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Ghost stories

bookitty said:
King's The Shining was the only novel that actually scared me. Before that it was my step-dad's awesome collection of EC comics. Vault of Horror, ShockSuspend Stories, and quite a few of the stories found in Weird Science & Weird Fantasy.

The art was superb (Wally Wood's work is gorgeous in the SF stuff, especially disturbing for horror.) and the stories were unrelenting. Step-dad was very protective of these collector's items, it was an honor to be trusted with them. I had to wash my hands before reading them and turn each yellowing page very carefully. To a 10 year old's mind, this translates to something sacred. Especially since the common theme in all the collections was justice, revenge, compromised morals and comeuppance.

Reading them felt like being allowed into some dark grown-up world of mystery. They were more "real" than the Stranger Than Fiction-style books, I could get at the library.

It made such an impression that I can still get a fun little shiver from re-reading them. (In the hardbound reprints, sadly. It's not quite the same.)
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maybe you could write a story yourself?
 
Cainkane1 said:
if I've given you the idea that I personally believe in ghosts then you need to think again. There are no ghosts, no angels, no gods. The world would be more exciting if there were but there are not. Stephen King did say he believed in the supernatural but I personally do not and would not be afraid to stay alone all night in a so called haunted house. At least i wouldn't be afraid of the ghost. I might be afraid to stay all night in an abandoned house because of transients.
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No, I didn't think that at all; you made it clear in the OP that you no longer believe in ghosts. What I'm arguing against is the idea that Stephen King's stories are so good because he personally believes in the supernatural, ghosts, vampires, etc.

He might have believed at one time, perhaps as a young person as most of us did, but according to the quotes I could find from various interviews, he no longer does. Also, as I established in my first post in this thread, WP Blatty does not believe in such things, either, and yet he wrote the exquisite novel The Exorcist and its compelling sequel, Legion.

A yahoo search for "authors believe ghosts" will yield a number of successful horror authors, including the Japanese writer of The Ring, who also do not believe in what they write about.
 
I was very young, maybe 10 or so when I read LaFanu's "The Room in the Tower" and it scared the heck out of me. I was afraid of portraits for years after that, but strangely fascinated by one I had in my room. It was a copy of Renois's "Irene de Anvers" if I spelled that correctly. That beautiful girl haunted me for years.

I couldn't bring myself to take the portrait down from my bedroom wall, but it gave me many bad dreams and a few nightmares. Now I have a new copy and it is one of my favourite portraits ever. I still love "The Room in the Tower" but it doesn't frighten me anymore.

But the fact that one small story could affect me so profoundly still amazes me.

And packed away for a hopeful move when this housing market improves is my collection of hardback books that contain of all the EC Comics. They are the greatest! And in a weird way I still have a sort of crush on the Vault Keeper!

Ghost stories...you don't have to believe in them to write them, I don't think. I remember some Lovecraft, and of course he didn't believe in what he wrote about. But he sure was a master.
 
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Great post, Minarvia. It seems this tendency to be simultaneously repulsed and attracted to a "scary" thing, image or story, is pretty universal.

I used to have a glo-in-the-dark poster of the Universal monsters that scared the bejeebers out of me when I was about 5, but when my father tried to take it down I became very distraught. I wanted to be scared of it; it must have served some deep need within my child mind.

(Incidentally, The Room in the Tower is by EF Benson, 1912. Le Fanu died in 1873, the year after his famous Carmilla was published.)

(Also incidentally, are those hardback EC collections the ones with the red covers? I gave my good friend, horror writer Stephen Romano, a set of those for his birthday a few years ago, and now every time I go to his place I wind up taking them off the shelf and leafing through them. He'd rather me read his work, I think, but there is something very compelling about those old Jack Davis and Wally Wood drawings!)
 
Minarvia said:
I was very young, maybe 10 or so when I read LaFanu's "The Room in the Tower" and it scared the heck out of me. I was afraid of portraits for years after that, but strangely fascinated by one I had in my room. It was a copy of Renois's "Irene de Anvers" if I spelled that correctly. That beautiful girl haunted me for years.

I couldn't bring myself to take the portrait down from my bedroom wall, but it gave me many bad dreams and a few nightmares. Now I have a new copy and it is one of my favourite portraits ever. I still love "The Room in the Tower" but it doesn't frighten me anymore.

But the fact that one small story could affect me so profoundly still amazes me.

And packed away for a hopeful move when this housing market improves is my collection of hardback books that contain of all the EC Comics. They are the greatest! And in a weird way I still have a sort of crush on the Vault Keeper!

