The Ballet Of Dr. Caligari & Madder Mysteries by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press / Six Ghost Stories by Montague Summers (with an Introduction by Daniel Corrick), Snuggly Books

Editorial: Welcome, Pan fauns, to the autumn issue. You'll notice I've still not gotten around to committing to the next PROTA, making 2019 noticeably bare in the 'arts' department. Personal health issues and other writing commitments have combined to demand priority. I won't tempt fate with a deadline, but 2020 should see an improvement in this regard. In the meantime, my strange story collection - No-One Driving - should be available, from Amazon's various international pages, as both a paperback and Kindle option from MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER. I'll tiresomely plug it again,...and again..., no doubt, once it is. 

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The Ballet Of Dr. Caligari & Madder Mysteries by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press / Six Ghost Stories by Montague Summers (with an Introduction by Daniel Corrick), Snuggly Books

The signature marks of an Oliver tale are threefold: his unique twist on established horror monsters, his first-hand knowledge of the acting profession, and his specifically English wit. This might just be my favourite Oliver collection to date. In fact, this release – now out in paperback - should ensure him becoming more widely known by surname alone. That his majority output is short fiction rather than novels remains too often considered anathema to greater commercial success.

  'A Donkey at the Mysteries' is another of Oliver's eccentric titles hides a real gem of horror and one of his best, the informed allusions evoking the November Night Tales of Henry Mercer. The narrator recalls visiting by boat the Greek island of Thrakonisos when a student of Classical Antiquity. A book on the locale, procured from his hotel, puts him on the trail of its author and the related presence of a mysterious woman close by. His compulsion only draws him towards a fate that seemed already written. Even more than its telling, I adored its sober and informed telling where his student interest soon becomes yours. More typically Oliverian, 'Baskerville’s Midgets' takes place in the fading days of Rep., where-in two rival troupes of height-restricted acts unwittingly seal not only their own fate in the wider context of changing times, overseen by the jaded disinterest of the narrator’s half-alive landlady. Once the signature territiory of the late Angela Carter, Oliver’s subjective experience reveals him more than up to the task.

  'The Game of Bear' intrigues as being sourced from one of MR James’s incomplete manuscripts. The game of the title, entailing 'stealthy creepings up and down staircases and along passages (to be) leapt upon from doorways with loud and hideous cries,' is, basically, hide-and-seek. Happening present tense during an adults‘ conversation, one of the pair is reminded of the innate fear its sudden shock conclusion had upon him later in life. The daughter of one of their mutual university friends is cited a hostile presence by one of the speakers, whose presence somehow resonated with his phobia. It is from here that James’s MS ends and Oliver takes up the tale, rightly making Caroline Purdue the foregrounded presence. Where a modern writer completing an earlier author’s work is a fraught task, which rarely satisfies, here is a noble exception to the rule. These, and three others forming the book's first half were first published in the complete Madder Mysteries by Ex-Occidente in 2009.

  Subsequently, 'The Ballet of Dr Caligari' neatly parallels the perverted tale-within-a-tale of the classic 1919 film. Here, a young composer is unexpectedly called upon to collaborate on a stage play; a long-held labour of love by an ageing, once feted, choreographer. The denouement is as Grand Guignol as its inspiration. 'Porson's Piece' is as genteel as folk horror gets. Sir Bernard Wilkes is another of Oliver's faded figures; in this case, a former Oxford Philosophy head, with a reputation as a maverick and womaniser. One of his former students – now a BBC producer – means to approach him to take part in an intellectual panel programme. She re-discovers him, slightly dominated by his housekeeper and somewhat haunted by his surroundings. (Hence the title). Genteel, perhaps, but it also delivers a climax with a suitably contrasting chill.

