Monday, March 17, 2025

His Beautiful Hands

I first encountered the work of Oscar Cook (1888-1952) not by his prose but by a television adaptation of one of his stories. It remains the only Cook story to have been filmed. It was one of a handful of episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery series, which I watched avidly upon its first broadcasting, that really stayed with me. The show ran three seasons, from November 1969 through October 1972. I was nine years old when Night Gallery debuted, but I was already completely familiar with Serling's early series, The Twilight Zone, which ran from 1959 through 1964--though I certainly watched it in re-runs. Oscar Cook's story was "Boomerang," first published in Switch on the Light (1931), edited by Christine Campbell Thomson (then married to Cook). Serling himself wrote the teleplay, re-titling it "The Caterpillar."  It was broadcast on 12 March 1972, when I was twelve years old.  More than fifty years later I still recall its impact.

Many years passed before I paid attention to the authors whose works had been adapted into films or television shows, and I was glad finally to read "Boomerang." It was not frequently reprinted, and I suppose I must have read it in A Century of Creepy Stories (1934). About twenty years ago, John Pelan of Midnight House was contemplating  doing a volume of Cook's stories, and one of Thomson's stories--or a best of both in one volume. I put together bibliographies of both, and did some research on their lives, but the plans came to nought. More recently I learned Johnny Mains was planning a Cook omnibus, so I sent him the bibliography I had compiled years earlier. Johnny added to it considerably, and it is now published in his omnibus (where Johnny generously kept my name as part of the byline). 

His Beautiful Hands: The Short Fiction of Oscar Cook has now been published by Ramble House, and it is a thick compilation, containing around forty stories (plus some nonfiction, etc.), and the results of Johnny's researches appear in various introductions and appendices. There is even a short Foreword by Cook's grandson. 

Our knowledge of Cook has thus been considerably advanced, and anyone interested in British horror fiction from between the First and Second World Wars will find this volume essential.


Friday, March 14, 2025

Ghost of an Idea

Headpress has recently published a book by William Burns that will be of interest to some of Wormwoodianas's readers. It is titled in full, Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia (ISBN 9781915316318, trade paperback). Burns is also the author of The Thrill of Repulsion: Excursions into Horror Culture (2016).

Ghost of an Idea has an introduction, plus seven chapters, most of which have extended titles, as with Chapter 1:  "Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday: The Philosophy of Nostalgia / Raising the Ghost of an Idea: A Hauntology Primer."

The Introduction consists of a discursive examination of nostalgia, beginning: 

As we moved from the postmodern through the digital and now arrive in the post-singularity age, the two constants that have not only lingered but have grown exponentially and infiltrated all aspects of our lives are the shifting roles of simulated realities and genuine simulacra. What is real, authentic, and true are no longer ontological or epistemological concepts, but rather technological and media constructs loaded with stultifying political baggage. Is nostalgia an accurate recollection of a sincere personal experience or is it a byproduct of being programmed by dominant cultures and ideological social apparatuses? Is nostalgia a psychological defense against virtuality and the mass mediatization of the twenty-first century?

And Burns notes:

The essays, interviews, and reviews in this book are an interrogation of the concept of nostalgia, which has seeped into all aspects of creative media, none more so than horror culture and its adjacent borderlands: not only is nostalgia a crucial aspect of hauntology, folk horror, and found footage films (expressed through imagery, subject matter, aesthetics, sensibilities, and their relationships with readers, viewers, and listeners) but, along with profitability, it is a crucial reason for the long life of film and television franchises that have deeply sentimental fanbases (Star Wars, Twin Peaks, Blade Runner, Alien, Toy Story, Evil Dead) and for musical artists (Nick Cave, Electric Wizard, Goblin) whose works span decades. These three genres of nostalgic fantastique belle lettres are even starting to converge as evidenced in Paul Wright’s unsettling Arcadia (2017), an exposition on British geography, archetypal traditions, ghostly perspectives, and displaced memories presented through a montage of recycled historical documentation and artistic recreations that encompasses layered multiple media, eroding customs, and various times.
These quotes give the overall flavor of the book. Some of the analyses of individual films are quite illuminating. The book is dedicated to Mark Fisher, and it's not surprising that his views buttress the whole. An interesting cultural exploration. 

 

 

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

'A Warning to the Curious' - Centenary Performance and Screening

The Garden Cinema at 39-41 Parker Street, London WC2B 5PQ is presenting on Thursday 17 April a performance of M R James' 'A Warning to the Curious' by noted ghost story raconteur Robert Lloyd Parry, followed by a screening of Lawrence Gordon Clarke's much-treasured 1972 television adaptation of the story. 

The date has been chosen to echo the start of the tale's narrative, and also celebrates the centenary this year (in October) of James' fourth volume of tales, A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories. The announcement suggests: 'The title story is arguably James' last great work and certainly his most brutal. It's a story of undeserved death and the hope of not being forgotten - and that's as true for the ghost as it is of the protagonist.'

