Haunted Bookshelf 2021

 

Whats That Ticking Sound?

                                                                Tick, Tick, BOOM!

Hell In A Basket.

                                                  "We'll Tear Your Sole Apart, er,probably

                           or at the very least make your feet feel like you are wearing new shoes...

 

Funk To Funky.

                                                                (From My Sketchbook.)

The Haunting Of Hill House.

 "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within, it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

             It is one of the most celebrated openings in a modern novel, regardless of genre, and serves as the perfect opener to the remarkable piece of work that follows. it is a tight piece of writing, it suggests so much more than it signposts, with every t crossed, every sentence neatly dotted by its end and whatever moves through the text, moves alone. But then that is the very nature of reading is it not? We enter and leave alone.

             In the book a loose team of researchers stay at Hill House, a house with a bad reputation in a district that has never quite mastered the notion of welcome. They are a fantastic four of very different mindsets and personalities. Led by Doctor John Montague, an imminent investigator of the paranormal, the other three are; Theodora, a clever and complicated bohemian figure and artists model and inspiration, Luke Sanderson, a cocky heir to the house and all its secrets and Eleanor Vance,  a sadly mentally unbalanced youngish woman, really the last person who should stay at the insane house on the hill, the brutalist and yet painfully old world house built by Hugh Craine.

              All four were strangers to each other until they met at Hill House, yet each in their time had individually brushed up against the paranormal. Yet their individual experiences do not prepare them for what follows in that house. Such is the gossamer weave spun by Shirley Jackson as she spins a web about her protagonists we are sometimes not sure if what they see is what is there. It is one of the most lingering aspects of the novel, the ghosts that linger in the imagination long after you put the book down. She implies that her cast of misfits are blessed, or more accurately cursed with extrasensory gifts, in a house where to see less would be a blessing. Eleanor may in fact possess latent telekinetic abilities, a "gift" that has not served her well.  With that terrible house amplifying everything which lurks beneath the surface poor Eleanor would have been safer in a den of vipers. But this was a woman on the run, fleeing a life of grinding ennui, nowhere to go and no time to get there. All she wished to find was a safe place to rest her head, a small haven to call her own. For a short time her pretend family feels real, the rooms of Hill House a place to call her own. This is the cruelist trick played by that spiteful house, an ogres den pretending to be a fairy castle, with homeless Eleanor a priness in search of a kingdom. A child woman burdened with a lifetime of unfulfilled expectations. 

               And all the while that mad house abides.

               I think this about the third time I have sat down with Shirley Jackson's best remembered work. Each time I have found so much more than the previous. Her touch is light but jarring, Like a hand resting on your own in a room you thought you were alone in.

             

Andy Capp.

                                                                   (From my sketchbook)

                                                     Andy Capp and the long suffering Flo.

                                                               World's worst role model.

                                                                          Probably.
 

And In This Corner; The Black Pearl.

                                         "Best start believing in ghost stories, cause you're in one."

Brighton Or Bust

                                           Its an old one from my sketch book but I

                                                 always feel in a Meglos state of 

                                                       mind this time of year.
 

The War Doctor Begins.

You might well have heard an alarming "thunking" noise at some point resounding around the Whoniverse. That was the collective sound made by jaws dropping at the first episode of this outstanding production from Big Finish.

              Jonathan Carley does an astonishing job of bringing this character back to life. This goes way beyond an actor doing an impersonation of another actor. Yes, it does sound incredibly like the late Sir John, but there is nuance here, a sense of living through the lines. In many ways the best of Big Finish feel like that. John Culshaw never just sounds like an impersonator, he too breathes lives into characters believed lost. From the opening lines he just does something remarkable. All three stories show growth, in character and narrative complexity as the Time War begins to distort the notion of who the good guys are. It opens on gloomy Karn, with the Sisterhood under pressure from their allies The Time Lords. This iteration of The Doctor rejects and rails against his very own name. He is at odds with everything, this incarnation born in violence and fire. The fires of The Sisterhood. Its a very arcane beginning, all mysticism and elixirs and such, before it spills out into a wider universe of apocalyptic events.

             One episode even feels like one of the classic wartime dramas of my youth, a movie like The Heroes Of Telemark or The Guns Of Navarone. These are stories which can spring from character driven intimacy to the fields of war in an instant. Hats off to all involved, oe more accurately "helmets on" cause its gonna be a bumpy ride.

 

1983.

 how about this for an early Christmas present for the Doctor Who fan in your life? Its just an embarrassment of riches for any Whovian. Filled with pictures that will make the heart sing for joy. Doctor Who may no longer believe in Christmas but by jingo Christmas still believes in Doctor Who.

Ndsaki.

 Was saddened to hear of the recent passing of the mountain gorilla Ndsaki. This beautiful animal was rescued from almost certin death, found as a baby clinging to the dead body of her mother, murdered by poachers. Raised in a sanctuary, she eventually took her last breath in the arms of her keeper and friend Andre Bauma. His kindness, the dignity he extended, the good grace of a gentle embrace and how welcome that must have felt is truly obvious from the solace Ndsaki found in her keepers arms. 

             Ndsaki might be familiar to some who like their wildlife photography from a quite famous and wonderfully endearing photo-bombing incident when she and another mountain gorilla dandered into the back ground of a selfie being taken by one of the keeps at the Virunga National Park in the Congo.

             Well, she had it, she flaunted it, and the world is going to miss her. Blessings to the men and women who have made it their business to care and protect all animals who may be in danger or distress.

              

The Killings At Kingfisher Hill.

 As the author recognised by the Agatha Christie Estate Sophie Hannah has over the past few years delivered a very enjoyable quartet of books that never stray too far away from the formula that has insured there are more Hecule Poirot books in circulation throughout the world than actual population figures for some countries. This one assuredly continues that pleasing and winning streak by putting before Poirot that which fans of the books enjoy; a varied cast of suspicious characters, some questionably accurate narration of events not seen, twists and turns, dead ends and red herrings galore. 

             Poirot and his companion and side kick Detective Catchpole find themselves undercover at a wealthy estate and confronted by two confessions to the same murder. Someone is lying and everyone else is hiding their own motivations as events unfold and the mysteries deepen. One death is followed by another as a hideously entitled bunch of wealthy people endeavour to fog the pathway out of this confusing state. Witnesses to events provide the most unreliable accounts and suspects dither as more blood soaks the floor boards of Kingfisher Hill.

             This has proved to be a successful and enjoyable series by Sophie Hannah, already a respected author with her own work before the Agatha Christie Estate charged her with carrying the torch for Mrs Christie's most prolific creation. I had thought the series might best be served by a rotation of different writers as the Ian Fleming Estate do with Mr Bond, yet Sophie Hannah has proved herself to be an astute choice. Agatha Christie made murder seem easy which off course it is not. but she was not afraid to play with the format itself as she realised, probably, that death is never enough. Which the massive sales of her books acting as testament to this spirit of invention. Only religous texts have generated more in terms of sales.

             What does that tell us about ourselves as a species?

Halloweens Comin' On.

                                                                  ..And look Who is Back.