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Here is a letter that I sent yesterday to Maggie Ferncombe, the chair of the London Regional Labour party, Ed Miliband, Labour's shadow secretary of state for climate change, and friends in the Labour party in London. It urges them to do something about the tsunami of greenwash thrown over the Silvertown tunnel project by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Labour's most powerful elected official.
Over the last four years the Mayor and the few supporters of the project have – in defiance of reality, transport research and climate science – claimed that the tunnel project is compatible with policy objectives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It obviously is not, as 70-odd researchers in relevant areas told the Mayor in April 2021, in a letter he did not acknowledge or respond to.
The Stop the Silvertown Tunnel coalition banner on a climate action march in London, 12 November. Photo by Steve Eason
More roads produce more traffic; more traffic produces more greenhouse gas emissions; decarbonising transport means sharply reducing the volume of traffic; and the resources spent on road-building projects work against that aim, and against the support for public transport, rail, cycling and other non-car modes of transport that can make decarbonisation possible.
Although the Silvertown tunnel project is a London policy issue, it has national implications. Labour's stubborn denial of reality about the tunnel is on the same level as the Tory government's fantasies that licencing coal mines, new oil and gas fields, or its own £27 billion road building programme, dovetails with combating global heating.
My letter – attached as a PDF – concerns a very specific set of issues, on which the greenwash spilled over into falsehoods, used by Heidi Alexander, then London's deputy mayor for transport and now Labour candidate for Swindon South, to justify the unjustifiable tunnel project. If you are reading this and you are in the Labour party, please have a word. Simon Pirani, 21 December 2022.
Dear Maggie Ferncombe and Ed Miliband,
I write to ask you to take action within the Labour Party over the circulation of false information about the climate emergency by the Greater London Authority, and the Authority's failure to deal with complaints about this false information, in breach of its own rules.
The false information was circulated in 2021 by Heidi Alexander, former deputy mayor of London, in response to people who protested to the Mayor of London about the Silvertown Tunnel project. In particular, Ms Alexander claimed:
(a) that the GLA has adopted plans to reach "zero carbon goals";
(b) that the modelling of carbon emissions on which the GLA carbon reduction trajectory is based takes into account planned developments such as the Silvertown Tunnel; and
(c) that Arup has conducted an "independent assessment" of London's 1.5 degree carbon reduction trajectory.
The note below explains the importance of the issues complained of for climate policy.
Recipients of this false information contacted the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel coalition, for which I had conducted research about the tunnel project. The coalition continued to press the Mayor to review the project and its compatibility with his climate policies, but he declined.
2 Comments | Cities, Global warming, Social and labour movements | Tagged: fossil fuels, greenwash, Labour party, London, transport | Permalink
Posted by peoplenature123
The Silvertown tunnel reinforces deadly climate doublethink
London mayor Sadiq Khan has lashed out at opponents of the Silvertown tunnel project, who are calling on him to pause and review the major infrastructure project at the eleventh hour.
Khan has filed a complaint against Newham mayor Rokshana Fiaz, after she shared on social media a claim by the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition that City Hall had used "lies and half-truths" to justify the scheme.
The complaint has gone to Clyde Loakes, Labour chief whip for London Councils, which brings together the leaders of 21 Labour-led councils in the capital.
The "banshees" street theatre group protesting against the tunnel project, July 2020. Photo by Ben Darlington / SSTC web site
The tunnel project has no discernible local support. Greenwich, Lewisham and Hackney councils are opposed, along with Newham, as are climate scientists, transport researchers, trade unions, community groups and thousands of local residents who have turned out on protests.
Yet preparatory work is already underway, and contractors working for Transport for London (TfL) are lowering pieces of the biggest tunnel boring machine ever used in the UK into its chamber. So political pressure to rethink is peaking.
If the £2.2 billion scheme goes ahead, it will exacerbate dreadful air pollution problems locally, boost road transport, and undermine efforts to tackle dangerous climate breakdown.
1 Comment | Cities, Environmentalism, Global warming, Social and labour movements | Tagged: climate emergency, fossil fuels, London, transport | Permalink
'The Mayor won't change his mind'
As opposition to the £2.2 billion climate-trashing, polluting Silvertown Tunnel project grows in east and south-east London, campaigners keep getting a message back from Labour politicians: "The Mayor won't change his mind."
That's Mayor Sadiq Khan, one of Labour's most powerful elected politicians.
Campaigners have asked him to pause and review the project, given the climate emergency that London has declared, the air pollution crisis, the pandemic, and Brexit, that have upended traffic projections.
But the Mayor says no.
As Len Duvall, leader of the Labour group in the London Assembly, put it in correspondence about the tunnel project: "He [the Mayor] is not going to review it!"
A march against the Silvertown Tunnel in Newham this month. Photo by Stop the Silvertown Tunnel coalition
To a warning that construction could be disrupted by civil disobedience, Duvall replied: "I suspect you're right, there will be some form of direct action. And it [the tunnel] will still be built!"
Len, can I just remind you? This isn't a mafia movie, or a third-rate Netflix drama about medieval burghers, in which you play the tough guy.
This is our life, and our children's lives – they are the ones at the schools near the tunnel site, getting choked by particulate matter, remember? – in the largest city in Europe, in the face of a climate crisis.
1 Comment | Cities, Global warming | Tagged: cars, London, transport, uk | Permalink
Posted by Gabriel Levy


text:
Tag: gothic literature
Frankenstein's 200th Birthday
Frankenstein (1818) – Mary Shelley
Not really sure where to start or what to say with this one. Published 200 years ago today, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is one of the most important horror novels ever written. It's also one of my favourite books. I first read it years ago, but that edition was the more widely published 1831 version of the text. After finishing the book, I read that the original 1818 text was in some ways better or more authentic or something. I ordered a copy, but it remained on my bookshelf for so long that when I finally picked it up and read it, I couldn't tell how it was any different. You can find the differences discussed elsewhere online, but I can only say that I enjoyed both versions immensely.
I recently reviewed and complimented Percy Byssche Shelley's Zastrozzi for it's eponymous villain. Mary's monster is, in ways, just as diabolical a fiend as her husband's, but he is a hundred times more tragic. He's simultaneously more and less human than Zastrozzi; he may not have been created in God's image like the rest of us, but his plight is nonetheless relatable. Who amoungst us has not, at some stage in their hateful lives, looked towards the heavens with dismay in their hearts and cursed God for creating man only to abandon him immediately thereafter? Is this tale not a parable for all human existence? Victor Frankenstein, the creator, is very much the villain in the 1818 text. He's the idiot that brought the monster to life and then failed to take responsibility for his actions.
This is a great story and an exciting read, but it's also one that makes you think. What do Frankenstein and his monster represent? Is the book an existential metaphor? As it is perhaps the first science fiction novel, what can Frankenstein tell us about its era's feelings about scientific advancements? What messages should modern scientists developing A.I. take from this tale? Let's also remember that Mary Shelley's mother was one of the most important feminist thinkers in history. Can we reasonably avoid analyzing this text through a feminist lens? Could Frankenstein's monster represent the corrupted femininity created and enforced by Georgian males? It's rare that a horror story will raise as many interesting questions,but fortunately for you, I won't attempt to answer any of these questions here; I'll leave that to the high school students fortunate enough to read this book in English class.
I have finally reviewed all of the books from Paul Murray's list of the greatest Gothic novels. I don't think it was a very accurate list at all. Anyways, have a good new year.
(I didn't have my copy of the book handy when this post was first published, so I drew this little picture of Frankenstein's monster for the post image.)
dukederichleau	gothic literature, horror	Leave a comment January 1, 2018 January 18, 2018
Shelley's Zastrozzi and St Irvyne – Revenge is Sweeter than Life
Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne – Percy Bysshe Shelley
Oxford University Press – 1986
These are the only novels Percy Shelley ever wrote, and they are usually published together. They're roughly 100 pages each.
Zastrozzi (First published 1810)
I'll be brief with this one because it's very short and the more I say, the more it will take from your enjoyment if you do decide to read it. This is a remarkably enjoyable Gothic romance. The title character's horrendously callous pursuit of vengeance leads him to acts of genuinely shocking brutality. Fantastic. File this guy alongside Maldoror, Iago, and Aaron the Moor. At one point, he utters the words, "I will taste revenge; for revenge is sweeter than life: and even were I to die with him, and, as the punishment of my crime, be instantly plunged into eternal torments, I should taste superior joy in recollecting the sweet moment of his destruction. O! would that destruction could be eternal!"
Those might be my favourite sentences in the entire canon of literature.
The ending of this book was absolutely satisfying in every respect. Incredible.
I listened to a few chapters from the Librivox audiobook version, but the narrator tries so hard to sound dramatic that he makes it difficult to keep listening. I don't like badmouthing people who put together the stuff at Librivox as I know they're volunteering their time to make literature accessible, but Jesus Christ, this guy sounded like an arsehole.
St. Irvyne (First published 1811)
The second tale in this collection, St. Irvyne, isn't quite as good. There's two storylines in here, one about a pair of star-crossed lovers and one about an innocent young virgin who is led astray by a mysterious stranger. I was really enjoying it, but I started getting a bit worried when I noticed that I was only a few pages from the end and had absolutely no idea how the two plotlines related to each other. I started wondering if I had skipped a chapter by accident. Unfortunately, this confusion lasted right up until the third-last sentence in the book.
St. Irvyne, you see, was originally intended to be a much longer work, but at a certain point Shelley got sick of writing and decided to tie everything up in a 2 page conclusion. The writing is nice, but this was a bit of a disappointment.
