'Tis the Season = M.R. James

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

it's the brass ring of mrj and gatiss will as usual fail to seize it 😔

if i was Gatiss i would simply say "i'm rubbish at this, give somebody good a go"

When will there be more freaky trigger hauntography posts, that's what I'd like to know.

yeah those lazy assholes

knowing the murkiness of the details about the comings and goings of the guy in 'a warning to the curious' i've just spent some time finding out if it was possible that for count magnus's unfortunate victim, "much of his journey" home was by canal boat, alongside a traveller going from stockholm to trollhättan. it was.

that trollhättan in full:

https://assets.moomin.com/uploads/2015/11/Finn-Family-Moomintroll_Hat.jpg

now there's a crossover i'd like to see.

This isn't cheap but the concept is pretty great: a book about the real life settings of hundreds of ghost stories
http://tartaruspress.com/ghost-story-gazetteer.html

I just heard a reading of "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" on the Ephemeral podcast. Inspired me to download Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. Happy Holidays.

Asking gpt-3 to write a moomin story in the style of m.r. james. 'in the style of' doesn't seem to work so well but this one gets a bit meta:

As the moon rose high in the night sky, the moomins gathered around their cozy little house, huddled together against the chill of the autumn air. In the distance, the forest was alive with the rustling of leaves and the howling of the wind, but the moomins were safe and warm inside their home.

Suddenly, a knock at the door startled them all. Who could it be at this late hour? The moomins hesitated, but eventually one of them bravely opened the door to find a stranger standing on their doorstep.

The stranger was tall and thin, with a long, curved nose and a strange, otherworldly air about him. He introduced himself as Mr. James, a traveler who had been lost in the forest for days. The moomins welcomed him inside, offering him a cup of tea and a warm fire to sit by.

As they talked, Mr. James told the moomins of his adventures in the forest, of the strange and wondrous creatures he had encountered, and of the many dangers he had faced. The moomins listened with rapt attention, entranced by his tales of adventure.

But as the night wore on, the moomins began to sense that there was something not quite right about Mr. James. His stories seemed too fantastical, too far-fetched, to be true. And there was a glint in his eye, a hint of malice, that made them uneasy.

As the moomins prepared for bed, Mr. James retired to his room, but they could hear him muttering and chanting late into the night. And when they woke the next morning, they found that Mr. James had disappeared, leaving behind only a strange, cold feeling in the air.

The moomins knew then that they had been visited by a mysterious and dangerous creature, one that threatened to upset the balance of their peaceful world. But they were strong and brave, and they knew that they would overcome this threat, just as they had overcome all the others that had come before.

And so the moomins went about their days, keeping a watchful eye out for any further signs of Mr. James, determined to protect their home and their way of life from the dangers of the forest.

As the sun set over the peaceful Moomin Valley, the Moomins gathered around the fire to tell each other ghost stories. Little My was the first to speak, her voice trembling with fear as she told the tale of the ghostly Moominpappa who roamed the woods at night, searching for lost souls to haunt.

But it was Snufkin's story that truly chilled the Moomins to the bone. He spoke of the Moominmamma who, long ago, had been possessed by a dark spirit and had begun to prey on the other Moomins, luring them into her clutches with her sweet words and gentle touch.

The Moomins listened in horror as Snufkin described how the Moominmamma had lured Moominpappa into her embrace, only to reveal her true, monstrous form and devour him whole. And now, he warned, she was coming for the rest of them.

As the fire crackled and the night grew darker, the Moomins could hear the sound of soft footsteps approaching. And then, from the shadows, the Moominmamma emerged, her eyes glowing with malevolent intent as she reached out to embrace them all.

The Moomins screamed in terror as they were pulled into the darkness, never to be seen again. And in the silence that followed, the only sound was the Moominmamma's chilling laughter, echoing through the empty valley.

classic snufkin

Count Magnus was underwhelming on several levels. I swear I take no joy in this, and if i was less hungover and more energetic would have a good think about what's wrong with the commissioning process, the cultural expectations and a bunch of other non-Gatiss factors that wind up with these rote simulacra of past glories. Schalcken the Painter was on BBC4 the night before and tho that has a few minor issues of its own the yawning gulf in quality and ambition probly just soured Magnus even more.

at least if it was bad that would've been something

no wait, one more thing. Adaptation is adaptation, fine, it's not just about faithfulness to the source text. but what fucking use is a Count Magnus with all of the horror and dread flattened out of it?

didn't realise it was on - will have to fit it on over the next few days. stoked for the disappointment.

not sure whether my memory is up to its usual tricks, or I've never heard of schlacken the painter.

it's been discussed somewhere this year i think? if not this thread, then maybe Wyrd Britain or one of the old TV movie threads

it isn't a strictly functional ghost story maybe, but it pisses over this latest effort

magnus is a pmtough ask translating across mediums IMO but trust gatiss to fvck it up lol

pmtough = p tough

yeah i asked myself what a good version would look like and i'm not at all sure. but not this one

then i thought maybe the Beeb should start A Borges for Christmas and give it to fucking Danny Boyle or someone

considered opinion: Gatiss isn't a big James fan

The Tractate Middoth was ok and the other one was crap, I'm in no hurry to watch this.

