'Tis the Season = M.R. James

incidentally my own reading of the story -- based on the chiming descriptions of ager and paxton (young very solitary men of obsessive tendency) -- is that the final terrible face he sees is his own

this isn't remotely canon lol -- and it occurs to me now (reading ledge's post but w/o checking the podcast) that it could certainly be elaborated, via earthworks-trenches and the wartime clash and sacrifice by the old of so many younger men on both sides, and the "martello tower" and the broken face with sand in it…

as for that mysterious train: "'The First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age" (A.J.P.Taylor)

ffs i have actual work to do this morning

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

not helped by having a whacking great BBC ident in the upper left-hand corner of the picture

"Over on BBC Two, M.R. James’ The Mezzotint, adapted by Mark Gatiss, stars Rory Kinnear, Robert Bathurst, Frances Barber, John Hopkins, Emma Cunniliffe, and Nikesh Patel. This haunting tale, set in an old English college in 1922, it is guaranteed to bring some eerie fear to the audience."

(new years eve ish)

it is guaranteed to bring some eerie fear to the audience

great copywriting here

bbc christmas press release, bound to be a bit florid

also, xmas eve is the more traditional time for this. stop doing james wrong.

Gatiffs

moffe growing upon the scrapbook of a canon

Further to the discussion of Jamesian authors some way above, I really enjoyed both collections of Women's Weird. Sometimes stretching fairly standard horror to fit 'weird fiction', perhaps, but they're great anthologies, and there are a few antiquarian spooks in there to get a James-like fix.

Those look great. Might actually lose a fair bit of cash on that publisher in general, looks like they have loads of interesting stuff.

those do look good, thanks for the link

Yeah will give that a go.

Mezzotint an interesting choice for televising, all the action happens in a picture which makes no difference in the reader's imagination but hard to imagine it having a high spook factor on the screen.

very high risk factor making an artwork the centre of yr visual fiction!

itt: paintings that are plot-points in movies and TV that are terrible paintings (or excellent ones if there are any)

Aha, I was sure that I'd seen a version of 'the Mezzotint' before, and I had! BBC Classic Ghost Stories, 1986: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3389680/reference

I recall liking it a lot, too. I don't have an anti-Gatiss kneejerk reaction like some people do, but I do kind of wish he wasn't the only one reviving these stories.

Thanks for the link emil.y, hadn't heard of that publisher before. Wonder if there's much crossover with the British Library's anthologies of proper old ghost etc stories

https://shop.bl.uk/collections/british-library-fiction/products/a-phantom-lover-and-other-dark-tales-by-vernon-lee

tbf it's not full-blown kneejerk with Gatiss but he usually winds up disappointing me

I'm not sure any of the adaptations past or present have been that great tbh. The original Oh Whistle was about seven hours too long, the keystone cops chase at the end of A Warning to the Curious was pretty disappointing.

Nooo, lies, ledge, lies. Both of those are wonderful. (My favourite Xmas ghost story adaptation is The Signalman but that's not James so doesn't count on this thread, I guess.)

I want full on CGI monsters & gore not flapping sheets and a bloody nose.

none more goth!

https://norfolktalesmyths.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/lost-hearts-lost6.jpg

That made me think of Our Mutual Friend - "come up and be dead!" - which made me think of "I'll hold you living and I'll hold you dead" from the same - which made me think of the climax to A School Story.

bbc4 are showing these weekly on Mondays. last Monday was The Treasure of Abbott Thomas which i missed

next Monday is The Ash Tree

I did believe it hadn't been shown since the 70s tho cos the tape was not in good nick

― it isn't even a Fraktion (Noodle Vague), Monday, 15 November 2021 21:52 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nope, reshown in 2004 and 2005.

Jesus, last on 16 years ago. Where did my life go?

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?order=-last&filt=bbc_four&q=A+Warning+To+The+Curious

dickens' Signalman tonight, followed (oddly) by an MR James documentary

The Signalman is really good, a psychological story that works better with the vfx and sensibilities of 70s TV than James' jump scares of the imagination.

Stigma next week, an original story, not well received at the time.

The Signalman was excellent - properly creepy with some great scraping drones on the soundtrack.

The thing that sticks with me most about the Holden Oh Whistle is the portrayal of the solitary walker. It captures that lonely, bumbling madness beautifully.

It's the landscape as well, Miller uses the stark East Anglian coastline incredibly well to depict the character's total isolation, all those endless flat pebbly peaches stretching on to infinity. No better place to go slowly mad through loneliness.

Re: The Signalman, Denholm Elliot's best performance maybe? A strikingly haunting portrayal of the aftermath of trauma (the story inspired by Dickens' own traumatic experience surviving a train crash of course).

Stigma next week, an original story, not well received at the time.

They weren't wrong.

I thought Stigma was ok, though it has been a while since I saw it.

I enjoyed the other original story in the series, The Ice House, more - though that isn’t well regarded either.

The Ice House is on next week. Stigma was just devoid of atmosphere, suspense, horror, historical depth or characterisation, and the acting was dreadful (including a 13 year old girl played by an actress who must have been 18 at least).

The Ice House is v good iirc, with more of an Aickmanesque atmosphere than Jamesian, looking forward to that. Agreed on Stigma, bit of a will-this-do box ticker

new Mezzotint tonight on 2, and classic Whistle later on 4 (after turn of the screw)

The Ice House - Aickmanesque or not (and awful hammy acting or not) these kinds of stories full of signs and suggestions and not a shred of narrative logic do nothing for me. The Mezzotint - better than I was expecting! I am fully in support of the additional story element and ending.