The alternate title of the work is actually The Rosicrucian, and while one of the characters in here has clearly been dabbling in the Occult, there's not a single mention of actual Rosicrucianism in the entire book. If you're into that kind of thing, I'd recommend Bulwer Lytton's Zanoni instead.
While on the subject of Shelley, I'm going reread his wife's Frankenstein soon. I've previously mentioned that book's shameful absence from this blog, and it's about time to rectify that. Its 200th anniversary of publication is coming up in a few weeks, so I'm going to try to get it done by then.
dukederichleau	gothic literature, horror	2 Comments November 29, 2017 October 12, 2019
Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond – Tarry Thou till I Come and Melmoth the Wanderer
Tarry Thou till I Come or Salathiel, the Wandering Jew – George Croly
Funk and Wagnalls – 1902 (Originally Published in 1828)
A long time ago, I read Paul Murray's article on the greatest Gothic novels ever written. At that stage I had already read most of the books on the list*, and out of the ones I had not yet read, there was only one that I had never heard of: Salathiel The Immortal by George Croly. Murray's description of the book reads:
"Now almost forgotten, the Reverend George Croly was a friend of the Stoker family. In Salathiel the Immortal (1829), there are similarities of predicament between Salathiel and Dracula (as well as with that of Melmoth the Wanderer). Salathiel led the mob which promoted the death of Jesus, in return for which he was condemned to the misery of the undead state. A reshaping of the Wandering Jew legend which underlies so much of the gothic genre, including Melmoth the Wanderer. Like Maturin, Croly was a Church of Ireland clergyman."
I have emboldened all the parts of this description that convinced me that I would have to read this book. I looked it up to research further, but could not find a single review. Ohhh, the alluring mystique! I quickly ordered a copy online, and when it arrived, I was thouroughly impressed with the physical book. It was printed in 1901, includes several full page colour illustrations, and ends with a bunch of notes and critical essays. It's about 700 pages of small text though, so it sat on the shelf for four years before I found the time to read it.
So, the Wandering Jew is a legendary character who was supposedly doomed to immortality after insulting Christ during the events leading up to his death. In this version of the tale, he is Salathiel, a priest of the Temple who had been gravely insulted by Christ's heresy against traditional Judaism. Salathiel is the man who led the crowd demanding the blood of Christ. The book begins right at the moment of his exultation. As Jesus is lead to the cross, Salathiel hears a voice whisper "Tarry thou till I come" and understands that this is the voice of God telling him that he is going to have to wait around on Earth until Jesus returns on judgement day.
Ok, so we're off to a good start: a cursed priest doomed to walk the earth until the end of time. Now this tale was originally published in 1828, so you would imagine that its 500+ pages cover a time period of almost two millennia. However, the protagonist's most striking feature, his ability to survive for thousands of years, barely comes into play in the events of the story. The book ends with the destruction of the Second Temple, roughly 35 years after Jesus was crucified. Yes, Salathiel shows impressive endurance and manages to escape from some very tricky situations, but aside from the book's title, first chapter and final chapter, there is very little in here that suggests anything preternatural about the title character; by the end of the book, he might be as young as 60.
Salathiel meets a sorceror and spirit (That's him in the back.)
This book includes virginal maidens, gloomy dungeons, heros, tyrants, curses, bandits, miraculous survivals, clergy, secret passageways, night journeys, and strange spectres: in short all the things that one might expect to find in a Gothic novel. But these elements are strewn (rather sparsely I will add) amoungst 500 pages of historical fiction about the siege of Jerusalem. Realistically, this is a fairly dry adventure novel about a warrior who has little fear of death. The main character has to rescue his family from captivity about 5 times, he escapes from captivity himself about 10 times, and finds himself doing battle (both physical and mental) with countless foes. He becomes stranded on a desert island, he briefly takes command of a pirate ship, he plans devastating attacks against the Roman forces, and he does it all for the love of his wife and children. There are a few spooky parts; he meets a ghost, a magician and some strange spirits, but these events only make up a few paragraphs in this tome. Referring to this book as a Gothic novel is a bit of a stretch.
Just some of the adventures on which our hero finds himself
So maybe it's not Gothic, but is it any good? Well, it took me well over a month to finish it. I found the first 300 pages or so to be very, very boring. In fact, when I was reading it, I started wondering if this was not a precursor to the modernist novel. I wondered if Croly had deliberately avoided mentioning the legend of the wandering Jew and instead focused on extremely boring details. The horrendously wordy prose inflicts a sense of brutal tedium on his reader, and this technique gives that reader a sense of what life would be like for an individual who was doomed to live forever. Is this a stroke of absolute genius, or is it just poor writing? It's hard to say.
The characterization is quite awful. Aside from their names, Salathiel's associates are mostly interchangeable; they're either completely good or completely bad. Also, some characters reappear after hundreds of pages of absence, and the reader is expected to remember exactly who they are. The biggest problem is with the title character though. Aside from a few hasty moments when he is contemplating his daughters being courted by a goy, Salathiel, the hero of this novel, is a very sensible, rational, empathetic individual. The idea that he was the man that led the mob against Christ (the proverbial 'Jew that broke the camel's back') is very strange indeed. I would not be surprised to find out that Croly had written the novel and tacked on the few Wandering Jew parts afterwards because he realized that nobody would be interested if he didn't lure them in with a familiar legend.
LOL, keep walking, lil bitch!
Of course, the legend of the Wandering Jew is in itself quite bizarre. The idea is that Jesus put a curse on the lad for being mean to him. Let's just recall that the fundamental belief of Christianity is that Jesus Christ died so that the sins of man could be forgiven. Isn't it a bit odd then that he would personally inflict immense suffering on any individual for wronging him? Also, the nature of Salathiel's trangression isn't even that severe when you consider the context in which it occurred. He, a holy man, genuinely believed that Christ was a heretic trying to pervert his religion. Sure, it was a shitty thing to do to try to get him killed, but Salathiel seems genuinely remorseful afterwards. If Jesus had only cursed him with a bad dose of verrucas, Salathiel probably would have had to sit down for a while to contemplate his bad behaviour, and I reckon he'd quickly realize that he had been a bit harsh. He would have asked God for forgiveness, and if God had truly meant all the stuff that he had just had Jesus tell everyone, he'd have to forgive Salathiel immediately. As things currently stand, Salathiel is doomed to suffer regardless of how remorseful he is. Jesus is a hypocrite.
To today's socially conscious reader, the title of this book might set off alarm bells. After all, the Nazis once made a propaganda film titled Der Ewige Jude (the German name for the Eternal/Wandering Jew). The legend of the Wandering Jew is doubtlessly anti-Semitic in its origins, but in fairness to Croly, I think it is safe to say that this book was not anti-Semitic by the standards of the time in which it was written; he's definitely not attempting to demonize the Jews. He is however, more than happy to malign black people at every given opportunity. At one point he refers to Ethiopians as "Barbarians, with a tongue and physiognomy worthy only of their kindred baboons".
In fairness, this book does pick up quite a bit towards the end, but overall, it's really not that great. Tarry Thou till I Come will be a real treat for anyone with an interest in historical, religious fiction, but it's likely to bore the pants off everyone else. If you want to go ahead and check it out, the text is available online at archive.org. Make sure that you read this version though, as some of the other versions online only contain the first two out of its three volumes.
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Maturin
Penguin – 2012 (Originally published in 1820)
Like I said earlier on, I bought my copy of Salathiel quite a while ago. I had originally planned to make this a comparative post weighing Croly's book against Charles Stuart Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, a book that I had read long before hearing of Croly's. Unfortunately, so much time has passed since reading Melmoth that I can't remember it terribly well. I do recall it being similar to Salathiel in the following ways:
It is also excessively long.
It is also about a cursed immortal.
It was also written by a protestant clergyman from Dublin.
Unlike Salathiel however, Melmoth the Wanderer is very definitely a Gothic novel. Its title character is immortal due to his dealings with Satan, not Jesus Christ. I know that I enjoyed Melmoth, but I recall it getting a bit boring in places. Regardless, all book-goths are obliged to read this one. The cover of the edition of this book that I own is one of the reasons that I try not to buy modern reprints of old books. Luminous pink, turquoise and orange for the cover of one of the classics of Gothic literature? No fucking thank you Mr. Penguin!
*The following is the list of Paul Murray's 10 favourite Gothic novels from the article that set me on the track of Salathiel.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
History of the Caliph Vathek by William Beckford
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
Salathiel the Immortal by George Croly
Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Pecket Prest
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Now that this post has been published, I have managed to review all of these books except Frankenstein. I'll have to reread it and get it up here soon!
dukederichleau	christianity, evil, folklore, gothic fiction, gothic literature, Ireland	2 Comments May 28, 2017 October 13, 2019
Elizabeth Gaskell's Gothic Tales of Mystery and the Macabre
Tales of Mystery and the Macabre – Elizabeth Gaskell
Wordsworth Books – 2008
Long ago, I got a goodreads recommendation for Elizabeth Gaskell's Gothic Tales collection published by Penguin. In April 2013, I ordered a copy. It never arrived. Later that year, when I went home for Christmas, I found a short story collection by Gaskell in the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural series. This collection was called Tales of Mystery and the Macabre. It was nice and cheap, and I presumed it would be the same as the book that I had previously ordered, so I bought it. It lay on the shelf for nearly 3 years.
I started reading Gaskell in September. I checked to see if this edition contained the same stories as the Penguin edition. The Ghost in the Garden Room goes by a different title; it's The Crooked Branch in the Penguin edition, but they're the same story. Apart from that, these texts are the same. The Penguin edition may well have notes and a better introduction, but I doubt those would make this book any more enjoyable.