I meant The Mezzotint

I think I missed his version of The Mezzotint, or at least I remember nothing about it. Probably commented on ilx somewhere if I did watch it but can't be fucked to search. I suspect Gatiss *is* a James fan but yeah, his adaptations have been deeply underwhelming for the most part, this one included. His own one, The Dead Room, I thought was a genuinely good addition to the canon.

Didn't realise Schalcken was on BBC4, have already arranged a rewatch with a friend for our own Ghost Stories For Christmas shenanigans. I remember thinking it was wonderful when I last saw it but not much about what happens! We've already done a rewatch of The Exorcism from Dead of Night and oh man, if you haven't seen that one you really should. Powerhouse of a scenery-chewing performance as the centrepiece of that one, and deeply political. Also Clive Swift.

gattis is forever on book shambles podcast and its various offshoots talking about that stuff - I've just been listening to their stay-at-home-festival stuff they did during lockdown. which makes it more of a mystery why he never quite nails it.

haven't seen magnus yet because parents TV only gets sport and afternoon quiz shows, somehow

i quite enjoyed mezzotint right up to the final moments bcz i tht rory kinnear was p good and then they gerald's gamed it lol

tbf this error goes all the way back to casting the runes / night of the demon == climactic horror being underwhelming after all

fond tho everyone justly is of:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/e/e8/The_Bad_Dude_Night_of_the_Demon_%281957%29.jpg

Of course Night of the Demon is great but it's the cat that's the scary monster

emil.y I haven't seen The Exorcism as far as I know and I'll look out for it

"Poor Bilbo Baggins! He set out on his journey to the Shire on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken hobbit"

perhaps bcz forewarned it wd be poor i didn't hate this (tho my co-viewers were very underwhelmed): jason watkins playing wraxall (or wraxhall as gatiss calls him and fraxhall as voiceover magnus pronounces him) as bumptiuously irritating and silly, with austin powers moves. which is a reading (the swedes in the original story none of them extend their chats with him lol) even if it makes him p hard to care about. no harm bringing in the countess as a new exposition deliverer (rather surprisingly in life james actually spent time with women but he didn't write so many). the bystanders were more wickerman complicit than the original story quite suggests -- as if they need a sacrifice and feel bad for him even if he is super-annoying -- but actually i quite like this evolution. bcz he knows and wills the ending, and sees the victim as his pet's lunch more than sociology, magnus as voiceover strips out abt half of the device by which the reader observes wraxall's terror mouintg = the reader reading w's increasingly panicked journal over his shoulder: also i think it was gatiss doing fake swedish, which fvck that.

the look of the setting was (to say it 18th century style) pleasantly BOSKY, tho not i think v swedish, it was filmed nr beaconsfield, which probably undermines w's sense of solitude. my co-viewers were "there's not much to it!" -- well no, despite being somewhart cryptically warned off wraxall wakes the terror and the terror goes after him, that's literally it, the value and weight of the story is in the measure of the mounting dread not the rubber tentacle lol.

here's a passage quoting from W's journal piling up the dread: "as I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember." i'm not going to say this idea is literally unfilmable, but gatiss made no adequate attempt and found no adequate solution, in favour of cutting to -- and then p much past -- the chase

imv gatiss is a malignant mediocrity who never fails to extract the mysterious transformative element from his subject matter before representing, adapting or reviewing it.

i *partially* agree with it being more or less unfilmable, but feel someone with an imagination and an understanding of the mechanics of james’ ghost stories might make a decent fist of it. i don’t think gatiss has an ounce of imaginative capability in his entire frame. I haven’t seen CM yet tho. am almost reluctant to, tho like you thought the mezzotint was actually fairly acceptable, again mainly because of rory kinnear, who is an incredibly good actor at minimal conveyance of thought and emotion. just magically good at it. and also v good at amplifying that subtle approach on stage as well, which is a total mystery to me how you do it.

oh and merry xmas/wobs etc all!

by making Wraxall a buffoon you basically eliminate the possibility of sympathetic terror

the emphasis all very much on the wrong things as per

otm (in advance of me having seen it but p certain it’s otm).

while we’re here i want to rep once again for The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, which i read again the other day and feel is neglected esp as it has the important element of a f’ing sinister punch and judy show.

the painting was a classic of bad art in a movie :D

this is the de la gardie MRJ is generally assumed to have had in mind:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Jakob_delagardi.jpg

wikipedia on the de la gardies then and now:
The family's social status in France is uncertain; the founder, Ponce d'Escouperie, son of a tradesman, came to Sweden as a mercenary in 1565 and took the name Pontus De la Gardie when registered by the House of Knights. He was given the title friherre in 1571 and married Sofia Johansdotter Gyllenhielm, an illegitimate daughter of king John III in 1580.

The baronial title ended with his eldest son John De la Gardie. Pontus De la Gardie's second son, Jacob De la Gardie, was given the title count of Läckö in 1615; his grandson Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie became a favourite of Queen Christina and married her cousin, Countess Palatine Maria Eufrosyne of Zweibrücken (a sister of Charles X Gustav of Sweden).

The De la Gardie of Läckö comital lineage is extinct. The current head of the family, Carl Gustaf De la Gardie (1946– ), lives outside Linköping.

linköping is the swedish for microwave

CM is the one where Chorazin is referenced isn’t it? For all those Spectre vs Rector fans out there.