Robert Suggs (June 11, 1998)Those Same Bears
by Robert AickmanMama Bear had always lived in the cottage; if not the cottage, then certainly the labyrinthine forest whose vegetation enmeshed the Jacobean edifice. Her languid days sorted themselves into seasons of porridge-cooking, chair-sitting and dreamless sleep. But at all times the woods were there, extending their arboreal grasp even into the surrendering structure. Papa Bear drifted silently through the halls, peering occasionally through ivied windows toward someone or something which never came. Mama Bear wondered about his watchfulness, but she always knew her questions would only be embraced by silence. In the end no questions were put; none were answered.
On this day, Mama Bear had been wandering the primeval paths as she did on all dry mornings. She often became blissfully lost among the pines and poplars until the cottage, in its own unhurrying time, emerged. The cool pine straw nurtured and guided her feet. Papa Bear, of course, cherished the trees--towering, staunch and unyielding as they parted the wet soil. He walked his own paths; dwelt among his own sylvan secrets.
Mama Bear's reverie was broken by a fleeting glimpse among the trees. Between two forking pines she saw what appeared to be golden curls disappearing into the shadows. Pausing to wonder, she heard the thick, straw-crushing steps of Papa Bear. Or perhaps it wasn't Papa Bear. It was impossible to know.
The three of them, including an only child, arrived back at the cottage almost simultaneously, as they inevitably seemed to do. Silently they filed into the kitchen, where Mama Bear had ladled out savoury porridge, prepared in the then-thriving manner of Norwegian fin de siècle kitchens. It was offered in three dishes, none of them corresponding in style of china or even century of origin. Bear pere and bear fils, seeming to disregard the indignity, appeared in the kitchen and took their places. Papa Bear hefted a tarnished silver spoon to his mouth and rasped, 'Too hot,' returning the utensel rather roughly to the table.
Mama Bear dipped into her serving and found, to her astonishment, that her own serving was uniformly frigid. Bits of meat were actually unthawed. Yet she had cooked both servings simultaneously. The discrepancy could not be explained, even had discussion been viable. The microwave oven cooked by its own mysterious logic. Nor was it clear whether Baby Bear was being entirely forthcoming when he smiled blandly at both of them and proclaimed his own serving 'just right'. His words stood sans exegesis.
It was ascertained that no one retained much appetite at this point, and the sullen trio entered a cavernous, rather dark hall in which there seemed to be no furniture other than three chairs. These were arranged uniformly in a line, in a manner which discouraged conversation. As with the bowls, the periods of style varied wildly. The largest was an imperially imposing Queen Anne; the smallest was a strikingly minimalistic example of the Bauhaus movement. From some unseen corner, a phonograph worked through a particularly stark performance of Tristan und Isolde.
It was only at the counter-tenor's entrance solo that Papa Bear stood suddenly, as if for Wagner's final chorus. 'Too hard,' he said. It was unclear whether he referred to the operatic interpretation, the Queen Anne--which, after all, he had occupied on many occasions--or his days and nights of domestic rigidity. In the end, no questions were asked, no responses given. Instead, mother and son followed as he ascended the gloomy stairs. Along the way, Mama Bear was certain her ankle brushed something mossy which twined teasingly among her feet. But she may have only imagined it.
In the bedchamber (for they had always shared the same bedchamber, even in a large house, even into Baby Bear's pubescence), Mama Bear knew by the beatings of her heart that change of some kind had come to pass. Papa Bear's bed was, as always, nearest the door, maintaining its essential inviolable distinction from his wife's own bed--a Georgian piece, with the usual inherent contradictions of that era's styling.
Without looking anywhere in particular, he said, 'Someone's been sleeping in my bed.'
Meaning what? Mama Bear refused to dwell on the implicit suggestion. There never could be an answer. Meanwhile, her eye fell upon her own plain, tasteless mattress. 'Someone's been sleeping in your bed,' said her husband, in precisely the same tone, with just the same unfocused stare. And it was true. The fact could not be denied, and the implications were terrible. But Mama Bear's eye fell upon the gaping window, whose draperies flapped in the invading breeze. Coils of ivy had violated the Bears' sanctuary. They had crept over the sash, pointing horribly toward Baby Bear's dwarfish, Prince Edward sleeper. Something was, in fact, lumped grotesquely there beneath the covers. Golden curls fringed the blanket. Worst of all was the smile on Baby Bear's face, a smile which said everything and nothing. Papa Bear said nothing, and Mama Bear already knew she would never ask what he had left unsaid.
Just then the blankets, woven uncharacteristically from twelfth-century Franciscan tapestry, disgorged a girl--or perhaps a woman. It was impossible to be certain. She eyed them for what may have been only a moment. Mama Bear could see that she was clothed entirely in ivy. Then the intruder moved silently to the stairway, and she was gone. Baby Bear continued to smile. His eye met Papa Bear's, and something inscrutable passed between them.