Clergyman, occult specialist, spook tale anthologist, and theatre buff, the name 'Montague Summers' (1880-1948) has somewhat faded from the literateur's radar over the past thirty years. With the asexual image of a plump Edwardian maiden aunt, with a long-held passion for Reformation-era witchcraft, this is, perhaps, unsurprising. (After converting to Catholicism in 1909, a name change – to Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers – intimated another influence). In terms of output, for genre fans he remains best known as the editor-compiler of the 600+ page anthology, The Supernatural Omnibus (1931), subsequently reissued during the Seventies and Eighties, and still an ideal second-base for those wishing to take the form seriously.

  Summers' own prose has that genteel, middle-class, is-there-honey-still-for-tea echo, so redolent of England's interwar years. It's an acquired taste and one I've less time for today than formerly, my own having branched out into less derivative, more sophisticated, European literature. (Ironically, helped, in part, by Snuggly's own committed catalogue). The first tale presented here feels somewhat rushed and likely – as is pointed out – victim to being 'typed out by a hand not his own.' A bouyant drawing-room wit airs the narrative‘s lungs, although Summers‘ – like Robert W. Chambers and others before him – is at his best when most serious. (Something this reader hungers after).

  The narratives of three of the six, however, have superior focus and, consequently, attention to detail. 'The Governess,' where-in a young woman seeking work is inveigled into a secret, long-held familial feud, plays out a clever, internecine puzzle with a far from predictable climax. 'The Grimoire' features the classic trope of the discovery of an age-old illicit (as in 'un-christian') text, penned by a dark and dubious authority. In this case, an allegedly Roman source, which title translates as The Secret Mystery, or The Art of Evoking Evil Spirits with certain other Most Curious and Close Matters. If a premise lacking in originality, I always enjoy such tales and, here, Summers doesn’t disappoint; as is the case with 'The Man on the Stairs.' In the smoking-room 'of a well-known London club,' a male quartet agree to a £100 wager on surviving the night at the reputedly haunted Cheriton Manor and a portrait of wicked Black Dormer.

  Another two of the six, 'A Toy Theatre' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' feature darkly thespian themes of revenge and murder - no stranger to Reggie Oliver - although the latter bears the finer literary, less declamatory, approach. A short, but mixed bag, yet I’m intrigued enough by the best to purchase the follow-up. A second Summers volume, collecting his remaining genre writing – The Bride Of Christ & Other Fictions – is promised from this publisher next year. On a side note; while not strictly genre works, his Omnibus's subsequent non-fictional studies, The Gothic Quest (1938) and A Gothic Bibliography (1941) proved just as influential to burgeoning post-war scholars.

Brutal Pantomimes by Rhys Hughes, Egaeus Press / Masques Of Satan by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press

Firstly, I'd like to welcome back all Pan's readers' after this (to me) unwanted two-month hiatus. All entirely my fault, after involving my laptop in an accident of my own making. Still, we return with something rather different; a Q & A with the author of the first collection under review, Brutal Pantomimes; the feverishly prolific Rhys Hughes...

Many of your absurdist tales seem to culminate in climaxes that reveal their own internal logic. When you begin drafting an absurdist tale, do you therefore know in advance how it should finish?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, and sometimes it’s somewhere between the two extremes. A story can be very carefully planned. For example, with my novel The Percolated Stars I planned each chapter in advance, so I knew what was going to happen in the story when I sat down to write it, but actually I did make adjustments when I was filling in the details too. This method is almost geometric. I might see an overriding shape, a symmetry that controls the story like an internal or external skeleton. With other stories I set off blindly, having no idea what’s going to happen, and writing stories in this manner is almost like reading them as I write. This is the method I am using with the story I’m writing at the moment, a weird Western called The Honeymoon Gorillas that may turn into a novella or even a novel. I don’t know where it’s going or what’s going to happen in it yet. But even this method isn’t as purely random as it might sound, because as I progress with the writing, certain aims and objectives slowly begin to create themselves, to form vague patterns that become sharper as the story moves ahead. It’s like mist starting to form a definite outline. When I work this way, I generally just leave lots and lots of loose ends lying about, as many as possible, and don’t worry about tying them up, because they will often tangle together and tie themselves up. This creates a pleasing unpredictability. Any loose ends that don’t tie themselves up on their own, I will turn my attention to as the story reaches a conclusion. Both these methods have their advantages. Often, however, I will work in a way that combines these extremes. I may have a very nebulous idea of what I want, and I will see certain scenes with clarity, like stills from a film, and then I will try to link what is certain with what is still unknown. Or I may have a very precise frame for the story but within this frame anything can happen provided it fits the frame properly. That’s a bit like some forms of jazz, I guess. Also, I am happy to change direction at any stage in a story and to keep changing it, so I do tend to surprise myself. But now I am no longer really surprised that I surprise myself.