The stories are not mysterious, and only a few of them are remotely spooky. They're mostly about innocent young women and mistaken cases of identity. Within a week, I had read all but two of the tales, but then I started working in a factory and binging on Stephen King, and I lost all interest in Gaskell. I forced myself to go back and finish it last week, and I'm glad I did. The last story I read, The Ghost in the Garden Room, is surprisingly miserable; it was great, especially the ending. The rest of the stories range from decent (Lois the Witch and The Old Nurse's Story) to stupidly shit (Curious, if True). I started on Gaskell right after I finished reading Varney the Vampire, another book in the Wordsworth series, and that may have had something to do with how little I enjoyed this one. My patience threshold for Victorian fiction seems to be about 1000 pages.
Overall, Gaskell's Gothic tales are not absolutely horrible to read, but this was not a book that I ever looked forward to opening. Also, the cover is fucking stupid. I've given out about the covers for this series several times before, but dear Christ this one is ridiculous. There's no mention of planets or standing stones in any of these stories, and that cover makes this book look better than it is. The image needs to be replaced for the next edition, and out of the goodness of my heart, I have designed for a cover that far better suits the content of his book:
If anyone working for Wordsworth sees this, please spare the niceties and just send a cheque. Thanks.
dukederichleau	ghost stories, gothic fiction, gothic literature, horror, short stories	2 Comments December 18, 2016 July 10, 2017
Gutted – Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters
The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain – Lord Lytton
Originally published – 1859
A few years ago, I read about the books of Edward Bulwer Lytton in Colin Wilson's The Occult. Discovering that this Lytton lad was supposed to be friends with Eliphas Levi and that his books were about wizards, ghosts, and secret societies, I quickly put him on my to-read list. A few months after doing so, I saw his name in Nicholas Goodrick Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism. Combining what I already knew about Lytton with the fact that one of his works had apparently inspired a bizarre conspiracy theory about subterranean, black magic Nazis, I knew that I had to make acquiring his books a priority.
The four texts that Wilson specifically named were Zanoni, A Strange Story, The Coming Race, and The Haunted and the Haunters. I found audiobook versions of the latter two on librivox, downloaded them and stuck them on my phone. The mp3 of The Haunted and The Haunters was only an hour and 10 minutes long, and I listened to it at work the other day.
It was a little disappointing to be honest. A lad hears about a haunted house and decides to spend the night there. He sees some ghosts, and a few days later he discovers a secret room containing a peculiar device that essentially functions as a ghost machine. He breaks the ghost machine, and then everyone lives happily ever after.
This is a ghost story, but it's not remotely spooky. During the most climactic scenes, the narrator makes a point of telling the reader that he is not afraid, and it's very hard to feel scared for a person who seems to understand the situation better than you. The chap comes across as a know-it-all wanker to be honest; I'd take a terrified Jamesian protagonist over this gobshite any day.
Lytton's use of fiction to present his ideas about the supernatural may have been novel at the time this was published, but I found it rather trite. He goes over the old "nothing is really supernatural because supernatural means impossible and nothing is impossible" argument. Just because science can't yet explain ghosts, ESP, clairvoyance and all that good stuff, there's no reason to believe that it won't some day be able to. This is a fair point to make, but it doesn't have much bearing on whether or not these things actually exist.
The story comes to a very abrupt end. After enduring the night in the house, the lads find a chest of drawers in a secret room. In this chest is a portrait of another lad who the narrator seems to have seen before and a weird, home-made, magic compass that has been cursed. Once this strange device is destroyed, everything is grand. That's it. End of story.
Fairly shit, all things considered.
Is that really the end though?
This story was originally published as "The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain" in the July-December 1859 edition of Blackwood's Magazine. I find it quite strange that an original publication would feature two titles. Subsequent appearances of the tale have often been published under one title or the other. I have read that the "House and Brain" title usually denotes an abridged version of the story, but I have read the exact same thing about the "Haunter and Haunted" title. Perhaps the different titles were once used to denote the different versions of the story, but at this stage, neither title can be trusted to signify the abridgment.
My copy of the text has both titles, but it's the abridged version.
If you have any sense and want to make sure that you're reading the full version, the last paragraph of the original version of the story starts with the phrase;
"So ends this strange story, which I ask no one to believe."
The first line of the final paragraph in the SHITTY-BUM abridged version reads;
"We found no more. Mr. J—— burnt the tablet and its anathema."
If there is one thing that I simply can not abide, it's an abridged book. If this is the ending of the tale you are reading, look elsewhere for satisfaction!
The abridgment absolutely guts the story. The haunting in the original features a creepier ghost, a slightly more gruesome description of the death of the narrator's dog, several other minor edits, and most importantly: a tense confrontation between the narrator and the wizard responsible for bewitching the house. The complete version is by no means a brilliant piece of literature, but it is at least somewhat coherent, and it's far more enjoyable than the shortened piece of drek. Imagine reading a version of the Shining in which all references to Jack Torrence's family have been cut out and you'll get a sense of the shitness of the abridged version of this tale.
Luckily, the unabridged version is widely available on the web (It's on page 244 of the edition of Blackwood's Magazine that I've already linked to.). An article from the July 1938 edition of the Theosophical Forum suggests that Bulwer cut parts out of this tale to use in his novel, A Strange Story. That novel was published in 1862, three years after The Haunted and the Haunters. I haven't read A Strange Story yet, and it may be a while before I get around to it, but I'll read over Haunted/Haunters again when I do to see how the ideas were transferred between the two.
As I have already mentioned, I first heard about Lytton in Colin Wilson's The Occult. I decided to read back over the relevant passages in that book to see if there was anything pertaining to this particular story. Wilson quotes the entire description of the curious portrait that is found near the cursed saucer to give an example of what he thinks a black magician should look like. He then says, "And when he later added a new ending to the story, Lytton extended this sketch into a full-length portrait of a man who seems to be a combination of the Wandering Jew and the Count de Saint-Germain." Colin Wilson, author extraordinaire and expert on the occult, seems to have believed that the original version of this story was the short version. Wilson also lists Lytton's first name as Henry in the index to the book when his name was actually Edward (His elder brother was named Henry.) Colin Wilson, it seems, was not very thorough in his research.
Good riddance to this pile of unlettered garbage.
dukederichleau	black magic, bulwer-lytton, ghost stories, gothic fiction, horror, occult	10 Comments November 11, 2016 October 13, 2019
Mrs. Radcliffe's Novels
I don't have much to say on these books that hasn't been said before. Ann Radcliffe didn't invent the Gothic novel, but she drastically improved it. Books like Castle of Otranto and Vathek are fun, but they're both quite silly. Radcliffe's novels came a few decades later, and while they're still fairly silly, they contain interesting characters and plausible stories.
Radcliffe is famous for making the literary distinction between terror and horror. Terror, according to Radcliffe, is the fear caused by uncertainty; it's the not knowing what's making the slithering noises in your bedroom wardrobe. Horror is the climactic reaction to actually seeing the warty green skin and blood soaked fangs of the monster as it lunges towards you. Radcliffe claimed that terror was a far more effective method of thrilling an audience, and she masterfully weaves her tales so that they keep both her readers and characters guessing until the very end.
Her books contain all the secret passages, mysterious chambers, fiendish villains and innocent virgins that you'd expect, but unlike their Gothic predecessors, the plots of her books are not driven by supernatural forces. The strange muffled noises and shadows darting hither and thither are all eventually explained as the stories unfold. The threat of horror is never realized, but it is this very threat that creates the sense of terror that runs through these books. Radcliffe does suspense exceedingly well.
The Italian – Ann Radcliffe
Wordsworth – 2011 (Originally published 1797)
I read The Italian two weeks ago. It came out just a year after Lewis's The Monk, and one could draw comparisons to the relationship between these two books and the relationship between The Castle of Otranto and The Old English Baron. While both books contain evil monks and the Inquistion, The Italian is more a response to The Monk than a rewrite, and it is definitely better book than the Old English Baron.
My copy is another Wordsworth Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural edition (I fucking love these books!), but I took most of this one in from the librivox audio version. The Librivox version is based on the first edition of the book (containing 33 chapters), but the Wordsworth version is the second edition (34 chapters). For the second edition, Radcliffe rewrote parts to make it seem that Ellena's sweet singing voice was more attractive to Vivaldi than her body. The 5th chapter of second edition, in which Vivaldi visits Bianchi's corpse, is also a new addition. If you only own the first edition and want to read this 3 page addition, you can do so here. There may be other very minor differences, but I got through the book going back and forth between the two editions, and it didn't cause any confusion.
While I agree that terror can be far more effective than horror, I don't think that horror needs to be abandoned completely. I certainly enjoyed this book, but I preferred the Monk. Radcliffe's book doesn't need the supernatural to make it work, but it does need the introduction of a new character at a very late stage in the plot, definitely a bit of a Deus Ex Machina. It is definitely worth a read though. Schedoni is a real cool guy.
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
Oxford – 1998 (Originally published 1794)
The Mysteries of Udolpho is Radcliffe's most famous book. I read it 3 years ago, but I remember really enjoying it. I had started a new job a few months previous, and I was starting to realize that I could get away with spending most of the day reading online. The night before, I would email myself a pdf file of the book I wanted to read, renaming it to something like "contract-agreement.pdf" so that the boss wouldn't be able to give me any grief if he checked my browsing history. I had begun with a few short stories, and I only started on this one to see if I could get away with it. It's more than 600 pages, and I finished it in a week. (I worked in that office for another year, and I managed to read a further 66 books at work in that time.) Reading Udolpho, you can see where writers like Lewis, De Sade and Le Fanu (especially in Uncle Silas) got many of their ideas. I really liked this book.