Yeah didn't much care for The Ice House at all, thought it was much too arch and silly.

Here's a good and quite rare short that turned up on youtube starring TP McKenna, "A Child's Voice". Not a Ghost Story For Christmas but would fit that strand very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zwQ6_KyHao

mezzotint was simply done and i thought p strong* right up to the end, when it went very gerald's game (in a bad way)

*solo performance from rory basically

5 minutes into Whistle and it's got that great b&w look that i don't think you'd get today even if you tried. a friend's daughter caught him watching a b&w film and asked him why it was all silver and that's how this feels.

wonky angles galore too, and i don't think there's been a shot so far that hasn't had something in the foreground, or this one that's in a mirror.

The Ice House - Aickmanesque or not (and awful hammy acting or not) these kinds of stories full of signs and suggestions and not a shred of narrative logic do nothing for me. The Mezzotint - better than I was expecting! I am fully in support of the additional story element and ending.

― two sleeps till brooklyn (ledge), Tuesday, 28 December 2021 11:34 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah on rewatch it wasn't as good as I remembered, not v good at all tbh

Mezzotint was pretty well done, all quibbles are minor, Barber feels like violence but that's nobody's fault but hers really, closing bit could've stopped with his first/second sight of the new picture, the degrees for women bit felt like boilerplate Gatiss straining for the wrong note of relevance and flubbing it. it were good tho.

Christopher Lee reads the Ash Tree on bbc4 tonight at 10

http://www.urbanfantasist.com/uploads/1/0/3/4/10341498/christmasashtree-copy_orig.jpg

this book just *terrified* me as a kid and as a result i totally recommend it (70s YA was a thing other imo)

Considered one of the best novels in the M.R. James tradition and long unavailable, a reprint of John Gordon's THE HOUSE ON THE BRINK (1970) is coming soon. Preorder now on our site and read more here: https://t.co/JkOTW8IalW pic.twitter.com/56iIQK3aXl

— Valancourt Books (@Valancourt_B) August 31, 2022

clearing out old bookmarks, and making a note of this book and reminded just *how good* (and often terrifying) the puffin plus imprint was.

Summer email---this may be sold out by now, but more affordable second hand some day---is this a good bet? I'm not familiar with the publisher or contributors.

NEW TITLE NEWS: THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS BOOK OF FOLLIES AND GROTTOES

Sarob Press is spookily delighted to present thirteen eerie spectral tales (eight are wholly original to this volume) where the authors have taken, as inspiration, the theme of follies and grottoes. In her introduction Rosemary Pardoe tells us: ‘Follies may be fake temples, belvederes, pyramids, obelisks and towers, sham castles and ruins, eyecatchers, faux druid circles and hermitages (with or without fake hermit!), and many other things besides. Folly grottoes are often cut out of rock, and decorated, frequently with shells (such as the one at Margate, which is famously often claimed to be genuinely pre-Christian).’

And the dark and ghostly stories ... ‘range widely, from mysterious towers and classical temples to hidden grottoes; from revivals of the worship of ancient gods to unexpected distortions of space and time’.

All five of the previous Sarob Press (and Rosemary Pardoe edited) Ghosts & Scholars anthologies sold out very quickly … so get your order in early to avoid disappointment as this one will, surely, quickly go the way of the others.

Contents: “Introduction” by Rosemary Pardoe, “Baines’ Folly” by Christopher Harman, “Lady Elphinstone’s Folly” by John Ward, “The Ptolemaic System” by David Longhorn, “The Crooked Rook” by Rick Kennett, “Sweet Folly” by Gail-Nina Anderson, “Branks’s Folly” by C.E. Ward, “Folly” by Sam Dawson, “Minter’s Folly” by Chico Kidd, “Mothrot Hall” by Katherine Haynes, “‘Father’ O’Flynn and the Fressingfold Friezes” by Tina Rath, “Mad Lutanist” by Mark Valentine, “When I Heard My Days Before Me” by John Howard & “And Music Shall Untune the Sky” by S.A. Rennie

THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS BOOK OF FOLLIES AND GROTTOES is a Hand Numbered Limited Edition Jacketed Hardcover. Bound in Wibalin Cloth (Fine Linen Style), Foil Blocked to Spine, Lithographically Printed on Quality 80gsm Cream Bookwove Paper, Coloured Endpapers, Section Sewn Binding & Head/Tailbands.

Approx 192pp including prelims etc. Fabulous wrap jacket art by the ever brilliant Paul Lowe.

Publication currently scheduled for mid September 2022.

PRICES ... (inclusive of Postage and Packing)

UK: £38.00

EUROPE : 45,00 Euros

USA & Rest of World: USA $60 / USA $65 (Tracked)

as some will know rosemary pardoe runs the *impressively* old-school (and usefully scholarly) m r james fansite http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GS.html as well as a site devoted to the 60s underground magazine GANDALF'S GARDEN: http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GS.html

(sad to note her husband and co-sitehost darroll pardoe passed away last year)

so i'd say bet on it yes

oops i gave u james twice, here's gandalf: http://www.pardoes.info/roanddarroll/GG.html

Noticing good pix there right away, thx!

Douglas A. Anderson, editor of fine Tales Before Tolkien, on James' only novel (brief, intriguing comments)http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-centenary-of-five-jars.html

bbc christmas schedule out today and includes

A Ghost Story for Christmas: Count Magnus

gatiss again

it's all good, i'm used to these inferior facsimiles now

Count Magnus is a very cruel one to do underwhelmingly tho