Ghost stories...you don't have to believe in them to write them, I don't think. I remember some Lovecraft, and of course he didn't believe in what he wrote about. But he sure was a master.
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The Yellow Wallpaper did that for me. The first time I read it I was far too young to understand it. As a teen, it perfectly expressed so much I couldn't express. In college, I used it to explain human nature (as dramatically as possible.) Hmmm...haven't reread it in about 20 years, wonder what I would find in it now?

The EC collections in slipcase? Aren't they great! Mine are getting a bit tatty, but still take up far too much of my available shelf-space. It's probably time I turned them over to the niece & nephew but they are among my favorite books and too hard to part with.

My grandmother had a print of Gilman's All is Vanity, an optical illusion of a girl at a mirror that is also a skull. Fascinated and scared the bejesus outta me. Scarier than that - A portrait of Raggedy Anne painted by my other grandmother that hung across from my bed. The eyes! The eyes!
 
Minarvia said:
I was very young, maybe 10 or so when I read LaFanu's "The Room in the Tower" and it scared the heck out of me. I was afraid of portraits for years after that, but strangely fascinated by one I had in my room. It was a copy of Renois's "Irene de Anvers" if I spelled that correctly. That beautiful girl haunted me for years.

I couldn't bring myself to take the portrait down from my bedroom wall, but it gave me many bad dreams and a few nightmares. Now I have a new copy and it is one of my favourite portraits ever. I still love "The Room in the Tower" but it doesn't frighten me anymore.

But the fact that one small story could affect me so profoundly still amazes me.

And packed away for a hopeful move when this housing market improves is my collection of hardback books that contain of all the EC Comics. They are the greatest! And in a weird way I still have a sort of crush on the Vault Keeper!

Ghost stories...you don't have to believe in them to write them, I don't think. I remember some Lovecraft, and of course he didn't believe in what he wrote about. But he sure was a master.
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I had to look it up.

Portrait Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d`Anvers (Little Irene), 1880

http://www.renoirgallery.com/gallery.asp?id=57
 
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As far as stephen king goes, i love what i would consider the " moral" of 1408 ( the film, if the story has major differences i don't remember, to be honest.).

Sure the skeptic was wrong, but who actually fought 1408? Who actually sat down and thought " what could destroy this thing?" that is right, the skeptic. No slitting his wrist, and a minimum of mental breakdown.

I honestly think this is how it would work , should the paranormal be real, and a skeptic witness it. While others are cowering in awe and fear, we are looking for some gas and a match.
 
Minarvia said:
I was very young, maybe 10 or so when I read LaFanu's "The Room in the Tower" and it scared the heck out of me. I was afraid of portraits for years after that, but strangely fascinated by one I had in my room. It was a copy of Renois's "Irene de Anvers" if I spelled that correctly. That beautiful girl haunted me for years.

I couldn't bring myself to take the portrait down from my bedroom wall, but it gave me many bad dreams and a few nightmares. Now I have a new copy and it is one of my favourite portraits ever. I still love "The Room in the Tower" but it doesn't frighten me anymore.

But the fact that one small story could affect me so profoundly still amazes me.

And packed away for a hopeful move when this housing market improves is my collection of hardback books that contain of all the EC Comics. They are the greatest! And in a weird way I still have a sort of crush on the Vault Keeper!

Ghost stories...you don't have to believe in them to write them, I don't think. I remember some Lovecraft, and of course he didn't believe in what he wrote about. But he sure was a master.
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<img src="http://www.myreproductions.com/images/PR48_large.jpg"> Nice portrait.
 
Ack! I knew it was E.F Benson. Sorry. It's been a long time. Yeah, LaFanu was "Carmilla" and others.

Oh, and I could swear I read the "Yellow Wallpaper", in fact I KNOW I did and I recall it being ultra creepy. I have to find it and re-read it to recall it, tho.
 
ksbluesfan said:
I had to look it up.

Portrait Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d`Anvers (Little Irene), 1880

http://www.renoirgallery.com/gallery.asp?id=57
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I have to say, Minarvia, that's a fairly freaky portrait, once you're looking at it with the same eyes you might read a ghost story with. It has something of the 'porcelain doll' look that's always so unsettling.

Having said that, it's a beautiful piece of work. The hair is amongst the best I've seen.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Great post, Minarvia. It seems this tendency to be simultaneously repulsed and attracted to a "scary" thing, image or story, is pretty universal.

I used to have a glo-in-the-dark poster of the Universal monsters that scared the bejeebers out of me when I was about 5, but when my father tried to take it down I became very distraught. I wanted to be scared of it; it must have served some deep need within my child mind.

(Incidentally, The Room in the Tower is by EF Benson, 1912. Le Fanu died in 1873, the year after his famous Carmilla was published.)