Apparently Jane Austen did too. Her novel Northanger Abbey is referred to as a parody of Radcliffe's works. It's the tale of 17 year old Catherine, an avid Radcliffe fan. Catherine goes through life imagining herself the heroine of one of Radcliffe's novels. I waited until after I had read The Italian to read this one, but it really only makes direct reference to Udolpho.
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Penguin – 1994 (First published 1817)
I wasn't expecting much from this, and to tell the truth, I didn't get much either. It's a cute little romance that has stuff to say on femininity and feminism, but I'll let you look elsewhere for that. My favourite parts were undoubtedly the sections where the protagonist is imagining that she's the character in one of the books she has been reading. I also listened to two audiobook collections of Stephen King's short stories last week, and I found that I was becoming suspicious of nearly everything around me. I therefore found Catherine's plight very relatable.
The real reason I wanted to read this book was its connection to Montague Summers. At an early stage in the novel, Catherine's friend promises that she will give her a small collection of books. Those books are:
Castle of Wolfenbach,
Clermont,
Mysterious Warnings,
Necromancer of the Black Forest,
Midnight Bell,
Orphan of the Rhine,
Horrid Mysteries
For years it was presumed that Austen had made these titles up herself, but Montague Summers, the absolute legend, actually rummaged through libraries until he found copies of each text. They have all been republished, and I intend to buy, read and review copies as soon as I am a wealthy man.
To conclude, Ann Radcliffe was very cool. Her books, though imperfect, were hugely influential and remain thoroughly enjoyable. They'd be perfect for taking on a lazy holiday, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for her other novels. Jane Austen, on the other hand, was fairly boring, and I probably won't be reading any of her other novels in the foreseeable future.
dukederichleau	ghost stories, gothic fiction, gothic literature, horror	Leave a comment October 24, 2016 July 10, 2017
A Feast of Blood – Varney the Vampyre
Varney the Vampyre – James Malcolm Rymer (or maybe Thomas Preskett Prest)
Wordsworth Books – 2010 (Originally serialized from 1845-1847)
I haven't posted much in the last month because I have been spending my time slogging through this immensely long book. At 1166 pages of very small print, this is undoubtedly the longest novel I have ever read. 'Novel' however, maybe isn't quite the right word to describe this tome; it's a series of different stories about the eponymous hero that were originally serialised in pamphlet form over the course of several years. Think of it like this: if Stoker's Dracula can be turned into 2 hour movie, Varney would take a 5 season TV show to do it justice. Just as the book is long, this review is fairly hefty too, so pour yourself a cup of blood before you sit down to read it. If you haven't read the book, you might want to skip over the sections in red. I say this not because those sections contain devastating spoilers (they don't), but because they deal with issues that are so perplexing that they may scare you away from ever reading the book.
Look at the girth of this thing! It may be thicker than 4 of the other books in this series put together, but it was no more expensive. (Note: Varney is actually not the kind of vampire that can turn into a bat)
The writing is of a pretty decent standard, although there is quite a lot of recapitulation. This may have been included to keep readers up to date with the story if they had missed the last edition (kinda like the Victorian version of "Previously on the X-Files…), but I have read elsewhere that the author was paid by the word, so maybe it was just to take up space. Either way, coherence doesn't seem to have been a priority, and throughout the tale there are characters that appear without reason and disappear without a trace. Varney himself has several suggested back stories that conflict with the account of his life that he gives at the end of the book, but more on that later. Also, with the exception of Varney himself, nearly all of the dramatis personae are interchangeable stock characters. I lost track of how many pleasant young men named Charles appear throughout the story.
The cover of the Wordsworth edition really blows in comparison to the original.
If you check out the librivox audiobook version (I would recommend that you alternate between a hard copy and these mp3s. Doing so allowed me to get through a few chapters every time I had to cook, tidy up or walk anywhere recently.), you'll notice that Librivox credits Thomas Preskett Prest as the author instead of James Malcolm Rymer. It seems that nobody really knows who wrote the book. Prest took the credit for more than 100 years, but research that I have read ABOUT suggests that the writing style is actually closer to Rymer's other writings than Prest's. Also, minor publishing discrepancies in the text correspond to Rymer's bankruptcy, suggesting that he was in fact the author. That being said, Rymer and Prest are known to have worked for the same publisher and are believed to have collaborated on other works, so it's not unlikely that they both contributed to this one. (Apparently Rymer was less than 4 foot tall.)
Drinking her blood, straight from the tit.
The book is split into 3 volumes of roughly 400 pages each. (This division seems to have been based on the length of the book rather than by the contents of the volumes.) This edition ends with Chapter 220, but if you were to count the amount of chapters that the book contains, you would notice that there are actually 237. How could this be? Well, Chapters 41-43 don't exist, Chapter 171 is followed by Chapter 162, and Chapters 195, 210, 197, 118, and 199 appear in that order. These mistakes have been faithfully carried over from the original pamphlets. (The chapter numbering in the audiobook version has been corrected. This was a little frustrating as I went back and forth between that and the text, although if it had retained the original numbers, the playlist of mp3 files would have been completely shagged.) Also, each chapter has a short title, but the titles rarely refer to anything that actually happens within that chapter. The chapter might be titled; "The events in the Parson's office", and it would be about a pair of young lovers having a picnic by the seaside. Arbitrary volume and chapter numbers aside, the book can be divided into 11 distinct stories. The first of which takes up the entire first half of the book while the 4th is less than 20 pages.
This poor chap was mistaken for a vampyre. He's fucked now.
The first section, the events at Bannerworth Hall, is by far the longest and most enjoyable part of the book. The characters here, although they could be lifted directly out of 100 other Victorian novels, at least get to be part of the story for long enough that the reader remembers them. These characters play a smaller role in the second section of the book, and they are only mentioned 2-3 times in the final 400 pages. Their story is never satisfactorily cleared up, and I kept hoping that they would pop up or that the events that were occurring would somehow end up explaining what had happened to them. It seems that the initial followers of the story may have felt the same way; in one of the final episodes, the author takes pains to clarify that the Bannerworths have all died. I wouldn't be surprised if this brief allusion served as a response to those readers who had inquired if the Bannerworths were ever going to make a comeback. These loveable characters, we are pleased to find out, have not met with an unsavory end though; it's just that the events towards the end of the book take place at a much later period of time. As we are soon to see, this epic tale takes place over the course of several centuries.
Here's a few questions I have regarding the trials and tribulations of the Bannerworth family.
Is Varney the man in the portrait?
There is a portrait in Flora's bedroom of Runnagate Bannerworth, an ancestor of the family. When the family realises that the vampyre looks exactly like the man in the portrait, they go to exhume Runnagate's corpse from their family tomb. By the time they get to the tomb, not only has Runnagate's name has mysteriously changed to Marmaduke, but his corpse has also disappeared. This is particularly confusing because Marmaduke Bannerworth is also the name of Flora's father, a confirmed associate of Varney's. (Plus, one of the initial explanations of Varney's vampyrism is that he was a suicide victim. Flora's father also committed suicide. Could Varney be her father? Probably not, but why the similarities?)
Runnagate is said to be 90 years dead, and Marmaduke's coffin reveals that he was buried in 1640, thereby dating the events at Bannerworth Hall to 1730. Varney is a vampyre though, so these dates don't really exclude the possibility that he is the man in the portrait. Indeed the fact that Runnagate/Marmaduke's corpse is not in the coffin suggest very strongly that Varney is their ancestor.
Varney later admits that he is a distant relation of the Bannerworths and that he was also a friend of their father. He claims that he had seen the portrait when he was friends with their father and deliberately tried to look like it in order to scare the family. This explanation however, does not account for the missing corpse from the tomb.
Much later on, in a different episode, Varney explains that he became a vampyre after crossing Oliver Cromwell after the death of Charles 1st. (This means that he didn't become a vampyre until at least 1649, almost a decade after the death of Runnagate/Marmaduke Bannerworth.) He also explains that at this time he was living in London and known as Mortimer. (This is also bizarre as Varney is later to be hung by a different nasty man named Mortimer.)
In the 225th chapter (Chapter 208 in the book) Varney claims that he remembers "being hunted through the streets of London in the reign of Henry the Fourth." Henry the 4th died of leprosy in 1413, meaning that if Varney is telling the truth, he was at least 235 years old when he became a vampyre. There is a gap of 1000 pages between the accounts of Runnagate's portait and Mortimer's contretemps with Cromwell, so we can forgive the author for a discrepancy of 9 years, but Varney's account of being chased during the 1400s is placed only 12 pages apart from his encounter with Cromwell.
By his own account, Varney is not the man in the portait in Flora's bedroom, but do we really believe him? All of his origin stories can't be true, and he's never exactly made out to be a particularly honest individual. While he explained that he had deliberately tried to make himself look like Runnagate/Marmaduke Bannerworth, he never explained where the body of said individual was or how it escaped from its coffin. Also, it should be remembered that Runnagate/Marmaduke's coffin not only contained no corpse, but neither did it contain any signs of ever containing a decomposing body. If Varney is not Runnagate/Marmaduke, Runnagate/Marmaduke is still likely to be a vampyre.
What happens to George Bannerworth?
He appears as the weakling younger brother in the first few chapters of the book, but soon disappears, never to be mentioned again. We are given enough information about his timidity to presume that this will be an issue for him at some stage, but he never gets a chance to shine. Lil bitch.
What happens to Dr. Chillingsworth?