Obviously you've approved them all, but which are your favourite tales in BRUTAL PANTOMIMES — and why?

The first and last stories in the book are my favourites. The opening story, ‘The Jam of Hypnos’ was written secretly in a busy office when I was working for a local government department many years ago. I was supposed to be preparing boring statistical reports on local health issues, but when my manager wasn’t looking I would type a few more lines of my story. With this particular tale I wanted to write something totally absurd that didn’t feel at all absurd. There is something peculiar I have noticed about weird tales. I know that weird tales are supposed to be peculiar, but I don’t mean that. I mean that all supernatural and weird tales are inherently absurd, but we don’t regard them all as absurd. So we treat certain weird tales with a serious respect and others we consider comical pieces. Strictly speaking we should regard them all as comical, but we don’t. It’s something to do with tone. A story by M.R. James, for instance, such as ‘A View from a Hill’ is actually extremely silly in its conception and execution. It’s as comical as a story about, let’s say, a walking talking chair that learns to ride a unicycle. But the James story doesn’t feel comical or silly, despite the fact that binoculars filled with the juice of boiled bones that enable one to see into the past is no less daft an idea that that of a living chair pedalling a unicycle. So I became acutely interested in why this should be. The discrepancy fascinated me. With ‘The Jam of Hypnos’ I tried to write a story that was impossible and utterly whimsical but which felt like a serious weird tale. And it seems to have worked. Readers who don’t like the comical or whimsical or ironic in fiction have praised the story, even though it ends with a man sailing a lake of jam on a raft made of toast. I have used a certain tone and style to deflect the impact of the nonsensical resolution of the story and to make it seem acceptable to those who only enjoy very straight and serious weird tales. As for the last story in my book, the novella ‘The Impossible Inferno’, this is very special to me for several reasons. The central idea of the story is one I carried around in my head for most of my life before I felt ready to embody it in a proper story. I had the idea when I was very young and I knew I lacked the ability to power a story with it then, so I kept it and allowed it to gestate deep in my mind. Finally I sat down and wrote it and it ended up being my 500^th story.

Where did your seeming obsession with puns stem from — and does it pre-date your literary influences?

Am I obsessed with puns? Maybe I am. If so, it certainly doesn’t predate my literary influences. It certainly would have come from the books I was reading that I found enjoyable for reasons of their wordplay. Finnegans Wake is the obvious example, but I didn’t read anything by Joyce until quite late in my working life. A more plausible direct influence would be Barefoot in the Head by Brian Aldiss, which utilizes the brilliant conceit that a world war has been fought with psychedelic weapons in order to simultaneously evolve and devolve the language the story is told in. As perceived reality becomes more distorted, so language adapts accordingly. This is still one of my favourite Aldiss novels. Two other books had a similar, perhaps even stronger effect on me. Cabrera Infante’s La Habana para un Infante Difunto and Julián Ríos’ Larva: Babel de una noche de San Juan. Both are not only rife with puns and other verbal tricks of language but also burst with a vigorous eroticism that seems amplified by the way the authors approach the problem of style. The vitality of what happens is matched by the vitality of the telling and both books are not only playful but powerful and enthralling too. Both examples are unusual because modern Spanish literature is not noted for its love of wordplay. The days of Quevedo are long gone. French literature, on the other hand, has many examples of writers who indulge and experiment with puns and wordgames very entertainingly. Boris Vian is one of my main literary heroes and his novels are packed with puns and verbal pyrotechnics. The originality of his language complements the originality of the substance of his books, which are always delightful. He was also a jazz musician and I wonder if the way he wrote somehow was an analogue of the kind of music he played? When I first read his Froth on the Daydream, I realised that I had encountered a writer who was my ideal type. But I must have loved puns before then in order to go with his flow so willingly. I doubt that anyone who dislikes puns can be converted into liking them by any book in existence.

