Robert Suggs (December 27, 1998)I've just read Robert Aickman's story in Ramsey Campbell's anthology "Superhorror" entitled "Wood." It's not to be confused with "Into the Wood," but it's the same story that also appeared in Aickman's "Tales of Love and Death" a year later or so--and as far as I can tell so far, nowhere else. Anyone else read the story? I need someone to help me pick my jaw up off the floor.Rob
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Bill Barnett (December 27, 1998)
I read this one a couple years ago, it's also available in the anonymously-edited "Chamber of Horrors," an instant remainder from Octopus Books (UK). I had to reattach my jaw with twistems and rubber bands. "Wood" is certainly one of the most overtly weird of Aickman's tales; the aspects that stick in my mind are the straw-dollies and the fantastic final scene. I'll try to reread it in the next day or two.Bill B.
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rbadac (December 27, 1998)
Ah. 'Chamber of Horrors.' That I got. Thanks, Bill ! Superhorror has eluded me, and up to now I thought that and TLD were the only places 'Wood' could be found... Yes, John, those Octopi are better than they look-- Mary Danby did a lot of them.rbadac
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William Allison (December 28, 1998)
I just read it a little while ago, I'll help you with your jaw once I find my brain which exited my right ear and proceeded to roll under the desk and get lost among the computer cables. The problem is it blends in with the dust bunnies...Campbell's headnotes to the Aickman story were what got me interested in Aickman in the first place, though I hadn't actually read the antho yet, just the headnotes (I do that a LOT).
I was quite taken by the amount of quips Aickman makes in this story, I think it's the funniest piece of his I've read yet. The noble estate of marriage in particular takes a beating. There are also several autobiographical tidbits floating around. The narrator was an architect once, Aickman's father was an architect, and Aickman received some training in the field. We hear Aickman's voice when the narrator says:
“We were fast on the way to the state of affairs when the word 'art' was seldom mentioned, still less the word 'beauty'.”Shortly after introducing us to Munn, the maker of the straw "daffies" (human-like figures), we get this additional description:“...at first all I knew of him was his tweedy figure toddling about and sometimes bidding me good-day. His tweeds were very hairy indeed, and more than usually shapeless. One almost felt that he made his suits himself, as well as the straw figures; and perhaps wove the hirsute fabric also.”Later, after Munn has married, the narrater visits and has this to say:“Munn's capacity to talk at large about this and that, seemed entirely to have shrivelled, as happens so often to a man after marriage, sometimes immediately after...”Like I said, I got quite a few chuckles out of it. As to the ending, and "what it all means", I have no idea. I will re-read it, but I don't think it's going to make much difference (if I get a revelation, I'll repost). It gets back to Aickman's statement that "the ghost story is akin to poetry" and that it "need offer neither logic nor moral".Bill A. (stuffing dust bunnies in his ear...)
PS- Just as I went to post this, I got the sudden notion that maybe Aickman is making a comment on marriage as a whole, and that it makes a person wooden, in this case Munn. Just a thought...
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Robert Suggs (December 28, 1998)
Check it out above. Nothing like Mr Aickman to wake up the slackers around here. Yes, after posting last night I went to Locus (I always do the research AFTERWARD for some reason) and found the Octopus collection, which does indeed have a combination of perennials and inspired choices. I was tickled to find Campbell's Superhorror under my tree when a kindly editrice and bookseller recommended it to my wife. A nice, shiny copy too.Aickman's story, I'd have to say, is among the better of them. Since it hadn't been re-collected in a volume such as The Wine Red Sea, I didn't really expect this. Campbell asked for more overtly horrific stories, take-it-to-the-next-level stuff, and this is, on Aickman's terms, his attempt at such. It's not so much up for discussion what physically happened this time--but what it all means. The most helpful key I've ever discovered for evaluating an Aickman story is in Peter Straub's introduction to Wine Red: He said that the stories are about central characters who are controlled by what they don't understand about themselves. This struck me as too simple to serve as an over-mastering principle, but it does tend to make nearly all the stories come into sharper focus. In LeFanu's tales, the primal emotions of the characters seem to charge the air and create supernatural manifestations. I've read The Haunted Baronet this week, and it's a good example. It's not just some ghost out there in these stories, but animals taking on spirits, fringe characters sending and having visions, all kinds of stuff related to the inner life of the main characters. Aickman's pieces, like "The Inner Room" which is related to this one, are (I think) along those lines. But "Wood" is a different matter. I can't say that what happens at the end of the tale is some kind of projection of the narrator's inner life--though Aickman has indeed left that avenue open. On re-reading the story (a MUST with this tale) lots of clues become visible; as well as lots of chucklers! It's a grisly story, and Aickman had one great time writing it from all appearances. That set piece (hee hee) that climaxes the story is so over-the-top that it's hard to take this story as some consistent system of literary symbolism. I think that's why I like it so much. "The Inner Room" is about a woman with a dammed (and damned) heart. This story is about a guy who lives on the outskirts of social life, too, but that's not the be-all-end-all of what happens here. Track it down if you haven't done so. It's worth it.