The last we hear from him, he goes to London in search of Varney. We know that something happens to him afterwards that convinces him of the existence of vampyres. A note written by him appears in one of the final chapters of the book explaining so, the appearance of which left me with a genuine feeling of excitement. Varney does end up in London for a while in one of the later episodes; did they meet there? I had a theory that Chillingsworth was the mysterious stranger who follows Varney to Anderbury and gets murdered in the ice-pit, but he actually appears elsewhere afterwards, so it can't have been him.
Who the fuck was the Hungarian Nobleman and what did he want?
Just as Varney starts to warm to the Bannerworths, a strange Hungarian nobleman shows up in the village in search of him. We find out that he is willing to pay a high price to find Varney, but he himself becomes suspected of being a vampyre and gets run out of town before Varney is found. There is no explanation given as to why he is looking for Varney, and no more is said about him after he is chased from the town. In one of the final episodes, Varney attends a vampyre initiation ceremony with several of his kin. One asks if he knew the Bannerworths, and he responds; "I did. You came to see me, I think, at an inn." That is the extent of the conversation that appears 475 pages after the last mention of this character. Ahhh, sweet closure at last!
Who the shitting fuck was murdered in the ice-pit?
Towards the end of the first episode, Varney disappears. (The transition between the first and second episode is the only transition between episodes that carries over characters.) Soon thereafter, two strangers show up in a town a few miles distant from Bannerworth Hall. One of them, we know, has to be Varney, but the identity of the other is never made clear.
I think it was the Hungarian Nobleman. He's the only character from the first section that's unaccounted for. He had been confirmed as a vampyre and fled for safety without having achieved his goal of speaking to Varney. We know that he had been looking for Varney, but we were not sure of his motives. When Dr. Chillingsworth is mugged, we are inclined to give Varney the benefit of the doubt as he has seemingly made his peace with the Bannerworths, but if it wasn't Varney, it has to have been the Hungarian Nobleman; he's the only other bad guy alive at this stage! When it turns out that both of the mysterious strangers are vampyres, it only makes sense that one of them is the Hungarian.
However, when these two vamps meet near the end of the book, not a word is said about the fact that one of them has stabbed the other in the throat and thrown his corpse into an ice-pit. In fairness though, after the victim of this crime was revived by the moon, he snuck into the murderer's bedroom and stole his jewels. Maybe they just decided to let bygones be bygones… Who knows?
What happened to the Quaker whom Admiral Bell kicked up the hole?
Perhaps the greatest mystery of all. This storyline gets a considerable build up, but it's never resolved.
Bleh!
There are, of course, plenty of other plot holes in the remainder of the book, but the cast of characters and plotlines in the later episodes are not nearly as memorable or complicated. Most of the episodes follow the formula of Varney trying to marry a beautiful young woman only to be foiled right before the marriage ceremony. (There are at least 4 chapter titles that include the phrase 'the wedding morning'.) The middle episodes start to feel cartoonish in their repetitiveness, but the final two episodes end the book on a slightly more existential note. The penultimate episode has Varney playing the role of a hero rather than a villain, but the lack of satisfaction he receives from acting so convinces him to kill himself. His suicide attempt is thwarted by a pair of altruistic brothers, and when he is brought back to life, he gets super pissed off. He decides that if he can't feel happiness that he will make sure that those around him don't feel it either, and he gives what is perhaps the finest villainous speech that I have ever read. I'm going to include it here in its entirety, because unfortunately, I doubt that many people will actually make it far enough into the book to get to enjoy this exquisite piece of misanthropic bile:
"Since death is denied to me, I will henceforward shake off all human sympathies. Since I am compelled to be that which I am, I will not be that and likewise suffer all the pangs of doing deeds at which a better nature that was within me revolted. No, I will from this time be the bane of all that is good and great and beautiful. If I am forced to wander upon the earth, a thing to be abhorred and accursed among men, I will perform my mission to the very letter as well as the spirit, and henceforth adieu all regrets, adieu all feeling — all memory of goodness — of charity to human nature, for I will be a dread and a desolation! Since blood is to be my only sustenance, and since death is denied to me, I will have abundance of it — I will revel in it, and no spark of human pity shall find a home in this once racked and tortured bosom. Fate, I thee defy!"
Holy fuck, that is pure heavy metal.
Varney arises!
Whether or not Varney is actually a vampyre isn't determined until you're well into the story, and the first 750 pages of the book contain only 2 short instances of vampyric activity. Things get bloodier in the second half as the stories come to focus on Varney and his exploits. He oscillates between being a decent lad and a murderous villain, so much so that I was genuinely surprised at the violent acts he would sometimes suddenly commit. Although the latter episodes are definitely more gory, far more people are stabbed or shot than are drained of their blood; this is more of an adventure novel than a horror story. That being said, there are a few chapters set in moonlit churchyards and charnel houses to which you can stroke your Gothic boner. So much of what we have come to expect from a vampyre story comes directly from this book, and you'll find a million other reviews discussing how it's the source of many of our modern 'Vampire tropes'. Why then, does everyone give that credit to Dracula? Well, Dracula is much scarier, Bram Stoker took all of the best bits from Varney, twisted them around a bit, and shaped them into a far superior book.
And fucking stay dead!
Montague Summers described Varney the Vampyre as being "far ghostlier than" and "a very serious rival to" Dracula. The book was out of print when he wrote that though, so that might have just been him trying to be the cool guy who liked the less popular work. I definitely wouldn't go as far as Monty in this case, but I did really enjoy this book. I mean, it's deeply flawed, but if you take it for what it is, i.e., complete trash, it's d_____d enjoyable. It's exceedingly obvious that the author/authors were making it up as they went along, and a lot of it doesn't stand up to scrutinous examination, but if you like stories about graveyards, ghouls, chivalrous gentlemen, foul mouthed sailors, bloody murders, and heaving bosoms, this will entertain you greatly. I fucking loved it, and it has me looking forward to reading more of the Penny Dreadfuls that have come out in the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural series. I have Wagner the Werewolf by Reynolds on my shelf, and I know they have also put out The String of Pearls, the other work by Rymer and Prest.
dukederichleau	gothic fiction, gothic literature, horror, trash, vampires, vampirisim	4 Comments September 25, 2016 August 31, 2019
Vampires and Vampirism – Montague Summers
Dover – 2005 (Originally published as The Vampire: His Kith and Kin in 1929)
This is Montague Summers' first book on Vampires, and as much as I love the author, I have to admit that this was a rather dry read. I actually started this book to make sure that I would understand references that I might have encountered in another book I've been reading; Varney the Vampyre. As it turns out, that book is referenced in this book, but it contains very few references to vampire lore. (Varney is fucking DEADLY though. Expect to see it reviewed here in a few weeks.) Anyway, there's 5 chapters in Summers' book, and I'm going to go through each one.
1.The Origins of the Vampire
Here Summers explains several of the different elements that may have created and/or fed into the vampire legend. It includes copious stories of the reanimated dead, ghosts, premature burials and a huge section on incorruptible corpses. Apparently, there's two ways that a corpse can remain incorrupt; the person has to have been either really good or really bad.
This chapter also includes a frustratingly multilingual section on necrophilia and necrosadism. Unfortunately the more lurid details are only given in French or Ancient Greek. I'm not joking; whenever Monty wants to give some really grisly details, he'll switch languages. My French is poor, but it was good enough know that I was missing out on the best bits, particularly the story about the Garcon who said. "Que voulez-vous, chacun a ses passions. Moi le cadavre, c'est la mienne!"
(I have found an online version of the text, and I've just spent 10 minutes pasting those bits into google translate. It was worth it; my necrosadistic desires have now been satiated.)
2. Generation of the Vampire
This is all about how vampires become vampires. It mostly deals with excommunication from the church. Montague Summers knew a lot about the history of the church, and he wants to make sure that his readers are aware of this. Pretty boring stuff to be honest.
3. Traits and Practice of Vampirism
There's a lot about suicide in this chapter, including some fascinating stuff on Russian suicide cults. Apparently one group of these fucking lunatics built a huge building with no doors or windows that was only accessible from a trap door in the roof. They'd jump in through the trap door and then they'd starve to death. Imagine the stench, the anxiety, the shame and the regret that these people had to endure until their dying moments.
4. The Vampire in Ancient Countries
I was expecting this section to be a bit boring, but it was actually quite interesting. It's about the different types of vampiric ghouls that have cropped up around the world through history. I think that the sequel to this book, The Vampire in Lore and Legend (1929), takes up where this chapter leaves off.
5.The Vampire in Literature
This section was definitely the most disappointing, disappointing because I expected it to be the most interesting. This is just a bunch of summaries of different plays based on John Polidori's story, The Vampyre. The summaries given are so detailed that I skipped through most of them; I didn't want to ruin the stories in case I ever come across the original texts. Not only does this chapter contain the summaries of these plays; it also contains extensive lists of their cast members. This chapter is full of boring information, but it says very little.
The pictures in this book are bizarre. I don't remember why this mad woman is in there.
Overall, this is a decently interesting read even if it does get dry as fuck at times. There's 5 chapters, and the way they're structured seems a bit arbitrary, particularly the first 3. However, the worst thing about this book is that it's full of quotes in different languages but contains no translations. If you really wanted to get the most out of this, you'd need to speak Ancient Greek, Latin, French and German. This is a bit different to the author's books on witchcraft too. It serves more as an explanation as to how the Vampire legend developed than it does as proof of the Vampire's existence. Monty never denies that vampires exist, but he doesn't spend much time trying to convince you that they do. As mentioned above, he wrote another book on vampires, but I reckon it'll be a while before I get around to that one.
