Transcribe
Translate
Acolyte, v. 3, issue 4, whole no. 12, Fall 1945
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
sources of fictional ideas, and it is likely that the germs of many of his tales sprang from the historical or atmospherical associations of places that struck his fancy as suitable settings for spectral happenings. His childhood memories called up Temple Grove school for "A School Story" and his father's rectory for "A Vignette". The characters that people these varied settings are of course the kind that are found there in real life and with whom James was familiar --professors, antiquaries, collectors, ecclesiastics, country squires, and boys. He spends very little time in trying to depict them directly --there is, for instance, almost never any hint of physical description --but by virtue of his powers of mimicry he succeeds admirably in characterizing them as fully as needs be for his purposes through their speech. Mr. Abney, the sly and secretive paganist of "Lost Hearts"; the romantic travel-writer, Mr. Wraxall, in "Count Magnus"; the prim and narrow-minded Professor Parkins of "'Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"; the hen-pecked Mr. Anstruther and his determined, amtronly wrife in "The Rose Garden"; the energetic young librarian who tracks down the "Tractate Middoth"; the strong-minded, ambitious archdeacon who holds out to the end against the terrors of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral"; the overbearing Judge Jeffreys in "Martin's Close"; the amiable Mr. Humphreys, the intractable Squire Richards in "A View from a Hill"; the terrified young Mr. Paxton in "A Warning to the Curious"; the incorrigible Stanley Judkins who visits Wailing Well simply because he is warned not to---all these and many more are distinct and living creations who wring true to life and whose speech is so right and natural that one never thinks of it. It must be admitted, of course, that they have little psychological subtlety or depth, as James is anything but an introspective writer; he his interested primarily in the supernatural events of his stories, not in his charactrs' reactions to them. The fact that weird fiction is probably the field of literature in which characterization is the least important, since the power and horror of the supernatural overshadows the interest that mere human foibles can summon. Nevertheless, convincing characterization adds effectiveness to any story, however marvelous, and James does not neglect this principle. Special mention must be made of his lower-class dialect characters whose queer and amusing distortions of English language he reproduces with uncanny fidelity to life. Here his power of mimicry played a particularly strong role, for practically all these garrulous landlords, self-important vergers, anecdotal guides, and chattering housekeepers are expressions of the life-long extemporaneous character of "Barker", the argumentative village tradesman whom James loved to impersonate when joking with his brother Herbert. James had a Dickensian love for their "humours" and oddities of thought and speech, but they play a still ore significant part in his art than comic relief. They serve, in their dense and largely uncomprehending descriptions of supernatural beings and events they have witnessed, to convey an added horror through the suggestive obliquity and incompleteness of their reports. Take, for instance, Mr. Gilcher in "The Mezzotint": "...It ain't the pictur I should 'ang where my little girl could see it, sir.. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Doctor Bible, with pictures not 'alf what that is, and we 'ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking." And the commissionaire in "The Uncommon Prayer-Book": "And the eyes, well they was dry-like, and much as if there was two big spiders' bodies in the wholes. Hair? no, I don't know as there was much hair to be seen; the flannel stuff was over the top of the 'ead. I'm very sure it wasn't what it should have -- 13 --
Saving...
prev
next
sources of fictional ideas, and it is likely that the germs of many of his tales sprang from the historical or atmospherical associations of places that struck his fancy as suitable settings for spectral happenings. His childhood memories called up Temple Grove school for "A School Story" and his father's rectory for "A Vignette". The characters that people these varied settings are of course the kind that are found there in real life and with whom James was familiar --professors, antiquaries, collectors, ecclesiastics, country squires, and boys. He spends very little time in trying to depict them directly --there is, for instance, almost never any hint of physical description --but by virtue of his powers of mimicry he succeeds admirably in characterizing them as fully as needs be for his purposes through their speech. Mr. Abney, the sly and secretive paganist of "Lost Hearts"; the romantic travel-writer, Mr. Wraxall, in "Count Magnus"; the prim and narrow-minded Professor Parkins of "'Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"; the hen-pecked Mr. Anstruther and his determined, amtronly wrife in "The Rose Garden"; the energetic young librarian who tracks down the "Tractate Middoth"; the strong-minded, ambitious archdeacon who holds out to the end against the terrors of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral"; the overbearing Judge Jeffreys in "Martin's Close"; the amiable Mr. Humphreys, the intractable Squire Richards in "A View from a Hill"; the terrified young Mr. Paxton in "A Warning to the Curious"; the incorrigible Stanley Judkins who visits Wailing Well simply because he is warned not to---all these and many more are distinct and living creations who wring true to life and whose speech is so right and natural that one never thinks of it. It must be admitted, of course, that they have little psychological subtlety or depth, as James is anything but an introspective writer; he his interested primarily in the supernatural events of his stories, not in his charactrs' reactions to them. The fact that weird fiction is probably the field of literature in which characterization is the least important, since the power and horror of the supernatural overshadows the interest that mere human foibles can summon. Nevertheless, convincing characterization adds effectiveness to any story, however marvelous, and James does not neglect this principle. Special mention must be made of his lower-class dialect characters whose queer and amusing distortions of English language he reproduces with uncanny fidelity to life. Here his power of mimicry played a particularly strong role, for practically all these garrulous landlords, self-important vergers, anecdotal guides, and chattering housekeepers are expressions of the life-long extemporaneous character of "Barker", the argumentative village tradesman whom James loved to impersonate when joking with his brother Herbert. James had a Dickensian love for their "humours" and oddities of thought and speech, but they play a still ore significant part in his art than comic relief. They serve, in their dense and largely uncomprehending descriptions of supernatural beings and events they have witnessed, to convey an added horror through the suggestive obliquity and incompleteness of their reports. Take, for instance, Mr. Gilcher in "The Mezzotint": "...It ain't the pictur I should 'ang where my little girl could see it, sir.. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Doctor Bible, with pictures not 'alf what that is, and we 'ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you'll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking." And the commissionaire in "The Uncommon Prayer-Book": "And the eyes, well they was dry-like, and much as if there was two big spiders' bodies in the wholes. Hair? no, I don't know as there was much hair to be seen; the flannel stuff was over the top of the 'ead. I'm very sure it wasn't what it should have -- 13 --
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
