Robert Suggs (April 4, 1998)In David Hartwell's "Foundations of Fear" anthology is found the not-too-common story, "The Entrance" by Gerald Durrell if I remember correctly. Just curious if anyone else has read this one. After a few hundred or thousand stories intending to terrify, we find that most of them really don't--but this one does. Man shut up in a big house cataloguing another man's books. A great, long room has a wall that is completely a mirror. Soon he is indebted to that mirror for making the acquaintance of a new friend . . . The ending is uncompromising and it's one of those tales that, as Hartwell often says, "repays careful re-reading."
RoboOo
Christopher Roden (April 4, 1998)
Durrell's story is truly excellent and I recall when first reading it well over a dozen years ago, that I found it certainly as frightening as anything I'd read before. The story first appeared in a collection of Durrell stories, "The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium". Glad to know that it also appeared in an anthology. It deserves to be better known.Christopher Roden
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Robert Suggs (April 5, 1998)
Very impressive identifying the original collection, Mr. R! Apparently Durrell's brother was better known as a novelist, but (according to Hartwell) Gerald wrote this story rather late and was quite pleased about it. He should have been. I've checked the Locus site and no other anthology appearances appear for "The Entrance." Thus, anyone who hasn't read it should look for it in Visions of Fear, the mass-market edition. It's one of three taken from the big omnibus, Foundations of Fear, and this one has, other than the Durrell, more conventional selections (Matheson, Hoffman, Clive Barker, Philip K. Dick). But great stories, including The Sand Man, Atherton's great "The Bell in the Fog," Ligotti's "Notes on the Writing of Horror," Pangborn's "Longtooth," and the Barker tour de force, "In the Hills, The Cities." At 62 pages, "The Entrance" is another indication that the novelette may be the most effective vehicle for supernatural fiction.
RoboOo
Robert Suggs (April 8, 1998)
I'm waiting for somebody to read this tale so we can discuss it. I can't bring up anything new from reading because I'm trudging through a contemporary anthology with not much ghostly material in it. I'm needing a fix of landed aristocracy sitting around a fire swiggin' port and swappin' ghastly yarns.Rob
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Bill Barnett (April 8, 1998)
I'm planning on reading it as soon as I can get a few friends over to my house to help me get FOUNDATIONS OF FEAR off the shelf.oOo
William Allison (April 9, 1998)
:-D Boy, that was a good one Bill...oOo
Randy Money (April 9, 1998)
My wife can't understand why I want a forklift for next Christmas: _Foundations of Fear_, _The Dark Descent_, _Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural_, _Blackwater_, _Blackwater 2_ ...Maybe anthologists make 'em so we have something hefty close at hand to throw at the crowding shadows?
Randy
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rbadac (April 9, 1998)
[That's an Entrance, NOT an exit!]Yup. Bugcrushers, the lot o' them...they look great on the shelf, though, which is where they stay most of the time!
Me, I'm cheating and reading THE ENTRANCE in the paperback VISIONS OF FEAR, one of the three subdivisions of the original weighty tome, along with SHADOWS OF.. and WORLDS OF...it's easier to hold up while lying in bed. Apparently this volume contains all the novellas.
rbadac
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Robert Suggs (April 10, 1998)
Well, I think they've all got novellas in 'em. That was sort of, but not exhaustively, the "theme" of this anthology--novellas or novelettes (I've discovered there's no distinction between the two, at least according to Webster) plus the contributions of women. Shadows of Fear, the other one of the three I have (I've never seen the complete Foundations of Fear--perhaps one has to call for an appointment with it) has a number of novellas: DuMaurier's "Don't Look Now" (60 pgs), Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (a waste of 136 pages, since the tale is not exactly rare), Ray's "The Shadowy Street" at 41 pgs, Straub's "The Blue Rose," 67 pages, and Machen's "Great God Pan" at 67 pages. Why is it that this length is so well-suited for horror? The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels and this Hartwell collection are ample proof that powerful stories can be told in a length greater than a short story but less than a novel.Rob
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Bill Barnett (April 11, 1998)
['The Entrance' - with spoilers]Have read Gerald Durrell's "The Entrance" and am reporting back. I had the good sense of timing not to get to the scary part until late at night after the rest of the family were sensibly asleep in bed. Yikes! This is a story with a definite moral: if you see a creature in a mirror that isn't in the room with you, for God's sake leave it well enough alone!