Clearly a case of Lycanthropy rather than Vampirism, but a cool picture nonetheless. Could this be the instance spoken of by the great one?
dukederichleau	black magic, ghosts, gothic literature, Montague Summers, occult books, vampires, vampirisim	7 Comments September 7, 2016 August 6, 2017
Vathek – William Beckford
Oxford University Press – 1983 (Originally published in 1786)
This Gothic classic is the story of the Caliph Vathek and his series of poor life choices. Vathek is led astray by an evil giaour's promises of more wealth and power. ('Giaour' is old Turkish slang for a non-Muslim. The reader pretty soon realises that the Giaour in question is actually some kind of evil spirit.) This is basically an 18th century English writer's attempt to write an Islamic version of the Faust legend. Ahhhh, remember the good old days when appropriating culture was still considered a bit of a laugh?
Beckford was only 21 when he wrote Vathek, and he claimed it only took 3 days to complete. The story itself is quite good, but the characters are rather flat, and I think that it would have benefited from some development. Beckford later wrote the Episodes of Vathek (not included in this edition), which are additions to this text, but as far as I understand, they are side stories about very minor characters and don't add anything to the central plot.
Vathek and the Giaour
You can pick up a copy of Vathek for dirt cheap, or download the audiobook for free. As far as Gothic classics go, this closer in its scope to The Castle of Otranto than Melmoth the Wanderer; it's worth a read, but don't expect too much.
Word on the street is that William Beckford was a shrub rocketeer.
dukederichleau	black magic, evil, gothic fiction, gothic literature	3 Comments August 3, 2016 July 10, 2017
(Most of) The Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce
The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce
Citadel Press – 1994 (Originally Published in 1946)
I bought this book for 2-3 stories in 2012, and only got around to reading it cover to cover within the last 6 months. This 'collected works' is not a 'complete works' as I had hoped for when I bought it. (There was a 12 volume edition of his works printed about 100 years ago, but I don't know how complete that is either.) I found the first collection of short stories in here to be the least enjoyable by far. I spent more time getting through that first 100 pages than all of the rest put together. I found that all of the short story collections, aside from Negligible Tales, are available on Librivox as audiobooks, and so I loaded these onto my phone and listened to them whilst cooking dinner every day.
Bierce was a rather interesting man. I first heard of him in the third From Dusk Till Dawn movie. (The third film was way better than the second one, but nowhere near as good as the first. I haven't watched the TV series.) I've also had to teach his short stories to high-school students on a few different occasions. There's an essay in the introduction to this book that makes him out as a very cranky man, but I didn't really get that impression from his stories. He definitely had a dark sense of humour, and he could be very, very funny. His wife and children all died before him, and at age 72 he moved to Mexico by himself and disappeared. In one of his last letters to his family, he wrote "Goodbye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico — ah, that is euthanasia!"
Ambrose Bierce was fucking cool.
I looked online for a comprehensive list of his short stories, but every list that I found omitted a bunch or contained the names of poems, essay and fables. In this post I have listed all of the stories in the editions of the texts that I read. (I will also list all of other known independent stories/collections at the bottom.)
In the Midst of Life (Tales of Soldiers and Civilians)
("A Horseman in the Sky", "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", "Chickamauga", "A Son of the Gods", "One of the Missing", "Killed at Resaca", "The Affair at Coulter's Notch", "The Coup de Grâce", "Parker Adderson, Philosopher", "An Affair of Outposts", "The Story of A Conscience", "One Kind of Officer", "One Officer, One Man", "George Thurston", "The Mocking-Bird", "The Man Out of the Nose", "An Adventure at Brownville", "The Famous Gilson Bequest", "The Applicant", "A Watcher by the Dead", "The Man and the Snake", "A Holy Terror", "The Suitable Surroundings", "The Boarded Window", "A Lady from Redhorse", "The Eyes of the Panther")
This collection is split into two sections. The first is Tales of Soldiers. Although this contains some of Bierce's more popular stories (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Ridge, Chickamauga…), it's by far the hardest section to get through. Some of these stories are really dull, and almost every one of them features a twist ending. That said, this collection contains George Thurston, one of my all time favourite stories. (Imagine Hemingway crossed with Monty Python.)
The second section, Tales of Civilians, is where things get more interesting. I think it's appropriate to refer to Bierce's work as 'weird fiction', but it's not quite weird in the same way that Lovecraft is weird. His stories often deal with the supernatural, but they're rarely scary.
Different editions of this collection contain different stories.
Can Such Things Be?
("The death of Halpin Frayser", "The secret of Macarger's Gulch", "One summer night", "The moonlit road", "A diagnosis of death", "Moxon's master", "A tough tussle", "One of twins", "The haunted valley", "A jug of sirup", "Staley Fleming's hallucination", "A resumed identity", "A baby tramp", "The night-doings at "Deadman's"", "Beyond the wall", "A psychological shipwreck", "The middle toe of the right foot", "John Mortonson's funeral", "The realm of the unreal", "John Bartine's watch", "The damned thing", "Haïta the shepherd", "An inhabitant of Carcosa", "The Stranger")
These are best of Bierce's darker, spookier tales. Again, none of these stories are terribly scary. It feels like they were written to make you think rather than to make you scream. I liked this collection though. This is the one you want if you're a fan of Robert W. Chambers or the first season of True Detective. (See Haïta the Shepherd and An Inhabitant of Carcosa)
Negligible Tales
("A Bottomless Grave", "Jupiter Doke, Brigadier-General", "The Widower Turmore", "The City of the Gone Away", "The Major's Tale", "Curried Cow", ", "A Revolt of the Gods", "The Baptism of Dobsho", "The Race at Left Bower", "The Failure of Hope & Wandel", "Perry Chumly's Eclipse", "A Providential Intimation", "Mr. Swiddler's Flip-Flap", "The Little Story")
Fairly negligible alright. There's a few funny ones, a few very weird ones, and one (Jupiter Doke) that I don't get at all. City of the Gone Away is definitely worth a read.
The Parenticide Club
("My Favourite Murder", "Oil of Dog", "An Imperfect Conflagration", "The Hypnotist")
Without doubt, my favourite section/collection. These four tales are narrated by individuals who have killed their parents (and others). There's a thoroughly enjoyable nastiness to these characters. The third story, An Imperfect Conflagration, contains what may be the single greatest opening line in the canon of English literature. Here is a text version, and here is an audiobook version. These stories are not scary in the least, but they are truly vile. Do yourself a favour and read them. Honestly. This is the good stuff.
The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter
This is a novella. Apparently it's Bierce's retelling of a German Gothic novel. I didn't know that when I read it back in early 2012. To tell the truth, it wasn't shit or good enough to remember.
The following collections were not included in the book pictured above.
Present at a Hanging
("Present at a Hanging", "A Cold Greeting", "A Wireless Message", "An Arrest", "A Man with Two Lives", "Three and One are One", "A Baffled Ambuscade", "Two Military Executions", "The Isle of Pines", "A Fruitless Assignment", "A Vine on a House", "At Old Man Eckert's", "The Spook House", "The Other Lodgers", "The Thing at Nolan", "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field", "An Unfinished Race", "Charles Ashmore's Trail", "Science to the Front")
This collection is pretty good. The stories are mostly standard ghosty Bierce. Not hugely memorable, but still fun. The Librivox version was perfect for my bus ride into school. Link to Audiobook version here.
Bodies of the Dead
("That of Granny Magone", "A Ligh Sleeper", "The Mystery of John Farquharson", "Dead and 'Gone'", "A Cold Night", "A Creature of Habit" )
This is quite similar to Present at a Hanging. These stories are all very short and about corpses. The first tale, That of Granny Magone, is very obviously an earlier draft of The Boarded Window. I found this collection in an online edition of Can Such Things Be? that also includes most of Present at a Hanging.
The Ocean Wave
("A Shipwreckollection", "The Captain of "The Camel"", "The Man Overboard", "A Cargo of Cat")
This is a short collection of stories about lads on a ship. Not great. Link here.
The Fourth Estate
("Mr. Masthead, Journalist", "Why I Am Not Editing "The Stinger"", "Corrupting the Press", "The Bubble Reputation")
Another collection of stories on a particular topic. This time it's journalism. I read these stories out of order because I didn't know there was a sequence. They didn't make much sense to me at the time, and they weren't interesting enough to reread. Link here.
I've spent a lot of time reading Bierce recently, and while I really enjoyed some of it, a lot of it I could have done without. There are collections out there of just his ghost stories, so if you're interested in checking him out, I'd recommend picking one of those up and downloading the audiobook version of the Parenticide Club. If you are a fan, the book that I have is actually pretty good. All of his good stories are in there, and anything else you can find online if you really want it. I didn't review his fables or the Devil's Dictionary because I haven't read them start to finish, but they are hilarious. They're the kind of thing that you'll flick through for a chuckle now and then.
I did not read or review The Land Beyond the Blow, The Fiend's Delight, or Cobwebs from an Empty Skull. Also, I have seen several references to a story named "The Time the Moon Fought Back" from 1911, but I can't find it anywhere. I don't know whether it really exists or not. Some lists of Bierce's short stories contain one or more of the following: Hazen's brigade, The Ingenious Patriot, Tale of the Sphinx, Revenge, and Visions of the Night. These are not short stories; they are fables, poems or essays. If you notice that I have missed any actual short stories, or know where I can read "The Time the Moon Fought Back", please let me know.
dukederichleau	ghost stories, gothic fiction, gothic literature, horror, short stories, weird fiction	Leave a comment July 12, 2016 June 1, 2017

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What makes an event historic?
What I'm puzzling about is how to distinguish between an incident, an event and history. Any interested in discussing this?
