Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Faber & Faber Fiction (2014), Edition: Main, 464 pages
Description
A repackage of this classic collection from the master of horror.
User reviews
LibraryThing member starbox
Strange stories
By sally tarbox on 17 May 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
My first foray into the deeply strange world of Robert Aickmann. The seven short stories are not ghost stories of the usual type- although strange beings do occur. But always there's a sense of uncertainty, of wondering whether the
I found the stories varied in quality: for me, the strongest was definitely "The Inner Room", where the female narrator recalls a fabulous dolls' house bought for her from a strange junk shop. Very very creepy... but as with them all, we are aware of the protagonist's life and difficulties - did this all really happen as she tells?
The weakest was definitely "Growing Boys", where attempted (humour?) definitely fell flat for me.
I would also mention the atmospheric "Never Visit Venice", where a lonely male determines to fulfil his long-time dream of travelling to the city; the difference between the magical place of his imagination and the touristic reality are vividly evoked. And then he steps into a gondola...
Also "Into the Wood", where a slightly bored wife of a businessman, accompanying him to Sweden, decides to take a couple of days; rest-cure at the lovely sanatorium in the forest...
I see macabre artist Edward Gorey owned a copy of this book, and can definitely see that some of Aickman's creations could have informed Gorey's work, especially the 'old carlin' in "The Fetch."
I must say that my volume (by Faber Finds) contained a truly horrendous amount of misprints - in "The Trains", almost every conversation is incorrectly typed; they obviously didn't have a proof reader for this one!!
By sally tarbox on 17 May 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
My first foray into the deeply strange world of Robert Aickmann. The seven short stories are not ghost stories of the usual type- although strange beings do occur. But always there's a sense of uncertainty, of wondering whether the
Show More
supernatural explanation is really the true one, as the characters are beset by their own psychological issues, by heat, exhaustion, depression, loneliness...I found the stories varied in quality: for me, the strongest was definitely "The Inner Room", where the female narrator recalls a fabulous dolls' house bought for her from a strange junk shop. Very very creepy... but as with them all, we are aware of the protagonist's life and difficulties - did this all really happen as she tells?
The weakest was definitely "Growing Boys", where attempted (humour?) definitely fell flat for me.
I would also mention the atmospheric "Never Visit Venice", where a lonely male determines to fulfil his long-time dream of travelling to the city; the difference between the magical place of his imagination and the touristic reality are vividly evoked. And then he steps into a gondola...
Also "Into the Wood", where a slightly bored wife of a businessman, accompanying him to Sweden, decides to take a couple of days; rest-cure at the lovely sanatorium in the forest...
I see macabre artist Edward Gorey owned a copy of this book, and can definitely see that some of Aickman's creations could have informed Gorey's work, especially the 'old carlin' in "The Fetch."
I must say that my volume (by Faber Finds) contained a truly horrendous amount of misprints - in "The Trains", almost every conversation is incorrectly typed; they obviously didn't have a proof reader for this one!!
Show Less
LibraryThing member ghr4
Was it overheard in that dingy freight elevator in the Shoreditch Arms that lost weekend back in November? Was it mentioned in that disjointed conversation with Aunt Betty shortly before she disappeared for six weeks? Was it in that diaphanous lucid dream whose fragments I reassembled into an
Here lie eight brilliantly sly tales, often in mundane yet ominous settings, served understated in a unique and compelling style:
(1) The strange amalgam of heaven and hell that Grigg encounters in the title story. (2) The secrets of the isolated farmhouse that hikers Mimi and Margaret discover in "The Trains". (3) The telephone's unrelenting torment of Edmund St Jude in "Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen". (4) Millie's uncontrollable twins rampaging across the bizarre Grimm's fairy tale landscape of "Growing Boys". (5) The justifiably fearful Brodick Leith, forever haunted by a wraith in "The Fetch". (6) "The Inner Room" featuring Lene's most peculiar dollhouse, which her father described as "the most depressing-looking plaything I ever saw." (7) A crabwise turn of events enables Henry Fern to reach his destiny in ""Never Visit Venice". (8) Accompanying her husband on a business trip to Sweden, forewarned Margaret Sawyer nevertheless decides to spend a night at the scenic Kurhus sanatorium with an unforeseen consequence in "In the Wood".