(Also incidentally, are those hardback EC collections the ones with the red covers? I gave my good friend, horror writer Stephen Romano, a set of those for his birthday a few years ago, and now every time I go to his place I wind up taking them off the shelf and leafing through them. He'd rather me read his work, I think, but there is something very compelling about those old Jack Davis and Wally Wood drawings!)
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Yeah, the hardback books where about 4 or 5 volumes hold all of the "Vault of Horror" and 4 or 5 hold "Tales From the Crypt" and the one that also hold "The Witching Hour." They don't take up much room and have all of them. So cool!

And I'm glad you realize about the fascination with and fear of an object at the same time.

And thanks to ksbluesfan. That's the one. I think she's just gorgeous and even tho at night-times when I was young I swear her face changed or she was looking at me, I both feared and loved her. I always wondered what her life was like. I was...obsessed with that picture. I still have my late dad's 50 or so year old copy but I also was able to buy a poster print and put it under glass in a nice frame. It is just packed away waiting my future home. Someday. It's weird how one story made Irene a part of my life. Or is that just crazy? :boggled:
 
bookitty said:
The Yellow Wallpaper did that for me. The first time I read it I was far too young to understand it. As a teen, it perfectly expressed so much I couldn't express. In college, I used it to explain human nature (as dramatically as possible.) Hmmm...haven't reread it in about 20 years, wonder what I would find in it now?

The EC collections in slipcase? Aren't they great! Mine are getting a bit tatty, but still take up far too much of my available shelf-space. It's probably time I turned them over to the niece & nephew but they are among my favorite books and too hard to part with.

My grandmother had a print of Gilman's All is Vanity, an optical illusion of a girl at a mirror that is also a skull. Fascinated and scared the bejesus outta me. Scarier than that - A portrait of Raggedy Anne painted by my other grandmother that hung across from my bed. The eyes! The eyes!
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Let's both find "The Yellow Wallpaper" and find out how we feel after 20 years! It's been about that long for me, too, but alas, I can't recall the story.

EC in slip cases? If you mean the individual comics, no. These are a hardback set of volumes in a cardboard case. Not too much room for hundreds of stories. I don't know if they are still available...but boy, are they worth it!

Oh, I love the girl/skull illusion pic. That is sooo creepy and fascinating, both. And Raggedy Anne's and anything thing Amish (without faces) are just givens in the creepy department. They eyes...and the no eyes...:eek:
 
Evolved Wookie said:
I have to say, Minarvia, that's a fairly freaky portrait, once you're looking at it with the same eyes you might read a ghost story with. It has something of the 'porcelain doll' look that's always so unsettling.

Having said that, it's a beautiful piece of work. The hair is amongst the best I've seen.
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Oh, goodness, yes. She is so lovely, her hair gorgeous, her face seems slightly haunted, and she looks ethereal with that "porcelain doll" look. I tried to look her up as a real person and see if I could find out anything about her, but no dice. I'll never know what happened to her. If she lived long, married, had a happy life, or not. I think she's be pleased that so many of us find her lovely even tho a bit on the wonderful sort of unsettling quality.
 
I imagine that it's exactly that unsettling quality that makes her so captivating. It helps to define a character for her, a character which no doubt you and everyone else makes up for themselves from that kernel of interest.

I'm rambling now. I am not in any way trained to discuss art in a meaningful way. Perhaps I should stick to 'nice picture' and leave it there ::)
 
TragicMonkey said:
Except for M.R. James, in the field of ghost stories specifically. Lovecraft could wander all over the place sometimes, and get lost in his own efforts to convey Cyclopean abyssal dread. Not everything has to be the worst cosmic horror ever. James's stories are much tighter, and scarier because he could make the commonplace frightening whereas Lovecraft needed a cast of thousands and alien gods and all sorts of things.

Sheridan le Fanu is almost as good as James, but much too wordy. But that was the style of the time so it's to be expected. And I like him for having a demon monkey in one story, that would perch on the open pages of a Bible and gibber at the guy trying to read it, while remaining invisible to everybody else. It's like he knew exactly what sort of thing I'd like to do myself, when I am a demon monkey.

And for those who like modern ghost stories, one of my favorites is Julian's House. It's rather obscure, but can be found in libraries if not in the bookstores. Ironically, the protagonists are paranormal investigators studying a haunted house, only the ghost is real and so is their pseudoscience. Directly opposite of reality (and quite against JREF culture!) but nevertheless a good story.
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Actually Lovecraft is just more famous for the "Cthulu mythos" - he penned many, many more that were simply creepy little tales - "Herbert West: Reanimator", "Cool Air", "Teh Picture in the House" and many others.

His "nameless dread" stories are fantatsic, but try and read the other tales before branding him a one -trick-pony!
 
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