I was gifted a copy of the dvd The Woman In Black for Christmas last year (Ahem, four weeks ago.) It is a television version of Susan Hill's book which I was drawn to when I heard it was adpted using a screenplay by Nigel Kneale. That being the case I knew it would pobably be pretty special and so it proved to be. So when I came across this other book by Susan Hill on a recent book trawl in the same month of December twenty twenty-one, I decided to pick it up and started reading it almost as soon as I got it. I started reading in in the very MR James midnight hour that lends itself so well to book of this nature, or rather; Supernature. The cover alone leant itself so well to this midnight feast of a tale.
It is a really nicely paced story, which witholds so much more than it reveals. Which is surely something of a trope in Susan Hill's work, the art of witholding. And I in no wayuse the word trope in a perjorative way, it really is an art. A world weary traveler returns to England after many years abroad traveling the world. Seeing some remote regionsincluding the remote regions of Tibet. Sir James Monmouth is onthe trail of a childhood hero, an adventurer named Conrad Vane. Pursuing his goal with childlike enthusiasm he is not prepared for the dark secrets which litter this man's life. In looking into Conrad Vane's path he has in fcat turned overa rock beneath which untold terrors squirm. Yet he is not put off,instead he digs deeper and deeper until he is literally in over his head, his very soul imperrilled, as he journeys to the remote home of his last surviving family member.
As I said, it is in the area where Sus Hill witholds information that the true haunting begins. In that space left we conjure ghosts, revenants we barely glimpse but know with a terrible certainty are there. On more than one occasion the central protagonist hears; "..but off course, you did not know..." or "..surely, you will have heard..! Which leaves him, and the reader, desperate to find out what they do not yet know. And because this is Susan Hill, that knowledge will come with a price. One the main character might already be paying...