Here there are unsettling clouds of doom gathering just in sight at the periphery, but encroaching ever closer; and curious events and odd pathways that lead all travellers, whether ever-watchful or blithely unsuspecting, into an enveloping shroud of unease.
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erroneous epiphany that led me to an ill-fated excursion to Crete? Or maybe it was at the absurdly crowded marketplace in Crete? Frankly, I can't remember exactly when or how I first heard of Robert Aickman and his Wine-Dark Sea anthology of horror stories. Though ostensibly held in my e-reader, Aickman's stories are more accurately within me now. When I prematurely wake from my nightly fitful sleep, generally around 3 AM., snippets of these stories flutter in the haze and perch resolute in my semiconscious state...Here lie eight brilliantly sly tales, often in mundane yet ominous settings, served understated in a unique and compelling style:
(1) The strange amalgam of heaven and hell that Grigg encounters in the title story. (2) The secrets of the isolated farmhouse that hikers Mimi and Margaret discover in "The Trains". (3) The telephone's unrelenting torment of Edmund St Jude in "Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen". (4) Millie's uncontrollable twins rampaging across the bizarre Grimm's fairy tale landscape of "Growing Boys". (5) The justifiably fearful Brodick Leith, forever haunted by a wraith in "The Fetch". (6) "The Inner Room" featuring Lene's most peculiar dollhouse, which her father described as "the most depressing-looking plaything I ever saw." (7) A crabwise turn of events enables Henry Fern to reach his destiny in ""Never Visit Venice". (8) Accompanying her husband on a business trip to Sweden, forewarned Margaret Sawyer nevertheless decides to spend a night at the scenic Kurhus sanatorium with an unforeseen consequence in "In the Wood".
Here there are unsettling clouds of doom gathering just in sight at the periphery, but encroaching ever closer; and curious events and odd pathways that lead all travellers, whether ever-watchful or blithely unsuspecting, into an enveloping shroud of unease.
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LibraryThing member gendeg
Disquieting, darkly sexual, moody. I haven't read a book that had me so unsettled in quite a while. Like hearing a minor chord of music held too long in the air. Or experiencing deja-vu in the most unexpected of places. Or suddenly sighting your doppelganger on the streets. Aickman explores the
In style and approach, the stories are far removed from contemporary modes of horror. The Wine-Dark Sea is more in the vein of Turn of the Screw and the works of [author: Shirley Jackson]. There is a lot of psychological dark magic here...
Aickman's hypnotically lucid prose style helps, oddly enough. The writing, in being so exacting and clear, distracts you from the creeping unease, until it's too late! A major thematic artery that runs through all the stories is that every narrator/protagonist seems to be an iceberg of secrets and sordid pasts and family skeletons. Literary horror laced with the gothic at its best.
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uncanny and strange and more in the stories in this collection.In style and approach, the stories are far removed from contemporary modes of horror. The Wine-Dark Sea is more in the vein of Turn of the Screw and the works of [author: Shirley Jackson]. There is a lot of psychological dark magic here...
Aickman's hypnotically lucid prose style helps, oddly enough. The writing, in being so exacting and clear, distracts you from the creeping unease, until it's too late! A major thematic artery that runs through all the stories is that every narrator/protagonist seems to be an iceberg of secrets and sordid pasts and family skeletons. Literary horror laced with the gothic at its best.
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LibraryThing member michaeladams1979
A fine collection of quiet horror stories masterfully written. Some of these tales were genuinely wonderful, classics of the genre. and stood out, even amongst their most excellent peers. Highly recommended to fans of intelligent, articulate prose, and quiet, unsettling horror.