RoboOo
rbadac (December 29, 1998)
Biddler wrote:
> Aickman's story, I'd have to say, is among the better of them. Since
> it hadn't been re-collected in a volume such as The Wine Red Sea...Leave it to me to clip the best parts of Rob's thought-provoking post just to needle him about this title...The Wine DARK Sea...!!! Wine Red, of course, is the anthology done by Dean Martin...
rbadac ('...when da moon-a hits your eye like-a bigga pizza pie, 'at's amore...')
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rbadac (January 9, 1999)
Entering late in the discussion, but couldn't stay away. Does anyone know where to get one of those 'weather houses'?Munn and Vi have a lot to say about the institution of marriage, not to mention Aickman's own observations of the area of Sussex that tends to be frequented by bachelors, or the average Englishman's not having any real need of women after the age of thirty or so (!). I confess I found this the funniest Aickman story since 'Growing Boys', and, like that story, without its losing any of its chill.
The Pell family sounds absolutely charming. Who wouldn't want to be established in a solid, down-to-earth industry as theirs, living their simple lives, making everything they could possibly want out of wood? We need more of that kind of self-determination.
rbadac, whittling...
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William Allison (January 10, 1999)
rbadac wrote:
> Entering late in the discussion, but couldn't stay away. Does
> anyone know where to get one of those 'weather houses'?Better late than never old chum... I think Sears once had a kit house.
> Munn and Vi have a lot to say about the institution of marriage, not to mention
> Aickman's own observations of the area of Sussex that tends to be frequented
> by bachelors, or the average Englishman's not having any real need of women
> after the age of thirty or so (!). I confess I found this the funniest Aickman
> story since 'Growing Boys', and, like that story, without its losing any of its
> chill.I completely agree, and was quite taken with Aickman the Zany Funster. The bits with the narrator as "back door man" going about his business were a hoot. I ended up wondering if this were a reflection of Robert Aickman: Man about Town, just some authorial wish-fulfillment, or just good witty writing in the manner of L.P. Hartley.
> The Pell family sounds absolutely charming. Who wouldn't want to be established
> in a solid, down-to-earth industry as theirs, living their simple lives, making
> everything they could possibly want out of wood? We need more of that kind
> of self-determination.Indeed. What did you make of the wooden child and it's attachment to the mechanics of the house?
And can anyone translate: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" My best guess would be something like "The custodian is in custody?" but I have a hard enough time with English...
> rbadac, whittling...
Don't cut yourself...
Bill A. (reflecting to himself that books are made of wood...)
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Don Smeltzer (January 10, 1999)
The translation is, "Who will watch the watchmen themselves?"oOo
William Allison (January 11, 1999)
Thanks Don! Looks like I'd better leave the translations to the pro's...Bill A.
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rbadac (January 11, 1999)
Bill Allison wrote:
> I think Sears once had a kit house.Figures. Have you ever seen their old catalog of tombstones Sears offered in the early part of the century? Custom-made to your order and shipped by train to your village or town, Italian marble or domestic granite available, you pay by the number of characters for the inscription and the weight of the finished item, with a complete chart of shipping costs and distances...surprised they didn't offer the alternative of just shipping the dead person to THEM to bury.
> ... or just good witty writing in the manner of L.P. Hartley.
That definitely showed as well...wonder if Aickman did authorial studies other than his headnotes in the Great Ghost Stories series?
> What did you make of the wooden child and it's attachment to the
> mechanics of the house?I shudder to conjecture on this. A replacement when Mom or Pop wears out? Or does it come out during *some other kind of weather*?
> Bill A. (reflecting to himself that books are made of wood...)
Oh thanks. Thanks a lot.
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Robert Kunath (January 11, 1999)
Just a further note on the latin quotation, which I have seen rendered in a more slangy fashion as "But who will guard the guards?" I have not, alas, read "Wood," but I thought it was possible that the background of the quotation might play some role in the story. My impression is that "Qui custodiet..." is a reference to the elite imperial bodyguards in the Roman Empire, the Praetorian Guard. Starting with the Emperor Pertinax, the Praetorians displayed an unhappy tendency to overthrow/murder the Emperors they were supposed to be bodyguards for, leading to the obvious question.Robert
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JIm Rockhill (September 1, 2000)
More Thoughts on Old News: "Wood"I just finished going over this group's past discussion of this tale now preserved at almahu's ROBERT AICKMAN: AN APPRECIATION, and found it so fascinating I had to read it again. I should probably warn anyone not familiar with the story that what follows may contain some spoilers.
One thing I did not see mentioned that I find particularly striking is Aickman's use of symbols related to cuckoos and cuckoldry. The narrator states that he is given to sporting with married women, but this is not the only reference. (Why does my imagination keep summoning a vision of some odd chimera, part Clark Ashton Smith with his roguish mustache and jaunty beret, part Edwardian gentleman, clean-shaven in evening dress, with hat and cane, calling on a succession of bored housewives?)