What compels you to being quite so prolific?

Ideas appear in my head all the time. They keep coming and I have to embody them in stories in order to make them go away. If I don’t do this, they will keep on bothering me. When I began writing stories I found the creation of ideas to be hard work, but it’s a question of practice, like anything else. The more you pedal a bicycle, the stronger your calf muscles will become. The more you balance on a giant sphere, the less likely you will be to fall off. The more often you knit with partly boiled spaghetti, the greater the chances that a pasta cardigan will eventually become fashionable reality. And the more you try to write stories with unusual ideas, the more easily and smoothly unusual ideas will come to you, whether you want them to or not! I have reached the stage where ideas come unbidden. They come of their own accord at all times of the day and night, but chiefly when I am out walking. So many ideas come to me now that I have to use up many at the same time by putting them all into one story and seeing how they react to each other. Often they clash or combine and generate something unexpected and useful. This is one of the reasons my style is the way it is. It sounds as if my work will be cluttered as a result but that’s where the challenge to make all the diverse elements fit together properly comes in. That’s what requires the extra effort.

I've read elsewhere you saying you've no interest in being 'political' in your tales. Yet, like several of your literary influences, it is often downtrodden or disadvantaged protagonists who fight to gain freedom or some kind of salvation and often succeed. Could you clarify your position?

I don’t set out to be deliberately political. I have no left wing or right wing or any wing agenda to promote. As for the downtrodden protagonist who fights against the system, such an individual can represent any or no political ideal. The desire to win freedom is deeper than politics, in my view. It’s at the core of existence. Of course, there are those who say that everything is political, and they may well be right, and I guess that liberty is often seen as the biggest political issue of all. But in my own mind ‘political’ fiction means something different, something other than a simple connection with the pure questions of freedom. It means not only a kind of fiction that has an intention to pass on a set of predetermined social or economic messages that have been approved by at least a sizeable minority of other people, but also that there must be some sort of bureaucratic element to the messages. In other words the ideas in the messages are going to need a certain amount of paperwork in order to be implemented. There are going to be financial ramifications, agreements drawn up, contracts, diplomacy, a lot of effort. But freedom shouldn’t have a bureaucratic input at all. So I really don’t think I do political fiction. I guess that the most political aspect of my life is an environmental awareness, but I don’t consciously use my fiction to promote environmental issues, or if I do, then it’s not systematic. But it’s certainly true that the environment is the most important political issue we have right now. Without an environment, none of the other political issues can even exist, because we simply won’t be here.

What literature, or authors, do you read that might surprise people as having no obvious connection to your public work?