LibraryThing member janerawoof
Dipped into this as the mood struck me. A short story collection [30-40 pp. each story] of horror, called more exactly supernatural or "strange". Each concerns a character or characters who meet with a strange, otherworldly person, thing or event[s] and their reactions. Endings are open-ended, not
My favorites:
"The wine-dark sea" [a nod to Homer]: a man vacationing in Greece sees an island across the sea, and although told not to venture there, does so with devastating results. It's sort of an amalgam of the Lotus Eaters, the "wyrd sisters" and Philoctetes.
"Your tiny hand is frozen": a character contends with vagaries of the telephone: hang-ups, a disembodied voice with whom he falls in love without meeting her, and odd calls to a certain company.
"The fetch": a ghost story set in Scotland. The ghost is a banshee without the moaning.
"Into the woods": A couple on holiday in Sweden discovers a sanatorium or Kurhus. The wife spends some time there; it is a sanatorium for insomniacs, who can only be cured by going into the surrounding woods. This one seems to be an allegory of some sort.
"The stains" [my favorite]: a man whose wife has died recently visits his brother, a vicar in the country with an interest in mosses and lichens. The protagonist meets and has an affair with a girl; is she a maenad or wood nymph? He takes her to his flat in London, which shrinks and becomes moss-furred. Then they return to the moors and live in a house that becomes stained the same way. There is a shattering conclusion.
The author's writing is impeccable. What he could do with his word-pictures!! I admit I had chills up and down my spine on occasion, although to get the full sense I'd have to stop and reread a paragraph. I hope to read more of this type of story. Henry James's "Turn of the screw" or Arthur Schnitzler's "Dream Story" are the closest I had read previously.
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neatly tied up. The horror is subtle and creeps up on you. Aickman is a master in this genre; not for him the bloodfests of recent horror literature and movies. The writing conveys *just* the right amount of creepiness.My favorites:
"The wine-dark sea" [a nod to Homer]: a man vacationing in Greece sees an island across the sea, and although told not to venture there, does so with devastating results. It's sort of an amalgam of the Lotus Eaters, the "wyrd sisters" and Philoctetes.
"Your tiny hand is frozen": a character contends with vagaries of the telephone: hang-ups, a disembodied voice with whom he falls in love without meeting her, and odd calls to a certain company.
"The fetch": a ghost story set in Scotland. The ghost is a banshee without the moaning.
"Into the woods": A couple on holiday in Sweden discovers a sanatorium or Kurhus. The wife spends some time there; it is a sanatorium for insomniacs, who can only be cured by going into the surrounding woods. This one seems to be an allegory of some sort.
"The stains" [my favorite]: a man whose wife has died recently visits his brother, a vicar in the country with an interest in mosses and lichens. The protagonist meets and has an affair with a girl; is she a maenad or wood nymph? He takes her to his flat in London, which shrinks and becomes moss-furred. Then they return to the moors and live in a house that becomes stained the same way. There is a shattering conclusion.
The author's writing is impeccable. What he could do with his word-pictures!! I admit I had chills up and down my spine on occasion, although to get the full sense I'd have to stop and reread a paragraph. I hope to read more of this type of story. Henry James's "Turn of the screw" or Arthur Schnitzler's "Dream Story" are the closest I had read previously.
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LibraryThing member ElleGato
Hm. I'm not quite sure how to rate this one.