The event will be introduced by Jon Dear, author of a forthcoming study, 'No Diggin' - The Story of the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas (Headpress). An extract from the book, 'Whistle Down the Wind', can be read at the publisher's website.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

'A Definition of Hauntology'

The website, blog, publisher and shop A Year in the Country explains that it ‘began in 2014 and at its core is an exploration of the interconnected rise of interest in the wyrd, eerie and re-enchanted landscape, folk horror, the further reaches of folk music and the parallel worlds of hauntology.’

Stephen Prince, the editor and principal author, offers ‘A Definition of Hauntology, its Recurring Themes and Intertwining with Otherly Folk and the Exploration of a Rural and Urban Wyrd Cultural Landscape (Revised and Extended)’. This is a wide-ranging discussion of a term in frequent use but often deployed somewhat hazily. It is a much-needed analysis that tries to convey the key elements that seem to comprise what the idea involves. Note that this is evidently a work in progress, so the content may shift and change from what I discuss here.

The essay proposes six broad themes that  characterise the concept of ‘hauntology’, including:  ‘Music and culture that draws from and examines a sense of loss, yearning or nostalgia for a post-war utopian, progressive, modernist future’; ominous themes in children’s television and public information films; graphic design and electronic music with a particular futuristic style for its time; a sense of haunting by the culture of the fairly recent past; the use of the imperfections inherent in past technology, such as record crackle and tape hiss; and, overall, a sense of a parallel imaginary world, a ‘Midwichian’ Britain. (I am, of course, just summarising here a much fuller discussion).

These seem to me to be highly observant points, though they are quite hard to draw together in an overall understanding. Some are descriptive, usefully specific about individual ingredients, so we can see what sort of thing we are discussing, but others are more conceptual and impressionistic. Perhaps that is in the very nature of what is being evoked.

The piece then goes on to discuss examples of hauntology among current practitioners, including the Ghost Box record label, the blog The Haunted Generation, and the emergence of zines working in this field, including Hellebore, Weird Walk and Undefined Boundary. I would add other musicians whose work has a hauntology element, including those producing ambient and drone music, or using analogue synthesizers to compose and perform retro-electronica, such as Polypores, The Twelve Hour Foundation, Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan and The Heartwood Institute.

It is understandable that only so much can be covered in a survey of this kind, and it is already generous and inclusive in its inspirations. However, it will be seen that much of this discussion is media-driven: it focuses on film, television, music, design and technology and largely omits literature, except for the allusion to John Wyndham in the term ‘Midwichian’.

This leaves open the question of the relationship between ‘hauntology’ and the field of fantastic and supernatural fiction generally. But I think there are some clear signs of overlap. For example, the revived interest in young adult supernatural fiction of the same Sixties/Seventies period evoked by hauntology, such as the novels of Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, John Gordon, seems to fit quite well here.

The same might be said of the enthusiasm for vintage horror and supernatural paperbacks of this period, published by, for example, Pan and Corgi, including work by Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Aickman, and the various series of ghostly and macabre anthologies. We might also add the renewed and wistful enthusiasm for ancient mysteries books of the time, such as those by Janet & Colin Bord and John Michell.

Clearly, any expansion of the scope of the term ‘hauntology’ risks it becoming too diffuse, yet these literary elements do seem to stem from the same milieu as that explored in the article’s description, and indeed some of them are specifically referenced by avowed hauntology practitioners. For example, Ghost Box included in its releases titles and themes drawn from Machen and Blackwood, and the zines mentioned also regard these and similar authors as presiding spirits.

I would also suggest that the independent presses publishing classic and contemporary supernatural fiction, such as Tartarus, Swan River, Sarob, Egaeus, Zagava, and imprints such as the British Library Tales of the Weird series, might be seen as the equivalent in literature of the Ghost Box milieu in music. 

Certainly, not all of the titles issued by these presses are consistent with the hauntology themes the essay identifies, particularly those to do with modernism and mid 20th century technology, but even some of those do have a presence, and other themes, particularly the sense of loss and of the ominous, and the idea of a missing, sideways, world, are often reflected in the work of these presses.

I have to confess I like the term better than others that have emerged or been revived in recent years, such as ‘the weird’,‘folk horror’ and, at a further reach, 'psychogeography'. This is partly because it is more evocative and because its elusive quality reflects what it tries to describe. It also, to acknowledge a clear interest, relates to the late Sixties and Seventies period when I was myself discovering the strange and supernatural, and so has a particular personal resonance. Even so, I think that hauntology may well have relevance as a term to help us perceive the current phase in the writing and readership of the literature of the fantastic.

(Mark Valentine)

Image; Beach Ghost, Weybourne, Norfolk


Monday, March 10, 2025

Henry Wessells: The Elfland Prepositions

Newly published from Temporary Culture: The Elfland Prepositions, four original short stories by bibliophile and scholar Henry Wessells of The Endless Bookshelf, in a finely produced limited edition of 100 numbered copies (few remaining). 