I read a lot of fiction that has no connection or influence on my own work. In fact I often get more enjoyment from such fiction. The problem is that when we are young we read books for enjoyment. Then we decide we want to write books too, so we do. But when they are published and we become authors, we can no longer read books the same way we did. An author isn’t able to read in the same way as a pure reader. The author is constantly looking for techniques in the work he or she is reading, looking for clues, for ways to improve, for things to be deliberately inspired by. Reading becomes almost a search for style, a quest for advancement. Authors can’t immerse themselves in the reading experience is the same way. This is why it’s a relief as well as a pleasure to read books that form no part of one’s own strivings. So most of the books I read are not fantasy based. They may be ironic or satirical or philosophical, but they tend to have at least one foot in this world. Thinking about the authors who I have discovered in the past few years who have most impressed and entertained me, few are associated directly with fantastical or weird writing. Ismail Kadare is probably the best writer I have discovered in recent years. At this very moment I am reading novels by V.S. Naipaul and R.K. Narayan, both of them writers with similar concerns but very different approaches and intentions. Milan Kundera is another author who has been a recent enthusiasm. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is one of my heroes. When I was younger I tended to go for fantasy and science fiction over anything else. These days I often ignore the fantasy and SF sections of a bookstore altogether. It could simply be, I guess, that I have read so much fantasy and SF over the years that I need a break for a few more years. That possibility has crossed my mind.

Your love of the Mediterranean and its various cultures is well known. Is its past culture – to us more conservative Northern Europeans - of hedonism and eroticism of particular appeal? And to what extent do you consciously, or otherwise, draw upon them for your work?

I am sure that the hedonism and eroticism are a large part of the appeal. I know, for instance, that epic fantasy with its roots in the Nordic world, the myths and cultures of the north, has never quite enthralled me in the same way as those more sultry romances that seem to stem from a southern influence. I use the word ‘romance’ in the old fashioned sense. There is also the fact that the Ancient Greek myths were a big part of my childhood reading. The ambience stayed with me. The answer might even be more straightforward than seeking some kind of aesthetic or spiritual connection. It could just be that I prefer warmer climates and I abhor the cold. This is something else that has changed over time. Winter was once my favourite season and the possibility of a snowball fight excited me beyond measure. Now I dread the onset of winter. I am a summer man entirely. This is true to the extent that I truly live only in the summer months. Half of my life is spent waiting and praying for summer. It’s not a real life. I think that spending time in Africa reset my internal thermostat somehow. The obvious solution is to permanently move to a warm country, of course, but this requires money. Nonetheless it remains my goal. I need to find a way of writing books that are more popular than the ones I currently write in order to finance and facilitate my escape.

I'd like to thank Rhys Hughes for taking the time out to respond.

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Newly-reissued in paperback is Reggie Oliver's third collection, originally published by Ash-Tree in 2007. As with his others,' derivative of any other author of the strange they are not.

  The alleged 'horror' in Oliver's tales rarely, truly rears its head until the denouement. Up until that point, we are on the trail of some seemingly conventional mystery; however, where most of this genre's authors' set a scene heading for some near inevitable downfall, Oliver's disarming wit and personal knowledge of the suburban, thespian classes of Southern England he writes about can successfully blind the most seasoned reader to the most unforeseeable outcomes.

  We rarely share in the Gothicists' dark, internal mania that builds to the inevitable climax. Instead, we are treated to informed, well-crafted and moderately-paced situations redolent of those TV anthology series of the Seventies, filtered through Oliver's brand of disarming irony. The old skool feel stems from his experiences as a then young stage actor and subsequent playwright. A quite unique writer's resume amongst the current generation of 30-40-something bedroom-based Goth Horror-ists.

  The humour emanates from here, too. Hear satirical echoes of Tom Sharpe, David Nobbs and perhaps even The Smoking Diarist, Simon Gray. I suspect Oliver could produce an excellent radio sitcom if he so desired, along the lines of 'Ed Reardon's Week,' straddling realism and surrealism with equal aplomb...

  Regional archetypes represented here include an elderly National Trust guide with an unwitting, sinister connection to the grand house's history; ('The Man in the Grey Bedroom'); a children's entertainer whose true character harbours something much worse; ('Mr. Poo-Poo'); a vengeful spirit, in life betrayed in love, replays fate from a dilapidated theatre; ('Blind Man's Box); while a translator, down on his luck, is offered riches in exchange for prostituting his craft, which either pure logic or pure madness resolves. (The Machen-influenced 'The Silver Cord'). The combination of tales, as ever from disparate sources, works well; being as complimentary as they are contrasting.