This was my first Aickman. I know his influence on modern horror is great and reading this I can see why. He is a master at constructing subtle but oppressive atmospheres of unease, disquiet, and eventual fear. Aickman writes nervous stories about nervous
I think my biggest issue with this collection was how unwieldy so many of the stories were. While each of them had moments of expertly worked tension and suspense and weirdness, those moments were utterly smothered by the chronically self-obsessed anxieties of the characters. I will have to read more of Aickman before I make up my mind on him but overall, I found this collection both effectively creepy and frustratingly dull
This was my first Aickman. I know his influence on modern horror is great and reading this I can see why. He is a master at constructing subtle but oppressive atmospheres of unease, disquiet, and eventual fear. Aickman writes nervous stories about nervous
Show More
people, caught up in themselves and terrified of a world they feel they will never quite understand, or be truly part of. This works in some of these stories but in others, unfortunately, it becomes almost farcical. I'm thinking specifically of "Never Go To Venice," a story that spends far too much time building the nervous ennui of its main character and far too little time on anything else. The same holds true for "The Fetch," although that story is more effective.I think my biggest issue with this collection was how unwieldy so many of the stories were. While each of them had moments of expertly worked tension and suspense and weirdness, those moments were utterly smothered by the chronically self-obsessed anxieties of the characters. I will have to read more of Aickman before I make up my mind on him but overall, I found this collection both effectively creepy and frustratingly dull
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LibraryThing member steller0707
Aickman was a master of horror stories - not blood, gore and vampire horror, but unsettling horror, like Poe. This is a collection of fairly lengthy suspenseful stories, most of which are quite lengthy. The beginnings of the stories are quite detailed; we get to know the characters very well.
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Sometimes the plot is outlined, sometimes it is not apparent and the characters drift into situations. Oftentimes the endings are ambiguous, or simply puzzling. I thought the title story, The Wine-Dark Sea, was the best, with the Inner Room a close second. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ranjr
The book was okay, I am mostly at odds with Aickman’s fiction. There are always scenes or images in them that make them worth reading but the time it takes to do so seems to outweigh the benefit. If you were to break his strange tales into three acts, the second act would be over-long and packed
This does provide his work with a strange quality of dreaminess occupying the mundane world with an occasional intense image intruding into daily life and merging the two. However, this makes the stories in this book a little bit of a slog halfway through. This construction of his does work extremely well in one story in this book, The Wine Dark Sea. It works as well in another of his stories, which does not appear in this collection: Ringing the Changes.
I did not feel that this was a waste of my time and I am glad that I read it. I especially like as I said before, the first story and namesake of the collection. Here the dreaminess in is in full effect. In another story, the image of the corpse tangled in a phone cord was a chiller. However, that story, Your Tiny Hand is Frozen, (great title by the way) definitely felt excessively long. The Trains in my opinion was the weakest tale in this collection although it was not bad it was an okay thriller/light-horror story.
Overall, I would probably read more of Robert Aickman's stories hoping for at least a strange image and a strong hint of a strange atmosphere. As for this collection, it’s okay. I would recommend this to someone who already is a fan though.
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with mundane details and a general feeling of repetitiveness. The third would start on a genuinely creepy note and then carry on, almost too long as well, gradually fading out on a vague or ambiguous note.This does provide his work with a strange quality of dreaminess occupying the mundane world with an occasional intense image intruding into daily life and merging the two. However, this makes the stories in this book a little bit of a slog halfway through. This construction of his does work extremely well in one story in this book, The Wine Dark Sea. It works as well in another of his stories, which does not appear in this collection: Ringing the Changes.
I did not feel that this was a waste of my time and I am glad that I read it. I especially like as I said before, the first story and namesake of the collection. Here the dreaminess in is in full effect. In another story, the image of the corpse tangled in a phone cord was a chiller. However, that story, Your Tiny Hand is Frozen, (great title by the way) definitely felt excessively long. The Trains in my opinion was the weakest tale in this collection although it was not bad it was an okay thriller/light-horror story.
Overall, I would probably read more of Robert Aickman's stories hoping for at least a strange image and a strong hint of a strange atmosphere. As for this collection, it’s okay. I would recommend this to someone who already is a fan though.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1988
Physical description
464 p.; 7.75 inches
ISBN
0571311725 / 9780571311729