There’s something about the winter dark that always makes me think of fairy tales, of ghost stories and urban myths and the thrill of scaring the bejeesus out of one another in the dead of night. I’ve suggested more than once that it might be nice to spend the middle of the longest night of the year reading short tales of horror and decay to one another around a fire like the gathered alumni of Cambridge did (on Christmas eves at the turn of the 19th century), and I’m not sure why so few people seem enthusiastic about this idea. I’m beginning to suspect it may have something to do with the fact that I am in fact a gigantic dork. Or rather, and more kindly, that I have character. Only it’s not the kind of character that other people necessarily find entertaining.
Necessarily.
Because part of the reason that this month’s edition is so slight is that I went on a winter holiday down to my friend Eleanor’s family cabin beside the Glenelg river where we boated, bushwalked and yes, sat around the fire drinking her father’s (as in her father made it) very fine wine and reading to one another from assorted sinister titles. We read Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Witch’ from out of one of those tiny, elegant silver Penguin Modern Classics that are around at the moment (at only five bucks they’re the kind of thing it’s actually impossible not to buy), ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ by MR James (which prompted Ceci to wonder about the South Australian serial killer ‘Mr Cruel’ and if they ever caught him, and condemned her to having me share her room for two nights because I was too terrified to go out into the bunk room), and a selection of Italo Calvino’s very fine retellings of Italian fairy tales.
So I guess I’m not a bore. Or perhaps I just happened on some other women with character with whom to spend my holiday. Either way, the fact that this is a very small Typeset is a blessing in disguise because I’d like to mine this kind of tale telling again in the not too distant future, especially that part of it that has to do with urban and personal mythology; the ghost stories we tell even as we disavow our belief, the versions of traditional tales we defend in the face of evidence that ours is an absolutely idiosyncratic telling and our ongoing fascination for the realm that is neither entirely rational nor dependably imaginary.
I hope you enjoy what’s below. In order to make up for the month’s short supply I’ve included a feature which consists of links to many, morphing versions of a few traditional tales. Follow red Riding Hood from Grimm to (really interesting) B-Grade horror or see how Sleeping Beauty developed from a heartbroken nymph to Mr Darcy’s sparring partner. There’s also an interview with the lovely Dr Rebecca Do Rozario who specialises in traditional stories, fantasy, children’s literature and other bawdy and spine-chilling genres, and the regular column by me, this time all about the things that go bump-in-the-night-in-our-heads.
Meanwhile I hope you’re warm. We’re only seven weeks away from september when the jasmine will start to bloom.
I’m going to enjoy the dark while it’s here.
Posted on July 6, 2011 by devoreurdelivres
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