I wonder if Munn had not been cuckolded prior to his marriage. Vi decides to marry him with decided precipitancy as if already on the lookout for anyone who will do in a pinch. In a hilariously inappropriate line when all are met for the wedding ceremony,
"You'll be able to kiss her in a few minutes you know. It's the best man's privilege." THE COMPLETE STRANGE STORIES OF ROBERT AICKMAN (Tartarus Press and Durtro Press, 1999), P. 249
Vi's mother, Mrs. Pell seems to imply that her daughter is a hot property everyone wants. A few weeks after the wedding, Munn is already saying there will be third member to his family prompting the narrator to reflect "in a vulgar way, that it seemed quick work" (P. 251).
Near the end when Munn appears outside the horrible "box" built for him by his father-in-law,
"on the instant two flaps opened in the house's single black gable window and a quite life-size wooden cuckoo jumped out, shouting its head off four times." PP. 253-254.
Folklore has long associated the cuckoo with cuckoldry. One blatant appearance of this theme in the twentieth century - it runs rampant in English literature from Chaucer's time through Dr. Johnson's - occurs in James Joyce's ULYSSES when Bloom hears the cuckoo clock sing, "Cuckold! Cuckold! Cuckold!"
I also wonder about the child within the context of the cuckoo, not only insofar as its possibly being a bastard, but also in relation to another legend associated with the bird. It is said that the cuckoo intentionally lays its eggs in the nests of other birds so that its hatchlings can discard the other eggs and take control of the nest. The child, wood though he may be and in an "effortful posture," certainly seems to be in control of whatever mechanism drives the "house" and is in much better condition than either Munn or his wife:
" a figure in wood of remarkable liveliness . . . And the child was so shiny and glossy, where all else was so rotten." P. 255.
* * *
And what about that Mrs. Munn? What a doll! Nathaniel in Hoffmann's "The Sandman" should be so lucky!
Am I alone in thinking her name is a bad joke? Vi - not quite Vie, because she is not quite alive. I cannot help seeing her as a lacquered Bavarian doll, bright clothes and all. If she lifted her foot, you might expect to see Playmobil carved into the bottom of it:
"a pretty round-faced, round-eyed girl arrayed in bright colors, a selection of them." P. 249.
"something stocky and assured in her whole demeanor." P. 249.
"As soon as I set eyes on those daffies Leonard made," observed Vi, her round blue eyes almost alive, "I knew." P. 251.
" . . . enquired Vi, in her unpleasant voice, her head on one side like a toy bird." P. 251.
"Vi projected her straight red tongue at him from her red mouth." P. 251.
I am sure this is all obvious to everyone, but it is fun to spot anyway.
* * *
I like the way Aickman makes the relationship between the daffies and Daphne fairly explicit without making it entirely clear. It helps us see the tenuous way some of the allusions in his other tales work. He is not loathe to corrupt a word to which he alludes, to the point where we recognize it just enough to know it must mean something, without our being able to consciously determine what that might be. He is equally content to use allusions that do not quite mesh, using the elements of conjunction between one allusion and another to set up a seemingly stable base which the increasing dissimilarities in other aspects of these allusions repeatedly undermine. It is similar to, but even more disorienting than, the forced yoking of images that occur in the metaphysical poets. I believe the dissonance created when we try to deal with the conflicts created by these allusions is one of the devices responsible for creating the tension we feel on at least an unconscious level.
Jim
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Christopher Roden (September 2, 2000)
Jim, you've forced me into reading yet more Aickman.'Wood' IS a strange one, but I came out of it thinking that RA must, at some time, have had a pretty bad experience at the hands of the tax authorities. Why else consign one of their number to so unreasonable a fate?
With the taxman you never quite know whether the weather's set fair, but if you're not totally straightforward the (cuckoo) clock starts ticking and what will be YOUR fate?
This is certainly one strange cookie!
And just how much contact did RA have with homosexuals in his younger days? It all sounds like one of Frank Capra's Saturday night parties, though I doubt that was what Aickman meant at all!
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Jim Rockhill (September 2, 2000)
That's a pretty reasonable interpretation of a fairly unreasonable tale.oOo
deathbird44 (September 3, 2000)
(snipped many interesting points)Reading Jim's comments recalled not only "Wood" but another Aickman clock story, "The Clock Watcher" (was that the title?). Do clocks then have a special meaning for Aickman? Clockwork? Trapped by time and rigidly locked, mechanical routines in place of spontaneous living & fulfilling relationships? The prominence of the child figure in "Wood" might suggest an unexpected (and undesired) pregnancy - the basis for the "trapped", strangely tragic existences of the wooden figures; a marriage of inconvenience?
John
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Jim Rockhill (September 3, 2000)
Good points, John. (Now, I am going to have to read "The Clock-Watcher" again). I wonder if we could all ask for a year's paid sabbatical from work in order to do nothing except read, analyze and re-read these strange stories.ooOoo