Transcribe
Translate
Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 5, Winter 1944-1945
Page 77
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
FANTASY COMMENTATOR 77 Malden, Richard Henry Nine Ghosts London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1943. 132pp. 18 1/2cm. 6/-. (reprinted in 1944.) Furthur Information: The volume's jacket design is executed by Rowland Hilder. The contents consist of nine short stories: "A Collector's Company," "The Dining Room Fireplace," "Stivinghoe Bank," "The Sundial," "Between Sunset and Moonrise," "The Blank Leaves," "The Thirteenth Tree," "The Coxswain of the Lifeboat," and "The Priest's Brass." In his half-page preface which precedes these stories the author notes that they "were written at irregular intervals between the years 1909 and 1942. 'A Collector's Company' is the earliest; 'The Priest's Brass' the latest." Three of them, moreover---"The Sundial," "Between Sunset and Moonrise" and "The Blank Leaves"---originally were published "in a magazine which used to appear at Christmas-time under the aegis of the Leeds Parish Church." Review: Dr. Malden, Dean of Wells, gives Ghost Stories of an Antiquary as the provenance of his own efforts, and in so doing inescapably invites a comparison between his work and that of the late M. R. James. The task of continuing the James tradition, to say nothing of filling the place of such a master of the supernatural, is no task to be undertaken lightly. Dr. James' erudition and abilities, as shown by his some thirty supernatural tales, are of such a scholastic level as to handicap any would-be successor from the very start. Thus to say that Dr. Malden, although he cannot equal his model, can nevertheless almost approximate it is to praise rather than condemn his work. In point of style, Malden is very much like James---in fact often startlingly so. There are isolated portions in all of his stories that duplicate M. R. James with an uncanny exactitude. In his manner of presentation, especially in the gradual---the almost casual---approach to the supernatural, Malden and James show close similarities; in setting, too, Malden adopts the primary rule of employing the normal and familiar; and also like James' are the spectral phenomena that he introduces: malevolent rather than beneficent. And if Dr. Malden is not as familiar with the minutiae of English cathedral history as was the late Provost of Eton, he can at least wander about such edifices and still feel entirely at home. So much for similarities. Dr. Malden deviates in several respects from the principles---either tacit or expressly stated---of the James ghost story, and it must be said regretfully that the connoisseur feels these are deviations which detract from, rather than add to, his work's effectiveness. The typical James ghost is touched before it is seen, and Malden has not adopted this mode of presentation in any of his tales. The horrible misshapen creature seen in "The Sundial" is indeed evocative of fright, but the inference that it could have been even more so had it been first felt by its victim is hard to avoid. Similarly, James' use of a light touch effected verisimilitude, but what made this most effective was the author's contrasting it sharply with his terrifying spectral visitants. In Malden's prose such a contrast of extremes is seldom drawn; this may perhaps be due to the slighter bases of the supernatural episodes he depicts. In this latter respect, as well as in his extensive use of subtle hints in preference to forthright avowals, Malden leans unmistakably toward the methods of Oliver Onions, fellow English writer in the same vein. But taken as a whole, R. H. Malden is as near an equal of Dr. James as could be asked for. And if it be granted possible for a disciple to improve on his master, one might coin the following aphorism to express Malden's feat; in fiction, a humous aspect always escapes Lovecraft; it seldom escapes James; but it never escapes Malden. ---A. Langley Searles
Saving...
prev
next
FANTASY COMMENTATOR 77 Malden, Richard Henry Nine Ghosts London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1943. 132pp. 18 1/2cm. 6/-. (reprinted in 1944.) Furthur Information: The volume's jacket design is executed by Rowland Hilder. The contents consist of nine short stories: "A Collector's Company," "The Dining Room Fireplace," "Stivinghoe Bank," "The Sundial," "Between Sunset and Moonrise," "The Blank Leaves," "The Thirteenth Tree," "The Coxswain of the Lifeboat," and "The Priest's Brass." In his half-page preface which precedes these stories the author notes that they "were written at irregular intervals between the years 1909 and 1942. 'A Collector's Company' is the earliest; 'The Priest's Brass' the latest." Three of them, moreover---"The Sundial," "Between Sunset and Moonrise" and "The Blank Leaves"---originally were published "in a magazine which used to appear at Christmas-time under the aegis of the Leeds Parish Church." Review: Dr. Malden, Dean of Wells, gives Ghost Stories of an Antiquary as the provenance of his own efforts, and in so doing inescapably invites a comparison between his work and that of the late M. R. James. The task of continuing the James tradition, to say nothing of filling the place of such a master of the supernatural, is no task to be undertaken lightly. Dr. James' erudition and abilities, as shown by his some thirty supernatural tales, are of such a scholastic level as to handicap any would-be successor from the very start. Thus to say that Dr. Malden, although he cannot equal his model, can nevertheless almost approximate it is to praise rather than condemn his work. In point of style, Malden is very much like James---in fact often startlingly so. There are isolated portions in all of his stories that duplicate M. R. James with an uncanny exactitude. In his manner of presentation, especially in the gradual---the almost casual---approach to the supernatural, Malden and James show close similarities; in setting, too, Malden adopts the primary rule of employing the normal and familiar; and also like James' are the spectral phenomena that he introduces: malevolent rather than beneficent. And if Dr. Malden is not as familiar with the minutiae of English cathedral history as was the late Provost of Eton, he can at least wander about such edifices and still feel entirely at home. So much for similarities. Dr. Malden deviates in several respects from the principles---either tacit or expressly stated---of the James ghost story, and it must be said regretfully that the connoisseur feels these are deviations which detract from, rather than add to, his work's effectiveness. The typical James ghost is touched before it is seen, and Malden has not adopted this mode of presentation in any of his tales. The horrible misshapen creature seen in "The Sundial" is indeed evocative of fright, but the inference that it could have been even more so had it been first felt by its victim is hard to avoid. Similarly, James' use of a light touch effected verisimilitude, but what made this most effective was the author's contrasting it sharply with his terrifying spectral visitants. In Malden's prose such a contrast of extremes is seldom drawn; this may perhaps be due to the slighter bases of the supernatural episodes he depicts. In this latter respect, as well as in his extensive use of subtle hints in preference to forthright avowals, Malden leans unmistakably toward the methods of Oliver Onions, fellow English writer in the same vein. But taken as a whole, R. H. Malden is as near an equal of Dr. James as could be asked for. And if it be granted possible for a disciple to improve on his master, one might coin the following aphorism to express Malden's feat; in fiction, a humous aspect always escapes Lovecraft; it seldom escapes James; but it never escapes Malden. ---A. Langley Searles
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
