tendency to use over and over again certain devices in themselves striking...one of these...I may call...the Vampire-idea...a human soul or else an evil spirit takes possession of a body and uses it. Minheer Vanderhausen...is a case in point."

"But how does he contrive to inspire horror? It is partly, I think, owing to the very skilful use of crescendo, so to speak. The gradual removal of one safeguard after another, the victim's dim forebodings of what is to happen gradually growing clearer; these are the processes which generally increase the strain of exitement"

> 11

That last comment of James's looks very much like a recipe for his own stories, doesn't it?

I adore this story. Le Fanu is one of those scattered few 'period' authors who gives me legitimate chills. The image of Schalken exiting his building in a rush, for fear of the perhaps-supernatural/perhaps-not figure lurking in a shadow, as he never sees him exit the building himself, is a classically eerie one for me... In the end, more chilling than the denouement (although the 'behind closed doors' approach Le Fanu employs is extremely successful (which is a fashionable, almost cliché opinion; but it's not a Hitchcock film, and this is not onanistic lit-crit (I hope))).

Parentheses get out of hand rather quickly in my world. Oops.