But beyond being a mere monster/witchcraft story, it does introduce a chilling concept: that there might be a parallel world in which our fates may be much different, horrible and grisly in fact; and that the reality of that world is kept from impinging on this one by the most delicate of barriers.
A bonus in this story is that the two main characters are excellently drawn, and then we get to revel in the accoutrements of the classic ghost story: bachelors with servants, sipping brandy by the fire in the library full of fascinating and valuable books, valuing books, cataloguing books, bidding on books, grimoires, London fog, wine cellars, horse-drawn carts, travels by train, a candelabra... I'm sure I'm leaving out something. Did Durrell? Thanks to Rob for recommending this one!
Some recommended related reading:
"The Sin-Eater", Elizabeth Walter, in the book of the same name (similar ending)
"The Pipe Smoker", Martin Armstrong, in Hitchcock's BAR THE DOORS (similar mirror theme)
"It Came to Dinner", R. Chetwynd-Hayes, in THE 14TH PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES (similar monster)Bill B.
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Dr. Nick (April 12, 1998)
I don't think I read "the entrance" when I had some books from this series borrowed from the library, so maybe I'll check em out again. In any case, if you don't mind my persistent off-topicness, what of the intriguing Thomas M. Disch story that I believe was in one of these "... of Fear" anthologies; something about the kidnapping of some corporate bigshot fatcat, who's held captive in a basement by a unique "terrorist". Did anybody read that one? Strangely funny, very blackly humourous from what I recall.John
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rbadac (April 13, 1998)
Hi, guys!I like Disch too, John- I'll look for that tale.
Well, 'The Entrance'- finally got it read, and I liked it! Durrell writes quite nicely. The berry listed some other novels and collections, which didn't look like 'contranatural' fiction, and a whole slew of naturalist titles in non-fiction.
This story probably could have been a short rather than a novella, but it was handled fine at the extra length. The story gains from the extra characterization and description Gerry employs.
Since we're all acquainted with this, and the header states, 'with spoilers', I'll hasten on to the meat of the matter.
So, how does this mirror creature work, anyway? 'I am your servant. Feed and liberate me. I am you.' Far as I can tell, the Marquis is granted longer life by a Dorian Grey-esque entity which must be fed reflections and/or real blood in order to keep up its services. It appears to 'reflect' the original petitioner's rightful state (old, rotted, evil), but also to somehow acquire subsequent souls in the process, namely Gideon's and later Peter Letting's.
It is described as small, humpbacked, and wrapped in a yellow linen shroud, with a limp and an opal ring (both the Marquis'), but whether the orange hair and the hump and the smallness were attributes of the Marquis is not made clear.
Also, WHAT does Gideon see when he first sees his reflection after his uncle's death? Is it that he casts NO reflection, or does he cast the reflection of his horrible dead uncle/the mirror cadaver? The same question of course may be asked of Peter's vision in prison before he dies of a heart attack, which in itself implies that he must be seeing the cadaverous creature- but is it now HIM, as the mirror legend states?
'I am your servant' seems to imply the longevity-granting power of the Thing. 'Feed and liberate me' is fairly obvious. 'I am you' is the interesting condition.
One would think that if one's reflection were devoured, then any subsequent reflection would be that of the devourer. Yeah, one would think that, wouldn't one. I'll have that strait-jacket now, please. ("My valuable antique mirror! It's broken!!" "Sir, I wouldn't worry about your mirror if I were you. A horrible cadaverous Thing came out of it and ate off your left arm." "MY ROLEX!!!")
SO... when Peter whacks the Thing, it turns into (...out to be?) Gideon. Gideon, dresses as Peter last saw him, not wanting to hang out with him in the house, wanting to re-enter it perhaps as the Thing? Smaller, because it ate a cat, a dog, and some birds? Was Gideon aware of this? Was Peter, later?
Good story! The pursuit portion was well done, and I didn't really mind that it took 42 pages of a 59 page tale to get there.
rbadac
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Robert Suggs (April 14, 1998)
rbadac wrote:
> Well, 'The Entrance'- finally got it read, and I liked it! Durrell writes
> quite nicely. The berry listed some other novels and collections,
> which didn't look like 'contranatural' fiction, and a whole slew of
> naturalist titles in non-fiction.> This story . . . (blah, blah)
Yeah, yeah.