  If there is any doubt, it is that some of the tales of modern-day setting feel rather too light to become full-bloodedly 'weird.' This has more to do with the aforementioned Home Counties settings, and staid types chosen, than the prose style, which always satisfies. Oliver is at his best when his narrative preception is ambiguous or strange, be it 'Bloody Bill,' (from The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler) or 'Lightning' (in Flowers Of The Sea). Yet, like all the best authors,' he writes about what he knows, and what he knows rarely fails to engage. He is an individualist rather than a type and God knows we need more of them. I hope an equivalent reissue for the hard-to-find Madder Mysteries isn't too far away.

Mercury Blobs by Sylvia Petter, Raging Aardvark Publishing (Australia)

Mercury directly harms the human neurological system causing problems with speech and memory, among other symptoms. It may also be a useful motive for this collection's various protagonists.
   Here we discover forty pieces of flash fiction and, as such, are glimpses into psyches that any one of which may one day play out into further scenes of a longer family saga. Single descriptions here would be unfair, inevitably giving too much away from such economical prose.
  Favoured themes include murderous intent, vampirism, personal fears, food and, inevitably, 'the ways of love.' The stabs of black humour that peppered Back Burning (Interactive Press) (Petter's second collection, Pan Reviewed two years ago) are here further to the fore. Also present are its touches of humility that thankfully never descend to fake or awkward pathos.
  Alongside the more fantasy-orientated sketches, the all-too-short 'true life' takes are, quite simply, moving, intimating the requisite life experience to expand into a future novel. (Elizabeth Jane Howard could do with a successor). So, Petter is especially strong when wryly reflecting upon seasoned relationships alongside those hoped for that may never be.
  Uncanny glimpses occasionally wink from this necessity of what is left out; be it a near-fatal accident ('The Hook'), a window into the mind of a serial killer ('Widow's Peak'), a dalliance with temptation ('Golden Lover'), or an ambiguous motive (and a favourite, 'Uncle Henri').
  The mature perspectives tantalise, crying out for a longer work, which, I hope, Petter will produce in the fullness of time.

　

                                                  ALBERTINE'S WOOERS


Reggie Oliver has three works newly available. Virtue In Danger (Ex-Occidente) is a comic novel by the short tale master. Couched within retro theatrical covers and a design of decadent maroon, it tells of the fundamentalist Moral Regeneration Movement and its cult-ish members vying to take over from their adored but ailing leader. The narrative perspective is from one Ivor Smith, an indifferent, independently minded actor unwisely hired by the MRM to theatrically portray their message of high moral tonality. (While "for him the job was simply an escape from a failed marriage and a faltering career"). The lampooning, while undeniably present, is credibly restrained, with the satirical touch of the late Tom Sharpe. In inspiration, I was reminded of the moral campaigners of the Festival of Light and its leaders' attempts to conscript second-rate celebrities to its cause. Recommended. Also out is Oliver's Flowers of the Sea - Thirteen Stories and Two Novellas (Tartarus Press), his sixth collection of strange stories containing ‘Introduction’ by Michael Dirda, ‘A Child’s Problem’, ‘Striding Edge’, ‘Hand to Mouth’, ‘Singing Blood’, ‘Flowers of the Sea’, ‘Lord of the Fleas’, ‘Didman’s Corner’, ‘The Posthumous Messiah’, ‘Charm’, ‘Between Four Yews’, ‘The Spooks of Shellborough’, ‘Süssmayr’s Requiem’, ‘Come Into My Parlour’, ‘Lightning’, ‘Waving to the Boats’ and ‘Author’s Note’. Still available, also from Tartarus, (and reviewed in these pages), is The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler.

