The Room in the Tower
by E.F. Benson
(Mills and Boon, 1912)
It is difficult to imagine the son of an Anglican archbishop turning his talents to the writing of ghost stories. But when one has read E.F. Benson's Room in the Tower, he will learn how such a miracle is not at all incongruous with the pursuits of literary art. Here is a collection of 17 short stories, all of them supernatural, and all of them polished to a perfection which we seldom find in narrative fiction. I think the main quality of Benson's work is this: that his fiction-- at least that which we've read so far-- is pleasing to the thoughtful reader. It aims for high aesthetical standards, while at the same time catering to the popular love of good fiction. Although the rhetoric is strictly classical, the prose is never artificial. Benson is not merely a good technician, but an artist in the true sense of the word.
Of the tales in this collection, only a handful are really worth mentioning. For it is not the tales themselves which impressed us so much as the genius of the writer. The best tale is undoubtedly the title-story, concerning a nightmare experienced over long and frequent intervals finally manifesting itself into a horrid reality. "Gavon's Eve," with its themes of black magic and its wild picturesque setting, leaves an indelible impression, and make the reader long to return to the scene. "The Shootings of Achnaleish," in which the inhabitants of a remote Highland village connive to attack a hunting party, deals in rural superstition, while "At Abdul Ali's Graves" hies us down to Egypt for an attempt at tomb-robbing-- and raising the dead.
There are plain vanilla ghost stories, such as "The Other Bed," as well as tales of metaphysical speculation, like "The Man Who Went too Far," in which the author follows out a theme very similar to that of Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan." A somewhat more grisly tale is "Between the Lights," in which Benson treats of a hideous troll living in a Pictish castle. My favorite story, however, is "The Cat"-- not because of its innate superiority as a macabre tale, but for the author's fine descriptive writing. E.F. Benson, as well as his brothers, R.H. and A.C., had a peculiar talent for recalling the beauties of pastoral scenery-- a talent which properly belongs not to the raconteur, but to the poet. Here is a sample of prose which shows the author at his best:
"Behind the figure in the long panel-shaped canvas was to be painted a green trellis, over which, almost hiding the woodwork, there was to sprawl a great purple clematis in full flaunting glory of varnished leaf and starry flower. At the top would be just a strip of pale summer sky, at her feet just a strip of grey-green dress, but all the rest of the background, greatly daring, would be this diaper of green and purple. For the purpose of putting this in, he was going down to a small cottage of his near Godalming, where he had built in the garden a sort of outdoor studio [...] flanked by this green trellis which was now one immense constellation of purple stars. Framed in this, he well knew how the strange pale beauty of his sitter would glow on the canvas, how she would start out of the background, she and her huge grey hat, and shining grey dress, and yellow hair and ivory skin and pale eyes, now blue, now grey, now green."
Obviously, any such collection will also have one or two flops, and this is no exception. The weakest story, "The Thing in the Hall," was obviously written as a 'shocker' and shows little regard for style. Then there is the highly-anthologized "Caterpillars," which plays on the ghoulish and grotesque. But we rather prefer the more subtle yarns, such as "How Fear Departed From the Long Gallery," in which compassion is used to disarm an ancient curse. This the author regarded as his best ghost story, and we can see why, as it has its pinch of redeeming literary value. Just when we begin to grow tired of the spooks and haunts, however, the collection comes to a graceful close. And although normally we shouldn't have chosen this book as the first of the author's works to review, we find ourselves none the poorer for having done so.
As you can probably guess, early editions of this book are out of the question, unless your exchequer is abnormally fat. The book was published by Mills and Boon in 1912, and later re-issued in 1929 by Alfred Knopf. The Knopf edition is much easier to find. I recently saw a used copy online for $15. But that is uncommonly cheap. If you are looking for a Knopf edition be prepared to spend upwards of $50. I myself don't have an early edition, but for the present review used the omnibus Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson, published in 1994 by Carrol and Graf. It is edited by Richard Dalby, and contains most of the author's supernatural short fiction. The first 17 tales in the book represent the present collection, and it amused me to read Benson's original preface, in which he hopes his readers "a few uncomfortable moments." Now if you chance across this tome on your way through, I hope your uncomfortable moments may be pleasant ones.
--B.A.S.
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