Cool it with the 'contranatural' already, willya?
Rob
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rbadac (April 14, 1998)
[Contranaturally speaking]Hey, if it's good enough for Bleiler, it's good enough for ME. And if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for YOU.
I'll mail you photos of my old girlfriends, just to prove my point. They won't include addresses, however, as that thesis doesn't work both ways.
rbadac
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Bill Barnett (April 14, 1998)
rbadac wrote:
> I like Disch too, John- I'll look for that tale.Read his THE BUSINESSMAN, too, a great ghost novel of the comic (biting, not charming) variety.
> So, how does this mirror creature work, anyway? 'I am your servant. Feed and
> liberate me. I am you.'Dammit, I forgot about that inscription! That makes it even better, since with "I am you" the Thing has programmed its own perpetuation, one life (or soul) to the next.
(Do we have to consider the "unreliable narrator" angle, i.e. that the writer of the journal was actually guilty of the crimes attributed to him but came up with a wild tale to shift the blame off himself? It doesn't seem to work in this case, does it? Rob?)
> Also, WHAT does Gideon see when he first sees his reflection after his
> uncle's death? Is it that he casts NO reflection, or does he cast the
> reflection of his horrible dead uncle/the mirror cadaver?I think Gideon does see his own reflection, as this can't be the first time he's looked in a mirror since his uncle's death. (It's a nice touch how the uncle's being "put to death" anticipates Letting's fate.) I actually thought he saw the Thing creep up "behind" him, and that this is the moment when he stole Gideon's soul. I also thought that... oh, I hate trying to pin down the mechanics of these things. "Evil feeds on the living and never dies" is good enough for me, the rest is just engineering.
Anyone read "The Same Dog" yet? Why does the dog appear briefly as a naked man?! (Why do so many of Aickman's characters appear briefly transfigured? cf. "The Hospice", "The School Friend", ...)
Bill B.
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Robert Suggs (April 15, 1998)
> It doesn't seem to work in this case, does it? Rob?)Geez, guys, I'm kind of at a loss here. I'm the one that proposed this story, twiddled my thumbs smugly waiting for you guys to read this potboiler, and now that I read your comments, I find I've forgotten all KINDS of stuff about it. Like the inscription. One thing I THINK I remember. It seemed to me that the poor guy's friend came home at the end and was murdered accidentally, because the terrified guy thought he was the monster. When I read Rbadac's account, I thought, MAN, I remember it wrong, read it wrong, or something. I'll check it again. Memory does seem to simplify, but I don't remember it being QUITE as ambiguous as it now seems to be. Since Hartwell suggests that it "repays careful re-reading" (I wonder if the publishers do repay him, and if so, how much? Another 50%? 25% third time around? He seems to do a lot of re-reading), I'm assuming there is indeed the possibility that this is a madness story, or more probably presented so that that possibility is left open. He's shut up with his books in a house . . . and one big, long, mirror. Interesting setup, right? Gotta be a bit significant that the beast emerges from the mirror? And, at least as I THINK I remember the ending, the monster is not there--just a dead pal. That said, I definitely read it as, and concluded it was, a super- natural story. The possibility of madness is one of the elements that always lends ghostly atmosphere, but we always want to err on the side of the unexplainable, because where's the fun otherwise? Looks like I gotta look over this one again--pardon me if I skip around a bit, though.
RoboOo
rbadac (April 15, 1998)
['The Entrance' - with dying brain cells]All right, guys, tighten up! You can sit around and read these things for pleasure on your own time! Come in here, you better take notes! : )
Heck, I TOOK notes, and I STILL don't know what's going on...
Peter Letting better not be a lying crazy, that's all I've got to say. I HATE THAT. Nothing sounds the knell of doom on a good contra- er, SUPERnatural story like a cheap justification. At least in Val Lewton movies, you can have it both ways.
I bet Gerry had some sort of internal logic going on this one, though, even if it's not pinned down yet. Not that it matters, of course, or takes away from enjoying the story, as any good AA (Aickmans Anonymous) member would attest. But Durrell was a naturalist/ non-fiction writer, and that seems to indicate that he would be more likely to have a plan in mind.
If there are any linguistic experts out there, maybe they can let us know if that little snippet of French meant anything, or if it was just a verse of the 'Marseillaise'?
Or we could just go on to another story! Pick a shorter one this time, though- these novellas are KILLING me...
rbad
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