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A review by ladyk23
A View from a Hill by M.R. James
2.0
I talked last month about how M.R. James just doesn't seem to work for me a lot of the time, and this was one of my prime examples of a story I just couldn't connect with. I know that James has a particular penchant for haunted artefacts, and here in this story we have a pair of binoculars, through which, the viewer can see objects which no longer exist. I'll admit this does sound like a good premise, and maybe if I were to watch the BBC adaptation of the story I'd find it more pacy and exciting, whereas listening to the audio version it seemed to just go on forever and have no real punch to it.
I get that his stories are more than 100 years old at this point, and lots has changed since then, both in terms of what readers find scary when it comes to ghost stories, and also in what they find intriguing or enticing to read, but I just find that lots of James' stories are simply dull. This is definitely one of the duller ones. I just didn't care what was happening or to who. If you're a particular fan of his work and haven't read this one, then it is available in the public domain, but if like me, you find him a bit hit and miss then maybe pass this one up or watch the adaptation - which I still intend to do, just to see if I like it better that way.
This story is available to read as a text file through project Gutenberg or as an audio file on you tube.
I get that his stories are more than 100 years old at this point, and lots has changed since then, both in terms of what readers find scary when it comes to ghost stories, and also in what they find intriguing or enticing to read, but I just find that lots of James' stories are simply dull. This is definitely one of the duller ones. I just didn't care what was happening or to who. If you're a particular fan of his work and haven't read this one, then it is available in the public domain, but if like me, you find him a bit hit and miss then maybe pass this one up or watch the adaptation - which I still intend to do, just to see if I like it better that way.
This story is available to read as a text file through project Gutenberg or as an audio file on you tube.