Mama Bear knew she would never seek to understand, just as she knew the ultimate folly of reason and understanding, as she moved to the window and waved at the golden curls becoming entwined with the encroaching, ivied forest.
oOo
rbadac (June 11, 1998)
Robert Suggs wrote:
> Those Same Bears
> by Robert Aickman...and you should go read it. Then you can read this review, which is due to be published in the August issue of NECROFILE:
Aickman's 'Those Same Bears':
The Phenomenology of Contranatural Selectionby S.T. Joshi
The strange stories of Robert Aickman have long baffled coherent analysis; they exist in a half-world of ambiguous narrative, a claustrophobic sense of place, and characters fraught with unspecified significance, often only momentarily glimpsed before they are submerged beneath a fresh wave of seemingly unsolicited and ephemeral period material, non sequiturs, sly asides, and scholarly allusions.
A recent audit of his private papers has revealed a folio of unpublished manuscripts, the existence of which had hitherto been unsuspected; these appear to be part of a planned opus which was to have been a reinterpretation of the traditional fairy tale cycle in the language of modern parameters of psychosexual pathology.
A glance at some of the proposed titles- 'The Wine-Dark Pumpkin', 'The Real Road To Grandma's', 'The Houses of Russian Gingerbread', 'Tom Thumb: Larger Than Oneself'- indicate the direction Aickman was taking with this approach, in what surely would have been the most ambitious and fecund phase of his literary career.
In 'Those Same Bears', the aberrant and deep-rooted neuroses of the species is given free and terrifying rein to shamble through the murky pine and poplar forests of its own Id, dealing with the questions of food, rest, and temporary hibernation (cf: 'Into The Wood'), and their perpetual dissatisfaction with same, all overshadowed by the encroaching golden-curled figure that represents at once the realisation of suppressed desire (as in Bunuel) and the merciless Accuser of their inescapable animism.
Queen Anne is cheek-by-jowl with Prince Edward, Bauhaus with 12th century Franciscan, to the strains of Tristan und Isolde, in a bewildering universe of questions unasked and responses not given. The misdirected messages of parenthood; the hierarchy of the father and the succession of the son; the secrets of Woman; Oedipal and castration complexes: all parade across a stage of straw to plunge the reader into an ivy-choked morass of self-propagating delirium. The total effect is not dissimiliar to that of a suffocating dream.
We can only hope that more examples of whatever of this endeavour remains extant will be brought to light in the near future for the study and admiration of a new generation of readers anxious to experience yet another torturous journey through the labyrinthine corridors of what was probably the most incisively nebulous literary mind of our age.
S.T. Joshi
Or not.
oOo
Bill Barnett (June 11, 1998)
rbadac wrote:
> Aickman's 'Those Same Bears':
> The Phenomenology of Contranatural SelectionWhew! This group was a lot easier to read when it was just a bunch of fart jokes. Phhhhhhhhhhhttttttt!!!
Bill B.
oOo
Robert Suggs (June 12, 1998)
rbadac wrote:
(snip, snip)
>. . . what was probably the
> most incisively nebulous literary mind of our age.
> S.T. JoshiA man who pastiches Robert Aickman bears an admitted level of deranged faculties.
A man who pastiches S. T. Joshi is offering a cry for help.
http:\\www.psychosis.com
> Or not.
oOo
rbadac (June 12, 1998)
I know. I creeped MYSELF out with that one. Had to take a shower afterwards. Ink wouldn't come off, wouldn't come off, wouldn't come OFF, I scrubbed I scrubbed I SCRUBBED and it was BLACK ink, but it WOULDN'T COME OFF I scrubbed it WOULDN'T IT WOULDN'Tnot my fault IT WOULDN'Tnot my fault THAT SAILOR SUIT DOESN'T FIT ANYMORE, MOTHER I scrubbed BLACK INK BLACK BLACK red ink red red RED RED INK NOT MY FAULT REDUhm, er...so, uhh, how's everybody doin'?
rbadacdacdacdacdacdacdacdacdac<slap!>
oOo
[Here's an excerpt from one of the above mentioned works. During a discussion that dealt with the Tartarus errata sheet for the reprint of their Aickman omnibus, Christopher Roden said the following:]
rbadac (November 11, 2000)
[Minor Aickman news. . .]Christopher Roden wrote:
> Do you think this is all part of a plot to make
> Aickman less understandable than he is in reality?<sputter> Barbara, is that you??? Chris, is she making you write that?
"...and he thought, that if perhaps there was some injustice he may have been unaware of, that in the end this would only be the most predictable outcome, not what some would call inevitable, more of a sort that makes one believe in what happens rather than what might have happened, if there was indeed anything to be made of it in the first place for a woodsman in the habit of discovering little hooded girls floundering in entrails..."
- Robert Aickman "The Real Road To Grandma's"
ooOoo