Yes, the "This Day in History" thread is talking about the 1980(?) victory of the US hockey team over the USSR team. And yes, I'm not a hockey fan. But that isn't why I raise the issue at this point. Is it possible for a hockey game to be considered historic? Or for any yearly sports event (as an example) to be more than an event hyped far beyond its historical value? Is Tom Brady's longevity an historic event, or merely an odd factoid about a sport which usually destroys the bodies of its athletes much more quickly than that.
I recognize – let me rephrase this – I believe there are sports events which have some historical significance. Two (related) issues I see as historic might be the introduction of Jackie Robinson to MLB play; another might be recognition of the Negro League as an elite sports league functioning in a legally and culturally bifurcated world.
Moving away from sports, does anybody have thoughts about what makes an incident or event worthy of elevation to historical significance? I can name events, issues and/or occurrences I would label historic events. The Gunpowder Plot comes to mind; the Black death of the mid 14th century is another. Luther's 95 theses; Galileo's telescope spring to mind. The assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand and the Munich Putsch fit the criteria.
Seems to me that for an event to be of historical note, it must in some way alter our way of understanding of what might impact our historic interpretation of the world around us.
Anybody want to play around with what I will admit are vague questions about how we define historical meaning.
And just to make sure my attitude is clear! For the most part, ports don't seem to meet any real requirement as historical events. Hell, even Jesse Owens' success in 1936 Berlin moved nobody anywhere.
Again, not an attack against those who feel strongly about their sports. I'm concerned with a broader description of meaning of what history is or what makes an event historic.
Glasgow UK Posts: 802
I share your doubt that notable sports events can generally be considered 'historic'.
In my mind, for an event to be of historical note, I would suggest the event would have to decisively conclude a series of events (Battle of Zama, for instance, defeating Hannibal and ending Carthage as a serious threat to Rome) or an event that changed the trodden path that came before (I liked your examples in your post).
Have there been any sports events that truly have changed events elsewhere? The American ice hockey victory was noteworthy, but did it alter anything in the grand scheme of things? I'm not sure it did.
No doubt others may disagree and I'd be keen to hear why!
"There is no course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end."
Phil Andrade
London UK Posts: 5271
Actual events are one thing : history another.
The past might well differ from history, in so far as the first is what happened, while the second is what is recorded.
So I would argue that England's World Cup victory over West Germany in 1966 is historic, because it entered national consciousness to a degree that it is enshrined in popular memory of that era.
Likewise, Muhammed Ali's boxing triumph over George Foreman, " The Rumble in the Jungle", in 1974.
Did these events impinge sufficiently on other events to earn the description " historic" ? Yes, I would argue that they did....... to a degree.
They changed perceptions and, I daresay, aspirations.
Regards, Phil
"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!" "That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
Dick Evick
Waco TX USA Posts: 380
In light of our recent winter storm here in Texas I would have to say situations that affect a large part of the population could be considered an historical event. Eight days below freezing here in Central Texas broke all time records.
Dick.
Centre Hastings ON Canada Posts: 11980
I am loathe to restrict discussion to historical events that were transformative.
A sporting event like the Olympic hockey championship in 1980 took place at the height of the cold war. Was it significant? I think that given that the game was billed as a head to head match-up of the proponents of democracy against the evil communists of the USSR, then the game was notable. That may be a silly reason to play a game but I do remember the hype surrounding this match.
Falling short of war, the game did cement the belief that the underdog representative of the western democracies could prevail over this enemy.
Margaret MacMillan in her book, "The War that Ended the Peace" noted that in the 15 years before WW1 broke out that there was great concern that the youth of several nations were becoming soft and less inclined to believe that their honour was tied to fighting in wars. She noted that as football became more popular in France, having been adopted from the British, that the French noted that the game of football was one of intelligence and planning and deception and was ideal for promoting the fitness and competitive spirit needed in war.
So sport may be reflective of societal changes and needs. Having said that, this section of MHO studies a chronology of events with posters choosing to comment or not. And so if an event like the Miracle on Ice was a great occasion, or a confirmation that the US culture was on the right track, then it seems to me that there is no harm in noting it.
Brian, is your opposition to noting sporting events based on the section in which it is noted or to the recognition of sporting events in general?
Wow! Interesting comments. Might take a while to cover all the issues raised.
George, you ask "Brian, is your opposition to noting sporting events based on the section in which it is noted or to the recognition of sporting events in general?" Fair question: I'm assuming you mean am I arguing about any sporting event being listed on "This Day in History", rather than whether sports has a place on any forum.
I don't come across as a sports-minded person, I know. That's not accurate, because there are sports I enjoy watching, and sporting events I enjoy I delight in following. Baseball is a favourite of mine, from minor leagues to the Majors (I'm a Mariners fan, but with strong ties to the Jays). I never tire of the minutiae of the game, or the constant movement on the field; I never tire of the constant one-on-one with each move. Soccer (football) entrances me, though I can see it so relatively seldom that I consider myself an observer rather than a "fan". For some years in the 80s-90s my home was a drop-in site for NFL football. I played some rugby; I was active in a squash league.
All I can do is reiterate that they are sports. I think there are sufficient locations on MHO where folks can talk sport, including both the Community Forum and Yoder's Pub. In fact, I think it's great that MHOers can explore and celebrate mutual interests beyond military history.
I'm not trying to downplay the Gold Medal game in 1980, any more than I'm trying to forget the 1972 USSR-Canada 7-game series – which I did not watch! I'm just saddened (or maybe bored) that a sports feat is in any way an indicator of historical significance. This is just another indication of making a sport a significant event beyond its reality. If you can show me that the US victory made a difference in the ultimate collapse of the USSR a decade later, I'd be interested. In the mean time, all I see is the Free World politicizing a a single event so fully that it becomes a demonstration of how the West has a better system than the USSR. IMHO, that is a load of crap. When you say, "… if an event like the Miracle on Ice was a great occasion, or a confirmation that the US culture was on the right track, then it seems to me that there is no harm in noting it." Provide one indication that the 1980 win has anything to do with a "confirmation" of US culture and I might reconsider your argument. But had the US lost to the USSR, would you be arguing that this was a "confirmation" of Soviet culture? That's what you're implying, IMHO.
My argument is rather simple. Sports are merely sports. There are very few sports events which have had lasting impact on history, or which have altered history. My concern is that by the implying that sports success reflects cultural richness or political viability or social resect demeans both an entire system.
I sense that, increasingly, sports are used as social drugs. Sorry for the rant.
Hello Brian,
I did not view the "Miracle on Ice" as an affirmation of culture or of a political system. However, the event was played up as such.
May I ask why sport cannot be viewed as one element of cultural richness in a country? An individual game may indicate very little about a society but perhaps participation and love of sport in general or a specific sport says something about the vitality of a group of people. So we associate rugby with New Zealand or South Africa, hockey with Canada or sumo wrestling with Japan. New Zealand is much more than rugby but surely it is an important part of the image that we have of the place and the self image that New Zealanders have of themselves.
BTW, did you make a conscious effort not to watch the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviets? For non-hockey fans, this was the first time that Canada's pros met the Soviets. It was expected to be a cake walk but it certainly was not and it captivated the nation.
And on the final game of the eight game series with Canada needing a win to take it, the country came to a standstill. Teachers across the country wheeled televisions into classrooms. There were 22 million of us in 1972 and it was estimated that 15 million were watching that final game. It was wonderful theatre.
Brian, this was a cultural event of importance to most of the people of Canada. It was a chance to revel in watching our countrymen play a sport that is loved here. Did it change the world? Perhaps not at that point but I know that you are aware that contact with these strange men from the USSR led to many more contacts in Canada Cup matches. As I recall, that led to other cultural exchanges mostly related to sport. I like to believe that these were positive developments.
Dick, good to see you checking back in, apparently none the worse for wear. Quote:
In light of our recent winter storm here in Texas I would have to say situations that affect a large part of the population could be considered an historical event.
The fact that your issue is recent, personal and national – and may be of cultural significance as well – makes the call hard. As a storm, it wasn't that big a deal when you get right down to it. Some snow, some cold, some freezing rain; that's kinda winter weather for 90% of Canada and maybe 50+% of the US. So while it is obviously way outside the norms for Texas and surrounding affected regions, and may be considered at least a regional historical event, I don't think it historical in general. To be honest, I would probably rate the current recurring plagues of locusts around the Horn of Africa as more historic: going on longer, affecting more people, causing more human destruction. Unless the locusts and the Texas storm are related.
If – and please, I'm not saying because of – there is any scientific indication that the Texas Deep Freeze or the Horn Locust assault are associated with global climate changes, then the Texas storm may become an historic indicator of climate change. That would raise its status from a regional catastrophe to an historic indicator.
Finally, if – and please, I'm not advocating but only raising this – the issue is one that is ultimately political, then it is a non-starter except as a demonstration of political folly. From my point-of-view, this would turn the Texas storm into a moral issue, where political consistency and intransigency led direectly to at least some of the human lives lost.
With all that said, the problem with looking at the Texas storm is not just that it perhaps too recent to see clearly. It wasn't a "Texas" storm, after all. It was an arctic outbreak that swept as far south as Texas. The impact wasn't from the severity of the storm itself, but from the lack of preparation to deal with such a storm. I don't just mean what I understand to be Texas's reluctance to pay the fees required to be part of larger, regional power grids. It could include everything from inadequate insulation and construction standards for houses, pipes or mobile homes to insufficient stockpiles and delivery systems. Even if these meet 100-year requirements, they cannot protect Texans if their inadequacy isn't recognized, owned and corrected.
