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A review by mschlat
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James
4.0
I picked this up because [a:Michael Chabon|2715|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1515875672p2/2715.jpg] waxed rhapsodically about the short story " 'Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad' " in his collection of essays [b:Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands|1844499|Maps and Legends Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands|Michael Chabon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328694310s/1844499.jpg|2905134]. I wasn't that taken by the story, but I found M. R. James's work to be an intriguing look at 19th century horror. A few takeaways:
1) Almost every story starts with a researcher, an academic, a professor, etc... looking into something that best not be looked upon. Often, the start of the research is benign enough (with one protagonist working on a travel guide of the Danish Isles!), but eventually something nasty appears. Nothing is ever as dark and foreboding as reading the Necronomicon, and I think the stories work better as a result --- you often ease into the horror slowly.
2) The pacing is absolutely not what I expect from current horror. The stories are often quite short, with little time spent between the the climax and the denouement. Indeed, you are often left unsure of what did actually happen. There's not the current obsession of detailing the origin of every monster out there. James just wants you to read about the monster (with the researcher), see the monster briefly, get a very small dose of resolution, and then finish.
Of the stories included, I most enjoyed "Lost Hearts" (with a fine sense of supernatural justice) and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" (the longest piece, detailing greed, code-breaking, and a quite spooky antagonist).
1) Almost every story starts with a researcher, an academic, a professor, etc... looking into something that best not be looked upon. Often, the start of the research is benign enough (with one protagonist working on a travel guide of the Danish Isles!), but eventually something nasty appears. Nothing is ever as dark and foreboding as reading the Necronomicon, and I think the stories work better as a result --- you often ease into the horror slowly.
2) The pacing is absolutely not what I expect from current horror. The stories are often quite short, with little time spent between the the climax and the denouement. Indeed, you are often left unsure of what did actually happen. There's not the current obsession of detailing the origin of every monster out there. James just wants you to read about the monster (with the researcher), see the monster briefly, get a very small dose of resolution, and then finish.
Of the stories included, I most enjoyed "Lost Hearts" (with a fine sense of supernatural justice) and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" (the longest piece, detailing greed, code-breaking, and a quite spooky antagonist).