The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler & Other Strange Stories by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press

First published in hardback in 2005, this boldly-titled collection is now re-released with detailed illustrations by the author himself.
  The prose throughout reads as conventional first-person reportage, Oliver's (MR) James-ian knowledge reflected in several ecclesiastical settings.  What elevates it above most such referential nods are the ironic, post-colon reflections of cynical wit informing how seriously - or otherwise - a tale should be taken.
  For a single collection, this is quite a hefty tome; sixteen tales running to 338 pages. Oliver's fascination with all aspects of English history are here; from present-day researching of late 17th century correspondence ('The Sermons of Doctor Hodnet') to that of a contemporary play-script ('The Constant Rake') to an 'am dram' company in an indeterminate period post-War. ('The Skins').
  The title tale concerns the narrator claiming to have found a CD box-set bearing this name in a Magnum record store, its possibly credible contents, and the ubiquitous figure subsequently stalking him, who'll go to suicidal lengths to get it returned.  The tale is surreal and quietly mad, to say the least, positing questions it has no intentions of answering.
  The narrative voice is akin to wry, articulate bar-room anecdotage.  Occasionally, its very matter-of-factness can - where a climactic murder takes place - rob a tale of rising tension. Where it occurs out-of-the-blue, it's with little pre-emptive build that something extraordinary is about to occur.  'A Nightmare Sang' - a black comedy-horror reminiscent of an installment from those overwrought budget filmed anthologies of the 60s' and 70s' - suffers this, and is, consequently, the least successful entry.
  Oliver's strength are those tales in which such killings do not play out.  On the ending that is simply downbeat he is very good. 'The Skins,' 'Difficult People' and 'The Babe of the Abyss' each culminate in a sombre twist, which satisfyingly belies expectation.
  The best tales in this regard are hard to fault and deserving of future anthology.  'The Garden of Strangers' features the aged reflection of a once ambitious American journalist in the Paris of 1900, arrived to interview the ailing Oscar Wilde.  It is one of two meditations on the nature of suicide ('A Christmas Card' being the second) and, perhaps, the most life-affirming as Oliver's Wilde recalls the spirit-visitants he encountered whose respective fate helped inform his own decision.
  'Difficult People' is set in the late Sixties, appearing as a comment on the period and the shallowness of a generation who, through their own belief-system, could so easily be led to a self-destructive fate. Disguising this is a tale of possession by a work of art with a life of its own.
   The Aickman-esque 'Bloody Bill' works superbly as each anecdote presented harbours a mystery that demands, but barely obtains, resolution.  William Hexham - a former Eton housemaster and the 'Bill' of the title - is painted by the younger fellows as a figure to be feared, even hated, for his once physical prowess and quick, overbearing temper.  But is he the man he once was? Has age withered him?  Oliver is cunning in never actually showing what formed this reputation, suggesting Hexham is something other, while intimating what he truly is may be merely dormant - or a harboured sadness of non-achievement.  But the real achievement is in Oliver making us - the reader - fear him.
  The broad sweep of English social history alone, displayed here, should galvanise those new to this author into seeking out his other collections.
 