Dick, 25 years ago, my little corner of the Wet Coast was hit by a blizzard. IICR, I measured 51" of snow over six days beginning Dec 26, 1996, with temperature below freezing. On Vancouver Island, we were isolated from the Mainland for a week. Not even our military had the capability of moving troops and/or equipment to assist us. Roofs were collapsing; ambulance services were immobilized (we relied on volunteers with snow mobiles or skis and sleds to bring aid to the needy); PSAs were covered by a local radio station (for which they received many well-earned awards). Our city had no snow plows because we didn't normally get snow storms. And when my Victoria hit a spot of nasty weather over the past week (part of the same arctic outflow that hit your Texas), we still had no plows or snow-related emergency services to speak of. I didn't lose power for more than a few minutes, but (partly for pandemic reasons) I didn't leave my apartment for five days.
The "Blizzard of '96" was an historic weather event in Victoria, but only locally, and will probably remain nothing more than that. IISI, the military and the province haven't addressed a single issue which caused the crisis 25 years ago. I hope that doesn't happen to Texas.
One final, brief note. I don't know whether when moving from incident to event to history we might be able to eliminate natural disasters entirely (and, for Christians, I guess that would have to exclude Noah's Flood!) Disasters are human issues.
Time to stop yet another rant. Glad to see you back, Dick. Love to continue this discussion with less immediate examples.
George, this isn't meant to be a personal issue. Quote:
You may not have viewed the "Miracle on Ice" as political, but my point is that 40 years after the event it is being listed as of "historical significance". Whatever it was, I question it's "historical significance". That's the issue I'm raising. What is of historical significance; what is not.
My choice of whether to watch the 1972 Canada-USSR series isn't at issue either, IMHO. The Community College I was teaching at at the time shut down all teaching. It created huge viewing areas for student, faculty and support staff in vRIOUS COMMON AREAS. That was probably only for the last game, but I can't remember; I was teaching in the Soo and one Phil Esposito was on the Canadian roster, so the College may have shut down for more than just the final game. Having the school shut down meant I could use equipment otherwise booked solid (specifically, a sound-proof studio which eliminated the Kincheloe "beep"). "Clean" air time was more significant to me than hockey; I made my choice. It wasn't a conscious effort not to see the games. It was a choice between things I'd rather do. I chose the studio time. And that too has nothing to do with my question. Quote:
History may generate cultural pride, but cultural pride or affiliation doesn't necessarily generate events of historical significance. I have no reason do disagree with your cultural notes, or with you linking them to sports. Again, I think you've infused culture as a surrogate term for history. E.g., IMHO the "cultural link" folks talk about between Canada and ice hockey are embarrassing. To reduce Canadian culture to Maple syrup and ice hockey is about as demeaning as it gets, though I accept the place they play in defining us.
I didn't mean this to be a discussion of culture, or of sports as a factor in culture. I simply wanted to talk about whether there was a common understanding of what history is, or what an historical event might be. Write it a different way, are there criteria for determining if an even is historic?
kaii
Oslo Posts: 2976
Great topic Brian!
I must admit, being quite a sports fan, I am probably inclined to mention a few sports moments as "historic events", but I do get your point that very few sports events could really be considered historic as such.
The one event I can think of that I actually would consider truly historic, for the effect it had on a nation and a continent at the time, was the 1995 South African World Championship win in rugby. I was tremendously lucky to watch that final game live in the stadium in Johannesburg, and it did truly feel like a historic moment when that trophy was lifted.
...but then again, did it actually change anything in the long run. In South Africa and elsewhere. Probably not.
I think perhaps the fact that sports are fairly limited in its coverage and interest, limits the possibility of truly historic moments arising from sports events. The miracle on Ice was huge in the US, not so much elsewhere in the world. Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics was important, but in the end it did not really alter anything from a historical perspective.
One thing one should mention, when it comes to the 1980 game, is, of course that the game was not only politicised in the West. The Soviet Union and the eastern bloc all used sports as a way of showing the superiority of their system, and even went as far as having state run doping programs to ensure their athletes would perform well on the world stage. We see the same in Russia today. Sports is clearly not always "just sports".
But historic? Tough call.
(For me, as a sports interested Norwegian, the date June 24th 1998 stands out as one of the most historic dates in history, right up there with our declaration of independence and constitution day.)
Will write more when I have thought a bit more about this topic.
"My dear boy, as long as you don't invade Afghanistan you'll be absolutely fine." - Harold Macmillan to Alec Douglas-Home upon the latter taking over as PM.
scoucer
Berlin Germany Posts: 2924
This has been one of those interesting posts that has had me thinking. A fascinating question.. ( just like VPs Cost of War). Just haven´t got around to putting my thoughts to paper, ot text.
It´s a pity really. There is an astounding video of Christopher Clark in discussion with the german philosopher Precht to the question "Why study History?". Unfortunately, it´s in german.
`Hey don´t the wars come easy and don´t the peace come hard`- Buffy Sainte-Marie Some swim with the stream. Some swim against the stream. Me - I´m stuck somewhere in the woods and can´t even find the stupid stream.
Michigan Dave
Muskegon MI USA Posts: 6748
I'm to blame for this, aren't I? by sometimes posting significant Sports events in "this day in history!"!?
Sorry, " My bad"!?
"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Why Dave ?
One can talk about the history of sport or the history of fashion. This website is concentrated on but not just, "military" history.
All part of the discussion and the question that Brian has asked.
LOL, Dave! No, there's nothing to be blamed for.
If there is an issue, I was the guy who posed the question.
Kai, thanks. Food for thought.
You got me thinking about Olympics I remember. Sadly, the Munich Olympics (1972) and Atlanta Olympics (1996?) spring to mind, but not for any single sporting event. Black September butchers took gold in 1972; a crazed domestic pipe bomber and domestic terrorist won in 1996. I don't remember winners in any single event. To me, those two acts of terrorism made the Olympics news.
To be honest, for selfish reasons I'd rather move away from this being an issue of whether sports can have historical significance. I enjoy sports in my own fashion, but I certainly neither look for nor expect to see something worthy of status as "history".
How about this? On this day (Feb 26), the following get lead status on two different "This Day in History" sites:
• "History" offers: "2012. Florida teen Trayvon Martin is shot and killed"; and
• "Encyclopedia Britannica" offers: "Napoleon's escape from Elba.
Forced to abdicate as French emperor in 1814, Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba this day in 1815".
Britannica notes the Trayvon Martin killing second in its list for the day; "History" doesn't mention Napoleon's escape from Elba at all.
Both events have human, social and cultural significance. I don't doubt that. But from an historical perspective, I'm not sure they are of equal importance.
I sense my comments will piss some people off. I don't believe that's the case.
I'm not down-playing the murder of a black boy by a publicity-seeking gun-lover with fantasies of heroism. Were we to talk about Trayvon's death, I would include the fact that his death is one of too many black lives taken for no reason in the US. I would probably argue that his death is being lost not because folks no longer care, but because there have been so many black people killed in the past eight years that he has become a less immediate source of rage, losing ground to the dozens of other black deaths that seem to change nothing.
Elba, I get. Napoleon's escape changed Europe, and led to Waterloo and the final incarceration of "The Little Corporal". Napoleon's resurgence changed the world.
I'm thinking with my fingers here. And it must be obvious that I'm simply searching for some views of what constitutes historical events.
Phil, I like what you're arguing when you say:Quote:
I know that you were responding to my initial, rather misguided use of sports, so drawing general conclusions might be both counter-productive and unfair. In effect, are you arguing that history is defined by awareness, or am I pushing your argument too hard? Are you suggesting that a slightly modified version of Bishop Berkeley's Esse est Percipi ("To be is to be perceived" might be a factor? Kind of "It ain't historical if you don't recognize it as historical"? I'm not being flippant or insulting when I ask that.
In the US at least, February is officially (I believe) "Black History Month". I don't honestly know if other countries (Canada, GB, South Africa or others) have adopted this tribute. But let's set aside for the moment the complex issues of the black experience in SA under Apartheid, or the differently complex issues of slavery and indenture throughout the Spice Islands.
This year, more than ever before, I have been exposed to writings, articles, events and arguments which have made me more aware than ever before of the scores (maybe hundreds) of challenges blacks have faced in the US since they were first carried to the New World as slaves. I don't know why, but might suggest any of the following (which could be wrong individually or en masse:
• The apparent resurgence of white nationalism;
• The increased focus on black deaths at the hands of various police forces;
• The change in leadership in Washington DC;
• The increasing intransigence of political parties to address issues which may be considered ancillary to other issues.
What I've been left with is a sense of shame for my ignorance, and of blindness for not becoming aware of black issues sooner, despite a life-long support of the civil rights movement. I've delighted in Jazz and Blues (Mississippi, Delta and the other traditional blues) all my life, but I've suddenly been a window into the culture behind the sound. I'm humbled, and shocked by how easily I've been able to miss or undervalue the daunting life of blacks which have created such joy.
If "Esse est Percipi" might be an historical principle, that doesn't create or define history. But it does suggest (and this seems to be demonstrated by various tribes, nations, cults or ethnic groups) that it creates a framework for perhaps oral tradition, or enrichment, or even expansion of what has been the accepted history to date.
Just thinking off the cuff here. Sorry for the rant.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom .
That film says it all in respect of the things you're talking about : at least, that's my perception.
The movie was released last year, and is being streamed on Netflix .
It's timing coincides with the BLM events that have so galvanised the world of late.
Have you seen it ?
If you have, then forgive me for banging on about it.
If you haven't, I hope you watch it because it's almost tailor made for you, and accords with the interest you display in the posts you make.
I'd love to discuss it with you.
In the meantime, look after yourself and keep us informed about how you're getting on.