'Elfland is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and no longer know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and you know your way about. That other Elfland is not a nice place, but it’s important to know how it works.'

Original, startling and oblique tales of Elfland and its margins, a modern reinterpretation of the worlds celebrated by Lord Dunsany, Sylvia Townsend Warner and, in his own way, Walter de la Mare.  Not only the classic fantasy tradition is celebrated here: the fiction also handles deftly American noir, crime fiction, and Borgesian labyrinths of meaning. Here is an Elfland as implacable as ever, but now ruthlessly enmeshed in contemporary mortal affairs.

(Mark Valentine)


Sunday, March 9, 2025

Faunus 50 - and a new Faunus Archive

The Friends of Arthur Machen has just reached a milestone with the publication of issue 50 of its journal Faunus. This is also the final issue to be edited by James Machin and Tim Jarvis, who hand over to Sam Kunkel, who has also been co-editing recent issues with them. Many thanks to them for their inspired work in editing the journal for the past dozen years.

In this issue, John Harris writes about Machen’s links to Gwyn Jones and the Anglo-Welsh writers of the mid 20th century; Sophie Sleigh-Johnson discusses the tavern in the work of Machen and occult artist Austin Osman Spare; and Felix Taylor considers Machen in Ithell Colquohoun’s Sword of Wisdom. There is also a transcript of a radio talk by Machen in 1937, discussing Chesterton, Shakespeare, and much else, and enlivened as ever by his trenchant views and rolling prose.

The mailing to members has just started and copies of Faunus 50 are on the way, together with the Friends’ newsletter Machenalia, edited by Jon Preece.

The Friends have also announced that all back issues of Faunus will shortly be available to members to download in PDF format for the first time, in a new Friends’ Area. They say: ‘In an exciting expansion of member benefits, every issue - dating all the way back to the very first edition published in 1998 — will be accessible through a brand-new members-only section of this website, allowing Friends to explore the full archive at their leisure.’

This has come about through new digital services editor John Galantini’s redesign of the website and work by Ray Russell and John Ricketts to recover, redesign and proof-read the early issues. Members will receive an email shortly with details on how to access this new section of the website. The idea is that the Friends’ Area ‘will not only house the Faunus archive but will also serve as a platform for digital exclusives, including essays, videos, and audio recordings.’


Saturday, March 8, 2025

Ithell Colquhoun: 'Destination Limbo'

I think I first encountered the work of the visionary artist, author, poet and antiquarian Ithell Colquhoun in the ancient mysteries journals I subscribed to in the Nineteen Eighties, such as Wood & Water. I then ordered her Grimoire of the Entangled Thicket (1973), a book of mythic poetry, from Eric Ratcliffe’s Ore imprint, which arrived accompanied by an enthusiastic letter about her work from the publisher. 

Later I found her prose fantasy Goose of Hermogenes (1961) second-hand, but her study Sword Of Wisdom: MacGregor Mathers and the Golden Dawn  (1975) eluded me, indeed I don’t think I’ve ever seen a copy while browsing.

It also took a while to find her wonderful book of landscape, folklore and art, The Living Stones: Cornwall (1957), a highly personal account of her home in the far west of Cornwall and her explorations of the prehistoric and legend-haunted places such as standing stones, carns, wells, coves and hill forts. This places her in similar terrain to other authors who celebrated this domain such as Mary Butts and Frank Baker.  She has more recently been rediscovered as a highly original surrealist and mystic artist, including of her own abstract tarot forms.

I was therefore interested to learn that her occult novel Destination Limbo (Antenna Publications) is soon to be reissued, and pre-orders are available now from Stone Club. It is described as ‘derived from her dream diaries . . .  a strange and mysterious journey to a Greek Island where two occult societies reign. There are vampires, werewolves and initiations a plenty. It is wild and very weird but in the best way!’

It must be said that the ithell colquhoun website is unpersuaded by the novel, which it says was ‘in progress by 1966 and was still being worked on ten years later’, and notes that it appears to be unfinished, although that is not entirely clear. It comments: ‘It is little more than a flat, and sometimes clumsy, narrative of events with none of the richness of writing, descriptive powers or charged psychological atmosphere that characterized Goose of Hermogenes . . .’

Even so, as they explain, the author herself saw it as part of a set of underlying themes integral to all her fiction, and linked it to her own interpretation of the Tarot (or Taro, her preferred term).

Stone Club, devoted to ancient stones in their landscape, has been ‘founded by artists Lally MacBeth & Matthew Shaw . . . as a place for stone enthusiasts to congregate, to muse and most importantly to stomp to stones.’ It offers the magazine The Folk Review, booklets of fieldnotes, second-hand books in the field, a set of four horse brass badges, and much else.

(Mark Valentine)