The Haunted Hotel - Wilkie Collins

Why is it that late Autumn feels like such a good time for a good bit of Victorian melodrama and sensation? I've been dipping in and out of all sorts of books over the last week or so (some good stuff arrived in the post and I'm very excited by all of it) which is not a reading habit I like - if I don't concentrate on one book at a time I tend not to finish any of them and that would be why it's taken me more than a week to read my way through two novellas. If I sort myself out in good time tonight I hope to read a third before I fall asleep. It will be 'The Guilty River' and it sounds like a peach.

Living in a first floor flat without children I miss out on the whole trick and treat thing (I'm not sorry about this) and the decorative elements of Halloween represent so much money that could be spent on books (much as I like a carved pumpkin it's not as good as a book) so a not very horrible horror story is about as far as I go. 'The Haunted Hotel' was a perfect choice, in it a reassuringly foreign woman (The Countess) with a start white complexion, glittering black eyes, and unsavoury reputation accosts an eminent doctor. She wants to know if she's ill or mad and then she starts to divulge some of her recent history... His conclusion is that she's perfectly healthy but quite evil, a conclusion that her fiancé's family whole heartedly share. The fiancé has meanwhile behaved extremely badly ditching a very nice girl in favour of this foreign temptress, the Countess herself is convinced that the jilted girl is destined to be her nemesis. There then follows a death in mysterious circumstances, a suspected insurance swindle, and all manner of lurid hauntings before the tale is wound up. It's all good stuff; the supernatural goings on are the sort that I can safely read in bed without fear of a sleepless night and the mystery was twisty enough to be satisfying.

What I found interesting here was the insistence on fate rather that free will. When the story opens the Countess hasn't,as far as the reader knows done anything particularly wrong. Collins implies scandal but not, I think, criminality. She believes that it's her meeting with the other woman (Agnes) that turns the tide of her life, that's the moment that she becomes evil and it's Agnes that will later expose her, throughout the rest of the novella she seems powerless to resist this fate. I also found it interesting that the man in the middle of all of this isn't particularly likeable. The only person who really cares for him is Agnes, the Countess states that he's blackmailed her into marriage and none of his family seem to think much of him at all - it somehow gives the story a bit more depth.

All in all this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, I've had it on the shelf for quite a while (my copy is considerably older than the edition in the picture) as a treat for a suitable occasion - now the occasion has arisen it didn't disappoint. Happy Halloween.  

The Haunted Looking Glass – Ghost Stories selected by Edward Gorey

I’m not normally very organised when it comes to themed seasonal reading – it’s rare that an event coincides with a book I want to pick up and it’s hard to see why I should read something that doesn’t immediately appeal to fit the calendar (though truthfully I have a sneaking admiration for those well organised souls who have a proper reading plan and seem to stick to it – I’m sure it must be far more productive and illuminating to be that disciplined.) However last week I had a train journey and for train journeys I like short stories.

Looking for something suitable I found ‘The Haunted Looking Glass’ which I bought last year after I saw it mentioned (I wish I could remember where – if anyone has blogged about how they read this every Halloween I owe you a thank you). I wanted it because I’m a fan of Edward Gorey’s illustrations particularly and books generally. His personal selection of ghost stories would be far too good to miss out on – or so I reasoned. I was right; it’s also a bit of a bonus that this is such a lovely nyrb edition (if you like that sort of thing).

I find short story collections make the perfect travelling companions for shortish journeys with lots of stops and starts and only partly because I’m exactly the sort of person who could miss a stop because I’m absorbed in a book. A really long journey will accommodate an equally epic novel but being away from home for a night, especially if it means going through somewhere like London – well so many impressions make it hard to know what sort of book will strike the right mood. A good anthology (or I will begrudgingly admit, a Kindle) should have something that hits the spot, the extra advantage of the short story is that it only ask for short bursts of concentration at a time.

‘The Haunted Looking Glass’ was a very well mannered companion, Gorey’s selection picks a fine line between gloriously camp and a little bit scary (fortunately for a woman spending a night in a strange room, buried deep in a nest of labyrinthine corridors, in an old country house, on an isolated golf course blasted heath nothing was outright terrifying). The most disturbing tale from my point of view was R. H. Maldon’s ‘The Thirteenth Tree’; Maldon relies on some suspicious shadows to inflict the shivers on his readers to good effect. I could laugh off Bram Stoker’s rats, had no fear of R. L. Stevenson’s body snatchers, admired E. Nesbit’s ‘Man Sized in Marble’ – but nothing was getting me out of bed until daylight after the Maldon.

These are all good old fashioned ghost stories, perfect for dark nights accompanied by warm drinks, so much so that I can see it becoming a tradition to pick up this book every time the clocks go back (although to be strictly accurate I read most of it in broad daylight – which is perhaps why I’m so blasé about the rats...) 

Halloween

One good thing about living in a flat is the absence of small children demanding money and sweets with menaces - Halloween is long past being my favourite night of the year, but the clocks going back last night has been something of a bonus. This week has been exhausting and seems to have lasted for ever with more than its fair share of ups and downs. It probably hasn’t helped that we’ve sold approximately 12 tonnes of wine in the last 10 days (that’s a bit by any standards when you’re only dealing retail) and I don’t think I’ve ever been so dirty or tired this long before Christmas.

The end result was me sleeping like the dead for 12 hours last night and being extremely grateful for an extra time to catch up in today. I’ve washed things, tidied things, gone to town and dealt with things, and finished ‘Barchester Towers’ (it also helped being asked out for an early dinner or I’d still be looking at washing up instead of Downton Abbey and wondering what I might read before yet more sleep).

I occasionally mean to theme my reading but never seem to manage it however today I’ve pulled ‘The Virago Book of Ghost Stories’ off the shelf. After ‘Barchester Towers’ I want something quite different and I’m not quite ready for another book that will absorb me as completely as that one did (the rest of the series are on their way to me – I have a parcel to pick up tomorrow which should either be amazon riches or a new shower hose which my father thinks I might be in want of). Short stories are perfect for times like this and anthologies don’t go amiss when it’s hard to settle on something specific.

‘The Virago Book of Ghost Stories’ is a collection I can’t help but get excited over. I’ve had it a couple of years and wrote about it here last year. I think I’ll be reading the Ruth Rendell or A.S Byatt contributions tonight, but have just looked up Charlotte Riddell who sounds quite intriguing so it’s a contender. Either way it’s time for bed and scaring myself just enough to really enjoy the twin benefits of duvets and hot water bottles, if I start anything that promises to be too daunting for night time consumption I can save it for a daylight perusal on the bus - just in case that parcel does turn out to be plumbing supplies and not the handful of Trollope’s I’m hoping for...