Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's Ghostly Tales
commentary by rbadac
There's a class of ghost story writers who are well regarded in that the style in which they write suits the ghost story in a peculiar fashion; that is, their particular abilities enhance an aspect or aspects which are recognized as central to a spectral tale properly told. A writer might be good at the creation of gradual suspense, or artful misdirection, or at that rarified Atmosphere we all know & love, or of the delicate mechanics of the Chill, or simply possessed of a sound, interesting manner by which the elements in a story of this type can be related effectively. Writers in this category would include plenty of our favorites, names like Wakefield, Hartley, Benson, Aickman, & perhaps the categorical king, M.R. James.
Then there is another class that is informed by just good writing in general, a group that could report on a bake sale & make it sound interesting; & somebody call me on this if I'm being unfairly sex-specific here, but I believe the bulk of women writers of the ghost story fall into this category: Bowen, Sinclair, Riddell, Wharton, & plenty of others being joined by male counterparts like Onions, Burrage, Walpole, & Kirk, all being simply strong writers who just happen to pick up the ghost story along with anything else they feel like juggling, & are able to keep everything in the air with equal ease. There are arguably writers who belong in both categories simultaneously, merely by virtue of the fact that their overall grasp of the craft happens to take a form that creates a "ghost story archetype"; I would name someone like De La Mare for instance in this context as someone who makes a good story sound like a ghost story, & vice versa (then of course there is the example of the writer who excels in making bullshit sound like valid commentary, & that would be me, but somebody else can write that essay).
The point of all this (yes, there is one) was to lead up to the ghost story writer I consider king of this second category, & that is Joseph Sheridan LeFanu.
He's such a well-worn shoe to aficionados that they forget sometimes just how really great he is. I know when the subject arises I'm occasionally tempted to go, "Yeah, yeah, he's fabulous all right, who's that cute little antiquarian over there in the corner I've never heard of?" most times just because he is so familiar; but every time I actually pick him up to read, I always come away amazed at the insoucient mastery he has of his material.
Stories usually begin with long, languid sentences of place evocation, or with detailed capsular character introduction (either or both the kind of Victorian picture-framing one would expect of the period); LeFanu tosses them off like Bach arpeggios without even breathing hard, then suddenly transforms the action into something more unexpected. He leaves other writers of the time behind as he goes into areas some modern practicioners have trouble with, despite having more apparent claim to the ideas themselves. His characters have various convoluted neuroses which give them a startling sense of reality. His "potboiler" style makes for rollercoaster reading, & his ghosts, as Peter Penzoldt says, are "no longer pallid shades, but alarming & pugnacious spectres."
When the tale is in full swing, there's no wasted effect. The accumulation of interest resembles a freight train with three cowcatchers -- he writes as if he's afraid he'll lose the reader if he glances away for a second. After awhile you forget it's a ghost story at all-- you cease to care what it is -- & of course you get clouted all the harder when you find out. That's entertaining writing, pure & simple.
The progression of his career through his stories, novels, & other writing (he was also a poet) is a downward spiral not so much of failing ability as of an encroaching pessimism that finally overcomes his work and, in the end, him as well. Some of you are no doubt familiar with the anecdote of his last years spent in reclusive existence, in which he was beset with nightmares, the most significant one being an obsessive fixation with a huge crumbling mansion that was in danger of collapse-- his own psychological House of Usher, as it were -- & upon his death of heart attack, his doctor's remark that "that house must have fallen at last."
Michael Begnal's critical study of him, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu (Bucknell University Press; NJ, 1971) highlights a period of especial interest to us, a point we could regard as a peak in his supernatural fiction, past all of his best novels & most of his bleakest, & a culmination of themes he worked in his previous ghost stories. This is the publication of In A Glass Darkly (London; Richard Bentley, 1872). I see on the new bookshelves lately that this has recently been reprinted in one of those very attractive (and very affordable) Wordsworth paper editions. The stories of course are easily available in the Bleiler Dovers too.
(Spoilers !) A piquant group they are: "Green Tea," "The Familiar," "Mr. Justice Harbottle," "Carmilla," & "The Room In The Dragon Volant," which is not supernatural. One of the striking points Begnal makes is that here we have three representative pillars of morally corrupt society, religious, aristocratic, & legal, all suicides, each pursued by guilt in the form of a haunting. The two forms of sex addressed fare somewhat better, the pseudo-Lesbianism of "Carmilla" & the romantic naivete of "Volant" being respective fats yanked from the fire by their protagonists.
(More spoilers !!) How many of you see the monkey in "Green Tea" as a backhand against Darwin for his "faith-destroying" Descent of Man?! The poor Reverend Jennings cuts his throat because the monkey will not allow him to preach or pray. One wonders what might be made of green tea itself.
The explanation for "The Familiar" (aka "The Watcher," an earlier story of LeFanu's recouched as a Dr. Hesselius case) at least leans both ways in the manner of a Val Lewton film, as does "Harbottle," though it wouldn't be arguable from a spectral standpoint if one were a character in the story, the only witness being deceased.
I'm not at all comfortable with my ghosts being actually hidden morals-- I much prefer them as unapologetic & separate entities of chaos -- & the ambiguity is obviously a "have one's cake & eat it too" setup, either to please the greatest number of readers or as an admission that there are no easy answers for either camp. Still it's a compromise I don't mind if it's presented as skillfully as a Lewton or a LeFanu presents it, & these stories are not only ahead of their time, but remarkably relevant to ours.