Intrusions by Robert Aickman, Tartarus Press

Reggie Oliver is correct when, in this new edition's foreword, he states
these stories are not inconclusive - as so often attributed - (by this
reviewer included) since they each, at least, have a beginning,
middle and end; only 'puzzles remain.' As readers, we can easily trail
the what of unfurling events, but only very rarely the why.
The protaganist's true motive remains staunchly couched in ambiguity,
invariably maintained up to. and including, the tale's climax.
  One harboured motive used on occasion here - as in Aickman's six
previous collections - is that of impotence. A general Aickman scenario
features a main narrator, or character, caught at a time when they are
most psychologically vulnerable to outside influence; possibly at the
point of breakdown.  A mental barrier to self-acknowledgement
presents itself, from the outset, as that character's normalcy.
Effectively, the ambiguity is the normalcy.
  This may all appear somewhat academic and dry, but it explains
why a simple encapsulating review for each tale is such a challenge.
Much is left unexplained, and intentionally so.  As with the most
sublime 'crimes,' it is left to the reader to fill in the gaps. If frustrating
for some, I for one enjoy the challenge.
  'Hand in Glove' concerns two women friends arriving at a scenic
country spot for a picnic, arranged by Winifred for the recuperative
benefit of Millicent after the final breakdown of the latter's
relationship. Intimations of neediness in Millicent are revealed from
the start while she interprets what she sees en route in ways the clear-
headed Winifred casually counters.  While both women share
subsequent experiences, it is undoubtedly a ghostly vision by Millicent,
toward the climax, which begs one question as to whether Winifred
wasn't only her friend but present in a capacity rather more official.
I'll confess the final seven lines not only confirmed this suspicion
but also moved me to tears.
  With 'No Time is Passing' I found Aickman at his most obscure.
With his wife Hesper delayed by a commitment at work, Delbert
Catlow explores for the first time the river at the back of their new
home; a ground floor flat in a nineteenth century house.  A dishevelled
-looking young man on the other side beckons him across to his own
more makeshift dwelling. A moored scull at the bottom of some
descending steps so entices Delbert aboard.  On arrival, he soon
realises his new neighbour may be more than merely eccentric as
bizarre mind games are employed to stop him from leaving.
The tale is literal enough, but signposts are deployed which appear
to have little allusion to anything greater.  e.g. Delbert's stopped watch;
the ninety-minute window before Hesper's likely return, etc.
The title so stating only what is obvious.
  'The Fetch' is a psychological horror of one man's repressed guilt,
where-in the character Leith is trapped by the great fear of his
childhood, manifest in the (subjective?) form of a familiar - a sea-borne
old woman - the 'auld carlin' and 'fetch' of the title - who returns to land
to claim those Leith has loved and, somehow, failed.  Its few water-
dripping approaches are singularly nightmarish; more so delivered in
Aickman's cool, partially glimpsed, 'intrusions.'  He is never bettered
when flashing passed us such glimpses.
  'The Breakthrough' is Aickman at his most atypical; a period piece
centering around a Civil War-era incident where an alleged rebuilding
accident cracks open the local church floor, unleashing a dormant
being that reeks havoc in the 'God-forsaken' village and among the
flock of two sparring churchwardens.  Blackly comedic, it's also
cleverly true to the ignorance pertaining at the time in which it is set.
  'The Next Glade' sees Noelle, a guest at a houseparty, fall prey to
a mystery man who ingratiates himself with her.  He suggests he
visit her later, without, as she points out, having asked for her
address. A little research on her part fails to confirm the identity
of the man or that he was even a guest of the hosts.
On arriving at her place, he appears restless, encouraging Noelle to
walk with him into the woods nearby. Nothing untoward happens,
until the man wanders into the next glade of the title.
Then, to Noelle, at least, he disappears.  On re-emerging much later,
he seems in a different guise altogether, no longer amorous, and more
of a stranger.  As with 'Hand in Glove' and 'Letters to the Postman'
that follows, the narrator appears to have constructed his / her
own fantasy perception around a situation or character, which
objective truth subsequently, partially, unveils.
  'Letters to the Postman' indulges to the full this sub-topic of
wish-fulfillment in a series of anonymous pleas for help, left in a
letterbox by a woman apparently trapped in a violent relationship.
These are supportively answered by the well-intentioned, if possibly
impotent, hand of a rookie mailman who still lives with his mother.
Aickman cleverly plays out Robin Breeze's pubescent-type fantasies
in a way only someone as unworldly as Breeze could've manifested.
Indeed, the 'victim' woman, when she apparently appears, too
conveniently seems the woman of his dreams, until any likelihood of
conjugals are firmly scotched. You feel as if Breeze - rather than
Aickman himself - had written the script for things to turn out as they
do.
  This seventh collection - released in Aickman's sixty-sixth year - rivals
his best work, provided you can indulge in the corresponding, thought-
provoking shocks and character ambiguity that raise the bar in tow.